Israel ( or ; Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל Yisrā'el;Arabic: إِسْرَائِيل Isrāʼīl), officially theState of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל Medīnat Yisrā'el ; Arabic: دولة إِسْرَائِيل Dawlat Isrāʼīl ), is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip[8] to the east and west, respectively, and Egypt to the southwest. It contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area.[9] [10] Israel's financial center and technology hub is Tel Aviv.[11] Jerusalem is the proclaimed capital, although Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem is internationally unrecognized.[note 1] [12] [13]
On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine. This specified borders for new Arab and Jewish states and an area of Jerusalem which was to be administered by the UN under an international regime.[14] [15] The end of the British Mandate for Palestine was set for midnight on 14 May 1948. That day, David Ben-Gurion, the executive head of the Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel", which would start to function from the termination of the mandate.[16] [17] [18] The borders of the new state were not specified in the declaration.[15] [19] Neighboring Arab armies invaded the former British mandate on the next day and fought the Israeli forces.[20] [21] Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states,[22] in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula (1956–57, 1967–82), part of Southern Lebanon (1982–2000), Gaza Strip (1967–2005; still considered occupied after 2005 disengagement) and the Golan Heights. It extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank.[23] [24] [25] [26]Efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed. Israel's occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem is the world's longest military occupation in modern times.[note 2] [28]
The population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2016 to be 8,502,900 people. It is the world's only Jewish-majority state, with 6,363,700 citizens, or 74.9%, being designated as Jewish. The country's second largest group of citizens are Arabs, numbering 1,766,500 people (including the Druze and most East Jerusalem Arabs).[1] [2] The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, including significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins; the rest are Christians and Druze. Other minorities include Arameans, Assyrians,Samaritans, Armenians, Circassians, Dom people, Maronites and Vietnamese. TheBlack Hebrew Israelites are subject to a slow process of deeper integration, but are still in their majority permanent residents rather than citizens.[29] [30] [31] [32] Israel also hosts a significant population of non-citizen foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia,[33] including illegal migrants from Sudan, Eritrea and other Sub-Saharan Africans.
In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish and democratic state.[34] Israel is arepresentative democracy[35] with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage.[36] [37] The prime minister serves as head of government and the Knesset serves as the legislature. Israel is a developed countryand an OECD member,[38] with the 35th-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2015. The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with the one of the highest percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree.[39] [40] The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the fourth highest in Asia,[41] [42] [43] and has one of the highest life expectancies in the world.[44]
Etymology
Upon independence in 1948, the country formally adopted the name "State of Israel" (Medinat Yisrael) after other proposed historical and religious names including Eretz Israel ("the Land of Israel"), Zion, and Judea, were considered and rejected.[45] In the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term "Israeli" to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign AffairsMoshe Sharett.[46]
The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically been used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel and the entire Jewish people respectively.[47] Thename "Israel" (Standard Yisraʾel, Isrāʾīl; Septuagint Greek: Ἰσραήλ Israēl; 'El(God) persists/rules' though, after Hosea 12:4 often interpreted as "struggle with God"[48][49] [50] [51] ) in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, according to theHebrew Bible, was given the name after he successfully wrestled with the angel of the Lord.[52] Jacob's twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. Jacob and his sons had lived inCanaan but were forced by famine to go into Egypt for four generations, lasting 430 years,[53] until Moses, a great-great grandson of Jacob,[54] led the Israelites back into Canaan during the "Exodus". The earliest known archaeological artifact to mention the word "Israel" is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt (dated to the late 13th century BCE).[55]
The area is also known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religionsincluding Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith. From 1920, the whole region was known as Palestine (under British Mandate)[note 3] until the Israeli Declaration of Independence of 1948.[56] Through the centuries, the territory was known by a variety of other names, including Judea, Samaria, Southern Syria, Syria Palaestina, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Iudaea Province, Coele-Syria, Djahy, and Canaan.
History
Antiquity
Map of the Kingdom of Israel, 1020 BCE–930 BCE as imagined from the Bible narrative
The notion of the "Land of Israel", known inHebrew as Eretz Yisrael, has been important and sacred to the Jewish people since Biblical times. According to the Torah, God promised the landto the three Patriarchs of the Jewish people.[57][58] On the basis of scripture, the period of the three Patriarchs has been placed somewhere in the early 2nd millennium BCE,[59] and the firstKingdom of Israel was established around the 11th century BCE. Subsequent Israelite kingdoms and states ruled intermittently over the next four hundred years, and are known from various extra-biblical sources.[60] [61] [62] [63]
The first record of the name Israel (as ysrỉꜣr) occurs in the Merneptah stele, erected for Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah c. 1209 BCE, "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not."[64] 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 organised state;[65] Ancestors of the Israelites may have included Semitesnative to Canaan and the Sea Peoples.[66] McNutt says, "It is probably safe to assume that sometime during Iron Age 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.[67]
Villages had populations of up to 300 or 400,[68] [69] which lived by farming and herding, and were largely self-sufficient;[70] economic interchange was prevalent.[71]Writing was known and available for recording, even in small sites.[72] The archaeological evidence indicates a society of village-like centres, but with more limited resources and a small population.[73] Modern scholars see Israel arising peacefully and internally from existing people in the highlands of Canaan.[74]
The Large Stone Structure, archaeological site of ancient Jerusalem
Around 930 BCE, the kingdom split into a southern Kingdom of Judah and a northernKingdom of Israel. From the middle of the 8th century BCE Israel came into increasing conflict with the expanding neo-Assyrian empire. UnderTiglath-Pileser III it first split Israel's territory into several smaller units and then destroyed its capital, Samaria (722 BCE). An Israelite revolt (724–722 BCE) was crushed after the siege and capture of Samaria by the Assyrian king Sargon II. Sargon's son, Sennacherib, tried and failed to conquer Judah. Assyrian records say he leveled 46 walled cities and besieged Jerusalem, leaving after receiving extensive tribute.[75]
In 586 BCE King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon conquered Judah. According to the Hebrew Bible, he destroyed Solomon's Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylon. The defeat was also recorded by the Babylonians[76] [77] (see the Babylonian Chronicles). In 538 BCE, Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon and took over its empire. Cyrus issued a proclamation granting subjugated nations (including the people of Judah) religious freedom (for the original text, which corroborates the biblical narrative only in very broad terms, see the Cyrus Cylinder). According to the Hebrew Bible 50,000 Judeans, led by Zerubabel, returned to Judah and rebuilt the temple. A second group of 5,000, led by Ezra and Nehemiah, returned to Judah in 456 BCE although non-Jews wrote to Cyrus to try to prevent their return.
Classical period
Portion of the Temple Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls written during the Second Temple period
With successive Persian rule, the region, divided between Syria-Coele province and later the autonomous Yehud Medinata, was gradually developing back into urban society, largely dominated by Judeans. The Greek conquests largely skipped the region without any resistance or interest. Incorporated into Ptolemaic and finally Seleucid Empires, the southern Levant was heavily hellenized, building the tensions between Judeans and Greeks. The conflict erupted in 167 BCE with the Maccabean Revolt, which succeeded in establishing an independent Hasmonean Kingdom in Judah, which later expanded over much of modern Israel, as the Seleucids gradually lost control in the region.
The Roman Empire invaded the region in 63 BCE, first taking control of Syria, and then intervening in the Hasmonean civil war. The struggle between pro-Roman and pro-Parthian factions in Judea eventually led to the installation of Herod the Great and consolidation of the Herodian Kingdom as a vassal Judean state of Rome.
With the decline of Herodians, Judea, transformed into a Roman province, became the site of a violent struggle of Jews against Greco-Romans, culminating in the Jewish-Roman Wars, ending in wide-scale destruction, expulsions, and genocide. Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE.[78] Nevertheless, there was a continuous small Jewish presence and Galilee became its religious center.[79] [80] The Mishnah and part of theTalmud, central Jewish texts, were composed during the 2nd to 4th centuries CE in Tiberias and Jerusalem.[81] The region came to be populated predominantly by Greco-Romans on the coast and Samaritans in the hill-country. Christianity was gradually evolving over Roman paganism, when the area stood under Byzantine rule. Through the 5th and 6th centuries, the dramatic events of the repeatedSamaritan revolts reshaped the land, with massive destruction to Byzantine Christian and Samaritan societies and a resulting decrease of the population. After the Persian conquest and the installation of a short-lived Jewish Commonwealth in 614 CE, the Byzantine Empire reconquered the country in 628.
