1.
Beijing
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Beijing is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China and the worlds third most populous city proper. It is also one of the worlds most populous capital cities, the city, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by population after Shanghai and is the nations political, cultural. It is home to the headquarters of most of Chinas largest state-owned companies, and is a hub for the national highway, expressway, railway. The citys history dates back three millennia, as the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political centre of the country for much of the past eight centuries. Beijing was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium A. D, the city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have made it centre of culture, encyclopædia Britannica notes that few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China. Siheyuans, the traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing. The city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, many of Beijings 91 universities consistently rank among the best in China, of which Peking University and Tsinghua University are ranked in the top 60 universities in the world. Beijings Zhongguancun area is known as Chinas Silicon Valley and Chinas center of innovation. According to the 2016 InterNations Expat Insider Survey, Beijing ranked first in Asia in the subcategory Personal Finance Index, expats live primarily in urban districts such as Dongcheng and Chaoyang in the east, or in suburban districts such as Shunyi. Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had other names. The name Beijing, which means Northern Capital, was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing, the English spelling is based on the pinyin romanisation of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. Those dialects preserve the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 京 as kjaeng, the single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is 京, which appears on automobile license plates in the city. The official Latin alphabet abbreviation for Beijing is BJ, the earliest traces of human habitation in the Beijing municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic Homo sapiens also lived more recently, about 27,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found neolithic settlements throughout the municipality, including in Wangfujing, the first walled city in Beijing was Ji, a city from the 11th to 7th century BC
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Palestine grid
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The Palestine grid was the geographic coordinate system used in Mandatory Palestine. The system was chosen by the Survey Department of the Government of Palestine in 1922, the projection used was the Cassini-Soldner projection. The central meridian was chosen as that passing through a marker on the hill of Mar Elias Monastery south of Jerusalem, the false origin of the grid was placed 100 km to the south and west of the Ali el-Muntar hill that overlooks Gaza city. The unit length for the grid was the kilometre, the British units were not even considered, at the time the grid was established, there was no intention of mapping the lower reaches of the Negev Desert, but this did not remain true. The fact that those regions would have negative north-south coordinate then became a source of confusion. For some military purposes,1000 was added to the coordinates of all locations. During World War II, a Military Palestine Grid was used that was similar to the Palestine Grid, the difference between the two projections was only a few meters. It was replaced by the Israeli Transverse Mercator grid in 1994, the Palestine grid is still commonly used to specify locations in the historical and archaeological literature. The basic way of specifying a location on the Palestine grid is to write the east-west coordinate followed by the north-south coordinate using 3 digits each, for example, the Dome of the Rock is at 172132. This specifies the location within one kilometer, if more precision is required, extra digits can be added to each coordinate, for example,17241317 gives the Dome of the Rock to within 100 meters. Many authors separate the two coordinates with punctuation for readability purposes, for example 172-132 or 172/132
4.
Districts of Israel
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There are six main administrative districts of Israel, known in Hebrew as mehozot and Arabic as mintaqah and fifteen sub-districts known as nafot. Each sub-district is further divided into Cities, municipalities, and Regional councils it contains, the Judea and Samaria Area, however, is not included in the number of districts and sub-districts as Israel has not applied its civilian jurisdiction in that part of the West Bank. Population,1,358,600 District capital, Nazareth Safed – population,113,700 Kinneret – population,110,500 Yizreel – population,482,300 Akko – population,605,700 Golan – population,46,400. Population,966,700 District capital, Haifa Haifa – population,560,600 Hadera – population,406,000 Central District. Population,2,024,500 District capital, Ramla Sharon – population,446,500 Petah Tikva – population,685,000 Ramla – population,326,400 Rehovot – population,566,600 Tel Aviv District. Population,1,350,000 District capital, Tel Aviv Southern District, currently only the Coordination and Liaison Administration operates there. Jewish Population,407,118, Palestinian population, roughly 1.8 million, largest city, Modiin Illit The name Judea and Samaria for this geographical area is based on terminology from the Hebrew and other sources relating to ancient Israel and Judah/Judea. The territory has been under Israeli control since the 1967 Six-Day War but not annexed by Israel, in Jewish religious terms, it is part of the Land of Israel, which leads to politically contentious issues. However, it is not considered part of the State of Israel by the UN, urban Israel, Details and pictures about many cities in Israel
5.
Local council (Israel)
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There are 265 local councils in Israel. Local councils should not be confused with local committees, which are lower-level administrative entities, Local council status is determined by passing a minimum threshold, enough to justify operations as independent municipal units, although not large enough to be declared a city. In general this applies to all settlements of over 2,000 people, the Israeli Interior Minister has the authority of deciding whether a locality is fit to become a municipal council. Local councils also have an important role in town planning, the Union of Local Authorities in Israel is the umbrella organization of local councils in Israel. The union represents the local councils vis a vis the national government, ULAI was established in 1938, under the British Mandate, as the League of Local Councils. Regional council City council List of cities in Israel Local Government in Israel
6.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
7.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
8.
Druze in Israel
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The Israeli Druze are a unique religious and ethnic minority located in Israel. In 2012, there were 130,600 Druze living in the country, even though the faith originally developed out of Ismaili Islam, Druze are not considered Muslims. In 1957, the Israeli government designated the Druze a distinct community at the request of its communal leaders. The Druze are Arabic-speaking citizens of Israel who serve in the Israel Defense Forces, members of the community have attained top positions in Israeli politics and public service. Before the establishment of the State of Israel, the Druze were not recognized as a community and were discriminated against by the judicial system. They live mainly in the north of the country, while most of Israeli Druze identifies as ethnically Arab, today, tens of thousands of Israeli Druze belong to Druze Zionist movements. The Druze are a monotheistic religious community found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel. The religion incorporates elements of Ismailism, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism and other philosophies, the Druze call themselves Ahl al-Tawhid People of Unitarianism or Monotheism or al-Muwaḥḥidūn Unitarians, Monotheists. Sheikh Amin Tarif was the preeminent religious leader of the community until his death in 1993, noble Druze men from nearby countries visited Druze villages in Palestine and preached neutrality. This decision was backed by Druze leaders in Jabal Druze, josh Palmon was tasked by the Jewish Agency to manage the relationship with the Druze. He initially led a preventive approach with the Druze, aimed at making sure the Druze will not join the Arab Higher Committee, the contacts between the Druze and the Jewish leadership were made through Labib Hussein Abu Rokan from Isfya and Salah-Hassan Hanifes from Shefa-Amr. Hanifas managed to bring Yarka to cooperate with the Jews, during the war Druze volunteers arrived to Mandatory Palestine in order to help defend the Druze villages there. Wahhab brought around 500 men and arrived to Shefa-Amr in Palestine, Wahhab traveled through the western Galilee region and sent men to the Druze villages of the Carmel. As the Druze volunteers arrived, there were attempts to talk with the volunteers, najib Mansour, the head of Isfiya met with agents of the Hagannah in Haifa to discuss the arrival of Wahhab. Manosur did not agree to the demand the local Druze will forcibly oppose the volunteers, Druze citizens are prominent in the Israel Defense Forces and in politics. The bond between Jewish and Druze soldiers is commonly known by the term a covenant of blood, five Druze lawmakers were elected to serve in the 18th Knesset, a disproportionately large number considering their population. So we are considered a very nationalistic, patriotic community, today, thousands of Israeli Druze belong to such Druze Zionist movements. In 1973, Amel Nasser A-Din founded the Zionist Druze Circle and we invalidate and reject everything that the Adalah organization is requesting, he said
9.
Israel
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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. The country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israels economy and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, next year, the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and it extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories is the worlds longest military occupation in modern times, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed, the population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2017 to be 8,671,100 people. It is the worlds only Jewish-majority state, with 74. 8% being designated as Jewish, the countrys second largest group of citizens are Arabs, at 20. 8%. The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, including significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins, other minorities include Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Circassians, Maronites and Samaritans. Israel also hosts a significant population of foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia, including illegal migrants from Sudan, Eritrea. In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish, Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature, Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 35th-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2016. The country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the third highest in Asia, in the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term Israeli to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The name Israel in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, jacobs twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. The earliest known artifact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam
10.
