Tuesday, May 23, 2017

The Impossible People

How did the Jews return to Israel after being scattered all over the Earth for more than 1700 years?

It is not humanly possible for a people group to be almost destroyed off the face of the Earth, the survivors of the genocide to be broken into small groups of individuals, those small groups to be removed from their homeland, then scattered across every country on Earth, remain separated from each other for more than 1700 years, and then regather back in their ancient homeland to reunited as the original people group again.  Yet this is exactly what the people of Israel did.  That is why I call them the Impossible People.

The land of Israel is the only land in history that was vacated of its ancient people, and then repopulated with their descendants.  This did not begin a generation or two later, but after more than 1700 years of almost complete vacancy.  Every other people group who has been removed from their ancient homeland has either disappeared from history, or lost their identity by being completely assimilated into the countries that they were scattered to, within five generations.

After the Romans scattered the Jews of Jerusalem throughout the Roman Empire in 70 AD, and then scattered the Jews of Judaea throughout the Roman Empire in 135 AD, there were practically no Jews left in the land of Israel.  Where there had been over two and a half million Jews living in the land of Israel, there were less than two thousand left, and possibly as few as two hundred.  However, more than 100,000 Jews were enslaved, removed from the land of Israel, and scattered throughout the Roman Empire.  From there, they were further scattered over the centuries, until there was not a country on Earth that did not have some Jews living in it.  

(The Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) has always left a few Jews in the Promised Land as a witness that He had not forgotten his promise to Abraham (Abram), Yitzakh (Isaac) and Jacob (Yah'acob aka Israel).  There are the ruins of synagogues in Israel today from various time periods showing a continuous presence of some Jews in the land of Israel from the time of the Romans until the time of British).

Disasters happened frequently over the centuries in the land of Israel, like great plagues, or war brought on by new empires taking control of the land of Israel, that would either force more Jews out of the land of Israel, or kill off more Jews in the land of Israel.  Some Jews were also usually hauled off as slaves whenever a new empire took control of the land of Israel.

The Byzantine Empire took control of the land of Israel after the Roman Empire split in two empires in 390 AD. The land of Israel was a weak spot in the Byzantine Empire and someone needed to occupy it to act as a buffer against the advances of the Sassanid Empire (Persian).  Since it was hard to find anyone who was willing to live there, other than religious professionals to maintain religious sites, the Byzantine Empire allowed Jews to move back into the former area of Judaea, except for Jerusalem. 

So even though there may have been as many as 400,000 Jews living in the land of Israel, before the Arab Caliphates took control of the land of Israel from the Byzantine Empire in 636 AD, their numbers soon began to diminish rapidly.

Most of the Jews who left the land of Israel went into nearby countries not controlled by the latest conquer of Israel, that offered them a better life.  Many Jews moved to Khazaria when it formed in 650 AD from the land of Israel after the Arab Caliphates took control of the land of Israel, because they had freedom of religion there.  Other Jews made similar immigrations when subsequent empires took control of the land of Israel until the time of the Ottoman Empire.

Then the Crusaders came in 1099 AD, killing every Jew and Muslim that they could find in the land of Israel.  They even killed local Christians in many cases. Their policy was, "Kill them all, and let God sort them out".  Even so, a few Jews manage to escape death, and remain in the land of Israel.

In 1187 AD, the Crusaders lost most of the land of Israel to the Ayyubid Sultanate, and the few Jews remaining in the land of Israel enjoyed a generation of relative peace, where plagues were the main source of mass destruction.

So there were less than two thousand Jews, most of them Mizrahi Jews, in the land of Israel in 1250 AD, more than 1100 years after the Romans had scattered the Jews in 135 AD.

Then the Mamluk Sultanate invaded the land of Israel in 1260 AD and fought a 31 year war to gain control of the land of Israel, during which time the land of Israel suffered great destruction and most of the population died, including most of the Jews.