Middle Ages and modern history
Kfar Bar'am, an ancient Jewish village, abandoned some time between the 7th–13th centuries AD.[82]
In 634–641 CE, the region, including Jerusalem, was conquered by the Arabs who had just recently adopted Islam. It remained under Muslim control for the next 1,300 years under various dynasties.[83] Control of the region transferred between the Rashidun Caliphs,Umayyads,[83] Abbasids,[83] Fatimids, Seljuks,Crusaders, and Ayyubids throughout the next six centuries,[83] before the area was conquered in 1260 by the Mamluk Sultanate.[84]
The 15th-century Abuhav synagogue, established by Sephardic Jews in Safed.[85]
During the siege of Jerusalem by the First Crusade in 1099, the Jewish inhabitants of the city fought side by side with the Fatimid garrison and the Muslim population who tried in vain to defend the city against the Crusaders. When the city fell, about 60,000 people were massacred, including 6,000 Jews seeking refuge in a synagogue.[86] At this time, a full thousand years after the fall of the Jewish state, there were Jewish communities all over the country. Fifty of them are known and include Jerusalem,Tiberias, Ramleh, Ashkelon, Caesarea, and Gaza.[87] According to Albert of Aachen, the Jewish residents of Haifa were the main fighting force of the city, and "mixed with Saracen [Fatimid] troops", they fought bravely for close to a month until forced into retreat by the Crusader fleet and land army.[88] [89] However, Joshua Prawerexpressed doubt over the story, noting that Albert did not attend the Crusades and that such a prominent role for the Jews is not mentioned by any other source.[90]
In 1165 Maimonides visited Jerusalem and prayed on the Temple Mount, in the "great, holy house".[91] In 1141 the Spanish-Jewish poet Yehuda Halevi issued a call for Jews to migrate to the Land of Israel, a journey he undertook himself. In 1187 SultanSaladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, defeated the Crusaders in the Battle of Hattin and subsequently captured Jerusalem and almost all of Palestine. In time, Saladin issued a proclamation inviting Jews to return and settle in Jerusalem,[92] and according to Judah al-Harizi, they did: "From the day the Arabs took Jerusalem, the Israelites inhabited it."[93] Al-Harizi compared Saladin's decree allowing Jews to re-establish themselves in Jerusalem to the one issued by the Persian king Cyrus the Great over 1,600 years earlier.[94]
In 1211, the Jewish community in the country was strengthened by the arrival of a group headed by over 300 rabbis from France and England,[95] among them RabbiSamson ben Abraham of Sens.[96] Nachmanides, the 13th-century Spanish rabbi and recognised leader of Jewry greatly praised the land of Israel and viewed its settlement as a positive commandment incumbent on all Jews. He wrote "If the gentiles wish to make peace, we shall make peace and leave them on clear terms; but as for the land, we shall not leave it in their hands, nor in the hands of any nation, not in any generation."[97]
In 1260, control passed to the Mamluk sultans of Egypt. The country was located between the two centres of Mamluk power, Cairo and Damascus, and only saw some development along the postal road connecting the two cities. Jerusalem, although left without the protection of any city walls since 1219, also saw a flurry of new construction projects centred around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound (theTemple Mount). In 1266 the Mamluk Sultan Baybars converted the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron into an exclusive Islamic sanctuary and banned Christians and Jews from entering, which previously would be able to enter it for a fee. The ban remained in place until Israel took control of the building in 1967.[98] [99]
Jews at the Western Wall, 1870s
In 1470, Isaac b. Meir Latif arrived from Anconaand counted 150 Jewish families in Jerusalem.[100] Thanks to Joseph Saragossi who had arrived in the closing years of the 15th century, Safed and its environs had developed into the largest concentration of Jews in Palestine. With the help of the Sephardic immigration from Spain, the Jewish population had increased to 10,000 by the early 16th century.[101]
In 1516, the region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire; it remained under Turkish rule until the end of the First World War, when Britain defeated the Ottoman forces and set up a military administration across the former Ottoman Syria. In 1920 the territory was divided between Britain and France under the mandate system, and the British-administered area which included modern day Israel was namedMandatory Palestine.[84] [102] [103]
Zionism and British mandate
Theodor Herzl, visionary of the Jewish State
Since the existence of the earliest Jewish diaspora, many Jews have aspired to return to "Zion" and the "Land of Israel",[104] though the amount of effort that should be spent towards such an aim was a matter of dispute.[105] [106] The hopes and yearnings of Jews living in exile are an important theme of the Jewish belief system.[105] After the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, some communities settled in Palestine.[107]During the 16th century, Jewish communities struck roots in the Four Holy Cities—Jerusalem,Tiberias, Hebron, and Safed—and in 1697, Rabbi Yehuda Hachasid led a group of 1,500 Jews to Jerusalem.[108] In the second half of the 18th century, Eastern European opponents of Hasidism, known as the Perushim, settled in Palestine.[109] [110] [111]
"I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabeans will rise again. Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes. The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity."
The first wave of modern Jewish migration to Ottoman-ruled Palestine, known as the First Aliyah, began in 1881, as Jews fled pogroms in Eastern Europe.[113] Although the Zionist movement already existed in practice, Austro-Hungarian journalistTheodor Herzl is credited with founding political Zionism,[114] a movement which sought to establish a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, thus offering a solution to the so-called Jewish Question of the European states, in conformity with the goals and achievements of other national projects of the time.[115] In 1896, Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), offering his vision of a future Jewish state; the following year he presided over the first Zionist Congress.[116]
The Second Aliyah (1904–14), began after the Kishinev pogrom; some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine, although nearly half of them left eventually.[113] Both the first and second waves of migrants were mainly Orthodox Jews,[117] although the Second Aliyah included socialist groups who established the kibbutz movement.[118] During World War I, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to Baron Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, that stated that Britain intended for the creation of a Jewish "national home" within the Palestinian Mandate.[119] [120]
The Jewish Legion, a group primarily of Zionist volunteers, assisted, in 1918, in the British conquest of Palestine.[121] Arab opposition to British rule and Jewish immigration led to the 1920 Palestine riots and the formation of a Jewish militia known as the Haganah (meaning "The Defense" in Hebrew), from which the Irgunand Lehi, or Stern Gang, paramilitary groups later split off.[122] In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate over Palestine under terms which included the Balfour Declaration with its promise to the Jews, and with similar provisions regarding the Arab Palestinians.[123] The population of the area at this time was predominantly Arab and Muslim, with Jews accounting for about 11%,[124] and Arab Christians at about 9.5% of the population.[125]
The Third (1919–23) and Fourth Aliyahs (1924–29) brought an additional 100,000 Jews to Palestine.[113] Finally, the rise of Nazism and the increasing persecution of Jews in 1930s Europe led to the Fifth Aliyah, with an influx of a quarter of a million Jews. This was a major cause of the Arab revolt of 1936–39 during which the British Mandate authorities alongside the Zionist militias of Haganah and Irgun killed 5,032 Arabs and wounded 14,760,[126] [127] resulting in over ten percent of the adult malePalestinian Arab population killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled.[128] The British introduced restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine with the White Paper of 1939. With countries around the world turning away Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, a clandestine movement known as Aliyah Bet was organized to bring Jews to Palestine.[113] By the end of World War II, the Jewish population of Palestine had increased to 33% of the total population.[129] On July 22, 1946, Irgun attacked the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, which was housed in the southern wing[130] of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.[131] [132] [133] 91 people of various nationalities were killed and 46 were injured.[134] The hotel was the site of the central offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine, principally the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and the Headquarters of the British Armed Forces inPalestine and Transjordan.[134] [135] The attack initially had the approval of theHaganah (the principal Jewish paramilitary group in Palestine). It was conceived as a response to Operation Agatha (a series of widespread raids, including one on theJewish Agency, conducted by the British authorities) and was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era (1920–1948).[134] [135]
After World War II
UN Map, "Palestine plan of partition with economic union"
After World War II, Britain found itself in intenseconflict with the Jewish community over Jewish immigration limits, as well as continued conflict with the Arab community over limit levels. TheHaganah joined Irgun and Lehi in an armed struggle against British rule.[136] At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors and refugees sought a new life far from their destroyed communities in Europe. The Yishuv attempted to bring these refugees to Palestine but many were turned away or rounded up and placed in detention camps in Atlit and Cyprus by the British. Escalating violence culminated with the 1946King David Hotel bombing which Bruce Hoffmancharacterized as one of the "most lethal terrorist incidents of the twentieth century".[137] In 1947, the British government announced it would withdraw from Mandatory Palestine, stating it was unable to arrive at a solution acceptable to both Arabs and Jews.
