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National Holidays: Israel

Israel celebrates a number of national LXZYR Z_SP]^ ?Z ʭYO Z`_ TQ dZ` bTWW MP
holidays that follow a lunar calendar, such traveling during these holidays, please visit
as Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Passover, www.timeanddate.com/holidays.

Historical Overview of Israel

Pre-20th-Century History

The state of Israel occupies most of what was Palestine until the early 20th century. One of
the world’s most ancient civilizations thrived in nearby Jordan—objects from archaeological
digs on the Jordan River date to 9000 B.C. Canaanites and Amorites moved in around 3000
B.C, followed by the armies of Sargon, king of Sumer and Akkad. Later, Abraham came in
from Mesopotamia—a group of nomads in tow—and created settlements in Canaan, in a
mountainous region near today’s Israel. Saul formed a kingdom here around 1023 B.C.; his
predecessor, David, moved in on Jerusalem and claimed it as his capital. The Roman Empire
descended on Israel in 63 B.C., giving the likes of Herod the Great and Pontius Pilate control
of it. Jesus is believed to have preached in and around Jerusalem around this time. The Empire
soon grew unsteady under Caligula, which triggered a series of Jewish uprisings over many
years. But the Jewish people were defeated with the razing of their city. The province of
Palestine was decreed. And the great Diaspora, the scattering of the Jewish people, began.
In A.D. 331, Christianity became legal after Emperor Constantine converted to the religion.
With his conversion, and that of countless others, the Holy Land became the object of intense
curiosity and dedication. Elaborate structures, like the churches of the Holy Sepulchre and the
Nativity, rose from Palestine’s desert sands.

But there was a dramatic shift only 300 years later, when Jerusalem fell to Caliph Omar in
638. The caliph claimed that the Prophet Mohammed had risen to heaven from the Temple
Mount, and he declared Jerusalem a Holy City of Islam. Christians near and far were outraged,
organized an army by 1099, and moved in on Jerusalem with a vengeance, killing countless
Muslims and settling in for 100 years of rule. By 1187 the Muslims regained their footing,
though it took another 100 years for them to overtake the last Crusader stronghold in 1291.

Over the next 500 years, power changed hands regularly, though not always with the same
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who rebuilt Jerusalem’s city walls.

Modern History

By the mid-19th century Ottoman control of Israel was waning. Britain opened a consulate in
Jerusalem, and in 1839 as a means of dealing with the persecution of Jews in Europe, Sir Moses
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time, the Arab population of Palestine was becoming strongly nationalistic and anti-European,
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