ב"ה

ארץ ישראל

IsraelG-d's Eternal Gift
to the Jewish People

The Holy Land · The Jewish People · The Holy Torah

וְנָתַתִּי לְךָ וּלְזַרְעֲךָ אַחֲרֶיךָ אֵת אֶרֶץ מְגֻרֶיךָ אֵת כָּל אֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן לַאֲחֻזַּת עוֹלָם

“And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land of thy sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.”

Genesis 17:8
Read the record

Why the Torah begins with Creation

The Foundation of the Claim

The first commentary on the first verse of the Torah addresses the Land of Israel directly. Rashi asks why the Torah opens with the creation of the world and not with the first commandment given to Israel. He answers:

Should the nations of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers, for you conquered the lands of the seven nations,” Israel can reply: “The whole earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He. He created it and gave it to whomever He saw fit. By His will He gave it to them, and by His will He took it from them and gave it to us.”

Rashi on Genesis 1:1

The Jewish people's right to the Holy Land does not rest on conquest, politics, or modern diplomacy. It rests on a Divine promise, repeated to each of the Patriarchs, and on more than three thousand years of continuous connection that follows from it. This site sets out that record, verse by verse and century by century.

Eretz HaKodesh · ארץ הקודש

The Holy Land: One Land, One People, One Torah

The Land of Israel is not an ordinary country that happened to become the Jewish homeland. It is the Holy Land. Its laws and its very nature differ from those of every other land, and it is bound to the Jewish people and to the Torah. Each of the three is incomplete without the others.

A land which the L-rd thy G-d careth for; the eyes of the L-rd thy G-d are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.

Deuteronomy 11:12

Laws found in no other land

Many mitzvot of the Torah apply, in their full Torah form, only in the Land of Israel. They are called mitzvot hateluyot ba'aretz, the commandments bound to the Land:

  • Shemitah: every seventh year the land shall keep a sabbath unto the L-rd (Leviticus 25:2–4).
  • Yovel, the Jubilee: the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is Mine (Leviticus 25:23).
  • Terumot and ma'asrot: tithes and gifts from the Land's produce for the Kohanim, the Levites and the poor.
  • Bikkurim: the first fruits brought to the Temple when thou art come in unto the land (Deuteronomy 26:1–2).
  • Pe'ah, Leket and Shikchah: the corners of the field and the gleanings left for the poor.

The Talmud explains that Moses pleaded to enter the Land so that he could fulfil the mitzvot that can only be kept there (Sotah 14a).

A land with its own nature

The Torah describes the Land as responding to how its people behave, something said of no other land.

  • It cannot tolerate sin. The Torah warns that the land vomit not you out also, when ye defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you (Leviticus 18:28).
  • It keeps its Sabbaths. The 70 years of the Babylonian exile matched the Sabbatical years that had not been kept, until the land had been paid her sabbaths (II Chronicles 36:21; Leviticus 26:34–35).
  • It waits for its people. And I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein shall be astonished at it (Leviticus 26:32). The Ramban calls this a good tiding: in all the exile the Land will not accept their enemies. Visitors in the centuries of exile often described the Land as desolate.
  • It blooms for its children. But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to My people Israel; for they are at hand to come (Ezekiel 36:8). The Talmud says there is no clearer sign of the Redemption than this (Sanhedrin 98a).

Ten degrees of holiness

The Mishnah (Kelim 1:6–9) begins with the Land of Israel, holier than all other lands. It then lists ten degrees of holiness within it, each higher than the last, up to the Holy of Holies:

  1. The Land of Israel
  2. Its walled cities
  3. Within the walls of Jerusalem
  4. The Temple Mount
  5. The Cheil, the rampart around the Temple
  6. The Women's Courtyard
  7. The Courtyard of Israel
  8. The Courtyard of the Kohanim
  9. Between the Hall and the Altar
  10. The Sanctuary
  11. The Holy of Holies

