Jews Never Left the Land of Israel

We like to think of Zionists as “returning to the land,” or more exactly, “returning to the Land of Israel.” That’s what Zionism is supposed to be all about – an ingathering of exiles, after 2,000 years when Jews, we are led to believe, lived only outside Israel. But that narrative is, according to Jacob Sivak, untrue. Jews have lived continuously in what is now the state of Israel for 3,000 years. His argument can be found here.

I [the author Jacob Sivak] just finished reading former US Ambassador David Friedman’s recent article, in which he makes the point that Judaism and Zionism are inseparable. It is a fine article and I agree with him, but I wonder if it places too much emphasis on the return of the Jewish people to their homeland after a lengthy absence. I have the same concern with an upbeat review of Israel’s achievements in a recent article by David Weinberg, which refers to two millennia of Jewish dispersion.

To imply that the Jews left the Land of Israel for 2,000 years, after the fall of Masada, is not accurate. It feeds into the view that the modern state of Israel is a European colonial enterprise with no historical connection to the land. What’s more, the Jewish return did not originate with the modern Zionist movement in the early 1880s. Aliyah has been continuous throughout the ages.

ADVERTISEMENT

A great part of Palestinian propaganda is dedicated to spreading the fiction that Jews are a people who lived outside the Middle East for at least 2,000 years, before the Zionist movement arose, and they began to arrive in Palestine in the late 19th century, when the land was inhabited, so those propagandists attempt to convince us, solely by Arabs. Then European Jews arrived as latter-day colonists, stealing land from those indigenous Arabs, just the way that British and French imperialists had taken over much of the global south, and incorporated those lands in their empires. According to this narrative, the Jews seized Palestine just the way the French took Algeria, or the British colonized Kenya. And like those British and French colonists, the Jewish “settlers” deserve to be expelled and the land handed back to its rightful owners, the Palestinian Arabs.

 The Jewish people never really left the Holy Land. Certainly, many were killed or expelled at the time of Masada and later, but many Jews continued to live in “Palestine” (the name given by the Romans after the Bar Kochba revolt, 132-135 CE) for a considerable time afterward. The evidence is clear from the extensive archeological sites visible today, such as those at Beit Alpha, Beit She’arim, Tzippori (Sepphoris), Baram, and many others. Jews formed a majority of the population of Palestine until at least the fifth century CE, and an autonomous Roman-recognized Jewish patriarchate in Palestine existed until 429 CE.

These numerous archeological sites show the evidence of continuous Jewish settlement, long after the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt, after which, so the received – and incorrect — wisdom goes, Jews were expelled from the land and became exiles. In fact, the many Jewish sites unearthed by archeologist provide evidence of a Jewish patriarchate, a quasi-state, recognized by Rome, that lasted until 429 A.D.

The siege of Masada, where 960 Jews held out against a siege by Roman soldiers, took place in 73-74 A.D. Once it was clear that the Romans had won, and would soon invade their fortress, the 960 Jews on Masada took part in a mass suicide, after which the Jews remaining elsewhere in Palestine were supposedly expelled by the Romans. But this expulsion never happened.

 Archeological ruins point to the establishment of more than 80 synagogues, particularly in the Galilee, during the six centuries after the destruction of the Temple. After Masada, the Jewish population was substantial enough for three serious revolts against Roman or Byzantine rule to occur; the last one, against the Emperor Heraclius, was in the seventh century.

ADVERTISEMENT

If Palestine – the Land of Israel — had been emptied of its Jews after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D., and the mass suicide at Masada in 74 A.D., how do we explain the 80 synagogues built in the six centuries after Masada, and found all over the Land of Israel? The extensive archeological evidence cannot be ignored.