So when Rambam, a Sephardic Rabbi, made aliyah to Jerusalem in 1267 AD, all alone, he could not find a synagogue there.  He wrote a letter to his oldest son explaining how desolate the city of Jerusalem was, and that there were only two other Jewish men living there, a pair of brothers engaged in the dye trade.  So he went to Jews in various places in the land of Israel, and helped them establish synagogues.  He finally established the first synagogue in Jerusalem in hundreds of years, once he found seven more Jewish men who were within a Sabbath days walk (about a mile), so they could form a minyan that is needed to establish a synagogue, which requires ten men at a minimum.  (Some of them appear to have had to move to new homes to be close enough, since Rambam was not able to locate them to form a synagogue when he first arrived.)

The earliest record of Ashkenazi Jews returning to the land of Israel is 1290 AD, just one year before the Mamluk Sultanate drove the Crusaders completely out of the land of Israel.  After this, a few Ashkenazi Jews continued to trickle into the land of Israel at a time.

Some Sephardic Jews also began trickling into the land of Israel after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 AD.  After this, a few Sephardic Jews continued to trickle into the land of Israel at a time.

The the Ottoman Empire then took control of the land of Israel in 1517 AD.  The Ottoman Turks were more open to letting Jews return to the land of Israel than their predecessors, since they could not find hardly anyone else who was willing to live there.  The Jews who immigrated into the land of Israel had to be supported by Jews living outside of Israel continuously, and the Ottoman Turks found interesting ways to tax the Jews in the land of Israel to bring some of that aid into their coffers.  So the Ottoman Turks allowed limited Jewish immigration into the land of Israel, so they would have some means to profit from the land of Israel.

The Ashkenazi Jews were eventually helped by Christian Zionists shortly after 1600 AD.  Christian Zionists, like Sir Isaac Newton and the Pilgrims, started working to bring about the return of the Jews to the land of Israel, because they believed that their salvation was tied to that of the Jewish people, by the everlasting covenant that the Father of Truth made with Abraham.

However, enough Ashkenazi Jews finally trickled into Jerusalem, that by 1860 AD the walls of the Old City could no longer contain them.  So in 1860 AD construction of the first neighborhood outside of the Old City, Mishkenot Sha’ananim, began.  In 1865 AD, the first new Jewish community outside of Jerusalem was built since 70 AD, and then occupied by these Ashkenazi Jews.

When Mark Twain went from Haifa to Jerusalem in 1867 AD, he reported not seeing so much as a goat on his journey.  There were only about 12,000 Jews in the land of Israel, and no one, Jew, Arab, or otherwise, lived within sight of the long stretch of road between the two cities.  He also reported that almost no one lived in Jerusalem except for Jews, and religious professionals of various religions, who maintained the many religious sites there.

The trickling of Sephardic Jews into the land of Israel had also continued throughout the Old Yishuv period, that ended around 1870 AD.  During this entire time, they remained in just four cities: Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safed.

By 1870 AD, there were still only 25,000 Jews in total living in the land of Israel.  Almost all of them lived in just 10 cities:  Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, Safed, Jaffa, Haifa, Peki'in, Acre (Akko), Nablus, and Shfaram.  This is counting the Ashkenazi Jews that trickled in from northern Europe and North America, the Sephardic Jews that trickled in from southern Europe, modern Turkey, northern Africa, the rest of the Americas, and the Mizrahi Jews that either trickled in from the Middle East, or who were descendants of those few Jews left in the land of Israel, after the war that the Mamluk Empire had waged to take control of the land of Israel.

Then starting in 1870 AD, this trickle of Ashkenazi Jews began to become a steady stream of Ashkenazi Jews, from not just Germany and France, but also from Russia, and the countries between Germany and Russia, where Ashkenazi Jews had been scattered due to various persecutions since the founding of the Holy Roman Empire in 962 AD.  These Ashkenazi Jews were met in Haifa by Mizrahi Jews from Yemen, who had reported that they had felt compelled to leave Yemen, even though they were not being persecuted there, and to come to Haifa.