Beloved by the Sages

  • Dwelling in the Land of Israel is equal to all the mitzvot of the Torah (Sifrei, Re'eh).
  • Whoever walks four cubits in the Land of Israel is assured of a place in the World to Come (Ketubot 111a).
  • The air of the Land of Israel makes one wise (Bava Batra 158b).
  • Prophecy rests on a prophet only in the Land of Israel (Mechilta, Bo; Rashi on Jonah 1:3).
  • Rabbi Abba would kiss the stones of Akko, and Rabbi Chiya bar Gamda would roll in the Land's dust. They were fulfilling the verse For Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and love her dust (Ketubot 112a–b; Psalms 102:15).

Acknowledged by all nations. The whole world calls this Land holy: the Holy Land in English, Terra Sancta in Latin, al-Ard al-Muqaddasa in Arabic. No other country on earth carries such a name. Its holiness was not created by any of these nations. It comes from the Torah, which calls the Land admat hakodesh (Zechariah 2:16) and gave it to the Jewish people as an everlasting possession.

I

Genesis · Psalms

The Promise to Abraham, Isaac & Jacob

G-d did not promise the Land once. He promised it repeatedly, to Abraham, then to Isaac, then to Jacob, and each time He called it an eternal covenant.

Genesis 12:7

The first promise

Abraham leaves Haran at G-d's command and arrives at Shechem. There G-d appears to him: Unto thy seed will I give this land. Abraham builds an altar on the spot.

Genesis 13:14–17

“Forever”

Lift up now thine eyes… northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever… Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it.

Genesis 15:18

The Covenant Between the Parts

At the Brit bein HaBetarim G-d seals a formal covenant and sets out its borders: Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.

Genesis 17:7–8

An everlasting possession

With the covenant of circumcision the promise becomes achuzat olam, an everlasting possession, joined to an everlasting covenant, to be a G-d unto thee and to thy seed after thee.

Genesis 26:3

Renewed to Isaac

Unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore unto Abraham thy father. The promise passes through Isaac. It does not pass through Ishmael (Genesis 17:19–21).

Genesis 28:13 · 35:12

Renewed to Jacob — Israel

At Bethel: The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. After G-d renames Jacob Israel the promise is given again, so the Land and the people carry the same name.

He hath remembered His covenant forever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations; which He made with Abraham, and His oath unto Isaac; and established it unto Jacob for a statute, to Israel for an everlasting covenant, saying: “Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance.”

Psalms 105:8–11 — recited daily in the morning prayers

Purchased, not only promised

Scripture records that three of the holiest sites in the Land were bought outright, at full price and in front of witnesses.

Hebron

Cave of Machpelah

Abraham pays Ephron the Hittite 400 shekels of silver in front of the elders of the city (Genesis 23). The Patriarchs and Matriarchs are buried there.

Shechem

Joseph's Tomb

Jacob buys the field for 100 kesitah (Genesis 33:19). Joseph's bones, carried out of Egypt, are buried there (Joshua 24:32).

Jerusalem

The Temple Mount

King David buys the threshing floor of Araunah for the altar (II Samuel 24:24), 600 shekels of gold according to I Chronicles 21:25.

II

Book of Joshua · Hebrew year 2488

Joshua bin Nun Enters the Land

After forty years in the wilderness and the passing of Moses, the promise to the Patriarchs is carried out. Joshua, Moses' faithful student, leads the tribes of Israel across the Jordan into the Holy Land.

  1. 7 Adar · 2488

    The charge

    Moses passes away on Mount Nebo, having seen the Land from afar. G-d tells Joshua: Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it… Be strong and of good courage (Joshua 1:3–6).

  2. 10 Nissan · 2488

    Crossing the Jordan

    The Kohanim carry the Ark into the river and the waters of the Jordan stand still. All Israel crosses on dry ground (Joshua 3). Twelve stones taken from the riverbed are set up at Gilgal as a memorial for later generations (Joshua 4:19–24).

