Jewish History in Conflict

Jewish History in Conflict
Author: Mitchell First
Publisher: Jason Aronson, Incorporated
Total Pages: 255
Release: 1997-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1461629128

The author writes: “According to Seder Olam Rabbah, the work that forms the basis for almost all rabbinic chronology, the .period from the defeat of the Babylonians by the Medeo-Persians until the beginning of Greek rule, encompassed 52 years and spanned the reigns of three Persian kings. According to the chronology that is universally accepted by historians today (conventional chronology), this period of Persian rule over the land of Israel encompassed 207 years (539 to 332 BCE) and during this period more than ten Persian kings reigned. “This discrepancy between the traditional Jewish chronology and conventional chronology has not gone unnoticed. The purpose of this study is to collect and categorize the variety of Jewish responses to this discrepancy, both by Jewish scholars and rabbinic authorities. Part I provides an introduction to the discrepancy. Part II contains the earliest Jewish responses to the discrepancy. In the major part of the study, Part III, the responses to the discrepancy from the time of Azariah de Rossi (16th century) to the present time are collected and categorized. This unified collection and categorization of the many responses will enable students and scholars to have easy access to what has been written by Jewish scholars and rabbinic authorities about the discrepancy and will facilitate scholarly evaluation of the responses. “Part IV is an evaluation of the responses’ attempts to answer the fundamental question raised by the discrepancy. Part V presents observations on the rabbinic responses. Part VI is a summary and conclusion.”

A History of the Jewish War

A History of the Jewish War
Author: Steve Mason
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 1406
Release: 2016-02-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1316418995

A conflict that erupted between Roman legions and some Judaeans in late AD 66 had an incalculable impact on Rome's physical appearance and imperial governance; on ancient Jews bereft of their mother-city and temple; and on early Christian fortunes. Historical scholarship and cinema alike tend to see the conflict as the culmination of long Jewish resistance to Roman oppression. In this volume, Steven Mason re-examines the war in all relevant contexts (such as the Parthian dimension, and Judaea's place in Roman Syria) and phases, from the Hasmoneans to the fall of Masada. Mason approaches each topic as a historical investigation, clarifying problems that need to be solved, understanding the available evidence, and considering scenarios that might explain the evidence. The simplest reconstructions make the conflict more humanly intelligible while casting doubt on received knowledge.

World War I and the Jews

World War I and the Jews
Author: Marsha L. Rozenblit
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2017-08-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1785335936

World War I utterly transformed the lives of Jews around the world: it allowed them to display their patriotism, to dispel antisemitic myths about Jewish cowardice, and to fight for Jewish rights. Yet Jews also suffered as refugees and deportees, at times catastrophically. And in the aftermath of the war, the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Russian and Ottoman Empires with a system of nation-states confronted Jews with a new set of challenges. This book provides a fascinating survey of the ways in which Jewish communities participated in and were changed by the Great War, focusing on the dramatic circumstances they faced in Europe, North America, and the Middle East during and after the conflict.

Year Zero of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1929

Year Zero of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1929
Author: Hillel Cohen
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2015-10-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1611688124

In late summer 1929, a countrywide outbreak of Arab-Jewish-British violence transformed the political landscape of Palestine forever. In contrast with those who point to the wars of 1948 and 1967, historian Hillel Cohen marks these bloody events as year zero of the Arab-Israeli conflict that persists today. The murderous violence inflicted on Jews caused a fractious - and now traumatized - community of Zionists, non-Zionists, Ashkenazim, and Mizrachim to coalesce around a unified national consciousness arrayed against an implacable Arab enemy. While the Jews unified, Arabs came to grasp the national essence of the conflict, realizing that Jews of all stripes viewed the land as belonging to the Jewish people. Through memory and historiography, in a manner both associative and highly calculated, Cohen traces the horrific events of August 23 to September 1 in painstaking detail. He extends his geographic and chronological reach and uses a non-linear reconstruction of events to call for a thorough reconsideration of cause and effect. Sifting through Arab and Hebrew sources - many rarely, if ever, examined before - Cohen reflects on the attitudes and perceptions of Jews and Arabs who experienced the events and, most significantly, on the memories they bequeathed to later generations. The result is a multifaceted and revealing examination of a formative series of episodes that will intrigue historians, political scientists, and others interested in understanding the essence - and the very beginning - of what has been an intractable conflict.

