The Jewish Rebellion and How They Lost Jerusalem

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

      Arch of Titus in Rome: a way of bragging how the Roman Army looted the Temple,  forcing the Jews, now slaves, to carry the precious articles from the Temple

 The Roman emperor during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE was Titus, who ruled from 79–81 AD:  He was the son of Vespasian.  Titus took over command of the Roman army in Judea from his father in 70, when he destroyed Jerusalem after a 5 month siege that included starving the occupants.  According to Josephus, Titus endeavored-although unsuccessfully-- to preserve the Temple, but other sources relate that the destruction was deliberate with the object of eliminating the national religious center of the Jews.  Jewish tradition gave him the name, "Titus the Wicked." 

Despite the bitter battle in Judea, he did not interfere with Jewish rights elsewhere and refused to accede to the demand of the people of Antioch to abolish Jewish privileges there.  Antioch was a wealthy and thriving Jewish community in one of the largest cities of the first-century Roman world. The city's population was made up of Syrians, Greeks, Jews, and Romans. The Jewish community in Antioch were granted citizenship rights equal to those of the Greeks by Seleucus Nicator, the founder-king of Antioch. The Jews in Antioch were guaranteed the right to practice their religion and customs from the second century BC. The Jewish privileges were inscribed on brass tablets and carefully guarded. In 71 AD, when the citizens of Antioch requested that the Jews be expelled, Titus instead displayed a copy of the Jewish privileges in Alexandria in public. After Antiochus IV Epiphanes plundered the Temple in Jerusalem, his successors restored brass votive offerings to the Jews to keep in their synagogue.

                                      "Juive de Tanger" by Charles Landelle, Musée des beaux-arts de Reims

This may have been due to the influence of his mistress, Berenice, a Judean princess, daughter of Herod's sister, Salome.  In the year, 60, she rejoined Agrippa, supporting his efforts to prevent the outbreak of the great Revolt in 66, and later fled with him to the Romans. That's when she became Titus's mistress.  Then she was forced by Roman popular opinion to leave him.  When Vespusian died, she tried to reconcile with Titus, but failed.  Berenice was a member of the Herodian Dynasty that ruled the Roman province of Judaea between 39 BC and 92 AD. She was the daughter of King Herod Agrippa I and Cypros and a sister of King Herod Agrippa II.

Trajan was the Roman emperor who reigned from the year 98 to 117 CE/AD.  His oriental policy led to a major clash with the Jews of Judaea.  In 105/6 he annexed the Nabatean kingdom including the Negev and Transjordan.  In 115-117, while he was involved in his Parthian war, Jewish risings were happening in Cyrenaica, Egypt and Cyprus, and in Alexandria the Greeks attacked the Jewish population.  As a result, in 116;; he ordered a preventive massacre of the Jews in Mesopotamia.   Judea itself was kept under firm control by his general, Lucius Quietus.  The suppression of the many risings ended the prosperity of the Jewish settlements in Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Cyprus.                                        

Hadrian;  Aaelius Hadrianus, was a Roman emperor from 117 to 138 CE/AD.  Hadrian assumed control over the vast Roman Empire in AD 117 following the death of his adoptive father, Trajan. As emperor, he broke with the expansionist policies of his predecessors to focus on securing the Roman Empire within its existing borders.

His most impressive statement of this policy was Hadrian’s Wall – a monument that still influences the landscape of northern England today, some 1,900 years after it was built.

He removed and executed the savage governor of Judea, who was Lucius Quietus.                    

Lucius Quietus was a Roman Berber general and 11th legate of Judaea from 117. He was the principal commander against the Jewish rebellion known as the Kitos War (Kitos is a later corruption of Quietus). As both a general and a highly acclaimed commander, he was notably one of the most accomplished Berber statesmen in ancient Roman history. After the death of the emperor Trajan, Quietus was murdered or executed, possibly on the orders of Trajan's successor Hadrian.  What most of people ignore is the fact that behind the Greatness of Emperor Trajan lays the  African Berber, Lucius Quietus, who was Trajan’s military Deputy and Chief of staff of his armies… Many history manuals will not tell you who was really Lucius Quietus, how he became the Deputy of the Greatest Roman Emperor of all time and why many people really know nothing about him…

The Diaspora Revolt/or Jewish rebellion, a series of major uprisings by diasporic Jews, occurred in 115–117 in Cyrene (Cyrenaica), Cyprus, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. These uprisings involved the ransacking of towns and the slaughter of Roman citizens and others. When the inhabitants of Babylonia revolted, they were suppressed by Quietus, who was rewarded by being appointed governor of Judaea. There, he faced a period of unrest later known in rabbinic sources as the Kitos War, a name derived from Quietus. Quietus took the city of Lydda and methodically set about defeating the rebellions.

