A little history on our land Israel'
In 70 CE, the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman Empire, effectively ending Jewish rule in the Land of Israel until 1948.
While the Jewish population was not given a decree to leave the land, the conditions, such as the fiscus Judaicus, a special tax imposed on Jews, were grave enough to convince most residents to disperse around the globe.
Still, some Jews did remain in Palestine. Bar Kochba led a small band of Jews in a revolt against the Romans from 132-135 CE in response to the building of the new Roman city "Aelia Capitolina" on the grounds of Jerusalem. While the revolt was met with violent and harsh retributions, by the end of the century, the Romans officially permitted Judaism as a sanctioned religion in Palestine.
When the Christian Byzantines took control of Palestine in the fourth century, many restrictions were put on the remaining Jewish community, from banning intermarriage between Christians and Jews to forbidding Jews from owning Christian slaves. There was talk of banning Judaism outright, but those plans never came to fruition.
Despite its smaller pool of scholars, the rabbinic academies of Palestine were able to complete what is known today as the Talmud Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud). Though the Babylonian Talmud is considered to be the more authoritative work, the Jerusalem Talmud is still one of the most important contributions to Jewish literature.
Life under Muslim Rule
In 638, Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem from the Byzantines, launching Muslim rule over the territory. While Jews and Christians were considered second class citizens, the amount of direct persecution decreased substantially.
The community in Palestine was fairly quiet during the early Islamic period. A rabbinic academy was formed in Tiberius (and later moved to Ramle) in order to compete, unsuccessfully, with the ten Jewish academies in Baghdad.
Christian Rule: More of the Same
In 1099, Crusaders arrived in Palestine and created a Christian kingdom in Jerusalem that lasted until 1187. The Crusaders banned Jews from living in the city of Jerusalem, though they were permitted to live in the rest of Palestine, and were permitted to visit Jerusalem.
But Christian rule was short-lived. In 1187, Saladin and the Ayyubid dynasty conquered Jerusalem. Indeed, while Christian Europe wanted to establish a permanent presence in Jerusalem and the Middle East, they eventually retreated to Europe after the Muslim recapture of Acre in 1291.
Israeli History QuizIn 1258, Baghdad fell to the Mongols. Fearing a collapse of their empire and wanting to prove their strength, the Muslim rulers imposed harsh sanctions on Jews and Christians throughout the region, including Palestine. These restrictions--including wearing special clothing and doctors not being allowed to serve Muslim patients--were enumerated in the seventh century Pact of Umar, a list of laws concerning non-Muslims living in Muslim lands that had previously rarely been enforced.
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