  3. 14–16 Nissan

    Covenant renewed in the Land

    The nation is circumcised and offers the first Passover in the Land. The next day they eat from the produce of the Land, and the manna ceased on the morrow (Joshua 5:10–12). The miracles of the desert give way to life in the Land.

  4. The conquest

    Jericho, Ai & beyond

    The walls of Jericho fall after seven days of circling the city (Joshua 6). Ai, Gibeon and the coalitions of the south and north follow. Joshua reads the blessings and curses of the Torah at Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, as Moses had instructed (Joshua 8:30–35).

  5. Seven years of conquest, seven of division

    The inheritance of the tribes

    The Land is divided among the Twelve Tribes by lot, each with defined borders (Joshua 13–21). Cities of refuge and Levitical cities are set aside. The Tabernacle stands at Gilgal and then at Shiloh, where it remains for 369 years (Talmud, Zevachim 118b).

  6. The Judges to the Kings

    Jerusalem becomes the capital

    After the era of the Judges and the reign of Saul, King David captures Jerusalem and makes it the capital of Israel (II Samuel 5). He brings the Ark there. Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish life ever since. It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible more than 650 times.

III

Beit HaMikdash · בית המקדש

The First & Second Temple Eras

For a combined 830 years, the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem was the spiritual heart of the Jewish nation. Jews came to it on pilgrimage three times a year, and the whole Jewish calendar was arranged around it.

The First Temple

בית ראשון

Stood 410 years

  • Built by King Solomon in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt (I Kings 6:1), on the site David purchased.
  • United, then divided kingdom. Under David and Solomon all twelve tribes were one kingdom. After Solomon it split into Judah in the south and Israel in the north. The northern tribes were exiled by Assyria.
  • The Prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos and many others prophesied in the Land. They foretold exile, and they also foretold the return.
  • Destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon on the 9th of Av, in the Hebrew year 3338. That is 423 BCE in traditional Jewish chronology and 586 BCE in conventional chronology. The people of Judah were taken into exile.

In the ground

The Tel Dan Stele (9th c. BCE) was carved by an enemy Aramean king. Even so, it names the “House of David,” the royal dynasty of Judah. The Siloam Inscription records the digging of King Hezekiah's water tunnel (II Kings 20:20). A clay seal impression reading “Belonging to Hezekiah [son of] Ahaz, King of Judah” was excavated in Jerusalem in 2015.

The Second Temple

בית שני

Stood 420 years

  • Return from Babylon. Seventy years after the destruction, as Jeremiah had foretold (Jeremiah 29:10), Cyrus of Persia lets the Jews return and rebuild (Ezra 1). Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah lead the restoration.
  • The Men of the Great Assembly establish the fixed prayers and the blessings, and begin to close the canon of Scripture.
  • The Maccabees. The Hasmoneans defeat the Seleucid Greeks, purify the Temple and restore Jewish sovereignty. The miracle of Chanukah dates from this time.
  • Destroyed by Rome under Titus, again on the 9th of Av, in 70 CE. Jerusalem was burned and many thousands were killed or enslaved.

In the ground

Even Rome, the empire that destroyed the Temple, left a record of it. The Arch of Titus shows the Temple Menorah being carried away as plunder. Rome also minted “Iudaea Capta” (“Judea Captured”) coins to celebrate its victory over the Jews. The Western Wall is a retaining wall of the Temple Mount compound as Herod expanded it.

The final revolt. In 132–135 CE Shimon Bar Kochba led a war of independence and minted coins reading “For the Freedom of Jerusalem.” After crushing the revolt, Emperor Hadrian renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina and the province of Judea Syria Palaestina. The origin of the name is explained below.

IV

70 CE – 1948

An Unbroken Presence, Even in Exile

The destruction of the Temple did not end Jewish life in the Land. Under Rome, Byzantium, the Caliphates, the Crusaders, the Mamluks and the Ottomans, Jews never stopped living in the Holy Land, and Jews in the Diaspora never stopped returning to it.