On 15 May 1947, the General Assembly of the newly formed United Nations resolved that a committee, United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), be created "to prepare for consideration at the next regular session of the Assembly a report on the question of Palestine".[138] In the Report of the Committee dated 3 September 1947 to the UN General Assembly,[139] the majority of the Committee in Chapter VI proposed a plan to replace the British Mandate with "an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem ... the last to be under an International Trusteeship System".[140] On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union as Resolution 181 (II).[141] The Plan attached to the resolution was essentially that proposed by the majority of the Committee in the Report of 3 September 1947. The Jewish Agency, which was the recognized representative of the Jewish community, accepted the plan. The Arab League andArab Higher Committee of Palestine rejected it, and indicated that they would reject any other plan of partition.[142] [143]
On the following day, 1 December 1947, the Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day strike, and Arab gangs began attacking Jewish targets.[144] The Jews were initially on the defensive as civil war broke out, but in early April 1948 moved onto the offensive.[145] [146] The Arab Palestinian economy collapsed and 250,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled.[147]
David Ben-Gurion proclaiming theIsraeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948
On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel".[148] [149] The only reference in the text of the Declaration to the borders of the new state is the use of the term Eretz-Israel ("Land of Israel").[150]
The following day, the armies of four Arab countries—Egypt, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq—entered what had been British Mandatory Palestine, launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War;[151] [152] Contingents from Yemen, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Sudan joined the war.[153] [154] The apparent purpose of the invasion was to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state at inception, and some Arab leaders talked about driving the Jews into the sea.[155] [156] [157] According to Benny Morris, Jews felt that the invading Arab armies aimed to slaughter the Jews.[158] The Arab league stated that the invasion was to restore law and order and to prevent further bloodshed.[159]
.jpg)
Raising of the Ink Flag, marking the end of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
After a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declaredand temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were established.[160] Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip. The United Nations estimated that more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled by or fled from advancing Israeli forces during the conflict—what would become known in Arabic as the Nakba ("catastrophe").[161]
First years of the State of Israel
Israel was admitted as a member of the United Nations by majority vote on 11 May 1949.[162] On 1949 both Israel and Jordan were genuinely interested in a peace agreement but the British acted as a brake on the Jordanian effort in order to avoid damaging British interests in Egypt.[163]
In the early years of the state, the Labor Zionist movement led by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics.[164] [165] The Kibbutzim, or collective farming communities, played a pivotal role in establishing the new state.[166]
Immigration to Israel during the late 1940s and early 1950s was aided by the Israeli Immigration Department and the non-government sponsored Mossad LeAliyah Bet("Institution for Illegal Immigration"[167] ). Both groups facilitated regular immigration logistics like arranging transportation, but the latter also engaged in clandestine operations in countries, particularly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, where the lives of Jews were believed to be in danger and exit from those places was difficult. Mossad LeAliyah Bet continued to take part in immigration efforts until its disbanding in 1953.[168] An influx of Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab and Muslim lands immigrated to Israel during the first 3 years and the number of Jews increased from 700,000 to 1,400,000,[169] many of whom faced persecution in their original countries.[170] The immigration was in accordance with the One Million Plan.
Consequently, the population of Israel rose from 800,000 to two million between 1948 and 1958.[169] Between 1948 and 1970, approximately 1,150,000 Jewish refugees relocated to Israel.[171] The immigrants came to Israel for differing reasons. Some believed in a Zionist ideology, while others moved to escape persecution. There were others that did it for the promise of a better life in Israel and a small number that were expelled from their homelands, such as British and French Jews in Egypt after the Suez Crisis.[172]
Some new immigrants arrived as refugees with no possessions and were housed in temporary camps known as ma'abarot; by 1952, over 200,000 immigrants were living in these tent cities.[173] During this period, food, clothes and furniture had to be rationed in what became known as the Austerity Period. The need to solve the crisis led Ben-Gurion to sign a reparations agreement with West Germany that triggered mass protests by Jews angered at the idea that Israel could accept monetary compensation for the Holocaust.[174]
In 1950 Egypt closed the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping and tensions mounted as armed clashes took place along Israel's borders. During the 1950s, Israel was frequently attacked by Palestinian fedayeen, nearly always against civilians,[175]mainly from the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip,[176] leading to several Israeli counter-raids. In 1956, Great Britain and France aimed at regaining control of the Suez Canal, which the Egyptians had nationalized (see the Suez Crisis). The continued blockade of the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, together with the growing amount of Fedayeen attacks against Israel's southern population, and recent Arab grave and threatening statements, prompted Israel to attack Egypt.[177] [178] [179] [180]Israel joined a secret alliance with Great Britain and France and overran the Sinai Peninsula but was pressured to withdraw by the United Nations in return for guarantees of Israeli shipping rights in the Red Sea via the Straits of Tiran and the Canal.[181] [182] The war resulted in significant reduction of Israeli border infiltration.[183][184] [185] [186]
U.S. newsreel on the trial of Adolf Eichmann
The refugees were often treated differently according to where they had come from. Jews of European background were treated more favorably than Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries—housing units reserved for the latter were often re-designated for the former, with the result that Jews newly arrived from Arab lands generally ended up staying intransit camps for longer.[187] Tensions that developed between the two groups over such discrimination persist to the present day.[188]
In the early 1960s, Israel captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and brought him to Israel for trial.[189] The trial had a major impact on public awareness of the Holocaust.[190] Eichmann remains the only person executed in Israel by conviction by an Israeli civilian court.[191]
Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War
Territory held by Israel:
before the Six-Day War
after the war
The Sinai Peninsula was returned toEgypt in 1982.
Since 1964, Arab countries, concerned over Israeli plans to divert waters of the Jordan Riverinto the coastal plain,[192] had been trying to divert the headwaters to deprive Israel of water resources, provoking tensions between Israel on the one hand, and Syria and Lebanon on the other.
Arab nationalists led by Egyptian PresidentGamal Abdel Nasser refused to recognize Israel, and called for its destruction.[22] [193] [194] By 1966, Israeli-Arab relations had deteriorated to the point of actual battles taking place between Israeli and Arab forces.[195] In May 1967, Egypt massed its army near the border with Israel, expelled UN peacekeepers, stationed in the Sinai Peninsula since 1957, and blocked Israel's access to the Red Sea. Other Arab states mobilized their forces.[196] Israel reiterated that these actions were a casus belli. On 5 June 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt. Jordan, Syria and Iraq responded and attacked Israel. In a Six-Day War, Israel defeated Jordan and captured the West Bank, defeated Egypt and captured the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, and defeated Syria and captured the Golan Heights.[197] Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem, and the 1949 Green Linebecame the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories.
Following the 1967 war and the "three nos" resolution of the Arab League, during the 1967–1970 War of Attrition Israel faced attacks from the Egyptians in the Sinai, and from Palestinian groups targeting Israelis in the occupied territories, in Israel proper, and around the world. Most important among the various Palestinian and Arab groups was the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), established in 1964, which initially committed itself to "armed struggle as the only way to liberate the homeland".[198] [199] In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Palestinian groups launched awave of attacks[200] [201] against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world,[202]including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The Israeli government responded with an assassination campaign against the organizers of the massacre, a bombing and a raid on the PLO headquarters in Lebanon.
Operation Gazelle, Israel's ground maneuver, encircles the Egyptian Third Army, October 1973
On 6 October 1973, as Jews were observing Yom Kippur, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, that opened the Yom Kippur War. The war ended on 26 October with Israel successfully repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces but having suffered over 2,500 soldiers killed in a war which collectively took 10–35,000 lives in just 20 days.[203] An internal inquiry exonerated the government of responsibility for failures before and during the war, but public anger forced Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign.[204]
Further conflict and peace process
In July 1976 an airliner was hijacked during its flight to Tel Aviv by Palestinian guerrillas and landed at Entebbe, Uganda. Israeli commandos carried out an operation in which 102 out of 106 Israeli hostages were successfully rescued.
The 1977 Knesset elections marked a major turning point in Israeli political history asMenachem Begin's Likud party took control from the Labor Party.[205] Later that year, Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat made a trip to Israel and spoke before theKnesset in what was the first recognition of Israel by an Arab head of state.[206] In the two years that followed, Sadat and Begin signed the Camp David Accords (1978) and the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty (1979).[207] In return, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had captured during the Six-Day War in 1967, and agreed to enter negotiations over an autonomy for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.[208]
On 11 March 1978, a PLO guerilla raid from Lebanon led to the Coastal Road Massacre. Israel responded by launching an invasion of southern Lebanon to destroy the PLO bases south of the Litani River. Most PLO fighters withdrew, but Israel was able to secure southern Lebanon until a UN force and the Lebanese army could take over. The PLO soon resumed its policy of attacks against Israel. In the next few years, the PLO infiltrated the south and kept up a sporadic shelling across the border. Israel carried out numerous retaliatory attacks by air and on the ground.
