Hadrian was the emperor of Rome from the years 117-138. Born into a Roman family which had immigrated to Spain from Italy some 250 years previously, his father was a senatorial official and Emperor Trajan's first cousin. Hadrian was zealous in pursuing his imperial ambitions and personal goals. He followed an imperial escort of professionals and bureaucrats to practically every empire province. He promoted military readiness and discipline, and he supported, planned, or financed a variety of civil and religious institutions and construction projects. Hadrian reconstructed the Pantheon and built the massive Temple of Venus and Roma in Rome. Hadrian also established a popular cult late in his reign due to his deep attachment with Greek teenager Antinous and the latter's untimely death. Notoriously, Hadrian put down the Bar Kokhba insurrection in Judea (Roman: Judaea), but his rule was otherwise described as quiet.

Hadrian sought to incorporate the Jewish Temple located in Jerusalem in the province of Judea into the conventional Roman civic-religious Imperial cult; such assimilations had long been the norm in Greece and other provinces and had shown to be effective. The Samaritans, who lived nearby, had already merged their religious practices with Hellenistic ones. Imperial demands were more difficult to persuade than strict Jewish monotheism. Simon Bar Kokhba led a major anti-Hellenistic and anti-Roman Jewish insurrection. It was a tumultuous time on both sides. Tinius Rufus, the Roman governor, requested an army to quell the resistance; and Bar Kokhba physically punished every Jew who refused to join him, even going so far as to kill. According to Justin Martyr and Eusebius, the punishment of purported Jews had to do with new Christian converts who resisted Bar Kokhba's own messianic claims.

Given the fragmentary nature of evidence, an exact date for the uprising's start is impossible to determine, but it most likely occurred between the summer and fall of 132. The Romans were overwhelmed by the uprising's organized ferocity, seemingly thought to be caused by the Hadrianic law that outlawed circumcision, a religious rite that Jews held as non-negotiable as God had instructed Abraham to circumcise himself and all the males within his household.

Hadrian summoned his general, Sextus Julius Severus, who hailed from Roman Brittania and gathered troops from as far as the Danube. A legion, or its numeric equivalent of about 4,000 soldiers, was lost by the Romans. By 135, the insurrection was put down. According to Cassius Dio, Roman army activities in Judea resulted in the deaths of 580,000 Jews and the destruction of 50 walled towns and 985 villages.

After the fall of the Judean rebellion, a substantial percentage of the population was enslaved and thus began the Jewish diaspora as many were shipped to Roman provinces across the empire, from northeast of Judea in the Caucuses all the way to the far reaches of Western Europe, . After a three-and-a-half-year siege, Beitar, a fortified city 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) southwest of Jerusalem, fell. Despite the immaculate records kept by the Romans, the scope of punitive measures against the Jewish community in Beitar is still debated due to conflicting reports from Roman archives.

To punish the Judeans, Hadrian renamed the province Syria Palaestina and deleted the 'Judea Province' name from the Roman map, effectively incorporating it into the surrounding land as punishment for the uprising. He chose Palestina to humiliate the Jews after the arch-nemesis of the Israelites, the ancestors of the Judeans, the Philistines.

Hadrian then renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina in honor of himself and modified the Jewish Temple, which was partially destroyed during the uprising, as a way to further punish the Judeans. He incorporated Greek-style columns and erected statues of Roman gods into it. He renamed the Temple Jupiter Capitolinus. According to Epiphanius, Hadrian appointed Aquila from Sinope in Pontus as "overseer of the construction of erecting the city" because he was connected to him by marriage. Aquila was responsible for removing or covering the signs of Judaism that filled the walled city and refacing it in the Roman style that is now evident in the excavations all across today's Old City.

30 May 2022

During Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern regions, with Constantinople as its capital. It survived the split and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and lasted another thousand years until the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople in 1453. 