Ma'alot-Tarshiha
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Maalot-Tarshiha is a mixed city in the North District in Israel, some 20 kilometres east of Nahariya, about 600 metres above sea level. The city was established in 1963 through a merger of the Arab town of Tarshiha. In 2015 the city has a population of 21,227, excavations of a 4th-century burial cave in the village unearthed a cross and a piece of glass engraved with a menorah. Crusader sources from the 12th and 13th century refer to Tarshiha as Terschia, Torsia, the King had initiated the settlement of Crusader people in nearby Miilya, and from there settlement spread out to Tarshiha. In 1160, Torsia and several surrounding villages were transferred to a Crusader named Iohanni de Caypha, by 1217, the village was probably inhabited by Crusader people. In 1220 Joscelin III´s daughter Beatrix de Courtenay and her husband Otto von Botenlauben, Count of Henneberg, sold their land, including Tersyha, in 1266, Tarshiha was raided by Crusader troops. e. Shiha Jamaluddin rushed to the battlefield to fight the Crusaders, incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with the rest of Palestine, the village of Tarshiha was raided by the Lebanese feudal chief, Mansur ibn Furaykh in 1573. The daftar of 1596 show the village to be under the administration of the nahiya of Akka, with a population of 107 households and 3 bachelors, the inhabitants paid taxes on occasional revenues, bees and goats. The village was taxed for a press, used either of olives or for grapes. Mariti visited the village in 1761, and wrote that it abounds with water, which adds greatly to the fertility of its plants, its fruit-trees. Victor Guérin, who visited in 1875, found that Tarshiha consists of four quarters, there are 2,000 Moslems, who have their mosques. The Christians occupy their own quarters, with the exception of a few families they are all United Greeks, in 1945 the population of Tarshiha was 3,840,3140 Muslims and 690 Christians. The total population of Tarshiha combined with Al-Kabri was 5,360 Arabs, with 47,428 dunams of land. Of this, a total of 743 dunums of land in the two places was used for citrus and bananas,5,301 were plantation and irrigable land,14,123 for cereals, while 252 dunams were built-up land. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War Tarshiha served as the headquarters of Fawzi al-Qawuqji, Tarshiha was in the territory allotted to the Arab state under the 1947 UN Partition Plan. In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the village was captured by the Israel Defense Forces in Operation Hiram, the village was bombed by three Israeli planes on the evening of 28 October. This was followed by an artillery barrage and a further air raid in the morning with the village defenders. The village was captured by the Israel Defense Forces on October 29, a UN observer reported that on 1 November 1948 the Palestinian villages around Tarshiha were deserted and extensively looted by Israeli forces
11.
Galilee
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Al-Jalīl) is a region in northern Israel. The term Galilee traditionally refers to the part and divided into Upper Galilee. By this definition it overlaps with much of the administrative Northern District of the country, the regions Israelite name is from the Hebrew root galil, an ultimately unique word for district, and usually circle. The Hebrew form used in Isaiah 8,23 is in the state, glil hagoyim, meaning Galilee of the Nations. The region in turn gave rise to the English name for the Sea of Galilee referred to as such in many languages including ancient Arabic and these are the three names used in originally internal Jewish-authored literature rather than the Sea of Galilee. However, Jews did use the Galilee to refer to the whole region, most of Galilee consists of rocky terrain, at heights of between 500 and 700 m. Several high mountains are in the region, including Mount Tabor and Mount Meron, as a result of this climate, flora and wildlife thrive in the region, while many birds annually migrate from colder climates to Africa and back through the Hula–Jordan corridor. According to the Bible, Galilee was named by the Israelites and was the region of Naphthali and Dan. However, Dan was dispersed among the people rather than isolated to the lands of Dan, as the Tribe of Dan was the hereditary local law enforcement. Normally, Galilee is just referred to as Naphthali, hiram, to reciprocate previous gifts given to David, accepted the upland plain among the mountains of Naphtali and renamed it the land of Cabul for a time. After Judea became a Roman province in 6, C. E. Galilee briefly became a part of it, the Galilee region was presumably the home of Jesus during at least 30 years of his life. Much of the first three Gospels of the New Testament give an account of Jesus public ministry in this province, particularly in the towns of Nazareth, Galilee is also cited as the place where Jesus performed many public miracles, including curing a blind man. After the death of Jesus, some accounts suggest his disciples returned to Galilee, many are cited for their large number of students and followers throughout the Jewish people among the common people. According to the Talmud, one of the most important founders of the modern Jewish faith, simeon bar Yochai, one of the most famed of all the Tannaim, hid from the Romans in the Galilee, and dug tunnels there to hide. Many miracles are ascribed to him during his Galilean period after escaping Judea proper, in medieval Hebrew legend, he may have written the Zohar while there. Eastern Galilee retained a Jewish majority until the seventh century, after the Arab caliphate took control of the region in 638, it became part of Jund al-Urdunn. Its major towns were Tiberias, Baysan, Acre, Saffuriya, the Shia Fatimids conquered the region in the 10th century, a breakaway sect, venerating the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, formed the Druze religion, centered in Mount Lebanon and partially Galilee. During the Crusades, Galilee was organized into the Principality of Galilee, the Jewish population of Galilee increased significantly following their expulsion from Spain and welcome from the Ottoman Empire
12.
Second Temple period
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Jewish history is the history of the Jews, and their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. The Jewish diaspora began with the Assyrian conquest and continued on a larger scale with the Babylonian conquest. Jews were also widespread throughout the Roman Empire, and this carried on to an extent in the period of Byzantine rule in the central. In 638 CE the Byzantine Empire lost control of the Levant, the Arab Islamic Empire under Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem and the lands of Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. The Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain coincided with the Middle Ages in Europe, during that time, Jews were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life blossomed. During the Classical Ottoman period, the Jews, together with most other communities of the empire, in the 17th century, there were many significant Jewish populations in Western Europe. During the period of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, significant changes occurred within the Jewish community, Jews began in the 18th century to campaign for emancipation from restrictive laws and integration into the wider European society. During the 1870s and 1880s the Jewish population in Europe began to actively discuss immigration back to Israel. The Zionist movement was founded officially in 1884, meanwhile, the Jews of Europe and the United States gained success in the fields of science, culture and the economy. Among those generally considered the most famous were scientist Albert Einstein, a large number of Nobel Prize winners at this time were Jewish, as is still the case. In 1933, with the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany, economic crises, racial anti-Semitic laws, and a fear of an upcoming war led many Jews to flee from Europe to Palestine, to the United States and to the Soviet Union. In 1939 World War II began and until 1941 Hitler occupied almost all of Europe and this genocide, in which approximately six million Jews were methodically exterminated, is known as The Holocaust or Shoah. In Poland, three million Jews were killed in gas chambers in all concentration camps combined, with one million at the Auschwitz concentration camp alone, in 1945 the Jewish resistance organizations in Palestine unified and established the Jewish Resistance Movement. The movement began attacking the British authority, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed on May 14,1948, the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel to be known as the State of Israel. Immediately afterwards all neighbouring Arab states attacked, yet the newly formed IDF resisted, in 1949 the war ended and the state of Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world. Today, Israel is a democracy with a population of over 8 million people. The largest Jewish communities are in Israel and the United States, with communities in France, Argentina, Russia, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada. For statistics related to modern Jewish demographics see Jewish population, ‹See Tfd› The history of the early Jews, and their neighbors, centers on the Fertile Crescent and east coast of the Mediterranean Sea
13.
Sherd
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Occasionally, a piece of broken pottery may be referred to as a shard. While the spelling shard is generally reserved for referring to fragments of glass vessels, the etymology is connected with the idea of breakage, from Old English sceard, related to Old Norse skarth, notch, and Middle High German scharte, notch. A sherd or potsherd that has been used by having writing painted or inscribed on it can be more referred to as an ostracon. The analysis of sherds is widely used by archaeologists to date sites and develop chronologies, due to their characteristics and high resistance to natural. Some characteristics of sherds useful to archaeologists include temper, form and these characteristics can be used to determine the kinds of resources and technologies used at the site. Archaeologists often classify sherds by the part of the vessel from which the sherd came. For example, sherds may be categorized as rim sherds, body sherds, rim sherds are fragments of a vessels rim, while base sherds are fragments of the vessels base. Body sherds are fragments of ceramic that are not identified as rim sherds or base sherds, other categories might include fragments of handles or lids. While all types of sherds carry valuable information, rim sherds, shepard, Anna O. Ceramics for the Archaeologist
14.
Chalcolithic
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The Copper Age was originally defined as a transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. The archaeological site of Belovode on the Rudnik mountain in Serbia contains the worlds oldest securely dated evidence of copper smelting from 5000 BCE, the multiple names result from multiple recognitions of the period. Originally, the term Bronze Age meant that either copper or bronze was being used as the hard substance for the manufacture of tools. In 1881, John Evans, recognizing that the use of copper often preceded the use of bronze and he did not include the transitional period in the tripartite system of Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age but placed it at the beginning outside of it. He did not, however, present it as a fourth age, in 1884, Gaetano Chierici, perhaps following the lead of Evans, renamed it in Italian as the Eneo-litica, or Bronze-stone transition. The phrase was never intended to mean that the period was the one in which both bronze and stone were used. The Copper Age features the use of copper, excluding bronze, moreover, litica simply names the Stone Age as the point from which the transition began and is not another -lithic age. Subsequently, British scholars used either Evanss Copper Age or the term Eneolithic, around 1900, many writers began to substitute Chalcolithic for Eneolithic, to avoid the false segmentation. It was then that the misunderstanding began among those who did not know Italian, the -lithic was seen as a new -lithic age, a part of the Stone Age in which copper was used, which may appear paradoxical. Today Copper Age, Eneolithic and Chalcolithic are used synonymously to mean Evanss original definition of Copper Age, there was an independent invention of copper and bronze smelting first by Andean civilizations in South America extended later by sea commerce to the Mesoamerican civilization in West Mexico. The literature of European archaeology, in general, avoids the use of Chalcolithic, the Copper Age in the Middle East and the Caucasus began in the late 5th millennium BCE and lasted for about a millennium before it gave rise to the Early Bronze Age. The transition from the European Copper Age to Bronze Age Europe occurs about the same time, an archaeological site in Serbia contains the oldest securely dated evidence of coppermaking from 7,500 years ago. In Serbia, an axe was found at Prokuplje, which indicates that humans were using metals in Europe by 7,500 years ago. Knowledge of the use of copper was far more widespread than the metal itself, the European Battle Axe culture used stone axes modeled on copper axes, even with imitation mold marks carved in the stone. Ötzi the Iceman, who was found in the Ötztal Alps in 1991, examples of Chalcolithic cultures in Europe include Vila Nova de São Pedro and Los Millares on the Iberian Peninsula. Pottery of the Beaker people has found at both sites, dating to several centuries after copper-working began there. The Beaker culture appears to have copper and bronze technologies in Europe. The term Chalcolithic is not generally used by British prehistorians, who disagree whether it applies in the British context, in Bhirrana, the earliest Indus civilization site, copper bangles and arrowheads were found
15.
