Who Were the Philistines? Not to be Confused with Palestinians

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                  

The Philistines were the enemy of Israel in the biblical days from the 12th and 11th centuries BCE.  "The Bible portrays them at one period of time as among the Kingdom of Israel's most dangerous enemies."  They were a Mediterranean people who first came from Asia Minor and Greek places.  They had sailed to the Middle East's Canaan in waves at different times.  One group came before Abraham had settled in Canaan and they settled south of Beersheba in Gerar where they fought against Abraham and his son, Isaac.

Another group came from the island of Crete after being kicked out of Egypt by Rameses III in the year 1194 BCE.  They had taken over the coastal area of Canaan where they founded 5 places:  Gaza, Ascalon (Ashkalon), Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath.

"Their highly-developed weapons brought a great threat to the Israelites. During the Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites purposely took a southern route to circumvent them.
                                                                             

Philistines had captured the Ark of the Covenant.  In the Ark was the Tablelts of the Law,
the 10 Commandments, which stood for the covenant between G-d and his
people.  The Philistines  had captured it after defeating the Israelites in a battle at a location between Eben-ezer, where the Israelites encamped, and Aphek, (probably Antipatris) where the Philistines encamped.  The Philistines suffered so many plagues from taking the ark that they returned it.  "The ark stops at Beth Shemesh before finding a more permanent home at Kiriath-Jearim."

By nature they were a fighting people of a sea-faring nation  and dominated parts of Judah in the period of the Judges which was a time before Saul was king of Israel.  Before Saul, the Israelites had judges, like Deborah who had decided what was best for the people.  Saul was able to temporarily defeat the Philistines.
                                                                         

King Saul fought against the Philistines but was ultimately defeated.  After Saul, David was chosen as king and he ended the era of Philistines holding land and overran Philistia.  When the Israelite kingdom dissolved after King Solomon died in 920 BCE, and Judah was born out of the southern section of the kingdom, the Philistines re-established their independence but never became the serious enemy again.

Much later, in the Persian and Greek Periods, foreign settlers, mainly from the Mediterranean islands, overran the Philistine districts.  From the time of Herodotus, Greeks called Palestine after the Philistines.  The proper name was Syria Palaestina.
                                                                         

Under Hadrian, (Roman emperor from 117-138)  the Romans gave the name, Palestine,  officially to the former land of Judah, the southern section which today is officially Judea and Samaria.   Hadrian had fought against Judah's General Bar Kokhba and had an army of 35,000 to fight against the Jewish general.  The commander was Julius Severus.  They had come in from the Galilee and then fought actions for the Valley of Jezreel, Ephraim and the Judean Hills.  They eventually retook Jerusalem.

 They had chosen the name of  Palestine because the Philistines had been a long time enemy of the Israelites, and the Romans wanted to erase the memory of the Jews living there.

This was in 135 when the Romans had to fight against General Bar Kokhba of the Jewish people and it had been the hardest fight they had had from any people.  Bar Kokhba had taken Jerusalem back.  He was a descendant of King David.

 Incidentally, the word, Jews, comes from the tribe of Judah who had been living in what became the state of Judah since the other 10 tribes had been forcefully taken away by the major Assyrian attack in 722 and 721 BCE.
                                                                 

Our biblical hero, Samson, had to fight against the Philistines.  He was from the tribe of Dan and was an
Israelite judge.  From birth, he was sworn into being a Nazirite and had great strength and courage.  His feats against the Philistines showed the Israelites' desire for freedom from the Philistine suzerainty or domination.  At the end of his life he had fallen into the Philistine hands because of the woman he loved, Delilah, a Philistine woman.  She had told the Philistine soldiers the secret of Samson's strength and that was his long hair.  They had put his eyes out and Samson was forced to turn the prison mill.  All the Philistine population nearby made fun of him at a festival in Gaza.  He got his strength back and destroyed the building which helped to kill all the people, including himself.  (Judg. 13-16).
                                                                                 

King David (1000-960 BCE)  had to fight against the Philistines.  At age 25, David was the armor-bearer for Saul.  His best friend was Saul's son, Jonathan.  He was famous for being able to be successful in fighting against the Philistines.  Because of this he was able to marry Saul's daughter,  Michal.  David succeeded in breaking the Philistine military power and annexed the entire coastal land belt to be part of Israel.  When David died, he was buried in Jerusalem.
                                                                                 