Israel's 1980 Jerusalem Law declared Jerusalem to be Israel's "eternal and indivisible capital".
Meanwhile, Begin's government provided incentives for Israelis to settle in the occupied West Bank, increasing friction with the Palestinians in that area.[209] The Basic Law: Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel, passed in 1980, was believed by some to reaffirm Israel's 1967 annexation of Jerusalem by government decree, and reignited international controversy over thestatus of the city. No Israeli legislation has defined the territory of Israel and no act specifically included East Jerusalem therein.[210] The position of the majority of UN member states is reflected in numerous resolutions declaring that actions taken by Israel to settle its citizens in the West Bank, and impose its laws and administration on East Jerusalem, are illegal and have no validity.[211] In 1981 Israel annexed theGolan Heights, although annexation was not recognized internationally.[212]
On 7 June 1981, the Israeli air force destroyed Iraq's sole nuclear reactor, in order to impede Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The reactor was under construction just outside Baghdad. Following a series of PLO attacks in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon that year to destroy the bases from which the PLO launched attacks and missiles into northern Israel.[213] In the first six days of fighting, the Israelis destroyed the military forces of the PLO in Lebanon and decisively defeated the Syrians. An Israeli government inquiry – the Kahan Commission – would later hold Begin, Sharon and several Israeli generals as indirectly responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre. In 1985, Israel responded to a Palestinian terrorist attack in Cyprus by bombing the PLO headquarters in Tunis. Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1986, but maintained a borderland buffer zone in southern Lebanon until 2000, from where Israeli forces engaged in conflict with Hezbollah.
Israel's ethnic diversity expanded in the 1980s and 1990s due to immigration. Several waves of Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel in the 1980s and 1990s, while between 1990 and 1994, Russian immigration to Israel increased Israel's population by twelve percent.[214]
The First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule,[215] broke out in 1987, with waves of uncoordinated demonstrations and violence occurring in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Over the following six years, the Intifada became more organised and included economic and cultural measures aimed at disrupting the Israeli occupation. More than a thousand people were killed in the violence.[216]During the 1991 Gulf War, the PLO supported Saddam Hussein and Iraqi Scudmissile attacks against Israel. Despite public outrage, Israel heeded US calls to refrain from hitting back and did not participate in that war.[217] [218]
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U.S. President Bill Clinton watches Jordan's King Hussein (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (right) sign the Israel–Jordan peace treaty
In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became Prime Minister following an election in which his party called for compromise with Israel's neighbors.[219] [220]The following year, Shimon Peres on behalf of Israel, and Mahmoud Abbas for the PLO, signed the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinian National Authority the right to govern parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.[221] The PLO also recognized Israel's right to exist and pledged an end to terrorism.[222] In 1994, theIsrael–Jordan Treaty of Peace was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalize relations with Israel.[223] Arab public support for the Accords was damaged by the continuation of Israelisettlements[224] and checkpoints, and the deterioration of economic conditions.[225]Israeli public support for the Accords waned as Israel was struck by Palestinian suicide attacks.[226] Finally, while leaving a peace rally in November 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a far-right-wing Jew who opposed the Accords.[227]
At the end of the 1990s, Israel, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, withdrew from Hebron,[228] and signed the Wye River Memorandum, giving greater control to the Palestinian National Authority.[229] Ehud Barak, elected Prime Minister in 1999, began the new millennium by withdrawing forces from Southern Lebanonand conducting negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton at the 2000 Camp David Summit. During the summit, Barak offered a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state. The proposed state included the entirety of the Gaza Strip and over 90% of the West Bank with Jerusalem as a shared capital,[230] although some argue that the plan was to annex areas which would lead to a cantonization of the West Bank into three blocs, which the Palestinian delegation likened to South African "bantustans", a loaded word that was disputed by the Israeli and American negotiators.[231] Each side blamed the other for the failure of the talks.
The Tel Aviv Dolphinarium, the site of the 2001 Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing, in which 21 Israelis, mostly teenagers, were killed.
After the collapse of the talks and a controversial visit by Likud leader Ariel Sharonto the Temple Mount, the Second Intifadabegan. Some commentators contend that the uprising was pre-planned by Yasser Arafat due to the collapse of peace talks.[232] [233] [234] [235]Sharon became prime minister in a 2001 special election. During his tenure, Sharon carried out his plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and also spearheaded the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier,[236] ending the Intifada.[237] [238] By this time 1,100 Israelis had been killed, mostly in suicide bombings.[239] The Palestinian fatalities, by 30 April 2008, reached 4,745 killed by Israeli security forces, 44 killed by Israeli civilians, and 577 killed by Palestinians.[240]
In July 2006, a Hezbollah artillery assault on Israel's northern border communities and a cross-border abduction of two Israeli soldiers precipitated the month-longSecond Lebanon War.[241] [242] On 6 September 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria. In May 2008, Israel confirmed it had been discussing a peace treaty with Syria for a year, with Turkey as a go-between.[243] However, at the end of the year, Israel entered another conflict as a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel collapsed. The Gaza War lasted three weeks and ended after Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire.[244] [245] Hamas announced its own ceasefire, with its own conditions of complete withdrawal and opening of border crossings. Despite neither the rocket launchings nor Israeli retaliatory strikes having completely stopped, the fragile ceasefire remained in order.[246] In what Israel described as a response to more than a hundred Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israeli cities,[247] Israel began an operation in Gaza on 14 November 2012, lasting eight days.[248] Israel started another operation in Gaza following an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas in July 2014.[249]
Geography and environment
Israel is at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, bounded by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank to the east, and Egypt and the Gaza Strip to the southwest. It lies between latitudes 29° and 34° N, and longitudes 34° and 36° E.
The sovereign territory of Israel (according to the demarcation lines of the 1949 Armistice Agreements and excluding all territories captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War) is approximately 20,770 square kilometers (8,019 sq mi) in area, of which two percent is water.[9] However Israel is so narrow that theexclusive economic zone in the Mediterranean is double the land area of the country.[250] The total area under Israeli law, including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, is 22,072 square kilometers (8,522 sq mi),[251] and the total area under Israeli control, including the military-controlled and partially Palestinian-governedterritory of the West Bank, is 27,799 square kilometers (10,733 sq mi).[252] Despite its small size, Israel is home to a variety of geographic features, from the Negev desert in the south to the inland fertile Jezreel Valley, mountain ranges of the Galilee, Carmel and toward theGolan in the north. The Israeli Coastal Plain on the shores of the Mediterranean is home to 57 percent of the nation's population.[253] [254] [255]East of the central highlands lies the Jordan Rift Valley, which forms a small part of the 6,500-kilometer (4,039 mi) Great Rift Valley.
The Jordan River runs along the Jordan Rift Valley, from Mount Hermon through the Hulah Valley and the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the Earth.[256]Further south is the Arabah, ending with the Gulf of Eilat, part of the Red Sea. Unique to Israel and the Sinai Peninsula are makhteshim, or erosion cirques.[257] The largest makhtesh in the world is Ramon Crater in the Negev,[258] which measures 40 by 8 kilometers (25 by 5 mi).[259] A report on the environmental status of the Mediterranean basin states that Israel has the largest number of plant species per square meter of all the countries in the basin.[260]
Tectonics and seismicity
The Jordan Rift Valley is the result of tectonic movements within the Dead Sea Transform (DSF) fault system. The DSF forms the transform boundary between theAfrican Plate to the west and the Arabian Plate to the east. The Golan Heights and all of Jordan are part of the Arabian Plate, while the Galilee, West Bank, Coastal Plain, and Negev along with the Sinai Peninsula are on the African Plate. This tectonic disposition leads to a relatively high seismic activity in the region. The entire Jordan Valley segment is thought to have ruptured repeatedly, for instance during the last two major earthquakes along this structure in 749 and 1033. The deficit inslip that has built up since the 1033 event is sufficient to cause an earthquake ofMw~7.4.[261]
The most catastrophic earthquakes we know of occurred in 31 BCE, 363, 749, and 1033 CE, that is every ca. 400 years on average.[262] Destructive earthquakes leading to serious loss of life strike about every 80 years.[263] While stringent construction regulations are currently in place and recently built structures are earthquake-safe, as of 2007 the majority of the buildings in Israel were older than these regulations and many public buildings as well as 50,000 residential buildings did not meet the new standards and were "expected to collapse" if exposed to a strong quake.[263]Given the fragile political situation of the Middle East region and the presence there of major holy sites, a quake reaching magnitude 7 on the Richter scale could have dire consequences for world peace.[262]
Climate
Israel map of Köppen climate classification.
