How Population Bottlenecks Developed In Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

As we know, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel  since Abraham and his family settled there in about 1938 BCE and maintained  a continuous presence for over 3,000 years according to Archaological and historical evidence.  Here we see some of Jacob's sons. He had 12, and they had multiplied many times.                                  

Jewish civilization in Israel was already over 1,000 years old when Rome destroyed the Holy Temple and conquered the Jewish nation in the 1st Century. This happened in 70 CE, about 2,008 years since  Abram was there.    Josephus claims that 1.1 million people were killed during the siege, of which a majority were Jewish.   

  

All the people killed could no longer produce heirs.  A million people lost their lives, meaning all those people, now dead, were carrying genes for the next generation and were stopped.  Each person's pair of 23 genes were lost, one set from  father and one from  mother.  Only those left alive could produce.  This is  a bottleneck, leaving only certain people able to hand down their genes. In other words,  A population bottleneck is an event that drastically reduces the size of a population. ... The population bottleneck produces a decrease in the gene pool of the population because many alleles, or gene variants, that were present in the original population are lost.                                  

Rome exiled only a portion of this population.  The remaining Jews, banned from Jerusalem, flourished for centuries in other Jewish towns, such as (Yavne/Jabneh/Jaffa,  Rafah, Gaza (Ashkelon and Caesarea.     We now have the remains that were alive from the bottleneck.  The genes they carry are being shared with their descendants, and in this way are multiplying, but only these certain genes.                                               

The Jewish population was decimated by the Crusaders in the 12th century CE, but it rebounded in the next centuries and grew as Jews  returned in waves of immigration and settled in Safed, Jerusalem Tiberius and Hebron.    We see another bottleneck , losing many possibilities of genes in a next generation.  Now the possibilities of many different genes and narrowed way down to a few hardy ones.            
                                                   

              After 1850, the Jewish population grew further. 
   

 By the 1870s, Jews once again were the majority religious group in Jerusalem.                           

  Early modern Zionists began purchasing land and establishing thriving communities like Tel Aviv in 1909, even while the land was still ruled by the Ottoman Empire-up until 1917, the end of WWI.                                                 

Tel Aviv, today at night

In thousands

In the 1930s, Palestine had 475,000 Jews. 

 

At this same year, Europe & Russia  had 8,900 Jews.

North and South America had 1,200

Asia without Russia:  510

Africa:  375

Australia, New Zealand: 15

Totaling without Palestine:  11,000 Jews

Each continent would develop just those particular genes, generation after generation, and if done long enough, would take on a certain look of identification.  

By 1939 

Europe & Russia   had 9,650 Jews

North and South America had 5,500 

Asia without Russia:  850

Africa:  625

Australia, New Zealand:  33

Total:  16,658 Jews

By 1954 after a huge bottleneck

Europe & Russia  had 3,348 Jews

North and South America had 5,925

Asia without Russia:  1,645

Africa:  707

Australia, New Zealand:  60

Total:  11, 685 Jews 

A loss of 6,000,000, Jews in Holocaust, mainly from Europe and Russia by the Nazis.  Another Einstein could have been wasted.  

By 1988

Europe and Russia had 2,607 Jews

North and South America had 6,447

Asia without Russia:  3,692

Africa:  142

Australia & New Zealand:  90

Total:  12,979

Resource:

Magazine: ISRAEL101, 2010 p. 38-hot topics:  things you should know

Book:  DNA & Genealogy by Colleen Fitzpatrick & Andrew Yeiser 

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia-statistics, p, 885-886

How Taxes and Labor Changed Ancient Israel and Our World Today

Nadene Goldfoot                                   

Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, a place now called
the Temple Mount.  It was built as a shrine for their ark, sacred vessels and offerings.   In it was a hall, shrine, and inner sanctum which was the HOLY OF HOLIES. It had a court for worshippers.


The Temple was completely destroyed by Nebuchadnezar, the Babylonian in 580 BCE.