The empire was Europe's most powerful economic, cultural, and military force throughout the majority of its existence. Only after the end of the realm were coined the terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire"; its subjects continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire or Romania and to themselves as Romans– a word that Greeks used for themselves until the Ottoman period. Modern historians distinguish Byzantium from its former incarnation because it was focused on Constantinople, oriented toward Greek rather than Latin civilization, and marked by Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

After the decline of the Greek-speaking Hellenistic Judaism in ancient times, the use of the Greek language and the integration of the Greek culture into Judaism continued to be an integral part of life in Jewish communities in the Byzantine Empire. The legal standing of the Jews of the Byzantine Empire was unique during the entire history of the Empire; they did not belong to the Christian Eastern Orthodox faith, which was the state religion, nor were they—in most circumstances—grouped together with heretics and pagans. Jews were placed in a legal position somewhere between the two worlds. The place along the spectrum of social freedom in which Byzantine Jews found themselves varied somewhat—though far from drastically—with time and depended largely on three factors: the theological desire of the state to maintain the Jews as a living testament to the victory of Christianity, the desire of the state to strengthen its control, and the ability of centralized rule from Constantinople to enforce its legislation.

Though they were continuously urged to convert by Christian authorities—sometimes violently—Jews in the holy land did pretty well economically. Persecutions under Emperor Heraclius shifted the focus of Jewish scholarship to the Persian exile communities. When Muslim troops conquered Palestine, some Jews hailed the conquerors as heralds of the Messiah. Early Islamic society was generally more stable for Jews, despite their social inferiority as non-Muslims.

Jews were barred from various government positions in 404. They were expelled from the civil service and all military positions in 418. They were barred from all remaining civil and military offices in 425, a rule that Justinian I reinforced. However, such restrictions necessarily undermined the theological justifications for restricting the Jewish religion; while they privileged the empire's Christian people at the expense of its Jews, all legislation dealing with Jews implicitly accepted the Jewish religion's continued existence and legality.

Although the Justinian Code was in effect in the Eastern Empire until the ninth century, the time after Justinian's reign was marked by tolerance of non-Christians, particularly Jews. During the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, many Jews joined with the invading Persian Sassanids to seize all of Roman Egypt and Syria. In contrast, many Jews sided against the Byzantine Empire in the Jewish uprising against Heraclius. As a result, anti-Jewish legislation was passed throughout the Byzantine Empire and as far as Merovingian France. Soon after, in 634, the Muslim conquests began, and many Jews rebelled against their Byzantine overlords once more. Heraclius was the first emperor to force Jews to convert to Christianity during this time. Throughout the Byzantine Empire, the Jewish people's condition deteriorated dramatically after Heraclius' reign.

01 June 2022

During the early Muslim conquests in the 7th century, forces of the Rashidun Caliphate led by Umar ibn al-Khattab conquered the armies of Persia and the Byzantine Empire. They conquered Persia, Mesopotamia, Shaam, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain.

In November 636, the Muslim army seized Jerusalem, which the Byzantine Romans had held. After a four-month siege, the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, consented to surrender Jerusalem to Caliph Umar personally. In the spring of 637, Caliph Umar of Medina consented to these stipulations and traveled to Jerusalem to sign the capitulation. Sophronius also negotiated the Umariyya Covenant, or Covenant of Omar, with Caliph Umar, guaranteeing Christians religious freedom in exchange for jizyah, a levy levied on conquered non-Muslims known as "dhimmis." The Christian and Jewish populations of Jerusalem experienced the typical tolerance accorded non-Muslim theists during this period of Muslim rule. However, life was not fun or easy for non-Muslims. The Christians and Jews suffered over the several hundred years based on warped interpretations of the Covenant of Omar, during which there were times when the outward display of a faith other than Islam was punished harshly, so Jews with their Tzizit out in the open or even praying with Tefilin in a home but visible through a window opening were in danger and often punished.

This lasted until the Fatimid Dynasty conquered the land and abandoned the Sunni-based Covenant of Omar. During their reign, Jews were left alone; however, there were times when the Covenant was invoked.

The Fatimids were a Shia Islamic dynasty of Arab origin who allegedly traced their ancestry to Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband Ali B Abi Talib, who was the first Shi‘ite imam.  Between 902 to 909, the foundation of the Fatimid state was set after the Kutama Berbers, a tribe native to Algeria, under the leadership of a Shia missionary named Abu Abdallah, whose conquest of parts of northern Africa, widely believed to be present-day Tunisia, paved the way for the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate.

