Since biblical times — but especially since the beginning of the mid-nineteenth century — Jews have longed for a permanent home in the Holy Land, a stretch of rugged, but historically significant land on the eastern Mediterranean shore, stretching north from the Gulf of Aqaba over the Negev Desert, west of the Dead Sea and Jordan, and north to the borders of Syria and Lebanon.
The early name for this area of land was Palestine, first settled by agricultural people around 8000 B.C. Hebrew tribes began populating the land in the twelfth century B.C., and eventually it was ruled by Saul, David, and Solomon around 1000 B.C. The kingdom later split into two states, Israel and Judah, which were, in turn, conquered by the Assyrians and the Babylonians. Afterward, the area was ruled by foreign powers — the Persians, Alexander the Great, and the Ptolemies, among others.
Romans took possession of the country in 63 B.C. and stationed Herod the Great on the throne in 37 B.C. Jesus was born into this Roman-ruled, Jewish world which would, after his crucifixion become a Christian nation. Some 500 years later, Arabs took possession, and it became an Islamic nation; by the tenth century A.D., most of the inhabitants had converted to Islam. In 1099, Western crusaders established rule, but they were eventually routed by armies of the Egyptian sultans, the Mamelukes. In 1516, the country became part of the mighty Ottoman Empire.
