GAZA HISTORY - for 3000 years it was also a Jewish town with mixed faiths
EGYPTIAN PERIOD: 2300 BCE-720 BCE
Gaza first gained importance during Egyptian rule as Pharaoh Pepi I used the roads for military strategies. According to records, he used the road only five times as he entered Canaan seeking Lebanese timber to build his ships.
Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III, known for his lucrative campaigns into Syria and Babylonia in 1500 BCE, established Gaza as his base and even outfitted it with two defensive walls.
Shortly thereafter, the Philistines arrived on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
Ancient Philistia lies between what is now Gaza City in the south and Ashdod to the north. The exact site of the ancient city of Gaza remains unknown.
EARLY BIBLICAL PERIOD: 1000 BCE-712BCE
Gaza first appears in the Bible in Genesis, in reference to the boundaries of Canaan. It is also included in the description of the borders of Israel in the book of Numbers: "From Azmon the boundary shall turn towards the Wadi of Egypt [near el-Arish] and terminate at the [Mediterranean] sea." This refers to the entire present-day Gaza Strip and additional land in the Sinai Peninsula.
Gaza was originally allotted to the tribe of Judah as described in the book of Judges.
In Gaza, Samson carried the two gates of the city up the neighboring mountain and gained his strength back tearing down the temple of Dagan.
King David ultimately conquered Philistia, which included five major Philistine cities: Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and Gat.
Gaza was the southernmost point of King Solomon’s kingdom. Once the kingdom separated into the kingdoms of Israel in the north and Judah in the south, Philistines continued their incursions into Israelite domain.
ASSYRIAN PERIOD: 712 BCE - 604 BCE
In 712 BCE, Gaza was annexed to the Assyrian Empire following Assyrian King Sargon II's victory over Egypt. The Assyrian empire then conquered large parts of both Israelite and Philistine areas around the 7th century BCE. The Kingdom of Judah survived the Assyrian invasion and was able to regain domination over parts of Philistia.
BABYLONIAN PERIOD: 604 BCE - 525 BCE
In 604 BCE, Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Ashkelon. Soon after, the Babylonians killed or dispersed the rest of the Philistines. This period marked the end of the Philistine nation in history. There would be no further references to a Philistine nation, although the area continued to be known as Philistia.
PERSIAN PERIOD: 525 BCE-332 BCE
The Persians captured the area in 525 BCE and occupied it for nearly 200 years.
The Persian King Cambyses feasted his eyes on the Gaza as it was filled with wealth and strength. Cambyses used the city as a base for his Egyptian campaign as well as utilized it for its trade system. The ensuing trade in Persian goods only increased the city’s wealth.
GREEK PERIOD: 332-96 BCE
In 332 BCE the Greeks, headed by Alexander the Great, had heavy catapults dragged hundreds of miles from the north down to Gaza for a siege against the Persians. While most of Israel welcomed the Greeks, Gaza City expressed disdain and revolted.
Alexander's forces battled for two bloody months before they were able to breach the ramparts held by the Persians and Arabs allies of the Gazans and prevailed. As part of punishment, Alexander the Great killed close to 10,000 men, enslaved women and children, and sent the wealth of Gaza off to Greece.
Gaza was reorganized as a polis, a Greek city-state and continued to have a strong reputation for trade.
At the start of the Greek Empire, Gaza had a flourishing economy trading in spices and goods to countries as far as India and Ethiopia. Other goods included gold, olive oil, silks, medicines, perfumes, ivory, and much more, but the key to its export economy was frankincense.
HASMONEAN PERIOD: 96-63 BCE
Gaza was first attacked in 145 BCE by Yochanan the Hasmonean, brother of Judah the Maccabee, but wasn’t taken by the Hasmoneans until 96 BCE when King Alexander Yanai laid siege on the city.
ROMAN PERIOD: 63 BCE-4TH CENTURY
In 63 BCE, Roman rule began under Pompey, who captured the remains of Gaza City from the Maccabees and rebuilt the city as a Roman town.
