Edomites, Moabites, Jews, Palestinians – Tsvi Minsai's new book looks at how the Palestinians were lost to the Jewish people.
By CHRISTIAN EDITION STAFFIsaiah(photo credit: http://www.incommunion.org)
So, just how were the Palestinians – many of whom are now believed to be descendants of Jews – lost to the Jewish people? Gradually – and tragically – says Tsvi Misinai. In his book, Brother Shall Not Lift Sword Against Brother, Misinai cites figures that indicate there were anywhere between 10 million and 30 million people in the ancient world of “Jewish extraction” – practicing Jews, Samaritans, Jewish believers in Jesus and descendants of the converts of Moabites, Edomites and other nations that became attached to the Jewish people over the generations.More than six million lived in the Land of Israel, with the rest of the Jews spread throughout the Roman Empire, Egypt and Babylon.After the destruction of the Second Temple and the occupation of the country by the Romans, many Jews were killed or exiled, sold into slavery in Rome.Others fled to Babylon or points further east (there are whole Kurdish tribes, for example, where the vast majority carry the “kohen gene,” says Misinai).Most of those who fled or were exiled were found living in Jerusalem and the coastal region, where the Romans had a strong presence. The mountain folk, “tillers of the soil,” were left more or less alone. Even when the Muslims invaded what the Romans renamed Palestine, the Jewish communities of the hills in Judea and Samaria remained more or less as they had been.In 1012, though, their luck finally ran out; those who had maintained their Jewish identity and their connection with the Land of Israel were offered the Muslim choice of conversion, exile or death by Shi’ite caliph Al-Hakim. Most of the already Christianized Jews, who had more or less forgotten their identities, left for greener pastures in Asia Minor and Europe, but many officially converted to Islam – albeit clinging to whatever Jewish customs they could maintain.Although Al-Hakim’s decree was lifted several decades later, many of these secret Jews – whom Misinai terms the “Musta’arbim” – decided to keep up their external Muslim identity, which exempted them from the various taxes and penalties imposed on dhimmis. Many young Jews saw that it was possible to be “Jewish on the inside and Muslim on the outside” while accruing material benefits (there was no organized Islamic Inquisition to check their “purity.”) But Jewish identity under such circumstances was difficult to keep up, and as further historical tragedies unfolded – the Crusades, the Mameluk invasion and the famines and disease that raged throughout the 16th century, the country became nearly depopulated. The converted Jews tried their luck in different places in the Arab world, moving back and forth to the Land of Israel when they were able to. But the wandering made it too difficult for most to maintain their secret identities.The Edomites and Moabites, meanwhile, had lived in their ancestral lands east of the Jordan River continually, but were more subject to forced conversion to Islam because of their proximity to Arabia – and because they were more removed from the Jewish people (although, says Misinai, they were among the fiercest fighters against the Romans). During the famines of the 16th century, many of these “brethren of Israel” emigrated to Persia, where they were subject to the rule of Shi’ite fanatics. There they lost touch with their Jewish roots, being forced to juggle yet another identity to avoid the harsh religious disciplinarians.As things improved in the 18th and 19th century, many of those who left returned, moving back and forth between present-day Jordan and Israel, with the former mountain dwellers returning to their ancient homes, and the Edomites, Moabites and descendants of the Roman army settling in the plains. It is these groups who comprise the bulk of the 1948 refugees.