  1. 70 CE onward

    Yavneh & the Sanhedrin

    Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai re-establishes Torah leadership at Yavneh. The Sanhedrin later moves through the Galilee to Usha, Shefar'am, Beit She'arim, Tzippori and finally Tiberias.

  2. c. 200 CE

    The Mishnah

    Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi compiles the Mishnah in the Galilee. It is the foundation of all later Jewish law.

  3. c. 400 CE

    The Jerusalem Talmud

    The Talmud Yerushalmi is completed by the sages of the academies of Tiberias, Tzippori and Caesarea.

  4. 4th–7th c.

    Synagogues of the Galilee

    Dozens of ancient synagogues have been excavated across the Land, many with Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions and mosaic floors. Examples include Hammat Tiberias, Beit Alpha, Ein Gedi and Capernaum.

  5. 7th–10th c.

    The Masoretes of Tiberias

    Scholars in Tiberias fix the vowels, cantillation and precise text of the Hebrew Bible. The Aleppo Codex, the most authoritative manuscript of the Tanach, was written there around 930 CE.

  6. 1099

    Defending Jerusalem

    When the Crusaders besiege Jerusalem, its Jews fight alongside the defenders. Many of them are massacred when the city falls.

  7. 1211

    Aliyah of the Tosafists

    According to tradition, some 300 rabbis from France and England emigrate to the Land of Israel.

  8. 1267

    The Ramban in Jerusalem

    Nachmanides arrives in a devastated Jerusalem and re-establishes a Jewish congregation. The Ramban Synagogue in the Old City still bears his name.

  9. 16th c.

    The Golden Age of Safed

    Exiles from Spain settle in Safed. Rabbi Yosef Karo writes the Shulchan Aruch there, and the Arizal teaches Kabbalah there. Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias become known as the Four Holy Cities.

  10. 1777

    The Chassidic Aliyah

    Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk leads some 300 Chassidim to the Land. They settle in Safed and Tiberias.

  11. 1820s

    Chabad in Hebron

    At the direction of the Mitteler Rebbe, Rabbi DovBer of Lubavitch, Chabad Chassidim settle in Hebron, the city of the Patriarchs.

  12. Mid-1800s

    Jerusalem's largest community

    Contemporary consular estimates show Jews as the largest single religious community in Jerusalem. This was decades before modern political Zionism. In 1860 Mishkenot Sha'ananim becomes the first neighborhood built outside the Old City walls.

  13. Through the ages

    Peki'in

    In the Galilean village of Peki'in, Jewish families have, according to their tradition, lived continuously since the time of the Second Temple.

  14. 1929

    The Hebron Massacre

    Rioters kill 67 Jews in Hebron, and the British evacuate the survivors. Jews had lived in the city for centuries without interruption until this massacre forced them out.

In the Diaspora, the Land was never forgotten. Three times a day for nineteen centuries, Jews everywhere have prayed facing Jerusalem for the return to Zion. Every Seder and every Yom Kippur ends with “Next year in Jerusalem.” A glass is broken under every wedding canopy in memory of the Temple. On Tisha B'Av, Jews still fast and mourn its destruction.

V

Philistia · Palaestina · Palestine

The True Origin of the Name “Palestine”

The word “Palestine” has a long history. Through all of it, the name was a geographic or administrative label. It never named an independent nation or state.

Biblical era

The Philistines

The name comes from the Pelishtim, the Philistines, a seafaring people from the Aegean region. They settled on the southern coast in five cities: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gath and Ekron. They were not Arabs. As a distinct people they disappeared from history after the Babylonian conquest in the late 7th century BCE.

5th c. BCE

Greek geographers

Herodotus uses Palaistinē as a loose geographic term for the coastal region of southern Syria.

c. 135 CE

Hadrian's renaming

After crushing the Bar Kochba revolt, Rome merged the province of Judea into a new province, Syria Palaestina. Many historians see this as a deliberate attempt to cut the Jewish people's name off from their land. Jerusalem was renamed Aelia Capitolina, and Jews were banned from entering it.