David, when a young boy, had fought against the tallest Philistine in their army, the giant, Goliath.  He killed him with his slingshot, a hit to the right spot in the head.  Goliath was from Gath, one of the 5 Philistine cities in the southern coastal plain.  Gath was later taken by the Assyrian king Sargon in the 8th century BCE in their gigantic attack on Israel.  Gaza  City had also been taken by the Philistines.  It was only 2 miles from the sea.  Although it was allotted to the tribe of Judah by Moses-Joshua through G-d, it remained in Philistine hands and was the place of the imprisonment and death of Samson.  By 521 BCE it had gone from Sargon of Assyria to Cambyses of Persia.  Alexander the Great recolonized it as a hellenistic city by 332 BCE.  More people later were the rulers.
                                                                                   

Eli, the high priest at the shrine of Shiloh and one of the last Judges in the 11th century BCE, was the mentor of Samuel.  He had a run-in with the Philistines.  He came to this high position at the age of 58 and died 40 years later as a result of falling from his chair when he heard that the Philistines had captured the Ark (I Sam. 4:13)

The land of Canaan was given to the Israelites by G-d's direction.  Abraham had put up his tent there originally.  Jacob and his family of 70 individuals  had had to go into Egypt from there in time of famine and was held against their will for 400 years as slaves of the Pharaoh.  They were to return.  The Canaanites themselves were a mixture of 11 different peoples. who lived in the area between the Nile and the Euphrates.  The people living in what was Syria used the name, Canaanites, for themselves.  These Canaanites were actually a mixture mainly of Horites, Hittites and Hebrews from the Hyksos period in the 17th century BCE.

The Canaanites were almost entirely obliterated or assimilated by the Israelites in the 13th century BCE, the Philistines along the coast in the 12th century BCE, and the Arameans in the North in the 11th century BCE.  The ones who survived these attacks became  subjects of Kings David and Solomon and were thus absorbed.  Later, the name of Canaanites was preserved only with the Sidonians and Phoenicians.  Like the Philistines, they are no more.  The land was not called  Palestine by the Israelites but Eretz Yisrael-the Land of Israel.  Syria was called " Aram."

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistine_captivity_of_the_Ark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Philistines.html

Anakim, The Giants of Canaan

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      

According to biblical tradition, there were giants living in Canaan long before it was conquered by Joshua and the Israelites.  They were called the Anakim, which today just means in Hebrew: giants.  

They lived in Canaan's mountainous area of Judah.  Also, they were found in the southern coastal zone. These giants  lived in the south,  near Hebron (Gen. 23:2; Josh. 15:13). According to Gen. 14:5-6 they lived in the land of Edom (around Mt. Seir, south of the Dead Sea bordering on the Red Sea at Elath and Ezion Geber, descendants of Esau, and were hunters). 

They also lived in  Moab (country in southern Transjordan bounded by the river Heshbon in the north and the river Zered in the south, the Jordan and Dead Sea to the West and the Syrian Desert on the east.  They were kinfolk to the Israelites, descendants of Lot.  They had settled in their land which had been captured from the Rephaim in the days of Abraham.  Rephaim were an ancient people living in Transjordania in the time of Abraham.  Some of the settled near Jerusalem in the Valley of Rephaim.  
                                                                              

The Israelites seem to have identified them with the Nephilim, the giants (Gen 6:4),  they were a semi-legendary race in the antediluvian era  who sprung from the union of the "sons of G-d" and the "daughters of man." as myths may have taught before Judaism.   This took place before the FLOOD.  "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--Actually, it referred to  the rulers of the day--and also afterward when  the sons of the rulers (princes and judges) would consort with the daughters of man (of the general populace) , who would bear to them.  They were the mighty who, from old, were men of devastation."   

 ( Numbers 13:33) of the antediluvian age. The Land through which we have passed, to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants!  All the people that we saw in it were huge!  There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of the giant from among the Nephilim;  we were like grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we were in their eyes!" 
                                                                       

Joshua expelling them from the land

Joshua finally expelled them from the land, excepting a remnant that found a refuge in the cities of Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod (Josh 11:22.)  Young David fought a Philistine giant Goliath  with his slingshot and killed him, saving his people.  
                                                                             
 The Anakim  are said to have come from 3 clans;  Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai, which are Aramaic names of 3 sons.  They were thought to come from a branch of the Rephaim.   The city of Debir, previously called Kiriath-Sepher, was their city.  "Debir has not been discovered with certainty in modern times; but about three miles to the west of Hebron is a deep and secluded valley called the Wady Nunkur , enclosed on the north by hills, of which one bears a name certainly suggestive of Debir--Dewir-ban."  "Judging from the names, it appears to have been some sacred place among the Canaanites, and a repository of their records." 

