Isfiya ( Arabic : عسفيا , Hebrew : עִסְפִיָא ), also known as Usfiya , is a Druze -majority village in northern Israel , governed by a local council . It also includes Christians , Muslims and a few Jewish households. Located on Mount Carmel , it is part of the Haifa District . In 2022 its population was 12,136. In 2003, the local council was merged with nearby Daliyat al-Karmel to form Carmel City . However, the new city was dissolved in 2008 and the two villages resumed their independent status.
165-508: Isfiya was built on the ruins of an ancient settlement. A building, dating from the second–fourth centuries CE has been excavated, together with ceramics and coins dating from the period. In 1930, remains of a 5th-century Jewish town, Husifah or Huseifa, were unearthed in Isfiya. Among the finds are a synagogue with a mosaic floor bearing Jewish symbols and the inscription "Peace upon Israel". A cache of 4,500 gold coins were found dating from
330-487: A Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence . This showed that determined economic and political pressure could challenge a fragile imperial administration. On 16 October 1935 a large arms shipment camouflaged in cement bins , comprising 25 Lewis guns and their bipods, 800 rifles and 400,000 rounds of ammunition destined for the Haganah , was discovered during unloading at the port of Jaffa . The news sparked Arab fears of
495-735: A District Commander who had armed platoons of 150–200 fighters, each commanded by a platoon leader. A Statement of Policy issued by the Colonial Office in London on 7 September declared the situation a "direct challenge to the authority of the British Government in Palestine" and announced the appointment of Lieutenant-General John Dill as supreme military commander. By the end of September 20,000 British troops in Palestine were deployed to "round up Arab bands". In June 1936
660-754: A Jewish moshava was established at Mutallah ( Metula ) north of Safed in 1896, the Druze population resisted eviction until receiving a reasonable compensation in 1904; some relocated to Isfiya, including the Wahb family. In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities , Isfiya had a population of 733; 590 Druze, 17 Muslims and 126 Christians; the Christians broken down by denomination were six Orthodox, six Roman Catholics , 107 Greek Catholics ( Melkites ), and seven Maronites . At
825-548: A Jewish military takeover of Palestine. A little over two weeks later, on 2 November 1935, al-Qassam gave a speech in the port of Haifa denouncing the Balfour declaration on its 18th anniversary. In a proclamation to that effect, together with Jamal al-Husayni , he alluded to the Haganah weapons smuggling operation. Questioned at the time by a confidant about his preparations, he stated that he had 15 men, each furnished with
990-506: A contributory factor to the preceding 1929 disturbances , and the problem of these 'landless' Arabs grew particularly grave after 1931, causing High Commissioner Wauchope to warn that this 'social peril ... would serve as a focus of discontent and might even result in serious disorders.' Economic factors played a major role in the outbreak of the Arab revolt. Palestine's fellahin , the country's peasant farmers, made up over two-thirds of
1155-607: A degree of autonomous control over the Jewish settlement and the Supreme Muslim Council performed a comparable role for Muslims. Thus, well before Lord Peel arrived in Palestine on 11 November 1936, the groundwork for territorial partition as proposed by the Royal Commission in its report on 7 July 1937 had already been done. The commission, which concluded that 1,000 Arab rebels had been killed during
1320-483: A farming population of 590,000 whereas the 102,000 dunums of such land in Jewish possession supported a farming population of only 50,000. The late 1920s witnessed poor harvests, and the consequent immiseration grew even harsher with the onset of the Great Depression and the collapse of commodity prices. The Shaw Commission in 1930 had identified the existence of a class of 'embittered landless people' as
1485-630: A general strike in July 1931, accompanied by organised demonstrations in the streets, led to independence for the former British mandate territory under Prime Minister Nuri as-Said , and full membership of the League of Nations in October 1932. The Syrian national movement had used a general strike from 20 January to 6 March in 1936 which, despite harsh reprisals, brought about negotiations in Paris that led to
1650-511: A hut in a banana plantation beside the highway between Petah Tikva and Yarkona were assassinated in retaliation by members of the Haganah-Bet . Jews and Palestinians attacked each other in and around Tel Aviv. Palestinians in Jaffa rampaged through a Jewish residential area , resulting in several Jewish deaths. After four days, by 19 April, the deteriorating situation erupted into
1815-573: A lack of financial self-sufficiency of the proposed Arab State. The British Government accompanied the publication of the Woodhead Report by a statement of policy rejecting partition as impracticable due to "political, administrative and financial difficulties". With the failure of the Peel Commission's proposals the revolt resumed during the autumn of 1937 marked by the assassination on 26 September of Acting District Commissioner of
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#17327766453411980-457: A multilingual group to a monolingual one (or nearly so), speaking French in Algeria , Morocco , and the city of Tunis , while most North Africans continue to use Arabic or Berber as their mother tongue. There is no single governing body for the Jewish community, nor a single authority with responsibility for religious doctrine. Instead, a variety of secular and religious institutions at
2145-652: A paramilitary arm with the Haganah and Irgun . In 1930 Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam organised and established the Black Hand , a small anti-Zionist and anti-British militia. He recruited and arranged military training for impoverished but pious peasants but also for ex-criminals he had persuaded to take Islam seriously and they engaged in a campaign of vandalizing tree plantations and British-constructed rail lines, destroying phone lines and disrupting transportation. Three minor mujāhīdūn and jihadist groups had also been formed that advocated armed struggle; these were
2310-715: A people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele , which dates to around 1200 BCE. The majority of scholars agree that this text refers to the Israelites , a group that inhabited the central highlands of Canaan , where archaeological evidence shows that hundreds of small settlements were constructed between the 12th and 10th centuries BCE. The Israelites differentiated themselves from neighboring peoples through various distinct characteristics including religious practices , prohibition on intermarriage , and an emphasis on genealogy and family history. In
2475-741: A place of refuge for the Jews of Syria Palaestina . A number of significant Talmudic academies , such as the Nehardea , Pumbedita , and Sura academies, were established in Mesopotamia, and many important Amoraim were active there. The Babylonian Talmud , a centerpiece of Jewish religious law, was compiled in Babylonia in the 3rd to 6th centuries. Jewish diaspora communities are generally described to have coalesced into three major ethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled:
2640-919: A religious component in national memories and culture is common even in the modern era. This view is echoed by political scientist Tom Garvin , who writes that "something strangely like modern nationalism is documented for many peoples in medieval times and in classical times as well," citing the ancient Jews as one of several "obvious examples", alongside the classical Greeks and the Gaulish and British Celts . 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine Revolt suppressed [REDACTED] United Kingdom [REDACTED] NDF (from 1937) [REDACTED] Jewish National Council [REDACTED] Arab Higher Committee (1936–October 1937) Central Committee of National Jihad in Palestine (October 1937 – 1939) [REDACTED] Society for
2805-539: A religious interpretation of the traditions and early history of the Jews, established the first of the Abrahamic religions , which are now practiced by 54 percent of the world. Judaism guides its adherents in both practice and belief, and has been called not only a religion, but also a "way of life," which has made drawing a clear distinction between Judaism, Jewish culture , and Jewish identity rather difficult. Throughout history, in eras and places as diverse as
2970-482: A religious or national approach to identity is used. Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who were born to a Jewish family regardless of whether or not they follow the religion, those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent ), and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and therefore are followers of
3135-552: A result, Ashkenazi Jews were gradually pushed eastwards to Poland , Lithuania and Russia . During the same period, Jewish communities in the Middle East thrived under Islamic rule, especially in cities like Baghdad , Cairo , and Damascus . In Babylonia, from the 7th to 11th centuries the Pumbedita and Sura academies led the Arab and to an extant the entire Jewish world. The deans and students of said academies defined
