Jews in Palestine from the 7th century to the 19th century.From...

Jews in Palestine from the 7th century to the 19th century.

From “Atlas of Jewish History”, Martin Gilbert, Routledge, 1969, 2010

In 636, at the Battle of Yarmouk, the Arabs captured Tiberias and Galilee. Then they besieged and took Jerusalem and Caesarea before completing their conquest in 641 with the capture of Ascalon.

From the 8th century, the largest Jewish community was found in Ramleh, then, at the time of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1291), the most important Jewish communities were those on the coast: Tyre, Acre and Ascalon.

Between 1260 and 1516, relations between the Jews and the Mamluk power, fanatical and intolerant, were bad. The most important communities are in the interior (the ports were evacuated in the 13th century for fear of invasions): Jerusalem especially, Safed, Gaza, Hebron, a few villages in Upper Galilee. Pilgrimage to Jewish holy places – the “ziara” – is already very widespread there.

The Turks conquered Palestine in 1516. The community of Safed experienced great expansion with the cultural and technical contribution of Judeo-Iberian refugees.

But throughout the 19th century, Muslim populations also settled in Palestine: some 20,000 Egyptians during the conquests of Mehemet-Ali (in Gaza, Jaffa and Jericho), then several tens of thousands of Muslims, coming from the former Ottoman territories of the Balkans and the Caucasus. The sultan grants them land on favorable terms in Galilee and the coastal plain of Sharon. The accounts of European travelers in Palestine attest to the existence of numerous villages where Arabic is not spoken.

From 1840, the Jewish population of Jerusalem grew at a much faster rate than that of other communities, reaching 11,000 people in 1870, or half of the total population, and this before the major movements of Jewish immigration which began. from the 1880s; the Jewish population has since retained its majority status.

In 1872, the Palestinian population (Bedouins excluded) was 381,954 inhabitants (85% Muslims, 11% Christians and 4% Jews).