JAFFA: Fought Over By Egyptians and Canaanites and Origin of the Israelites?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      

Jaffa, originated about 1800 BCE,  is a port city in Israel on the Mediterranean that is 60 km ( 37 miles) NW of Jerusalem. Today it is joined with Tel Aviv.   In excavations in 2008 by the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project many items had been found that told more about its history. Biblical texts were used as the primary historical referent.  It had converted from a Canaanite town to an Egyptian stronghold.  

Canaanites are said to be the descendants of Canaan, son of Ham who was one of Noah's 3 sons and occupied land between the Nile and Euphrates Rivers.  The people of Syria also called themselves Canaanites.  They seem to have been a mixture of Horites, Hittites and Hebrews from the Hyksos period of the 17th century BCE.  By the 13th century they were almost entirely obliterated or assimilated by the Israelites, Philistines on the coast in the 12th century and the Arameans in the north in the 11th century.  The remainder were ruled by Kings David and Solomon  of Israel and absorbed into the community.  

 This was found by new archaeological data with the well-known historical texts.  The Egyptians even built on top of the city's earlier remains.  It tells a story of violence and peaceful social interactions over a period of more than 300 years, from 1460 to 1130 BCE.  This includes intermarriage of peoples.  

Jaffa was mentioned in Egyptian documents from the time of the 19th Egyptian dynasty (16th century BCE) and also in Assyrian documents.  It's a natural place for anchorage as it has a slight promontory jutting out from the straight coastline.  

The Hyksos, foreign rulers in Egypt who were Semitic Asiatics, were expulsed from Egypt in the mid-16th century BCE.  Our biblical history of Joseph going into Egypt and becoming an assistant to the Pharaoh could have been one of them, as well as his family and the rest of the Israelites.  It is said that they overran Egypt after the destruction of the Middle Kingdom.  That's when the prevailing pharaoh decided to make Joseph's family slaves for this very reason.  They were too plentiful and might take over.  Excavations in Egypt have revealed royal Hyksos scarabs bearing names similar to Hebrew.  Hyksos remains have also been uncovered in Israel.  They ruled in Egypt from 1720-1580 BCE.  According to other sources, the time the Children of Israel entered the country was at this same time.  Hyksos is said to be an Egyptian name meaning "rulers of the foreign lands."  

After that, the pharaohs of the early 18th dynasty held regular military campaigns against the communities in Canaan.  They succeeded in limiting more Asiatic incursions into Egypt so that the Egyptian New Kingdom could expand.  The Canaanite rulers had to ask for support from their allies to the north to stop Egypt.  This led to the famous Battle of Megiddo in 1456 BCE  where pharaoh Thutmose III fell upon the Asiatic coalition which was led by the king of Kadesh on the Orontes.  Jaffa was one of the towns that was subjugated.  Their troops were in the defeated coalition.  

Rameses II ruled from 1262 to 1196 BCE.  It's thought he may have been the Pharaoh in Moses's history.  It's also the name of an ancient Eygptian city on the Nile Delta where Jacob and his family settled (Gen.47:11,27).  Their descendants were forced to build storehouses for the Egyptian pharaoh.  It was also the site where the Israelites left from to start their exodus (Exod. 12:37)

Moses led the Israelites into Canaan when he was 80 years old and they traveled for 40 years to get there.  He lived from what is accepted as 1391 to 1271 BCE.  In Biblical times Jaffa marked the boundary of the Philistines even though it did lay within the rightful area for the tribe of Judah.  When King Solomon reigned (961-920 BCE)  and even after the Jews returned to their home after their Babylonian captivity, the cedars of Lebanon were floated to the sea of Jaffa on their way to Jerusalem for the Temple.  Johah of Jonah and the whale sailed from Jaffa.  

In the Persian period, Jaffa belonged to the Phoenicians.  During the Hellenistic period it was an independent city.  Judah the Maccabee avenged the massacre of the Jewish community there.  His brothers, Jonathan and Simon, took Jaffa back and replaced the foreign population with Jews.  Then it served as the principal Jewish port until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.  

In the 19th century CE, Jewish colonies surrounded the city.  During WWI the Turks of the Ottoman Empire expelled Jews from Jaffa and Tel Aviv.  By 1921-1922 there were Arab riots that forced the Jews to go to Tel Aviv that was founded as a suburb of Jaffa.    Haifa's harbor was developed which undermined the economic position of Jaffa, but it did continue with its share of orange exports.  By 1946 the population was 101,000 of which 30% were Jews.   During the War of Independence the Arab sections of Jaffa capitulated on May 14, 1948 and almost all the Arabs left town.  New immigrants moved there.  Then Jaffa and Tel Aviv became one city (Tel-Aviv-Jaffa).  Its port was closed in 1965.  An artist's colony has been created out of a quarter, just like in Safed.  

Today Jaffa is fighting a lot of Arab-Jewish hostility with Arab hip-hoppers and their complaints about Jews, but life is going on with a population of 55,000; 35,000 Jewish and 20,000 Muslims or Christians.  . The 2 cultures have an Arab-Hebrew Theater Group and an Arab-Hebrew Community Center.  Jaffa ihas become  tourist destination because of its beautifully restored old quarter filled with galleries, shops and restaurants.   One of the few religious sites is the house of Simon the Tanner, where, according to the New Testament, Peter first realized the gospel message had to be extended beyond Judaism. You can walk for about 40 minutes to Tel Aviv.  As cultures had to blend in the ancient days between Egyptians and Canaanites, so it is happening in Jaffa between the Muslims and the Jews.  Since it took them 300 years to co-exist, perhaps we should also figure that it might take that long for the Muslims to accept Israel in their midst.

