A brief guide to Jewish history

1. Abraham
2. Isaac
3. Jacob
4. Jacob had twelve sons from which all Jews stem
5. Due to a hunger all Jews end up under Josef’s care in Egypt
6. For 210 years they are slaves under a Pharou/s who feel threatened by their power
7. In the year 2448 from Creation God under Mosses lead them triumphantly out of Egypt 8. In the Sinai Desert they Receive the Bible / Torah
9. In the year 2488 from creation they enter under Mosses’s star disciple Joshua into Israel
10. They dwell in Israel under the leadership of Prophet/Judges from 2516 (the Death of Joshua) 11. From 2881 the first three Jewish Kings, Saul, David and Solomon reign
12. In the year 2928 the First Holy Temple is constructed by King Solomon which lasts 410 years until it is destroyed by King Nevachadnetzer of Bavel
13. In the year 3405 the exiled Jews in Persia (that took over after Nuvachadnetzer) celebrate their miraculous Purim salvation
14. In the year 3410 Ezra and Nechemia having led 40,000 Jews back from Bavel rebuild the second Temple
15. In the year 3597 The Second Temple is rededicated though the Chashmunai family who purged Israel from Hellenisitc paganism 16. In the 3830 the Second Temple is Destroyed by the Romans
17. In the year 3880 the short lived Rebellion of Bar Kochba against Roman rule occurs
18. In the year 3979 the Mishna (first book of Jewish laws previously taught by-heart over 1500 years, from Sinai) is compiled
19. In the year 4260 the Babylonian Talmud is written – it becomes the binding Jewish legal document
20. Around the year 4460 the Jews left Babylonia which lost its prominence and center of Judaism and migrated north and northwest into Germany and Spain, hence the term Ashkenazic (German) Jews and Sefardic (Spanish Jews) these two communities have a very different history and both have unique cultural flavors in their Judaic practices, the Jews of Eastern Europe suffered from recurrent harsh antisemitism but within them was born the messianic footsteps through Rabbi Yisroel Baal Shem Tov and the countless Chassidic masters which breathed a new energy, love and warmth into the souls who drank from their holy waters – the sefardic Jews as is well known were forced out of Spain in 1942 by the fanatical Isabele and established new communities in Amsterdam (the Dutch East Indeas Company) and mainly in middle eastern countries – when the holocaust threatened Jewish lives, it was primarily the Ashkenazic Jews that suffered but with the establishment of the state of Israel 1948 hundreds of thousands (were forced through Arab riots) to return home to Israel, joining the holocaust survivors!