Israel - Palestine

° Israel ° Ashdod ° Eretz ° Elat (Eilat)  ° Haifa ° Jaffa ° Jerusalem ° The Dead Sea Scrolls° The Genius, Art and Calligraphy of the Jews ° The Hoopoe Bird

Flavius Josephus

The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, writing in the first century AD, offered his explanation of the Biblical story of Solomon and Hiram’s joint trade mission to the distant land of Ophir. In his Antiquities of the Jews, he said the voyages which began from the Red Sea port of Ezion-geber were destined for the island of Chryse far to the east in the Indian Ocean.

(Ezion-geber was near the modern city of Eilat in Israel and the trade voyages took three years to complete according to the Old Testament.)

Greek geographers usually placed the island of Chryse east of the Ganges river mouth. Medieval writings placed it near where the Indian Ocean met the Pacific Ocean. In modern times, Chryse has been equated by scholars with the land known in Indian literature as Suvarnadvipa. Both Chryse and Suvarnadvipa mean “Gold Island.” The latter was also located in Indian writings well to the east of India in the “Southern Ocean” and is identified by most scholars with the Malay Archipelago (“the East Indies”).

Josephus’ theory of voyages to Southeast Asia was supported indirectly about a half-century later by Philo of Byblos who translated the History of Phoenicia by Sanchuniathon. This translation was originally considered a fraud by modern scholars, but discoveries from Ras Shamra in the Levant indicate Philo’s work was authentic. They are important because they come from a different historical source than the Old Testament account.

"Israel is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Dravidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store."

The idea of an ancient trade route to the east for spices and precious metals like gold and silver goes back to the dawn of history.

The people of Israel trace their origin to Abraham, who established the belief that there is only one God, the creator of the universe (see Old Testament). Abraham, his son Yitshak (Isaac), and grandson Jacob (Israel), are referred to as the patriarchs of the Israelites. All three patriarchs lived in the Land of Canaan, that later came to be known as the Land of Israel.

1793. Mediterranean: Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Egypt. Robert de Vaugondy Gilles (1688 - 1766) and Didier (c. 1723 - 1786) Robert de Vaugondy were map publishers, engravers, and cartographers active in Paris during the mid-18th century. The father and son team were the inheritors to the important Sanson cartographic firm whose stock supplied much of their initial material. Graduating from Sanson's map's Gilles, and more particularly Didier, began to produce their own substantial corpus of work. Vaugondys were well respected for the detail and accuracy of their maps in which they made excellent use of the considerable resources available in 18th century Paris to produce the most accurate and fantasy-free maps possible. The Vaugondys compiled each map based upon their own superior geographic knowledge, scholarly research, the journals of contemporary explorers and missionaries, and direct astronomical observation - moreover, unlike many cartographers of this period, they commonly took pains to reference their source material. Nevertheless, even in 18th century Paris geographical knowledge was severely limited - especially regarding those unexplored portions of the world, including the poles, the Pacific northwest of America, and the interior of Africa and South America. In these areas the Vaugondys, like their rivals De L'Isle and Buache, must be considered speculative geographers. Speculative geography was a genre of mapmaking that evolved in Europe, particularly Paris, in the middle to late 18th century. Cartographers in this genre would fill in unknown areas on their maps with speculations based upon their vast knowledge of cartography, personal geographical theories, and often dubious primary source material gathered by explorers and navigators. This approach, which attempted to use the known to validate the unknown, naturally engendered many rivalries. Vaugondy's feuds with other cartographers, most specifically Phillipe Buache, resulted in numerous conflicting papers being presented before the Academie des Sciences, of which both were members.

After the exile by the Romans, the Jewish people migrated to Europe and North Africa. In the Diaspora (scattered outside of the Land of Israel), they established rich cultural and economic lives, and contributed greatly to the societies where they lived. Yet, they continued their national attachments and prayed to return to Israel through centuries.

Shepherd of Jerusalem William J. Webbe (or William J. Webb) He lived in London, travelled abroad to Dusseldorf and to Jerusalem and the Middle East, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1853-78 and also at the British Institution and Royal Society of British Artists. The greater part of his output was of birds and animals, often with an element of anthropomorphism, set in minutely observed landscapes.

Jews of our era fall into two main categories the Ashkenazim Jew (common), whom in 1960 numbered around 11 million. The term Ashkenazim Jew is associated with Germany, Hungary and Poland which shared culture and borders with the Khazarian empire and received a large migration of "Yiddish" people from the disintegrating Khazarian kingdom. The Sephardim Jews who numbered about 500,000 in 1960 and are the descendants of the Spanish Jews that were expelled from Spain by the Moslems in 1492.