These Mizrahi Jews were vital to the success that the Ashkenazi Jews, who were totally unfamiliar with living in the wasteland conditions that existed in the land of Israel at that time.  These Mizrahi Jews taught the Ashkenazi Jews how adjust to their new home.

This steady stream of Ashkenazi Jews continued to increased due to the efforts of another Ashkenazi Jew named Theodor Herzl.  The book he wrote in 1896 AD, "The Jewish State", that convinced hundreds of thousands of Ashkenazi Jews that they had to move from Europe to the Promised Land.

So as more and more Ashkenazi Jews immigrated into the Promised Land, they began to rebuild the ancient cities, that had been destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and 135 AD. They built a modern European style city on an empty expanse of sand next to the Mediterranean Sea, that is called Tel Aviv.  It was these Ashkenazi Jews who founded the first hospital and university in Israel as well.

All of these improvements caused other Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East, who were being expelled from the Muslim lands around the land of Israel, to move there as well.  However, the Ottoman Empire still controlled the land of Israel.

Then through the efforts of Ashkenazi Jews like Chaim Weizmann, and Christian Zionists, like his friend Arthur Balfour, the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917 AD that gave the land that Britain would win in World War I from the Ottoman Turks to the Jewish people.

After Britain took control of the land of Israel in 1918 AD, Weizmann then founded the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  He also helped to establish The Technion - The Israel Institute of Technology - along with other Ashkenazi Jews like Albert Einstein.  Lastly, he was responsible for founding the Weizmann Institute of Science with the help of other Ashkenazi Jews.

So with  these improvements, the small steady stream of Ashkenazi Jews immigrating to Israel grew into a bubbling brook.

Then came the Nazis and World War II.  Millions of Ashkenazi Jews were killed in the Holocaust, but millions also survived.  Most of those who survived, literally had no home to return to.  First, the Nazis had confiscated their homes and move other people into them.  Then the Allies turned the cities of the Germans into powder with carpet bombing.   The buildings that housed the apartments, which the mostly urbanized Ashkenazi Jews had lived in, simply were destroyed off the face of the Earth.

So finding themselves homeless, and wanting to get far away from the horror that they had survived, multitudes of Ashkenazi Jews moved into the Promised Land, after the war was over in 1945 AD.

In 1948 AD, the Jews finally created the country of Israel, when it was apparent that the British were going to leave, and the Jews would have to defend themselves from the same Muslims nations that had forced so many Mizrahi Jews to move into the land of Israel over the years.

So after the Ashkenazi Jews created the country of Israel, with very little help from the other Jews, the number of Jews in Israel tripled.  About half of the new wave of immigrants were Ashkenazi Jews, and half of them were Mizrahi Jews from Muslim countries.  The bubbling brook of immigrating Ashkenazi Jews had grown into a river.

Then the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 AD, which signaled the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Over the next 15 years, about 1.75 million Ashkenazi Jews immigrated from Russia to Israel.  The river of immigrating Ashkenazi Jews had became a flood.

The Ashkenazi Jews in Israel have continued to bring Jews back to Israel from every country that they have been scattered to since 135 AD.  There are Jews living in Israel today from every country on Earth, and these new streams of Jews returning to the land of Israel, have not been stemmed by the efforts of the Arabs or the United Nations.  In fact, the Ashkenazi Jews have brought back so many Jews from places like Ethiopia, that the Ashkenazi Jews only make up about 47% of the Jews in the land of Israel today.

So many Jews keep moving back to Israel that they have to continuously to rebuild the ancient cities as new settlements to absorb them.  There are now more than twice as many Jews in the land of Israel as there was in 70 AD.

The Jews have been brought back to the land of Israel in another important way, beyond just the great number of descendants of those dispersed among the nations who have returned.