Temperatures in Israel vary widely, especially during the winter. Coastal areas, such as those of Tel Aviv and Haifa, have a typicalMediterranean climate with cool, rainy winters and long, hot summers. The area of Beershebaand the Northern Negev has a semi-arid climatewith hot summers, cool winters and fewer rainy days than the Mediterranean climate. The Southern Negev and the Arava areas havedesert climate with very hot and dry summers, and mild winters with few days of rain. The highest temperature in the continent of Asia (54.0 °C or 129.2 °F) was recorded in 1942 at Tirat Zvi kibbutz in the northern Jordan river valley.[264] [265]
At the other extreme mountainous regions can be windy, cold, and areas at elevation of 750 meters or more (same elevation as Jerusalem) will usually receive at least one snowfall each year.[266] From May to September, rain in Israel is rare.[267][268] With scarce water resources, Israel has developed various water-saving technologies, including drip irrigation.[269] Israelis also take advantage of the considerable sunlight available for solar energy, making Israel the leading nation in solar energy use per capita (practically every house uses solar panels for water heating).[270]
Four different phytogeographic regions exist in Israel, due to the country's location between the temperate and the tropical zones, bordering the Mediterranean Sea in the west and the desert in the east. For this reason the flora and fauna of Israel is extremely diverse. There are 2,867 known species of plants found in Israel. Of these, at least 253 species are introduced and non-native.[271] There are 380 Israeli nature reserves.[272]
- Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee
- Field of Anemone coronaria, national flower of Israel
- Ramon Crater, a unique type of crater that can be found only in Israel and the Sinai peninsula
- Snow in Galilee
- Flowers of Israel
Demographics
Note: Until 1995, figures for Christians also included Others.
In 2016, Israel's population was an estimated 8,502,900 million people, of whom 6,363,700 (74.9%) were recorded by the civil government as Jews. 1,766,500 Arabscomprised 20.7% of the population, while non-Arab Christians and people who have no religion listed in the civil registry made up 4.4%.[1] [2] Over the last decade, large numbers of migrant workers from Romania, Thailand, China, Africa, and South America have settled in Israel. Exact figures are unknown, as many of them are living in the country illegally,[274] but estimates run in the region of 203,000.[33] By June 2012, approximately 60,000 African migrants had entered Israel.[275] About 92% of Israelis live in urban areas.[276]
Retention of Israel's population since 1948 is about even or greater, when compared to other countries with mass immigration.[277] Jewish emigration from Israel (calledyerida in Hebrew), primarily to the United States and Canada, is described by demographers as modest,[278] but is often cited by Israeli government ministries as a major threat to Israel's future.[279] [280]
In 2009, over 300,000 Israeli citizens lived in West Bank settlements[281] such asMa'ale Adumim and Ariel, including settlements that predated the establishment of the State of Israel and which were re-established after the Six-Day War, in cities such as Hebron and Gush Etzion. In 2011, there were 250,000 Jews living in East Jerusalem.[282] 20,000 Israelis live in Golan Heights settlements.[212] The total number of Israeli settlers is over 500,000 (6.5% of the Israeli population). Approximately 7,800 Israelis lived in settlements in the Gaza Strip, until they were evacuated by the government as part of its 2005 disengagement plan.[283]
Immigration to Israel in the years 1948–2008. The two peaks, of at least 200,000 each, were in 1949 and 1990.
Israel was established as a homeland for theJewish people and is often referred to as aJewish state. The country's Law of Return grants all Jews and those of Jewish ancestry the right to Israeli citizenship.[284] Over three quarters, or 75.5%, of the population are Jews from adiversity of Jewish backgrounds. Around 4% of Israelis (300,000), ethnically defined as "others", are Russian descendants of Jewish origin or family who are not Jewish according to rabbinical law, but were eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return.[285][286] [287] Approximately 75% of Israeli Jews are born in Israel, 17% are immigrants from Europe and the Americas, and 8% are immigrants from Asia and Africa (including theArab World).[288] [289] Jews from Europe and the former Soviet Union and their descendants born in Israel, including Ashkenazi Jews, constitute approximately 50% of Jewish Israelis. Jews who left or fled Arab and Muslim countries and their descendants, including both Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews,[290] form most of the rest of the Jewish population.[291] [292] [293] Jewish intermarriage rates run at over 35% and recent studies suggest that the percentage of Israelis descended from both Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews increases by 0.5 percent every year, with over 25% of school children now originating from both communities.[294]
^a This number includes East Jerusalem and West Bank areas. Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem is internationally unrecognized.
Language
Israel has two official languages, Hebrew andArabic.[9] Hebrew is the primary language of the state and is spoken every day by the majority of the population. Arabic is spoken by the Arab minority, with Hebrew taught in Arab schools.English was an official language during the Mandate period; it lost this status after the creation of Israel, but retains a role comparable to that of an official language,[296] [297] [298] as may be seen in road signs and official documents. Many Israelis communicate reasonably well in English, as many television programs are broadcast in English with subtitles and the language is taught from the early grades in elementary school. In addition, Israeli universities offer courses in the English language on various subjects.[299] As a country of immigrants, many languages can be heard on the streets. Due to mass immigration from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia (some 130,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel),[300] [301]Russian and Amharic are widely spoken.[302] More than one million Russian-speaking immigrants arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union states between 1990 and 2004.[303] French is spoken by around 700,000 Israelis,[304] mostly originating from France and North Africa (see Maghrebi Jews).
Religion
The Dome of the Rock and theWestern Wall, Jerusalem.
Israel comprises a major part of the Holy Land, a region of significant importance to all Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Druzeand Bahá'í Faith.
The religious affiliation of Israeli Jews varies widely: a social survey for those over the age of 20 indicates that 55% say they are "traditional", while 20% consider themselves "secular Jews", 17% define themselves as "Religious Zionists"; 8% define themselves as "Haredi Jews".[305] Haredi Jews are expected to represent more than 20% of Israel's Jewish population by 2028.[306]
9th Station of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa street in Jerusalem. TheChurch of the Holy Sepulchre in the background is venerated by Christians as the site of the Burial of Jesus.[307]
Making up 16% of the population, Muslims constitute Israel's largest religious minority. About 2% of the population is Christian and 1.5% is Druze.[308] The Christian population primarily comprises Arab Christians, but also includes post-Soviet immigrants, the foreign laborers of multinational origins, and followers of Messianic Judaism, considered by most Christians and Jews to be a form of Christianity.[309] Members of many other religious groups, includingBuddhists and Hindus, maintain a presence in Israel, albeit in small numbers.[310] Out of more than one million immigrants from the formerSoviet Union in Israel, about 300,000 are considered not Jewish by the Orthodox rabbinate.[311]
The city of Jerusalem is of special importance to Jews, Muslims and Christians as it is the home of sites that are pivotal to their religious beliefs, such as the Old City that incorporates the Western Wall and theTemple Mount, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.[312] Other locations of religious importance in Israel are Nazareth (holy in Christianity as the site of the Annunciation of Mary), Tiberias and Safed (two of the Four Holy Cities in Judaism), the White Mosque in Ramla (holy in Islam as the shrine of the prophetSaleh), and the Church of Saint George in Lod (holy in Christianity and Islam as the tomb of Saint George or Al Khidr). A number of other religious landmarks are located in the West Bank, among them Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, the birthplace of Jesus and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. The administrative center of the Bahá'í Faith and the Shrine of the Báb are located at the Bahá'í World Centre in Haifa; the leader of the faith is buried in Acre. Apart from maintenance staff, there is no Bahá'í community in Israel, although it is a destination for pilgrimages. Bahá'í staff in Israel do not teach their faith to Israelis following strict policy.[313] [314] [315] A few miles south of the Bahá'í World Centre is the Middle East centre of the reformist Ahmadiyya movement. Its mixed neighbourhood of Jews and Ahmadi Arabs is the only one of its kind in the country.[316] [317]
Education
Education in Israel is highly valued in the national culture with its historical values dating back to Ancient Israel and was viewed as one fundamental blocks of ancient Israelite life.[318] Israeli culture views higher education as the key to higher mobility and socioeconomic status in Israeli society.[319] The emphasis of education within Israeli society goes to the gulf within the Jewish diaspora from the Renaissance andEnlightenment Movement all the way to the roots of Zionism in the 1880s. Jewish communities in the Levant were the first to introduce compulsory education for which the organized community, not less than the parents, was responsible for the education of the next generation of Jews.[320] With contemporary Jewish culture's strong emphasis, promotion of scholarship and learning and the strong propensity to promote cultivation of intellectual pursuits as well as the nations high university educational attainment rate exemplifies how highly Israeli society values higher education.[321] [322] [323] [324] [325] [326] The Israeli education system has been praised for various reasons, including its high quality and its major role in spurring Israel's economic development and technological boom.[327] Many international business leaders and organizations such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates have praised Israel for its high quality of education in helping spur Israel's economic development.[328][329] In 2012, the country ranked second among OECD countries (tied with Japan and after Canada) for the percentage of 25- to 64-year-olds that have attained tertiary education with 46 percent compared with the OECD average of 32 percent. In addition, nearly twice as many Israelis aged 55–64 held a higher education degree compared to other OECD countries, with 47 percent holding an academic degree compared with the OECD average of 25%.[39] [40] In 2012, the country ranked third in the world in the number of academic degrees per capita (20 percent of the population).[330] [331]
Israel has a school life expectancy of 15.5 years[332] and a literacy rate of 97.1% according to the United Nations.[333] The State Education Law, passed in 1953, established five types of schools: state secular, state religious, ultra orthodox, communal settlement schools, and Arab schools. The public secular is the largest school group, and is attended by the majority of Jewish and non-Arab pupils in Israel. Most Arabs send their children to schools where Arabic is the language of instruction.[334] Education is compulsory in Israel for children between the ages of three and eighteen.[335] [336] Schooling is divided into three tiers – primary school (grades 1–6), middle school (grades 7–9), and high school (grades 10–12) – culminating with Bagrut matriculation exams. Proficiency in core subjects such as mathematics, the Hebrew language, Hebrew and general literature, the English language, history, Biblical scripture and civics is necessary to receive a Bagrut certificate.[337] In Arab, Christian and Druze schools, the exam on Biblical studies is replaced by an exam on Muslim, Christian or Druze heritage.[338] Christian Arabs are one of the most educated groups in Israel.[339] Maariv have describe the Christian Arabs sectors as "the most successful in education system",[339] since Christian Arabs fared the best in terms of education in comparison to any other group receiving an education in Israel.[340] Israeli children from Russian-speaking families have a higher bagrut pass rate at high-school level.[341] Although amongst.
