Why Orthodox Jews Hold On Dearly to Judea, the Southern Part of Ancient Israel: Its Meaning and Purpose

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Our Torah, which consists of the 5 Books of Moses, comes from the center of Judea with the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who are said to have been buried at Hebron in the tomb of the Patriarchs.   Judea was the Romanized name of the tribal land of Judah, the largest population of the 12 Tribes of Jacob, son of Isaac, who was son of Abraham.  Moses was the grandson of Levi, one of the 12 tribes being a son of Jacob.  

In fact, Moses gave Aaron, his newly identified brother, the position as head priest of the people, and Aaron's sons then held that honor as well, and etc.  Today these men are identifiable as the Cohen line, holding the Y haplogroup of J1.  Many a Cohen in the synagogue (men who are leaders with specific obligations, have DNA tested and are found to hold this identification within their cells like tags  in the department store on new clothing).  Those not directly Aaron's sons are the Levites with other positions to fulfill. The rest of the people are called the Israelites.  

Hebron lies 18 miles south of Jerusalem and Jerusalem is the center, the hub of religious activity for these people.  Abraham bought the plot of land where the Cave of Machpelah sat, and he wanted it for a burial place for his family, starting with his wife and niece, Sarah.  They had come from the city of Ur on the Euphrates River that lie eastward. Ur was a commercial city, center of trading and such, and Abraham knew the value of ownership, so wouldn't take the land under any other conditions except to become his.  He bought and paid for it.                             

We had a Civil War after King Solomon died which was between the North and the South of Israel.  They divided with the South being made up of Judah which had the land that Jerusalem was built on, including some of Benjamin and Simeon, and the North being made up of the rest of the 10 tribes of Israel.  Jeroboam (933-912 BCE became the Northern Israel's king who had been the superintendent of forced labor for king Solomon, from the tribe of Ephriam.  He had been demanding lower taxes from Solomon.  Solomon's son, Rehoboam (933-917 BCE) was the automatic king of Judah, who would not lower the taxes; thus a Civil War ensued.   

/The northern Israel  could not use Jerusalem as their capital anymore, so chose Samaria as their capital in 890 BCE, and because of that, often called the whole area, the kingdom of Samaria. It was larger than the southern Kingdom of Judah. Ephraim was the leader, with Manasseh, Issaachar, Zebulun, Naphtalli, Asher, Dan, and lying in what was to become Transjordan were Reuben, Gad and part of Manasseh. Samaria was richer and of more political importance than Judah.  However, they had been more violent and this was the subject of constant revolution.  In the course of its existence of 210 years after the Civil War, they had had 19 kings belonging to 9 different dynasties of whom 10 died by violence and 7 ruled for less than 2 years.  They had peace only with king Omri who had 4 monarchs and the 5 rulers from the House of Jehi when it was at the high point of having power.     When Sargon captured Samaria in 721 BCE, this ended the history of the kingdom of Israel, though some traditions were kept going by the Samaritans.  Their religious knowledge was at a low point.  

Judea was not the worldly country with no easy access to the sea for travel and trade.  Judea held Jerusalem and was more involved with the standards Moses had laid down for the people having Jerusalem right there.  They were the ones preserving Mosaic monotheism in a purer form.  They were able to stop the Assyrians at their walls of Jerusalem in 701 BCE.  200 years later the Judeans lost a similar battle with the Babylonians in 586 BCE when large numbers of the people were again being deported and taken from them.  They were religiously stronger and kept to their faith, returned with the blessing of the Babylonian king some 70 years later and renewed where they had left off in Jerusalem's development by rebuilding their destroyed Temple. 

Now you see that Samaria was ancient Northern Israel and Judea was ancient southern Israel divided into Israel or Samaria and Judea.  Jerusalem and its land of Judea is the heart and soul of the Jewish people.  Most Christians and Jews are aware of the "Old Testament" and have read these facts, but when it came time to deal with the land, cared less about the feeling of the Jewish people. 

                     Buraq, Mohammad's flying horse.  

As the Quran has it, Prophet Muhammad took a night trip to heaven aboard a trusty winged pony-horse-mule-ish creature called Buraq. It's an episode that's inspired Islamic art ever since, because few artists can resist a theologically sound reason to draw a winged horse.

 As I said before, the Muslims covet what is not theirs, and then take it;  and only admit to their story of Muhammad flying on his flying horse to the Temple Mount where the Romans had built their temple over Solomon's Temple remains, giving the Muslims reason to build over that with the Mosque of Omar.  This way they can lay claim to the area as their 3rd most holy center, but one must believe in flying horses.  Well, planes today do have horsepower, but not back then. 

The land has gone through many hands, to the Ottoman Empire who held it till the end of WWI. 

     The Burial of Sarah in Hebron Cave.  Abraham is also buried there.  The Jewish sons of Abraham were Isaac who was the father of Jacob.  The Muslim sons of Abraham were Ishmael.  This is the jealousy factor in our history, two completely different men. Isaac was the son of Sarah of Abraham's own family being the daughter of Haran who was Abraham's own brother;   while Ishmael was the son of Sarah's hand-maiden, Hagar of Egypt.  They held very different values, yet had some similarities.  Hagar, because of Ishmael's jealous behavior , was forced to leave their growing community and return to Egypt.   

                            Kirat Arba today

 In 1929, the Arabs massacred  the many Jews of Hebron, a city of 700, and survivors fled.  Arabs rioted again in 1936. It has become an Arab center.   The population in 1967 was 38,310.  After the 6 Day War, Jews returned, establishing Kiryat Arba, a quarter east of the city that numbered 3,709 in 1988. "Kiryat Arba or Qiryat Arba' is an urban Israeli settlement on the outskirts of Hebron, in the southern West Bank. Founded in 1968, in 2019 it had a population of 7,326. The international community considers Israeli settlements illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this."  My husband taught in a girl's high school there sometime between 1981-1985. 

 This is Abraham's city, our father of Judaism!  His burial ground is not recognized as being part of Israel, though Israel has to disagree and recognize it.

  Leave it to the British to mess our history up.  They had exiled all Jews from their land for 365 years---not days---years.  They were the people who from 1290 to 1655 kept all Jews out of their land and had expulsed those who had been there before that.  

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia (Hebron)