Preface
The children of Israel existed for over 2200 years before the Written Torah was delivered by Ezra to the Second Temple on or about 440 BCE. With the Written Torah, the Jews had a transcribed set of laws by which they could conduct their lives in accordance with the laws given to Moses at Mount Sinai.
The relationship between the Jewish people and the God of Israel is unique. To truly consider it, one must necessarily view the historical and political events in which that relationship came to life.
In this article, the word Torah, or Written Torah, refers to the Masoretic text of the Torah that presently resides in the sanctuaries of synagogues throughout the world. When references are made to the Talmud or the Oral Torah, they will be specifically identified as such. Additionally, Rabbinical Judaism and Rabbinism refer to the same religious doctrine and are used interchangeably throughout the document.
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The Written Torah is the only existing history of the Israelite people from the birth of Abraham in the 19th Century BCE until the 12 Tribes of Israel were poised to enter and conquer Canaan in 1285 BCE. That document revealed not only God’s formula for the genetic origin of the Israelite people, i.e., direct lineal descendants through the “Zera” (semen) of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but also the nation of Israel’s appointed mission (Genesis 12(7), Genesis 17 (6-8), Genesis 17 (10-12), Genesis 26(2-4), Genesis 28 (14), and Deuteronomy 34 (4-5). That mission was to disseminate to the known world God’s rules of civil conduct, so as to ensure that his creation would not descend into the wickedness that he sought to erase with the “flood”.
While many Orthodox and Conservative Jews believe that the Torah
was entirely written by God, or at the least inspired by God, modern scholars suggest that it had four independent transcribers. That study implies that they used existing oral history and records in an effort to transcribe the origin of the people of Israel and their relationship with their God. When the Written Torah was received in the fifth century BCE at the Second Temple, it was adopted by the Jewish people as their sacred history and of the law which God had delivered to them at Mount Sinai.
Many great historic civilizations, like those of Egypt, Greece and Rome, sought to assign to their early founding fathers and deities imaginary powers and extraordinary capabilities in an effort to magnify their authority and that of their community. In some instances, their founders were identified with sexually active gods who produced a host of other deities and half deities whose exploits, they believed, magnified the importance of their culture.
The Torah, on the other hand, is singularly one of the most candid historical documents to describe the genesis of a nation. The patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were simple individuals who were called upon by God to originate a people dedicated to His service. For that commitment, God promised to provide and protect them and their descendants, and to make them into a great nation. It is interesting, and perhaps a bit disconcerting, to examine those three men whose seeds were, and are, the wellspring of the Jewish people.
Abraham, Paternal Origin of the Israelite People
Late in life, Abraham, in good faith, entered into a covenant of mutual commitment with God.
Since Abraham’s wife, Sarah was childless, she offered her servant Hagar to her husband so that he may have an heir to survive him. After Hagar became pregnant, the relationship between Sarah and Hagar disintegrated. When Sarah inquired of Abraham for a solution, he responded to her that she should do whatever she wished with Hagar because Hagar was her servant. Some 13 years later, after Sarah gave birth to Isaac, her relationship soured with Hagar. In that event, Abraham agreed to send Hagar and their son Ishmael into the desert with bread and water. The two were ultimately saved by the angel of God, Genesis 16(1-16) 21(8-21).
Seeking proof of Abraham’s personal commitment, God required Abraham to sacrifice his only lawful son, Isaac. Abraham’s loyalty to God was dedicated and true, and thus he commenced to prove his fidelity. But, who among us could or would find any moral authority in proving their loyalty to God by slitting the throat of their son? It was an act that was only stayed in the last moment by the hand of an angel of God. Did God have the right to request a human sacrifice to prove fidelity? Should Abraham have said no?
As a footnote to history, on the death of Sarah, Abraham’s wife and mother of Isaac, Abraham remarried and had six additional sons. The Torah tells us that he ended up giving his entire estate to Isaac, and provided only nominal or token gifts to Ishmael, his child with the handmaiden, Hagar, and the six sons of his old age.
Isaac
Isaac, too, entered into a mutual covenant with God, agreeing to accept God’s direction and control. The greatest part of his life constituted a pleasant, interesting but ordinary spacer between the lives of his father, Abraham, and his son, Jacob.
