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The Jewish population of the Land of Israel more or less doubled in size between 1808 and 1840. A significant segment of the immigrants were disciples of the Vilna Ga’on, who undertook an organized immigration effort beginning no later than 1806. Many were motivated by messianism, but some came in an effort to escape hardship in Europe. Many settled in the Galilee, in and around Safed, while others came to Jerusalem; there was a degree of rivalry between the groups (respectively led by Israel of Shklov and Menahem Mendel of Shklov). Immigration was adversely affected by recurring epidemics, natural calamities, poverty, and political instability. It increased substantially during the relatively enlightened and stable reign of Muhammad Ali, an Egyptian who took control of the Land of Israel from the Ottomans in 1831 and remained in power through the 1830s. The Montefiore Census of 1839 shows that nearly half of the Jewish population of the Land of Israel that year were under the age of twenty.

A variety of practical obstacles prevented the Vilna Ga’on’s disciples from settling in Jerusalem as soon as they arrived in the Land of Israel in 1808-1812. Instead, they settled in the Galilean city of Safed, where they sought to hasten the redemption through mystical and spiritual practices, and through the purchase of land to be able to fulfill the commandments contingent on the Land of Israel. In 1813, the community was decimated by an epidemic, which some of the survivors, led by Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Shklov, interpreted as punishment for not having immediately endured the rigors of settling in Jerusalem; they accordingly established a colony there. That step was opposed by another group of survivors, led by Rabbi Israel of Shklov. He regarded settlement of Jerusalem as premature, adhering to a doctrine that the redemption would begin with the Sanhedrin’s restoration in the Galilee, where it had last functioned before being disbanded. Restoration of the Sanhedrin required the renewal of classical ordination, which had lapsed in late antiquity or early medieval times and could be renewed only by an ordained sage. To that end, intensive efforts were launched to locate the lost Ten Tribes of Israel, among whom ordination had presumably not lapsed. Among those efforts was the ultimately ill-fated venture of Barukh ben Samuel of Pinsk, dispatched by Israel of Shklov in 1830.

This chapter examines the identity of the historical Jesus, that is, Jesus of Nazareth, with special emphasis on his Jewishness and on the social and political context in which he lived. In both cases, the ways in which these themes are portrayed in the Gospels are first considered, followed by examples of their portrayal in the Jesus movies, including the appearance of the actors who play Jesus, the use of language, the depiction of Jewish traditions and customs, and the representation of the Roman presence in Galilee and Judea.

Our knowledge of Phoenicia during the Achaemenid period has made important progresses during the last thirty-five years thanks to new epigraphic discoveries and researches: the succession of several kings has been précised as well as the chronology of their reigns and the extent of their kingdoms. Although all of them used the Phoenician language and writing in their administration, each kingdom kept its originality within the huge Achaemenid empire with various orientations of their political, economic and religious spheres. Their political, economic and cultural influence was very strong on Persian period Cisjordan, especially in Galilee, the Sharon plain and Ashkalon.

This chapter explores the good deal we know of the settings, Galilee and Judea, of Jesus’ life and much too of the varieties of Second Temple Judaism that shaped his message and his movement, its social, political, and religious, often apocalyptic, expectations. Not so for Muhammad. The Western Arabian background of his career and prophetic message is unclear to us since contemporary sources are either silent or nonexistent and life of his native Mecca is only uncertainly reconstructed from later sources.

Explores the connection between the presence of written versions of rabbinic tradition and the emergence among Galilean sages of the third century c.e. of an explicit ideological claim that the entire rabbinic tradition originated in Sinaitic revelation to Moses as unwritten Torah in the Mouth. Of great comparative interest is the Greco‐Roman tradition of rhetorical education, represented in the tradition of rhetorical textbooks (Progymnasmata), which prized memorization of written texts for exclusively oral performances that included rule‐governed transformations and revisions of texts in the performative setting. The chapter examines Amoraic traditions of Byzantine Galilee (the Palestinian Talmud, Midrash Tanhuma, Midrash Pesiqta Rabbati) for evidence that they were mastered from written versions and intentionally revised in performative settings. From this comparative perspective, the chapter concludes that the rabbinic conception of Torah in the Mouth is designed to legitimate the authority of the sage in the setting of discipleship training.

