The Jewish Diaspora

 A Brief History of the Jews

What country do you live in? How long have you lived here?  Where would you live if you didn’t live here?  Today we will be learning about a people who did not have a country. There was no place on the map for them to call home but they still identified as a nation. They lived in different places throughout the earth but constantly were bound together by their beliefs and traditions. These people were the Jews.

The Jews have been called many different names over the years.  We called them the Hebrews then the Israelites and then finally the Jews.  A long time ago, the Jewish people wandered in the wilderness for forty years to a land called Canaan.  Canaan is where modern day Israel is found.  This area is still considered today to be the ancestral home of the Jews. 

During the years in Canaan there were many kings. They built a beautiful temple to worship in. They had many traditions that were unique to them. They also lived in a time and in a place where kings and kingdoms would often try to conquer each other. Eventually, the kingdom was split into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.  Jerusalem was the center of Judah. Both kingdoms faced many dangerous enemies.  

After several hundred years, the ruthless kings of Assyria invaded and overwhelmed the northern kingdom and carried away many of the people captive into Assyria. The southern kingdom of Judah survived for another 150 years until the kingdom of Babylon conquered it.  The Babylonians destroyed the temple and took the people captive into Babylon.  

After that, the Jews had many different rulers. The Persian Empire, under the direction of King Cyrus, conquered and destroyed the Babylonians.  Even though Cyrus wasn't a Jew, he was respectful of their religion and beliefs so he allowed the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple.  He allowed them to practice their religion and he protected them from enemies.  With this new found freedom, the Jews began to migrate all over the Middle East but continued to maintain Jerusalem as their center of worship.  

After about 200 years under Persian rule, a Greek named Alexander the Great came through overthrowing empires and expanding his own empire over much of the Middle East.  After the death of Alexander, the Jews were ruled by other Greek-speaking kings for another 200 years. During this time, Jewish people still fought to keep their religion and their traditions. One example of this is when one of these kings didn't like the Jews and wanted their money from the temple.  A man named Judas Maccabeus and his brother fought off the king and won!  They purified the temple and are still celebrated every year in a festival called Hanukkah.   

 Judas Maccabeus died in the battle but his family ruled Israel for several generations until the Roman Empire defeated them. They burned the temple and took the Jews captive.  

The Jews were under Roman rule for hundreds of years. They didn’t like being controlled by the Romans, and they often fought for their freedom. They never won.  

After one of these big rebellions they finally thought that they had won and had driven the Romans out of their lands and their city, Jerusalem.  But the Romans returned with a huge army and took control back from the Jews and continued their rule.  The son of the emperor, named Titus, succeeded in winning back the lands from the Jews.  He later became emperor and after he died, his brother, Domitian wanted to honor him with a monument made of stone. He built an arch and carved pictures of the overthrow of the Jewish people onto it. It still stands today and has become a symbol of all the difficulties and moving around that the Jewish people have gone through.

This wasn't the first time the Jews had rebelled against Roman rule and the Romans were tired of it. They decided that if they scattered the Jews all over their empire, the wouldn't be able to revolt any more.  Worship in the temple was very important to the Jewish people, but their temple has been burned and they were scattered far away from Jerusalem.  But they stayed strong. They continued reading the Torah and started worshipping in small local temples called synagogues.  

For hundreds of years the Jews lived all over the world, worshipping in their synagogues and practicing their religion and their traditions. They ended up in England, Spain, France, Russia, Italy, Egypt and more countries.  This scattering of the Jews is called the Diaspora. They learned the languages and the customs of the people who lived around them. But even though they were English, Spanish, French, Russian, Italian and Egyptian, and all other nationalities, they were still Jews.     

In World War II the Jews were singled out and under attack once again.  Hitler hated Jewish people and blamed them for Germany losing World War I. He considered Jewish people to be less than human. Hitler also believed in the superiority of the Aryan race. He wanted to use Darwinism and breeding to create a race of perfect people. Hitler wrote in his book Mein Kampf that when he became ruler he would rid Germany of all the Jews. Not many people believed he would really do this, but as soon as he became Chancellor he started his work against the Jews. He made laws that said Jews had no rights. Then he organized attacks on Jewish businesses and homes. 

On November 9, 1938 many Jewish homes and businesses were burnt down or vandalized. This night was called the Kristallnacht or "Night of Broken Glass". During World War II when the Nazis would take over a city in Europe they would force all of the Jewish people into one area of town. This area was called a ghetto and was fenced in with barbed wire and guarded. There was little food, water, or medicine available. It was also very crowded with multiple families sometimes sharing a single room to live in.  All Jewish people were eventually to be brought to concentration camps. They were told they were relocating to a new and better place, but this was not the case. Concentration camps were like prison camps. People were forced to do hard labor. The weak were quickly killed or died of starvation. Some camps even had gas chambers. People would be led into the chambers in large groups only to be killed with poison gas. The concentration camps were horrible places. Many Jewish people hid from the Nazis during World War II. They would hide with non-Jewish families. Sometimes they would pretend to be a part of the family and sometimes they would hide in hidden rooms or in a basement or attic. Some were able to eventually escape across the border into a free country, but many hid for years sometimes in the same room.

After World War II most nations agreed a Jewish homeland should be set up. On November 29, 1947, the newly founded United Nations proposed that Palestine be divided between Arab Muslims and Jews. The state of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948 finally giving the Jews a home.  Many Muslims did not want to give up land that they considered theirs that was given to the Jews. Fighting broke out between the two sides, resulting in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948–49. During the conflict Israel gained more land than what the United Nations had provided, driving 800,000 Arabs from their homes. The war set the stage for many decades of fighting for control over the Palestine region. The conflict continued into the 21st century.

During all of the years of turmoil, the Jewish people kept their beliefs. They believed that they should treat people kindly. They developed many traditions to help them to keep their beliefs strong. Even though they lived all over the world, the Jews stayed true to their religion and their traditions even though it was hard.  We can learn a lot from the Jews about loyalty and tradition and staying true to what we believe in.