It was rebuilt as the 2nd Temple from 538 BCE to 515 BCE by returned
Jews from Babylon by their King Cyrus.  

                                                                       
King Solomon was our greatest king from 961 BCE to 920 BCE, and was the son of King David.  It was Solomon who was able to build the Temple and created a place that was the center for the belief in ONE GOD.  He was known for his intelligence and ability to make wise decisions.  Wisdom was what he was known for.
It was his wisdom in things pertaining to how we are to treat each other and follow the law of Moses, and he was determined to build the temple and establish this as their religion. 
                                                   

      One time two women came to him, each claiming to be the mother of a baby they brought with them.  They wanted him to decide which one was the real mother.  He said to his guard, cut the baby in half and give each half to the women.  The real mother screamed,"  Don't do that!  Then give the baby to her.  Solomon had found the real mother.  The woman who said not to cut the baby was the real mother.  Everyone was satisfied.  This is an example of his wisdom. 
                                                       

Temple in Karnak, Luxor, Egypt
Didn't Johnnie Carson joke about this place in his monologues?In the sands of Egypt lies the massive Temple of Karnak, a temple dedicated to a variety of Egyptian deities. To get an idea of how big this structure is, think of the size of a football field. Now think of 150 football fields put together. The Temple of Karnak is even larger than this at over 200 acres! One of its original names was Ipt-Swt, which meant ''Selected Spot.'' The temple is located in the ancient city of Thebes in Egypt, the axis mundi, or center of the world, in Egyptian religion. The specific site of the temple was legendarily the mound of earth that Atum, the creator god, created himself, the other deities, and the world on. This site, which was built on and expanded for about 2,000 years, has a long and complex history. 

Every country around had such a Temple.  Solomon would have known about it.  It was the thing to do.   Moses would have seen it.  He was born in Egypt.  It was like not being a real country until you had a temple, and so he went at it with gusto.  He established communication with the king of Lebanon and used their Cedar trees and had help from there.  He had to use the free labor of his own people to build the Temple.  Taxes went up in order to afford everything for the Temple.  Taxes and labor became a burden for all the people, and the northern tribes were hurt the most.  They tried to get Solomon to lower his expectations and lower the taxes and labor but he didn't do it.

  Solomon died in 920 BCE.  His son, Rehoboam, inherited the throne of Israel, ruling over all 12 tribes.  He remained king from 933 to 917BCE.  This is interesting because this means he had taken over before Solomon's death.  Perhaps Solomon had been ill, or the historians were confused as to the dates.
                                                       

   The 10 tribes of Israel  had been in forced labor with Solomon and this was extending with his son, Rehoboam.  Jeroboam was the superintendent of this forced labor during Solomon's reign, and was an Ephraimite. from the tribe of Ephraim, a leading tribe of the 10.  He led a revolt against this burden of taxation and forced labor put on his people my the kings.  At first the king was able to stop the revolt and this forced Rehoboam to escape to Egypt to find refuge there. 

When Solomon died, he led a delegation of the northern Israelite tribes which met King Rehoboam at the city of Shechem and demanded changes in the system of taxation and forced labor.  Their request was refused.
                                                         

This meant that the northern tribes declared their independence and anointed Jeroboam as their king of the 10 northern tribes, ceding from Judah and Simeon and some of Benjamin.  . 

Jerusalem was the capital of the tribe of Judah that they had now left and was kept as their capital.  They had not been involved with as much trade and the outside world as Ephraim and the other tribes had been, and were a poorer but bigger tribe. 

 The northern tribes used Shechem as their capital. Shechem is today's Nablus where many Arabs reside.  They chose this place because it was on an isolated elevation dominating a wide countryside.  It had an acropolis with a casemate wall within which was the royal palace in the Assyrian style.  Inscribed ostraca were found by excavators in the store-rooms and also ivory nlays recalling the "ivory house" built by King Ahab which withstood the siege of the Syrians but fell in 721 BCE to Sargon II of Assyria .  

