Exile and Return: The Struggle for a Jewish Homeland

By Martin Gilbert

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0397012497
• ISBN13: 9780397012497
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: J. B. Lippincott Company
• Length: 364 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The millenia long attachment of the Jews to the Land of Israel

Since the re-establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 , her existence has been threatened in may ways. In seven wars , in a sustained and brutal Arab war of terrorism , mainly targeting Israel's women and children , in vicious and hateful propaganda onslaughts and in repeated denials of her right to exist at all as a sovereign Jewish state. In Exile and Return Martin Gilbert takes us through the 3000 year old attachment of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel , examining the roots and rights of Jewish statehood. He explores the centuries long exile and persecution of the Jews , culminating in the horrors of the Holocaust. Promises were made and broken , hopes were raised and dashed . Gilbert examines the struggles and determination of the Jews to return to their ancient homeland , the prejudices and obstacles that mitigated against the re-establishment of the Jewish state , and the turning points and terrible anguish of the Jews on the road to the reclamation by the Nation of Israel , of their ancient homeland. Gilbert begins by pointing out that the Jews were living in Canaan , three thousand years ago. They were first parted from their land by the Assyrians and Babylonians , who destroyed the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea. The Jews returned after several decades and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem. Later Syrian armies conquered the Land of Israel but they were driven out in 168 BCE by a Jewish revolt led by Judas Maccabee , and for a hundred years the Jews were again independent. In 63 BCE the Land of Israel was invaded and occupied by Roman troops , who in response to a susutained Jewish revolt in 66 CE , destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem , and after the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132 CE changed the name of Judea to Syria Palestina , and that is how the name Palestine came about , and it is still used today ,to refer to Israel, by those who wish to cut the Jews off from their land. The Jews were dispersed from the Land of Israel all over Europe , the Middle East and North Africa , but a remmant always remained in Israel. By 1530 as many as 10 000 Jews lived in and around the Galilee town of Safed. The author documents the persecution and massacres of the Jews in exile and in Israel , through the ages , by Christians and Moslems alike. He explores the roots of modern Zionism , Alkilai , Hess , BILU and the resettlement of the Land of Israel by the Jews. He examines the efforts of Theodor Herzl and Chaim Weizmann to make the Jewish State a reality. He examines the evolution of British policy from the roots of the Balfour Declaration to the British treachery of going back on their promises to the Jews , and blocking Jewish immigration into the Palestine Mandate , preventing hundreds of thousands of Jews from escaping Hitler's infernos , by settling in the Land of Israel. He also recounts the bloody Arab pogroms against Jews in 'Palestine' during the 1920' and 30's , in which thousands of Jews were massacred and often whole Jewish communiti

The Jews - Their History & Their Land.

If ever the time was ripe for the re-release of a book, then the time is now and this is the book.Sir Martin Gilbert, one of the most prominent, knowledgeable and admired experts on the Middle East has provided us with an extremely accurate, captivating study of the Jewish people and their relationship to the `Holy Land' which extends back many thousands of years. The writer presents a meticulous, thorough research into the Jewish origins in the Land, including their exile and subsequent return, which utterly treads underfoot the propaganda, myths, distortions and fabrications taught through the new age pseudo-scholars and `history revisionists' who now seek to de-Judaize the Land from any Jewish birthright, history or heritage.My personal copy of this book is dated 1978, but it is perhaps even more relevant now than it was then.The author examines the region's history extending from the Jewish entry into `Biblical Canaan' to the re-birth of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948. Even including a study into the continual Jewish presence in the Land even through the dispersion to Babylon and the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem.The Jewish uprising against Rome is also studied around 70-73AD, including the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the subsequent re-naming of the Land to `Syria Palaestina' by the Romans in 135AD. This of course eventually becoming anglicised into what is presently referred to as `Palestine'.Attention is also paid to the Arab/Islamic conquest of Palestine from 636-640AD, and the consequences and implications upon the Jewish presence which still remained in the Land throughout that period.Indeed, Sir Martin Gilbert proceeds to study the Jewish people through virtually every period from their presence in the Land under Byzantine and Muslim rule to their experiences throughout the nations in the Diaspora. Sections are devoted to the medieval persecutions, the `Black Death riots' of 1347-1350 and the Jewish expulsions from Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Sardinia etc.. Reference is also made to the pogroms and massacres in Eastern Europe and the Jewish longing amongst those dispersed to return to their Homeland.Of more recent significance, the writer refers to Palestine during the 20th Century. We are provided with an analysis of the British promises to the Arabs & Jews, the British occupation of the Holy Land after the defeat of the Ottoman Turks in 1917, the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1917, the Balfour Declaration surrounding a Jewish homeland in Palestine and the subsequent British Mandate. Further examination is then made of the British betrayal of the Jews in relation to the promised boundaries of the proposed Jewish homeland in Palestine. This then extends to the pre-World War II years, the Nazi Holocaust, the restrictions by the British upon Jewish immigration into Palestine and the eventual UN Partition Plan of 1947.The writer refers to the climate of unrest between the British/Arabs/Jews preceding th