Israel Short History Since Biblical Times

BIBLICAL PERIOD

2000 BCE Patriarchs and Matriarchs: settlement of the Land of Israel

1250 BCE Moses, desert wanderings; receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai; conquest of Land of Israel by Joshua; rule by Judges

1st TEMPLE PERIOD

1000 BCE Jerusalem becomes King David’s capital; Solomon builds First Temple; division of kingdom into Israel and Judah

586 BCE Destruction of First Temple; Babylonian Exile

2ND TEMPLE PERIOD

Return to Zion; Ezra and Nechemia; construction of Second Temple

332 BCE Jerusalem comes under Greek domination

166 BCE Maccabean Revolt; restoration of Jewish autonomy;
Hasmonean Empire

63 BCE Roman invasion of Israel [Kingdom of Herod; Hillel and Shammai leaders of rabbinic thought]

70 CE Destruction of Jerusalem and Second Temple

EXILE AND DIASPORA (Beginning of rabbinic period)

73 CE Destruction of Masada

132 CE Bar Kochba Revolt; compilation of Mishna by Rabbi Yehuda
Hanassi

324 CE Talmudic period; decline of Israel as Jewish center; rise of Jewish academies in Babylonia

638 CE Arab conquest of Jerusalem; construction of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aksa mosques; renewal of Jewish settling

1100 CE Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099); in France, Rashi writes commentary on the Bible; Ramban’s settlement marks return of Jews to Jerusalem and worship at the

Western Wall (1267)
1492 CE Jews expelled from Spain
1517 CE Ottoman Empire rules Jerusalem; Sephardic synagogues established; Shulchan Aruch published in Zfat
1789 CE Napoleon In Eretz Yisrael
1860 CE Yemin Moshe was founded as first settlement outside Old City walls
1880 CE Pogroms in Russia; Dreyfus trial; Theodore Herzl; First Aliyah; First Zionist Congress; Tel Aviv founded
1917 CE British Mandate in Palestine; Jewish population increases; rise of Arab nationalism
1938 CE Kristallnacht; British White paper restricts Jewish immigration to Palestine; beginning of Holocaust

MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL

1947 CE Partition Plan

1948 CE State of Israel proclaimed; War of Independence; beginning of waves of immigration from Europe, Yemen and Iraq

1967 CE Six Day War; reunification of Jerusalem

In the last 30 years, we have seen the Yom Kippur war and the War in Lebanon, peace agreements with Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians, terrorist attacks, the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. You will learn about these events on your trip. Which of these might appear on the timeline 500 years from now?