Josephus
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Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Roman-Jewish War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and interpreter, after Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperors family name of Flavius. Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship and he became an advisor and friend of Vespasians son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the Siege of Jerusalem. Since the siege proved ineffective at stopping the Jewish revolt, the citys destruction, Josephus recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century CE and the First Jewish–Roman War, including the Siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, the Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Roman audience and these works provide valuable insight into first century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity. Josephus introduces himself in Greek as Iōsēpos, son of Matthias and he was the second-born son of Matthias. His older full-blooded brother was also called Matthias and their mother was an aristocratic woman who descended from the royal and formerly ruling Hasmonean dynasty. Josephuss paternal grandparents were Josephus and his wife—an unnamed Hebrew noblewoman, distant relatives of each other and he descended through his father from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the 24 orders of priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus was a descendant of the high priest Jonathon, born and raised in Jerusalem, Josephus was educated alongside his brother. In his early twenties, he traveled to negotiate with Emperor Nero for the release of 12 Jewish priests, Josephus successfully fought the Roman army in Galilee, until he was captured by the Romans during the height of the war. After the Jewish garrison of Yodfat fell under siege, the Romans invaded, killing thousands, according to Josephus, he was trapped in a cave with 40 of his companions in July 67 CE. The Romans asked the group to surrender, but they refused, Josephus suggested a method of collective suicide, they drew lots and killed each other, one by one, counting to every third person. Two men were left, who surrendered to the Roman forces, in 69 CE, Josephus was released. According to his account, he acted as a negotiator with the defenders during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, in which his parents and first wife died. While being confined at Yodfat, Josephus claimed to have experienced a divine revelation, after the prediction came true, he was released by Vespasian, who considered his gift of prophecy to be divine. In 71 CE, he went to Rome in the entourage of Titus, becoming a Roman citizen, in addition to Roman citizenship, he was granted accommodation in conquered Judaea and a decent, if not extravagant, pension. While in Rome and under Flavian patronage, Josephus wrote all of his known works, although he uses Josephus, he appears to have taken the Roman praenomen Titus and nomen Flavius from his patrons
16.
The Jewish War
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The Jewish War or Judean War, also referred to in English as The Wars of the Jews, is a book written by Josephus, a Roman-Jewish historian of the 1st century. The next five books detail the unfolding of the war, under Roman generals Vespasian and Titus, the book was written about 75 AD, originally in Josephuss paternal tongue - either Aramaic or Hebrew- though this version has not survived. It was later translated into Greek, probably under the supervision of Josephus himself, however, the current Greek edition does not appear to be a translation, but must be considered a new edition, a complete re-working of the first writing and likely a considerable expansion. The text also survives in an Old Slavonic version, as well as Hebrew which contains material not found in the Greek version, H. Leeming and K. Leeming, Josephus Jewish War and Its Slavonic Version, A Synoptic Comparison. Ancient Judaism & Early Christianity, Brill, notes on the Old Slavonic Josephus Hear a discussion and analysis of this monograph, on an episode of the radio series Invitation to Learning. Loeb Classical Library Josephus Volume 2 The Jewish War Books 1-3 Loeb Classical Library Josephus Volume 3 The Jewish War Books 4-7
17.
Herod Agrippa II
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Herod Agrippa II officially named Marcus Julius Agrippa and sometimes just called Agrippa, was the eighth and last client ruler of Rome from the Herodian dynasty, the fifth bearing the title of King. He was the son of the first and better-known Herod Agrippa, the brother of Berenice, Mariamne, Herod Agrippa II was educated at the court of the emperor Claudius, and at the time of his fathers death he was only seventeen years old. Claudius therefore kept him at Rome, and sent Cuspius Fadus as procurator of the Roman province of Judaea, the tetrarchy of Chalcis was subsequently in 57 given to his cousin, Aristobulus. Herod Agrippa celebrated by marrying off his two sisters Mariamne and Drusilla, flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian, repeats the gossip that Herod Agrippa lived in an incestuous relationship with his sister, Berenice. In 55, the Emperor Nero added to his realm the cities of Tiberias and Taricheae in Galilee and it was before him and his sister Berenice that, according to the New Testament, Paul the Apostle pleaded his case at Caesarea Maritima, possibly in 59. Agrippa expended large sums in beautifying Jerusalem and other cities, especially Berytus and his partiality for the latter rendered him unpopular amongst his own subjects, and the capricious manner in which he appointed and deposed the high priests made him disliked by his coreligionists. Agrippa convened the people and urged instead that they tolerate the injustices done to them. By 66 the citizenry of Jerusalem expelled their king, Agrippa, and his sister, Berenice, from Jerusalem. During the First Jewish-Roman War of 66–73, he sent 2,000 men, archers and cavalry, to support Vespasian, showing that, although a Jew in religion and he accompanied Titus on some campaigns, and was wounded at the siege of Gamla. After the capture of Jerusalem, he went with his sister Berenice to Rome and he had a great intimacy with the historian Josephus, having supplied him with information for his history, Antiquities of the Jews. Josephus preserved two of the letters he received from him, the modern scholarly consensus holds that he died before 93/94. He was the last prince of the house of Herod, Herodian dynasty Herodian kingdom List of Hasmonean and Herodian rulers This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Smith, William, ed. article name needed. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Easton, Matthew George. Yohanan Aharoni & Michael Avi-Yonah, The MacMillan Bible Atlas, Revised Edition, Jewish Encyclopedia, Agrippa II Agrippa II - Article in historical sourcebook by Mahlon H. Smith Livius. org, Julius Marcus Agrippa
18.
Tyre, Lebanon
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Tyre, sometimes romanized as Sour, is a city in the South Governorate of Lebanon. There were approximately 117,000 inhabitants in 2003, however, the government of Lebanon has released only rough estimates of population numbers since 1932, so an accurate statistical accounting is not possible. Tyre juts out from the coast of the Mediterranean and is located about 80 km south of Beirut, the name of the city means rock after the rocky formation on which the town was originally built. The adjective for Tyre is Tyrian, and the inhabitants are Tyrians, Tyre is an ancient Phoenician city and the legendary birthplace of Europa and Dido. Today it is the fourth largest city in Lebanon and houses one of the major ports. The city has a number of ancient sites, including its Roman Hippodrome which was added to UNESCOs list of World Heritage Sites in 1979. Tyre originally consisted of two urban centres, Tyre itself, which was on an island just off shore. Alexander the Great connected the island to the mainland by constructing a causeway during his siege of the city, the original island city had two harbours, one on the south side and the other on the north side of the island. The harbour on the side has silted over, but the harbour on the north side is still in use. Tyre was founded around 2750 BC according to Herodotus and was built as a walled city upon the mainland. Phoenicians from Tyre settled in houses around Memphis, south of the temple of Hephaestus in a called the Tyrian Camp. Tyres name appears on monuments as early as 1300 BC, philo of Byblos quotes the antiquarian authority Sanchuniathon as stating that it was first occupied by Hypsuranius. Sanchuniathons work is said to be dedicated to Abibalus king of Berytus—possibly the Abibaal who was king of Tyre, there are ten Amarna letters dated 1350 BC from the mayor, Abimilku, written to Akenaten. The subject is often water, wood and the Habiru overtaking the countryside of the mainland, the commerce of the ancient world was gathered into the warehouses of Tyre. The city of Tyre was particularly known for the production of a rare and extraordinarily expensive sort of dye, produced from the murex shellfish. The colour was, in ancient cultures, reserved for the use of royalty or at least the nobility, Tyre was often attacked by Egypt, besieged by Shalmaneser V, who was assisted by the Phoenicians of the mainland, for five years. From 586 until 573 BC, the city was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar II until it agreed to pay a tribute. The Achaemenid Empire conquered the city in 539 BC and kept it under its rule until Alexander the Great laid siege to the city, in 315 BC, Alexanders former general Antigonus began his own siege of Tyre, taking the city a year later
19.