At first the Jews may have thought well of Hadrian because he supported the Egyptian Jewry in disputes with the Greeks and this created a favorable impression on the Jews.  

Then He came along with a prohibition against sexual mutilation which extended to circumcision.  This was an attack on a fundamental rite of Judaism, and they changed their minds.

As a result of his visit to Palestine in 130 and the implacable attitude of the Jews with whom he negotiated, he decided to commence the hellenization of the country by converting Jerusalem into a Roman colony and named it after himself, Aelia Capitolina. 

The Jews rebelled under Bar Kokhba and the ensuing war from 132 to 135 ended with Bar Kokhba's death.  It was the most difficult time of Hadrian's reign.   Bar Kokhba held Jerusalem for 3 years with his army of young men, an impossible feat in those days to dare to take on the Roman army.                                   

After Hadrians's victory, he received the title of Imperator.  Judea became a consular province called Syria-Palaestina.   The ruins of Jerusalem were reconstructed as a pagan city and an equestrian statue of Hadrian was erected on the site of the Holy of Holies.  

During the siege of Jerusalem during the Roman War, the Temple had served as a center of military activity, and was destroyed by the conquering Romans in 70 CE.  A Roman temple was later built on the site, and since the Moslem Period, a mosque has stood there called the Mosque of Omar.  The area around the western and southern walls of the (Herodian) Temple compound was extensively excavated in 1968.  

Research:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1586-antioch

Who We Jews Are Who Have Returned To Our Ancient Land Part 2

                            Synagogue in Algeria or Morocco  at one time
Nadene Goldfoot

Synagogues sprang up as ever since the First Temple was destroyed, these came into being as a place to pray.  They have last for the past 2,500 since then as a house of prayer, meeting and study.  Synagogues have also served as a model for Christianity and Islam to develop their  own houses of worship, the church and the mosque.                                              

The Persians were defeated by Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) of Macedonia,  a ruler particularly kind to his Hebrew subjects.  Alexandrian Jews adopted Greek as their language and their children grew up without Hebrew.  Our Torah was translated into Greek called the Septuagint (Seventy) because of the story of 70 rabbis doing the translating.  We still find errors. 

We didn't agree with all things Greek.  Jews believed that every person is basically good and can improve the world by positive action and righteous living.  Greeks thought of human life in a gloomy and hopeless way.  

Greeks taught that truth can be found only by a few people through long study while Judaism said that truth is open to everyone in the Torah, the word of G-d. Yet rabbis got together, like in Worms, Germany, to study and debate points to get clarity of the Torah. Our famous rabbis have devoted their whole lives to long study. 

 Many Jews gave up Judaism to enjoy the comforts of Greek conquerors. These became hellenized.   Greek ways of religion were totally foreign to Jewish traditions, however. 

Egyptian and Syrian successors of Alexander were the worst, especially Antiochus IV, king of Syria controlled all of Israel.  He had feelings of grandeur bordering on insanity, thinking he was a god and took the title Epiphanes meaning the manifest G0d.  People called him the madman, Epimanes.  

Roman armies kept him from conquering Egypt so he vented anger against the Jews.  Keeping the Sabbath was now a crime.  Honoring the G-d of Israel was a crime.  They had to offer sacrifices to the gods of Greece and eat the pig. To disobey these laws meant death.  A revolt naturally started with Mattathias, leader of Hasmonean family and priest in the town of Modin.  Chanukah was created. Judah Maccabee led their forces.  On the 25th of Kislev, 165 BCE, they rededicated their Temple to the service of G-d and was a great victory of human freedom .  To get to this point in time, our people faced many crises.  At each point, a small group had been willing to risk all to see the children of Israel survive.  A minority returned to Israel from Babylon.  A minority took up arms against the armies of Antiochus. Their dedication and determination proved justified.  After 400 years of rule by others; Babylonians, Persians and Greeks, Jews were again masters of their own country.  With this victory of Maccabees over the armies of Antiochus, the biblical Period came to a conclusion.       

