The Jewish presence in the land of Israel, also known as Palestine, has been continuous, though small, throughout this recent period of exile. While the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE and the subsequent Bar Kochba revolt in 132-136 CE led to the dispersal of the majority of Jews, they were never completely absent from the region.

Early Jewish Presence and Roman Rule

● Following the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans, Jews moved their intellectual center to the Galilee, where they compiled the Palestinian Talmud. Synagogues were built in the Galilee, such as the 4th-century synagogue in Capernaum.

● After the Bar Kochba revolt, the Romans renamed the region Syria-Palestina, borrowing from the Greek. Despite this change and the ban on Jews entering Jerusalem, Jewish communities continued to exist, especially in the Galilee.

● The core of Jewish religious leadership was transplanted to the north, with the Sanhedrin and leaders such as Rabbi Yehuda hanasi based in Tiberias. These rabbis worked to cement the future of Judaism by creating the Mishna and the Jerusalem Talmud.

External Empires and Jewish Life

● The region of Palestine has been under the control of various empires throughout history including the Romans, Muslims, Crusaders, and Ottomans.

● From the 7th century onwards, Palestine came under Muslim rule25. While Jews were allowed to re-enter Jerusalem, they often experienced prejudice and were an impoverished minority.

● The Crusader period in the 12th century caused a serious decline for the Jewish population in Palestine, with many killed or forced to flee.

● The Ottoman Empire conquered Palestine in 1517 and experienced a revival, with figures like Gracia Mendes Nasi and Don Joseph Nasi encouraging Jewish settlement in Tiberias and Safed. This period also saw an increase in the study of Kabbalah in Safed with the presence of important rabbis such as Moses Cordovero, Yosef Caro, and Isaac Luria.

● Ottoman Jews like Abraham de Castro and Rabbi Haim Abulafia also contributed to developing the region.

The Old Yishuv and Pre-Zionist Communities

● Prior to modern Zionism, the Jewish community in Palestine was known as the Old Yishuv1. This community, consisting of both Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, resided mainly in the four holy cities of Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron.

● The Old Yishuv was primarily religious and relied on external donations (haluka)1. They sent emissaries (shadarim) to the diaspora to raise money for the community.

● The majority of the Old Yishuv community were Sephardi Jews, with Ashkenazi Jews arriving in smaller numbers until the 18th and 19th centuries.

Modern Return and the Mandate for Palestine

● The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the rise of modern Zionism and increased Jewish immigration to Palestine121718. The First Aliyah in 1882 brought Jews from Russia, who were secular and socialist and established kibbutzim.

● The term “Palestine” was used to refer to the region under the Roman Empire and was later adopted into the Arab world as “Filastin”67. The term “Palestinian” in the 19th and early 20th centuries also referred to Jews living in the region.

● Figures like Yehuda Alkalai, Yehuda Bibas, and Marco Ysf Baruk foreshadowed Theodore Herzl and modern Zionism by decades.

● During the late Ottoman period and the British Mandate for Palestine, many North African Jews contributed to the urban and coastal development of the land, although they are often overlooked in historical accounts.

● The Balfour Declaration in 1917 expressed British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which was followed by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

● The British Mandate was formalized by the San Remo Conference in 192023. The British later separated Transjordan from the Mandate in 1922.

● The British made promises to both Arabs and Jews22. They tried to manage the conflict between the two communities, which grew due to increasing Jewish immigration and nationalist sentiments. The Peel Report of 1937 acknowledged the economic benefits brought by the Jewish immigration but also recognized that the political conflict was irreconcilable.

● The 1939 White Paper restricted Jewish immigration, reflecting a change in British policy. Arab immigration into the Mandate was not restricted in the same way. While politically they hold they have had a high population in the land since the Muslim conquests, history shows much of the population arrive in the late Ottoman Period and during the British control when work was readily available.

● After WWII, the United Nations proposed a partition plan, dividing Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, which was accepted by Jewish leaders but rejected by Arab leaders.

Post-Mandate and the Creation of Israel

● The British withdrew from Palestine in 1948 and Israel declared independence which was followed by the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. This event caused the displacement of many Arabs, who became refugees.

● The 1948 war resulted in the displacement of about 700,000 Palestinians, an event that Palestinians have come to call the Nakba (catastrophe). At the same time, about 800,000 Jews were forced to flee Arab countries to Israel.

● The 1949 armistice led to the establishment of the “Green Line,” which became the de facto border of Israel. However, this did not resolve the conflict, with tensions and violence continuing.

● In helping to establish the State of Israel, the Arab and Muslim world maintains the British went back on a promise to give them the land based on their support of British military aims in World War I. For political reasons, they hold the land was theirs even though the League of Nations was in control of the territory and determined by Mandate to give it to the Jewish people. Local Arab residents never had a government or land ownership out side of individual homesteads.

Despite the challenges, the Jewish people’s historical connection to the land of Israel has remained a central part of their identity and continues to this day.