Talmud
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The Talmud is a central text of Rabbinic Judaism. It is also referred to as Shas, a Hebrew abbreviation of shisha sedarim, the six orders. Talmud translates literally as instruction in Hebrew, and the term may refer to either the Gemara alone, or the Mishnah, the entire Talmud consists of 63 tractates, and in standard print is over 6,200 pages long. The Talmud is the basis for all codes of Jewish law, Rabbis expounded and debated the Torah and discussed the Tanakh without the benefit of written works, though some may have made private notes, for example of court decisions. It is during this period that rabbinic discourse began to be recorded in writing, the earliest recorded oral Torah may have been of the midrashic form, in which halakhic discussion is structured as exegetical commentary on the Pentateuch. But an alternative form, organized by subject matter instead of by biblical verse, became dominant about the year 200 CE, the Oral Torah was far from monolithic, rather, it varied among various schools. The most famous two were the School of Shammai and the School of Hillel, in general, all valid opinions, even the non-normative ones, were recorded in the Talmud. The oldest full manuscript of the Talmud, known as the Munich Talmud, each tractate is divided into chapters,517 in total, that are both numbered according to the Hebrew alphabet and given names, usually using the first one or two words in the first mishnah. A perek may continue over several pages, each perek will contain several mishnayot with their accompanying exchanges that form the building-blocks of the Gemara, the name for a passage of gemara is a sugya. A sugya, including baraita or tosefta, will comprise a detailed proof-based elaboration of a Mishnaic statement. A sugya may, and often does, range widely off the subject of the mishnah, in a given sugya, scriptural, Tannaic and Amoraic statements are cited to support the various opinions. In so doing, the Gemara will highlight semantic disagreements between Tannaim and Amoraim, and compare the Mishnaic views with passages from the Baraita. Rarely are debates formally closed, in instances, the final word determines the practical law. There is a literature on the procedural principles to be used in settling the practical law when disagreements exist, see under #Logic. The Mishnah is a compilation of legal opinions and debates, statements in the Mishnah are typically terse, recording brief opinions of the rabbis debating a subject, or recording only an unattributed ruling, apparently representing a consensus view. The rabbis recorded in the Mishnah are known as the Tannaim, the Mishnahs topical organization thus became the framework of the Talmud as a whole. But not every tractate in the Mishnah has a corresponding Gemara, also, the order of the tractates in the Talmud differs in some cases from that in the Mishnah. In addition to the Mishnah, other tannaitic teachings were current at about the time or shortly thereafter
20.
Beth midrash
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A beth midrash is a Jewish study hall located in a synagogue, yeshiva, kollel or other building. It is distinct from a synagogue, although many synagogues are used as batei midrash. Beis midrash is also the name of the program in Orthodox yeshivas in the United States. The Arabic term Madrasah is derived from the same Semitic root, early rabbinic literature, including the Mishnah, makes mention of the beth midrash as an institution distinct from the beth din and Sandhedrin. It was meant as a place of Torah study and interpretation, the origin of the beth midrash, or house of study, can be traced to the early rabbinic period, following the Siege of Jerusalem in which the destruction of the Temple took place. The earliest known school was established by Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai at Yavneh. Other official schools were established under different rabbis. These men traced their roots back to the Pharisees of the late Second Temple Period, specifically the Houses of Hillel and Shammai. By late antiquity, the beth midrash had developed along with the synagogue into a distinct though somewhat related institution, for this reason most synagogues designate their sanctuary as a beth midrash so that in addition to prayer the study of the Torah would also be permitted. Generally, there are either benches or chairs and tables, on books are placed. In Lithuanian Yeshivos the Beit Midrash will have shtenders, in modern times, batei midrash are typically found as the central study halls of yeshivas or independent kollels, both institutions of Torah study. The location and institution of study are often interchanged, so in popular parlance, a beth midrash may also be housed in a synagogue, or vice versa. In antiquity, this is a matter of debate, many batei midrash originally serve the community but attract a yeshiva in the course of their existence. Nowadays there are also virtual batei midrash that allow self-study reading articles, for more information, see George Foot Moores Judaism, as well as the more recent works of Jacob Neusner. Yeshiva Mechina Madrasah – a Muslim school Midrasha Synagogue The virtual Beit Midrash at Yeshiva. co
21.
Simeon bar Yochai
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Simeon bar Yochai, also known by his acronym Rashbi, was a 2nd-century tannaitic sage in ancient Israel, said to be active after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. He was one of the most eminent disciples of Rabbi Akiva, and is attributed by many Orthodox Jews with the authorship of the Zohar. In addition, important legal homilies called Sifre and Mekhilta are attributed to him, in the Mishnah, in which he is the fourth-most mentioned sage, he is often referred to as simply Rabbi Shimon. According to popular legend, he and his son, Eleazar b, both figures are held in unique reverence by kabbalistic tradition. They were buried in the tomb in Meron, Israel. According to a legend in the Babylonian Talmud, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai criticized the Roman government and was forced to go into hiding with his son for thirteen years, next to the mouth of the cave a carob tree sprang up and a spring of fresh water gushed forth. He and his son left the cave when they received a bat qol saying that the Roman emperor had died and his legal decisions also carried much weight in rabbinic literature. The fullest account of Rabbi Shimons teachings is to be found in W Bachers Agada der Tannaiten, when the Talmud attributes a teaching to Rabbi Shimon without specifying which Rabbi Shimon is meant, it means Shimon bar Yochai. There is a mid-eighth-century Jewish apocalypse attributed to the Rabbi, see The Secrets of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai, while he is attributed authorship of the Zohar by many kabbalists, the authenticity of this claim has been challenged by both secular and religious scholars. Who point to Moses de León as the author who published the Zohar in the 13th century, Bar Yochai died on the 33rd day of the Omer, known as Lag BaOmer. On the day of his death, he revealed deep kabbalistic secrets which formed the basis of the Zohar, according to the Bnei Yissaschar, on the day of his death, bar Yochai said, Now it is my desire to reveal secrets. The day will not go to its place like any other, daylight was miraculously extended until he had completed his final teaching and died. As such, the custom of lighting fires on his yahrzeit symbolizes this revelation of powerful light and his yahrzeit is widely known as a Yom Hillula, a day of celebration. This is based on the text of Shaar HaKavanot by Rabbi Chaim Vital. There is thus a widely observed custom to celebrate on his yahrzeit at his burial place in Meron. With bonfires, torches, song and feasting, the Yom Hillula is celebrated by hundreds of thousands of people and this celebration was a specific request by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai of his students. Some say that as bar Yochai gave spiritual light to the world with the revelation of the Zohar, as his passing left such a light behind, many candles and/or bonfires are lit here as well as in locales throughout Israel and the Diaspora. At the tomb of Rabbi Shimon, the honour of lighting the main bonfire traditionally goes to the Rebbes of the Boyaner dynasty and this privilege was purchased by Rabbi Avrohom Yaakov Friedman, the first Sadigura Rebbe, from the Sephardi guardians of Meron and Safed
22.
Rehovot
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Rehovot is a city in the Central District of Israel, about 20 kilometers south of Tel Aviv. In 2015 it had a population of 132,671, Rehovot was established in 1890 by Polish Jewish immigrants on land purchased from a Christian Arab. The biblical town of Rehoboth is located in the Negev Desert, Rehovot was established near a site called Khirbat Deiran, which now lies in the center of the built-up area of the city. Evidence of Jewish and possibly Samaritan occupants during the Roman and Byzantine periods has been found, the moshava of Rehovot was founded on the coastal plain by Polish Jews seeking to establish a township independent of the Baron Edmond James de Rothschild. The land was purchased by the Menuha Venahala society, an organization in Warsaw that raised funds for Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel and this meant that the land purchase represented a disruption to the livelihoods and lifestyles of those who had viewed it as theirs for generations. In March 1892, a dispute over pasture rights erupted between the residents of Rehovot and the village of Zarnuqa, which took two years to resolve. Another dispute broke out with the Suteriya Bedouin tribe, which had been cultivating some of the land as tenant farmers, according to Moshe Smilansky, one of the early settlers of Rehovot, the Bedouins had received compensation for the land, but refused to vacate it. In 1893, they attacked the moshava, through the intervention of a respected Arab sheikh, a compromise was reached, with the Bedouins receiving an additional sum of money, which they used to dig a well. In 1890, the region was a wasteland with no trees, houses or water. The settlers of Rehovot planted vineyards, almond orchards and citrus groves, but grappled with agricultural failures, plant diseases, the first citrus grove was planted by Zalman Minkov in 1904. Minkovs grove, surrounded by a wall, included a house, stables, a packing plant. The well was 23 meters deep, the height of an eight-story building, the water was channeled via an aqueduct to an irrigation pool, and from there to a network of ditches dug around the bases of the trees. By 1908, the idea was conceived of settling new Jewish immigrants on the land as agricultural laborers, only a few dozen Yemenite families had joined Rehovot by 1908. They built houses for themselves in a given to them at the south end of the town. In 1910, Shemuel Warshawsky, with the support of the JNF, was sent to Yemen to recruit more agricultural laborers. Hundreds arrived starting in 1911 and were housed first in a one kilometre south of Rehovot. In February 1914, Rothschild visited Rehovot during the fourth of his five visits to the Land of Israel. According to a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Rehovot had a population of 1,242 inhabitants, increasing in 1931 census to 3193 inhabitants, in 833 houses
23.