3300-638: A result, around 200,000 Jews were expelled from Spain , seeking refuge in places such as the Ottoman Empire , North Africa , Italy , the Netherlands and India . A similar fate awaited the Jews of Portugal a few years later. Some Jews chose to remain, and pretended to practice Catholicism . These Jews would form the members of Crypto-Judaism . In the 19th century, when Jews in Western Europe were increasingly granted equality before
3465-419: A rifle and one cartridge. Soon after, perhaps fearing a pending preemptive arrest, he disappeared with his group into the hills, not to start a revolution, premature at that point, but to impress upon people that he was a man ready to do what he said should be done. Some weeks later, a Jewish policeman was shot dead in a citrus grove while investigating the theft of grapefruit, after he happened to come close to
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#17327766453413630-535: A set of countrywide disturbances. An Arab general strike and revolt ensued that lasted until October 1936. The strike began on 19 April in Nablus, where an Arab National Committee was formed, and by the end of the month National Committees had been formed in all of the towns and some of the larger villages. On the same day, the High Commissioner Wauchope issued Emergency Regulations that laid
3795-409: A significant deterioration in relations between Palestinian Arabs and Jews. In 1936 alone, some 60,000 Jews immigrated that year – the Jewish population having grown under British auspices from 57,000 to 320,000 in 1935 The advent of Zionism and British colonial administration crystallised Palestinian nationalism and the desire to defend indigenous traditions and institutions. Palestinian society
3960-692: A significant population growth. This prosperity continued until the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib devastated the region of Judah in response to a rebellion in the area, ultimately halting at Jerusalem . Later in the same century, the Assyrians were defeated by the rising Neo-Babylonian Empire , and Judah became its vassal. In 587 BCE, following a revolt in Judah , the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and
4125-505: A variety of fields, making an impact on their communities' economy and societies. In Francia , for example, figures like Isaac Judaeus and Armentarius occupied prominent social and economic positions. However, Jews were frequently the subjects of discriminatory laws, segregation , blood libels and pogroms , which culminated in events like the Rhineland Massacres (1066) and the expulsion of Jews from England (1290). As
4290-405: A warning against intermarriage between Jews and gentiles. Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This is complemented by Ezra 10:2–3 , where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children. A popular theory is that the rape of Jewish women in captivity brought about
4455-460: Is 18.7 °C (65.7 °F), and around 689 mm (27.13 in) of precipitation falls annually. 77.1% of the population is Druze , 13.6% is Christian and 9.1% is Muslim . A few Jewish families also live there. The Christian population is mostly Melkite Catholic , with a few Maronite households. The tomb of Abu Abdallah is located in Isfiya. Abu Abdullah was one of three religious leaders chosen by Caliph Al-Hakem in 996 CE to proclaim
4620-593: Is considered the father of political Zionism, offered his vision of a future Jewish state in his 1896 book Der Judenstaat ( The Jewish State ); a year later, he presided over the First Zionist Congress . The antisemitism that inflicted Jewish communities in Europe also triggered a mass exodus of more than two million Jews to the United States between 1881 and 1924. The Jews of Europe and
4785-885: Is far less used today following the Holocaust and the adoption of Modern Hebrew by the Zionist movement and the State of Israel . In some places, the mother language of the Jewish community differs from that of the general population or the dominant group. For example, in Quebec , the Ashkenazic majority has adopted English, while the Sephardic minority uses French as its primary language. Similarly, South African Jews adopted English rather than Afrikaans . Due to both Czarist and Soviet policies, Russian has superseded Yiddish as
4950-648: Is further disagreement about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power. Historians agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by c. 900 BCE , there is a consensus that a Kingdom of Judah existed by c. 700 BCE at least, and recent excavations in Khirbet Qeiyafa have provided strong evidence for dating the Kingdom of Judah to the 10th century BCE. In 587 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II , King of
5115-721: Is the Judaeo-Spanish language developed by Sephardic Jews who migrated to the Iberian peninsula . Due to many factors, including the impact of the Holocaust on European Jewry, the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries , and widespread emigration from other Jewish communities around the world, ancient and distinct Jewish languages of several communities, including Judaeo-Georgian , Judaeo-Arabic , Judaeo-Berber , Krymchak , Judaeo-Malayalam and many others, have largely fallen out of use. For over sixteen centuries Hebrew
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5280-436: Is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew , in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics , is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on
5445-578: The Ashkenazim ( Central and Eastern Europe ), the Sephardim ( Iberian Peninsula ), and the Mizrahim ( Middle East and North Africa ). While these three major divisions account for most of the world's Jews, there are other smaller Jewish groups outside of the three. Prior to World War II , the global Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million, representing around 0.7% of
5610-652: The Ashkenazim (initially in the Rhineland and France), the Sephardim (initially in the Iberian Peninsula ), and the Mizrahim ( Middle East and North Africa ). Romaniote Jews , Tunisian Jews , Yemenite Jews , Egyptian Jews , Ethiopian Jews , Bukharan Jews , Mountain Jews , and other groups also predated the arrival of the Sephardic diaspora. Despite experiencing repeated waves of persecution, Ashkenazi Jews in Western Europe worked in
5775-566: The Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatristic —and later monotheistic —religion of Yahwism centered on Yahweh , one of the gods of the Canaanite pantheon. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of cultic practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group , setting them apart from other Canaanites. According to Dever , modern archaeologists have largely discarded
5940-570: The Canaanite population to establish the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Judaism emerged from the Israelite religion of Yahwism by the late 6th century BCE, with a theology considered by religious Jews to be the expression of a covenant with God established with the Israelites, their ancestors. The Babylonian captivity of Judahites following their kingdom's destruction,
6105-737: The First Temple , putting an end to the kingdom. The majority of Jerusalem's residents, including the kingdom's elite, were exiled to Babylon . According to the Book of Ezra , the Persian Cyrus the Great ended the Babylonian exile in 538 BCE, the year after he captured Babylon. The exile ended with the return under Zerubbabel the Prince (so called because he was a descendant of
6270-702: The Geonic period in Jewish history. Following this period were the Rishonim who lived from the 11th to 15th centuries. Like their European counterparts, Jews in the Middle East and North Africa also faced periods of persecution and discriminatory policies, with the Almohad Caliphate in North Africa and Iberia issuing forced conversion decrees, causing Jews such as Maimonides to seek safety in other regions. Initially, under Visigoth rule , Jews in
6435-600: The Haganah , whereas on the Palestinian Arab side, the revolt forced the flight into exile of the main Palestinian Arab leader of the period, al-Husseini. World War I left Palestine, especially the countryside, deeply impoverished. The Ottoman and then the Mandate authorities levied high taxes on farming and agricultural produce and during the 1920s and 1930s this together with a fall in prices, cheap imports, natural disasters and paltry harvests all contributed to
6600-552: The Herodian dynasty as vassal kings . However, Judea eventually came directly under Roman control and was incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province of Judaea . The Jewish–Roman wars , a series of unsuccessful revolts against Roman rule during the first and second centuries CE, had significant and disastrous consequences for the Jewish population of Judaea . The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) culminated in
6765-403: The Israelites of the historical kingdoms of Israel and Judah , and whose traditional religion is Judaism . Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is an ethnic religion , but not all ethnic Jews practice Judaism. Despite this, religious Jews regard individuals who have formally converted to Judaism as Jews. The Israelites emerged from within