There are 2 biblical traditions about the Anakim.
  1.  Debir was captured by Joshua, found in Josh. 10:38-39).  He killed almost everyone.  (Josh 15: 13)  

  2. Debir was taken by Othniel, son of Kenaz. (Josh. 15:17). 

 Caleb drove out the 3 sons of Anak from there, Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai, the offspring of the Anak.  He went from there to the people of Debir.  The former name of Debir was Kiriath-sefer.  Caleb said, "Whoever conquers Kiriath-sefer, I shall give him my daughter, Achsah as a wife."  Othniel, son of Kenaz, brother of Caleb, conquered it and won himself a wife.  Caleb and Othniel were half brothers through their mother.  Kenaz was the father of Othniel and the stepfather of Caleb.  .  
                                                                   

Khirbet Rabud today

Debir is included in the list of priestly Levitical cities, and this is found in Josh. 21:15. Today it is commonly identified with Khirbet Rabud, southwest of Hebron.   "Debir has been identified with the modern Edh-Dhaheriyeh, i.e., "the well on the ridge", to the south of Hebron.  "There seems to be several places identified as the site of Debir.  
                                                                              

Og, king of Bashan, was described as being extremely tall.  He was supposed to be the last of the Rephaim (Deut. 3:11). He was an Amorite king of the land of Rephaim in Bashan and Gilead.  He had attempted to interrupt the march of the Israelites but was defeated.  The land of Og was a strongly fortified territory throughout the Middle and late Bronze Ages.   Later giants were Goliath who was 6 cubits and a span tall (I Sam. 17) and  Ishbi-benob was another one 

(II Sam : 21:16). The Philistines again made war with Israel.  David and his servants went down and fought with the Philistines, and David became faint.  Ishbi-benob-who was one of the children of the giant, and whose spear weighed 300 copper weights and who was girded with a new sword-declared that he would strike down David.  Abishai, son of Zeruiah, came to his aid and he struck the Philistine, killing him."  It was customary for a warrior to kill someone on his first day in battle, in order to become fully initiated into the army.  Ishbi-benob chose the exhausted David as his victim.  The giants   (2 Samuel 21:15-22 ) were descendants of the Anakim.

II Sam: 21:19) There was another war with the Philistines in Gob, and Elhanan, son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down the brother of Goliath of Gath, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver's beam. This giant's name was Lahmi.  

 There was another war in Gath.  There was a man of huge dimensions,  whose fingers and toes were 6 each, 24 in number.  He, too, was born to the giant.  He ridiculed Israel, and Jonathan, the son of David's brother, Shimea, struck him down.  

These 4 were born to the giant in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.  

A cubit was the length from the fingertips to the elbow, about 45.72 centimeters or 1 1/2 feet.  A span is 22.86 cm.  Goliath was  9 feet 9 inches tall.  
                                                                         

How tall is tall for a giant?  The tallest known was in  the USA.   There lived a man that was 8'11".  He was Robert Wadlow and was born in 1918 and died 22 years later in 1940.  That's the tallest recorded so far.
                                                                           

Actor Sacha Baron Cohen 6'3" and Isla Fisher 5'3"

A man who is 6'3" tall is a nice tall man these days.  If people are deprived of the right nutrients, they tend to not achieve their full potential height.  The 12 spies that Joshua sent to look into Canaan must have been pretty short, for they reported back that it was populated by giants, for they must have seen the people of the 3 clans.  (Judges 1:10) (Numbers 13:22) and (Numbers 13:33) (Gen. 6:4).

Today Israel's  average height of males at age 20 is 5'8.9" or 175.0cm.
The shortest people today are the Asians, and Indonesia holds the shortest of them at 5'3.6" or 161.5cm.
China's average is 5'6.3" or 168.3cm
                                                                       

Yao Ming, China's 7'6" center for China's basketball team is a giant compared to Nate Robinson 's 5'9" behind him.  Yao is an exception.  Yao Ming (born September 12, 1980 in Shanghai, China) is a retired Chinese professional basketball player who played for the Houston Rocketsof the National Basketball Association (NBA).  Yao is the only child of 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) Yao Zhiyuan and 6 ft 3 in (1.90 m) Fang Fengdi, both of whom were former professional basketball players. At 11 pounds (5.0 kg), Yao weighed more than twice as much as the average Chinese newborn.  He weighed 310 lbs or 141 kg. when he played basketball.  

