Page 32 - Why Israel?

century A.D. and the return of scattered Jews to the Land that would become the modern state of Israel in 1948, there were no surviving Jewish communities in the area that had histor- ically been known as Judea until vengeful Roman conquerors renamed the area Palestine.
Yet even after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and mas- sacred over one million of its inhabitants and sent hundreds of thousands more into exile, there was still a small remnant of the Jewish people who never left their biblical homeland.
While many of their brothers and sisters suffered in the global diaspora, this remnant remained in Israel since Joshua led them into their inheritance nearly 4000 years ago. The Jewish people of Israel were oppressed by a succession of brutal and merciless overlords but still remained as caretakers of their ancestral homeland.
History records large Jewish communities in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the 9th century, and significant Jewish communities in Ashkelon, Gaza, and Caesarea by the 11th century. In between times of persecution by Arab invaders and violent European Crusaders, the local Jewish communities in historic Judea attempted to rebuild and sustain their connection to the Land with the help of occasional influxes of returning Jewish families from the diaspora. By the beginning of the 19th century, there were at least 10,000 Jews living in their ancient homeland under the rule of the Ottoman Turks. 5
5 Mitchell Bard, “Pre-State Israel: Jewish Claim To The Land Of Israel,” Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ jewish-claim-to-the-land-of-israel.
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WHY ISRAEL