Jewish Palestine survives

Is it possible for a Jewish majority state to have survived in Palestine since the first century.

I presume that this would have meant less of a diaspora.

Would fewer Jewish people being there make Christian anti semitism les virulant.

I am guessing that some Jewish people would have converted to Islam if it emereged as in OTL but that most would not.

Oh and which groups do get targetted by evil regimes and movements seek scape goats in Europe and North America?

this is only possible, if no insurrection forces Rome to exile all jews. That would probably also mean that Christianity will remain a jewish sect.

Populations tend not to be that static in religious affiliation. the first century AD's Jewish majority in Palerstine was a brittle thing, only recently enforced and still threatened by factionalism, reconversion, xenophobia and centrifugal tendencies. It's only straighforward from the outside, and at some point it is almost inevitable that the "real" Jews will start deciding who is a "real" jew and who isn't. The result is almost certainly a much reduced Jewish majority, even without outside forces intervening.

However, even with the diaspora in place you could still preserve that (though I suspect more plurality than majority), if you butterfly away the competition. The real problem is that for many centuries, Palestine was ruled by a succession of governments under which conversion away from Judaism carried considerable benefits. I know the remarkable heroic story of Jews clinging to their identity through centuries of persecution, but the fact remains that it is the story of a minority. We don't know how many Jews converted to become Christians or Muslims, but all evidence suggests that it was a lot. If remaining Jewish remains unstigmatised, or better yet, if it conveys privileges, it could stay the default religion of large areas of rural Palestine.

Here's an idea: the Jewish exemption from sacrifice. It only works if we posit a pagan Roman state either enforcing sacrifices earlier, or surviving longer. Jews were, by law, exempt from any form of religious worship to affirm loyalty to the emperor (in a lot of books it says "emperor-worship", but that's really too simplified. Emperor-worship was only ever required of very few people, and then by insane rulers). Now, Jewish-tinged or Jewish-derived forms of monotheism were popular in the Roman east. If the followers of these groups found they could integrate into urban and upper-class society and stay true to their faith by claiming that exemption, all these groups could stay under a big umbrella of Jewish identity. The Romans are very unlikely to care one way or the other. That could produce a form of Judaism that is diverse and rooted in folk tradition strong enough to reassert itself after multiple disasters.

Of course, this still requires future rulers to maintain that status, but it's certainly not impossible.

If Jews dont piss off the Romans they might have a chance to survive in palestine or perhaps even as a client kingdom under a herodian king (or some other guy... since herodians werent quite popular among jews)

The short answer is no.

The long answer is that for this to happen you need to have butterflies all the way back in the period of the First Triumvirate and even then it's unlikely a Jewish state will outlast Ptolemaic Egypt.

Little state next to big realm and in strategic location? It is just asking to be invaded and that is what the Babylonians and Romans did. Moreover, if an independent Judea had been around in the seventh century the Arabs would have invaded it if the Byzantines and Persians had not got there first.

Have Jesus Christ been born somewhere else in the Middle East, and Muhammad dreaming about ascending to heaven from a different location (you must have the Temple rebuilt then, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Temple#Medieval_attempts_at_rebuilding)

I've read that the Jews still represented a plurality in Palestine EVEN at the end of the Jewish-Roman wars. If you want them to stay there for centuries, Palestine must move away from the frontline between Muslims and Christians, because the Crusades actually ruined the country and the Muslims rulers prevented recovery of trade for fear of new crusades. Maybe this way the Jews could have inhabited the mountains of Judea and Galilee continuously till our days.

Derek Jackson said:

Is it possible for a Jewish majority state to have survived in Palestine since the first century.

I presume that this would have meant less of a diaspora.

Click to expand...

Whether the Jewish state itself can remain politically independent continuously is uncertain. Small states have been known to do that against tremendous odds for long periods. But probably you'd see periods when some empire or another would come in and assert control for a while, with the Jews reasserting their independence when that empire falters, as all do eventually. But the Jews have to remain demographically dominant in the area in order for that to happen. The key is preventing any large scale depopulation such as occurred with the Jewish revolts of the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D.

One possibility to accomplish that is if the Hasmonean Kingdom manages to stay independent as a client state of Rome. Perhaps something nasty happens to Antipater the Idumaean and the settlement which ended the civil war between Aristobulus II and his brother, John Hyrcanus II, holds after 67 BC. Rome is never asked to intervene. If the Hasmoneans prove loyal allies of Rome, and there are never any Jewish revolts against Rome, and the Hasmoneans fight alongside Rome against the Parthians and Sassanids, there will be no massive depopulation of Jews via massacre, enslavement, and diaspora in the first and second centuries (or later) as a result. The Hasmonean policy of forced assimilation of non-Jews living within the Jewish State can continue, increasing the dominance of Jews in the area (and the Jewish population of the area). The cohesiveness of the Jewish community due to the continued existance of the Temple hierarchy alongside the rabbinical and synagogue communities will tend to prevent large-scale assimilation of Jews into other groups, and Palestine could remain largely Jewish right up to the present day.

Christianity develops quite differently in this scenario...probably it doesn't get to be the Roman State Religion at any point, as the party of James (which wanted to impose Jewish laws such as circumcision and the dietary laws on new converts) probably wins out over the party of Saul of Tarsus. It also may butterfly away Islam. Both of these would aid the Jews in maintaining their demographic dominance over Palestine.