The tallest people today are the Scandinavians.
Netherlands is the tallest country at 5'11" or 181.0cm.
Iceland is 5'10.8" or 179.8cm
Norway is 5;10.7 or 179.7cm
Sweden is 5'10.6" or 179.3cm
Denmark is 5'10.4" or 178.8cm

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anakim
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1453-anakim
http://www.bible-history.com/geography/ancient-israel/ot/debir.html  large map of ancient Israel
http://www.interbasket.net/news/4385/2009/09/average-height-by-country-males-20-years/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yao_Ming
http://biblehub.com/topical/d/debir.htm
Tanach, the Stone Edition of ArtScroll series of Mesorah Heritage Foundation
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2015/02/nephilim-and-other-giants-like-og-and.html

Muhammad's Knowledge of Jews-But Palestinians Never Heard of Us

Nadene Goldfoot                                               Moses 

High-ranking PA figures claim that the Jews do not have religious or historical claims to the Holy Land.  

The fact is that Muhammad recognized that Jews were "people of the book."  "The Book" was the Bible or Torah.  They were given a special status along with Christians; also people of the book, as Dhimmis.  They could not be killed, but had to pay a higher tax than the rest of the people, sort of like paying for "protexia, protection.  They had a lot of other abominable things heaved on their shoulders as well, things they couldn't do because of their inferior status.  Dhimmitude was like being a 2nd or 3rd class citizen.  

 Palestinian Arabs such as the PA  don't want to believe or have anyone else know the history of Jews in Palestine. Yet  Muslims have our prophets as their prophets.  They regard Moses as a prophet.  Where to they think they came from?  Do they realize that prophets were Jews?  
                                                                       

Our Torah ( 5 Books of Moses) and Tanach (Old Testament to Christians)  is our record as Jews of being in Palestine.and before it was dubbed "Palestine." Its ancient names were Israel and Judah.    It's a book filled with our genealogy and the geography of the land.  It's so interesting to everyone that they've even made movies about episodes.  It's graphic in descriptions and details.  This is our record of our history.  Yet they deny it.

How anyone can listen to such statements with a straight face is unbelievable or take them seriously.  Even archaeology has proved our existence there.  

In Albert's interview,  he discovered that the Muslims think that if they recognize Israel as a Jewish state,  it would mean accepting the end of their own history and ties and right to Palestine.  Of course!  They have created a myth about being there for 2,000 years, convincing other Muslims far and wide of this.  Such a rumor has traveled as far as Pakistan and Afghanistan, India and who knows where else.  Now they feel they can't lose face by admitting it was all make believe.  
                                                                        

                               King David of Israel (1010-970 BCE) 

Actually, the Palestinian history  in Israel really started with the return of Russian Jews and others around 1880 in the 1st Aliyah movement.  They came in droves after them looking for jobs as they heard they were building.  When asked, most said they were Syrians in those days.  They found some jobs in Tel Aviv.  

There were also some Jews there that had never left the land but had converted to Islam in order to survive in the Ottoman Empire, and possibly even earlier. They're part of the Palestinian Muslims of today.   Remnants of their history are being preserved by Israeli researchers who have discovered this.  One has but to examine the homes they live in to see the star of David and other mementos of Jews  having lived there long ago.  
                                                                         

                                        King Solomon

There were some Arabs  who had purchased land but never used it for much.  They in turn sold it to Jews at very high prices and left for better places such as Damascus or Cairo or even Paris.  

They need to find their own history and will if they dig deep enough and do some good research on census records and such.  They would find living in the neighboring states as part of their heritage and all the history that would go with that.  However,  there is no history of a Palestinian people.  They were not a people.  They are families that have been living in what was initially called Palestine by the Romans who chose that word as an eraser:  They wanted to erase the history of the Jews as well.  It was easier to break Jews with, like horses, to make them obey, to be slaves, to take away their spirit.  That's what the Romans did to people who had been strong.  They took away the name of their country and renamed it.  

Jews were also called Palestinians before the birth of Israel on May 14, 1948.  The land had been in the Ottoman Empire's hands up to WWI for 400 years.  They were on the side of the Germans during WWI, and lost the war, and by doing so, they lost their empire.  This is something that the Arabs do not want to accept, but then they fought on the British side.  Because of that, they were rewarded by the British who helped them enter Palestine illegally and didn't record it, and by giving them 80% of the Jewish Homeland that was set aside for the Jews to have when the British mandate came to its 30 year end.  
                                                                     
So when they insist that there were never a Jewish people, you'd better check first to see if they even know how to read.  They are denying Muhammad who knew Jews in Medina and who read aloud on the streets for all to hear the stories from the Torah.  According to their own Koran, he even flew there on his flying horse, Buraq,  before he died which was in 632 CE.  He never used the word-Jerusalem, though, but said he went to the farthest mosque.  However, the Koran is full of some insights of his relationship with Jews.  