In those days, people were taken away and replaced with other kinds of people.  The Northern tribes were taken eastward and many wound up in today's Afghanistan, Pakistan, parts and India and even now are scattered throughout the world in their attempt to find refuge from the terrorists who occupy their land, al Quada and the Taliban.  

The Assyrians replaced our 10 tribes with people of the Cutheans.  Who were these Cutheans?  
"In the Talmud, a central post-exilic religious text of Rabbinic Judaism, the Samaritans are called Cutheans (Hebrew: כּוּתִים‎, Kutim), referring to the ancient city of Kutha, geographically located in what is today Iraq."
                                   

Today's Samaritans celebrating Sukkot on Mt. Gerizim.  This is
the holiday of remembering the Exodus and making little huts to
sleep in on the way to Canaan from Egypt.  Ephriamites were
there, one of the 12 tribes of Jacob (Israel).  

The Cutheans then intermingled with some remaining people of the 10 tribes, and they in turn became the ancestors of the SAMARITANS, found later in history.  Today the Samaritans claim descent from the tribe of Ephraim, who were of the royal line of the northern tribes living in Tirzah, their capital. So they may have some DNA from Ephraim, but mostly from the Kutim (Cutheans) of Iraq.   

 They later moved over to Penuel, a town across the Jordan River to its eastern side. After that they again had to move, this time to a town called Tirzah.   The land of the northern tribes was later called Samaria and Tirzah remained its capital. 

This happened in 880 BCE when Omri became their king.  Omri had bought a hill from Shemer that became their capital.  Tirza was 25 acres in size.   

When Moses had taken their last census, Judah numbered 76,500 people, having gained 1,900 from the 1st census.  Simeon had 22,200 and Benjamin had 45,600.  These were the numbers at the end of the EXODUS.    Ephraim had 32,500 at the end of their 40 year trek and had lost 8,000 along the way.  Yet they remained a very important tribe, now thought to be the Pashtun's Afridi tribe in in Pakistan with some in Afghanistan. "The Afridis and other Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan have also been alleged to be the descendants of the lost Jewish tribes such as the Efraim.  However, DNA and other research towards validating such claims has been inconclusive.  I can tell you right now that more people need to be tested, especially from Afghanistan. 

Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan

                                                       

The thing that impresses me so much is that many of the 50 million tribal Pashtuns, a group of our former 10 Lost Tribes of Israel of which so many claim to come from King Saul, Israel's 1st king of the tribe of Benjamin, have retained so many of our customs.  So many of our customs of today's Jews are becoming forgotten customs by people in the USA except with the orthodox in general. A few of the important holidays are still being remembered by the Conservative and Reform group of Jews, but not many customs, such as lighting candles on Friday night.  Then again, the freedom that these countries like the USA have given us have caused much intermarriage, and often it takes two parents to decide on our continuing practices.  
                                                    

Lighting candles 30 minutes before sundown
starts Shabbat to be kept till 3 stars appear in the sky the
next evening.  A time of peace, to do no work, to pray.
I can guarantee that this reminds you who you are.  

The environment is not conducive to doing something out of the ordinary like lighting candles on a Friday night  in a secular society, evidently.  In America, Friday night is the night to swing, and Jews are to remain a little different but it's hard to maintain.   If people of one culture all live in the same neighborhood with a communal synagogue or synagogues to attend, it helps.  Our culture was about completely wiped out in Russia by their atheistic government.  It's amazing that with religion not allowed to be practiced in that country that so many Russian Jews did opt to move to Israel and live.  They were not about to convert to Christianity.  

