Two Different Peoples and Two Different Exoduses

 Nadene Goldoot                                                     

          Palestinians make their way back to their homes in northern Gaza [Ramadan Abed/Reuters] 2025.

Every time I see the long line of Palestinians walking along the shores of Gaza, I think of our own Exodus c. 3,500 some years ago around either 1579 or 1476 BCE. 

    Syrian refugees on the move 

This information comes to me from what many call the "OLD TESTAMENT" but what we call the Torah which is also copied into our book called the Tanakh.  At least half the population of the world have never read the Old Testament from beginning to end as they are only connected to another book written much later called the NEW TESTAMENT.  So they have no idea of how our Jewish religion started.  We are only 0.02% of the world population, so that leaves a lot who have had no need to read it but special groups of people more into history.  It doesn't matter to me if it is all accurate history or stories handed down since the beginning of time;  to me the events fit together as nicely as a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  It's just too amazing to be fiction.  

     A painting of our ancestors leaving Egypt called The Exodus;  a people who were slaves for the past 400 years;  who were used to build storage cities. They could not leave but had to work for the Pharaoh.  This period was after the pyramid building. 

  We were made up of 12 tribes of Jacob, our father of the men starting the 12 tribes;  Reuben with 46,500;  Simeon with 59,300;  Judah with 74,600-that's us (later the Jews)  Issachar with 54,400;  Zebulun with 57,400;  Dan with 62,700;  Naphtali with 53,400;  Gad with 45,650;  Asher with 41,500;  Ephraim with 40,500;  Manasseh with 32,200;  Benjamin with 35,400.  Total population moving at a slow pace starting off with flags of each tribe, tribes staying together was 603,550.  By the time they had a 2nd census, they numbered 601,730.  They had lost 1,820 through death from attacks by others and old age.  Moses, the leader, a Prince of Egypt who had been a foundling during a killing spree of a pharaoh and found by his daughter, lived till 120.                                     

We were a people from a family group with others leaving a famine area in Canaan  proceeded to Egypt and the Nile River area where food could be found.  There, Joseph, our contact, had land provided for us through the present day pharaoh where we decided to remain and raise our sheep and be the guardians over the Pharaoh's cattle to repay him.  All together, this time added up to 400 years.  We had been part of a living migration that people often did in those days, changing from hunters to gatherers, migrating from place to place following the sun, just like American pioneers in the 1700-1800s.                                           

On the other hand, the Palestinians were a people in the 1880's and on from many other lands surrounding Palestine who were looking for work to pay for food.  There was no country named Palestine; but Judah which had been renamed Palestine by the Romans in honor of the Philistines, the main enemy of Judah.  People living there were called Palestinians, both Jews and Arabs.  

Joan Peters gives us accurate history of where Palestinian Arabs came from before entering Israel.  

The Arab Palestinians heard that more Jews were returning from Russian territories escaping pogroms and buying land and building.  They followed, working by building, getting jobs from the Jews.  Jews were also referred to as Palestinians as they all lived and then were born in Palestine.   

                                                                    

Lest we forget, the land of the 12 tribes that Joshua selected for the Israelites, 

                                    

                Kingdom of Judah/later to become Israel and It's Neighbors So Long Ago  [Ottoman Empire took over Palestine land from 1517 and lost it by 1917 to WWI by choosing the Axis (Germany) as their partner in the War.]  That was another 400 years, almost like the 400 years of slaving for Egypt !  

 The Brits were awarded the 30 year mandate to police Palestine.  That's when Israel was born again;  April 14, 1948--something they had prayed for since 70 CE !  Life in-between had been pretty horrific at times including tons of anti-Semitism.  

Jews had a rare belief.  They were the only humans on earth that believed in ONE G=D.  All other peoples were polytheistic until Jesus entered the world and died in 37 CE.  Much later in 570, Mohammad was born and died in 630.  These two men were the reasons Christianity and Islam began.  In 70 CE/AD the Romans burned down Jerusalem after starving the population almost to death and took those alive as slaves;  

Saul, son of Kish of the tribe of Benjamin,  was the 1st king of Israel (1030-1010 BCE) so hundreds of years, perhaps by 1400 BCE, the Jews had arrived back into Canaan.  It was 1,100 years that the Jews lived in Canaan up to then.  They continued with a smaller population, as the Romans put down the ultimatum that they were not allowed back again, though many still lived on the land other than Jerusalem.  The 1,100 years + another 1,810 more years till the returning Russian Jews add up to 2,970 years that Jews had lived on the land of Israel that had been occupied by many Middle Eastern Owners, the last being the Ottoman Empire which brings us up to WWI.  

                Jews draining Hulah Swamps at Lake Hulah:  The Hula Valley is a valley and fertile agricultural region in northern Israel with abundant fresh water that used to be Lake Hula before it was drained.

A few Palestinians had bought land in Palestine and sold their shares to returning Jews at very high prices, but because of our religious history, our ancestors paid.  They paved the way for suffering Jews in other lands to finally return, for all had prayed 3 times a day for a return of all of them for the past 3,000 years!  

                               Iraqi Jews in 1950s driven out by Iraqi government

Our goal of  the Jewish return is to keep Judaism alive along with our people;  and to be an example for others with morals to live by. It has not been our choice to fight but must to survive being attacked.  We were to follow G-d's Torah teachings to accomplish His reason  for creating  his only free-willed creature, humans.   And that brings to mind; sure hope we aren't going to be overtaken by AI !😀

The goal of the Palestinians, represented by the Hamas terrorists that have controlled Gaza and Judea and Samaria of late is to drive out the Jews completely.                                       

                  Israel, under loving, caring Jewish Care

One can see what the land is like now and what it had been like when left after 70 CE.  It had become malaria swamps full of mosquitoes and such; and sandy hills.   

Resource:

Update:  2/26/25 at 5:45am

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/1/27/long-walk-home-palestinians-march-on-foot-to-north-gaza

 https://torah.org/torah-portion/rabbis-notebook-5763-bereishis/#:~:text=If%20we%20follow%20His%20Torah,total%20dominion%20over%20all%20things.