AFAI can tell - majority of Jews did not go to Ethiopia + Ashkenazim is majority of world Jewry . Re The Ark of Covenant - I don't know what to make of this . There has also been a long-running claim from the Orthodox Christians of Ethiopia that they have had the Ark for centuries, and since the 1960s it has apparently been kept in the chapel. This small and curiously-styled building is surrounded by spiked iron railings, and situated between two churches, the old and new, of St Mary of Zion in central Aksum. -- Photos here . http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...t-revealed-leaking-roof-Ethiopian-chapel.html Steven Spielberg again ? /
Many Jews settled in Rome long before the first century. - - - Updated - - - Ethiopians converted to Judaism and Christianity....... - - - Updated - - - When did the Jews suddenly become stone masons?? - - - Updated - - - When did the Jews suddenly become stone masons??
Sorry for the delay, I have a busy week at work and not much time to spend here, ill continue from the point I stopped ~ Dated so far back these are just estimations, it is estimated that most of the ppl remained in Judea in the forst place and were not exiled at all, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_captivity Under : "Archaeological and other non-Biblical evidence" You see how the number of 50,000 returning to Zion out of a greater group - dont match...., its a matter of dispute between researchers I suppose. OK, but whats the use of talking about those that stayed or even abandoned their Israelite heritage ? the issue is about the ones that returned and they did return for religous reasons or any other reason, I dont see why the reasons of those that stayed or returned matters, just the fact they did. Well its not the Jewish anthem but Israel's, many Jews mainly in Asia and Africa would give their left arm to come here but we need to slow down with the immigration, French and others in Europe are also standing in line from what I know, its never easy to leave all you got behind into the unknown, we need to give them jobs and housings - we hardly have enough to our owb, still I think we are doing well and in time immigration will increase, personly I dont care much but natinally -wise i'd like to assist all we can.
I would say no since there are NO lasting monuments or spectacular stone works in the Holy Lands. I did a bit of research concerning the claim that Jews built the Coliseum.. It seems that some Jewish sites claim that Titus brought 20,000 Jews to Rome and other websites claim 60,000 or 100,000 Jews were brought and THEY built the Coliseum. - - - Updated - - - And many Israelis have applied for citizenship in Europe and moved their money out of Israel.
Yes, immigrations works both ways, thou we are past the point where we relay on immigration to survive.
These ppl got their life center completly destroyed, their place of worship desicrated - Judaism itself changed to adjust to life away or without a constant worship place (The Babylonian Talmud) which was radical in those days, so those that stayed did so voluntarily but after they lost all they had as a ppl, I expect they thought the old glory days are over, I find it very logical that those that saw the destruction and now established good lives for themselves - were not too keen to return to "ground Zero" see it again, face who knows what and rebuild it from scrach more or less, the ones that did are actually the first "Zionists", that's how the Bible calls them in Hebrew, "the returnees of Zion", you had to be a revolutionary idealist for that.... Besides, its impposible to tell how many eventually returned, as I showed you the scholars argue on the amount and extent of the return, If you dont deny the right of return from Babylon and the fact the Jews built another Temple and re-established their kingdom - what does it matter what reasons those that remained had ? Yes, Judea had many interal problems, the Sameritans, the poor class Jews that remained, the exiles that returned and during the Hellenistic period - the "converts" or hellenistic Jews - mainly the rich city dwellers, all fought each other, so many chose to remain in Egypt and Babylon and had pretty strong communities there, keep in mind that since the 1st destruction of the Temple Jews could practice Judaism even without a Temple. Those in Babylon had deep roots there - they did send money to rebulid the 2nd Temple so no reason to belive they objected the idea of the kingdom or the Temple, those in Egypt also been there since the Babylonian destroction + the Pharoh's paid good money for mercenaries, Josephus the historian said Ptolemy hired 120,000 Jews Merc's to guard his southerb border, thou modern historians say he wasnt that good in math.., So yes, there were big Jewish communities outside Judea (Palestine in this context is just a political statement....so please keep the banners to another thread), but evidently there were enough to revolt the greeks and score some victories for an extended peroid of time, so we had "enough" for political and national purposes... The ones that kept away from Judea in the first place ? The largest group of Jews today exists in Israel not NYC, US is 2nd place, looking at our start point in 1948 till today after all this little country gone throu, you really going to tell me its anything less than an amazing success ? in less than a century huge communitties relocated to a newly formed country and manged to create a regional power, did we EVER had such success in the past ? even in Biblical times ? and its just the begining.
