The Tight Rein of Hellenization in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth

 Nadene Goldfoot

You'd never know but Bethlehem is in a fertile limestone hill country and this distance  is only between Jerusalem and Bethlehem  8.89 km. This distance is equal to 5.52 miles, from Jerusalem  and Nazareth is in the Galilee (6.2miles from Jerusalem ).  I lived in Safed from 1980 to the end of 1985 and that is on top of another mountain about as high as Jerusalem is.  Safed is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of 900 metres (2,953 ft), Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. It's cooler in the summer as you feel the breeze.                                                      

Bethlehem’s historic centre stretches in a North-South axis on top of a ridge that overlooks the Jerusalem hills to the north and the Shepherd’s field to the east. References to the city date it back to the Canaanite period but it is Queen Helena’s identification of the birthplace of Jesus, on the very spot where stands the Nativity Church, that gave the city its stature. Around five thousand people live in the historic centre, which still reflects the morphology of its Ottoman heritage: narrow streets and alleyways, dense clusters of white stone structures, narrow arched windows and the occasional qantara (arch) that straddles pathways and axis to housing clusters. From a distance, the skyline delineates a display of towers, belfries, domes, spires, and the occasional red-tiled roof of a monastery or convent, added in the latter part of the 19th century when the town witnessed an economic and building boom.

                 A Hamas rally in Bethlehem-4 May 2006

Bethlehem as the birthplace of David as well as the city where he was anointed as the third monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel, and also states that it was built up as a fortified city by King Rehoboam, son of Solomon by his Ammonite wife, Naamah,  the first monarch of the Kingdom of Judah.  Archaeological confirmation of Bethlehem as a city in the Kingdom of Judah was uncovered in 2012 at the archaeological dig at the City of David in the form of a bulla (seal impression in dried clay) in ancient Hebrew script that reads "From the town of Bethlehem to the King." According to the excavators, it was used to seal the string closing a shipment of grain, wine, or other goods sent as a tax payment in the 8th or 7th century BCE.                                                   

                         View of Nazareth, with the Basilica of the Annunciation at the center

Nazareth:  Archaeological evidence shows that Nazareth was occupied during the late Hellenistic period, through the Roman period and into the Byzantine period. It's elevation is 347 meters or (1,138 feet high)

 Nazareth  is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. In 2021 its population was 77,925. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel", Nazareth serves as a cultural, political, religious, economic and commercial center for the Arab citizens of Israel, and is also a center of Arab and Palestinian nationalism. The inhabitants are predominantly Arab citizens of Israel, of whom 69% are Muslim and 30.9% Christian. The city also commands immense religious significance, deriving from its status as the hometown of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity.

Old City from the Mount of Olives with Al-Aqsa Mosque (left) and Dome of the Rock (right) on the Temple Mount.  Old City of Jerusalem from about 3800 feet above sea level. The city itself is about 2400 to 2500 feet above (Mediterranean) sea level.

 Jerusalem is an ancient city in West Asia, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital; Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there, and the State of Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power. Neither claim, however, is widely recognized internationally.

Throughout its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. The part of Jerusalem called the City of David shows first signs of settlement in the 4th millennium BCE, in the shape of encampments of nomadic shepherds.  As Jacob told the pharaoh of Egypt, his family was a long line of shepherds, and he had brought his flock to Egypt where the pharaoh said that Goshen would be his new home. 

Saul was the first king of Israel in about 1030 BCE, and then David was the next king from 1010 to 970 BCE.   David was born in Bethlehem, married Saul's daughter, Michal.  He settled in Hebron and declared himself king of Judah.  In the 8th year of his reign he captured the Jebusite stronghold of Jerusalem and made it his capital , then moved the Ark there.  Many agree that he wrote the Book of Psalms.  

No doubt, most readers will recognize the significance of these 3 cities.  They are important in the religions of Christianity and Islam along with the Jews.  Jerusalem is the heart and soul of Judaism.  Bethlehem lies in Judah and Nazareth in the Lower Galilee of Israel  and is 20 miles (32 Km)  east of Haifa.  They both are important to Christianity. All three were being influenced by Hellenism.  