The Fatimid dynasty was a Shi'ite dynasty that ruled over northern Africa and the middle east from the 10th to 12th centuries. The Jewish people enjoyed a reasonable degree of tolerance and security during their reign; once they paid their tax, they did not openly pray or walk around showing any signs of their faith. The Fatimid dynasty arose from the efforts of the Shi'a Ismli branch, which aimed to restore the caliphate to the Prophet's direct descendants and combine Islamic religion, which is founded on divine revelation, with Greek philosophy for other religions' beliefs to mix with their own. As a result, followers of this Islamic group were more tolerant. The fact that the vast majority of their Muslim subjects remained loyal to traditional Sunni Islam and antagonistic to the Shi'ite caliphs forced them to select Christian and Jewish thinkers as officials and ministers, which contributed to their liberal attitude toward non-Muslim subjects.

Under their rule, Christians could easily construct new churches and hold solemn processions, which the caliphs themselves often attended. Al-Azz (975–996), Egypt's second Fatimid caliph, nominated two brothers of his Christian wife to the positions of the patriarch of Jerusalem and Alexandria, respectively. While Jews did not achieve such lofty positions, they did enjoy religious liberty, and their civil rights were not restricted.

Al-Hakim, however, the third Caliph, persecuted non-muslims during the latter part of his reign. For various reasons, the Fatimids' economic strategy benefited Jews greatly. The caliphs were interested in increasing trade between Egypt and other countries because they believed it would help them convert more people to their religion. They successfully shifted traffic between India and the Near East from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, becoming a major international trade corridor. Because the Fatimids did not create monopolies or punish small merchants and industrialists as other Muslim rulers did, many Jewish merchants of various wealth participated in the Indian trade.

The Fatimids are widely seen as responsible for creating many of the structures that currently exist on the Temple Mount. many of the pre- Crusader monuments on the Temple Mount, what they called the 'Haram Al Sharif' was renovated and rebuilt under the patronage of the Fatimid dynasty. Specifically, the Dome of the Rock, while built-in 691 by the Umayyad caliphate (661-750) as a shrine, was remodeled and expanded to encompass the courtyard that is currently in place in 1035 under the rule of the Fatimids.

If the building of the original Dome was seen as a way to put Islamic facts on Judean ground by covering up the ruins of the Second Temple, the remodel and expansion were seen as means to cover up the area's distinct Jewish past completely. After an earthquake in 1033 had collapsed much of the structures on and near the compound, some of the former Temple structures were visible. The Fatimids, ever concerned with symbolism that could inspire and ignite an uprising by the Christian and Jewish populations, decided to whitewash the entire area, covering it in Islamic iconography and cleansing it of the Judeo and Roman ‘feel’ as if to say, ‘this area is, was and will always be a shrine for the followers of the Prophet Muhammad.’

01 June 2022

The First Crusade saw European soldiers lay siege to the Muslim Fatimid Caliphate, capturing the Holy City of Jerusalem and setting the groundwork for the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, which lasted over two centuries. The capture of Jerusalem was the final major battle of the First Crusade, which began in 1095, intending to 'liberate and occupy the Holy Land.

The First Crusade (1095–1099) was the first of a series of religious battles or Crusades, a holy war of sorts that the Latin Church organized, supported, and at times directed during the medieval period. The goal was to liberate the Holy Land from Islamic authority. While Jerusalem had been under Muslim administration for hundreds of years, the Seljuk conquest of the region in the 11th century posed a threat to local Christian people and the Byzantine Empire itself.

Closely associated with this Western concept of holy war was another popular religious practice, pilgrimage to a holy shrine. Eleventh-century Europe abounded in local shrines housing relics of saints, but three great centers of pilgrimage stood out above the others: Rome, with the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul; Santiago de Compostela, in northwestern Spain; and Jerusalem, with the Holy Sepulchre of Jesus Christ’s entombment. Pilgrimage, which had always been considered an act of devotion, was regarded as a more formal expiation for serious sin, even occasionally prescribed as a penance for the sinner by his confessor.

In 1095, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested military assistance from the Council of Piacenza in the empire's battle with the Seljuk-led Turks, which began the First Crusade. Later that year, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II approved the Byzantine appeal for military help while also encouraging devoted Christians to make an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

This call was greeted with enthusiasm by people from all walks of life in Western Europe. Thousands of primarily poor Christians, headed by a French priest named Peter the Hermit, were the first to respond. The People's Crusade, also known as the Rhineland Massacres, traveled through Germany and engaged in a wide range of 'anti-Jewish' activities.