Jacob, Also Known As Israel, Father of the Israelite People
Jacob was the father of the 12 sons, who became the 12 Tribes of Israel. It was he, after whom the Israelite people are named. When gloss is removed, his unenviable character is revealed. For a mess of pottage, he swindled his starving brother Esau out of Esau’s right of the firstborn. That right entitled the firstborn to a double portion of the father’s estate.
The real firstborn, Esau, was also entitled to an important special blessing from his father Isaac. With the help of his mother Rebecca, Jacob appeared to his aged and blind father Isaac, dressed in Esau’s clothes and other prepared coverings, to deliberately suggest the presence of his brother Esau. When asked by Isaac, Jacob fraudulently identified himself as Esau and accepted the blessing directed to his brother. On learning the truth, Esau threatened the life of Jacob, who then took refuge in the home of his mother’s brother Laban. After a period of time, Jacob cozied his father-in-law Laban out of a good portion of his flock of domestic animals, and then stole away quietly before he was confronted.
These were the patriarchs of the Israelite people as their lives were candidly and honestly described without embellishment or concealment in the Torah.
The Torah’s Unenhanced Description of God
The Written Torah was no less candid and forthright in the description of God, the Creator. It is not uncommon, in other faiths and disciplines, to describe God as the embodiment of love, kindness, warmth and forgiveness. The Written Torah candidly views the Creator in the context of the Creator’s own self-description and documented responses to biblical events. To identify the God of Israel as jealous and vengeful is simply to recite back God’s own description of himself in Exodus 20 (5) and Deuteronomy 32 (35).
The candor, detail, and honesty of the Torah simply challenge those who dismiss it, out of hand, as an allegory. It would make all Jews bit players in a 4000-year-old allegory.
By virtue of the jealousy of his 11 brothers, Joseph, favored son of Jacob, was sold into slavery in Egypt. While there, because of his ability to read the dreams of the Pharaoh, he was awarded an elevated position in the Egyptian court. After a dramatic episode where he revealed himself to his brothers, Jacob’s entire household was invited to Egypt to reside in Goshen. After the death of Joseph, as the Jewish community grew in Goshen, the new Pharaoh feared that the descendants of Jacob might rise up against his rule. To prevent that occurrence, Egypt enslaved the descendants of Jacob for nearly 400 years. Ultimately, with the help of God, under the leadership of Moses, the Hebrew people were able to leave Egypt.
The Hebrews who escaped from slavery in Egypt were a motley group of former slaves. Each person’s principal identity was with the tribe of the children of Israel from which he or she originated. Moses, on advice from his Midianite father-in-law, appointed Judges (Shoftim) to head each tribe. The duties of the Shoftim were not only judicial in nature, they also served as tribe administrators and military governors of the tribe to which they were appointed.
The Israelite People, Who Received the Torah at Mount Sinai
When God, early on, recognized that the slave mentality of those freed from Egypt lacked the spirit necessary to conquer Canaan, the judgment was made to abide in the desert and await a new and more vital generation. During that period, the number of tribes changed from 12 to 13. Joseph and his later descendants had remained part of the community of Egypt. His first two sons, Efraim and Manasseh, were substituted as half tribes in his stead, thus raising the number of tribes to 13.
Ultimately, after 40 years in the desert, with the assistance of the God of Israel, and the combined effort all of the tribes of Israel, they were successful in conquering and occupying the land of Canaan.
Occupancy of Canaan and the Nationalization of the Tribes
In conducting the aggressive battles against the tribes of Canaanites who had long occupied the land, God directed the Israelites to slay all living creatures, including men, women, children and animals, and to thereupon take occupancy of the land, Deuteronomy 7 (1-2), and Deuteronomy 20 (16-18). It must have been very difficult for those Israelite soldiers who had internalized the morality of the Torah’s 10 Commandments against killing and stealing, Exodus 20 (2-17), to enter passive communities and kill all inhabitants, and take their land.
It did not take long for the individual tribes to recognize that they were surrounded by hostile neighbors and that their interest would best be served by a strong, unified Israelite monarchy. That joinder of the tribes took the form of the United Kingdom of Israel, under Kings Saul, David and Solomon. While it did provide a strong national existence, it lasted only a little over 100 years.