Hellenism was the form of the Greek civilization which was diffused over the Mediterranean and the Middle East after the end of the 4th century BCE as a result of the conquest of Alexander the Great.  

About that time, Israel-Judah fell under Greek rule and Judea was surrounded by a ring of hellenized cities.  At the same time, the Jewish Diaspora was expanding rapidly in Egypt, Cyrenaica, Syria and Asia Minor, which were all in a process of hellenization.                                          

              Our Chanukah hero, Judah Maccabee, the Hammerer

By the 3rd century BCE, the Jews of Egypt had adopted Greek and the Septuagint translation of the Bible had been completed.  Antagonism between the traditional and hellenizing Jews in Jerusalem (the latter led by the Tobiads) brought on Antiochus IV Epiphanes' attempt to suppress Judaism and the Hasmonean revolt.  This is when our historic holiday of Chanukah took place.  

John Hyrcanus ( son and successor of Simon the Hasmonean-one of the 5 sons of Mattathias-leader in Chanukah story 135-104 BCE) and Alexander Yannai, son of John Hyrcanus,  broke the power of the Greek cities of Judah, but later these were restored and strengthened as a result of Roman intervention aided by the Herods.                                    

 

Greek Art                              

By the Mishnaic Period (273 BCE to 190 CE) , Jewish material life in Judah/Palestine  (not Palestine until the Romans renamed all the land Palestine in 135 CE) was predominantly  hellenistic  although  hellenization  had ceased to be the political program of any Jewish faction.  Both the Mishnah and Talmud contain hundreds of Greek words which had become absorbed into Hebrew and Aramaic and tomb inscriptions were in Greek.  

In a few cases, Jewish scholars fell away from Judaism under the influence of Greek philosophy.  In the Diaspora, Judaism was first tolerated by the Greeks, and the organ of Jewish religious and juridical autonomy, the politeuma, essentially Greek in form, was recognized by the hellenistic kings;  however, Jews frequently had recourse to the Greek courts.  

Their aspirations to Greek gymnasium education and Greek citizenship caused a violent civil struggle in Egypt which only ended with the revolt of 117 CE. The revolt, known as the Kitos War in 115–117, which took place mainly in the diaspora (in Cyprus, Egypt, Mesopotamia and only marginally in Judea), while poorly-organized, was extremely violent and took two years for the Roman armies to subdue. Jewish contacts with Hellenism gave rise to a variegated Judea-Hellenistic literature, one school of which advocated a Greco-Jewish rapprochement and held Greek philosophy to be Jewish in origin.  The writings were propagandist, apologetic, literary, historical, and ethical:  the leading authors were Philo and Josephus.  

An intricate mosaic depicting Alexander the Great meeting a Jewish high priest was uncovered in a 5th-century synagogue at the archeological site in the ancient village of Huqoq.

An extremely rare find, the mosaic is significant because it is the first non-biblical scene discovered in an ancient synagogue.

There were also translations into Greek of works of the Apocrypha and Apocalypse, while synagogue decoration and architecture were influenced by Greek art.  the Greeks as a whole, however, learned little about Judaism, and Jewish monotheism to them was aetheism. The Jewish rejection of polytheism, with which the Greek city was bound up, prevented the Jews' general acceptance into Greek life despite the assimilation of a few wealthy Jews and the  desire of the Jewish upper class to be regarded as Greeks.  Jewish life, although influenced by Hellenism, therefore remained fundamentally apart.  