Byzantine & medieval

An administrative label

The term continued as a provincial or district name, for example Byzantine Palaestina Prima and Secunda and the early Islamic military district Jund Filastin. None of these was a nation or a state.

1517 – 1917

Ottoman rule

For four centuries there was no Ottoman province called “Palestine.” The land was divided into districts (sanjaks) such as Jerusalem, Nablus and Acre, which were governed from Damascus or Beirut.

Through all these centuries, Jews never called the Land by any of these names. In Scripture, in prayer and in everyday speech it was always ארץ ישראל, Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, or ארץ הקודש, Eretz HaKodesh, the Holy Land.

VI

1917 – 1948

The British Mandate of Palestine

The modern political use of the word “Palestine” comes from the British Mandate. During the Mandate the name applied to all residents of the territory: Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze alike. Jewish institutions, in fact, used it more readily than anyone.

Recognized in international law

The Balfour Declaration (1917) was endorsed at the San Remo Conference (1920). It was then written into the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (1922), which was approved by the Council of the League of Nations. Even the nations of the world acknowledged the Jewish people's bond to the Land. The Mandate's preamble states:

“Recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”

Mandate for Palestine, Preamble, 1922

The text says reconstituting. The international community did not describe the Jewish people as newcomers. It described them as a people returning to their ancestral home. Article 6 of the Mandate called for encouraging close settlement by Jews on the land.

Palestinian passports, held by Jews

Under the Palestinian Citizenship Order of 1925, residents of the Mandate became Palestinian citizens regardless of religion. Jews in the Land held Palestinian passports and were called “Palestinians.” Golda Meir, later Prime Minister of Israel, was among the many Jews who held a Mandate Palestine passport.

A note on usage. In the early Mandate period many Arab leaders did not use “Palestine” as a national name. The First Palestinian Arab Congress (Jerusalem, 1919) resolved that the territory was part of “Arab Syria.” A distinct Palestinian Arab national identity developed only over the following decades.

VII

Myth vs. Fact

Fact Check: Answering Today's False Claims

Some claims made today deny that the Jewish people have any history in the Land. They say the Temple never existed, that Jews are foreigners, or that the story begins in the 20th century. The evidence below comes from archaeology, from ancient non-Jewish writers, from early Islamic sources and from peer-reviewed science. It shows a Jewish nation in this Land more than 1,800 years before Islam existed.

“Israel” was recorded in the Land 1,800+ years before Islam existed

Conventional academic dates are used throughout this section. They mark only when non-Jewish records first mention Israel. The Torah's own history of the Jewish people in the Land goes back further still, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

False

“There never was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.”

  • Eyewitnesses wrote about it. Josephus saw the Temple and describes it in detail (Jewish War, books 5–6). Even the Roman historian Tacitus, who was openly hostile to Jews, describes the Jerusalem Temple and its destruction (Histories 5.8–13).
  • Rome built a monument to its destruction. The Arch of Titus (c. 81 CE) shows the Temple Menorah being carried through Rome as plunder.
  • Inscriptions from the Temple itself have been found. A Greek warning inscription forbidding foreigners to enter the Temple courts was found in 1871 and is held in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. A stone reading “to the place of trumpeting” fell from the Temple Mount and was excavated at its southwest corner in 1968.
  • Even Muslim authorities once said so openly. In 1924 the Supreme Muslim Council of Jerusalem published A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif. It states that the site's identity with Solomon's Temple “is beyond dispute.”
False

“Ancient Israel is a biblical legend. There is no outside evidence.”