The Khazars

The Khazars were a Pagan civilization, who, during a short period in history, became the largest and most powerful kingdom in Europe, and possibly the wealthiest. They brought with them their religious worship that was a mix of phallic worship and other forms of idolatrous worship practiced in Asia by other Pagan nations. This form of Pagan worship continued into the seventh century with vile forms of sexual excesses and lewdness indulged in by the Khazars as part of their religious beliefs. In the seventh century King Bulan, decided to end the practice of Phallic worship and all other forms of idolatrous worship. After an historic session with representatives from the three monotheistic religions, King Bulan decided to adopt "Talmudism" (as it was known then and which is now practiced as Judaism) over Islam and Christianity and became the new state religion. King Bulan and his four thousand feudal nobles were promptly converted by rabbis imported from Babylonia for the event.

Phallic worship and all other forms of idol worship were there after forbidden. The Khazarian Kings invited large numbers of Rabbis from Babylon and vicinity, to open synagogues and schools to instruct the population in the new state religion. After the mass conversion of the King and his empire, only a Jew could occupy the Khazarian throne. The empire became a virtual theocracy with the religious leaders being the civil administrators as well. During this time the Talmud was added to or altered to protect their state religion from any other outside religious influence and to prevent a return to previous vile worship styles.

Eretz

Of the Vilna Gaon settled in Eretz Israel almost a decade after the arrival of two of his pupils, R. Hayim of Vilna and R. Israel b. Samuel of Shklov. In all there were three groups of the Gaon's students which emigrated to Eretz Israel. They formed the basis of the Ashkenazi communities of Jerusalem and Safed, setting up what was known as the Kollel Perushim. Their arrival encouraged an Ashkenazi revival in Jerusalem, which until this time was mostly Sephardi (Levantine). Many of the descendents of the disciples became leading figures in modern Israeli society. The Gaon himself also set forth with his pupils to Eretz Israel, but for an unknown reason he turned back and returned to Vilna where he died soon after.

In August 1809, Hillel Rivlin (1758-1838) arrived at the head of the third group of 70 pupils of the Vilna Gaon. Most of them settled in Jerusalem with Rivlin or in Safed with Hayim b. Tobiah and Israel of Shklov. They revitalized the Ashkenazi community.

Jaffa

Jaffa is one of the most ancient port cities in the world. It's name, which translates to "beautiful" is known variously in The Bible as Jaffa, Joppa, Japho, Jaffe, or Yafo. Historians believe that Jaffa is the only port in the world which can boast uninterrupted inhabitation throughout its entire existence.

David Street, Jerusalem. 1890.
Market in Jaffa, 1887.
Gustav Bauernfeind.

In 1880, Gustav Bauernfeind traveled for the first time from Munich to Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. He was having difficulty in selling his German bourgeois village scenes and took the advice of friends to change the style of his paintings in line with the Orientalist genre of the time. In 1888 Bauernfeind left Germany for a third trip to the Middle East - the most extensively documented period of his life - and arrived in Jaffa. With over a week's delay due to severe flooding he finally boarded an Egyptian steamboat that took him north to Beirut from where he continued inland toward Damascus.

Its natural harbor has been occupied since the Bronze Age. Through biblical history, the city was in turn taken by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans, during which time it was included in the kingdom of Herod the Great. Roman legions, Richard the Lion Hearted, Napoleon and Turkish sultans all conquered the city; but with the eclipse of the Ottoman Empire, the city's vitality declined.

It is mentioned in an Ancient Egyptian letter from 1470 BC, glorifying its conquest by Pharaoh Thutmose III, who hid armed warriors in large baskets and gave the baskets as a present to the Canaanite city's governor. The city was under Egyptian rule until around 800 BC. King David re-took Jaffa in his time, and when Solomon succeeded his father as king, he developed it into Israel's major seaport. It was to Jaffa that Hyram, king of Tyresent cedar logs (the Cedars of Lebanon) to use in building the original Temple of God in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 2:11,16)

May 3, 1895, The News, Frederick, Maryland, U.S.A.

Jaffa (Hebrew Japho) was a border town of the tribe of Dan (Joshua 18, 46, 47, 48) on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean thirty miles from Jerusalem, and on account of its convenience to Jerusalem it became the principal port of Judea and is still the great landing place of pilgrims. Here the cedar trees for building the first and second temple of Solomon, sent from Lebanon and Tyre, were landed (3 Chr., 3:16;Ezr., 3.7).