No, Gilos, I agree that it is a truly amazing accomplishment. I appreciate your point regarding the destruction of their religious core, but on the other hand I have already quoted you numerous cases of the common vernacular being that the 20th C colonisation of Palestine was a fulfillment of the yearning to return to Zion. And there are many more examples: So my question in this thread has always been: If this yearning to return home - to return to Zion; to Etertz Yisrael - is/was so strong, how came such a large proportion of Jews, in fact a majority as we have seen, have chosen voluntarily through the ages to live in a diaspora? And in this thread we have investigated many such reasons. Two of the most important seem to be not to want to leave "the good/safe life and return to a land of uncertainty", and the second seems to be the very natural driver to want to go to where there was employment, commerce and other opportunities. But this makes the commonly offered thesis of "having been thrown out of Israel" untenable:
And the fact not all Jews wanted to return to Zion means what exactly to those those that did ?, that question is true throu all history. The return to Zion historicly meant the building of the 3rd Temple, coming of the Messiah and establishment of the kingdom, INDIPENDANT kingdom, that's what the prayer 'next year in BUILT Jerusalem" means, that ofc was not possible throu most of history, ever since the Babylonian conquest that left Judea as pupet and certainly not since the destroction of the 2nd Temple, so to say "voluntarily through the ages to live in a diaspora" is not to say they didnt care for it or had no wish to see the rebuilding of the kingdom, many Orthodox Jews till this day (as you well know) oppose Zionism because they think only the Messiah can rebuild the kingdom. That's because all of your focus is set of the exiled Jews and not on those that actually lived in Judea, Jews were most certainly thrown out and their center of life destroyed once again during the Romans, the last exile that also outlawed Jews was certainly accountable to the annihilation of the kingdom, those that lived there - and it really not important how many Jews lived outside of Judea at the time - had enough ppl and soldiers to revolt against the Roman empire and with limited success -TWICE, its not the insignificat few but what we as a ppl - all of us around the world - that see part of our proud history, this historic era is not important just for Zionists, Hanuka is cellebrated by all Jews around the world. If you ask why has no attempt was made since that exile till modern time then the simple answer is the scattered Jews really had no chance to fight against Christian and Muslim empires but it should go without saying.
That is all crystal clear and I agree with almost all of it. Which means that, shifting focus to the Jews who remained in Israel (in line with your recommendation) we can conclude something very simple. They were indeed thrown out of some locations against their will, some very important locations to their faith, but they were NOT thrown out of Israel. With that my thesis that all but the initial Babylonian diaspora (before return rights were granted by Persia) were voluntary, and that no external forces can be blamed for major belligerent ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel. And that is important for the initial conclusions regarding this thread, which I will post next.
See conclusions at: http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=287109&page=63&p=1064516159#post1064516159
Many were and many remained, how much in numbers is up to scholars. That condredicts your acceptance on the results of the last great revolt, According to Cassius Dio, a Roman historian (AD 155235) http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/69*.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt So if we know that a great deal of the Jews died during these revolts (70 and 132 AD) and another great deal was ensleved and as final nail in the coffin, Hadrian outlaws all Jewish practices including cercumsicion and keeping the Sabbath and holydays - you cant say "no external forces can be blamed for major belligerent ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel". That's simply not true. persecuted ppl will seek shelter away from their persecuters in hills and vallies inside or outside of Judea, there was no way to "override" these Roman decrees and live normal lives in Judea.