Archaeological proof of a considerable Jewish population in Gaza during the Talmudic period is provided in a relief of a menorah, shofar, lulav, and etrog, which appear on a pillar of the Great Mosque of Gaza. Other inscriptions in Hebrew and in Greek were also found from this era.
The Talmud relates that the Sage Eliezer ben Yitzchak lived in the Jewish town of Kfar Darom, believed to be today's Palestinian town of Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip
BYZANTINE PERIOD: 4TH CENTURY-634 CE
Just as Gaza City had resisted Alexander, so too was it the last city on the Levantine coast to submit to Christianity. Sixty-three years after Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Byzantine Empire, the ascetic Bishop Porphyrius arrived in Gaza, where the city's merchant elite worshipped the Hellenistic god Marna in a famous domed temple, one of eight about the city. Until then, the emperor had been reluctant to force the new faith on Gaza, fearing that if prominent citizens fled or were killed, "its trade will be ruined."
His fears were unfounded. Historian Glanville Downey, in his book Gaza in the Sixth Century, writes that even though imperial troops burned the temples, "beat the pagans with clubs and staves" and quickly built a church upon the rubble of the temple of Marna, the city prospered overall and even, in this early Christian era, reached new heights.
Gaza was adorned with a new wall and moat, new baths, new churches, a market, and a main street lined with marble columns. A library was constructed, and a school of rhetoric developed that in the early sixth century was esteemed as second only to Alexandria's.
ARAB PERIOD: 634-1099 CE
In the twilight of the Byzantine era, Gaza became the home of an increasingly influential group of Arab traders from Mecca. Among them was Umar ibn al-Khattab, later to become the second Caliph of Islam. Another, much earlier trader, Hashim, would die in Gaza before he could see his great-grandson Muhammad change history.
In the years becoming a prophet, Muhammad is believed to have visited Gaza more than once. In his early 20's, he arrived with the summer caravans, in the employ of the Meccan merchant Khadija, who would later become his first wife.
More than 30 years later, when Muslims set out to capture the weakening Byzantine lands for Islam, Muhammad's commanders knew that Gaza held the key to both Palestine and Egypt.
Islam gradually added a new dimension to Gazan commerce: the Hajj. Muslim pilgrims on the long journey from North Africa to Mecca found safe passage along the Via Maris (Way of the Sea) through Gaza. From northern Palestine, too, pilgrims often preferred the coastal route through Gaza to the King's Road along the Jordan River. Even pilgrims passing directly from Cairo to Arabia through the Red Sea port of Aqaba bought grain, fruit and meat imported from Gaza to the north.
MAMLUK PERIOD: 1291-1516 CE
Gaza was a prosperous city under the Mameluks. ÑA city so rich in trees it looks like a cloth of brocade spread out upon the land," wrote the 14th-century Syrian scholar al-Dimashqi of his extensive view of Gaza City.
Meshulam of Volterra, a Jewish pilgrim, found 60 Jewish families in Gaza City in 1481. Jews produced all of the wine of Gaza, and other Gazan Jews worked as artisans.
To protect the trade that fueled their Cairo-based empire, the Mamluks constructed khans, or fortified caravan hostels, throughout Palestine.
OTTOMAN PERIOD: 1516-1917 CE
In 1516, at the battle of Yaunis Khan, Turkish forces under the Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha defeated the Mameluks near Gaza.
Beginning in 1520, the multi-religious and multi-ethnic community prospered under the rule of the great Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I. The flourishing Jewish community in Gaza City included a Bet Din (Jewish religious court) and a yeshiva. Gazan rabbis ruled that Jewish farmers had to observe the agricultural Sabbatical year in Gaza, as it was considered part of the Land of Israel.
In 1665, on the occasion of Shabbetai Tzvi's visit to Gaza, the city became a center of his messianic movement.
In the 19th century, Gazan Jews were mainly barley merchants whose product was exported by Beduin to Europe's beer breweries.
At the beginning of World War I, the Ottoman Empire ordered a series of evictions of Jews from Israel, including the 2,000-strong Jewish community in Gaza City. |