Travel literature
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The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century AD, in the early modern period, James Boswells Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides helped shape travel memoir as a genre. The travel genre was a common genre in medieval Arabic literature. Travel literature became popular during the Song Dynasty of medieval China, the genre was called travel record literature, and was often written in narrative, prose, essay and diary style. One of the earliest known records of taking pleasure in travel, of travelling for the sake of travel and he states that he went to the mountaintop for the pleasure of seeing the top of the famous height. His companions who stayed at the bottom he called frigida incuriositas and he then wrote about his climb, making allegorical comparisons between climbing the mountain and his own moral progress in life. Antoine de la Sale, author of Petit Jehan de Saintre, climbed to the crater of a volcano in the Lipari Islands in 1407, councils of mad youth were his stated reasons for going. In 1589, Richard Hakluyt published Voyages, a text of the travel literature genre. In the 18th Century, travel literature was commonly known as the book of travels, in 18th century Britain, almost every famous writer worked in the travel literature form. Captain James Cooks diaries were the equivalent of todays best sellers, Other later examples of travel literature include accounts of the Grand Tour. Aristocrats, clergy, and others with money and leisure time travelled Europe to learn about the art, a very popular subgenre of travel literature started to emerge in the form of narratives of exploration, a still unexplored source for colonial and postcolonial studies. Travel books range in style from the documentary to the evocative, from literary to journalistic and they are often associated with tourism and include guide books, meant to educate the reader about destinations, provide advice for visits, and inspire readers to travel. Travel writing may be found on web sites, in periodicals and it has been produced by a variety of writers, such as travelers, military officers, missionaries, explorers, scientists, pilgrims, social and physical scientists, educators, and migrants. Travel literature often intersects with essay writing, as in V. S. Naipauls India, A Wounded Civilization, whose trip became the occasion for extended observations on a nation and this is similarly the case in Rebecca Wests work on Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Sometimes a writer will settle into a locality for an extended period, examples of such writings include Lawrence Durrells Bitter Lemons, Deborah Talls The Island of the White Cow, and Peter Mayles best-selling A Year in Provence and its sequels. Travel and nature writing merge in many of the works by Sally Carrighar, Gerald Durrell and these authors are naturalists, who write in support of their fields of study. Another naturalist, Charles Darwin, wrote his famous account of the journey of HMS Beagle at the intersection of science, natural history, a number of writers famous in another field have written about their travel experiences. H. Lawrences Twilight in Italy and Other Essays, Mornings in Mexico and Other Essays, Rebecca Wests Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, in the world of sailing Joshua Slocums Sailing Alone Around the World is a classic of outdoor adventure literature
24.
Crusader states
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The name also refers to other territorial gains made by medieval Christendom against Muslim and pagan adversaries. The Crusader States in the Levant were the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli, the Eastern Romans, or Byzantines, partially recovered lost territory on numerous occasions but over time gradually lost all but Anatolia and parts of Thrace and the Balkans. In the West, the Roman Catholic kingdoms of northern Iberia launched a series of known as the Reconquista to reconquer the peninsula from the Arabized Berbers known as Moors. The conquered Iberian principalities are not customarily called Crusader states, except for the Kingdom of Valencia, professor Barber indicates that, in the Crusader State of the Kingdom of Jerusalem the Holy Sepulchre was added to in the 7th century and rebuilt in 1022, after a previous collapse. The situation represented an existential threat for the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire. The Emperor sent a plea to the Pope in Rome to send military aid with the goal of restoring the formerly Christian territories to Christian rule, the result was a series of western European military campaigns into the eastern Mediterranean, known as the Crusades. The first four Crusader states were created in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade, The first Crusader state, the Principality of Antioch, founded in 1098, lasted until 1268. The Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in 1099, lasted until 1291, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia had its origins before the Crusades, but was granted the status of a kingdom by Pope Innocent III, and later became fully westernized by the Lusignan dynasty. During the Third Crusade, the Crusaders founded the Kingdom of Cyprus, Richard I of England conquered Cyprus on his way to Holy Land. The Templars promptly returned the island to Richard who resold it to the displaced King of Jerusalem Guy of Lusignan in 1192. For much of its history under the Lusignan Kings, Cyprus was a prosperous Medieval Kingdom, the Kingdoms decline began when it became embroiled in the dispute between the Italian Merchant Republics of Genoa and Venice. Indeed, the Kingdoms decline can be traced to a war with Genoa in 1373–74 which ended with the Genoese occupying the principal port City of Famagusta. Eventually with the help of Venice, the Kingdom recovered Famagusta but by then it was too late and in any event, venetian rule over Cyprus lasted for just over 80 years until 1571, when the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim II Sarkhosh invaded and captured the entire island. These states faced the attacks of the Byzantine Greek successor states of Nicaea and Epirus, thessalonica and the Latin Empire were reconquered by the Byzantine Greeks by 1261. Descendants of the Crusaders continued to rule in Athens and the Peloponnesus until the 15th century when the area was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The military order of the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John established itself on Rhodes in 1310, with influx of new blood. The island of Kastellorizo was taken by the Knights of St, other neighbouring territories temporarily under the order were, the cities of Smyrna, Attaleia, the city of Salona and the islands of Ikaria and Kos, all now in Greece. The coins minted in Jerusalem during the 12th century show patriarchal crosses with various modifications, coins minted under Henry I show a cross with four dots in the four quarters, but the Jerusalem cross proper appears only on a coin minted under John II
25.
Joscelin III, Count of Edessa
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Joscelin III of Edessa was the titular Count of Edessa. He was the son of Joscelin II and his wife Beatrice and he inherited the title of Count of Edessa from his father, Joscelin II, although Edessa had been captured in 1144 and its remnants conquered or sold years before he took the title. Joscelin lived in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and managed to gather enough land around Acre to set up the Seigneurie of Joscelin. His sister, Agnes of Courtenay, had been the first wife of King Amalric I before he succeeded to the throne, in 1164 Joscelin was taken captive by Nur ad-Din Zengi at the Battle of Harim. He remained a prisoner until 1176 when Agnes paid his ransom of 50,000 dinars and his nephew Baldwin then made him seneschal of Jerusalem. He faced some rivalry from the kings paternal kindred, led by Raymond III, in 1180 Joscelin went as an ambassador to the Byzantine Empire. After the betrothal of Princess Isabella I of Jerusalem to Humphrey IV of Toron that year, Baldwin IV granted part of them, Chastel Neuf, to Joscelin, and awarded Agnes an income from the usufruct, or produce, of Toron. Agnes died in late 1184, a few months before her son, in 1185, Joscelin became guardian of his young great-nephew, Baldwin V, while Raymond III was regent. Raymond feared that, if he were the childs personal guardian, he would be blamed if he died in his care, Joscelin, as the kings maternal grandmothers brother, had no claim, but rather had strong family interests in keeping him alive. Additional support came with the arrival of Baldwins paternal grandfather, William V of Montferrat, however, Baldwin seems to have been sickly, and died at Acre in 1186. Joscelin and William escorted his coffin to Jerusalem, meanwhile, Raymond went to Nablus to attempt a coup with Balian of Ibelin to install Isabella as queen. This failed, and Sibylla was crowned, also crowning her second husband, in 1186, Guy and Sibylla granted Chastel Neuf and Toron, with other territory, to Joscelin. He, in turn, gave them as the dowry of his daughter, Beatrice. Her younger sister, Agnes, was to one of Guy’s nephews. At the Battle of Hattin in 1187, Joscelin commanded the rearguard with Balian of Ibelin, both escaped the disastrous defeat and fled to Tyre. All his estates were captured by Saladin, Joscelin joined in the siege of Acre in the Third Crusade. He last witnessed a charter on 25 October 1190, after Sibyllas death, there is a strong likelihood that he died during the siege. A month later, Isabella, who was now claiming the crown from Guy, restored Humphrey of Torons claim to Chastel Neuf, if Joscelin was still alive, he made no recorded objection
26.
Beatrix de Courtenay
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Beatrix de Courtenay was a Titular Countess of Edessa and Countess consort of Henneberg as the wife of Otto von Botenlauben. She was the eldest daughter of Agnes of Milly and Joscelin III, Count of Edessa and she was named after Joscelin’s mother. Beatrix married firstly William of Valence, by 1208 Beatrix married Otto whom she bore sons Otto and Henry. Otto and Beatrix founded the Cistercian cloister of Frauenroth in 1231, according to the legend, Beatrix’s veil was blown away while she and her husband were walking around Botenlauben Castle, and she promised to build a monastery wherever it landed
27.