The Israelites (; Hebrew: בני ישראל Bnei Yisra'el)[1] were a Semitic-speaking people of the ancient Near East, who inhabited part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods.[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] The ancient Israelites are considered an outgrowth of the indigenous Canaanite populations that long inhabited the Southern Levant, Syria, ancient Israel and the Transjordan.[7] [8] [9]
In the Hebrew Bible, the term "Israelites" refers to the direct descendants of any of the sons of the patriarch Jacob, or of the people called Israel, and of a worshiper of the God of Israel, Yahweh. In the period of the divided monarchy it referred only to inhabitants of the northern kingdom, and is only extended to cover people of the southern kingdom in post-exilic usage.[10] Other terms sometimes used include the "Hebrews" and the "Twelve Tribes" (of Israel).
The Jews are named after and descended from the southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah,[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] particularly the tribes of Judah, Benjamin,Simeon and partially Levi. The word "Jews" is found in Kings (16:6), Chronicles (I, 4:18), and in numerous passages in the Book of Jeremiah, the Book of Zechariah and theBook of Esther.[22] The Samaritans, whose religious texts consist of the five books of the Samaritan Torah (but which do not contain the books comprising the JewishTanakh), do not refer to themselves as Jews, although they do regard themselves as Israelites, in accordance with the Torah.
The Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), often called the Northern Kingdom of Israel, contained all the tribes except for the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Following its conquest by Assyria, these ten tribes were allegedly dispersed and lost to history, and henceforth known as the Ten Lost Tribes. Jewish tradition holds that Samaria was so named because the region's mountainous terrain was used to keep "Guard" (Shamer) for incoming enemy attack. According to Samaritan tradition, however, the Samaritan ethnonym is not derived from the region of Samaria, but from the fact that they were the "Guardians" (Shamerim) of the true Israelite religion. Thus, according to Samaritan tradition, the region was named Samaria after them, not vice versa. In Jewish Hebrew, the Samaritans are called Shomronim, while in Samaritan Hebrew they call themselves Shamerim.
In Judaism, an Israelite is, broadly speaking, a lay member of the Jewishethnoreligious group, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohanim and Levites. In texts of Jewish law such as the Mishnah and Gemara, the term יהודי (Yehudi), meaning Jew, is rarely used, and instead the ethnonym ישראלי (Yisraeli), or Israelite, is widely used to refer to Jews. Samaritans commonly refer to themselves and Jews collectively as Israelites, and describe themselves as the Israelite Samaritans.[23] [24]
Etymology
The Merneptah stele. While alternative translations exist, the majority ofbiblical archaeologists translate a set of hieroglyphs as "Israel", representing the first instance of the name Israel in the historical record.
The term "Israelite" is the English name for the descendants of the biblical patriarch Jacob in ancient times, which is derived from the GreekΙσραηλίτες,[25] which was used to translate theBiblical Hebrew term "b'nei yisrael", יִשְׂרָאֵל as either "sons of Israel" or "children of Israel".[26]
The name "Israel" first appears in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis 32:29. It refers to the renaming of Jacob, who, according to the Bible, wrestled with an angel, who gave him a blessing and renamed him "Israel" because he had "striven with God and with men, and have prevailed". The Hebrew Bible etymologizes the name as from yisra "to prevail over" or "to struggle/wrestle with", and el, "God, the divine".[27] [28]
The name "Israel" first appears in non-biblical sources c. 1209 BCE, in an inscription of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah. The inscription is very brief and says simply: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not" (see below). The inscription refers to the nation, not to an individual.
Terminology
In modern Hebrew, b'nei yisrael ("children of Israel") can denote the Jewish peopleat any time in history; it is typically used to emphasize Jewish religious identity. From the period of the Mishna (but probably used before that period) the term Yisrael ("an Israel") acquired an additional narrower meaning of Jews of legitimate birth other than Levites and Aaronite priests (kohanim). In modern Hebrew this contrasts with the term Yisraeli (English "Israeli"), a citizen of the modern State of Israel, regardless of religion or ethnicity.
The term Hebrew has Eber as an eponymous ancestor. It is used synonymously with "Israelites", or as an ethnolinguistic term for historical speakers of the Hebrew language in general.
The Greek term Ioudaioi (Jews) was an exonym originally referring to members of the Tribe of Judah, which formed the nucleus of the kingdom of Judah, and was later adopted as a self-designation by people in the diaspora who identified themselves as loyal to the God of Israel and the Temple in Jerusalem.[29] [30] [31] [32]
The Samaritans, who claim descent from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (plusLevi through Aaron for kohens), are named after the Israelite Kingdom of Samaria, but the Jews, until modern times, have contested their claimed lineage, deeming them to have been conquered foreigners who were settled in the Land of Israel by the Assyrians, as was the typical Assyrian policy to obliterate national identities. Today, Jews and Samaritans both recognize each other as communities with an authentic Israelite origin.[33]
The terms "Jews" and "Samaritans" largely replaced the title "Children of Israel"[34] as the common used ethnonym for each respective community.