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6930-616: The Neo-Babylonian Empire , besieged Jerusalem , destroyed the First Temple and deported parts of the Judahite population. Scholars disagree regarding the extent to which the Bible should be accepted as a historical source for early Israelite history. Rendsburg states that there are two approximately equal groups of scholars who debate the historicity of the biblical narrative , the minimalists who largely reject it, and
7095-629: The Palestine Exploration Fund 's Survey of Western Palestine described it as standing "on the highest part of the Carmel watershed , and the highest house was therefore the trigonometrical station on the ridge. It is a moderate-sized village of stone houses, with a well on the south-west. The inhabitants are all Druses. [..] Corn-land and olives surround the land." A population list from about 1887 showed that Isfiya had about 555 inhabitants; 480 Druze and 75 Catholic Christians. When
7260-468: The Roman period. A rock-cut burial cave containing pottery coffins, eight ossuaries , numerous oil lamps , as well as pottery, glass vessels, and several bronze objects was unearthed on HaHoresh Street. One of the ossuaries bears a Greek inscription indicating it belongs to Maia, the daughter or wife of a man named Saul. Crusader remnants have been found in the village. Isfiya was mentioned as part of
7425-512: The Tannaim may have been influenced by Roman law , which dictated that when a parent could not contract a legal marriage, offspring would follow the mother . Rabbi Rivon Krygier follows a similar reasoning, arguing that Jewish descent had formerly passed through the patrilineal descent and the law of matrilineal descent had its roots in the Roman legal system. The prehistory and ethnogenesis of
7590-703: The Tel Hai settlement. Huge crowds gathered for the occasion of his obsequies in Haifa and later burial in Balad al-Shaykh . The actual uprising was triggered some five months later, on 15 April 1936, by the Anabta shooting where remnants of a Qassamite band stopped a convoy on the road from Nablus to Tulkarm , robbed its passengers and, stating that they were acting to revenge al-Qassam's death, shot 3 Jewish passengers, two fatally, after ascertaining their identity. One of
7755-474: The Torah , is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE) of the Tanakh . Some modern scholars disagree with the conflation, based on the works of Josephus , Philo and Apostle Paul . The English word "Jew" is a derivation of Middle English Gyw, Iewe . The latter was loaned from the Old French giu , which itself evolved from the earlier juieu , which in turn derived from judieu/iudieu which through elision had dropped
7920-519: The United States . Israel, whose population is 73.9% Jewish, is the only country where Jews comprise more than 2.5% of the population. Jews have significantly influenced and contributed to the development and growth of human progress in many fields, both historically and in modern times, including in science and technology , philosophy , ethics , literature , governance , business , art , music , comedy , theatre , cinema , architecture , food , medicine , and religion . Jews wrote
8085-422: The Yiddish ייִד Yid (plural ייִדן Yidn ). Originally, in ancient times, Yehudi (Jew) was used to describe the inhabitants of the Israelite kingdom of Judah . It is also used to distinguish their descendants from the gentiles and the Samaritans . According to the Hebrew Bible , these inhabitants predominately descend from the tribe of Judah from Judah , the fourth son of Jacob . Together
8250-425: The Yishuv , described Arab causes as fear of growing Jewish economic power, opposition to mass Jewish immigration and fear of the British identification with Zionism . The general strike lasted from April to October 1936. The revolt is often analysed in terms of two distinct phases. The first phase began as spontaneous popular resistance, which was seized on by the urban and elitist Arab Higher Committee, giving
8415-485: The destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple . The severely reduced Jewish population of Judaea was denied any kind of political self-government. A few generations later, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) erupted, and its brutal suppression by the Romans led to the depopulation of Judea . Following the revolt, Jews were forbidden from residing in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and the Jewish demographic center in Judaea shifted to Galilee . Similar upheavals impacted
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#17327766453418580-533: The religion of Judaism are strongly interrelated. Converts to Judaism typically have a status within the Jewish ethnos equal to those born into it. However, several converts to Judaism, as well as ex-Jews, have claimed that converts are treated as second-class Jews by many born Jews. Conversion is not encouraged by mainstream Judaism, and it is considered a difficult task. A significant portion of conversions are undertaken by children of mixed marriages, or would-be or current spouses of Jews. The Hebrew Bible ,
8745-430: The religious Zionists , some of the General Zionists , and sections of the Labour Zionist movement also opposed the recommendations. Ben-Gurion was delighted by the Peel Commission's support for transfer, which he viewed as the foundation of "national consolidation in a free homeland." Subsequently, the two main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and Ben Gurion had convinced the Zionist Congress to approve equivocally
8910-436: The 10th century BCE, two neighboring Israelite kingdoms—the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah —emerged. Since their inception, they shared ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious characteristics despite a complicated relationship. Israel, with its capital mostly in Samaria , was larger and wealthier, and soon developed into a regional power. In contrast, Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem ,
9075-444: The 1930s wrought several changes, giving rise to new political organizations and a broader activism that spurred a far wider cross-section of the population in rural areas, strongly nationalist, to join actively in the Palestinian cause. Among new political parties formed in this period were the Independence Party which called for an Indian Congress Party -style boycott of the British, the pro- Nashashibi National Defence Party ,
9240-612: The Babylonians. Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East , and that they share certain genetic traits with other Gentile peoples of the Fertile Crescent . The genetic composition of different Jewish groups shows that Jews share a common gene pool dating back four millennia, as a marker of their common ancestral origin. Despite their long-term separation, Jewish communities maintained their unique commonalities, propensities, and sensibilities in culture, tradition, and language. The earliest recorded evidence of
9405-435: The Bible , founded Christianity , and had an indirect but profound influence on Islam . In these ways, Jews have also played a significant role in the development of Western culture . The term "Jew" is derived from the Hebrew word יְהוּדִי Yehudi , with the plural יְהוּדִים Yehudim . Endonyms in other Jewish languages include the Ladino ג׳ודיו Djudio (plural ג׳ודיוס , Djudios ) and
9570-409: The British administration, later known as the Great Revolt , the Great Palestinian Revolt , or the Palestinian Revolution , lasted from 1936 until 1939. The movement sought independence from British colonial rule and the end of the British authorities' support for Zionism , which sought the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, whose concomitant effect was to marginalize and displace
9735-428: The British formed armed Jewish units equipped with armoured vehicles to serve as auxiliary police. The British government in Palestine was convinced that the strike had the full support of the Palestinian Arabs and they could see "no weakening in the will and spirit of the Arab people." Air Vice-Marshall Richard Peirse , commander of British forces in Palestine and Transjordan from 1933 to 1936, reported that because
9900-504: The British involved their clients in Transjordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in an attempt to pacify the Palestinian Arabs and on 9 October the rulers made an appeal for the strike to be ended. A more pressing concern may have been the approaching citrus harvest and the attractive, soaring prices on the international markets caused by the disruption to the Spanish citrus harvest due to the Spanish Civil War . On 22 August 1936, Anglo-Jewish Arabist scholar Levi Billig of Hebrew University
10065-427: The British, who destroyed the group. A Druze self-defense force was established that received arms from the British and sometimes coordinated its activities with local Jewish forces. Though Isfiya is predominantly Druze, a number of Jews also live there and in other Druze villages due to their low rent rates. Isfiya has a mediterranean climate ( Köppen climate classification : Csa ). The average annual temperature