The Torah Makes No Mention of the City of Jerusalem
Both King David and King Solomon, his son, were from the tribe of Judah. King David, who was beloved by all the tribes, established his capital in the south in a conquered old Canaanite city called Jerusalem, which was close to the land assigned to the Tribe of Judah. While David was still alive, he acquired property in the city of Jerusalem for the purpose of building a temple to the God of Israel. That Temple was built after David’s death by his son, King Solomon. It is important to note that the name Jerusalem appears nowhere in the Torah, nor does the Torah designate that site for a temple mount. In fact, the Written Masoretic text of the Torah (which resides in all of our temples today), in all likelihood, did not even exist at the time of the construction of Solomon’s Temple. Its first appearance takes place when Ezra delivered it from Babylon to the Second Temple on or about 440 BCE.
By the time of Solomon’s death, on or about 931 BCE, there were a number of accumulated grievances between the majority of the tribes in the north (Samaria) and three tribes in the South, whose territory included the Temple at Jerusalem. They involved:
1. Both the Capital and the Temple in Jerusalem were located too far from the population center in the north, making it difficult for the majority of people to get there for worship and administrative purposes.
2. Members of David and Solomon’s Tribe of Judah appeared to be getting special prerogatives that were not available to the other tribes.
3. There was an element that believed that the appropriate place for a temple mount was on Mount Gerizim in Samaria and not in Jerusalem. That locale was specifically mentioned in the Torah, in Deuteronomy 11(29). To this day, the Samaritans, which comprised the Tribes of the Efraim and Menasha, still maintain that position and live and pray in that vicinity.
4. By far, the most aggravating factor between the North and the South was brought about under the reign of Solomon, who, in addition to the temple, was building pavilions and palaces for himself and his many wives and concubines. To do this, he placed a weighty burden on the people by way of heavy taxes and personal labor. When he died in 931 BCE, elders of all the tribes met with his son and successor, Rehoboam, to make sure that there would be some relief under his administration. When asked about his future reign, Rehoboam responded that his father disciplined the tribes with whips, but he would discipline the tribes with scorpions. The effect of that response was immediate. The 10 Northern tribes severed from the United Kingdom and established their own monarchy called “Israel” in the north. The remaining three tribes in the south, Judah, Simon and Benjamin, whose adjoining territories included Jerusalem, became the Southern Kingdom under the name of “Judah”. Each kingdom had its own series of kings.
Judah’s Real and Imagined Salience Amongst the Tribes
Why was the Southern Kingdom called Judah, the name of only one of the three tribes? For the longest time, Judah had been asserting its prominence amongst the tribes. It had two out of three Kings from the Unified Kingdom. It was prominent in the selection of Jerusalem and the construction of Solomon’s Temple. Judah fostered the notion that any king of Israel had to be a direct lineal descendant of King David (from the Tribe of Judah) which ensured Judah’s continued leadership amongst the tribes. It is from that remnant of Israelites that the Jewish community of today survives and why its members are called Jews.
In Disunity There is Weakness and in Weakness There is Submission
The defenses of both Israelite tribes were substantially weakened by the split.
It did not take long for the two weakened Israelite states to fall under the dominance of Assyria, a rising military power. In 722 BCE, the Assyrians successfully invaded the Northern Kingdom of Israel and exported the vast majority of population to other lands that the Assyrians had conquered. That dispersion identifies what is known as The Lost 10 Tribes of Israel.
The monarchy of Judah continued to exist, struggling with other neighbor states, until it was invaded by the Babylonians in 587 BCE, during which struggle Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple were destroyed. Instead of exporting Judah’s population, (as the Assyrians had done in Northern Israel), the Babylonians, over a period 30 years, transferred the elite of the Judah population to Babylon. The rest of the Jews were allowed to remain in Judah.
The Persian Act of Kindness
In 539 BCE, Persian “King Cyrus the Great” conquered Babylon and took possession of its captive Jewish community. King Cyrus and his successors, in a historical act of kindness, sent a group of Jews to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. The Persians were so committed to that project that they authorized the return to the Jews of all of the items confiscated by the Babylonians from Solomon’s Temple. King Cyrus furnished the reconstruction crews with food and supplies to assist them in their endeavor.