By 1492 CE, Spanish Jews were confronted with the king's edict that they had to convert to Christianity or leave the country, THE SPANISH INQUISITION.  Jews who could not leave due to elderly parents, jobs, businesses, went underground, even going through baptism if forced, and then were in bigger trouble.  The government's religious group would torture people to get to the truth;  ARE YOU A JEW?  We were spied upon.  People watched to see if we did anything "Jewish." It was a time when a religion used torture and hatred; we see this all throughout history, actually.  Religion has been the world's #1 Topic of Importance.  ARE YOU A MEMBER OF OUR RELIGION? This is whether it be the Christians or the Muslims, Jews have been picked on to convert to their religion.  It hasn't been a topic like if we support weather changes, or if we support women leaders, or if we support working every day of the week or not, it's our religion that they can't tolerate.  
                                                     

The much feared line-up of Jews
Taking Jews away in 1941 in Europe to be killed
in gas chambers during the HOLOCAUST.  Jews
were good people.  They worked hard, created businesses,
were not criminals. Many German Jews were integrating in their
German society, which possibly was to their detriment.
They were seen as detestable competitors such as
how people viewed them during the Middle Ages.
 They were hated for being Jewish,
and so forced to wear the yellow star of David to their death.
6 million Jews were slaughtered in this way.

Today, it is in vogue to not believe in anything, if you look at the drop in attendance in our religious houses of worship. Then I see how the Pashtuns have kept enough of their past culture as to be spotted by educated people such as Dr. Shalva Weil of Hebrew University in Jerusalem and others to be practicing our Jewish traditions!  They also have kept an oral tradition going about their origins as well.  I'm afraid the Holocaust has wiped out much of our knowledge about our own Jewish family history that came from Europe.  So many records are just marked as coming from Russia, and it discounted the countries of the PALE OF SETTLEMENT such as Lithuania and Poland as being their past country of origin.  
                                                       

So I admire very much the mothers of the Pashtuns for educating their families in every generation about their ancestors.  They had to do this for at least 200 years longer than Judah's mothers did.  It's usually the mothers who teach the children in such things while the fathers might be involved in passing on skills in work to provide for the family.  You know, today we don't even have a father involved in doing just that, not in our Western civilization, anyway, and this is a tragedy.  
                                                         
                                                           

 
I see the difference in the two groups, the northern tribes and the southern tribe or tribes, was Babylon.  By being taken there, Judah remained pretty much in touch with each other and they developed a bond and a strong interest in their Torah and the brightest of the brightest studied it with all their heart, being taken away then from their beloved Temple.  
                                                            

They wrote a special book of their studies called the Babylonian Talmud.  Another one in Jerusalem was also being written by the people left there.  This kept them in constant touch with their customs, rituals and belief system.  
                                                     

Since the northern tribes were no longer connected to Jerusalem when they divided themselves from the southern tribe of Judah who maintained the Temple, they did not feel the anxiety and frustration that had built up for the Judeans.  Miraculously, they kept their love for their religion and continued to believe in ONE GOD in a new environment that was so different and believed in many many gods, a polytheistic world.  We know how hard that was, and so they developed strict rules that were all combined into what they called their Pashtunwali, their Talmud. 
                                                          

Neither the north or the south could stand alone against the world's empires.  If they had stayed together, they may have kept the Assyrians and Babylonians at bay.  How that could have altered world opinion of these people who stubbornly continued to believe in one G-d.  What changes might we have seen in the world?  Many are now pretty shaken up over the fact that Israel is again in existence after a 2,000 year lapse.  The rabbis are saying that no Messiah is about to appear until the north and the south are united once again.  Christians have been waiting for the Jews to get a red heifer without a touch of any other color!   Both might usher in more changes in the world.  If we  Jews build the 3rd Temple now-that will usher in more than just a change. 


Resource: The News Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnak
http://www.barmazid.com/2016/08/afridi-tribe.html

What is Jerusalem's Temple Mount? Why All the Violence?

Nadene Goldfoot                                          

The Temple Mount is the site on Mount Moriah where King Solomon(961-920 BCE)  built the first Temple which was used as a shrine for the ARK, the sacred vessels and offerings.  It was built with a court for worshippers.