Otto von Botenlauben
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Otto von Botenlauben or Botenlouben, the Count of Henneberg from 1206, was a German minnesinger, Crusader and monastic founder. Otto von Botenlauben was the son of Count Poppo VI von Henneberg and his wife Sophia, countess of Andechs. In the oldest records, he called himself Count von Henneberg. In 1206, he pronounced himself Count von Botenlauben, after Botenlauben Castle Ruins near Bad Kissingen, Otto’s existence is first recorded at the court of Emperor Henry VI in 1197, when he took part in the Emperors campaign to Italy. In 1220, he sold his lands to the Teutonic Knights and returned to Germany and his sons, Otto and Henry, as well as his grandson Albert, joined the clergy and so Otto’s line ended without an heir. Otto and his wife founded the Cistercian cloister of Frauenroth in 1231, the cloister was destroyed in the Thirty Years War, but their headstone remains to this day. Otto was one of the minnesingers collated in the Codex Manesse and his works are limited, fewer than ten wooing and love songs were carried over, and one lai. His texts are also in the Weingarten and short Heidelberg collection of ballads, Count Otto von Botenlauben in the Codex Manesse
28.
House of Henneberg
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The House of Henneberg was a medieval German comital family which from the 11th century onwards held large territories in the Duchy of Franconia. Their county was raised to a county in 1310. The distant origins of family are speculative yet seem to originate in the Middle Rhine Valley. Charibert, a nobleman in Neustria is the earliest recorded ancestor of the family, five generations pass between Charibert and the next descendant of note, Rutpert I, Count of Rheingau and Wormsgau. Both the Capetian dynasty and the Elder House of Babenberg are direct lineal descendants of Count Robert I. The denotion Babenberger, named after the castle of Bamberg, was established in the 12th century by the chronicler Otto of Freising, the later House of Babenberg, which ruled what became the Duchy of Austria, claimed to come of the Popponid dynasty. However, the descent of the first margrave Leopold I of Austria remains uncertain, in the 11th century, the dynastys estates around the ancestral seat Henneberg Castle near Meiningen belonged to the German stem duchy of Franconia. They were located southwest of the Rennsteig ridge in the Thuringian Forest, in 1096 one Count Godebold II of Henneberg served as a burgrave of the Würzburg bishops, his father Poppo had been killed in Battle in 1078. In 1137 he established Vessra Abbey near Hildburghausen, the counts lost their position as the bishops were raised to Dukes of Franconia in the 12th century. After the extinction of the Bavarian House of Andechs upon the death of Duke Otto II of Merania in 1248, in 1274 the Henneberg estates were divided into the Schleusingen, Aschach-Römhild and Hartenberg branches. Count Berthold VII of Henneberg-Schleusingen was elevated to status in 1310, his estates comprised the towns of Schmalkalden, Suhl. In 1343 the Counts of Hennberg also purchased the Thuringian town of Ilmenau, the Coburg lands passed to the Saxon House of Wettin upon the marriage of Countess Catherine of Henneberg with Margrave Frederick III of Meissen in 1347. A thorn in the side remained the enclave of Meiningen, a held by the Bishops of Würzburg. Whereas the male line of the House of Babenberg became extinct in 1246, in 1554 William IV of Henneberg-Schleusingen had signed a treaty of inheritance with Duke John Frederick II of Saxony. The Lordship of Schmalkalden fell to Landgrave William IV of Hesse-Kassel, after the Congress of Vienna, the former Albertine parts around Schleusingen and Suhl fell to the Prussian province of Saxony. King Frederick William III of Prussia assumed the title of a Princely Count of Henneberg, bertold von Henneberg-Römhild, Prince-elector and archbishop of Mainz, son of George, count of Henneberg-Römhild. Europäische Stammtafeln, Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten, Neue Folge, BAND II, Tafel 10, Die Robertiner I und die Anfänge des Hauses Capet, 922-923 König der Westfranken, Marburg, Verlag von J. A
29.
Fief
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The fees were often lands or revenue-producing real property held in feudal land tenure, these are typically known as fiefs or fiefdoms. However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including office, rights of exploitation such as hunting or fishing, monopolies in trade. In ancient Rome a benefice was a gift of land for life as a reward for services rendered, originally, in medieval Latin European documents, a land grant in exchange for service continued to be called a beneficium. Later, the term feudum, or feodum, began to replace beneficium in the documents, the first attested instance of this is from 984, although more primitive forms were seen up to one hundred years earlier. The origin of the feudum and why it replaced beneficium has not been well established, but there are multiple theories, described below. The most widely held theory is put forth by Marc Bloch that it is related to the Frankish term *fehu-ôd, in which means cattle and -ôd means goods. When land replaced currency as the store of value, the Germanic word *fehu-ôd replaced the Latin word beneficium. This Germanic origin theory was also shared by William Stubbs in the nineteenth century, a theory put forward by Archibald R. Lewis that the origin of fief is not feudum, but rather foderum, the earliest attested use being in Astronomuss Vita Hludovici. In that text is a passage about Louis the Pious which says annona militaris quas vulgo foderum vocant, a theory by Alauddin Samarrai suggests an Arabic origin, from fuyū. Samarrais theory is that early forms of fief include feo, feu, feuz, feuum and others, Samarrai, however, also advises medieval and early modern Muslim scribes often used etymologically fanciful roots in order to claim the most outlandish things to be of Arabian or Muslim origin. It lacked a precise meaning until the middle of the 12th century, in English usage, the word fee is first attested around 1250–1300, the word fief from around 1605–15. In French, the fief is found from the middle of the 13th century. In French, one also finds seigneurie, which rise to the expression seigneurial system to describe feudalism. Originally, vassalage did not imply the giving or receiving of landholdings, by the middle of the 10th century, fee had largely become hereditary. The eldest son of a deceased vassal would inherit, but first he had to do homage and fealty to the lord, historically, the fees of the 11th and the 12th century derived from two separate sources. The first was land carved out of the estates of the upper nobility, the second source was allodial land transformed into dependent tenures. The process occurred later in Germany, and was going on in the 13th century. In England, Henry II transformed them into important sources of royal income, the discontent of barons with royal claims to arbitrarily assessed reliefs and other feudal payments under Henrys son King John resulted in Magna Carta of 1215
30.
Teutonic Order
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The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious order founded as a military order in the 12th century in Acre. Purely religious since 1929, it still confers limited honorary knighthoods, the order was formed to aid Christians on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to establish hospitals. Formed in the year 1190 in Acre, in the Levant, after Christian forces were defeated in the Middle East, the Order moved to Transylvania in 1211 to help defend the South-Eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Kipchaks. Starting from there, the Order created the independent Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, adding continuously the conquered Prussians territory, the Order theoretically lost its main purpose in Europe with the Christianization of Lithuania. However, it initiated numerous campaigns against its Christian neighbours, the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Novgorod Republic. The Teutonic Knights had an economic base, and so hired mercenaries from throughout Europe to augment their feudal levies. In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army decisively defeated the Order and broke its military power at the Battle of Grunwald, however, the capital of the Teutonic Knights was successfully defended in the following Siege of Marienburg and the Order was saved from collapse. In 1515, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I made an alliance with Sigismund I of Poland-Lithuania. Thereafter, the empire did not support the Order against Poland, in 1525, Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg resigned and converted to Lutheranism, becoming Duke of Prussia as a vassal of Poland. Soon after, the Order lost Livonia and its holdings in the Protestant areas of Germany, the Order did keep its considerable holdings in Catholic areas of Germany until 1809, when Napoleon Bonaparte ordered its dissolution and the Order lost its last secular holdings. However, the Order continued to exist as a charitable and ceremonial body and it was outlawed by Adolf Hitler in 1938, but re-established in 1945. Today it operates primarily with charitable aims in Central Europe, the Knights wore white surcoats with a black cross. A cross pattée was sometimes used as their coat of arms, the motto of the Order was, Helfen, Wehren, Heilen. The full name of the Order in German is Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus St. Mariens in Jerusalem or in Latin Ordo domus Sanctæ Mariæ Theutonicorum Hierosolymitanorum, thus, the term Teutonic refers to the German origins of the order in Latin. It is commonly known in German as the Deutscher Orden, historically also as Deutscher Ritterorden, Deutschherrenorden, Deutschritterorden or Die Herren im weißen Mantel. However, based on the model of the Knights Templar, it was transformed into an order in 1198. It received papal orders for crusades to take and hold Jerusalem for Christianity, during the rule of Grand Master Hermann von Salza the Order changed from being a hospice brotherhood for pilgrims to primarily a military order. The Order was founded in Acre, and the Knights purchased Montfort, northeast of Acre, the Order also had a castle at Amouda in Armenia Minor
31.
