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Portal:Israel

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Welcome to the Israel Portal
מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל

Location of Israel
The flag of Israel
Map of Israel
The emblem of Israel

Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. It is bordered by Lebanon and Syria to the north, the West Bank and Jordan to the east, the Gaza Strip and Egypt to the southwest, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. The country also has a small coastline on the Red Sea at its southernmost point, and part of the Dead Sea lies along its eastern border. Israel's proclaimed capital is in Jerusalem, while Tel Aviv is the country's largest urban area and economic center.

Israel is located in a region known to Jews as the Land of Israel, synonymous with the Palestine region and the Holy Land. In antiquity, it was home to the Canaanite civilization followed by the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Situated at a continental crossroad, the region experienced demographic changes under the rule of various empires from the Romans to the Ottomans. European antisemitism in the late 19th century galvanized Zionism, which sought a Jewish homeland in Palestine and gained British support. After World War I, Britain occupied the region and established Mandatory Palestine in 1920. Increased Jewish immigration in the leadup to the Holocaust and British colonial policy led to intercommunal conflict between Jews and Arabs, which escalated into a civil war in 1947 after the United Nations (UN) proposed partitioning the land between them. Currently, Israel is the only country in the world where Jews constitute more than 2% of the total national population, and in which they are the largest demographic. (Full article...)

Visual History of Israel by Arthur Szyk, 1948

The history of Israel covers an area of the Southern Levant also known as Canaan, Palestine or the Holy Land, which is the geographical location of the modern states of Israel and Palestine. From a prehistory as part of the critical Levantine corridor, which witnessed waves of early humans out of Africa, to the emergence of Natufian culture c. 10th millennium BCE, the region entered the Bronze Age c. 2,000 BCE with the development of Canaanite civilization, before being vassalized by Egypt in the Late Bronze Age. In the Iron Age, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were established, entities that were central to the origins of the Jewish and Samaritan peoples as well as the Abrahamic faith tradition. This has given rise to Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, Druzism, Baha'ism, and a variety of other religious movements. Throughout the course of human history, the Land of Israel has seen many conflicts and come under the sway or control of various polities and, as a result, it has historically hosted a wide variety of ethnic groups.

In the following centuries, the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian and Macedonian empires conquered the region. The Ptolemies and the Seleucids vied for control over the region during the Hellenistic period. However, with the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty, the local Jewish population maintained independence for a century before being incorporated into the Roman Republic. As a result of the Jewish-Roman Wars in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, many Jews were killed, displaced or sold into slavery. Following the advent of Christianity, which was adopted by the Greco-Roman world under the influence of the Roman Empire, the region's demographics shifted towards newfound Christians, who replaced Jews as the majority of the population by the 4th century. However, shortly after Islam was consolidated across the Arabian Peninsula under Muhammad in the 7th century, Byzantine Christian rule over the Land of Israel was superseded in the Muslim conquest of the Levant by the Rashidun Caliphate, to later be ruled by the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates, before being conquered by the Seljuks in the 1070s. Throughout the 12th and much of the 13th century, the Land of Israel became the centre for intermittent religious wars between European Christian and Muslim armies as part of the Crusades, with the Kingdom of Jerusalem being almost entirely overrun by Saladin's Ayyubids late in the 12th century, although the Crusaders managed to first expand from their remaining outposts, and then hang on to their constantly decreasing territories for another century. In the 13th century, the Land of Israel became subject to Mongol conquest, though this was stopped by the Mamluk Sultanate, under whose rule it remained until the 16th century. The Mamluks were eventually defeated by the Ottoman Empire, and the region became an Ottoman province until the early 20th century. (Full article...)

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The Arza sanatorium, 1934

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Downtown and Port of Haifa

Haifa (/ˈhfə/ HY-fə; Hebrew: חֵיפָה, romanizedḤēyfā, IPA: [ˈχajfa]; Arabic: حَيْفَا, romanizedḤayfā) is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of 290,306 in 2022. The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area in Israel. It is home to the Baháʼí Faith's Baháʼí World Centre, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a destination for Baháʼí pilgrimage.

Built on the slopes of Mount Carmel, the settlement has a history spanning more than 3,000 years. The earliest known settlement in the vicinity was Tell Abu Hawam, a small port city established in the Late Bronze Age (14th century BCE). In the 3rd century CE, Haifa was known as a dye-making center. Over the millennia, the Haifa area has changed hands: being conquered and ruled by the Canaanites, Israelites, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Hasmoneans, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans, and the British. During the Battle of Haifa in the 1948 Palestine war, most of the city's Arab population fled or were expelled. That year, the city became part of the then-newly-established state of Israel. (Full article...)

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Shkedei marak

Shkedei marak (Hebrew: שקדי מרק, lit.'soup almonds'), known as mandlakh (Yiddish: מאַנדלאַך or מאַנדלעך, lit.'little almonds') in Yiddish, or as "soup mandels" or "soup nuts" in the United States, is an Israeli food product consisting of crisp mini crouton used as a soup accompaniment. Shkedei marak are small yellow squares made from flour and palm oil. As a parve product, they can be used in either meat or cream soups. Despite the name, they contain no almonds. (Full article...)

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22 December 2024 – Israel–Hamas war
Israeli airstrikes across Gaza kill at least 28 people. (France 24)
21 December 2024 – Red Sea crisis
Sixteen people are injured in a Houthi missile attack on the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area in Israel. (CNN)
20 December 2024 – Syrian civil war
2024 Israeli invasion of Syria
Israeli soldiers injure a Syrian man protesting against the soldiers' presence in Ma'ariya, Daraa Governorate. (Al Jazeera)

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Sources

  1. ^ Butcher, Tim. Sharon presses for fence across Sinai, Daily Telegraph, December 07, 2005.
  2. ^ cite web| title=11 Jan, 2010; from google (Israel–Egypt barrier construction began) result 8|url=https://www.rt.com/politics/israel-approves-democratic-barrier/}}
  3. ^ "November 22, 2010; from google (Israel–Egypt barrier construction began) result 10".
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