Sometime later, the Persians received word that issues in Jerusalem were unsettled and they sent an additional contingent of Jews to resolve the issues. This group was led by Ezra, a respected scribe, who still resided in Babylon. The Second Temple was completed in 516 BCE. Thereafter, the Persians allowed those Jews who wished to return to Jerusalem the freedom to do so. Ironically, the expatriate Babylonian Jewish community was doing quite well for itself, and many chose, at that time, not to return to Israel.
The Transition from Tribal to Spiritual Community
Prior to the advent of the Torah, the Jewish people were comprised of patriarchal families that evolved into a series of related tribes. Judaism, as a religion, did not evolve until the Torah’s transcription of a uniform set of written laws and rules which identified one’s relationship with God and with the rest of society. While the Torah was delivered in 1285 BCE at Mount Sinai, it lacked documentation until the arrival of the Masoretic text in the fifth century BCE when a Jewish faith became possible.
The Written Torah Arrives in Judea
Ezra brought to the Second Temple in Judea the Masoretic text of the Torah. It was accepted by the religious community as the authoritative and sacred history and law of the Jewish People. On Ezra’s arrival, he noticed that many of the first contingent, who had been sent from Babylon, had partnered with, or married, indigenous wives. Ezra then went into mourning mode, assembled the partners and husbands, and convinced them to abandon the women and to sever their relationship with their children. The irony of that direction was that in the patrilineal society that then existed, those children, sired by Jewish fathers, were in fact Jews. Some scholars believe that it was this act, that later erroneously motivated the Tannaim of the Mishna to change the origin of Jews from patrilineal to matrilineal.
Second Temple Israel became a faith-based community under the authority of the Written Torah. It was interpreted by a large group of scholars called
Anshei Kh’nesset Hagedolah (Men of the Great Assembly), with the Sanhedrin as a judicial and enforcement arm. The Second Temple itself functioned under the authority of the Cohanim, who were then principally from an elite “Sadducee” group dedicated to the text of the Written Torah.
For the purposes of uniformity and clarity, Second Temple Israel will hereinafter be referred to as “Judea”.
Alexander the Great, the Macedonian Conquest of Persia, and the Greek Culture’s Confrontation with Judaism and the Torah Community
In 332 BCE, Judea capitulated to Alexander the Great as part of his Macedonian conquest of the Persian Empire. The consequence of the victory of the Macedonian forces was significantly increased by the seductive Greek culture that it brought with it. That culture captured the attention of many, including the Sadducees who found it attractive and compelling. Religious zealots, on the other hand, found it alien and a negating influence to the Torah. Upon the death of Alexander, the territory of his conquests was divided among his generals. Judea ultimately became part of the Seleucid Empire and consisted of Anatolia, Persia, the Levant, and significant other neighboring territories.
In 167 BCE, Antiochus IV, the then Seleucid ruler, ordered an altar to Zeus to be erected in the Second Temple, the cessation of all circumcisions, and the dissolution of the religious laws of Israel. In response, a group of Jewish zealots under the leadership of Mattathias, the Hasmonean, sparked a revolt against the Seleucid Empire. Mattathias’s son, Judah the Maccabee, led an army of Jewish dissidents to victory over the Seleucid dynasty. The name Maccabee appears to be an acquired one, based on the Aramaic word for “hammer”. Thus, we have the holiday of Hanukkah which celebrates the cleansing of the Temple and the return to Judaic worship.
Hashmonean Rule
Ultimately, Judah was killed in battle in 160 BCE and succeeded by his brother, Jonathan. In 142 BCE. Jonathan, himself, was assassinated by a pretender to the Seleucid throne and was succeeded by the last remaining son of Mattathias, Simon the Maccabee. With the advent of Simon, the politics of the region changed. Simon supported Demetrius II, the Seleucid King. In 140 BCE, he was recognized by an assembly of Jewish priests, leaders and elders as the high priest, military commander and ruler of Judea, essentially the initial king of the Hasmonean dynasty.