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#173277664534110230-406: The Commission did not arrive in Palestine until 11 November. In the early 1920s the first High Commissioner of Palestine, Herbert Samuel , had failed to create a unified political structure embracing both Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews in constitutional government with joint political institutions. This failure facilitated internal institutional partition in which the Jewish Agency exercised
10395-1994: The Defense of Palestine [REDACTED] General Arthur Grenfell Wauchope High Commissioner and Commander-in-chief (1932–1938) [REDACTED] Sir Harold MacMichael , High Commissioner (1938–1944) [REDACTED] Lt.-General John Dill , GOC (1936–1937) [REDACTED] Lt.-General Archibald Wavell , GOC (1937–1938) [REDACTED] Lt.-General Robert Haining , GOC (1938–1939) [REDACTED] Major-General Bernard Montgomery ; Commander, 8th Infantry Div. (1938–1939) [REDACTED] Air Commodore Roderic Hill ; AOC , Palestine and Transjordan (1936–1938) [REDACTED] Air Commodore Arthur Harris ; AOC, Palestine and Transjordan (1938–1939) [REDACTED] Admiral Dudley Pound ; Commander-in-Chief, British Mediterranean Fleet (1936–1939) Political leadership: Raghib al-Nashashibi (from 1937) Political leadership: [REDACTED] Mohammed Amin al-Husayni (exiled) [REDACTED] Raghib al-Nashashibi (defected) [REDACTED] Izzat Darwaza (exiled) Local rebel commanders : [REDACTED] Abd al-Rahim al-Hajj Muhammad (General Commander) † [REDACTED] Arif Abd al-Raziq Regional Commander (exiled) Abu Ibrahim al-Kabir (Regional Commander) Yusuf Abu Durra (Regional Commander) [REDACTED] Fakhri 'Abd al-Hadi (defected) Abdallah al-Asbah † Issa Battat † Mohammed Saleh al-Hamad † Yusuf Hamdan † Ahmad Mohamad Hasan † Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni (exiled) Wasif Kamal Abdul Khallik † Hamid Suleiman Mardawi † Ibrahim Nassar Mustafa Osta † Mohammad Mahmoud Rana'an Farhan al-Sa'di [REDACTED] Hasan Salama A popular uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against
10560-697: The Druze faith. He is said to have been the first Druze religious judge ( qadi ). The Druze make an annual visit to this shrine on November 15. Isfiya and Daliyat al-Karmel joined Yokneam Illit and the Megiddo Regional Council to develop the Mevo Carmel Jewish-Arab Industrial Park to benefit from the existing high-tech ecosystem . The economy of Isfiya is consistently growing as more tourists are visiting regularly, and more businesses are being opened. Jews The Jews ( Hebrew : יְהוּדִים , ISO 259-2 : Yehudim , Israeli pronunciation : [jehuˈdim] ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from
10725-474: The Exile, the term Yehudi (Jew) was used for all followers of Judaism because the survivors of the Exile (who were the former residents of the Kingdom of Judah) were the only Israelites that had kept their distinct identity as the ten tribes from the northern Kingdom of Israel had been scattered and assimilated into other populations. The gradual ethnonymic shift from " Israelites " to "Jews", regardless of their descent from Judah, although not contained in
10890-487: The Galilee Lewis Andrews by Quassemite gunmen in Nazareth. Andrews was widely hated by Palestinians for supporting Jewish settlement in the Galilee, and he openly advised Jews to create their own defense force. On 30 September, regulations were issued allowing the Government to detain political deportees in any part of the British Empire, and authorising the High Commissioner to outlaw associations whose objectives he regarded as contrary to public policy. Haj Amin al-Husseini
11055-461: The Grands Moulins flour mills and the Nesher cement factory, could take advantage of cheap Arab labour pouring in from the countryside. After 1935 the slump in the construction boom and further concentration by the Yishuv on an exclusivist Hebrew labour programme removed most of the sources of employment for rural migrants. By 1935 only 12,000 Arabs (5% of the workforce) worked in the Jewish sector, half of these in agriculture, whereas 32,000 worked for
11220-446: The Green Hand ( al-Kaff al-Khaḍrā ) -active in the area of Acre - Safed - Nazareth from 1929 until 1930 when they were dispersed; the Organization for Holy Struggle ( al-Jihād al-Muqaddas ), led by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and operative in the areas of Jerusalem (1931–1934); and the Rebel Youth ( al-Shabāb al-Thā'ir ), active in the Tulkarm and Qalqilyah area from 1935, and composed mainly of local boy scouts.) The pressures of
11385-403: The Iberian Peninsula faced persecutions, but their circumstances changed dramatically under Islamic rule . During this period, they thrived in a golden age , marked by significant intellectual and cultural contributions in fields such as philosophy, medicine, and literature by figures such as Samuel ibn Naghrillah , Judah Halevi and Solomon ibn Gabirol . However, in the 12th to 15th centuries,
11550-423: The Iberian Peninsula witnessed a rise in antisemitism, leading to persecutions, anti-Jewish laws, massacres and forced conversions ( peaking in 1391 ), and the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition that same year. After the completion of the Reconquista and the issuance of the Alhambra Decree by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, the Jews of Spain were forced to choose: convert to Christianity or be expelled. As
11715-598: The Jewish communities in the empire's eastern provinces during the Diaspora Revolt (115–117 CE), leading to the near-total destruction of Jewish diaspora communities in Libya , Cyprus and Egypt , including the highly influential community in Alexandria . The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE brought profound changes to Judaism. With the Temple's central place in Jewish worship gone, religious practices shifted towards prayer , Torah study (including Oral Torah ), and communal gatherings in synagogues . Judaism also lost much of its sectarian nature. Two of
11880-401: The Jewish identity of Biblical characters such as Jesus . Daniel R. Schwartz distinguishes "Judean" and "Jew". Here, "Judean" refers to the inhabitants of Judea, which encompassed southern Palestine . Meanwhile, "Jew" refers to the descendants of Israelites that adhere to Judaism . Converts are included in the definition. But Shaye J.D. Cohen argues that "Judean" should include believers of
12045-401: The Jews are closely intertwined with archaeology, biology, historical textual records, mythology, and religious literature. The ethnic stock to which Jews originally trace their ancestry was a confederation of Iron Age Semitic -speaking tribes known as the Israelites that inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods . Modern Jews are named after and also descended from
12210-1084: The Judean God and allies of the Judean state. Troy W. Martin similarly argues that biblical Jewishness is not dependent on ancestry but instead, is based on adherence to 'covenantal circumcision' ( Genesis 17:9–14 ). The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., يَهُودِيّ yahūdī (sg.), al-yahūd (pl.), in Arabic , "Jude" in German , "judeu" in Portuguese , "Juif" (m.)/"Juive" (f.) in French , "jøde" in Danish and Norwegian , "judío/a" in Spanish , "jood" in Dutch , "żyd" in Polish etc., but derivations of
12375-416: The Mandate authorities and 211,000 were either self-employed or worked for Arab employers. The ongoing disruption of agrarian life in Palestine, which had been continuing since Ottoman times, thus created a large population of landless peasant farmers who subsequently became mobile wage workers who were increasingly marginalised and impoverished; these became willing participants in nationalist rebellion. At
12540-574: The Peel recommendations as a basis for further negotiation, and to negotiate a modified Peel proposal with the British. The British government initially accepted the Peel report in principle. However, with war clouds looming over Europe, they realized that to attempt to implement it against the will of the Palestinian Arab majority would rouse up the entire Arab world against Britain. The Woodhead Commission considered three different plans, one of which
12705-607: The Qassamites' encampment. Following the incident, the Palestine police launched a massive manhunt and surrounded al-Qassam in a cave just north of Ya'bad . In the ensuing battle, on 20 November, al-Qassam was killed. The death of al-Qassam generated widespread outrage among Palestinian Arabs, galvanizing public sentiments with an impact similar to the effect on the Yishuv of news of the death of Joseph Trumpeldor in 1920 at
12870-597: The United States gained success in the fields of science, culture and the economy. Among those generally considered the most famous were Albert Einstein and Ludwig Wittgenstein . Many Nobel Prize winners at this time were Jewish, as is still the case. When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the situation for Jews deteriorated rapidly. Many Jews fled from Europe to Mandatory Palestine ,
13035-616: The United States, and the Soviet Union as a result of racial anti-Semitic laws, economic difficulties, and the fear of an impending war. World War II started in 1939, and by 1941, Hitler occupied almost all of Europe. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Final Solution —an extensive, organized effort with an unprecedented scope intended to annihilate the Jewish people—began, and resulted in