Resource:

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

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia 

A Post Chanukah History: Galilee's Safed, Originally Sepph, A Very Ancient Jewish City

                                                                           

Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

Legend has it that Safed was founded by a son of Noah after the Great Flood. According to the Book of Judges (Judges 1:17), the area where Safed is located was assigned to the tribe of Naphtali who was Jacob's 6th son but his 2nd by Bilhah, Egyptian handmaiden of his wife, Rachel, his true love. The history of Safed connects to our Chanukah Story.   The tribe was active in the war against Sisera and

                                                 

Gideon's campaign against the Midianites. Here is Gideon having to choose the men he needs in the next fight, those who lap or those who cup their hands and drink.  

 Naphtali belonged to the northern kingdom of Israel and it was overrun by Arameans in the time of King Baasha, who reigned from 908 to 885 BCE, before a large section of its inhabitants was exiled by Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria  and taken away in 721 BCE. Baasha was the son of Ahijah who was the son of Ahitub, priest (Cohen) in the reign of Saul who accompanied the Ark into battle against the Philistines.  He had declared himself king after killing Nadah, son of Jeroboam who became king of the northern tribes and had been the superintendent for Solomon when Solomon died, and exterminating Nadah's family.  He waged war on King Asa of Judah(reigned 915-875 BCE)  in alliance with Ben-Hadad of Aram (Syria), who changed sides, so that Baasha was defeated and had to cede some territory.  

  From the survivors were derived many of the Jews living in Galilee in the 2nd Temple times.  These were the ones who had escaped the Assyrians, who remained on top of the mountain.  They are the proof that there were Jews who were able to remain, and so they remained out of the limelight.      

                                                                       

   (My preoccupation is simple: Judah Maccabee led the first revolt for religious freedom in recorded history, and he is without parallel as a guerrilla fighter and as a man of faith. And he also bequeathed us a pretty excellent holiday.) Jeffrey Goldberg.                                          

Remember that Judah the Maccabee (the Hammerer), a patriot, died in 160  BCE.  He was the eldest son of Mattathias the Hasmonean.  He succeeded his father as leader of the revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes (167/6 BCE).  He inflicted successive defeats on the Syrian armies by his exploitation of ambush, rapid movement, and night attacks.  After taking back Jerusalem in 164 BCE, he  purified the Temple by taking out the idols of these Greek-Syrians and he brought in assistance to the Jewish communities in Transjordan and Galilee.

                                                  

 Alexander Yannai or Alexander Jannaeus Hebrew: יהונתן "ינאי" אלכסנדרוס

Safed's history went back as a Jewish city before the days of King Alexander Yannai as a Jewish city since  Alexander Yannai was the king and high priest in Judea who reigned from 103 to 76 BCE. In those days it was called Sepph, and later Sepphoris.   Alexander Yannai was the son of John Hyrcanus. 

John Hyrcanus was the son and successor of Simon the Hasmonean who ruled from 135 to 104 BCE.  During Simon's lifetime, John was governor of Gezer, but after the murder of his father and 2 brothers by his brother-in-law, Ptolemy, escaped to Jerusalem, where he seized power before Ptolemy could gain control.  He besieged Ptolemy in the fortress of Dok, but had to desist on account of the sabbatical year.  Ptolemy escaped after murdering John Hyrcanaus's mother whom he had been holding as hostage.  

 He turned out to be a despotic, and violent ruler who maintained his authority with the aid of foreign mercinaries.  

                                                 

  Today's Tel Aviv is in the coastal region.  Thanks to John H, it's part of Israel.  

He had set about annexing those Greek cities of Palestine whose inhabitant still refused to acknowledge Hasmonean rule.  After suffering some setbacks, he succeeded in adding the entire coastal region to his kingdom.                               

His political aspirations ran counter to the religious outlook of a large section of the Judean population.  During his reign, therefore, occurred the final break between the Crown and the Pharisees, apparently as a result of Alexander's flouting their susceptibilities while officiating in the Temple.  The Pharisees were a political and religious party during the 2nd Temple period.  They were probably an outgrowth of the Hasideans who made up the backbone of the Hasmonean revolt.  It was a relatively narrow group, closed to the masses, probably made up of the Cohens.  Their goal was to instill the masses with a spirit of holiness by propagating traditional religious teaching. (This was the direction from Moses for the Levites who were Cohens, men who were the descendants of Levi.)  The gulf between the Pharisees and those ignorant of the Law or not practicing it was complete.  Actually, this was the fault of the Pharisees in not setting up schools at this time, which was done later. Chabad is doing a lot of this.  They are rabbis, teachers of the faith.  

