The number of Jews returning to Jerusalem from various parts of the world crossed 40 thousand between 1904 and 1914 and the world witnessed the second wave of the ‘Aliyah’. The relentless efforts of the Zionist Organization founded by Theodore Herzl had indeed culminated in success. During the times of the Holy Temple, the city […]
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Theodore Herzl passionately set about the mission of propagating Zionism. Having established the ‘Zionist Organization’, he went on in August 1897, to organize the ‘First Zionist Congress’ at Basel in Switzerland. More than two hundred invitees from various countries attended the Congress apart from representatives of some of the leading news agencies of the world. […]
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The tireless efforts and persuasion put in by the Jewish thinkers like Judah Bibas, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer and Judah Alkalai (a student of Judah Bibas), to draw the Jews settled in the diaspora to Jerusalem bore the much desired fruit and many Jews returned to the Holy Land towards the end of the 18th century […]
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Things were gradually looking up for the Jews, who had suffered hardship, oppression and anguish for thousands of years. With the 19th century had dawned hope; for it was at this time that the seeds of Zionism were sown. ‘Judaism’ and ‘Zionism’ are not quite the same. Judaism guides about following the Jewish religious principles […]
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‘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 […]
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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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