Only if you confine your reasoning to Biblical Israel. Most of those who were expelled in 70 AD moved from there moved to Judea, which is an integral part of the Historic Land of Israel ('Eretz Yisrael'). I continue to insist that the bulk of the Jews were not expelled from that Land. No it doesnt. See above. The bulk of the Jews were NOT forced to flee from the Land of Israel. Since you are having difficulty accepting this and accepting that the transfer was only within Palestine/Eretz Yisrael, I offer yet further support for my position in the form of The Myth of the Jewish Exile from the Land of Israel: A Demonstration of Irenic Scholarship by Israel Jacob Yuval - Professor of Jewish History and academic director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Jewish Studies Scholion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem excerpts of which I quote below. Yuvals work is copiously referenced to source in footnotes: Yuvals paper contains much detailed reasoning, all reference to ancient writings or to modern scholarly analysis. Since his work is easily accessed I will not repeat more from it. I suggest that this detailed analysis makes it clear that the Exile is a Myth, and explains how it came to manifest itself in the common narratives of both Jews and Christians.
The Book of Esther (3:8.) describes the Jews as “a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy [the Persian ernperor’s] kingdom.” At the end of the Second Temple period, Josephus Flavius flatly stated: “The Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all the habitable earth among its inhabitants.”2 Philo even regarded the dispersal of the Jewish people among the nations of the earth as a blessing, and he compared the Jews’ dispersal to the Greeks’ establishment of colonies.3 The destruction of the Second Temple did not empty the land of its Jewish inhabitants—many had already been abroad for a very long tìme—and in any case there is no real historical basis for belief in a wholesale exile at the hands of Rome. … Very interesting.. The narrative of forced exile is a myth.
With no intention of belittling the overall value of Cassius Dios vast historical treatise on Roman history, I have to point out that he wrote it in the early 3rd century CE. His work has also often been criticised for inaccuracies and exaggerations: # Dio is further removed in time than the other ancient sources for this period and anachronisms are frequently present in his work - http://www.anselm.edu/internet/classics/i,claudius/diocass.html # The Politics of Inheritance in Romans by Mark Forman(page 40) Cassius Dio does tend towards exaggeration # A review of Peter Michael Swans The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History (2004): # Cassius Dios Livia and the Conspiracy of Cinna Magnus by Eric Adler But far more important is the contradiction between what Dio writes and the modern archaeological findings, particularly as outlined by Zeev Weiss (a summary can be found in Post #10) that contradicts Dios account of 985 villages being razed to the ground, a number that almost equates to estimates of the total number of settlements in the Land of Israel at the time. Dios account of the Bar Kochba revolt also has accusations of exaggeration levelled at it: # Specifically Ghilad Zuckerman notes that Dios might have exaggerated about 580 000 Jews having died - http://www.zuckermann.org/mosaic.html Your Wiki quote regarding Bar Kochba gives Joan Taylors work The Essenes, the Scrolls and the Dead Sea as its source for the Jews having been sold off into slavery. Unfortunately Ms Taylors work (page 243) says nothing of the sort. But my main reason for my rejection of your attempted rebuttal of my main thesis that Jews were NOT exiles from their Land, is your quote of Dio and of Ms Taylor say nothing about expulsion, only a large number of deaths. And that I have never disputed, other than to show evidence for Dios and Josephus exaggerations.
I will read it and respond to it, do you understand that there are more than one academic studies on this subject? to call other studies a "myth" is extremely arrogant,. in other words picking one work our of many and calling others liars or fools only proves your political agenda rather than truth, but im sure I can supply enough evidance to counter your "difficulties".
He wrote it about 100 years later, similer to me writing about the 1914 Jewish settelment, Historians of today write about older stuff dont they ? He is criticsized just as ANY ancieny Histrorian is, including Josephus, however historians never consider one source to be true they always seek more external evidance to make up a theory or prove a point, in this case its proven that the Romans massacred the Jews and according to historians from both sides the destroction was fatal to the Jewish society, Dio said the land was deslote and many wolves and hyenas rushed howling into their cities, Josephus did talk about slavery of around 100,000 slaves, and another source Jerome the histroian says that so many Jews were sold to slavery at the market of Hebron that its price reduced to no more than a horse,Cambridge University, "The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 1, The Ancient Mediterranean " pp 440., the Jewish Talmud also mentions the destruction and slavery, all these records were not made up just so Jews will have a "case" 2000 years later against the Palestinians...... The lies Palestinians spread to support their political agenda is a world crime in line with destruction of ancient relics by religous fanatics in Burma. The exile the Romans forced on Jews is not limited just to the amount of slaves they managed to ship away from Judea, its in the fact Judaism was no more allowed to be practiced, that no Jew was allowed to enter Jerusalem under pain of death and so on - so yes the "Jews" that didnt die in the war or sold to slavery could continue to live - just NOT as Jews!!! What's that if not an ethnic cleanse ??? what sort of "objective" analysis is that to reject all that evidance?
