SECOND MEMORANDUM
Historical survey of the Jewish population in Palestinie from the fall of the Jewish state to the beginning of zionist pioneering

Chapter I: Under Roman and Byzantine Rule.
Chapter II: Under Arab Rule.
Chapter III: The Crusaders.
Chapter IV: The Mamluk Period.
Chapter V: Under Turkish Rule.

CHAPTER I

UNDER THE ROMAN AND BYZANTINE RULE.

The vivid rhetoric of Josephus Flavius' Jewish Wars and the absence of sources accessible to Western scholars for the later periods, have combined to create an impression in the minds of many people that the fatal issue of the Roman-Jewish war of 66-70 C.E. did not only result in the destruction of the Temple and of the city of Jerusalem, but brought Jewish life in Palestine to a complete standstill by obliterating what remained of the nation. However, even a cursory glance at the Jewish Wars will show that the struggle cannot have been as destructive as is popularly supposed. As shown on map A, Josephus specifically names as destroyed, apart from Jerusalem, four towns out of nearly forty, three districts (toparchies) out of eleven, and five villages. Even in these cases the destruction cannot have been very thorough. Lydda and Jaffa were burnt down by Cestius (Wars II,18,10 and 19,1), yet Jaffa had to be destroyed again (Wars III.9,3), while Lydda apparently continued to exist and surrendered quietly to Vespasian (ib. IV,18,1). The case of Bethannabris and the other villages in the Jordan Valley is even more instructive; burnt down by Placidus (Wars IV.7,5) they continued to flourish in the Talmudic period and remained Jewish strongholds down to the last days of Byzantine power in Palestine, i.e. over 500 years after their 'destruction'. Even in Jerusalem, which underwent the misery of a long siege and piecemeal destruction, there was a revival of Jewish settlement after 70. According to the fifth century Christian author Epiphanius¹ seven synagogues existed on Mount Zion, one of them still standing in the time of Constantine.

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