Resource: http://www.jidaily.com/11d51?utm_source=Jewish+Ideas+Daily+Insider&utm_campaign=defb6a369a-Insider&utm_medium=email
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vie/Telaviv.html
https://www.facebook.com/AJCCJaffa
http://www.arab-hebrew-theatre.org.il/eng/index.asp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM1wDeaY6yU  Be sure to watch this.  It's the best community center I've ever seen!  

The Holiest Places to Jews: In Judea and Samaria

Nadene Goldfoot
Israel was originally designed by G-d as found in the Bible (Torah, Old Testament) . Moses, living in about 1271 BCE was led there by G-d.   The original Promised Land covered about 58,000 square miles and was occupied by the Israelites under Kings David and Solomon The total surface was 17,500 square miles of which 45% was in Transjordan.  It included most of Syria. .  Under the British Mandate, it was formed by the area west of the Jordan.  The armistice agreements of 1949 left Israel with 8,000 square miles.  After the 1967 Six Day War Israel came to occupy all of Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights and the Sinai up to the Suez Canal.  The Sinai has been given back to Egypt for peace.

Judea and Samaria (West Bank)  is home to about 500,000 Jews who are living in East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.  These 2 areas are said to be the places where the Palestinians want their state of Palestine.  The huge problem with this is that they want no Jews to continue living here.  They want  all 500,000 to be moved out.  They also want to include East Jerusalem as well, which is a part of the whole city of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.  It was in the past and is now the Jews' eternal city.

Brandon Marlon's article printed in the Jewish Press about Judea and Samaria is well worth reading today.  Why these 2 places are not included in the whole package of Israel was not Chaim Weizmann's fault.  They were included and should have been the boundaries of Israel being they were the very places Israel existed and was attacked by the Assyrians  back in 722 BCE when 10 of the 12 tribes were taken away.  Unfortunately, our leaders lost 80% of the land intended by world opinion to become the Jewish Homeland to Transjordan, which became Jordan and the world did not raise the rebellion about it that they should have.  The Brits had flubbed up by promising land to both Jews and Arabs at the same time.  They also flubbed up because they were to be the ones to create the Jewish Homeland and did not bring this about with the promised larger section of land.

The report is that Jewish young men living in these places  are now our best Israeli warriors.  Their parents dared to settle there where Arabs have taken up residence as well.  The areas are loaded with holy places for Jews.  It has meaning.  This was the very  heartland of the Jews.

First there was Israel in the 11th century BCE. .  King Saul of the tribe of Benjamin was Israel's first king.  David followed and then his son, King Solomon.   Later on they divided the Israel , sort of like a Democrat-Republican problem, into Israel and Judah.  Judah was where Jerusalem was.

Judah was the southerly of the 2 kingdoms.  It was divided into the 2 kingdoms in 933 BCE when King Solomon died.  The tribe of Judah and most of Benjamin as well as a lot of Simeon lived here.  It held Jerusalem so was important.  The rulers were from the house of David.  The Assyrian attack in 722 was checked before the walls of Jerusalem, but fell to the Babylonians in 586 BCE.  The name was changed by the Romans around 135 CE to Judea.

 Samaria was also called Shomron and was the capital of the of the then northern kingdom of Israel.  It was founded in 880 BCE by Omri on a hill bought from Shemer.  It was on a piece of elevated land that dominated a wide countryside and sat on 25 acres.  Omride kings of Israel such as Omri, Ahab, Joram, etc ruled there.  It was the ancient center of the wine and oil industry.  It had wonderful orchards.  The city was later ruined and owned by King Alexander Yannai, a Hasmonean and renamed Sebaste, then Sabastiyah by Herod the Great.  Finally it was under Roman occupation and settled by others.  The prophet Elisha is buried there.  So is John the Baptist.

Gilgal is the first camp and base of Joshua and the Israelites when they entered Canaan.  Joshua erected 12 stones there from the Jordan River.  People came here to celebrate Passover and they circumcised those born in the desert.  Samuel the prophet judged Israel here.  King Saul was crowned at this site.  It was a city of the Levites in the time of Nehemiah.  It is very very Jewish.

Mount Ebal or Eval is where Joshua built an altar to G-d after the fall of Ai and where  the Torah was read to all the Israelites in the presence of the Ark of the covenant, a very sacred Jewish event.  Mt. Gerizim is where the other half of Israel stood listening to Joshua.  These places are holy only to Jews.  These are only a few of the special places within Judea and Samaria.

The history of the Jews is what brought serious aliyah back home after at least 2 thousand years of  suffering from anti-Semitic nations.  No one should wonder why people are sticking their necks and lives out from living in Judea and Samaria today.  It was all planned to be done as peacefully as possible with benefiting the natives who might not be Jewish but instead have been met with hostility every inch of the way.  Of course Jews remember how they were met in foreign lands.  They followed their own Golden Rule to do unto others as they want to be done to, but these others certainly have not been cooperative.

Resource:http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/10/judeasamarias-jewish-population-growing.html
 http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/front-page/what-judea-samaria-mean-to-the-jewish-people/2013/01/16/
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164243#.UPcD5R1LXqE
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://ivarfjeld.wordpress.com/category/israel-jews-in-judea-and-samaria/
http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_77.html