While the Maccabees had won autonomy, they still remained in a province that was under Seleucid control. As if it were a family tradition, Simon was murdered, in 134 BCE, by his son-in-law, Ptolemy, and was succeeded as the King and high priest of Judea by John Hyrcanus. John was briefly succeeded by his elder son, Aristobulus, and subsequently by his younger son, Alexander Janneus, in 103 BCE.
During this period of time we begin to see the identification and hardening of politico-religious factions within Judea. When the Second Temple was opened, its priesthood largely came from descendants of those families who had served in the First Temple. They were called Sadducees, a name believed to have been derived from Saduk, a high priest of the First Temple.
The Sadducees represented an aristocratic, wealthy and traditionally elite group within the hierarchy of Judaism. They were firm in their belief that there is no fate and that man has free will and can choose between good and evil. They strongly believed that the soul is not immortal, and that there is no afterlife. They did not subscribe to the notion that there are rewards and penalties after death. They were very receptive to the influences of Greek culture that arrived with Alexander the Great and his successors.
The Pharisees, on the other hand, were a group from the middle and lower classes. They maintained that an afterlife existed and that God punished the wicked and rewarded the righteous in the world to come. They believed in the notion that a Messiah would come who would herald a new era of world peace. Ultimately, upon the destruction of the Second Temple, they became the spiritual fathers of the rabbis.
The Essenes were a group that emerged out of the dissent and dissatisfaction with the other two. They believed that the others had corrupted Jerusalem and the Temple. Their conclusions led them to the desert where they adopted strict dietary laws and a commitment to celibacy. It is from their collection of documents that the Dead Sea Scrolls were ultimately found.
The Boethusians were a group closely related to the Sadducees. They did not believe in an afterlife or the resurrection of the dead. While the Sadducees were politically opposed to the Pharisees, the Boethusians advanced the religious arguments against them.
During his administration, Alexander Janneus supported the Sadducees and their classic approach to the Torah. At one point, he became very irritated with the Pharisees, and they were obliged to leave the country in order to save their lives. Amongst those who left was his bother in law, Shimon Ben Shetach, who was closely associated with the Pharisee movement. While the Pharisees openly supported the Torah, they had no difficulty in discussing such alien concepts such as “the immortality of the soul” and “reward and punishment after death”. Ultimately, Alexander lamented his hostility to the Pharisees and encouraged his brother-in-law to return from Egypt, where he took refuge.
Faith and Politics
On the death of Alexander, he was succeeded by his queen, Alexandra, who shortly thereafter, appointed her brother Shimon as head of the Sanhedrin. From that position of authority, Shimon worked assiduously to politically eliminate Sadducee priests from the temple. He was so successful that by the time of the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD, there were no longer any Sadducees functioning within the temple. One of Shimon ben Shetach’s other claims to fame was that he sentenced 80 women to death by hanging for witchcraft.
Queen Alexandra’s reign ended in 69 BCE. Succession to her throne resulted in a battle between her two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus II. Aristobulus sought the help of Rome’s military, then in Syria, which assisted in placing him briefly on the throne. However, in 63 BCE, Pompeii, motivated by the interests of Rome, marched into Judea and conquered it on Rome’s behalf, thus marking of the end of the largely self-indulgent Hasmonean monarchy.
Rome and Herod, Son of a Jewish Convert
In 40 BCE, after the Romans deposed the ruling Hasmonean dynasty, the Roman Senate declared Herod the Great “Tetrarch King of the Jews” (king under Roman authority). Herod, whose father, Antipater, was an Idumean convert to Judaism, was a friend of Julius Caesar, who was the real source of Herod’s authority. Much of the Judean population was repelled by Herod’s brutality and disturbed by the absence of his genetic Judaic identity. Herod, however, was known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including the renovation of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the expansion of the Temple Mount.
In six CE, after the Herodian reign, Judea came under direct Roman rule, and was placed under the supervision of a Roman governor. The Jewish population eventually became resistant to Roman rule and launched a revolt against Rome, in 70 CE, during which conflict the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. The destruction of the Second Temple ended all sacrificial worship and changed the way in which the Jewish community could commune with their God. Not satisfied with the outcome of the revolt against Rome in 70 AD, zealots once again arose under the leadership of Bar Kokhba to initiate a hard-fought revolt (132-135 CE). It, too, was ultimately unsuccessful and led to the end of all Judaic input and control over the holy land.
