Jews As Wanderers

Quite the history, a truly ancient one, well documented throughout antiquity to the present day. China? Yes, most certainly China qualifies. But actually I mean Israel. From biblical times to the present, there has been a notable historical and current dynamic presence within the Middle East of a sprawling Jewish population. David envisioned the building of a great temple to the greater glory of God, but because he made himself impure by murdering Bathsheva's husband so he could himself take the woman he lusted afte - so the legend goes - he was disqualified.

It fell to his son Solomon - he of great and celebrated wisdom - to build the first Temple in 950BCE named the Temple of Solomon, and the sacred Ark which David had secured from the Israelites' enemies was installed within, in the most inner chambers - the holy of holies - where God was said to have resided. In 910BCE an Egyptian pharaoh plundered the temple; and it was repaired in 835BCE. Then in 587BCE King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (he of the famed Hanging Gardens) destroyed the temple and brought the defeated Jews to Babylon. Many returned in 541BCE from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the second temple.

Doesn't this constant turmoil, unrest, conquest, bloodletting, war - sound familiar? Ongoing in the Middle East, as elsewhere in the world, as mankind continually preyed on themselves, one group against another, to enlarge national territories, to grasp greater glory, to plunder the riches to be found in the coffers of others' estates. Because humankind is as it is nothing seems to change all that much; we continue to the present day to forge alliances of convenience and conversely to march upon the territories of sovereign countries claiming that we do so in a just manner for the good of all.

In 70CE the Roman General Titus laid waste to Jerusalem, murdering and plundering as he went. Of course he had his reasons; mostly that the Jews were so impossibly insolent, refusing as was their wont to consider anyone, no matter how exalted his rank in the constellation of human royalty, equal in respect and obeisance and to be honoured as they did the sacred presence of their one and only god. The second temple was destroyed, and the Jewish population, what was left of it, dispersed. Jews refused to render unto Rome the awe-filled respect Rome considered its due.

In 638CE the Muslim conquest of the Middle East became a fact of living history. And in 700CE the first mosque was constructed on the Temple Mount, where formerly stood the First Temple (of Solomon) and its successor, the Second Temple, sacred to Jewish history and religion. Muslims now, of course, claim the Dome of the Rock (Temple Mount) to be their exclusive and rightful property, while Jews now pray at the Wailing Wall, the sole remaining portion of the Second Temple, under the Dome of the Rock.

Jews went here and there and everywhere. Throughout Africa and Asia and Europe, near and far, settling where they might, establishing their little colonies, facing ongoing persecution as the world's unwanted and very unappreciated outsiders. Although there remained always a population of Jews in the Middle East, the greater aggregation went elsewhere. There were ancient settlements of Jews in Italy, in Russia, in Ukraine, in Ethiopia, in India, in China and throughout the Middle East.

Now we learn that the current Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, has a long family history in Harbin, China, where his grandparents migrated from Russia to escape persecution a hundred years earlier. Although there is much documentation of Jews settling in China millennia ago. So there is the connection of ancient history, culture and religion of two disparate people, two original countries of origin, both of which have greatly benefited themselves and the world at large to the present time.

Amazing.