Israel and the Jewish people: roots, memory and choosing life
Why here? An introduction to Jewish and Israeli history: attachment to the land, tradition and creativity, persecution and statehood, and the hope for a secure home alongside a Palestinian homeland.
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Roots in evidence and memory
Jewish attachment to this land predates modern Israel by millennia. The kingdom of Judah is documented outside the Bible: Assyrian reliefs depict the capture of Lachish in 701 BCE.1 The Dead Sea Scrolls, including biblical manuscripts, preserve evidence of Jewish writing, belief and community during the Second Temple period.2
The land also lives in biblical stories, Hebrew and prayers concerning Jerusalem. Religious tradition and historical claims tested against evidence are different kinds of knowledge. Understanding an attachment does not require sharing a faith.
Heritage at home and in community
Jewish identity is also carried through family meals, language, music, study, debate and mutual care. Passover, for example, recalls the passage from slavery to freedom in Jewish tradition. The seder passes that story between generations through questions, foods and customs.3
There is no single way to be Jewish. Religious, traditional and secular identities coexist with Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi and other traditions. Belonging may grow from faith, family, culture or shared memory, often together.
Diaspora: creativity, belonging and insecurity
Jewish communities lived for generations across the Middle East, Europe, North Africa and beyond. Their history includes literature, commerce, thought, creativity and relationships with neighbours, as well as persecution. The Iraqi Jewish Archive preserves religious, educational and community life alongside twentieth-century persecution and departure.4
Not every society or era was hostile to Jews. The possibility that integration could give way to vulnerability helps explain why home, protection and independence became central concerns.
Antisemitism and anti-Jewish violence
Antisemitism is hostility or discrimination directed at Jews because they are Jewish. It has taken religious, social and racist forms: accusations, restrictions, violence and expulsions, including England in 1290 and Spain in 1492.5
Pogroms struck communities in the Russian Empire and the subsequent civil-war period.6 During Baghdad’s Farhud on 1–2 June 1941, Jews were attacked and property looted.7 Remembering victims must not assign perpetual guilt to perpetrators’ descendants or an entire religion. Criticism of a government is not inherently hatred of a people; Jews collectively are not responsible for Israel’s government.
World War II and the Holocaust
The Holocaust was the systematic persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by Nazi Germany, its allies and collaborators. Persecution began with Nazi rule in 1933; World War II, from 1939 to 1945, provided the context for expanding mass murder. Families, communities and cultural worlds were destroyed.8
This memory helps explain the depth of the Jewish need for security and self-defence. It neither reduces Jewish identity to victimhood nor permits harming others. Zionism and attachment to the land preceded the Holocaust: Israel also grew from national aspirations and lives actively built.
Zionism: an ancient attachment becomes a political project
Zionism developed as a modern national movement in the late nineteenth century. Herzl led the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. The movement sought to turn historical attachment and the need for a national home into a political and practical programme.9
The land was not empty. Alongside Jewish communities and immigrants lived Arabs with homes, fields, towns and deep attachments. The collision of national aspirations is an essential part of this history.
1947–1948: partition, independence and war
On 29 November 1947, UN General Assembly Resolution 181 recommended Jewish and Arab states and a special international regime for Jerusalem. It did not itself establish two states.10 Jewish leadership accepted partition; Palestinian Arab leadership and Arab states rejected it. David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel on 14 May 1948.11
Independence emerged during war. Many Jews remember national recovery and sovereignty; many Palestinians remember the Nakba and the loss of home and homeland. The companion Palestinian page details the war, displacement and consequences. Acknowledging both experiences need not erase facts or rights.
Ben-Gurion: inspiration in building a state
Israel’s first prime minister, Ben-Gurion, represents here the transition from a dream to institutions and responsibility. His move to Sde Boker in 1953 expressed his commitment to the Negev.12 Our inspiration lies in what people build: education, community, knowledge and a future. Admiration need not mean endorsing every decision.
The Declaration of Independence committed to equal rights and freedom of religion, conscience, language and education.13 These are standards against which to judge the state, not claims of perfect fulfilment. Honouring them requires criticism, repair and listening to those harmed.
The site’s vision — not a forecast and not a description of an existing agreement
Our home is also home to others
Israel is a national home for the Jewish people and a state for all its citizens, Jewish and non-Jewish. Jews and Israelis are not identical populations, nor are Arabs and Palestinians. Some Israeli citizens identify as Palestinian. One belonging need not erase another.
The site’s position is clear: Israel has a right to exist as an independent, secure state; Palestinians have a right to self-determination and an independent state. Our attachment does not erase theirs. Human rights are not a reward for agreement, and genuine security must also allow others freedom and dignity.
The site’s vision — not a forecast and not a description of an existing agreement
Faith, doubt and responsibility for life
We do not claim to speak for God. We believe faith can invite compassion, humility and responsibility: if God exists, we should seek to honour God through respect for human beings. Those without religious belief need no promise from heaven to value life.
We need not agree about what lies beyond life to protect life together. No faith permits harming others; disagreement about belief is no reason for war. A place’s sacredness can invite care for it and for everyone living there.
The site’s vision — not a forecast and not a description of an existing agreement
No people is a single bloc, and hatred is not destiny
Every society contains different voices: hope and fear, openness and withdrawal, willingness to compromise and resistance to it. We do not know what every person wants. We hope to broaden the aspiration for secure, free and flourishing lives, with room to learn, create, earn a living, love and raise children.
When education, public discourse or online messages portray an entire people as an enemy, they can deepen prejudice and dehumanisation. Antisemitism, racism against Arabs and Palestinians, and religious hatred deserve condemnation wherever they appear. This does not assume identical prevalence, forms or responsibility in every society; each case needs evidence.
Loss, injury and humiliation can turn fear into anger and anger into hatred. Pain deserves a hearing without becoming permission for revenge or collective blame. Responsibility belongs to perpetrators and those who order or encourage acts, not everyone sharing their language, religion or ancestry.
Education for peace does not require forgetting history or accepting every claim. It means checking sources, recognising generalisations, hearing another story and distinguishing individuals from governments or organisations. We can retain our identity while making room for others’ humanity.
The site’s vision — not a forecast and not a description of an existing agreement
Choosing life and building a future
We want children to discover the land through trips and friendships, creativity to serve schools, medicine, science and culture, and neighbours to build futures of their own. This is the site’s aspiration, not a claim that consensus already exists.
Peace does not demand forgetting, abandoning protection or ignoring danger. It asks us to invest in conditions in which fewer people need to fear. That requires agreements, institutions and responsibility. We want to choose that path.
Sources
- Research British Museum
A Researcher’s Guide to the Lachish Collection - Official archive Israel Antiquities Authority
The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library - Research National Library of Israel
Passover not opened from the build environment - Official archive U.S. National Archives
Iraqi Jewish Archive — After Millennia - Research United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Antisemitism - Research United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Pogroms - Research United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Farhud - Research United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Introduction to the Holocaust - Research National Library of Israel
The Zionist Movement - Primary United Nations General Assembly · 29 November 1947
Resolution 181 (II), 29 November 1947 not opened from the build environment - Research U.S. Department of State — Office of the Historian
Creation of Israel, 1948 - Research Ben-Gurion’s Desert Home
About Ben-Gurion’s Desert Home not opened from the build environment - Official archive United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine
Arab and Israeli views on rights of minorities in Israel — working paper not opened from the build environment