In 586 BCE, about 375 years later, the Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed this most special temple and took away captives where they mourned for their land in Babylon.  They were able to return after many years and rebuild it on the very same spot along with those that were able to remain.  This is referred to as the Second Temple.
                                                                       
The Temple was in use until 70 CE when the Romans burned it down along with the rest of the city.  That means it stood for almost 900 years on the same original spot which was so special to them all.  The Romans later built a Roman temple to their many gods on the site.  Then, since the Muslim period, a mosque has stood there.  Titus had led the Roman army in the temple's destruction, leaving only the Wall which has become the only holy site left for Jews to remember their history and to pray near.  It used to be called the "Wailing Wall."
                                                                             

This Mosque of Omar stands right in the center of the Temple area
and is called (al-Harim ash-Sherif.  It was built by Clih Abd al-Malik in
738 to replace the temporary one built by Caliph Omar a century earlier.  

We see the Mosque of Omar (Dome of the Rock)  there today. Omar was the 2nd caliph and ruled from 634 to 644.  During his era, he conquered several ancient Jewish communities. such as Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia.  Most Jews were expelled from northern Arabia through his orders.  He originated the Poll tax assuring Jews and Christians protection in return of the money.  Along with protection, he gave them restrictions such as not serving in public office, wearing of distinctive different clothing so as to know who they were, not allowing any house of worship to be built, etc, etc.
                                                                         

This 2nd mosque built in the Temple area of Jerusalem was by caliph abd el-Malik in the
8th century and called El Aksa, or the farthest from Mecca.  It was to mark the site of the legendary flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Jerusalem.  

King Herod I (73 -4 BCE) was king of Judea by connection with the Romans.  He was the son of an Idumean, Antipater and his Nabatean wife, Cypros.   Idumea was also called Edom and Mount Seir, laying south of the Dead Sea and bordering on the Red Sea at Elath and Ezion Geber.  They were originally descendants of Esau and of Semitic origin and lived by hunting.   He had rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem on a magnificent scale and had erected the 2 new cities of Sebaste and Caesarea.  He was also a cruel king and a heavy taxer.  He executed dissidents.  The Sanhedrin called him on that and had sentenced him to death for it, but he was saved by Hyrcanus and Sextus Caesar, the governor of Syria.

The Temple Mount is a 37 acre tract of land on Mt. Moriah where Abraham (1948 BCE of 2nd millennium BCE) was told by G-d to sacrifice Isaac.  Of course, the Muslim story is that he was to sacrifice Ishmael.  The fact is that Muhammad (570-632 CE) lived about 2,000 years after Moses had written this fact in his Five Books of Moses, that make up the Tanakh which are the first books found in the "Old Testament."  There were many Jewish tribes living in Medina at that time and used to tell their stories out loud and outside where others could listen.  This has been a favorite story for Jews.

King David (1010-970 BCE)  was Solomon's father.  The Jebusites were a Canaanite people living in the hill region around Jerusalem which they called Jebus.  Joshua, when entering Canaan, had defeated a Jebusite-led coalition, but Jerusalem was occupied during the reign of David, which was then the only time.  David bought the threshing floor belonging to the Jebusite king, Araunah, and this story is found in (II Sam.24:15).  The Jebusites were able to stay in Jerusalem under David and became tributary under his son, King Solomon.  They became assimilated into the Jewish population.  Of course this threshing floor was the spot of Isaac's near-sacrifice, right on Mt. Moriah.
                                                                     

Another stabbing attack victim on ground

The Bible indicates that a third temple will be built on or near the site of Solomon’s temple (Daniel 9:27). This would seem to present a problem given the political obstacles that stand in the way: the religious activities on the Temple Mount are currently controlled by the Supreme Muslim Council of Jordan (the Waqf).   With the latest development of violence, the IDF are now taking over the security of the visitors.
                                                                          

On the attack 

Of course the Pope is blaming Israel instead of the stabbers who are the Muslims.  "The violence the Pope is referring to began ten days ago when three Palestinian terrorists murdered two Druze Israeli policemen while they guarded the entrance to the Temple Mount. The Israeli police entered the site and, after a gun battle, killed the three terrorists."
                                                                     