Holy War in Judaism

Holy War in Judaism
Author: Reuven Firestone
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2012-07-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199977151

Holy war, sanctioned or even commanded by God, is a common and recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible. Rabbinic Judaism, however, largely avoided discussion of holy war in the Talmud and related literatures for the simple reason that it became dangerous and self-destructive. Reuven Firestone's Holy War in Judaism is the first book to consider how the concept of ''holy war'' disappeared from Jewish thought for almost 2000 years, only to reemerge with renewed vigor in modern times. The revival of the holy war idea occurred with the rise of Zionism. As the necessity of organized Jewish engagement in military actions developed, Orthodox Jews faced a dilemma. There was great need for all to engage in combat for the survival of the infant state of Israel, but the Talmudic rabbis had virtually eliminated divine authorization for Jews to fight in Jewish armies. Once the notion of divinely sanctioned warring was revived, it became available to Jews who considered that the historical context justified more aggressive forms of warring. Among some Jews, divinely authorized war became associated not only with defense but also with a renewed kibbush or conquest, a term that became central to the discourse regarding war and peace and the lands conquered by the state of Israel in 1967. By the early 1980's, the rhetoric of holy war had entered the general political discourse of modern Israel. In Holy War in Judaism, Firestone identifies, analyzes, and explains the historical, conceptual, and intellectual processes that revived holy war ideas in modern Judaism.

The Challenge of Jewish History

The Challenge of Jewish History
Author: Alexander Hool
Publisher: Mosaica Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2014-12-01
Genre: Bible
ISBN: 9781937887315

There is a well-known conundrum concerning Jewish history: The conventional chronology of the Western world - and academia - is in direct conflict with traditional Jewish sources over the history of ... history. Incredibly, there is a gap of roughly 200 years: For instance, the Talmud says the Second Temple stood for roughly 400 years, while mainstream historians today conclude that it stood for almost 600 years.This conflict has major implications on what occurred to who, and when. It also seems to question the accuracy of the entire Jewish tradition as accepted dating methods seem to contradict core parts of the traditional Jewish narrative.In presenting fresh and startling astronomical, mathematical and archaeological evidence, Rabbi Alexander Hool has charted new ground in his quest to find the solution to this ancient problem. The Challenge of Jewish History is revolutionary: it questions all assumptions, dispels unfounded myths, and transports us back in time over 2,500 years.With a subject of great significance and fascination to all those interested in history, and a wealth of scholarship and sources to impress academics, this intriguing book gives us a new perspective on Jewish-and world - history.

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
Author: Rashid Khalidi
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2020-01-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1627798544

A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.” Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective. Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members—mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists—The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process. Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.

The History of Arab - Jewish Conflict

The History of Arab - Jewish Conflict
Author: Dr. P J Vincent
Publisher: Vij Books India Pvt Ltd
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2019-11-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9388161947

The emergence of the modern Zionist Movement was driven by the search for a homeland in Palestine for the stateless and persecuted Jewish People. The organized migration and settlement of Jewish people under the banner of the World Zionist Organization trampled the fundamental rights of Palestine People and continuously rejected their statehood. The rejectionist policy practiced by Zionists and the State of Israel explains the persistence of the Palestine question. This book devotes to examine the historical origin and evolution of Arab-Israeli conflict from 1881, the year of first Aliya, to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. It investigates socio-political and cultural aspects of the conflict with an emphasis on the historical factors. The book offers a comprehensive and comprehensible analysis of the History of Palestine.

Robbery and Restitution

Robbery and Restitution
Author: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781845450823

The robbery and restitution of Jewish property are two inextricably linked social processes. It is not possible to understand the lawsuits and international agreements on the restoration of Jewish property of the late 1990s without examining what was robbed and by whom. In this volume distinguished historians first outline the mechanisms and scope of the European-wide program of plunder and then assess the effectiveness and historical implications of post-war restitution efforts. Everywhere the solution of legal and material problems was intertwined with changing national myths about the war and conflicting interpretations of justice. Even those countries that pursued extensive restitution programs using rigorous legal means were unable to compensate or fully comprehend the scale of Jewish loss. Especially in Eastern Europe, it was not until the collapse of communism that the concept of restoring some Jewish property rights even became a viable option. Integrating the abundance of new research on the material effects of the Holocaust and its aftermath, this comparative perspective examines the developments in Germany, Poland, Italy, France, Belgium, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Trouble in the Tribe

Trouble in the Tribe
Author: Dov Waxman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2018-05-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0691181152

How Israel is dividing American Jews Trouble in the Tribe explores the increasingly contentious place of Israel in the American Jewish community. In a fundamental shift, growing numbers of American Jews have become less willing to unquestioningly support Israel and more willing to publicly criticize its government. More than ever before, American Jews are arguing about Israeli policies, and many, especially younger ones, are becoming uncomfortable with Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Dov Waxman argues that Israel is fast becoming a source of disunity for American Jewry, and that a new era of American Jewish conflict over Israel is replacing the old era of solidarity. Drawing on a wealth of in-depth interviews with American Jewish leaders and activists, Waxman shows why Israel has become such a divisive issue among American Jews. He delves into the American Jewish debate about Israel, examining the impact that the conflict over Israel is having on Jewish communities, national Jewish organizations, and on the pro-Israel lobby. Waxman sets this conflict in the context of broader cultural, political, institutional, and demographic changes happening in the American Jewish community. He offers a nuanced and balanced account of how this conflict over Israel has developed and what it means for the future of American Jewish politics. Israel used to bring American Jews together. Now it is driving them apart. Trouble in the Tribe explains why.