The history of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel begins with the Hebrew people (later known as the Israelites) in the 2nd millennium BCE.John Day, [In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel,] Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005 pp. 47.5, p. 48: 'In this sense, the emergence of ancient Israel is viewed not as the cause of the demise of Canaanite culture but as its upshot'.ubb, 1998. pp. 13–14Mark Smith in "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" states "Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (c. 1200–1000 BCE). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp. 6–7). Smith, Mark (2002) "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" (Eerdman's)Rendsberg, Gary (2008). "Israel without the Bible". In Frederick E. Greenspahn. The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship. NYU Press, pp. 3–5 After emerging from among the Canaanites, the Twelve Tribes of Israel are said to have established the postulated "United Monarchy" that traditionally—but possibly ahistorically—marks the beginning of ancient Israel and Judah. According to Hebrew scripture, the United Monarchy split into two separate kingdoms occupying Canaan's highland zone: the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 722 BCE, resulting in the Ten Lost Tribes and the Assyrian captivity; while Judah was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire around 587 BCE, resulting in the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the Babylonian captivity. By around 538 BCE, Babylon was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great, who emancipated Judah's exiled population and facilitated their construction of the Second Temple inside the new Achaemenid province of Judah.
In 332 BCE the Kingdom of Macedonia under Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire. This event started a long religious struggle that split the Jewish population into traditional and Hellenized components. After the religion-driven Maccabean Revolt, the independent Hasmonean Kingdom was established in 165 BCE. In 64 BCE, the Roman Republic conquered Judea, first subjugating it as a client state before ultimately converting it into a Roman province in 6 CE. Although coming under the sway of various empires and home to a variety of ethnicities, the area of ancient Israel was predominantly Jewish until the Jewish–Roman wars of 66–136 CE. The wars commenced a long period of violence, enslavement, expulsion, displacement, forced conversion, and forced migration against the local Jewish population by the Roman Empire (and successor Byzantine State), beginning the Jewish diaspora.
After this time, Jews became a minority in most regions, except Galilee. After the 3rd century, the area became increasingly Christianized, although the proportions of Christians and Jews are unknown, the former perhaps coming to predominate in urban areas, the latter remaining in rural areas.Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine, Mohr Siebeck, 2001, pp. 170–171. By the time of the Muslim conquest of the Levant, the number of Jewish population centers had declined from over 160 to around 50 settlements. Michael Avi-Yonah says that Jews constituted 10–15% of Palestine's population by the time of the Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem in 614,Michael Avi-Yonah, The Jews Under Roman and Byzantine Rule: A Political History of Palestine from the Bar Kokhba War to the Arab Conquest, Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1984, pp. 15–19, 20, 132–33, 241 cited William David Davies, Louis Finkelstein, Steven T. Katz (eds.), The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4, The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, pp. 407ff. while Moshe Gil says that Jews constituted the majority of the population until the 7th century Muslim conquest in 638 CE.Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine: 634–1099, p. 3. Remaining Jews in Palestine fought alongside Muslims during the Crusades, and were persecuted under the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
In 1517, the Ottoman Empire conquered the region, ruling it until the British conquered it in 1917. The region was ruled under the British Mandate for Palestine until 1948, when the Jewish State of Israel was proclaimed in part of the land. This was made possible by the Zionist movement and its promotion of mass Jewish immigration.
After the establishment of Israel, immigration of Holocaust survivors from Europe and a large influx of Jewish immigrants and refugees from Arab countries had doubled Israel's population within five years of its independence. Israel's Jewish population continued to grow at a very high rate for years, fed by waves of Jewish immigration from around the world.
Etymology
The term "Jews" originates from the Biblical Hebrew word Yehudi, and in its original meaning refers to the people of the Tribe of Judah or the people of the Kingdom of Judah. The name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob."Jew", Oxford English Dictionary. Originally, the Hebrew term Yehudi referred only to members of the tribe of Judah. Later, after the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), the term "Yehudi" was applied to anyone from the Kingdom of Judah, including the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, as well as scattered settlements from other tribes.
The Land of Israel, which is considered by Jews to be the Promised Land, was the place where Jewish identity was formed, although this identity was formed gradually, reaching much of its current form in the Exilic and post-Exilic period. By the Hellenistic period (after 332 BCE) the Jews had become a self-consciously separate community based in Jerusalem.
Ancient times
Early Israelites
The Israelites were a confederation of Iron Age Semitic-speaking tribes of the ancient Near East, who inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods.Finkelstein, Israel. "Ethnicity and origin of the Iron I settlers in the Highlands of Canaan: Can the real Israel stand up?." The Biblical archaeologist 59.4 (1996): 198–212.Finkelstein, Israel. The archaeology of the Israelite settlement. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1988.Finkelstein, Israel, and Nadav Na'aman, eds. From nomadism to monarchy: archaeological and historical aspects of early Israel. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1994.Finkelstein, Israel. "The archaeology of the United Monarchy: an alternative view." Levant 28.1 (1996): 177–87.Finkelstein, Israel, and Neil Asher Silberman. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts. Simon and Schuster, 2002. According to the religious narrative of the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites' origin is traced back to the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs Abraham and his wife Sarah, through their son Isaac and his wife Rebecca, and their son Jacob who was later called Israel, whence they derive their name, with his wives Leah and Rachel and the handmaids Zilpa and Bilhah.
Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the religious narrative, with its being reframed as constituting an inspiring national myth narrative. The Israelites and their culture, according to the modern archaeological account, did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of the indigenous Canaanite peoples that had long inhabited the LevantMcNutt 1999, p. 47.K. L. Noll, Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: An Introduction, A&C Black, 2001 p. 164: "It would seem that, in the eyes of Merneptah's artisans, Israel was a Canaanite group indistinguishable from all other Canaanite groups." "It is likely that Merneptah's Israel was a group of Canaanites located in the Jezreel Valley." through the development of a distinct monolatristic—later cementing as monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh, one of the Ancient Canaanite deities. The outgrowth of a 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.Tubb, 1998. pp. 13–14Mark Smith in "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" states "Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (c. 1200–1000 BCE). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp. 6–7). Smith, Mark (2002) "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" (Eerdman's)
The name Israel first appears in the stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah c. 1209 BC, "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not."Stager in Coogan 1998, p. 91. This "Israel" was a cultural and probably political entity of the central highlands, well enough established to be perceived by the Egyptians as a possible challenge to their hegemony, but an ethnic group rather than an organized state.Dever 2003, p. 206. Ancestors of the Israelites may have included Semites who occupied Canaan and the Sea Peoples.Miller 1986, pp. 78–9. According to modern archaeologists, sometime during Iron Age I a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite', differentiating itself from the Canaanites through such markers as the prohibition of intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion.McNutt 1999, p. 35. Archaeological evidence indicates the emergence of a new culture in the highlands of central Canaan during Iron Age I. The area, which had been previously sparsely populated, saw a series of new villages established within a span of a few generations, and the inhabitants seem to have been culturally distinct from the Canaanites and Philistines. This is believed to be the origin of the Israelites as a distinct nation.Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2001). The Bible Unearthed. ISBN 9780743223386. P. 107