  • Egypt, c. 1208 BCE. The Merneptah Stele, now in the Cairo Museum, names “Israel” as a people in Canaan. It is the earliest mention of Israel outside the Bible.
  • Moab, c. 840 BCE. The Mesha Stele, now in the Louvre, names Omri, king of Israel, and the G-d of Israel.
  • Assyria. The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III shows Jehu, king of Israel, paying tribute. Sennacherib's Prism records his siege of “Hezekiah the Judean” in Jerusalem (701 BCE).
  • Babylon. Ration tablets found in Babylon list supplies for “Jehoiachin, king of Judah,” the exiled king described in II Kings 25.
  • The Dead Sea Scrolls (3rd century BCE – 1st century CE) are Hebrew texts copied in the Land centuries before Islam existed.
False

“Today's Jews are Europeans, descended from the Khazars, not from ancient Israel.”

  • Genetics answers this directly. A genome-wide study published in Nature (Behar et al., 2010) found that most Jewish communities, Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrachi, cluster genetically with populations of the Levant.
  • The Khazar theory was tested and rejected. A follow-up study is titled “No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin for the Ashkenazi Jews” (Behar et al., Human Biology, 2013).
  • Jewish communities scattered across the world share Middle Eastern ancestry (Atzmon et al., American Journal of Human Genetics, 2010). This is consistent with a common origin in the Land of Israel.
False

“Jews first arrived in the 20th century as foreign colonizers.”

  • The Jewish people formed as a nation in this Land. Their language (Hebrew), their calendar, their festivals, which follow its harvests, and their holy sites all come from here.
  • Jews never left entirely. As Section IV shows, there were Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, Tiberias and the Galilee under every ruler of the Land.
  • Jews were already Jerusalem's largest community by the mid-1800s, according to contemporary consular estimates. That was before modern political Zionism.
  • The League of Nations (1922) did not call this colonization. It called it reconstituting a national home, based on the Jewish people's historical connection to the Land.
False

“Jerusalem was always an Arab and Islamic city.”

  • Jerusalem was Israel's capital about 1,600 years before Islam existed, from King David, c. 1000 BCE.
  • The Dome of the Rock was built in 691–692 CE, more than 1,600 years after David and over 600 years after the Second Temple was destroyed. It was built on the Temple Mount.
  • Jerusalem is not mentioned by name in the Quran. In the Hebrew Bible it appears hundreds of times.
  • No Islamic state made Jerusalem its capital. Under early Islamic rule the district capital was Ramla. Jews pray toward Jerusalem. Muslims pray toward Mecca.
  • Even the Quran acknowledges it. It records Moses telling the Children of Israel to enter the Holy Land that G-d had assigned to them (Quran 5:21).
False

“The Western Wall is an Islamic site with no Jewish connection.”

  • The wall was built by King Herod, starting around 19 BCE, as part of the retaining wall of the expanded Temple Mount. That was roughly 600 years before Islam existed.
  • Its huge cut stones are typical Herodian masonry. The same style appears at Herod's enclosure over the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
  • Jews have prayed and mourned the Temple at this wall for centuries. Jewish travelers describe the custom, and even Christian and Muslim visitors recorded it.
False

“The Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb are Muslim sites.”

  • Abraham bought the Cave of Machpelah as a burial place (Genesis 23). The monumental enclosure standing over it today was built by Herod in the 1st century BCE, long before Islam existed.
  • From 1267 until 1967, Mamluk and later rulers barred Jews from going higher than the seventh step outside the building.
  • Rachel's Tomb on the road to Bethlehem is recorded in Genesis 35:19–20, and Jews have venerated it for millennia. Only in recent decades has it been renamed the “Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque.” Bilal, a companion of Muhammad, is traditionally said to be buried in Damascus.
False

“Palestinians descend from the Canaanites and Philistines, who were there before the Jews.”

  • The Philistines were a foreign people. The Torah traces them to Caphtor (Amos 9:7; Jeremiah 47:4), generally identified with Crete and the Aegean islands. They were not Arabs.
  • The Torah records them as a separate nation living alongside the Patriarchs. Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines many days (Genesis 21:34). Even then, G-d promised the whole Land to Abraham and his descendants, not to the Philistines.
  • The Canaanites and Philistines disappeared as distinct peoples in antiquity. No ancient or medieval source records an unbroken Canaanite or Philistine national identity continuing to modern times.
  • The Arabic language and Arab identity came to the Land with the Islamic conquest of the 630s CE. The Jewish people, their Hebrew language and their holy places were there long before that.