Nice of you to quote Haman the anti-hero and Jew hater of the story, what else did he say on the Jewish ppl ? why not supply that as "evidance" ? Yes, its well known Jews lived in Exile since the 1st Temple destruction, which Im not sure if you accept that event, its hard to follow the Palestinian denial orgy, ppl die when you stuck a sword throu them right ? and tend to flee from that fate ? just to agree on some basics.... There is a BIG diffrence between EMPTY and left intact which is what you are saying, Jews were massacred in the war as the Histrorians of the time record, those survived were sold to slavery - as recorded and as the Roman practice goes (is there any reason to think they wont in case of Jews ? aside for the Palestinian agenda ?), those remained were not allowed to practice Judaism so while you call it a willing conversion I say it was forcful and most likly caused more migration - defently not "willingly". Intersting how low will someone go to reduce his intergrity for political reasons, if that's not forced exile nothing is
The lack of reliability of Josephus' numbers and the reason for that was fully described in Post #10. I am unwilling to repeat them. If you have scholarly references proving that the bulk of the Jews were expelled from the Land of Israel, I would welcome it. - - - Updated - - - Nice summary of the facts as they have been shown to be so far in this thread.
They were forced to flee Jerusalem ? aside for Josephos 100,000 captives/slaves and the high death toll, wouldnt the prohbition to practice Judaism be considered as an ethnic/religous persecusion ? and wouldnt ppl that wanted to live "free" as Jews flrr away as possible from Roman soldiers ? or is that simply impossible to imagine ? I do not reject that there were Jews in the Galil, however the fact there were Jews there does not mean Jews were not exiled as slaves or simply fled to avoid that fate/keep their Jewish practices. Dont be so smug, its the debate issue of your thread, you have yet proven anything. That's actually the first evidance you supplied yet, and its an opinion based of ancient records, in length: An Historian that supposed to give an Academic study about the Jewish exile starts his review with an APPOLEGY to the Palestinians and accusations on Zionism and keeps attacking Zionism from time to time in middle of his review - is........how shall I put it........not so reliable to truth as he is for politics.... The review over the Talmud is not decisive, he simply says that the Talmud mentions the same destruction to the first Temple, that's not prove to say it did not happen in the 2nd destruction, its very possibly the Rabbis in the Talmud saw a conncetion between the 1st and the 2nd and described them both in about the same way, no reason to discredit the Talmud as source. The fitting narrative of the Christians about punishment to the Jews is by no mean prove it didnt happen, the Christians had a motive to support it as punishment - OK, but what does that mean? how do you reject recorded evidance by Josephos for example and accept this by motive alone ??? First of all Yuval does say that the Romans are accounted for the continous fleeing of Jews - exile, unless I misread the bolded text ? - just not in one strike but as continous waves of refugees, that's what I said, and that IS ethnic cleansing caused by the Romans. From there to the end of his work he keeps talking about how Jews accepted the Christian narrative of forced exile to fit Zionism and Christianity, only he didnt refute it himself, he simply says there is no evidance of a SINGLE event that marks the exile since the destruction of the 2nd Temple but rather a slower process - OK say I, what of it? so Jews left the land AFTER their Temple was destroyed and so many of their ppl killed AND their practices became illegal, does that mean it was volentary ? that the Romans did not "ethnic cleanse" tham ? - OFC NOT! With all due respect to the Palestinians that is........their story AND possible link to Jews has NO bearing over Jewish exile and its sad to see ppl decend to it for Political reasons.
Im not giving numbers here, no one can, I say (and so does Yuval) that it was Roman actions that cause Jews to flee and live in exile, so says the historic records of the time and so the increased numbres of Jews in Exile prove, you had us think that conterary to these records (and its 3 ancients Historians by now + the Talmud) the Jews in bulk remained in Israel and simply converted, while the incearse of Jews in the world at about the same time was result of conversion as well !!!!, why ?, why not ? Spare me the Palestinian propaganda please, you reject recorded history for politics yet make your own conclusions based on nothing but politics....