At this time, the Talmud was written and it was the age of the Rabbis. In fact, we have two;  The Palestinian and the Babylonian Talmuds.   We were surrounded by laws, opinions, legends, sayings, stories and debating.  There was this thirst for logic and clarity and analytic truth that continues today but on a different path.  They said, the more you study the Holy Scriptures, the more we learn from it, and the same thought was also about the Talmud   The Talmuds were the collected records of academic discussion and of judicial administration of Jewish Law by generations of scholars and jurists in many academies and in more than one country during several centuries after 200 CE.  In other words, they were the notes about the Jewish laws. Because the Talmud was so valuable to Jews, they were taken from them and burned in their anti-Semitic rants by anti-Semites, usually a whole town of people against Jews because they were different. 

If we were just left with laws, they would last no longer than the town or the people. Knowing these laws were special from G0d, made them a holy law to follow. Discussing them and commenting about their importance was the human part.   

And then the Romans came along, occupying Jerusalem long before they burned it down in 70 CE. In 63 bce the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem. The Romans ruled through a local client king and largely allowed free religious practice in Judaea.                                          

 The Arch of Titus in Rome, their own bragging about the loot they took from the Temple of the Jews and how they forced their citizens into slavery and carry it all back to Rome....How many Jewish tourists have noticed this and didn't know its meaning today?  

 First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of Judaea. Following a five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city and the Second Jewish Temple.  On April 70 CE, three days before Passover, the Roman army started besieging Jerusalem.  Romans allowed pilgrims to enter the city but refused to let them leave—thus strategically depleting food and water supplies within Jerusalem. 

Within the walls, the Zealots, a militant anti-Roman party, struggled with other Jewish factions that had emerged, which weakened the resistance even more.                              

Josephus Flavius (Yoseph ben Mattityahu ha-Cohen (38-100 CE) , a Jew who had commanded rebel forces but then defected to the Roman cause, attempted to negotiate a settlement, but, because he was not trusted by the Romans and was despised by the rebels, the talks went nowhere. The Romans encircled the city with a wall to cut off supplies to the city completely and thereby drive the Jews to starvation.  It lasted so long that people were driven to the point of cannibalism according to Josephus.  

Josephus was looked upon as a traitor to the Jews.  In 64 he had been sent to Rome on a mission.  When Romans attacked Galilee in 67, he directed the resistance and was besieged in Jotapata, also called Yodfat, which was a 47-day siege by Roman forces of the Jewish town , but on capture of the city went over to the Romans and took the name of Flavius.  It was the 2nd bloodiest battle of the revolt, surpassed only by the Siege of Jerusalem, and the longest except for Jerusalem and Masada. The siege was chronicled by Josephus, who had personally commanded the Jewish forces at Yodfat and was subsequently captured by the Romans.  He painted a picture with his words of Roman butchery and Jewish bravery which even today stands as a monument to the courage of the Jews.   He himself had chosen to become a Roman but could not forget his Jewish heritage, as the looting went on right and left and all caught by the Romans were put to the sword.  

There was no pity for age, no regard for rank, little children and old men, laymen and priests alike were butchered;  every class was held in the iron embrace of war...reminding us of October 8, 2023's attack by the Palestinian's  Hamas terrorists to happen 1953 years later in Israel.  

Jews have been the brunt of every maniacal implement against mankind, and yet they still demand the law and fairness in the land. They are the first to see the differences.   The worst they have been treated, the more they expect out of our human civilizations of today.  Is it no wonder?  How many times must they be disappointed?  