Here Jonah embarked for Tarshish, and it is supposed this was the time he encountered a storm, was thrown overboard and swallowed by a whale Here, too, Peter raised Dorcas from the dead and in the house of Simon the Tanner, by the seaside, was taught by a Heavenly vision that salvation was for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews (Acts 9 11). Jaffa was twice destroyed by the Romans during the crusades. It several many times changed hands and in 1799 it was stormed and sacked by the French and 1,200 Turkish prisoners, said to have broken their parole, were put to death.

The present city of Jaffa is situated on a promontory jutting out into the sea 150 feet high, crowned with a fortress. The city is nearly surrounded by a wall. The inhabitants are about half Turks and Arabs and have several mosques; the balance are Latin, Greeks and Armenians, and each have a church and a convent for Pilgrims. The plain of Celicla extends south of Jaffa, and the plain of Sharon north. An emigrant ship had arrived here from the United States a few days before our arrival and had 40 families on board. They came here to settle and make their home in the Holy Land, but were disappointed in their expectations, as the land did not yield to their mode of cultivation. They undertook to introduce the plan of deep plowing to produce large crops of brain, but this was their greatest mistake, for this kind of cultivation is not suited to the climate, as the long, dry seasons, with the hot sun, burns the seed up that is in the soil. The climate and soil here are only suited to the cultivation of fruit and vegetable production, which can be grown in large quantities, but there is a very poor market for them. The speculation of the emigrants was a complete failure, many of them lost all they had and the sufferings of these unfortunate people were great. The larger number of them returned to the United States and what became of the balance I have never been able to learn.

Jerusalem

May 19, 1895, The Weekly Gazette And Stockman, Reno, Nevada
(Special Correspondent of GAZETTE.)

IN THE HOLY LAND
Jerusalem of the Present

CAIRO, March 12, 1895

EDITOR GAZETTE: Since my last from here, 21st of February, and after five days stay, called resting, or rather making believe it is, we started for the Holy Land on the 26th, reaching Alexandria the same day, and on the next steamed oat for Jaffa, a distance of 265 miles, or twenty-six hours run. Distances are computed by hours in Europe, and not by miles; very properly too I think.

We sight Jaffa and the sand dunes of Asia after a pleasant passage. The port of Jaffa is the port of Jerusalem, now as in olden times, and like all the ports we have seen on the Mediterranean, vessels must ride at anchor in the stream, discharge and take on passengers and freight by use of lighters, to which we are transferred, and soon are riding over great waves that carry us to the landing place of Jaffa. The city of Jaffa, like all the old cities and sites we have seen, or expect to see, in Egypt and Palestine, goes to show the mutability of human things and the most eloquent proofs of the vanity of human ambition.

Jaffa of old is no more. We must be content with traditional statements here, as elsewhere in Palestine. The house of "Simon, the Tanner" has been remodeled and ia now a Mosque. If it was here that Peter beard the voice spake "What God has cleaned that call not then unclean," surely this "site" is sadly in want of another

MANIFESTITATION OF GOD'S COMMAND

to stir up these Mohammedan's to keep their house of worship and its surroundings free of the filth and stench that exist there. Here too Jonah set sail for Turshish. So many important things happened in and about Jaffa, during and after the time of Christ that I begin to realize that I shall fail to see Jerusalem and surroundings, understandingly, in consequence of neglect to read the Good Book industriously in the past; therefore I will only try to interest you with my personal observations observations of the character and condition of things as I find them, never forgetting that from them came the light to guide mankind in his "straight and narrow path."

Jerusalem during the time of Christ. Henry Courtney Selous (1811-1890)

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1899. World's Fleet. Boston Daily Globe

Lloyds Register of Shipping gives the entire fleet of the world as 28,180 steamers and sailing vessels, with a total tonnage of 27,673,628, of which 39 perent are British.

Great Britain	10,990 vessels, total tonnage of 10,792,714
United States	3,010 vessels, total tonnage of 2,405,887
Norway	2,528 vessels, tonnage of 1,604,230
Germany	1,676 vessels, with a tonnage of 2,453,334, in which are included her particularly large ships.
Sweden	1,408 vessels with a tonnage of 643, 527
Italy	1,150 vessels
France	1,182 vessels

For Historical Comparison
Top 10 Maritime Nations Ranked by Value (2017)

	Country	# of Vessels	Gross Tonnage (m)	Total Value (USDbn)
1	Greece	4,453	206.47	$88.0
2	Japan	4,317	150.26	$79.8
3	China	4,938	159.71	$71.7
4	USA	2,399	55.92	$46.5
5	Singapore	2,662	64.03	$41.7
6	Norway	1,668	39.68	$41.1
7	Germany	2,923	81.17	$30.3
8	UK	883	28.78	$24.3
9	Denmark	1,040	36.17	$23.4
10	South Korea	1,484	49.88	$20.1
Total		26,767	87.21	$466.9