Jews are one of the most ancient peoples who now live on earth. The first memories of them date back to the 20th century. BC. This people has one of the most difficult and dramatic stories, but more than 50 years ago they still managed to create their own country on the world map - Israel.
State history
According to legend, the historical homeland of the Jews is the Middle East, where more than 1,000 years ago there was the Kingdom of Israel in David. But after in 586 BC. their land was conquered by Babylon and most of the population was taken to Babylon, the Jews for 2500 thousand years could not become the masters of their territory.
Then these lands were conquered by the Persian Empire, and most of the Jews returned to their homeland. But from that moment on, a model of the existence of Jews was formed, which actually exists today - cultural dominance in the territory of modern Israel and the support of a large diaspora. Subsequently, the Persians were subordinated to the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties, who carried out Hellenistic expansion. But most of all, the Jews got it during the reign of Rome - most of the people were expelled, the language was banned, and the name of the Land of Israel was changed to Palestine.
During Arab rule, the Jewish presence remained in the territory, but it ceased to be a cultural or political center for the people. For a millennium, a war over these lands was waged between Muslims and Christians, for whom they were sacred. But even during the wars between such large cultures, the Jews never gave up the idea of returning to their lands, so the Zionism movement (from the name of Mount Zion) appeared.
After the church began to persecute the Jews, they began to return to the Holy Land. After massive persecution in Spain, they established their community in the city of Safed. Then, over the course of many centuries, they returned in waves to Palestine.
After the First World War, Great Britain gained power over the territory of Palestine, which created the Barfulwa Declaration, which declared that Britain was not opposed to the creation of a state for Jews in the controlled territory. But those lands were predominantly inhabited by Muslim Arabs, who reacted very negatively to any attempts to create such a state. In 1922, the League of Nations instructed Britain to create all the conditions for the formation of a "national Jewish home." So by the end of World War II, the Jewish population had grown from 11 to 33%.
The starting point for the creation of the Jewish state is considered to be May 14, 1948, when the declaration of Israel's independence was proclaimed.
Jewish Diasporas
And, although the Jews created their own state, most of the people live outside of it, in the diasporas. The Jewish diaspora is the oldest and most unique in the world. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that for many centuries the Jews have not lost their national identity, cultural heritage and in most cases retained their language.
The largest Jewish diaspora in the world is in the United States. During World War II, Jews fled from territories controlled by the Germans. Initially, they tried to get to Palestine, but due to the limit imposed by Great Britain, most of them fled to the United States to escape. High economic prosperity and a decrease in anti-Semitic sentiments contributed to the further resettlement of Jews. Many even preferred the United States to Israel, where there were wars with neighboring Arab countries for a very long time. The current number of Jews in the United States is estimated at 6-7 million people, which is more than a third of the entire Jewish population of the planet.
Until 1990, the diaspora of Jews in the USSR amounted to almost 2 million people. But after the collapse of the USSR due to the protracted crisis, the number of Jews throughout the post-Soviet territory fell to almost 400 thousand people. Most of them emigrated to either Israel or the United States.
The French diaspora numbers about 600 thousand people. The diaspora grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, when the French colonies gained independence and most of the Jews returned to France. But in recent years, there has been an increase in anti-Semitic sentiments among the country's Muslim population.
Back in the 19th century, the Jewish Coordination Society was created, which dealt with the problems of resettlement of Jews to South America in order to attract them to the agricultural sector of the economy. But they mostly stayed in big cities like Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Montevideo.
