h2ohno said:
It is simply not true that the Jews 'hadn't been there' for thousands of years. There has never been a single period in the last 3,000 years in which there weren't Jews in Israel/Palestine. The leader of the Jewish people around the world continued to be the Nasi (prince or president) of Israel, for hundreds of years until the Byzantines abolished the institution. There were many Jewish revolts in Israel/Palestine against the Romans, Byzantines, and Persians for hundreds of years after Judea was destroyed. There were Jews there when the Muslims conquered the land in the 600s. There were Jews there when the Crusaders conquered it in the Middle Ages. Safed has been the home of the Jewish kabbalists for the last 500 years. The Jewish community of Hebron continued to live there uninterrupted for 3,000 years until the Hebron massacre of 1929. Every census of Jerusalem from the 1800s shows that the city had a large Jewish majority then. |
Exactly...
Thank you for a much needed detailed historical perspective. I didn't even know that the rulers of Judea were called nasi. This is obvious but considering the serious historical ignorance of some, I must point out that the name "nazi" used to describe national socialism has nothing to do with the title of nasi used in Judea. Obvious but it still needed to be pointed out. 