From 63 BC until the Jewish War of 66, Israel was under Rome’s control. Following the deposition of Herod’s son Archelaus in AD 6, there were two phases. From 6 to 39 there was direct Roman rule of Judea, while Galilee continued under Herod’s son Herod Antipas. From 44 to 66 there was direct Roman rule of Galilee and Judea. The two phases were separated by a brief period of united rule from 41 to 44 under Agrippa I, Herod the Great’s grandson. Throughout the period, there were disturbances and protests, but their extent and significance is impossible to estimate. Among possible Jewish attitudes to foreign imperium we may note: (1) acceptance of Roman rule, (2) acceptance of Roman rule, with willingness on occasion to question non-violently its actions, (3) non-violent rejection of Roman rule, and (4) violent rejection of Roman rule. Following the war of 132–135 the rabbis maintained the second option, insisting that in all things not directly contravening God’s law, the empire’s laws must be obeyed.

This chapter analyzes the cultural horizons of the editor's world. It explores the horizons of the patriarch in the early third century in order to illustrate the degree to which he would have been in touch with the ambient atmosphere of the gentile Near East. The patriarch's apparent proximity to the Graeco-Roman environments draws Avot closer to the gentile world. The first stage in this chapter's argument demonstrates that the editor was afforded the opportunity for cultural contact with his gentile neighbours. The second stage argues that, as a local Jewish leader, the patriarch had reason, as well as requisite linguistic skills, to interact with his gentile neighbours.

This chapter focuses on the cultural, political, and intellectual tone of the contemporary Greek East of the Roman Empire. It suggests that the diffusion of ideas should not be envisaged as a concerted effort to copiously copy Hellenistic forms, but rather as a process of adaptation and assimilation, a process in which the rabbis inhabited the ‘discursive space’ of the period. It discusses the broad historical context by considering a movement that captured the tenor of local politics and culture in the Greek East of the second and early third centuries, the Second Sophistic.

A comparison of Suleiman's two feature films, Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996) and Divine Intervention (2002), lends itself to a comprehensive review of what had transpired in Palestinian society in general and in its cinema in particular during the period between the signing of the Oslo peace accords and the Second Intifada. The two films are very similar in their construction, revolving around similar episodes. The differences between them however highlights the historical, ideological, and cinematic developments that took place in the short time that elapsed between the making of the first film and the production of the second. In the earlier film, we encounter diverse locations, Nazareth, the sea of Galilee, Jerusalem. Although these spaces are crowded and threatened, it seems possible to remain in them and to conduct one's daily life, albeit one charged with violence. In the second film there are no open spaces, and daily life has turned into a stagnant routine encumbered by hate, anger, and arguments. The chapter analyses the special aesthetics, irony, fantasy in Suleiman's films as well as the way they deconstruct plots and images, in postmodern way, while showing their interrelation with Palestinian reality.

This chapter takes a look at the supposed meaning of mythic texts. One notable instance is about the Jewish man from Galilee who experienced an early death and in public shame. The debate over the topic of the meaning of these mythic texts has two doubtful assumptions: the meaning of myth is a steady content that is carried on from one context to another, and that antecedents determine the meaning of the mythic texts. It also looks at the portrayal of the Johannine group of Jesus as the Son of Man who came from heaven. This portrayal is seen to include a number of redaction stages and complicated pre-literary traditions. This chapter finally shows that the Christ hymn serves as a master model that establishes the terms of the acting and thinking that are expected of the Philippians when faced with internal conflict and external hostility.

This chapter focuses on purity and morality in the earliest Palestinian tradition and the ways in which the language of the behaviour of ‘sinners’ was constructed in relation to purity. Consideration is given to contexts which could have contributed to the concerns for purity and ‘sinners’. The interest in such ‘sinners’ in the earliest Palestinian tradition provided a connection (whether consciously or unconsciously) to ideas about inclusion of Gentiles and the process in which morality could become separated from purity while simultaneously allowing texts about purity disputes to survive. The importance of Jewish purity laws was assumed in the earliest Palestinian tradition but once these memories were present in contexts of Gentile inclusion in the Greco-Roman world, where such issues were of minimal concern, ‘morality’ becomes heightened as a boundary marker and purity no longer remains a focus. Purity could then be reinterpreted metaphorically, or simply forgotten.

This chapter describes the rise of the Israeli Peace Camp. It took place over a long period of time, and though the various organizations composing this peace camp were rooted in a left-wing ideology, their engagement did not come about as a result of a preconceived strategy but rather as a reaction to often unforeseeable events or psychological shocks, such as the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the Likud victory of 1977, the visit of Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem in 1979, and the Lebanon War of 1982. In order to date the birth of the dovish left, we must go all the way back to the Six-Day War.