13200-570: The Zionist policy of ensuring that their investments were directed only to facilitate expansion exclusively of the Yishuv further compounded matters. The government did, however, set the minimum wage for Arab workers below that for Jewish workers, which meant that those making capital investments in the Yishuv's economic infrastructure, such as Haifa's electricity plant, the Shemen oil and soap factory,
13365-543: The adult male Palestinian Arab population between 20 and 60 was killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled. Estimates of the number of Palestinian Jews killed are up to several hundred. The Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine was unsuccessful, and its consequences affected the outcome of the 1948 Palestine war . It caused the British Mandate to give crucial support to pre-state Zionist militias like
13530-614: The ancient Hellenic world, in Europe before and after The Age of Enlightenment (see Haskalah ), in Islamic Spain and Portugal , in North Africa and the Middle East , India , China , or the contemporary United States and Israel , cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, others from
13695-551: The carrying and discharge of firearms, sabotage and intimidation. Despite this, however, the Arab campaign of murder and sabotage continued and Arab gangs in the hills took on the appearance of organised guerrilla fighters. Violence continued throughout 1938. In July 1938, when the Palestine Government seemed to have largely lost control of the situation, the garrison was strengthened from Egypt, and in September it
13860-516: The city in the 4th century BCE by Alexander the Great . By 200 BCE, there were well established Jewish communities both in Egypt and Mesopotamia (" Babylonia " in Jewish sources) and in the two centuries that followed, Jewish populations were also present in Asia Minor , Greece , Macedonia , Cyrene , and, beginning in the middle of the first century BCE, in the city of Rome . Later, in
14025-630: The confines of the Roman Empire, became an important center of Jewish study as Judea's Jewish population declined. Estimates often place the Babylonian Jewish community of the 3rd to 7th centuries at around one million, making it the largest Jewish diaspora community of that period. Under the political leadership of the exilarch , who was regarded as a royal heir of the House of David, this community had an autonomous status and served as
14190-429: The council , which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun. Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation , an ethnicity , a religion , and a culture , making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether
14355-484: The desert and settled on the central mountain range of the land of Canaan, in simple semi-nomadic settlements in which pig bones are notably absent. This population gradually shifted from a tribal lifestyle to a monarchy. While the archaeological record of the ninth century BCE provides evidence for two monarchies, one in the south under a dynasty founded by a figure named David with its capital in Jerusalem , and one in
14520-466: The destruction of the First Temple , though there is ample evidence for the presence of Jews in Babylonia even from 626 BCE. In Egypt, the documents from Elephantine reveal the trials of a community founded by a Persian Jewish garrison at two fortresses on the frontier during the 5th–4th centuries BCE, and according to Josephus the Jewish community in Alexandria existed since the founding of
14685-533: The dispersal driven by both forced expulsions and voluntary migrations. In Mesopotamia, a testimony to the beginnings of the Jewish community can be found in Joachin's ration tablets , listing provisions allotted to the exiled Judean king and his family by Nebuchadnezzar II , and further evidence are the Al-Yahudu tablets , dated to the 6th–5th centuries BCE and related to the exiles from Judea arriving after
14850-663: The domain of the Sultan during the hudna between the Crusaders based in Acre and the Mamluk sultan al-Mansur ( Qalawun ) declared in 1283. The Druze came to the village in the early eighteenth century. The inhabitants made their living from olive oil, honey and grapes. Isfiya was one of only two villages remaining on Mount Carmel after the expulsion of Ibrahim Pasha in 1841. Seventeen other villages disappeared. The village's survival
15015-588: The end of the 1920s, with an Arab Women's Congress held in Jerusalem in 1929 attracting 200 participants, and an Arab Women's Association (later Arab Women's Union) being established at the same time, both organised by feminist Tarab Abdul Hadi . Myriads of rural women would play an important role in response to faz'a alarm calls for inter-village help by rallying in defence of the rebellion. General strikes had been used in neighbouring Arab countries to place political pressures on Western colonial powers. In Iraq
15180-478: The entire world. A number of modern scholars of nationalism support the existence of Jewish national identity in antiquity. One of them is David Goodblatt, who generally believes in the existence of nationalism before the modern period. In his view, the Bible, the parabiblical literature and the Jewish national history provide the base for a Jewish collective identity. Although many of the ancient Jews were illiterate (as were their neighbors), their national narrative
15345-491: The excitement of the fellahin ." However, Moshe Shertok of the Jewish Agency even suggested that all villages in the area of an incident should be punished. On 2 June, an attempt by rebels to derail a train bringing the 2nd Battalion Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment from Egypt led to the railways being put under guard, placing a great strain on the security forces. On 4 June, in response to this situation,
15510-515: The extra-biblical record, the Israelites become visible as a people between 1200 and 1000 BCE. There is well accepted archeological evidence referring to "Israel" in the Merneptah Stele , which dates to about 1200 BCE, and in the Mesha stele from 840 BCE. It is debated whether a period like that of the Biblical judges occurred and if there ever was a United Monarchy . There
15675-556: The fall of their empire in c. 333 BCE to Alexander the Great . After several centuries under foreign imperial rule, the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire resulted in an independent Hasmonean kingdom , under which the Jews once again enjoyed political independence for a period spanning from 110 to 63 BCE. Under Hasmonean rule the boundaries of their kingdom were expanded to include not only
15840-682: The first centuries CE, as a result of the Jewish-Roman Wars , a large number of Jews were taken as captives, sold into slavery, or compelled to flee from the regions affected by the wars, contributing to the formation and expansion of Jewish communities across the Roman Empire as well as in Arabia and Mesopotamia. After the Bar Kokhba revolt , the Jewish population in Judaea , now significantly reduced in size, made efforts to recover from
16005-520: The formation on 25 April 1936 of the Arab Higher Committee (AHC). The Committee resolved "to continue the general strike until the British Government changes its present policy in a fundamental manner"; the demands were threefold: (1) the prohibition of Jewish immigration; (2) the prohibition of the transfer of Arab land to Jews; (3) the establishment of a National Government responsible to a representative council. About one month after
16170-637: The general strike started, the leadership group declared a general non-payment of taxes in explicit opposition to Jewish immigration. In the countryside, armed insurrection started sporadically, becoming more organized over time. One particular target of the rebels was the Mosul–Haifa oil pipeline of the Iraq Petroleum Company constructed only a few years earlier to Haifa from a point on the Jordan River south of Lake Tiberias . This
16335-507: The government rounded up a large number of Palestinian leaders and sent them to a detention camp at Auja al-Hafir in the Negev desert. The Battle of Nur Shams on 21 June marked an escalation with the largest engagement of British troops against Arab militants so far in this Revolt. During July, Arab volunteers from Syria and Transjordan , led by Fawzi al-Qawukji , helped the rebels to divide their formations into four fronts, each led by
16500-441: The ideal type of the nation [...] than perhaps anywhere else in the ancient world." He adds that this observation "must make us wary of pronouncing too readily against the possibility of the nation, and even a form of religious nationalism , before the onset of modernity." Agreeing with Smith, Goodblatt suggests omitting the qualifier "religious" from Smith's definition of ancient Jewish nationalism, noting that, according to Smith,
16665-448: The immediate spark for the uprising was the murder of two Jews by a Qassamite band , and the retaliatory killing by Jewish gunmen of two Arab labourers, incidents which triggered a flare-up of violence across Palestine. A month into the disturbances, Amin al-Husseini , president of the Arab Higher Committee and Mufti of Jerusalem , declared 16 May 1936 as 'Palestine Day' and called for a general strike . David Ben-Gurion , leader of