The Surviving Jewish Communities Following the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135 CE
1. Most Judean Jews initially elected to remain in Judea, in what was then newly called by the Romans “Palestina” (Palestine). The Romans renamed the country after the Jew’s arch enemy, the Philistines. During the third century, many Judaean Jews emigrated to Babylon, lured by economics and the ability to live a full Jewish life. Some traveled by sea to the Spanish coast.
In the fourth century CE, Palestine came under the control of the Byzantine Empire, which was the eastern portion of the Roman empire. It was oriented to Greek rather than Latin culture, and became the center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, with its capital in Constantinople. Resident Jews were prohibited from constructing houses of worship, serving in public offices and owning slaves.
In 638 CE, Palestine came under Muslim rule. With them came an era of liberalization in both religious and civic life. Later, in 1096 CE, with the first Crusade, Jews in Palestine were indiscriminately massacred and sold into slavery. This resulted in a major exodus of Jews from Palestine. By the time that the Turks had conquered Palestine, in 1516, there were just a few thousand Jews still remaining there. Most of the exiting Jews emigrated to Egypt and other Middle East Arab lands.
2. Although the Jews were principally agriculturalists and engaged in animal husbandry, there were several existing Jewish trading posts in lands commercially accessible to Judea. There were a number of such trading posts on the coast of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) to which the Jews could travel by ship along the Mediterranean. During this period, it is believed that there were also small Jewish communities in Afghanistan, Yemen, Tadjiki. Bukhara, Kaifeng China, the Judeo Berbers of Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, and Ethiopia.
3. There was still many Jews who had remained in Persian controlled Babylon and who were content with their lives there. In fact, that is the site from which the Masoretic text of the Torah came to the Second Temple. Some modern scholars believe the Torah was edited and assembled in Babylon. In fact, Babylon remained vital and active in Jewish life for some time. It was ultimately the source from which the Babylonian Talmud originated.
4. In Samaria, there remained the remnants of those Israelite tribes that were part of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. They were the half-tribes of Menasha and Ephraim, who were the replacement sons for Joseph who had remained in Egypt. They were either not displaced by the Assyrians or returned shortly thereafter. They had their own Torah similar to the Masoretic text and continued to function as an Israelite community. Today, they are known as the Samaritans
5. In Europe, there were a number of Jews who had taken up residence on the European continent for commercial, academic or other reasons and who were present during the wars between Rome and Judea. Added to them were those Jewish soldiers who ended up in Europe in order to escape Roman captivity and those who were sold as slaves and ultimately released. They could not, and would not, return to the former Judea which was under the control of the Romans, as their lives might be at risk. Many remained on what is identified today as the Italian Peninsula, where they married women of European extraction. This unique group ultimately became the source of the Ashkenazi Jewish community.
The Vital Resilience of Judaism
Yavne: While superior Roman forces were able to destroy the Second Temple, and much of Jerusalem, they were not able to destroy the commitment of the residents of Judea to their God and to their community. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, realizing that Jerusalem was about to fall, sneaked out of the city and asked Vespasian, the Roman commander, for the right to settle in Yavne and teach his disciples. Ultimately upon the fall of Jerusalem, Yavne became a center of Jewish learning and the site for the reestablishment of the Sanhedrin. Yavne played a major role in adapting Judaism to a circumstance where there was no central Temple and where liturgy became the basic Jewish religious practice.
Babylonian Jewish community: This community retained its Judaic identity even with the fall of its cooperative Persian overlords to the forces of Alexander the Great, in 334 BCE. Its faith remained dynamic, even as it provided the Babylonian Talmud. In one of those unique twists of Jewish history, this is the group which, several hundred years later, helped develop the Karite movement, which opposed Rabbinical alterations of the Written Torah.
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Obviously, the history of the Israelite people (from whom the modern Jewish community generates) did not end with the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, the death of many brave Jews, or the declaration that their land was thereafter to be a province of Rome called Palestina. Those painful contractions were the events that produced the birth of the Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities in Europe, which now constitute the majority of the Jews in the world today. The growth, pain and suffering, and accomplishments of those two communities during the 2000 years of diaspora is a story well worth being told individually and in detail.
Douglas Kaplan