#1 of 5 – for more context see the main post

With so much history it’s hard to know where to begin …

Israel and the region of Palestine are steeped in thousands of years of history, much of it ancient. The interactions (peaceful and otherwise) between peoples and cultures in that relatively small stretch of land reads like a who’s who of ancient civilizations: the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Romans and Ottomans to name a few.

Modern Israel was formed as a Jewish state. The idea came from Theodor Herzl who was a writer and political activist in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the late 19th century he called for the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people, launching the modern Zionist movement. Even today Jewish people from around the globe can move to Israel and become citizens.

In World War I, French and British forces gained control of the area from the Ottoman Empire. The French and British offered Arab independence for revolting against the Ottomans. Depending on who you ask, the agreement was rejected or rescinded, and the French and British secretly met to partition the territory. The UK side became known as British Palestine. The British forces stayed until May 1948.

A 1947 United Nations resolution called for the creation of two independent states for Jews and Arabs. Jerusalem and Bethlehem were to become international cities. Neighboring Arab nations (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and others) rejected the plan and instead attacked Israel. The Arab side eventually lost the Arab-Israeli War and ceded 60% of the land that would have been included in a new Arab state of Palestine. Can you imagine suddenly being simultaneously attacked by nearby nations? I’d like to learn more about how Israel actually managed to not only hold it’s own but win against surrounding forces. I imagine it must have been a scary time for the Israelis. Today some “neighbors” still insist that Israel should not exist (err, should be destroyed) and fear continues to weigh on the national psyche.

Oh, and there were also a few crusades in there somewhere. Some say the crusades ended when the British took control of Palestine at the end of 1917.

Since I was working during the week (a few late nights but not terribly crazy hours) I went to Jerusalem on Saturday, which is the Sabbath or Shabbat – the day of rest. Because of this, Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, was closed. But my tour bus drove past the museum from a distance and it was a creepy/chilling sight to see an old freight train rail car from Germany perched up on the hill – one of many such rail cars used to transport Jews to the death camps during the Holocaust (“The Holocaust was the murder by Nazi Germany of six million Jews.” [1]).

The next post in the series is about food.

Footnotes:

1. It feels odd summarizing the Holocaust as a side note, but I did so since it wasn’t the main focus of my post. Source of the succinct quote: yadvashem.org