Beleaguered
but Beloved, Gaza
By
Shelomo Alfassa - September 2004
Originally
published in the Sephardic
Image Magazine
The history of
Gaza goes back to remotest antiquity and is mentioned 18 times in the
Torá. Gaza is where Samson toppled the Philistines, arch-enemies
of the Jews. Like Judea and Samaria, Gaza had its Jews expelled, and
has been occupied by numerous foreign civilizations. The Israelites
who had been in Gaza before the time of Samson (Judges, 16:1), were
still in possession of it in the time of Solomon (Kings I:4:1). After
the Babylonian captivity (the first Diaspora and one we have not recovered
from), the Persians had occupied Gaza, which at the time a large coastal
trading city. It was there along the coast in Gaza where the shekels
Nehemiah spoke of in the Tanakh were minted. In 332 BCE the Persian
empire collapsed, and Judea became a Greek province. When Alexander
the Macedonian went from Tyre to Egypt, he savagely took Gaza putting
to death all the men and selling the women and children as slaves. He
left a garrison of soldiers in Gaza, but eventually the city repopulated
and thrived.
Even though the
Greeks had been occupying Gaza, Jewish hopes of regaining the land were
always there, just as they were with other cities in Erets Israel. When
Gaza and most of Erets Israel was occupied by the Syrian Hellenists
who had set in motion the destruction of Judaism, it was Jonathan Maccabee
the Kohen Gadol (high priest) and Jewish warrior who ordered Gaza to
open its gates. When the Greeks refused, Jonathan and his army of Jewish
soldiers destroyed the suburbs around Gaza by burning them down, and
by 143 BCE the city was open to him. From Gaza to Damascus Jonathan
had fought to liberate Jewish cities of idolatry. Unfortunately, it
was short lived, it did not take long for Hellenism to resurface and
once again spread down to Gaza.
In 96 BCE the pro-Hellenist
Jewish king and Kohen Gadol, Alexander Jannaeus, razed Gaza, which then
became an empty city. Alexander was a man who committed horrendous atrocities
upon his own people. In 88 BCE the Pharisees and other Torá patriots
were so outraged by the violent and blasphemous behavior of Jannaeus,
that they asked the Greek king of Syria to help destroy him. When the
Hellenists came and defeated Jannaeus, some of the Jewish rebels who
had originally invited them changed their minds, and fought on Jannaeus'
side, driving the Greeks back to Syria. However, Jannaeus resumed power,
and subsequently crucified 800 of the religious Jews who criticized
his ways. After a brief recovery only four decades later, Gaza, as well
as all of Judea, was once more wrested from the Jews, this time by the
Romans.
The city was rebuilt
and fortified in 57 BCE, and in 30 BCE it was given by Augustus to King
Herod, however it was completely destroyed, during the same period as
the siege of Masada. It was 66 CE and the large Jewish population of
Gaza revolted against the Romans, fiercely fighting them with intention
of liberating the city. Though their efforts were noble and a true Kiddush
Hashem, they were no match for the large Romans legions who soon instituted
pagan gods and placed the Jews into slavery. The destruction of Gaza
was thus complete at the beginning of the last "Jewish war."
After the division of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine administrations
dominated the holy land from 313 till 636 CE. In the Talmudic period,
residence there was permitted to Jews, though its inhabitants were mostly
pagan. Gaza, like most of Erets Israel, became home to others over subsequent
centuries.
Gaza was part of
the Jewish homeland long before Islam arrived and took root. As evidence
of the highest order, archeologists have documented remains of a Roman-period
synagogue in Gaza which are found inscribed on a column located today
in the major mosque of Gaza. There is a Hebrew-Greek inscription complete
with Jewish motifs that mention Hananiah, the son of Jacob. The inscription
has been dated to the second or third centuries, this of course is long
before Muhammed lived. Modern Gaza City is home to a seventh-century
synagogue, demonstrating Jews remained in Gaza at least until Islam
arrived. Muslim domination took place from 636 and lasted till the Christian
Crusader period. It was 1095 when this latter group arrived, bearing
swords on order of the Pope. After the Crusades, the Egyptian Mameluks
(Muslim slave-soldiers used by the Caliphs who on more than one occasion
seized power for themselves) occupied Erets Israel and Gaza as conquers
from 1291 till 1516. Occupation continued with the Ottoman Turks from
16th to the 20th century. The Jews of Gaza fled when Napoleon's army
marched through in 1799, but they later returned. The Jewish community
in Gaza was destroyed during the British bombardment and occupation
in 1917, but later it rebuilt itself.
Throughout this
long history there had always been some Jews existent in Gaza. Italian
sojourning Rav Obadiah of Bartenura mentions a man named Moses of Prague
serving as rabbi of Gaza in 1488, he had come from Jerusalem to lead
the community. Gaza became home to the great Damascus poet and kabbalist
Rav Israel ben Moses Najara who wrote the well known Shabbat tune, "Ya
Ribbon Olam V'almaya." He had lived and died there in the middle
of the 16th century, as did Rav Abraham Azulai the kabbalistic author
and commentator originally from Fez. Like many Jews in 1619 who were
suffering under a plague in Erets Israel, Azulai relocated to the shelter
of Gaza. Rav Eliezer Yitshak Arha became the Chief Rabbi of Gaza during
this period, and as late as 1839 the Ottoman census of Jerusalem demonstrated
Jews were still being born there. As much as any other city, whether
it be Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberius or Safed, Gaza, is a part of the holy
land of Israel; it is part of the divine land which was decreed to the
Jewish people.