In the late spring and summer of 1096, crusaders destroyed most Jewish communities along the Rhine in a series of unprecedentedly large pogroms in France and Germany. Thousands of Jews were massacred, driven to suicide, or forced to convert to Christianity. Twelve Jews were murdered in Speyer, where the Bishop saved the rest of the Jews, but in the Worms massacre, some 800 were murdered. Over 1,000 Jews were murdered in Mainz and more in Trier, Metz, Cologne, and elsewhere. Others were subjected to forced baptism and conversion. The preacher, Folkmar, and Emicho of Flonheim were the main inciters and leaders of the massacre. The major chroniclers of the 1096 killings are Solomon bar Simson and Albert of Aachen.

Estimates of the number of Jewish men, women, and children murdered or driven to suicide by crusaders vary, ranging from 2,000 to 12,000 from May to June 1096.  In total, approximately one-fourth to one-third of the Jewish population of Germany and Northern France were slaughtered during this period. The clergy and nobility of Europe condemned the killing of Jews and forbade it on subsequent crusades.

The Crusaders who committed the Rhineland massacres were annihilated in a Turkish ambush led by the Seljuk Turk, Kilij Arslan in the Battle of Civetot in October 1096 after leaving Byzantine-controlled territory in Anatolia. The Seljuks were a disorganized group of Islamic warriors that wreaked havoc across the Byzantine empire and wrestled control of much of Asia-minor from Constantinople. 

On June 7, 1099, the Christian army, which was down to roughly 1,200–1,500 cavalry and 12,000-foot soldiers—encamped before Jerusalem, whose governor was well supplied and confident that he could withstand a siege until a relief force arrived from Egypt. On the other hand, the Crusaders were short of supplies and would be until six ships arrived at Jaffa and were unloaded before an Egyptian squadron could blockade the port. Siege towers were carried up to the walls on July 13th, and on July 15th, a French nobleman named Godfrey Bouillon, who was one of the leaders of the Crusades, had his men take a sector of the walls, and others followed on scaling ladders.

When the nearest gate was opened, Tancred and Raymond of Toulouse, another French Nobleman competing for the leadership of the Crusade forces entered, and the Muslim governor surrendered to him in the Tower of David. Along with his bodyguard, the governor was escorted out of the city. Italian Crusader, Tancred of Hauteville, later to be crowned 'Prince Of Galilee', promised the inhabitants protection within the confines of the Al Aqsa Mosque, but his orders were disobeyed by Godfrey and Raymond's men. Hundreds of men, women, and children, both Muslim and Jewish, died in the slaughter that followed.

After Jerusalem was secured, a successful surprise attack on the Egyptian relief army ensured the Crusaders’ occupation of entire Palestine. Having fulfilled their vows of pilgrimage, most of the Crusaders departed for home, leaving the problem of governing the conquered territories to the few who remained. 

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre hosted a council on July 22 to determine Jerusalem's governance. According to one school of thought, the death of the Greek Patriarch meant that there was no obvious ecclesiastical candidate to create a religious dominion. Although Raymond of Toulouse had been the preeminent crusade leader since 1098, his popularity had eroded following his failed effort to besiege Arqa and establish his own country. It is perhaps for this reason that he declined the crown, claiming that only Christ could wear it. Many speculate that Raymond's rejection of the crown could have also been an attempt to persuade others to reject the title, but French nobleman Godfrey Bouillon had no such reservations.

The appearance of a huge force from Lorraine, led by him and his brothers, Eustace and Baldwin, enforcers of the Ardennes–Bouillion dynasty, was probably more persuasive to the council, and fear was a great motivator. As a result, Godfrey was elected, and he gained secular power under the title Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri (Defender of the Holy Sepulchre). In a fit of rage, Raymond attempted to take the Tower of David before fleeing the city.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem would last until 1291, but the city of Jerusalem would fall to the Muslims in 1187 due to the crucial Battle of Hattin. Jerusalem's history records Muslim dominion for 40 years until restoring to Christian power during a series of later Crusades. During this time, the Jews were mostly protected from Muslim pogroms, however, they suffered abuse at the hands of the crusaders.