Resource; 

Abba Eban's My People;  History of the Jews, volume I 

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

A World of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrachi and Ethiopian Jews Found Where Today?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

Triumphal Arch of Emperor Titus , depicting the Jewish slaves forced to carry the loot out of their Temple to Rome.  The Arch of Titus (Italian: Arco di Tito; Latin: Arcus Titi) is a 1st-century AD honorific arch, located on the Via Sacra, Rome, just to the south-east of the Roman Forum. Picture taken Dec 6, 2019.  Titus was emperor from 79 to 81 CE, son of Emperor Vespasian.  He took over command of the Roman army in Judea from his father in 70, when he destroyed Jerusalem after a 5 months siege-causing starvation to the Jews. Josephus wrote all about it graphically.  

Titus took a Jewish mistress, which was Berenice, a princess of Judea, daughter of Herod Agrippa I's sister, Salome  and Herodias.  She had married her cousin Aristobulus and after he died, Herod's brother-in-law, Theudion.  (Note how the Jewish royalty had married into the Roman leadership-possibly given no other choices.) The last Jewish king was Zedekiah who reigned from 597 to 586 BCE who was appointed king by Nebuchadnezzar and died in prison in Babylon.  Between the Babylonians and then Rome, Judah didn't stand much of a chance.  It's interesting that the Royal House continued...giving us a chance to see the future of Britain's royal house.    

Arch of Titus in Rome showing Jewish Slaves Being Forced to Carry Loot From Temple Before Its Destruction in 70 CE -validating their history against Jews. 

 

In April 70 CE, three days before Passover with the city full as expected, the Roman army started besieging Jerusalem. The city had been taken over by several rebel factions following a period of massive unrest and the collapse of a short-lived provisional government. Within three weeks, the Roman army broke the first two walls of the city, but a stubborn rebel standoff prevented them from penetrating the thickest and third wall. According to Josephus, a contemporary historian and the main source for the war, the city was ravaged by murder, famine and cannibalism.

     9th of Av (Hebrew month) is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, on which we fast, deprive ourselves and pray. It is the culmination of the Three Weeks, a period of time during which we mark the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.  Both Holy Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed on this date;  once by the Assyrians and once by the Romans, unleashing a period of suffering from which our nation has never fully recovered.  Several other events are known to have fallen on this same date of the 9th of Av as listed by Chabad.  

On Tisha B'Av, 70 CE (August 30), Roman forces overwhelmed the defenders and set fire to the Temple. Resistance continued for another month, but eventually the upper and lower parts of the city were taken as well, and the city was burned to the ground. Titus spared only the three towers of the Herodian citadel as a testimony to the city's former might. The siege had a major toll on human life, with many people being killed and enslaved, and large parts of the city destroyed. This victory gave the Flavian dynasty legitimacy to claim control over the empire. A triumph was held in Rome to celebrate the fall of Jerusalem, and two triumphal arches were built to commemorate it. The treasures looted from the Temple were put on display.

Josephus wrote that 1.1 million people, the majority of them Jewish, were killed during the siege – a death toll he attributes to the celebration of Passover. Josephus goes on to report that after the Romans killed the armed and elderly people, 97,000 were enslaved. Josephus records that many people were sold into slavery, and that of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 40,000 individuals survived, and the emperor let them to go wherever they chose. Before and during the siege, according to Josephus' account, there were multiple waves of desertions from the city.  

                                                       

Originally, Jews were of one union with Abraham as their common father; 

 Israel became a nation with King Saul in 1025 BCE. 

David followed as king, ruling from 1010 to 970 BCE, and then Solomon ruled

from 961 to 920 BCE.  When he died, there was a Civil War and Israel divided

into the North of 10 of the tribes and the South with Judah and some of 

Benjamin and some of Simeon;  Judah and Israel.  Israelis were attacked by 

Assyria who took 27,290 with them and to Media and replaced them with Syrian and 

Babylonian prisoners who were not Jews.  They learned, somewhat. Then

Babylonians attacked Judah in 597 BCE and destroyed the Temple but returned some 70 years later

in 538 BCE.  They rebuilt the Temple.  

By 70 CE, which is 1,953 years ago, Jews looked aghast as they watched their Temple- rebuilt after being destroyed by the Assyrians and then by the Romans, burn to destruction along with their city of Jerusalem, and the ultimatum given to those still alive to never return from the exile they were about to embark upon as slaves.  Only a few had escaped the horrendous famine that accompanied the destruction that even led to cannibalism with a few reported, it was that bad according to Josephus, and who knows if he were telling the truth or just tantalizing his Roman readers.  