16830-517: The increasing indebtedness of the fellahin. The rents paid by tenant fellah increased sharply, owing to increased population density, and growing transfer of land from Arabs to the Jewish settlement agencies, such as the Jewish National Fund , increased the number of fellahin evicted while also removing the land as a future source of livelihood. By 1931 the 106,400 dunums of low-lying Category A farming land in Arab possession supported
16995-471: The indigenous Arab majority. The uprising occurred during a peak in the influx of European Jewish immigrants, and with the growing plight of the rural fellahin rendered landless, who as they moved to metropolitan centres to escape their abject poverty found themselves socially marginalized. Since the Battle of Tel Hai in 1920, Jews and Arabs had been involved in a cycle of attacks and counter-attacks, and
17160-452: The indigenous Arab population and from the 1920s onwards they were pushed off the land in increasingly large numbers into urban environments where they often encountered only poverty and social marginalisation. Many were crowded into shanty towns in Jaffa and Haifa where some found succour and encouragement in the teachings of the charismatic preacher Izz ad-Din al-Qassam who worked among
17325-400: The interaction of Jews or specific communities of Jews with their surroundings, and still others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to from the religion itself. This phenomenon has led to considerably different Jewish cultures unique to their own communities. Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed lashon ha-kodesh , "the holy tongue"),
17490-571: The land of the historical kingdom of Judah , but also the Galilee and Transjordan . In the beginning of this process the Idumeans , who had infiltrated southern Judea after the destruction of the First Temple , were converted en masse. In 63 BCE, Judea was conquered by the Romans. From 37 BCE to 6 CE, the Romans allowed the Jews to maintain some degree of independence by installing
17655-545: The language in which most of the Hebrew scriptures ( Tanakh ) were composed, and the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries. By the 5th century BCE, Aramaic , a closely related tongue, joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea . By the 3rd century BCE, some Jews of the diaspora were speaking Greek . Others, such as in the Jewish communities of Asoristan , known to Jews as Babylonia, were speaking Hebrew and Aramaic ,
17820-475: The language of Russian Jews , but these policies have also affected neighboring communities. Today, Russian is the first language for many Jewish communities in a number of Post-Soviet states , such as Ukraine and Uzbekistan , as well as for Ashkenazic Jews in Azerbaijan , Georgia, and Tajikistan . Although communities in North Africa today are small and dwindling, Jews there had shifted from
17985-583: The languages of the Babylonian Talmud . Dialects of these same languages were also used by the Jews of Syria Palaestina at that time. For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, often developing distinctive dialectal forms or branches that became independent languages. Yiddish is the Judaeo-German language developed by Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Central Europe . Ladino
18150-686: The law , Jews in the Pale of Settlement faced growing persecution, legal restrictions and widespread pogroms . Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, aiming to re-establish a Jewish polity in the Land of Israel, an endeavor to restore the Jewish people back to their ancestral homeland in order to stop the exoduses and persecutions that have plagued their history. This led to waves of Jewish migration to Ottoman-controlled Palestine . Theodor Herzl , who
18315-598: The law of Jewish identity being inherited through the maternal line, although scholars challenge this theory citing the Talmudic establishment of the law from the pre-exile period. Another argument is that the rabbis changed the law of patrilineal descent to matrilineal descent due to the widespread rape of Jewish women by Roman soldiers. Since the anti-religious Haskalah movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries, halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged. According to historian Shaye J. D. Cohen ,
18480-421: The legal basis for suppressing the insurgency. On 21 April the leaders of the five main parties accepted the decision at Nablus and called for a general strike of all Arabs engaged in labour, transport and shopkeeping for the following day. While the strike was initially organised by workers and local committees, under pressure from below, political leaders became involved to help with co-ordination. This led to
18645-646: The letter "d" from the Medieval Latin Iudaeus , which, like the New Testament Greek term Ioudaios , meant both "Jew" and " Judean " / "of Judea ". The Greek term was a loan from Aramaic *yahūdāy , corresponding to Hebrew יְהוּדִי Yehudi . Some scholars prefer translating Ioudaios as "Judean" in the Bible since it is more precise, denotes the community's origins and prevents readers from engaging in antisemitic eisegesis . Others disagree, believing that it erases
18810-481: The local, national, and international levels lead various parts of the Jewish community on a variety of issues. Today, many countries have a Chief Rabbi who serves as a representative of that country's Jewry. Although many Hasidic Jews follow a certain hereditary Hasidic dynasty , there is no one commonly accepted leader of all Hasidic Jews. Many Jews believe that the Messiah will act a unifying leader for Jews and
18975-406: The maximalists who largely accept it, with the minimalists being the more vocal of the two. Some of the leading minimalists reframe the biblical account as constituting the Israelites ' inspiring national myth narrative, suggesting that according to the modern archaeological and historical account, the Israelites and their culture did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of
19140-593: The measures adopted by the Police on the lines of similar Turkish methods, were punitive and effective. In reality the measures created a sense of solidarity between the villagers and the rebels. The pro-Government Mayor of Nablus complained to the High Commissioner that, "During the last searches effected in villages properties were destroyed, jewels stolen, and the Holy Qur'an torn, and this has increased
19305-494: The mediation of Samuel became subject to a king, Saul , who was succeeded by David and then Solomon , after whom the United Monarchy ended and was split into a separate Kingdom of Israel and a Kingdom of Judah . The Kingdom of Judah is described as comprising the tribes of Judah , Benjamin , partially Levi , and later adding remnants of other tribes who migrated there from the northern Kingdom of Israel. In
19470-576: The most fantastic and grotesque shapes". In 1870, the French explorer Victor Guérin found that the village had six hundred inhabitants, almost all Druze, with the exception of sixty, who belonged to the "Schismatic Greeks ". Gardens were grown all around the village. Some houses seemed very old and dated, Guérin surmised, from the Middle Ages or even earlier, from the time of the Crusades. In 1881
19635-455: The movement an organized shape that was focused mainly on strikes and other forms of political protest, in order to secure a political result. By October 1936, this phase had been defeated by the British civil administration using a combination of political concessions , international diplomacy (involving the rulers of Iraq , Saudi Arabia , Transjordan and Yemen ) and the threat of martial law . The second phase, which began late in 1937,
19800-701: The movement of Jewish groups around the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period , and subsequent periods of conflict and violent dispersion, such as the Jewish–Roman wars , gave rise to the Jewish diaspora . The Jewish diaspora is a wide dispersion of Jewish communities across the world that have maintained their sense of Jewish history , identity and culture . In the following millennia, Jewish diaspora communities coalesced into three major ethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled:
19965-754: The national language of the Jewish people, knowledge of the language is not commonly possessed by Jews worldwide and English has emerged as the lingua franca of the Jewish diaspora. Although many Jews once had sufficient knowledge of Hebrew to study the classic literature, and Jewish languages like Yiddish and Ladino were commonly used as recently as the early 20th century, most Jews lack such knowledge today and English has by and large superseded most Jewish vernaculars. The three most commonly spoken languages among Jews today are Hebrew, English, and Russian . Some Romance languages , particularly French and Spanish , are also widely used. Yiddish has been spoken by more Jews in history than any other language, but it
20130-448: The neighbouring Arab peoples", which had resulted in support for the rebellion in the form of volunteers from Syria and Iraq . Peel's main recommendation was for partition of Palestine into a small Jewish state (based on current Jewish land ownership population and incorporating the country's most productive agricultural land), a residual Mandatory area, and a larger Arab state linked to Transjordan . A second and more radical proposal