You are waving strawmen around by presuming "flee Jerusalem" is the same as "expelled from the Land of Israel". It is clearly not. You are out of ammunition to have to rely on such a lame attempt at deception.. I do not dispute that some Jews were exiled as slaves or that some may have chosen to relocate outside “The Land”. The summary of my thesis was very specifically worded: “The bulk (i.e. the majority) of the Jews were NOT forced to flee from the Land of Israel. No proof!!! None? Have you read anything? Let us review this thread: # In Post #10 you were shown that Josephus, the key author of the “slave” fable, was well-known to have written exaggerations so as to glorify the achievements of his boss, the Emperor Vespasian. You were shown by Zeev Weiss that the story of 985 settlements having been razed has been proven to be untrue by archaeological work. You were shown that nowhere in his works did Josephus mention the forced expulsion of the Jews from either Jerusalem or from the rest of the Roman province. You were shown Yuval’s commentary that “The destruction of Jerusalem did not bring about the exile of the Jews. In reality, not only did the Jewish community survive, it instigated a second rebellion 62 years later.” In post #9 you were given a link to a debate which in Post #12 RiaRaeb commented was more interesting that the video. If you had bothered to watch it you would have seen Ilan Ziv and Prof Joan Taylor debating the same issue; she says “going to Galilee was a kind of exile”, and he responds echoing the thesis of this thread “The difference between us is the perception of exile. The exile that we were brought up with is the expulsion of the Jews from their country which was emptied. You will have seen Prof. Francesca Savrakopoulou support Ziv with “Probably there were some forced migrations; some voluntary migrations, but a lot of communities that we would associate with being Jewish, remained and continued to flourish.” Ziv: “There was therefore a migration from one part of the country to another; not a departure from the country.” You will have seen the Jewish professor Sacha Stern comment “I do not think that the destruction of the Temple meant exile.” You will have seen Prof. Taylor, perhaps the most conservative of the three experts say “Josephus does not say that it was the entire nation of the Jews that was fighting against the Romans. He always insists that it was a small minority. And it was a small minority of fanatics, who had minority interests not in line with the interests of the nation, who took over Jerusalem, did terrible things, and revolted against Rome. So from Josephus you get the myth that the great nation of Israel was fighting against Rome.2 # You were provided with Yuval’s Muse publication. It is literally packed with evidence that the Great Exile is a MYTH. # You were shown that there was also no such evidence for a major expulsion campaign from the Land of Israel after Bar Kochba, only from Jerusalem – in Post #10 Yuval and Zeev Weiss provided the scientific conclusions; John Gager explained how the concept of exile began, not as a historical fact, but from the adoption by the Jews of the Christian myth of “punishment”. In Post #32 Professor Charles Manekin showed how these Myths were created by Rabbis hundreds of years later. In the BBC debate you saw Sasha Stern comment that he had never been convinced about a great mass migration from Judea to Galilee (never mind an expulsion from the entire Land). Oy Vey!! See above. If you don’t mind, I will pass on that attempted besmirching of a well-known Israeli historian. I repeat, there were obviously slaves that were exported, and Jews chose to leave. But in both cases the narrators had ample reasons to inflate the legend. I would have thought that was eminently clear, and none of the three experts disagreed, nor does Yuval. But you do, and without any PROOF in rebuttal Now, given all of that, what PROOF have YOU supplied that I have rejected recorded history for politics. I have done nothing BUT quote recorded hiastory and the writings of experts on the topic? Also, you complain that all of the above does not constitute proof; but where is YOURS? I will get back to you on your besmirching of Yuval and your gross misquoting of his MUSE work. That deserves a post all on its own. It was shameful. *** TO BE CONTINUED ***
There were large Jewish populations in Damascus, Aleppo, Rome, Alexandria, Anatolia, Iran and Iraq hundreds of years before the Roman occupation.
?? Jews were living perfectly fine in the Roman empire, until they looked for and picked the fight with the most powerful empire at that time. It's their own fault.