                                      

We're like a cell that has divided into 4 sections undergoing Mitosis:  

Jews come in four groups:  Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrachi and Ethiopian, so when you mention "Jews," just who are you talking about?

• Ashkenazim, the Jews of Germany and Northern France (in Hebrew, Ashkenaz)
• Sephardim, the Jews of Iberia (in Hebrew, Sepharad) and the Spanish diaspora
•  m, or Oriental Jews
• Ethiopian Jews

                     

Many of them were taken to Rome as slaves where a few Jews had actually been living, being in the trading business, not knowing that their families would be joining them as slaves-putting them also in jeopardy.  Some 700 Judean prisoners were paraded through the streets of Rome in chains during the triumph, among them Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala. Simon bar Giora was executed by being thrown to his death from the Tarpeian Rock at the Temple of Jupiter after being judged a rebel and a traitor, while John of Giscala was sentenced to life imprisonment.

They were forced to move on when possible to Germany, and became the Ashkenazic Jews.  Their language became a mixture of Hebrew and Germanic words called Yiddish.  Italy today has 27,000 Jews.  Germany has 118,000, and France has 448,000. Poland has 4,500,  Lithuania has 2,400. 

Others  that became the Sephardim  followed their leaders in the trading business with boats to Spain, called Sepharad in Biblical days.  Historians generally believe, however, that Jews first came to the peninsula with the Roman legions, followed by further arrivals after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.  When they were forced out in 1492, they moved over to Portugal, only to be thrown out of there in a few years, for all Christians had received direct orders from their Pope in Rome to treat Jews in this way.  Their language became a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish words called Ladino.  Today Spain has 13,000 Jews.  They have offered Spanish passports to Sephardim.  To be eligible for a Spanish passport, applicants have to put forward evidence of medieval Sephardi ancestry through heritage certificates and family trees. They also have to demonstrate special links to Spain and Spanish language skills through tests. They have turned down many people.  Of the 150,000 total applications that have been submitted since 2015, 33,485 people have been granted citizenship to date. Only about 6,000 have been accepted in the past quarter. Applicants from Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico have been severely affected.

Mizrahi Jews with Mitzrayim meaning Egypt,  sought refuge from nearby lands of Jerusalem, probably filling the vacant spots before the others arrived, which was why they had to continue onto Spain. They were forced to leave in 1948 when Israel was re-born in the United Nations. 

It happened that in 71 CE, after the destruction of Jerusalem, zealot refugees stirred up a Jewish revolt in Egypt  and another uprising there assumed considerable proportions in 115 to117. In 1948, as a result of the war in Palestine, many Jews were placed in concentration camps and attacks were made on Jewish homes.  Their numbers in Egypt dropped from 90,000 in 1947 to 30,000 by 1955.  By 1966 only 2,500 remained.  In 1990 there were only 240 Jews left in Egypt.  The Jewish history goes back to Abraham and Babylon.  2 centuries after the Arabs conquered Iraq conquest of Mohammad's death in 632 were ruled by their own exilarchate and their position was good.  Omar came along and had restrictions on Jews and not strongly enforced.  They were allowed into being physicians and bankers.  Jews produced great doctors, scientists and scholars.   and then they became traders and craftsmen.  15,000 Jews lived in some places Tudela visited.  By 2011 Egypt reported having a population of 79,089, 650:   90% being Sunni Muslims.  Egypt had a revolution in 2011. Egypt has 100 Jews today.  

Syria was called Aram in the Bible. The Arab conquest took place from 634-637.  Jews then were called Dhimmis and had to pay the toll tax that others didn't.  Aleppo had 5,000 Jews, Damascus 3,000 and Palmyra 2,000. It even increased after 1492 with more refugees.  Jewish population went from 30,000 in 1943 to 14,000 in 1947, after WWII.  By 1973 the Jews numbered 4,000.  They have kept up an anti-Israel policy. Syria has 100 Jews today.  

Lebanon by 1964 had 5,000 to 7,000 Jews.  By 1944 there were 6,261 Jews living there.  By 1948 it went up again, now with Syrian Jews.  By 1990 less than 100 remained.      