                                              

                               Demetrius III of Syria or Theos

In the year 94 BCE, civil war broke out with the Pharisees soliciting the aid of Demetrius III of Syria who defeated Alexander near Shechem in 88 BCE.  6,000 Jews  who served in Demetrius' army, realized the implications of the situation, and went over to Alexander who succeeded in regaining his hold upon the country and took a ferocious vengeance on his former opponents.  At the end of his reign, Alexander tried to complete his conquests in Transjordan, and died while besieging Ragaba.

Let's remember that Mohammad was born in 570 and died in 632. A lot of Jewish history has been happening in Eretz Yisrael.                                                        

       Safed or Tzfat in the 19th century

Tzephat (Hebrew) for Safed, identical with the fortified village of Sepph in Upper Galilee, was mentioned by the General-turned-writer for the Romans, Josephus.  Safed is mentioned also in the Talmud as one of the places where beacons were lit to mark the New Year.  It first appears to be of importance in crusading times.  Fulk of Anjou, King of Jerusalem, built a fortress there in 1140 CE.  It became Templar property in 1168 and was destroyed by Baybars in 1266.  

                         Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572) Kabbalist born in Jerusalem, educated in Egypt, living in Safed from 1570 on. Hayyim Vital, his pupil, recorded his teachings.  In Mameluke times, Safed was one of the administrative centers of Palestine and Jews already lived there in the 11th century.  In the 16th century, Safed became a most important center of rabbinical and kabbalistic activity.  Here lived the kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria and his pupils, while the rabbinical authorities           

   included Rabbi Joseph Caro. Rabbi Yosef (Joseph) Caro, 5248-5335 (1488-1575 CE), is most famous as the author of the Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law. He was born in Toledo, Spain during the Inquisition years and fled from that country at the age of 4, with his family together with myriads of Jews who were banished from Spain in the year 5252 (1492 CE). His family wandered from city to city, from country to country, not finding a safe haven until they settled in Constantinople (Kushta), Turkey.  He went to Palestine, founding a yeshivah at Safed.  Here he wrote his code Bet Yoseph (House of Joseph) from 1550-1559.                                                 

 A Hebrew press was established in Safed in 1588.

The Turkish empire (Ottoman Empire) led to an administrative decay which caused Safed's administrative decline which was greatly affected by the wars between the Bedouin tribes.  Epidemics and earthquakes, especially the great earthquake of 1837 brought about the ruin of the community, which in 1845, numbered only 400.                                                                                     

In later times, the population fluctuated and in 1948, Safed was inhabited by 12,000 Arabs and 1,800 Jews.  Despite their numerical superiority and better strategic position, the  Arabs fled from Safed after some bitter fighting. 

 The population by 1990 was 16,400. In 2008, the population of Safed was 32,000. According to CBS figures in 2001, the ethnic makeup of the city was 99.2% Jewish and non-Arab, with no significant Arab population. 43.2% of the residents were 19 years of age or younger, 13.5% between 20 and 29, 17.1% between 30 and 44, 12.5% from 45 to 59, 3.1% from 60 to 64, and 10.5% 65 years of age or older.

                                                 

The city is home to a relatively large community of Haredi or orthodox religious Jews.                                 

The village of Akbara in the city's southwestern outskirts, which had a population of about 500 Arab Muslims, most of whom belonged to a single clan, the Halihal, is under Safed's municipal jurisdiction.  I know of an Arab family who lived in my apartment which was right across the street from the junior high where I taught English.  She helped me bail out water from my apartment when the water main broke.  That was in 1981.         