Why this matters today. Some modern bodies refer to the Temple Mount only by its Islamic names and leave out its Jewish history. A UNESCO Executive Board resolution of October 2016 is one example. Denying the Jewish past of the Land does not change the evidence: stone inscriptions, ancient manuscripts, the records of foreign empires, and the testimony of Islam's own early sources.

The original name

ארץ ישראל

Eretz Yisrael — The Land of Israel

The Land's original name appears in the Bible itself, about three thousand years ago.

I Samuel 13:19Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel.
Ezekiel 40:2In the visions of G-d brought He me into the land of Israel.
Zechariah 2:16 · The Holy LandAnd the L-rd shall inherit Judah as His portion in the holy land (אַדְמַת הַקֹּדֶשׁ), and shall choose Jerusalem again.
Mishnah, Kelim 1:6The Land of Israel is holier than all other lands.

Even the scriptures of Christianity and Islam, written many centuries later, acknowledge the tie of this Land to the Children of Israel.

The name Israel belonged to the Land and to the people long before there was a modern state. A modern state can adopt the name. It did not create the bond between the Jewish people and the Land, and it cannot end it. That bond comes from the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, an everlasting possession given by the Creator of heaven and earth. It is the Holy Land, bound forever to the Jewish people and to the Holy Torah.

אִם אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלָםִ תִּשְׁכַּח יְמִינִי

“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget [its skill].”

Psalms 137:5

Sources

Scripture & Rabbinic

  • Genesis 12, 13, 15, 17, 21, 23, 26, 28, 33, 35
  • Joshua 1–8, 13–21, 24
  • I & II Samuel; I Kings 6; I Chronicles 21
  • Psalms 105, 137; Jeremiah 29, 47; Ezekiel 40; Amos 9; Zechariah 2; Ezra 1
  • Leviticus 18, 25, 26; Deuteronomy 11, 26; Ezekiel 36; Psalms 102; II Chronicles 36
  • Rashi on Genesis 1:1; Rashi on Jonah 1:3; Ramban on Leviticus 26:32
  • Mishnah, Kelim 1:6–9
  • Talmud: Yoma 9a; Zevachim 118b; Sotah 14a; Sanhedrin 98a; Ketubot 111a–112b; Bava Batra 158b
  • Sifrei, Re'eh; Mechilta, Bo
  • Seder Olam Rabbah (traditional chronology)

Historical & Legal

  • Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917
  • San Remo Resolution, April 1920
  • League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, 24 July 1922
  • Palestinian Citizenship Order, 1925
  • Mandate coins (1927–1947), banknotes and postage stamps; Limor & Zelkovitz, “Politics, nationalism and economics: The postage stamps of the British mandate in Palestine,” Israel Studies, 2021
  • Herodotus, Histories
  • Arch of Titus, Rome; Iudaea Capta coinage
  • Tel Dan Stele; Siloam Inscription; Ophel bulla of Hezekiah

Fact Check

  • Josephus, The Jewish War, books 5–6
  • Tacitus, Histories 5.8–13
  • Merneptah Stele (Cairo); Mesha Stele (Louvre)
  • Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III; Sennacherib's Prism
  • Jehoiachin ration tablets, Babylon
  • Temple warning inscription (Istanbul); “Place of Trumpeting” stone (1968)
  • Supreme Muslim Council, A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif, 1924
  • Quran 5:21
  • Behar et al., Nature 466 (2010); Atzmon et al., AJHG 86 (2010); Behar et al., Human Biology 85 (2013)
  • UNESCO Executive Board decision 200 EX/25, October 2016

Dates given as Hebrew years (e.g. 2488) follow traditional Jewish chronology (Seder Olam). Where conventional academic dates differ, both are noted.