So, aren't they besmirching Emir Feisal's good name who had agreed to the Jews returning to Palestine and building their state?  By denying that the Jews came from the Holy Land, aren't they in effect calling Muhammad a liar?  

Resource: Albert Benamou's "From an interview in Asharq al-Awsat of Palestinian Arab foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki: http://www.seder-olam.info/seder-olam-g48-sion.html
http://www.aawsat.net/2014/01/article55327533    interview of Riyad Al-Maliki
Joan Peters Book-From Time Immemorial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophets_in_Islam

Bethlehem Loses Christians

Nadene Goldfoot
Bethlehem came under Palestinian control on December 22,  1995 as the Oslo Accords had Israel control transferred.  Bethlehem had 45,000 residents and was the 6th West Bank city to come under the PA rule.  The others were Jericho, Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus and Kalkilya.  Right next door to Bethlehem is the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo.  The PA police are to keep order.

A ceremony saw the transfer, but afterwards, crowds pulled down a fence surrounding the police station at Manger square.  Church bells rang and fireworks were lighting up the sky over the square,  jammed with merrymakers, vendors selling kebab and cotton candy and dancing boys in circles to recorded music.  Arafat's picture was in many windows.  Along Manger Street, many Santa Clauses passed out candy to children.  The Muslims were happy about it.

Not on Christmas day was everyone enthused about the change.  1,200 opponents of the Oslo Accords were outside the city limits rallying with the banner saying, "We have come to dispel the darkness," and vowed that Israel would regain control.  Jews were also upset about Rachel's Tomb being under PA control.  Israel's government did not allow this rally, so they moved to the Mar Elias monastery, north.

King David of Israel was from Bethlehem and crowned there as King of Israel.  His ancestors, Ruth and Boaz were married here, so it is a special city to Jews as well.  

 "Bethlehem's chief economic sector is tourism which peaks during the Christmas season when Christian pilgrims throng to the Church of the Nativity.  Bethlehem has over thirty hotels and three hundred handicraft work shops. Rachel's Tomb,  an important Jewish holy site, is located at the northern entrance of Bethlehem."  Jacob's 2nd wife was Rachel, who died in childbirth of Benjamin.  Jewish women like to go to her tomb to pray for children.

The Christian community privately expressed fears of falling under the control of Muslim Palestinians, but were afraid of speaking out publicly.  That was 17 years ago.  Today, the Christian population has dwindled.  In 1948 they were  85% of the population of Bethlehem.  It has now shrunk from 20,000 of 1995 to 7,500.

Bethlehem, which is 5 miles south of Jerusalem,  was a center of terrorism during the 2nd Intifada of 2000 to 2005.  Israel then built a security wall around the city in 2005 to fight terror, which may be one of the factors in driving Christians away.  Then again, Christians most likely have family in the US, Canada, Australia, and South or Central America. Christians have sought education and employment out of the city.  They are also suffering from Islamic extremism due to signs of disturbing anti-Christian feelings among parts of the Muslim population, even though they have had a tradition of coexistence.  The Muslims have intimidated the Christians and practice land theft, discriminate in the public sector in employment, along with abuse and economic hardships.  This all makes the Palestinian Christian leaders feeling insecure, and so place the blame on Israel when they speak on record.

At any rate, they expect to have thousands of tourists to celebrate Christmas.

Reference: http://www.jidaily.com/39949?utm_source=Jewish+Ideas+Daily+Insider&utm_campaign=c3dc301320-Insider&utm_medium=email A Star Sets in the East by Tamara Zieve, Herb Keinon and archives of Jerusalem Post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlehem
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vie/Bethlehem.html

The Epic That Is Israel

The Epic of Jews in the Promised Land goes back 3,700 years.  

Nadene Goldfoot
Not many states have been created because of a directive from the Bible, but Israel was. In his last years as a leader Moses (born 1400 BCE)  had entered Canaan and with the younger generation fought the Amorites, Moabites, Midianites and Bashan who were in what would be Transjordan.   Joshua, of the tribe of Ephraim and the 600,000 entered the Promised Land when Moses could no longer continue on the 40 year Exodus trek, dying at age120. Joshua captured what would be most of the the Land of Israel.   Jews, given monotheism and the laws to be a Holy nation and a model for others by him,  settled and cities grew.