 Safed sits on top of a mountain of 2,720 in height.  It has a splendid panorama and is a summer resort.  The development of the city made it a center of art, especially painting. it was an art colony.   There were many art galleries when I lived there from 1980 to the end of 1985. 

                          
This painting is the one I did of my husband in about 1975 in Oregon.  Notice that he is wearing a Conservative sized prayer shawl.   
  The oil painting I did of my husband when in Safed in about 1982 is on the right.  It's looser, done faster.  He's wearing an Israeli prayer shawl, much bigger than the American style.  They really wear it as a tent to pray under.  I saw that from the balcony in the shul in Safed.  Danny was a Levite, 2nd to be called up on a Saturday morning to read from the Torah.  

 

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

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

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/380611/jewish/Rabbi-Yosef-Joseph-Caro-The-Master.htm

The Very Ancient Land of Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

                                           Canaan, son of Ham, grandson of Noah

The first known people living in Israel were the Canaanites of which the land was named for from 3,000 BCE to 2500 BCE.  They were Semitic-speaking,, used bronze tools and developed small cities. 7 tribes dominated the country.              

                                  The fighting Canaanites

When enumerated separately, one of the seven nations is called Canaanites, while the others are called the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Jebusites and the Perizzites.  The seven tribes are all descendants of Canaan, son of Ham and grandson of Noah, from whom they derive their collective name Canaanites.  (Deut 7:1-2), (Deut 20:16–18)), Rashi on Exodus 13:5).  This country had been fought over by the Southern people who were the Egyptians and the Northern people who were the Assyrians.  They dominated it all down to the 19th century BCE.  The country was divided into large numbers of warring city-states ruled over by petty "kings."                                       

At this point, Abraham enters the history from Ur of the Chaldees. The Torah explains that Abraham heard the voice of G-d telling him that this land was his and his descendants.  This land was to be their home.

                                                  

The Tel El Amarna Letters, an Arabic name of the site of the capital of Pharaoh Amenhotep (Akh-en-Aton) IV in Middle Egypt, explain a lot on the conditions in Canaan in the 15th century BCE and on the conquests of the Semitic "Habiri"newcomers, perhaps denoting or comprising incursions by the Israelite tribes.  The Habiri or Ivrim-speaking people (Jewish invasion)  gave the country of the land of Israel its amity and historic significance.  Cuneiform tablets were found in 1887.  Some were from kings in Asia Minor from the archives of Amenhotep III (1413-1377 BCE) and Amenhotep IV (1377-1361 BCE).  Others were found later.  Several letters were from vassal kings in Canaan, like the kings of Ascalon, Acre, Jerusalem, Megiddo, Sidon, Gebal, and others. 

                                               

These letters complained of the disorder prevailing in the country following the incursion of the Habiru "Hebrews" and the frequent wars among Pharaoh's vassal kings, and request Egyptian assistance.  Almost all the letters are written in Akkadian; a few  in Hurrian and Hittite, and some have glosses in Canaanite.  

The Israelites' invasion was a slow and difficult process.  They first established themselves in the plains and only gradually got control of the hill-country.  The process was completed with the capture by David of Jerusalem in 1000 BCE.  David was king from 1010 to 970 BCE.

                                                     

                         Deborah, a judge, roused the Israelite tribes to revolt under Barak against the Canaanite king Jabin of Hazor and Sisera, his ally and commander.

At this point, the 12 Israelite tribes were rather disunited and sometimes warring, ruled over by regional judges, such as Samuel, Deborah, Othniel, Ehud, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson, and also Shamgar, Tola, Jair, Ibran, Elon, and Abdon and were the prey of other invaders from the North and East.  The most dangerous were the Philistines, sea-invaders from the Aegean Sea who got a firm control of the Maritime Plain in the 12th century BCE and pushed inland.  

                                                 

This threat forced a union on the Israelite tribes at last, largely through the spiritual dominance of Samuel and the military genius of King Saul, their 1st king.                                   

