Numbers 24:9b
We saw yesterday that God promised the land of Israel to Abraham and his descendents over 4000 years ago and left off with the Greek empire in which the land was renamed Palestine during the time of Alexander the Great. Hold on to your hats, today! The land, only 150 miles long by 75 miles wide, changed hands many times since then. There has always been a remnant of Jews that lived in the land even though many Jews were taken into captivity or were driven off the land every time a new realm took over.
In 63 BC, Rome invaded Palestine and renamed it Judea. A few years later, Jesus was born. By 135 AD, the Romans had driven the Jews out of Jerusalem and changed the name of the land back to Palestine as it was known for the next 500 years. Most of the Jews left Palestine although there were some remaining Jewish communities in the Galilee region.
The Arabs conquered Palestine in the 600s AD and many of the Palestinians accepted Arab culture along with Islam. Two hundred years later, the Seljuks, Turkish people, began to take over Palestine and gained control of Jerusalem in 1071 AD.
Crusaders from Europe invaded 28 years later and captured Jerusalem, ruling it until 1187 AD when a Muslim ruler, Saladin, attacked Palestine and took control of Jerusalem. During the 1250s, Egyptian rulers known as the Mamelukes conquered Palestine and possessed it until 1517 when the Ottoman Empire of Turkey took over. At that time, the majority of the people who lived in the land were Muslim Arabs. Christians and Jews were minorities.
In the 1850s, Europe had more influence than the Ottoman Empire and European Jews began to settle in Palestine. They wanted to live and die in their Holy Land and by 1880 their population had grown to an estimated 25,000.
Tomorrow we will look at the beginning of the Zionist movement and how Israel became the country it is today. Interesting stuff!
Crafts
Part of the fun of being Nanna is having creative and fun activities for my grandchildren when they come to visit. My granddaughter loves to play the memory game, so I made a memory game just for her using pictures of our family members (including the dogs!). I printed two copies of each picture on white cardstock, then cut them into same-size cards. (I copied each picture from My Pictures and pasted them onto a Word Document. They import rather large, so I clicked on each picture and moved the cursor up from the lower right hand corner, shrinking them to the size I wanted.)
The second step was to stamp a flower on the other side of every card, being careful to place the stamp in the same place on each card.
There were enough cards to split into two memory games. My granddaughter loves the pictures and they help her recognize family members when we get together.
Today's Recipe - Carrot Raisin Salad
My mom has made this salad as long as I can remember. It is so yummy!
3 cups shredded carrots
1 cup raisins
1/4 cup mayonnaise or Miracle Whip
1 tsp sugar or honey
2 tsp milk
dash of cinnamon
Mix the carrots and raisins in a bowl. Whisk together the remaining ingredients and pour over the carrots and raisins. Mix well and serve.
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