Jews praying at the Wall in Jerusalem

I must say that Israel has absolutely nothing to gain by the violence that has been going on on the Temple Mount.  It was Moshe Dayan at the end of the 1967 War-started by all the surrounding Muslim countries  attacking and Israel winning-quite the miracle considering the odds who decided on giving Jordan's religious leaders the reign of rule on the Temple Mount because of the mosque there.  Dayan had fought through the 6 days as a leader and was tired.  He didn't want to stir up their neighbors anymore than what they had just gone through.  He didn't realize their their religious leaders could be so nasty as to not even allow Jews to pray there.  They haven't been able to move their lips in prayer.  
                                                               

This American Jew intended to pray near the Temple.  He's a gingy (red-head) , like
King David was said to have been. 

       Even my relative, Stanley Goldfoot of Jerusalem and his group which was all about the Temple Mount, had not been happy about it.  But they didn't react.  The Muslims have been slashing Jews far too long on this holy site for just being available to stab and it has been going on far too long.  This incident must have been the final straw.  Stanley died in 2006.  

Yaacov Hayman, a white-bearded Orthodox native of Southern California, has worked for decades alongside other American-Israeli leaders of the Temple Mount movement. He recently took the helm of a new government body called The Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, which is charged with preserving the holy site and educating about its Jewish history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaxGnuUIeDQ guide explaining  Temple Mount

Read more: http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/376534/american-jews-beyond-western-wall-prayer-temple-mount/.  
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.gotquestions.org/mount-Moriah.html
https://israelnewsonline.org/catholic-churches-in-jerusalem-blame-israel-for-muslim-violence-deny-biblical-roots-of-temple-mount/#.WXartIjyuUl
http://www.walkingwithawareness.com/picturesIs4.htm

43,000 Judean Returnees From Babylonia and Who They Were: A Genealogy Treasure

Nadene Goldfoot                                                               

Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BCE), King of Babylonia,  had conquered all the lands from the Euphrates to the Egyptian frontier including Judah and in 597 BCE had captured Jerusalem and exiled 8,000 of the local aristocracy to Babylon.  8 years later, Mattaniah, son of King Josiah, who took on the name, Zedekiah, , when Nebuchadnezzar picked him to replace Jehoiachin who had been exiled.   Zedekiah (597-586 BCE) , had rebelled and Judah was again invaded in 586 BCE  and the Temple this time was destroyed as well as other cities of Judah.  Again, many of the population were exiled.  The remainder of the people tried to perpetuate a subject state under Gedaliah, who was a member of the former royal house, but it ended with his assassination in 582 BCE by Ishmael ben Nethaniah and his followers who were planning a revolt against Babylon in connection with a neighboring power.  Gedaliah's supporters then fled to Egypt.  .
                                                     

Cyrus II of Persia (today's Iran)

Cyrus of Persia II overran the Babylonian Empire, which included Israel and  Judah, and pursued an enlightened policy towards his subject people.  The great King Cyrus of Persia signed his royal edict saying that the Jews were to return to Judah and 43,000 accepted the offer.  " The Babylonian exile ended after 70 years with Cyrus' declaration that the exiled Jews would be allowed to return to Jerusalem and build the Second Temple in Yehud Medinata, an autonomous province of the Achaemenid Empire."  Due to the king's kindness and generosity, he told them to rebuild their Temple. He died in 529 BCE.   It must have been very disappointing to Ezra that many had opted to remain in Persia.
                                                                       

Ezra reading to crowd from Torah

Ezra, a member of the priestly family of Zadok and former scribe for the Persian government,  and
                                                                             

Nehemiah governing and directing the men

Nehemiah  who will become the governor of Judah and had served as the cupbearer to the Persian king Artaxerxes I, were leaders of the people who returned to Judah.  They were members of  the Anshel Knesses HaGedolah, The Men of the Great Assembly, which was a council of 120 men, many who were prophets, which functioned over several generations and helped to rejuvenate the nation again.  The biggest hurdle they had to fight in those days was the idoltary that their people had picked up by living in a foreign nation.  People seemed to have a craving for it.
                                                                       