Saul's work was completed by his son-in-law, King David who finally crushed the Philistine menace and extended the boundaries of the state in all directions.  That wouldn't have happened had the Philistines not attacked them constantly.  

David's son, King Solomon(961-920 BCE) , raised the kingdom to a great pitch of magnificence  by his maritime enterprises, his lavish court, and his ambitious buildings,, including a Temple at Jerusalem to serve as a religious center.  The heavy taxation which all this necessitated resulted in widespread discontent, and after Solomon's death, the northern tribes revolted.                                       

Thus, the Land of Israel was divided for many years into 2 rival and sometimes warring states---- the smaller kingdom of Judah in the South, and the larger, more luxurious and more powerful kingdom of Israel-also called Samaria because the capital of the north was the city of Samaria, founded in 880 BCE by King Omri, Israel's 6th king with the first being Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim, the superintendent of forced labor for King Solomon of the North. Solomon's son and heir, king  Rehoboam, a true Judean,  had remained as king for the northern people of Judah. Jerusalem was in their sector.   

The Northern tribes, weakened b internal dissensions between rival dynasties and recurrent wars with the kingdoms of Syria (Damascus) succumbed in 721 BCE to the Assyrians, who deported the Israelite people and replaced them with new settlers.  

The kingdom of Judah, more secluded geographically and more staunch spiritually and politically, for the moment escaped but were overwhelmed by 586 by the Babylonians.  Jerusalem was destroyed after existing for 414 years since David's days.  Large numbers of the people were also deported, and the monarchy was abolished.  

                                                

An attempt to renew organized political life in subordination to Babylonia under Gedaliah, a member of the old royal house, was ended by his assassination in 582 BCE.  Ishmael, father of the Arabs, however, with encouragement from the king of Ammon, along with ten men, assassinated Gedaliah and others that were with him at Mizpah.

                                                   

On the overthrow of the Babylonian Empire, the Persian King Cyrus permitted the children of the exiles who had continued to cherish the recollection of their former land, to return and rebuild the Temple and set up an autonomous center in the former territory in 539 BCE. 

  Ezra                                              Nehemiah

 Reestablishment proved to be a long and painful process, and the center became, to some extent, firmly established only with the advent from the Persian court of Ezra and Nehemiah, Jews holding prominent positions in the court. 

The mixed population of the Northern country with the added people brought in by Assyrians that were not related to them, such as the Samaritans (descended from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh with an admixture of non-Israelite colonists), were excluded from participation in the southern colony, which, it was feared, they would contaminate, even dominate. 

Judah of the Southern section was  turned into a semiautonomous Persian vassal state, administered by the high priest of the Jerusalem Temple, while the Northern Samaritans  had their center on Mt. Gerizim.

                                             

The invasions of Alexander the Great, which replaced Persia by Greek-dominance, resulted in the establishment of Greek colonies along the coastal plain and around the Jordan Valley and in giving the entire country a European rather than Asiatic orientation.  

The general political circumstances were, however, unchanged under the alternate control of the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria.  This continued until in the 2nd century BCE the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria to hellenize the country by force, religiously as well as culturally, which led to the Hasmonean Revolt in 165 BCE  and the reestablishment for the 1st time since 586 BCE of full independence under the Hasmonean House in 142 BCE, which converted into a monarchy by 104 BCE.              

Successive wars of conquest, particularly under John Hyrcanus (135-104 BCE) extended its rule over the whole of historic Palestine.  Henceforth, though the Greeks were strong on the coastal plain, etc, and the Samaritans in the central hill country, almost all of Palestine was Jewish.  The Galilee in particular, being now was a center of patriotic sentiment.                                                  

In 63 BCE, the expansion of the Romans in the Middle East brought Palestine into their political orbit.  For a period of many centuries, it was part of the Roman Empire, whether administered nominally by members of the Hasmonean dynasty, or the House of Herod, or directly by the Roman Procurators and proconsuls.  There was an interlude from 55 to 49 BCE when it was under Parthian control.  

                                                     

                      Jewish Revolt starting in 66 CE                             

                  Temple destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans

                                                   

    General Bar Kokhba, born a generation later after the destruction of Jerusalem, a revolutionary leader against Emperor Hadrian, nephew of Rabbi Eleazar of Modiin and of the Davidic descent. He was proclaimed the Messiah by Rabbi Akiva.   

During the 2 Great Jewish Revolts of 66-70 CE and Bar Kokhba's 132-135 CE. when he held Jerusalem for 3 years, came another interlude. The Samaritans did not participate in the 66 revolt.   These resulted in the depopulation of great parts of the country, non-Jewish settlers being introduced and many districts, particularly in the South, losing their Jewish character.                       

Nevertheless, a solid Jewish life continued to maintain itself after 135 when General Bar Kokhba was killed by the Romans,  principally in the Galilee.  The people continued their agriculture and were growingly controlled by their intellectual leaders and their Patriarchs, the presidents of the Sanhedrin, whose authority was in the course recognized by the Roman government, too.  This was the period of the intense intellectual life reflected in the Mishnah, Palestinian Talmud and Midrash.                                               

 But the increasing areas of the country now had a distinctly pagan impact.  An example was the new administrative center on the coast, Caesarea.  Here, the Jews were a minority.  It was one of the hubs of Roman-Greek intellectual life, and some cities of the Decapolis in the North were centers of philosophical study.  

The Christianization of the Roman Empire in the 4th century was very strongly practiced.  There was moral pressure and waves of violence which succeeded it and the anti-Jewish legislation from then on adopted by the emperors resulted in the complete undermining of the position of Jews in Palestine, now a focus of  Christian piety.  The abolition of the Patriarchate in 425 inflected as well as stimulated this process. 

                                                  

Gamaliel VI (c. 370–425) was the last nasi of the ancient Sanhedrin.

Gamaliel came into office around the year 400. On October 20, 415, an edict issued by the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius II stripped Gamaliel of his rank of honorary prefect. This decree also banned him from building new synagogues, adjudicating disputes between Jews and Christians, converting non-Jews to Judaism, and owning Christian slaves.

Gamaliel probably died in 425, as the Codex Theodosianus mentions an edict from the year 426, which transformed the patriarch's tax into an imperial tax after the death of the patriarch. Theodosius did not allow the appointment of a successor and in 429 terminated the Jewish patriarchate.    Gamliel appears to have been a physician. Marcellus Empiricus, a medical writer of the fifth century, mentioned that "for the spleen there is a special remedy which was recently demonstrated by the patriarch Gamaliel on the basis of approved experiments."

                                                 

David Blatt top row, left; Orna Guralnik, Avi Loeb, and possibly Inna Braverman, large square on bottom row is Gal Gadot of Wonder Woman, 2nd row left is Michaela Bercu. The rest I cannot tell but are noted Israelis. Gal Gadot-Varsano is an Israeli actress and model. At age 18, she was crowned Miss Israel 2004. She then served two years in the Israel Defense Forces as a soldier, whereafter she began studying at the IDC Herzliya college, while building her modeling and acting careers. Gadot portrayed Wonder Woman in the superhero film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). Gadot received swordsmanship, Kung Fu, kickboxing, capoeira and Brazilian jiu-jitsu training in preparation for the role. Gadot's performance as the superhero, which was the character's first appearance in film, was singled out as one of the best parts of the film.                         

 Although the Jewish element in the population remained strong and there was considerable intellectual activity evidenced in the development of poetry, the Midrash, and the Masorah (body of traditions). Jews were now a minority in the country.  In most respects, Jews were indistinguishable from any other Roman or later Byzantine province, just as we are today.   Today, Jews are the majority of Israel.  This is who it was created for once again on May 14, 1948; Jews; people who had to go without their country for too long.  

Resource:

Tanakh, Stone Edition

The News Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/lifestyle/most-inspiring-israelis-we-met-decade-2010-2019