The Jewish People

Perhaps the most famous Bible story is the Exodus, in which Moses led the people, then called Israelites and divided into 12 tribes, from Egyptian slavery to freedom. The Israelites eventually entered the Land of Israel, which according to the Bible, God promised to the first Patriarch, Abraham. The Twelve Tribes are descended from Abraham through his grandson, Jacob, who was also called Israel.

The best known event in Abraham’s life was when God tested him by calling on him to sacrifice his son Isaac, although God did not let Abraham actually do so. 

Eventually, the Israelites established a kingdom in the land of Israel, led by Saul, David, Solomon and other kings. The kingdom eventually split into northern and southern branches. The northern part was exiled by the Assyrians in 721 BCE and its tribes disappeared, becoming known as the Ten Lost Tribes.

David is also a significant Jewish religious figure. He is the forefather of the longed-for redeemer (the Messiah), and the writer of some of the Bible’s most moving religious poetry, the Psalms. David also made Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish People, purchasing the land on Mount Moriah where Abraham had been tested, where later the great shrine known as the Temple would be built.

Mount Moriah is today known as the Temple Mount. Solomon built the First Temple there in around 950 BCE, which was destroyed by the Babylonians, who exiled the Jews from their land in 586 BCE. But some 50 years later, Jews returned and built the Second Temple, which was embellished by King Herod around the time of Jesus. It, too, was destroyed, in 70 CE by the Romans.

The Temple Mount, on which the Muslim Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque now stand, is one of the best known sites in Israel, as is the Western Wall, the last remnant of Herod’s Temple and a great Jewish holy place.

In the 19th century, Theodore Herzl, whom many called a modern-day Moses, founded a modern political movement to bring Jews back to the ancient land. The movement was named Zionism, from the word “Zion,” a name for Jerusalem mentioned in the Bible. Thus throughout the centuries of their exile, the Jews never forgot their Holy City. When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, Jerusalem became its capital.