2nd Temple with Ezra reading from the 5 Books of Moses

The 2nd Temple was rebuilt from 538 to 515 BCE or 349 BCE from another source  after being destroyed in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar.  It had been done by the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin and the Cohens and Levites with all the others.  Service in the Temple was performed by the Priests, Levites, and certain Nethinim.
                                                                           

   

It had been Nebuchadnezzer earlier who had stolen everything out of the 1st Temple and had placed them in his temple for his gods, and Cyrus gave them all back for the 2nd Temple;  Mithredath, the treasurer of King Cyrus,  counted them from his inventory and gave them to Sheshbazzar, the leader of Judah.  They had returned 30 golden utensils, 1,000 silver utensils, 29 slaughtering knives, 30 golden bowls, 410 secondary silver bowls and 1,000 other vessels of gold and silver, 5,400 vessals of gold and silver totaled.
                                                                     

The families that returned, and it wasn't easy to leave the opulence of Babylon for a wasted landscape that had lost the best of the inhabitants, were the dignitaries:   Zerubbabel,  Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordechai-bilshan, Mispar-bigvai, Rehum and Baanah.    It was Zerubbabel and Ezra that led them back to Judah.  

Then tribes came.  The 2,172 children of Parosh, 372 children of Shephatiah, 775 children of Arah, the 2,812 children of the Governor of Moab who were descended from King David or from his general and nephew, Joab.  Both David and Joab were descendants of the Moabite princess Ruth, so their surname was GovernorofMoab; 1,254 children of Elam, 945 children of Zattu, 760 children of Zaccai, 642 children of Bani, 623 children of Bebai, 1,222 children of Azgad, 666 children of Adonikam, 2,056 children of Bigvai, 454 children of Adin, the children of Ater, 98 of Hekah, 323 children of Bezai, 112 children of Orah, 223 children of Hashun, 95 children of Gibbar.

Then they came by city, possibly having lost track of their tribe.  Bethlehem had 123, Netophah had 56, Anathoth had 128, Azmaveth had 42, Kiriath-Arim, Chephirah and Beeroth had 743, Ramah and Geba had 621, Michmas had 122, Bethel and Ai had 223, Nebo had 52, Magbish had 156, Elam  had 1,254, Harim had 320, Lod, Hadid and Ono had 725,  Jericho had 345, Senaah had 3,630.   Notice that some of these towns have become Arab populated towns today.  (Ai was an ancient town north of Jerusalem in the vicinity of Bethel, known in the days of Abraham.  The city was destroyed by Joshua and was later rebuilt. and was inhabited at the time of the return from Babylon.)  

The people who we figure had the J1 haplogroup or Cohens, descended from Aaron, brother of Moses,  were listed separately:  The 973 children of Jedaiah of the house of Jeshua, 1,052 children of Immer, 1,247 children of Pashhur, 1,017 children of Harim.

Then the Levites were listed.  74 children of Jeshua and Kadmiel of the children of Hodaviah,  The 128 singers were the children of Asaph,  The rest of 139 were the children of gatekeepers, the children of Shallum, Ater, Talmon, Akkub, Hatita and Shobai.

392  Nethinim ( Hebrew: הַנְּתִינִים‎, "the given ones") was the name given to the Temple assistants in ancient Jerusalem.  They were originally conquered Canaanites who were said to have been allotted by David to the Levites for menial service in the Temple.  After they had returned with the others, they were given a special quarter of Jerusalem.  They had accepted Ezra's covenant but were still debarred from the Jewish community.  They maintained their identity down in the amoraic times.  The Amora were the Jewish scholars in Judah and Babylonia in the 3rd to 6th centuries.  He would have been a lecturer explaining Judaism, the Mishnah and use.) All the Nethinim  and the children of Solomon's slaves were listed such as the children of Ziha, Hasupha, Tabbaoth, Keros, Siaha, Padon,  Lebanah, Hagabah, Akkub, Hagab, Salmai, Hanan, Giddel, Gahar, Reaiah, Rezin, Nekoda, Gazzam, Uzza, Paseah, Besai, Asnah, Meunim, Nephusim, Bakbuk, Hakupha, Harhur, Bazluth, Mehida, Harsha, Barkos, Sisera, Tamah, Neziah,  and the children of Hatipha.  Solomon's slaves were the children of Sotai, Hassophereth, Peruda, Jaalah, Darkon, Giddel, Shephatiah, Hattil, Pocherethhazzebaim and Ami.  