20295-519: The north under a dynasty founded by a figure named Omri with its capital in Samaria . It also points to an early monarchic period in which these regions shared material culture and religion, suggesting a common origin. Archaeological finds also provide evidence for the later cooperation of these two kingdoms in their coalition against Aram , and for their destructions by the Assyrians and later by
20460-486: The outbreak of the Second World War. In the final fifteen months of the revolt alone there were 936 murders and 351 attempted murders; 2,125 incidents of sniping; 472 bombs thrown and detonated; 364 cases of armed robbery; 1,453 cases of sabotage against government and commercial property; 323 people abducted; 72 cases of intimidation; 236 Jews killed by Arabs and 435 Arabs killed by Jews; 1,200 rebels killed by
20625-494: The persecution and murder of Jews in Europe and North Africa . In Poland, three million were murdered in gas chambers in all concentration camps combined, with one million at the Auschwitz camp complex alone. The Holocaust is the name given to this genocide, in which six million Jews were systematically murdered. Before and during the Holocaust, enormous numbers of Jews immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, upon
20790-467: The poor in Haifa. The revolt was thus a popular uprising that produced its own leaders and developed into a national revolt. Although the Mandatory government introduced measures to limit the transfer of land from Arabs to Jews, these were easily circumvented by willing buyers and sellers. The failure of the authorities to invest in economic growth and healthcare for the general Palestinian public and
20955-625: The pro- Husayni Palestinian Arab Party the pro- Khalidi Arab-Palestinian Reform Party , and the National Bloc , based mainly around Nablus . Youth organisations emerged like Young Men's Muslim Association and the Youth Congress Party , the former anti-Zionist, the latter pan-Arab. The Palestinian Boy Scout Movement , founded early in 1936, became active in the general strike. Women's organisations, which had been active in social matters, became politically involved from
21120-498: The rebel armed bands were supported by villagers, It was quickly evident that the only way to regain the initiative from the rebels was by initiating measures against the villagers from which the rebels and saboteurs came ... I therefore initiated, in co-operation with the Inspector-General of Police R. G. B. Spicer, village searches. Ostensibly, these searches were undertaken to find arms and wanted persons, actually
21285-782: The religion. Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. These definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the Oral Torah into the Babylonian Talmud , around 200 CE . Interpretations by Jewish sages of sections of the Tanakh – such as Deuteronomy 7:1–5 , which forbade intermarriage between their Israelite ancestors and seven non-Israelite nations: "for that [i.e. giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,] would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods" – are used as
21450-590: The revolt's devastating effects, but never fully regained its previous strength. In the second to fourth centuries CE, the region of Galilee emerged as the new center of Jewish life in Syria Palaestina , experiencing a cultural and demographic flourishing. It was in this period that two central rabbinic texts, the Mishnah and the Jerusalem Talmud , were composed. However, as the Roman Empire
21615-459: The revolt. A more dominant role on the Arab side was taken by the Nashashibi clan , whose NDP party quickly withdrew from the rebel Arab Higher Committee , led by the radical faction of Amin al-Husseini, and instead sided with the British – dispatching "Fasail al-Salam" (the "Peace Bands") in coordination with the British Army against nationalist and Jihadist Arab "Fasail" units (literally "bands"). According to official British figures covering
21780-403: The royal line of David ) and Joshua the Priest (a descendant of the line of the former High Priests of the Temple ) and their construction of the Second Temple circa 521–516 BCE. As part of the Persian Empire , the former Kingdom of Judah became the province of Judah ( Yehud Medinata ), with a smaller territory and a reduced population. Judea was under control of the Achaemenids until
21945-404: The same time, Jewish immigration peaked in 1935, just months before Palestinian Arabs began their full-scale, nationwide revolt. Over the four years between 1933 and 1936 more than 164,000 Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine, and between 1931 and 1936 the Jewish population more than doubled from 175,000 to 370,000 people, increasing the Jewish population share from 17% to 27%, and bringing about
22110-408: The search for evidence of the biblical narrative surrounding the patriarchs and the exodus. According to the maximalist position, the modern archaeological record independently points to a narrative which largely agrees with the biblical account. This narrative provides a testimony of the Israelites as a nomadic people known to the Egyptians as belonging to the Shasu . Over time these nomads left
22275-410: The six month strike, later described the disturbances as "an open rebellion of the Palestinian Arabs, assisted by fellow-Arabs from other countries, against Mandatory rule" and noted two unprecedented features of the revolt: the support of all senior Arab officials in the political and technical departments in the Palestine administration (including all of the Arab judges) and the "interest and sympathy of
22440-507: The southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah . Gary A. Rendsburg links the early Canaanite nomadic pastoralists confederation to the Shasu known to the Egyptians around the 15th century BCE. According to the Hebrew Bible narrative, Jewish ancestry is traced back to the Biblical patriarchs such as Abraham , his son Isaac , Isaac's son Jacob , and the Biblical matriarchs Sarah , Rebecca , Leah , and Rachel , who lived in Canaan . The Twelve Tribes are described as descending from
22605-438: The status of the offspring of mixed marriages was determined patrilineally in the Bible. He brings two likely explanations for the change in Mishnaic times: first, the Mishnah may have been applying the same logic to mixed marriages as it had applied to other mixtures ( Kil'ayim ). Thus, a mixed marriage is forbidden as is the union of a horse and a donkey , and in both unions the offspring are judged matrilineally. Second,
22770-475: The strike were harsh from the outset and grew harsher as the revolt deepened. Unable to contain the protests with the two battalions already stationed in the country, Britain inundated Palestine with soldiers from regiments all over the empire, including its Egyptian garrison. The drastic measures taken included house searches without warrants, night raids, preventive detention, caning, flogging, deportation, confiscation of property, and torture. As early as May 1936
22935-403: The termination of the mandate, David Ben-Gurion declared the creation of the State of Israel , a Jewish and democratic state in the Land of Israel. Immediately afterwards, all neighboring Arab states invaded, yet the newly formed IDF resisted. In 1949, the war ended and Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of Aliyah from all over the world. The Jewish people and
23100-446: The three main sects that flourished during the late Second Temple period, namely the Sadducees and Essenes , eventually disappeared, while Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis of Rabbinic Judaism , which emerged as the prevailing form of Judaism since late antiquity. The Jewish diaspora existed well before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and had been ongoing for centuries, with
23265-481: The three, Israel Chazan, was from Thessaloniki . The Salonican community 's request that permission be granted to allow them to conduct a solemn funeral for Chasan was turned down by the district commissioner , who had allowed al-Qassam a ceremonial burial some months earlier. The refusal sparked a demonstration by 30,000 Jews in Tel Aviv who overcame the police and maltreated Arab labourers and damaged property in Jaffa . The following day, two Arab workers sleeping in
23430-404: The time of the 1931 census , Isfiya had 251 occupied houses and a population of 742 Druzes, 187 Christians, and 176 Muslims; a total of 1,105. These counts included the smaller localities Damun Farm , Shallala Farm and al-Jalama . In the 1945 statistics the population of Isfiya consisted of 1,790; 180 Muslims, 300 Christians and 1,310 classified as "others", that is, Druze, while the land area
23595-423: The tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin made up the Kingdom of Judah. Though Genesis 29:35 and 49:8 connect "Judah" with the verb yada , meaning "praise", scholars generally agree that "Judah" most likely derives from the name of a Levantine geographic region dominated by gorges and ravines. In ancient times, Jewish people as a whole were called Hebrews or Israelites until the Babylonian Exile . After
23760-403: The twelve sons of Jacob. Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacob's son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs' descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses , after which the Israelites conquered Canaan under Moses' successor Joshua , went through the period of the Biblical judges after the death of Joshua, then through
23925-426: The whole revolt, the army and police killed more than 2,000 Arabs in combat, 108 were hanged , and 961 died because of what they described as "gang and terrorist activities". In an analysis of the British statistics, Walid Khalidi estimates 19,792 casualties for the Arabs, with 5,032 dead: 3,832 killed by the British and 1,200 dead due to intracommunal terrorism, and 14,760 wounded. By one estimate, ten percent of
24090-445: The word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., in Italian ( Ebreo ), in Persian ("Ebri/Ebrani" ( Persian : عبری/عبرانی )) and Russian ( Еврей, Yevrey ). The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuːdə] , the corresponding adjective "jüdisch" [ˈjyːdɪʃ] (Jewish) is the origin of the word "Yiddish". According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , fourth edition (2000), It
24255-460: The world's population at that time. During World War II, approximately 6 million Jews throughout Europe were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany in a genocide known as the Holocaust . Since then, the population has slowly risen again, and as of 2021 , was estimated to be at 15.2 million by the demographer Sergio Della Pergola or less than 0.2% of the total world population in 2012. Today, over 85% of Jews live in Israel or
24420-421: Was 46,905 dunams , according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 1,103 dunams were designated for plantations and irrigable land, 17,357 for cereals, while 74 dunams were built-up (urban) areas. During the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine , the villagers initially supported a local rebel group led by Yusuf Abu Durra . However, after local leaders were abducted and murdered, the notables turned to
24585-446: Was a peasant-led resistance movement provoked by British repression in 1936 in which increasingly British forces were targeted as the army itself increasingly targeted the villages it thought supportive of the revolt. During this phase, the rebellion was brutally suppressed by the British Army and the Palestine Police Force using repressive measures that were intended to intimidate the whole population and undermine popular support for
24750-503: Was attributed partly to "the exceptional valour" of the inhabitants, partly to buying protection from a local Galilee chief, Aqil Agha . In 1859, the English consul Rogers estimated the population to be 400, who cultivated 20 feddans of land. In 1863, H.B. Tristram visited the village, which he described as Druze and Christian, with a Christian sheikh . Tristam noted that the women's clothing in this village were much like those of al-Bassa , being either "plain, patched or embroidered in
24915-436: Was based on the Peel plan. Reporting in 1938, the Commission rejected the Peel plan primarily on the grounds that it could not be implemented without a massive forced transfer of Arabs (an option that the British government had already ruled out). With dissent from some of its members, the Commission instead recommended a plan that would leave the Galilee under British mandate, but emphasised serious problems with it that included
25080-416: Was celebrated as Palestine Day. The expansion of education, the development of civil society and of transportation, communications, and especially of broadcasting and other media, all facilitated notable changes. The Yishuv itself, at the same time, was steadily building the structures for its own state-building with public organisations like the Jewish Agency and the covert creation and consolidation of
25245-432: Was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire , which came to dominate the ancient Near East. Under the Assyrian resettlement policy , a significant portion of the northern Israelite population was exiled to Mesopotamia and replaced by immigrants from the same region. During the same period, and throughout the 7th century BCE, the Kingdom of Judah, now under Assyrian vassalage , experienced a period of prosperity and witnessed
25410-400: Was for transfer of 225,000 Palestinian Arabs from the proposed Jewish state to a future Arab state and Transjordan. It is likely that Zionist leaders played a role in persuading Peel to accept the notion of transfer, which had been a strand of Zionist ideology from its inception. The Arab Higher Committee rejected the recommendations immediately, as did the Jewish Revisionists . Initially,
25575-423: Was further reinforced from England. The police were placed under the operational control of the army commander, and military officials superseded the civil authorities in the enforcement of order. In October the Old City of Jerusalem, which had become a rebel stronghold, was reoccupied by the troops. By the end of the year a semblance of order had been restored in the towns, but terrorism continued in rural areas until
25740-429: Was introduced and a special concentration camp was opened near Acre. In November 1937, the Irgun formally rejected the policy of Havlagah and embarked on a series of indiscriminate attacks against Arab civilians as a form of what the group called "active defense" against Arab attacks on Jewish civilians. The British authorities set up military courts, which were established for the trial of offenses connected with
25905-433: Was largely clan-based ( hamula ) , with an urban land-holding elite lacking a centralised leadership. Traditional feasts such as Nebi Musa began to acquire a political and nationalist dimension and new national memorial days were introduced or gained new significance; among them Balfour Day (2 November, marking the Balfour Declaration of 1917), the anniversary of the Battle of Hattin (4 July), and beginning in 1930, 16 May
26070-399: Was less prosperous and covered a smaller, mostly mountainous territory. However, while in Israel the royal succession was often decided by a military coup d'état, resulting in several dynasty changes, political stability in Judah was much greater, as it was ruled by the House of David for the whole four centuries of its existence. Around 720 BCE, Kingdom of Israel was destroyed when it
26235-418: Was murdered in his home outside Jerusalem by an Arab assassin, one of three Jews killed by Arabs on 22 August, and one of 73 Jews killed since the beginning of the Arab armed insurrection. The strike was called off on 11 October 1936 and the violence abated for about a year while the Peel Commission deliberated. The Royal Commission was announced on 18 May 1936 and its members were appointed on 29 July, but
26400-425: Was reinforced through public readings. The Hebrew language also constructed and preserved national identity. Although it was not widely spoken after the 5th century BCE, Goodblatt states: the mere presence of the language in spoken or written form could invoke the concept of a Jewish national identity. Even if one knew no Hebrew or was illiterate, one could recognize that a group of signs was in Hebrew script. ... It
26565-453: Was removed from the leadership of the Supreme Moslem Council and the General Waqf Committee, the local National Committees and the Arab Higher Committee were disbanded; five Arab leaders were arrested and deported to the Seychelles ; and in fear of arrest Jamal el-Husseini fled to Syria and Haj Amin el-Husseini to Lebanon; all frontiers with Palestine were closed, telephone connections to neighbouring countries were withdrawn, press censorship
26730-512: Was repeatedly bombed at various points along its length. Other attacks were on railways (including trains) and on civilian targets such as Jewish settlements, secluded Jewish neighbourhoods in the mixed cities, and Jews, both individually and in groups. During the summer of that year, thousands of Jewish-farmed acres and orchards were destroyed, Jewish civilians were attacked and murdered, and some Jewish communities, such as those in Beisan and Acre , fled to safer areas. The measures taken against
26895-429: Was replaced by the Christianized Byzantine Empire under Constantine , Jews came to be persecuted by the church and the authorities, and many immigrated to communities in the diaspora. In the fourth century CE, Jews are believed to have lost their position as the majority in Syria Palaestina . The long-established Jewish community of Mesopotamia, which had been living under Parthian and later Sasanian rule, beyond
27060-455: Was the language of the Israelite ancestors, the national literature, and the national religion. As such it was inseparable from the national identity. Indeed its mere presence in visual or aural medium could invoke that identity. Anthony D. Smith , an historical sociologist considered one of the founders of the interdisciplinary field of nationalism studies , wrote that the Jews of the late Second Temple period provide "a closer approximation to
27225-444: Was used almost exclusively as a liturgical language, and as the language in which most books had been written on Judaism, with a few speaking only Hebrew on the Sabbath . Hebrew was revived as a spoken language by Eliezer ben Yehuda , who arrived in Palestine in 1881. It had not been used as a mother tongue since Tannaic times. Modern Hebrew is designated as the "State language" of Israel. Despite efforts to revive Hebrew as
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