Historical Israelites
Several theories exist proposing the origins of the Israelites in raiding groups, infiltrating nomads or emerging from indigenous Canaanites driven from the wealthier urban areas by poverty to seek their fortunes in the highland.[35] Various, ethnically distinct groups of itinerant nomads such as the Habiru and Shasurecorded in Egyptian texts as active in Edom and Canaan could have been related to the later Israelites, which does not exclude the possibility that the majority may have had their origins in Canaan proper. The name Yahweh, the god of the later Israelites, may indicate connections with the region of Mount Seir in Edom.[36]
The prevailing academic opinion today is that the Israelites were a mixture of peoples predominantly indigenous to Canaan, though an Egyptian matrix of peoples may also played a role in their ethnogenesis.[37] [38] [39] with an ethnic composition similar to that in Ammon, Edom and Moab,[38] and including Hapiru and Šośu [40] The defining feature which marked them off from the surrounding societies was a staunch egalitarian organization focused on Yahweh worship, rather than mere kingship.[38]
The language of the Canaanites may perhaps be best described as an "archaic form of Hebrew, standing in much the same relationship to the Hebrew of the Old Testament as does the language of Chaucer to modern English. "The Canaanites were also the first people, as far as is known, to have used an alphabet.[41]
The name Israel first appears c. 1209 BCE, at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the very beginning of the period archaeologists and historians call Iron Age I, on theMerneptah Stele raised by the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah. The inscription is very brief
Plundered is Canaan with every evil, Carried off is Ashkelon, Seized upon is Gezer, Yenoc am is made as that which does not existIsrael lies fallow, it has no seed; Ḫurru has become a widow because of Egypt.[36]
As distinct from the cities named (Ashkelon,Gezer, Yenoam) which are written with atoponymic marker, Israel is written hieroglyphically with a demonymicdeterminative indicating that the reference is to a human group, variously located in central Palestine[36] or the highlands of Samaria.[42] Over the next two hundred years (the period of Iron Age I) the number of highland villages increased from 25 to over 300[8] and the settled population doubled to 40,000.[43] By the 10th century BCE a rudimentary state had emerged in the north-central highlands,[44] and in the 9th century this became a kingdom.[45] Settlement in the southern highlands was minimal from the 12th through the 10th centuries BCE, but a state began to emerge there in the 9th century,[46]and from 850 BCE onwards a series of inscriptions are evidence of a kingdom which its neighbours refer to as the "House of David."[47]
After the destruction of the Israelite kingdoms ofJudah and Samaria in 586 BCE and 720 BCE respectively,[48] [49] the concepts of Jew and Samaritan gradually replaced Judean and Israelite. When the Jews returned from theBabylonian captivity, the Hasmonean kingdomwas established in present-day Israel, consisting of three regions which were Judea, Samaria, and the Galilee. In the pre-exilic first Temple periodthe political power of Judea was concentrated within the tribe of Judah, Samaria was dominated by the tribe of Ephraim and theHouse of Joseph, while the Galilee was associated with the tribe of Naphtali, the most eminent tribe of northern Israel.[50] [51] At the time of the Kingdom of Samaria, the Galilee was populated by northern tribes of Israel, but following the Babylonian exile the region became Jewish. During the second Temple period relations between the Jews and Samaritans remained tense. In 120 BCE the Hasmonean king Yohanan Hyrcanos Idestroyed the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim, due to the resentment between the two groups over a disagreement of whether Mount Moriah in Jerusalem orMount Gerizim in Shechem was the actual site of the Aqedah, and the chosen place for the Holy Temple, a source of contention that had been growing since the two houses of the former united monarchy first split asunder in 930 BCE and which had finally exploded into warfare.[52] [53] 190 years after the destruction of the Samaritan Temple and the surrounding area of Shechem, the Roman emperor Titus launched a military campaign to crush the Jewish revolt of 66 CE, which resulted in thedestruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, and the subsequent exile of Jews from Judea and the Galilee in 135 CE following the Bar Kochba revolt.[54] [55]
Biblical Israelites
The Israelite story begins with some of theculture heroes of the Jewish people, thePatriarchs. The Torah traces the Israelites to the patriarch Jacob, grandson of Abraham, who was renamed Israel after a mysterious incident in which he wrestles all night with God or an angel. Jacob's twelve sons (in order of birth), Reuben,Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher,Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin, become the ancestors of twelve tribes, with the exception of Joseph, whose two sons Mannasseh and Ephraim, who were adopted by Jacob, become tribal eponyms (Genesis 48).[56]
The mothers of Jacob's sons are:
- Leah: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun
- Rachel: Joseph (Ephraim and Menasseh), Benjamin
- Bilhah (Rachel's maid): Dan, Naphtali
- Zilpah (Leah's maid): Gad, Asher (Genesis 35:22–26)[56]
Jacob and his sons are forced by famine to go down into Egypt, although Joseph was already there, as he had been sold into slavery while young. When they arrive they and their families are 70 in number, but within four generations they have increased to 600,000 men of fighting age, and the Pharaoh of Egypt, alarmed, first enslaves them and then orders the death of all male Hebrew children. A woman from the tribe of Levi hides her child, places him in a woven basket, and sends him down the Nile river. He is named Mosheh, or Moses, by the Egyptians who find him. Being a Hebrew baby, they award a Hebrew woman the task of raising him, the mother of Moses volunteers, and the child and his mother are reunited.[57] [58]
At the age of forty Moses kills an Egyptian, after he sees him beating a Hebrew to death, and escapes as a fugitive into the Sinai desert, where he is taken in by the Midianites and marriesZipporah, the daughter of the Midianite priestJethro. When he is eighty years old, Moses is tending a herd of sheep in solitude on Mount Sinai when he sees a desert shrub that is burning but is not consumed. The God of Israelcalls to Moses from the fire and reveals his name, Yahweh (from the Hebrew root word 'HWH' meaning to exist), and tells Moses that he is being sent to Pharaoh to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt.[59]
Yahweh tells Moses that if Pharaoh refuses to let the Hebrews go to say to Pharaoh "Thus says Yahweh: Israel is my son, my first-born and I have said to you: Let my son go, that he may serve me, and you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will slay your son, your first-born". Moses returns to Egypt and tells Pharaoh that he must let the Hebrew slaves go free. Pharaoh refuses and Yahweh strikes the Egyptians with a series of horrific plagues, wonders, and catastrophes, after which Pharaoh relents and banishes the Hebrews from Egypt. Moses leads the Israelites out of bondage[60]toward the Red Sea, but Pharaoh changes his mind and arises to massacre the fleeing Hebrews. Pharaoh finds them by the sea shore and attempts to drive them into the ocean with his chariots and drown them.[61]
Yahweh causes the Red Sea to part and the Hebrews pass through on dry land into the Sinai. After the Israelites escape from the midst of the sea, Yahweh causes the ocean to close back in on the pursuing Egyptian army, drowning them to death. In the desert Yahweh feeds them with manna that accumulates on the ground with the morning dew. They are led by a column of cloud, which ignites at night and becomes a pillar of fire to illuminate the way, southward through the desert until they come to Mount Sinai. The twelve tribes of Israel encamp around the mountain, and on the third day Mount Sinai begins to smolder, then catches fire, and Yahweh speaks the Ten Commandments from the midst of the fire to all the Israelites, from the top of the mountain.[62]
Moses ascends biblical Mount Sinai and fasts for forty days while he writes down the Torah as Yahweh dictates, beginning with Bereshith and the creation of the universe and earth.[63] [64] He is shown the design of the Mishkan and the Ark of the Covenant, which Bezalel is given the task of building. Moses descends from the mountain forty days later with the Sefer Torah he wrote, and with two rectangularlapis lazuli[65] tablets, into which Yahweh had carved the Ten Commandments inPaleo–Hebrew. In his absence, Aaron has constructed an image of Yahweh,[66]depicting him as a young Golden Calf, and has presented it to the Israelites, declaring "Behold O Israel, this is your god who brought you out of the land of Egypt". Moses smashes the two tablets and grinds the golden calf into dust, then throws the dust into a stream of water flowing out of Mount Sinai, and forces the Israelites to drink from it.[67]
Map of the twelve tribes of Israel (before the move of Dan to the north), based on the Book of Joshua
Moses ascends Mount Sinai for a second time and Yahweh passes before him and says: 'Yahweh, Yahweh, a god of compassion, and showing favor, slow to anger, and great in kindness and in truth, who shows kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving wrongdoing and injustice and wickedness, but will by no means clear the guilty, causing the consequences of the parent's wrongdoing to befall their children, and their children's children, to the third and fourth generation'[68] Moses then fasts for another forty days while Yahweh carves the Ten Commandments into a second set of stone tablets. After the tablets are completed, light emanates from the face of Moses for the rest of his life, causing him to wear a veil so he does not frighten people.[69]
Moses descends Mount Sinai and the Israelites agree to be the chosen people of Yahweh and follow all the laws of the Torah. Moses prophesies if they forsake the Torah, Yahweh will exile them for the total number of years they did not observe the shmita.[70] Bezael constructs the Ark of the Covenant and the Mishkan, where the presence of Yahweh dwells on earth in theHoly of Holies, above the Ark of the Covenant, which houses the Ten Commandments. Moses sends spies to scout out the Land of Canaan, and the Israelites are commanded to go up and conquer the land, but they refuse, due to their fear of warfare and violence. In response, Yahweh condemns the entire generation, including Moses, who is condemned for striking the rock at Meribah, to exile and death in the Sinai desert.[71]
Before Moses dies he gives a speech to the Israelites where he paraphrases a summary of the mizwoth given to them by Yahweh, and recites a prophetic song called the Ha'azinu. Moses prophesies that if the Israelites disobey the Torah, Yahweh will cause a global exile in addition to the minor one prophesied earlier at Mount Sinai, but at the end of days Yahweh will gather them back to Israel from among the nations when they turn back to the Torah with zeal.[72] The events of the Israelite exodus and their sojourn in the Sinai are memorialized in the Jewish and Samaritan festivals of Passover and Sukkoth, and the giving of the Torah in the Jewish celebration of Shavuoth.[56] [73]
Forty years after the Exodus, following the death of the generation of Moses, a new generation, led by Joshua, enters Canaan and takes possession of the land in accordance with the promise made to Abraham by Yahweh. Land is allocated to the tribes by lottery. Eventually the Israelites ask for a king, and Yahweh gives themSaul. David, the youngest (divinely favored) son of Jesse of Bethlehem would succeed Saul. Under David the Israelites establish the united monarchy, and under David's son Solomon they construct the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, using the 400-year-old materials of the Mishkan, where Yahweh continues to tabernacle himself among them. On the death of Solomon and reign of his son, Rehoboam, the kingdom is divided in two.[74]
The kings of the northern Kingdom of Samaria are uniformly bad, permitting the worship of other gods and failing to enforce the worship of Yahweh alone, and so Yahweh eventually allows them to be conquered and dispersed among the peoples of the earth; and strangers rule over their remnant in the northern land. In Judahsome kings are good and enforce the worship of Yahweh alone, but many are bad and permit other gods, even in the Holy Temple itself, and at length Yahweh allows Judah to fall to her enemies, the people taken into captivity in Babylon, the land left empty and desolate, and the Holy Temple itself destroyed.[56] [75]
Yet despite these events Yahweh does not forget his people, but sends Cyrus, king of Persia to deliver them from bondage. The Israelites are allowed to return to Judah and Benjamin, the Holy Temple is rebuilt, the priestly orders restored, and the service of sacrifice resumed. Through the offices of the sage Ezra, Israel is constituted as a holy nation, bound by the Torah and holding itself apart from all other peoples.[56] [76]
See also
- Assyrian captivity
- Biblical archaeology
- Groups claiming affiliation with Israelites
- History of ancient Israel and Judah
- Israeli Jews
- Lachish relief
- Masoretic Text
- Samaritan Pentateuch
- Tribal allotments of Israel
- Who is a Jew?