Jerusalem was the capital of Israel sitting in the center of the Judean Mountains.  Joshua's conquest was 1320 BCE and the king of Jerusalem was Adoni-Zedek who was defeated,  but the city remained as an independent town  between the tribal areas of Benjamin and Judah.  King David captured it in 1010 BCE, dealing leniently with the Jebusites while adding to the city.  It became the religious center of Israel and the capital of his empire that reached from the Red Sea to the Euphrates.  Solomon, his son, (970-930 BCE) enlarged the city.  He built the Temple.  Jerusalem remained the capital of Judah and of the Davidic dynasty.

After the destruction of the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Romans, many of the wealthier Jews of leadership were taken away as slaves, but still many remained.  Their national language of Hebrew continued.  They maintained their own unique civilization with their special laws.  Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the 9th century.

 In the 11th Century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea.  However, along came the Crusaders starting in 1096-9 bringing war led by Christian rulers to take back Palestine from the Moslems and massacred many Jews. In their zeal they slaughtered Jews in N. France and in the Rhineland, Prague and Salonica, capturing Jerusalem in 1099. During the 12th century  of 1147 the 2nd Crusade began again, .A 3rd Crusade of 1189-92 brought in England who attacked Jews in York, England. 1320 saw another attack in France and Spain. Though dangerous to live anywhere, it seems that Palestine was the safest place to be in those days.  Jews were not safe outside of their own land.    


  The Palestine communities rebounded in the 13th and 14th centuries.  Many rabbis and Jewish pioneers immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee.  Famous rabbis started communities Safed, Jerusalem and other places during the next 300 years.  

By the early 19th century, before the birth of the modern Zionist movement, more than 10,000 Jews lived in what is today-Israel.  We've had 78 years of nation-building which began in 1870.  The end goal was the reestablishment of the Jewish state which came to fruition May 14, 1948.

The Balfour Declaration was the promise of the Jewish Homeland through the British who had the mandate after the World War I in 1917.  This was the international clincher to be a nation again among nations. 

                                                             Ashkelon 2012

The League of Nations Mandate gave Britain the responsibility to carry out the decisions to fullfill the Balfour Declaration, but they managed to give away most of the land to the Arabs and saved but a sliver for the Homeland.

The UN partition resolution  of 1947 was accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs that would have given the Arabs most of the land for a state of their own.  Already a huge chunk of the land had been given over to Arabs who created Transjordan-called Jordan today. Israel was announced as a state May 14, 1948 and the next day was attacked by all the surrounding Arabs.   Israel was admitted  to the UN in 1949.

Resource: Myths and Facts by Mitchell G. Bard and Joel Himelfarb
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.jewfaq.org/moshe.htm  Judaism 101
http://www.jnf.org/assets/pdf/gibborim_timeline.pdf

King David Objects From Judah Revealed

Nadene Goldfoot
Imagine finding objects from the time of King David of Judah!  That's what's happened to Archaeology Prof. Yosef Garfinkel with the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  They had digs at Khirbet Qeiyafa, which was a fortified city in Judah next to the Valley of Elah only 30 km from Jerusalem.  It lay near the Philistine city of Gath, which was the home of the giant, Goliath.  The city of Khirbet Qeiafa  was in existence between 1020 BCE to 980 BCE and had been violently destroyed.   They found pottery, stone and metal tools and many art and cult objects there.

In their finds were 3 large rooms that had been used as cultic shrines, dating the period they were from.  They were from before Solomon's Temple by 30 to 40 years. The tribes of Judah and most of Benjamin and Simeon lived in Judah.

King David of Israel (1000 BCE-960 BCE) was the youngest son of Jesse and was born in Bethlehem.  He had become the armor-bearer to King Saul, our first king and probably because of this had become best friends with Jonathan, the son of Saul.  He became a good fighter of the Philistines, and then married Saul's daughter, Michal.   He was buried in Jerusalem.

All this can be found in a new book out, "Footsteps of King David in the in the Valley of Elah", published by Yedioth Ahronoth.

Hebrew University, started in 1918 by Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Martin Buber and Chaim Weizmann, was able to open in 1925.  It has been ranked 12th worldwide in biotechnology patent filings and commercial development.  Students from 65 countries have attended.

Resource: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Early+History+-+Archaeology/Cultic_shrines_time_King_David_8-May-2012.htm?DisplayMode=print