01 June 2022

In the early 16th century, the Ottomans conquered Palestine, which had witnessed several conflicts throughout history.

Syria and Palestine became Ottoman territory after Yavuz Sultan Selim defeated Mamluk ruler Kansu Gavri at the Battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516. On December 29, 1516, Yavuz Sultan Selim entered Jerusalem. Palestinian area was divided into three states under Ottoman rule: Jerusalem, Gaza, and Nablus, all of which were linked to the Damascus Province. During the Ottoman Empire's final years, Palestine was initially linked to the state of Sidon, then to Syria, and finally to Beirut, which was formed during that time.

For 401 years, the Ottomans governed Palestine. Palestine was and continues to be an important region for Jews & Christians who believe that the Temples stood on Mount Moriah, on top of what is known as the 'Foundation Stone.' In this location, Abraham set out to sacrifice Isaac in the famed test of faith God had given him.

Some Muslims believe that the 'Al Aqsa mosque' (literally translated as "the farthest place of prayer") that is named in the Quran from where Muhammad took his 'Night Journey' is located in the same complex that housed the Jewish Temples. Many believe that the mosque on the Temple Mount today could not be the one mentioned in the Quran as Islam had only spread to the region after Muhammad's time. Islamic liturgy written several hundred years after Muhammad's time mentions Jerusalem as the location of their prophet's ascension to heaven. However, this is widely seen by many in the Judeo-Christian tradition as a way to justify the occupation of the famous Jerusalem mountain by associating it with Muhammad and legitimizing Islam as the new incarnation of the Abrahamic faith, thus delegitimizing the Christian and Jewish claim to the land.

During the Ottoman reign, the hallowed sites in Palestine, and Jerusalem in particular, could not be shared. Even the various Christian denominations were at odds with one another. The Ottoman Empire used its own administrative practices in Palestine after conquering the country, and the Ottoman administration ruled the territory. The Ottomans maintained the administrative and political organization that the Mamluks left in Palestine. Greater Syria became an eyalet (province) ruled by Damascus, while the Palestine region within it was divided into the five sanjaks of Safad, Nablus, Jerusalem, Lajjun, and Gaza. The sanjaks were further subdivided into subdistricts called nawahi.

For much of the 16th century, the Ottomans ruled Damascus Eyalet in a centralized way. The Istanbul-based Sublime Porte (imperial government) played a crucial role in maintaining public order and domestic security, collecting taxes, and regulating the economy, religious affairs, and social welfare. In the early years of Ottoman control, most of Palestine's inhabitants, estimated to be over 200,000, resided in villages. Gaza, Safad, and Jerusalem were the three largest cities, each having a population of 5,000–6,000 people. At the time of the Battle of Yarmukh, when the Levant passed under Muslim Rule, thirty Jewish communities existed in Haifa, Shechem, Hebron, Ramleh, Gaza, Jerusalem, and many other cities. Safed became a spiritual center for the Jews, and the Shulchan Aruch was compiled there along with many Kabbalistic texts.

After the expulsion of Jews from Spain during the Inquisition, the Ottomans, under the rule of Beyezid II (Ottoman ruler from May 22, 1481 - April 24, 1512), provided asylum for many of them in Palestine as well as other areas under their control that was home to a Jewish population. Although the treatment of Jews under the Ottoman Empire may have been exaggerated, there was obvious tolerance. Non-Muslims were organized into independent groups based on religion under the millet system. The millet provided Jews with significant administrative autonomy, which was represented by the Hakham Bashi, the Chief Rabbi. There were no limits on the kind of occupations that Jews might pursue, such as those found in Western Christian countries. However, there were restrictions on where Jews may live and work, which were comparable to those imposed on Ottoman subjects of other religions.

Jews, like all non-Muslims, were subjected to haraç ("head tax") and other restrictions on attire, horseback riding, army duty, residential location, and slave ownership, among other things. Even though many of these prohibitions "were decreed [and] were always enforced," some Jews rose to positions of power in the Ottoman world. Specifically, Mehmed II's minister of finance, Hekim Yakup Pasa, his Portuguese physician Moses Hamon, Murad II's physician Ishak Pasha, and Abraham de Castro, the master of the mint in Egypt, are among the Jews who rose to high positions in the Ottoman court and government.

30 May 2022