The descendants of the Jews who were dispersed from the land of Israel in 70 AD and 135 AD, were involved in inter-racial marriage over the centuries.  As a result, they ended up with physical characteristics that were almost never seen among Jews in the land of Israel before the Roman Diaspora.  For example, the Jews in the land of Israel at that time did not have white skin, blond hair, or blue eyes, like many Ashkenazi Jews who moved back to the land of Israel after World War II.  The Jews had their original image changed to more like that of the nations that they lived among for many generations. 

Now, a whole new breed of Jew has emerged in the land of Israel since Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and other Jews from other places like China, have returned to the land of Israel.

This new breed of Jew is called a Sabra. (Sabra literally means "the fruit of a prickly pear cactus", - tough on the outside, but sweet on the inside.)  While any Jew born in the land of Israel is called a Sabra, many multi-generational Sabras have developed characteristics that are different from Jews born outside of the land of Israel, but common with each other.  This has been the result intermarriage between the various other types of Jews after they make aliyah to the land of Israel.

Some Sabras now look just like the Jews who lived in Judaea before the Romans scattered the Jews in 70 AD and 135 AD.  The descendants of those Jews have not just come back to the land of Israel, but the people of Israel are being reformed into their original image in the land of Israel.

The impossible has happened.

How could have all of this happened?

This is the work of the Greatest Zionist.

The Father of Truth has been bringing the Jews back to the Land of Israel, and making their population greater than it was before 70 AD (Deuteronomy 30:4-5).  The Father of Truth has been bringing back the Jewish people from all directions to the land of Israel ( Isaiah 43:5-6).  He has been bringing them back to the Land of Israel, when they were weeping from their troubles in other lands (Jeremiah 31:8-9).  He has been delivering them from those who were too strong for them, like the Nazis, so they would return to the land of Israel (Jeremiah 31:10-11).

The Father of Truth has been causing the Jews to rebuild the ancient places that were wasted (Isaiah 58:12).  He has been giving the Jews success in their efforts to rebuild cities that were destroyed more than 1700 years ago (Isaiah 61:4).  He has been filling the ancient cities that the Jews have rebuilt with large populations (Jeremiah 30:18-19).  He has been gathering the Jewish people back to the land of Israel to rebuild the ancient cities (Amos 9:14).

The Father of Truth has been filling the land of Israel again with sound of Jewish music and dancing (Jeremiah 31:4).  He has been filling the ancient cities of Israel with the sound of gladness again (Jeremiah 33:10-11).

He has been filling the streets of Jerusalem once again with singing and dancing (Jeremiah 31:12-13).  He has been filling the streets of Jerusalem with Jews, both old and young (Zechariah 8:4-5).

The Father of Truth does not just want to make the impossible to happen with the Jewish people, but He wants to make it happen with your life.  He wants you to come into the House of Truth and become the person that you were meant to be.

Like the Jews, you have been separated from the place that you were meant to live, in His presence, because of your sin (Isaiah 59:2).  You have have not been experiencing every good thing that He wants to give you, because of your sin (Jeremiah 5:25).

Like the Jews, you have rebelled against Him with your sin (Romans 3:23).  Your obedience to sin has made you to be carried off as a slave from where you were meant to live (Romans 6:16).

Like the Jews, you have been been suffering for your rebellion (Proverbs 13:15).  Your sin has made you as good as dead to the Father of Truth (Romans 7:5).

Like the Jews, you were originally meant to have a different image (Romans 8:29 ).  You have had that original image changed to be more like that of the world by living among the world for so many years (Ephesians 2:2-3).

Like the Jews, the Father of Truth has done what is impossible for you to do for yourself, and made a way for you to come back from the dead like His Son (Colossians 2:12-14).  The blood of the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) has made it possible for you to return to the place where you were meant to live (Revelation 1:5-6).

Like the Jews, you can come back to where you were meant to live, by making the Man of Truth your king because you believe that His Father raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9).  You can come into the House of Truth to be reformed into the original image that you were intended to have (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Come into the House of Truth!



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