In or around 1750 B.C., Abraham, a little known shepherd who spoke a Semitic language, left the city of Ur along the Euphrates River and traveled northward toward the Fertile Crescent.  He entered a land then known as Canaan.  A virtuous person among a generation of corruption and turmoil, he was the first of his generation to recognize the Divine Truth and was rewarded with God’s love and protection.  In turn, he spent his life doing good deeds.  He saw that all the forces of nature and all human beings were the children of a single creator, God.  

As a test from God, Abraham was directed to a particular location and directed by God to create an altar and to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  Fully prepared to do so, Abraham made all of the preparations and bound Isaac upon the altar.  At the very last moment, God directed Abraham not to sacrifice his son, and in Isaac’s place, gave a ram to Abraham to sacrifice.  The place at which the sacrifice of Isaac almost took place and upon which Abraham, in absolute deference to God, brought his son to be sacrificed, later became the site of the Temple Mount where both the First Holy Temple and Second Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem.  It is the place where the Third and final Holy Temple will be built, according to both Jewish and Christian Holy Scripture.  

Abraham purchased large tracts of land in Canaan and buried his wife Sarah there in a Tomb which continues to be visited today.  About 100 years later, Joseph, the Great Grandson of Abraham, the Grandson of Isaac, and the Son of Jacob, survived the sins of his brothers with God’s assistance.  As a result and because God had gifted him with the ability to read dreams, he rose to be the second most powerful person in the Land of Egypt, directly beneath the Pharaoh.  During a time of great famine, with the assistance of God, Joseph was reunited with his father Jacob, who in turn, relocated himself and his entire family to the Land of Egypt.  

The Twelve Sons of Jacob (who was also known by the name Israel), their wives, children and descendants became what we now know as the Twelve Tribes of Israel.  They lived in Egypt in peace for hundreds of years, until they had become too prosperous there.  When “There arose a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph”, the People of Israel were enslaved and plans were made for their extinction.  

Moses, a member of the People of Israel, was saved by God and delivered for safekeeping to the daughter of the Pharaoh.  He was raised as an Egyptian prince.  Nonetheless, he came to know of the immorality and cruelty of Egypt toward the People of Israel.  He was then called upon by God to rescue his people.  He did so with the aid of the Hand of God, and with signs and wonders from God.  Ten plagues were cast upon the Egyptians; and the People of Israel were set free and sent out of Egypt as the Nation of Israel for the first time.  Prophet, Receiver of God’s Law and Leader of the Nation of Israel, Moses led forth the People of Israel toward home on or about 1250 B.C..  

After being led by God and God’s Prophet Moses through the desert for 40 years, the Nation of Israel was presented by God with the Ten Commandments and later the Torah (Five Books of Moses), which set forth the history of the world - history of the Nation of Israel and the Rules of God’s Law.  Moses never reached the Land of Israel.  

Led by Joshua, the Nation of Israel returned to its rightful home, and all of the peoples there melted away.  With the return of the People of Israel to their ancestral homeland, the Age of Judges was born.  Joshua was followed by Samuel, and Samuel by King Saul.  King Saul was followed by King David, and King David by King Solomon.  

During the reign of King David, Jerusalem, the place where Isaac was nearly sacrificed, became the Capital of The Holy Land of Israel.  Having fought in too many wars and having much blood on his hands, King David was not permitted to build the “Bet Hamikdash” (House of Holies).  

During the reign of King Solomon, who is known for justice and wisdom to this day, the First Holy Temple was built in Jerusalem.  It was there that the High Priest, known in Hebrew as the “Cohen Gadol”, brought sacrifices before God, burned incense, lit the Menorah filled with Holy Olive Oil and prayed in the Holy Of Holies where the Holy Ark (in Hebrew, the Aharon Hakodesh) was kept.  

The later division of the kingdom into Israel in the North and Judah in the South opened Israel to foreign conquest.  God sent prophets who called for social justice, warned of internal weakness and destruction and preached ultimate redemption.  These prophets were ignored.  The Assyrians conquered Israel and scattered its people in 750 B.C.  The Babylonians conquered Judah and destroyed the first temple in 550 B.C..  The first “diaspora” (period of wandering) had begun.  As people cried over their exile, the prophet Ezekiel predicted that life would come to the dry bones.  Fifty years later, in 500 B.C., Persia defeated Babylon and the slow return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple began.  The Second Temple was built on the same site as the First Temple.  

During the reign of Alexander the Great, the High Priest of the Temple welcomed him to Jerusalem and made peace with him.  After his death, however, Seleuces - a Greek general who ruled from Damascus - tried to impose Pagan gods in the Temple.  True to God, the People of Israel rejected the Greek attempt to convert them to the ways of wickedness.  The Hasmonean Revolt began.  Independence was won and the holiday of Chanukah (meaning “Rededication of the Temple”) was introduced.  Kings of the Hasmonean Family ruled until Rome became the master of the Mediterranean.  

In 30 B.C., a Jewish child was born in Bethlehem, who would later rise to become a leader of men, culminating his famous Sermon on the Mount.  Fearing his popularity among the People of Israel, amidst a time of Jewish revolts against the evils of the Roman Empire, He was put to death by crucifixion.  Jesus of Nazareth gave birth to Christianity.  

Desecration of the Temple by the Romans led the People of Israel to repeatedly revolt in Judah.  In 70 A.D., the Second Temple was destroyed, and Jews were forbidden to enter the city of Jerusalem.  Jews and Christians were forcibly expelled from their homes and banned from their Holy Places.  

There were times when Jews thrived in Spain and later in Poland.  There were many expulsions, massacres and pogroms in the western world by people who had forgotten that the first Christians were Jews.  Jews were tortured and converted at the point of a sword, robbed of lands and assets over and over.  Through all of it, they maintained their faith, their dignity, their sense of family and their sense of self.  

In the 1930's, there arose in Germany a government dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish People and the ideal of stripping the last of the dignity from the Jews prior to their final annihilation.  The Nazis were determined to end the history of the People of Israel with one murderous military campaign.  As much as we have tried to describe details in this website, when it comes to the Holocaust, we find ourselves lacking the skills needed to describe this event.  Even so, no history of Israel can be properly described without a discussion of the Holocaust.  From the ashes of the Holocaust arose the present State of Israel, a haven for the Jewish People from all over the world; a moral democracy dedicated to the proposition that the People of Israel will always have a home which is safe and protected by God.  

Chazak Amenu – We Stand As One

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