Those of dubious descent were people who came out of Telmelah, Telharsha, Cherub, Addan and Immer.  They were not even sure they had come from Israel or not.  652 were the children of Delaiah, Tobiah and Nekoda.

There were Kohanim who could not find their genealogical records who had taken wives from the daughters of Barzillai of Giliad so they were disqualified from the priesthood.  Barzillai had been a wealthy Gileadite who supplied King David and his army during Absalom's rebellion.  After its suppression, David had invited him to his court at Jerusalem, But Barzillai refused on account of his age and sent his son, Chimham, in his stead. Gilead was the region of Transjordania, settled by the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of the other tribe of Manasseh.  After King Solomon's reign, Gilead was part of the northern kingdom and in 732 BCE, was captured by Assyria, its inhabitant being sent into exile.  Its boundaries were not stable and the area has not been precisely determined.   That's how important it was to keep records up to date and marry into the right families!
                                                                       

Nehemiah guiding the builders of the 2nd Temple

 The descendants of the Gibeonites had been assigned menial tasks such as woodcutting and water drawing for the Temple.  They were permitted to live among the Jews but not to intermarry with them. Gibeon was an ancient priestly city north of Jerusalem in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin.  Before the Israelite conquest, the city had been occupied by Hivites who tricked Joshua into making a  treaty with them.  When their duplicity was discovered, they were condemned to be slaves of the sanctuary and were the ancestors of the Nethinim.  Hattirshatha told them that they shouldn't eat the most holy offerings until there would arise a Kohen to ask about the Urim and the Turnim.

The entire group numbered 42,360, besides their male and female slaves, of which there were 7,337.  They also had 200 male and female singers.

They returned with 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels, and 6,720 donkeys.

When they reached their destination and arrived at the former site of the 1st Temple, some of the heads of the families made contributions to establish it on its foundation.  They gave according to their means to the work fund.  They gave 61,000 darkemons of gold, 5,000 manehs of silver and 100 priestly tunics.  The Kohanim, Levites, the singers, gatekeepers and Nethinim and some of the other people settled in their cities.

The descendants of the exiles in Babylonia had continued to love their national and religious ideas so tried to renew Jewish life after 539 BCE when then had returned.  The Jewish exiles regarded Cyrus as a Divine agent.  Their intellectual and spiritual life was extraordinarily rich.  It was there that most of the canonical prophets carried on their activity, great parts of the Bible were composed and the essential traditions of Judaism were developed and preserved.   They were able to live in a relative political obscurity during this period.

In my state of Oregon, USA, the closest cities with a population of 43,000 are Aloha with 49,425 and Lake Oswego with 37,999 as of 2014.  The returnees would fit somewhere between to make up a nice small city of 2014.
                                                                       

Romans 70 CE carrying away temple treasure 

From there they multiplied into the population that saw the downfall of the 2nd Temple, destroyed by the invading Romans in 70 CE.  They are the ones who stole all the silver and gold out of the temple once again, just like Nebuchadnezzar had done.

Resource: Tanakh (Bible), the Stone Edition,   Ezra, 1:1-44;  II chron. 36:22-3  You have to be into genealogy to appreciate this treasure of information.  What behooves me is that some people think our history has been nothing but nonsense, tales without merit, and here we sit with the Tanakh so full of genealogy in many sections.  People who bothered to keep records such as this, a religion whose genealogy was part of the importance of it, an  amazing resource.  Here we are today with science of genetics and yet how many have discarded this history?
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1827-artaxerxes-i
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Update:7/22/15  Not 45 years of living in exile but 70 years...from Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora