Dr. James Parkes wrote in Whose Land? A History of the Peoples of Palestine, p. 266:
“It was, perhaps, inevitable that Zionists should look back to the heroic period of the Maccabees and Bar Cochba, but their real title deeds were written by the less dramatic but equally heroic endurance of those who had maintained a Jewish presence in The Land all through the centuries, and in spite of every discouragement.”
So taken was I with Parkes’ assertion that Rome had not exiled Judea’s surviving Jews following its bloody defeat in 135 CE of the Bar Kochba Revolt, but that Jews had remained in The Land [Parkes’ caps] all through the continuous exclusively foreign empire rule centuries. “in spite of every discouragement,” ultimately in our time regaining independence as its next native state, that I longed for an opportunity to help dispel the devastating “exile” myth.
And so it was in 2005 that I was introduced to Philadelphia businessman Steve Crane, who told me he owned a small publishing firm that dealt inter alia with “Judaica,” I told him about this Judaica book on Jews’ continuous post-biblical homeland presence that was crying out to be published. Without batting an eyelash, Steve answered, “You write that book, and I’ll publish it.”
So I did and he did. The draft I sent to him set the book’s opening scene in the Second Temple’s smoking ruins. Steve said: “But what about King David and all of that stuff?” I replied that if we can’t connect the dots between Hadrian and Herzl, then King David and all that stuff doesn’t matter.
But biblical Israel, King David and all of that stuff, does matter enormously as the anchor of our people’s homeland presence and, as today’s Israel’s Declaration of Independence put it, as the time and place we wrote and gave the book of books, our Hebrew Bible, to the world.
So chapter 1 became chapter 4, and what a time to be writing about biblical Israel! After decades of “minimalists” harping on lack of tenth century BCE archeological evidence to pooh-pooh King David as “as real as King Arthur,” a ninth century BCE enemy king’s stele had been recently uncovered extolling his war against the northern kingdom of Israel and “House of David.” In 2005, a substantial 10th century Israelite fortress was unearthed on the Philistine border. In the City of David itself, archeologist Eilat Mazar unearthed an enormous 10th century BCE public building, apparently King David’s and later kings’ palace.
And you need to familiarize yourself too with 7th century CE homeland Jews mustering into their own battalions and fighting alongside the Persian invaders against the hated Romans’ Byzantine heirs.
And about how the 1099 Crusaders themselves accounted Jews “the last to fall” defending Jerusalem and how they courageously held out in Haifa alone against the Crusaders for a whole month.
Of all the canards against which we inadequately contend, the one that we were essentially gone from The Land for close to two thousand years while it became exclusively Arab is among the most devastating. Come join the ranks of us refuting it.
New and “used” copies are on Amazon, AbeBooks and PavilionPress.com. (Among the “used,” the ones that I signed go for less than the ones that I didn’t.)
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