Historical summary

The sixteen centuries that precede the Patriarchs form the backdrop of the biblical narrative. At Susa and in lower Mesopotamia, the clay tokens in bullae (c. 3700 BCE) and then the first proto-cuneiform tablets of Uruk (c. 3400 BCE) invented accounting writing — the distant ancestor of the Book. In Egypt, the hieroglyphic labels of tomb U-j at Abydos (c. 3320 BCE) and the Narmer Palette (c. 3150 BCE) inaugurated pharaonic kingship and the unification of the Nile. Khufu raised the Great Pyramid (c. 2570 BCE). At Ur, Abraham's presumed birthplace, Sumerian civilization reached its apogee: the King List, the royal tombs of Puabi, the ziggurat of Nanna. The Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100 BCE) is the earliest known legal codification of humanity, a thousand years before the Decalogue. This era does not yet know Israel, but it prepares all the tools — writing, the city, law, memory — without which its history could not be written.

Abraham leaves Ur of the Chaldeans and seals the Covenant with God — the birth of monotheism. The Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) and the Matriarchs (Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah) found the twelve tribes of Israel. Moses leads the Exodus from Egypt, receives the Torah at Sinai and guides the people forty years in the desert. Joshua conquers Canaan; the period of the Judges precedes the institution of the monarchy.

King Saul inaugurates the monarchy. David conquers Jerusalem and makes it his capital. Solomon builds the First Temple (c. 960 BCE), the spiritual center of the people. At his death, the kingdom splits: Israel in the north (ten tribes, capital Samaria) and Judah in the south (two tribes, capital Jerusalem). The Prophets — Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel — call for social justice and fidelity to the Covenant. In 722 BCE, Assyria destroys the kingdom of Israel (the « ten lost tribes »). In 586 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar destroys the First Temple and deports the Judean elite to Babylon.

The Babylonian exile (Galut Bavel) profoundly transforms Jewish identity. Deprived of the Temple, the people develop communal prayer, the Sabbath and textual study as substitutes for sacrificial worship. The prophet Ezekiel, in exile, has the vision of the divine chariot (Merkavah). In 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great conquers Babylon and authorizes the return of the Jews — but many remain in Mesopotamia, creating the first lasting diaspora. Ezra and Nehemiah lead the reconstruction.

The Second Temple is rebuilt and enlarged by Herod the Great (c. 20 BCE). It is a period of intellectual flourishing: the Torah is translated into Greek (Septuagint, 3rd century BCE), and the Pharisaic, Sadducean, Essene and Zealot currents develop. The revolt of the Maccabees (167 BCE) against the Hellenizing policy of Antiochus IV leads to the Hasmonean dynasty and the festival of Hanukkah. The Dead Sea Scrolls (Qumran) bear witness to the Judaic diversity of this period. In 63 BCE, Rome imposes its rule.

The Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE) ends with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE by Titus, recounted by Flavius Josephus in The Jewish War. The Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135) is the last attempt at national restoration; Hadrian renames Jerusalem « Aelia Capitolina » and Judea « Syria Palaestina ». Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai founds the academy of Yavneh, saving Judaism by transforming it: from the worship of the Temple to the worship of study. The Mishna is compiled by Rabbi Judah HaNassi (c. 200), then the Talmuds of Jerusalem (c. 400) and of Babylon (c. 500).

The Talmudic academies of Babylon (Sura and Pumbedita) are led by the Geonim (pl. of Gaon), the supreme religious authorities of the diaspora. Saadia Gaon (882–942) translates the Bible into Arabic and writes pioneering philosophical works. Under the Umayyad and then the Abbasid caliphate, Jews take part in Islamic intellectual life: medicine, astronomy, commerce, poetry. In Muslim Spain (Al-Andalus), a « golden age » opens for Judeo-Spanish culture with poets such as Samuel HaLevi ibn Nagrela, the Jewish vizier of Granada.

This is the era of the Rishonim (« first ones »), the great commentators and decisors. Rashi (1040–1105) of Troyes writes the fundamental commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud. Maimonides (1138–1204), the Rambam, composes the Mishneh Torah and the Guide for the Perplexed. The Zohar (c. 1280) lays the foundations of the Kabbalah. But it is also the time of the Crusades, the accusations of ritual murder, the expulsions (England 1290, France 1306 and 1394, Spain 1492) and the creation of the ghettos. The Spanish Inquisition and the Reconquista disperse the Sephardic communities toward the Ottoman Empire, the Maghreb, Italy and the Low Countries.

Joseph Karo writes the Shulkhan Arukh (1565), a universal codification of Jewish law. The Rema adds the Ashkenazi customs to it. In Eastern Europe, the Hasidic movement of the Baal Shem Tov (c. 1740) transforms popular spirituality; the Gaon of Vilna leads the rationalist opposition. The Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) of Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) opens the Jews to European culture. The French Revolution grants citizenship to the Jews in 1791 — the first country to do so. The Italian ghettos are abolished by Napoleon.

The 19th century is marked by the gradual emancipation of the Jews in Western Europe, the birth of the Wissenschaft des Judentums (Science of Judaism) with Leopold Zunz and Abraham Geiger, and the emergence of the Reform, Conservative and Modern Orthodox currents. But the pogroms in Russia (1881–1884, 1903–1906) and the Dreyfus affair (1894) in France show the limits of integration. Theodor Herzl founds the political Zionist movement at the Congress of Basel (1897). The first aliyot (waves of immigration to Palestine) begin.

Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933 unleashes a systematic persecution. The Nuremberg Laws (1935), Kristallnacht (1938), then the « Final Solution » decided at the Wannsee Conference (1942) culminate in the murder of six million Jews — a third of the Jewish people. The communities of the Yiddishland (Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary) are all but annihilated. The survivors will bear witness — Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Simone Veil — so that memory may never fade.

On 29 November 1947, the UN adopts the Palestine partition plan. On 14 May 1948, David Ben Gourion proclaims the independence of the State of Israel. The Jewish communities of the Arab world (Mizrahim) immigrate en masse. Today, around 15.7 million Jews live throughout the world — 7.2 million in Israel, 6 million in the United States, and communities in more than 100 countries. The digitisation of manuscripts and the digital humanities open a new chapter in the transmission of heritage.