Mi'ilya
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Miilya is an Arab local council in the western Galilee in the Northern District of Israel. Its name during the Kingdom of Jerusalem era in Galilee was Castellum Regis, in 2015 it had a population of 3,208, all of whom are Melkite Greek Catholics. The town is located immediately to the northwest of Maalot-Tarshiha, archaeological excavations in Miilya gives indication of inhabitation from the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age, as well as Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman periods. In the Crusader era, Miilya was first mentioned in 1160, however, in 1187 Miilya fell to Saladin. In 1188 it was granted by Conrad of Montferrat to the Pisans who were defending Acre and this included Miilya with its dependencies, and a third of the fief of St. George. In 1228 Jocelyn III´s grandson James of Mandale sold his part to the Teutonic Knights, between 1220 and 1243, the Teutonic Knights bought a number of properties from private owners around the castle. Another document from the year 1257 mentions a house and other property in Mi‘ilya that belonged to the Bishop of ‘Akko, by 1268/71 Miilya was conquered by Baibars. In 1596, Miilya appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Akka of the Liwa of Safad and it had a population of 15 Muslim households and 2 Christian households and paid taxes on wheat, barley, olives, and goats or beehives. In 1881, Miilya was described as being a large and well-built village of stone, containing 450 Christians, surrounded by olives, in the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandatory authorities, Miilya had a population of 442 inhabitants,429 Christians and 13 Muslims. Of the Christians,3 were Orthodox,2 Catholics and 424 Greek Catholic, the population had increased in the 1931 census to 579,553 Christians,25 Muslims and 1 Druse, in a total of 138 houses. By 1945, the population had increased to 790 Christians and 110 Muslims, while the land area was 29,084 dunams, according to an official land. Of this,1,509 dunams were allocated for plantations and irrigable land,2,883 for cereals, in the early part of 1948 the village suffered from food shortages and harassment from neighbouring Jewish areas. It was captured by the Israel Defense Forces during Operation Hiram at the end of October, after a short fight, most of population fled into the countryside. The following day the local IDF commander allowed them to return to their homes and this was one of the few occasions when villagers were allowed back into their villages after they had left. In January 1949 some villagers from Miilya were expelled to Jenin, the Ministry for Minority Affairs reported that a further 25 villagers were expelled in March being suspected of passing information to the enemy. Miilya was recognized as a council in 1957. The Arab population remained under Martial Law until 1966, Miilya is located on the Highway 89 which connects Nahariya with Elifelet via Safed. Kings castle, was first noted in Crusader sources in 1160, by 1179 the castle had apparently been rebuilt, as it was then called Castellum Novo
32.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
33.
Acre, Israel
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Acre is a city in the northern coastal plain region of the Northern District, Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. The city occupies an important location, as it sits on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, traditionally linking the waterways and this location helped it become one of the oldest cities in the world, continuously inhabited since the Middle Bronze Age some 4000 years ago. Acre is the holiest city of the Baháí Faith, and as such receives many Bahai pilgrims, in 2015 the population was 47,675. Acre is a city, that includes Jews, Muslims, Christians. The mayor is Shimon Lankri, who was reelected in 2011, Acres etymology is a matter of controversy, though most likely deriving from the early Canaanite language. According to Biblical tradition, the name is derived from Canaanite Adco, meaning a border, the city was known as Ptolemais during the Hellenistic and Roman-Byzantine periods. During the Crusades it was known as St. John dAcre after the Knights Hospitaller, Acre is therefore counted among the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the region. Egyptian sources seem to be mentioning Acre, starting possibly with execration texts from ca.1800 BCE, the name Aak, which appears on the tribute lists of Thutmose III, may be a reference to Acre. The Amarna letters also mention a place named Akka, as well as the Execration texts, First settlement at the site of Ancient Acre appears to have been in the Early Bronze Age, or about 3000 BC. In the Hebrew Bible, Akko is one of the places from which the Israelites did not drive out the Canaanites and it is later described in the territory of the tribe of Asher and according to Josephus, was ruled by one of Solomons provincial governors. Throughout Israelite rule, it was politically and culturally affiliated with Phoenicia, around 725 BC, Akko joined Sidon and Tyre in a revolt against Shalmaneser V. Greek historians refer to the city as Ake, meaning cure, according to the Greek myth, Heracles found curative herbs here to heal his wounds. Strabo refers to the city as once a rendezvous for the Persians in their expeditions against Egypt, about 165 BC Judas Maccabeus defeated the Seleucids in several battles in Galilee, and drove them into Ptolemais. About 153 BC Alexander Balas, son of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, contesting the Seleucid crown with Demetrius, seized the city, which opened its gates to him. Demetrius offered many bribes to the Maccabees to obtain Jewish support against his rival, including the revenues of Ptolemais for the benefit of the Temple in Jerusalem, Jonathan Apphus threw in his lot with Alexander and in 150 BC he was received by him with great honour in Ptolemais. Some years later, however, Tryphon, an officer of the Seleucid Empire, the city was captured by Alexander Jannaeus, Cleopatra and Tigranes the Great. Here Herod the Great built a gymnasium, the Christian Acts of the Apostles reports that Luke the Evangelist, Paul the Apostle and their companions spent a day in Ptolemais with the Christian brethren there. A Roman colonia was established at the city, Colonia Claudii Cæsaris, the Romans enlarged the port and the city, that flourished for six centuries even as a Christian center
34.
Safad
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Safed is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of 900 metres, Safed is the highest city in the Galilee, due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters. Due to its climate and scenic views, Safed is a popular holiday resort frequented by Israelis. In 2015 it had a population of 33,358, legend has it that Safed was founded by a son of Noah after the Great Flood. According to the Book of Judges, the area where Safed is located was assigned to the Tribe of Naphtali and it has been suggested that Jesus assertion that a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden may have referred to Safed. Safed has been identified with Sepph, a town in the Upper Galilee mentioned in the writings of the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus. It is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud as one of five elevated spots where fires were lit to announce the New Moon, there is scarce information about the town of Safed prior to the Crusader conquest in 1099. The city appears in Jewish sources in the late Middle Ages, in the 12th century, Safed was a fortified city in the Crusaders Kingdom of Jerusalem, known by the Crusaders as Saphet. King Fulk built a castle there, which was kept by the Knights Templar from 1168. Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the town in 1170, does not mention any Jews as living there, Safed was captured by the Ayyubids led by Saladin in 1188 after one years siege, following the Battle of Hattin in 1187. Saladin ultimately allowed its residents to relocate to Tyre, samuel ben Samson, who visited the town in 1210, mentions the existence of a Jewish community of at least fifty there. In 1227, the Ayyubid emir of Damascus, al-Muazzam Isa, had the fortress of Safed demolished to prevent its potential capture, the Templars thereafter rebuilt the towns fortress. In 1266, during a Mamluk military campaign to subdue Crusader strongholds in Palestine, Baybars captured Safed in July, unlike the coastal Crusader fortresses, which were demolished upon their capture by the Mamluks, Baybars spared Safed from destruction. Instead, he appointed a governor to be in charge of the fortress, Baybars likely preserved Safed because he viewed its fortress to be of high strategic value due to its location on a high mountain and its isolation from other Crusader fortresses. Moreover, Baybars determined that in the event of a renewed Crusader invasion of the coastal region, in 1268, he had the fortress repaired, expanded and strengthened. Furthermore, he commissioned numerous building works in the town of Safed, including caravanserai, markets, baths, by the end of Baybars reign, Safed had become the site of a prospering town, in addition to its fortress. The city also became the center of Mamlakat Safad, a province in Mamluk Syria whose jurisdiction included the Galilee. According to al-Dimashqi, who died in Safed in 1327, writing around 1300, Baybarsbuilt a round tower, the tower is built in three stories
35.
Jizya
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Jizya or jizyah is a per capita yearly tax historically levied by Islamic states on certain non-Muslim subjects—dhimmis—permanently residing in Muslim lands under Islamic law. Dhimmis who chose to join military service were exempted from payment, Jizya is mentioned by the Quran and hadiths. The application of jizya varied in the course of Islamic history, together with kharāj, a term that was sometimes used interchangeably with jizya, taxes levied on non-Muslim subjects were among the main sources of revenues collected by some Islamic polities. Jizya rate was usually an annual amount depending on the financial capability of the payer. Sources comparing taxes levied on Muslims and jizya differ as to their relative burden depending on time, place, specific taxes under consideration, and other factors. The tax is no longer imposed by states in the Islamic world, although there are reported cases of organizations such as the Pakistani Taliban. The late Islamic scholar Abul Ala Maududi, of Pakistan, said that Jizya should be re-imposed on non-Muslims in a Muslim nation, however, most Muslims generally reject the dhimma system, which encompasses jizya, as inappropriate for the age of nation-states and democracies. Commentators disagree on the definition and derivation of the jizya, Shakirs English translations of the Quran render jizya as tax, while Pickthal. Yusuf Ali prefers to transliterate the term as jizyah, Yusuf Ali considered the root meaning of jizya to be compensation, whereas Muhammad Asad considered it to be satisfaction. And he writes about jizya, A tax that is levied on Dhimmis, michael G. Morony states that the emergence of protected status and the definition of jizya as the poll tax on non-Muslim subjects appears to have been achieved only by the early eighth century. This came as a result of growing suspicions about the loyalty of the population during the second civil war. Jane Dammen McAuliffe states that jizya, in early Islamic texts, was an annual tribute expected from non-Muslims, arthur Stanley Tritton states that both jizya in west, and kharaj in the east Arabia meant tribute. It was also called Jawali in Jerusalem, shemesh says that Abu Yusuf, Abu Ubayd, Qudama, Khatib and Yahya used the terms Jizya, Kharaj, Ushr and Tasq as synonyms. In a treaty made by Khalid with some towns in the neighborhood of Hirah, he writes, If we protect you, then jizya is due to us, in our agreement you stipulated that we protect you, but we are unable to do so. Therefore, we now return to you what we have taken from you, similarly, during the time of the Crusades, Saladin returned the jizya to the Christians of Syria when he was compelled to retract from it. The orientalist Thomas Walker Arnold writes that even Muslims were made to pay a tax if they were exempted from military service, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani states that there is a consensus amongst Islamic jurists that jizya is in exchange for military service. In the case of war, jizya is seen as an option to end hostilities, in this sense, jizya is seen as a means by which to legalize the cessation of war and military conflict with non-Muslims. The second rationale offered by Islamic scholars for the imposition of Jizya tax on non-Muslims is that it was a substitute to the requirement of zakat tax from Muslims
36.
