‘Next year in Jerusalem….’ Over the years and in fact for the last many centuries, these are the words with which the Jews (of the‘Jewish diaspora’) in any corner of the world end the prayers that they say on the occasions of the ‘Passover’ and ‘Yom Kippur’. The Jews never tire of expressing these words […]
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The Jews had once again stepped into the new millennium (the second millennium of the Common Era) in slavery. It was by then, about 4 hundred fifty years that Jerusalem was ruled by dynasties of various Muslim caliphs. Across the whole of Europe and also the Middle East, the Byzantine Empire was taking bad and […]
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Among the various Jewish sects that got created among the Jews viz., the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Essenes, the Zealots, etc., the Sadducees, the Essenes and the Zealots were almost eradicated in the aftermath of the First Jewish-Roman War and only the Pharisees who were the moderates among them survived. Later, ‘Rabbinic Judaism’ (that recognized […]
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The first Jewish-Roman War began in 66 AD but its seeds were sown back in the year 6 AD. The oppression and the corruption by the local Roman officials and the policy of hindering the Jewish religious principles and tenets adopted by the Roman rulers were fomenting discontent among the Jews by every passing day. […]
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In 37 BC, the Romans approved of Herod as the king of Judea. He reigned unchallenged and secure until his death in 4 BC i.e.all through the 33 years that followed. Also the Romans never interfered with the working of Herod, though the ownership of Judea continued to rest with them. Herod had performed the […]
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The fight against the Seleucid Empire that Mattathias had begun to protest against the stifling of the religious freedom of the Jews was led to a victorious end by Judas, Mattathias’s son. Later, the brothers and a nephew of Judas continued the fight against the Seleucids and the Hellenistic Jews both aiming for the political […]
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Antiochus IV, who is believed to have been the cruelest and the most wicked of the foreign rulers to have ruled over the Jews, had crossed all the limits of repression and atrocities. He had barred the Jews from observing their religious customs and traditions including the Shabbath, even at the personal level while vigorously […]
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Those were the times when under the rule of the Ptolemies, the Greek culture was stealthily creeping into the culture as well as the mindset of the Israelites, who were sadly reduced to mere helpless spectators to the changing scene and could do nothing more than swallow the bitter pill. Moreover, these were also times […]
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The untimely death of the Greek Emperor ‘Alexander the Great’ brought the issue of his successor to the fore as he had not selected any. The army generals, who had fought shoulder to shoulder with Alexander in all the battles, were now up against each other to gain control over the Greek Empire, especially over […]
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In the intervening period, the strong empire built by Cyrus II was further expanded by his son, Cambyses II. Egypt too was made part of the Persian Empire. Darius, the son of Cambyses II, expanded the boundaries of their empire even further. All the Persian emperors favoured the land of Judah. They had not only […]
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