              Singer, Ofra Haza of Yemenite parents, an Israeli (19 Nov 1957-died 23 Feb. 2000).  Of Mizrahi Jewish (Yemenite-Jewish) descent, Haza's music is known as a mixture of traditional Middle Eastern and commercial singing styles, fusing elements of Eastern and Western instrumentation, orchestration and dance-beat, as well as lyrics from Mizrahi and Jewish folk tales and poetry.  She represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 1983, with the song "CHI"- meaning, "Life".  You pronounce it as hi as in hi, Sam.  

Operation Magic Carpet took all the Jews of Yemen and transported nearly 50,000 to Israel.  the majority of the Yemenite Jews made their way to Aden where they were flown to Israel.  This started in the fall of 1949 and lasted for a year.  

  In 1941 was a terrible pogrom in Iraq against Jews-affected by Germany.   The Jewish community in Baghdad was attacked by mobs leaving 180 dead.  123,500 Iraqi Jews reached Israel in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah in May 1950 which ended October 1951.  Following the war, Iraq was the only Arab country not to sign a ceasefire agreement with Israel, and the two countries have technically been in a continuous state of war since 1948. 

                                        

Ethiopian Jews were said to be from The Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon's child.  They've suffered in Ethiopia among Christians who attacked them constantly until being rescued by airlifts from Israel who worked on checking into their authenticity as Jews. They may be the "most Jewish" of us all to have lasted all these years under great threats of life all the while retaining so much love of Judaism. 

   A beautiful people, spent their first days in the hospital, and when healthy put on an art show in Safed. It didn't take long and they acted just like all the other Israelis in the supermarket.   

They came to Israel in 1984 in Operation Solomon where 17,000 waited in camps in the Sudan. I was there in Safed when an airlift brought them there because of having empty apartments to accommodate them.  They lived across the street from me. Another lift took place in 1991 bringing 14,000 over 2 days.  

 The USA, which has welcomed Jews, at first unwillingly with the arm twisted, has about 6 million Jews, specifically 5,700,000 mostly Ashkenazis, about the same number as Israel. 

As of 2023, the world's "core" Jewish population (those identifying as Jews above all else) was estimated at 16 million, 0.2% of the 8 billion worldwide population.  That means we're less than1% of the world population.

Jews make up 2% of the population of USA.

Two countries account for 81% of those recognized as Jews or of sufficient Jewish ancestry to be eligible for citizenship in Israel under its Law of Return: the United States with 51% and Israel with 30% (including the West Bank with 2%). An additional 16% is split between France (3%), Canada (3%), Russia (3%), the United Kingdom (2%), Argentina (1%), Germany (1%), Ukraine (1%), Brazil (1%), Australia (1%), and Hungary (1%), while the remaining 3% are spread around approximately 98 other countries and territories with less than 0.5% each. With nearly 6.8 million Jews, Israel is the only Jewish-majority country and the only explicitly Jewish state. 

Though Jews are only 2.4% of the U.S. population, they are the victims of 63% of religiously motivated hate crimes. Reported antisemitic incidents rose by 36% to a new high of 3,697 in 2022. Moreover, bullying and intimidation of Jewish students on college campuses tripled last year, while attempts to censor Zionism increased 600%, according to AMCHA Initiative. Recalling Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany, some 50% of U.S. Jewish students say they hide their Jewish identity, according to a Brandeis Center study.

Resource:

https://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_184_can-bidens-plan-beat-antisemitism/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=7bb03300-7ba7-4ba9-9b95-286795df7bdd

https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-is-spain-suddenly-turning-down-many-jews-who-apply-for-citizenship/

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

https://aish.com/how-many-jews-are-there-in-the-world/

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/sephardic-ashkenazic-mizrahi-jews-jewish-ethnic-diversity/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country#:~:text=As%20of%202023%2C%20the%20world's,the%208%20billion%20worldwide%20population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country#:~:text=As%20of%202023%2C%20the%20world's,the%208%20billion%20worldwide%20population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(70_CE)

 

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/144575/jewish/What-Is-Tisha-BAv.htm 

https://www.jpost.com/jewish-world/jewish-features/a-brief-history-of-spanish-jews#:~:text=Historians%20generally%20believe%2C%20however%2C%20that,Second%20Temple%20in%2070%20CE.