Silk
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Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity, Silk is produced by several insects, but generally only the silk of moth caterpillars has been used for textile manufacturing. There has been research into other types of silk, which differ at the molecular level. Silk is mainly produced by the larvae of insects undergoing complete metamorphosis, Silk production also occurs in Hymenoptera, silverfish, mayflies, thrips, leafhoppers, beetles, lacewings, fleas, flies, and midges. Other types of arthropod produce silk, most notably various arachnids such as spiders, the word silk comes from Old English sioloc, from Greek σηρικός serikos, silken, ultimately from an Asian source. Several kinds of silk, which are produced by caterpillars other than the mulberry silkworm, have been known and used in China, South Asia. However, the scale of production was far smaller than for cultivated silks. Thus, the way to obtain silk suitable for spinning into textiles in areas where commercial silks are not cultivated was by tedious. Commercial silks originate from reared silkworm pupae, which are bred to produce a silk thread with no mineral on the surface. The pupae are killed by either dipping them in boiling water before the adult moths emerge or by piercing them with a needle. These factors all contribute to the ability of the cocoon to be unravelled as one continuous thread. Wild silks also tend to be difficult to dye than silk from the cultivated silkworm. Genetic modification of domesticated silkworms is used to facilitate the production of more types of silk. Silk fabric was first developed in ancient China, the earliest example of silk fabric is from 3630 BC, and it was used as wrapping for the body of a child from a Yangshao culture site in Qingtaicun at Xingyang, Henan. Legend gives credit for developing silk to a Chinese empress, Leizu, because of its texture and lustre, silk rapidly became a popular luxury fabric in the many areas accessible to Chinese merchants. Silk was in demand, and became a staple of pre-industrial international trade. In July 2007, archaeologists discovered intricately woven and dyed silk textiles in a tomb in Jiangxi province, Silk is described in a chapter on mulberry planting by Si Shengzhi of the Western Han
37.
Mount Meron
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Mount Meron is a mountain in Israel. It has special significance in Jewish religious tradition and parts of it have been declared a nature reserve. At 1,208 metres above sea level, Mount Meron is the highest peak in Israel, though many peaks in the Israeli-occupied area of the Golan Heights, in 1965, an 84000-dunam nature reserve was declared. An additional 1199 dunams were declared part of the reserve in 2005 and it is the highest reserve in Israel, at an altitude of 1208 meters above sea level, and the largest reserve in the north of the country. The village of Meron and the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai are on Mount Meron, the mountain has a strong undergrowth and it cannot be walked up from every direction. The main path starts at the northwest side of the Meron village, there is a gate next to the road, with a color-marked path of about 10 km. There is also a path on the west side of the mountain, Mt Meron has a Mediterranean climate with hot and dry summers and damp and cool winters. It snows briefly on Mt Meron a few times during every winter, there are 22 days a year with a temperature of 32 °C or higher and 28 days below freezing. Note, the chart is an average of 5 years so the record highs and lows may not be fully accurate
38.
Morus (plant)
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Morus, a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, comprises 10–16 species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. The closely related genus Broussonetia is also known as mulberry, notably the paper mulberry. Mulberries are fast-growing when young, but soon become slow-growing and rarely exceed 10–15 metres tall, the leaves are alternately arranged, simple and often lobed and serrated on the margin. Lobes are more common on juvenile shoots than on mature trees, the trees can be monoecious or dioecious. The mulberry fruit is a fruit, approximately 2 to 3 cm long. Immature fruits are white, green, or pale yellow, in most species the fruits turn pink and then red while ripening, then dark purple or black, and have a sweet flavor when fully ripe. The fruits of the white-fruited cultivar are white when ripe, the fruit of this cultivar is also sweet, the taxonomy of Morus is complex and disputed. Morus classification is further complicated by widespread hybridisation, wherein the hybrids are fertile. Jams and sherbets are often made from the fruit in this region, black mulberry was imported to Britain in the 17th century in the hope that it would be useful in the cultivation of silkworms. It was much used in medicine, especially in the treatment of ringworm. Mulberries are also widespread in Greece, particularly in the Peloponnese, mulberries can be grown from seed, and this is often advised as seedling-grown trees are generally of better shape and health, but they are most often planted from large cuttings which root readily. The mulberry plants which are allowed to grow tall with a height of 5–6 feet from ground level. Usually, the plantation is raised and in formation with a spacing of 6 feet ×6 feet, or 8 feet ×8 feet, as plant to plant. The plants are usually pruned once a year during the season to a height of 5–6 feet. The leaves are harvested three or four times a year by a leaf-picking method under rain-fed or semiarid conditions, depending on the monsoon, the tree branches pruned during the fall season are cut and used to make durable baskets supporting agriculture and animal husbandry. Some North American cities have banned the planting of mulberries because of the amounts of pollen they produce. In actuality, only the male mulberry trees produce pollen, this light-weight pollen can be inhaled deeply into the lungs, conversely, female mulberry trees produce all-female flowers, which draw pollen and dust from the air. Because of this feature, all-female mulberry trees have an OPALS allergy scale rating of just 1
39.
Kohen
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Kohen or cohen is the Hebrew word for priest used colloquially in reference to the Aaronic priesthood. Jewish kohanim are traditionally believed and halakhically required to be of direct descent from the biblical Aaron. The term is used colloquially in Orthodox Judaism in reference to modern day descendants of Aharon, during the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, kohanim performed the daily and holiday duties of sacrificial offerings. Today, kohanim retain a lesser though distinct status within Rabbinic and Karaite Judaism, in the Samaritan community, the kohanim have remained the primary religious leaders. The noun kohen is used in the Torah to refer to priests, the Hebrew noun kohen is most often translated as priest, whether Jewish or pagan, such as the priests of Baal or Dagon, though Christian priests are referred to in Hebrew by the term komer. The word derives from a Semitic root common, at minimum, to the Central Semitic languages, as a starkly different translation the title worker, Rashi on Exodus 29,30 and servant Targum to Jeremiah 48,7, have been offered as a translation as well. Some have attempted to resolve this contradiction by suggesting that, although the priest does enjoy specific privileges. The status of priest kohen was conferred on Aaron, the brother of Moses, during the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and until the Holy Temple was built in Jerusalem, the priests performed their priestly service in the portable Tabernacle. Their duties involved offering the daily and Jewish holiday sacrifices, and blessing the people in a Priestly Blessing, in a broader sense, since Aaron was a descendant of the Tribe of Levi, priests are sometimes included in the term Levites, by direct patrilineal descent. However, not all Levites are priests, when the Temple existed, most sacrifices and offerings could only be conducted by priests. The Torah mentions Melchizedek king of Salem, identified by Rashi as being Shem the son of Noah, the second is Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis, then Jethro, priest of Midian both pagan priests of their era. When Esau sold the birthright of the first born to Jacob, Rashi explains that the priesthood was sold along with it, because by right the priesthood belongs to the first-born. Only when the first-born sinned in the incident of the calf, the priesthood was given to the Tribe of Levi. Aaron received the priesthood along with his children and any descendants that would be born subsequently, however, his grandson Phinehas had already been born, and did not receive the priesthood until he killed the prince of the Tribe of Simeon and the princess of the Midianites. Thereafter, the priesthood has remained with the descendants of Aaron, in every generation when the Temple was standing, one kohen would be singled out to perform the functions of the High Priest. His primary task was the Day of Atonement service, another unique task of the high priest was the offering of a daily meal sacrifice, he also held the prerogative to supersede any priest and offer any offering he chose. Although the Torah retains a procedure to select a High Priest when needed, in the absence of the Temple in Jerusalem, prior to that time, the priestly courses numbered a mere eight. This newly instated a cycle of courses, or priestly divisions