References
- "Israelite". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
- 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 Naʼaman, 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): 177-187.
- 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.
- Tubb 1998, pp. 13–14
- McNutt 1999, p. 47.
- K. L. Noll, Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: An Introduction, A&C Black, 2001 p.164:‘It would seems 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.’
- Robert L.Cate, 'Israelite', in Watson E. Mills,Roger Aubrey Bullard, Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, Mercer University Press, 1990 p.420.
- Tubb 1998, pp. 13–14
- Ann E. Killebrew, Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity. An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines and Early Israel 1300-1100 B.C.E. (Archaeology and Biblical Studies), Society of Biblical Literature, 2005
- Schama, Simon (18 March 2014). The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-233944-7.
- * "In the broader sense of the term, a Jew is any person belonging to the worldwide group that constitutes, through descent or conversion, a continuation of the ancient Jewish people, who were themselves descendants of the Hebrews of the Old Testament."
- "The Jewish people as a whole, initially called Hebrews (ʿIvrim), were known as Israelites (Yisreʾelim) from the time of their entrance into the Holy Land to the end of the Babylonian Exile (538 BC)."
- "Israelite, in the broadest sense, a Jew, or a descendant of the Jewish patriarch Jacob" Israelite at Encyclopedia Britannica
- "Hebrew, any member of an ancient northern Semitic people that were the ancestors of the Jews." Hebrew (People) at Encyclopedia Britannica
- Ostrer, Harry (19 April 2012). Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-970205-3.
- Brenner, Michael (13 June 2010). A Short History of the Jews. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-14351-X.
- Scheindlin, Raymond P. (1998). A Short History of the Jewish People: From Legendary Times to Modern Statehood. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513941-9.
- Adams, Hannah (1840). The History of the Jews: From the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Present Time. Sold at the London Society House and by Duncan and Malcom, and Wertheim.
- Diamond, Jared (1993). "Who are the Jews?" (PDF). Retrieved November 8, 2010.Natural History 102:11 (November 1993): 12-19.
- The people and the faith of the Bible by André Chouraqui, Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1975, p. 43 [1]
- Yesaahq ben 'Aamraam. Samaritan Exegesis: A Compilation Of Writings From The Samaritans. 2013. ISBN 1482770814. Benyamim Tsedaka, at 1:24
- John Bowman. Samaritan Documents Relating to Their History, Religion and Life (Pittsburgh Original Texts and Translations Series No. 2). 1977. ISBN 0915138271
- Strong's Exhaustive Concordance G2474
- Brown Drivers Briggs H3478
- Scherman, Rabbi Nosson (editor), The Chumash, The Artscroll Series, Mesorah Publications, LTD, 2006, pages 176–77
- Kaplan, Aryeh, "Jewish Meditation", Schocken Books, New York, 1985, page 125
- Caroline Johnson Hodge,If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul, Oxford University Press, 2007 pp.52-55.
- Markus Cromhout,Jesus and Identity: Reconstructing Judean Ethnicity in Q,James Clarke & Co, 2015 pp.121ff.
- Daniel Lynwood Smith,Into the World of the New Testament: Greco-Roman and Jewish Texts and Contexts, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015 p.124.
- Stephen Sharot,Comparative Perspectives on Judaisms and Jewish Identities,Wayne State University Press 2011 p.146.
- "Homepage of A.B Institute of Samaritan Studies". Retrieved March 27, 2015.
- Settings of silver: an introduction to Judaism, Stephen M. Wylen, Paulist Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8091-3960-X, p. 59
- Israel Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, Simon and Schuster 2002, p. 104.
- K. van der Toorn,Family Religion in Babylonia, Ugarit and Israel: Continuity and Changes in the Forms of Religious Life, BRILL 1996 pp. 181, 282.
- Alan Mittleman, 'Judaism:Covenant, Pluralism and Piety‘, in Bryan S. Turner (ed.)The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, John Wiley & Sons, 2010 pp.340-363 p.346.
- Norman Gottwald, Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 BCE, A&C Black, 1999 p.433, cf.455-456
- Richard A. Gabriel,The Military History of Ancient Israel, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003 p.63:'The ethnically mixed character of the Israelites is reflected even more clearly in the foreign names of the group's leadership. Moses himself, of course, has an Egyptian name. Hur is Moses' name. But so do Hophni, Phinehas, Hur, and Merari, the son of Levi.'
- Stefan Paas Creation and Judgement: Creation Texts in Some Eighth Century Prophets, BRILL, 2003 pp.110-121, esp.144.
- "Canaan". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved March 27, 2015.
- Grabbe 2008, p.75
- McNutt 1999, p. 70.
- Joffe pp.440 ff.
- Davies, 1992, pp.63–64.
- Joffe p.448–9.
- Joffe p. 450.
- Finkelstein & Silberman 2001, The Bible Unearthed p. 221.
- Grabbe, Lester L. (2004). A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period. T&T Clark International. p. 28. ISBN 0-567-08998-3.
- Sefer Devariam Pereq לד, ב; Deuteronomy 34, 2, Sefer Yehoshua Pereq כ, ז; Joshua 20, 7, Sefer Yehoshua Pereq כא, לב; Joshua 21, 32, Sefer Melakhim Beth Pereq טו, כט; Second Kings 15, 29, Sefer Devrei Ha Yamim Aleph Pereq ו, סא; First Chronicles 6, 76
- See File:12 Tribes of Israel Map.svg
- http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/arc/neapolis/samaritantemple.htm
- Y. Magen. "The Gathering at the President's House". Israel Antiquities Authority. Retrieved March 27, 2015.
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XVIII.7.2. Josephus, War of the Jews II.8.11, II.13.7, II.14.4, II.14.5
- "The Diaspora". Jewish Virtual Library.; "The Bar-Kokhba Revolt". Jewish Virtual Library.
- The Jews in the time of Jesus: an introduction page 18 Stephen M. Wylen, Paulist Press, 1996, 215 pages, pp.18-20
- Bereshith, Genesis
- Shemoth; Exodus 1 and 2
- Shemoth; Exodus 3 and 4
- English translation of the papyrus. A translation also in R. B. Parkinson, The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems. Oxford World's Classics, 1999.
- Shemoth; Exodus 5 through 15
- Shemoth; Exodus 15, 19, and 20
- Bereshith; Genesis 1
- The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth by Gerald L. Schroeder Ph.D. (May 9, 2002)
- Shemoth; Exodus 24
- Tehillim; Psalms 106, 19-20
- Shemoth; Exodus 21 through 32
- Shemoth; Exodus, 34, 6-7
- Shemoth; Exodus 34
- Wayiqra; Leviticus 26
- Shemoth; Exodus 35 through 40, Wayiqra; Leviticus, Bamidhbar; Numbers, Devariam; Deuteronomy
- Devariam; Deuteronomy 28 and 29 and 30
- Devariam; Deuteronomy
- Yehoshua; Joshua, Shoftim; Judges, Shmuel; Samuel, Melakhim; Kings
- Melakhim; Kings, Divrei HaYamim; Chronicles
- Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah
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