Skills you want to be thinking about:
-
Keeping track of terms
o
Understand them; ask questions
o
Write them down
o
Review them
-
English words,
in general
o
Ask questions during class about words you’re unfamiliar
with
o
Write them down
o
Look them up
o
Pay
attention to which words are capitalized. This is a part of communication,
and communication matters.
-
Map skills
o
Put
in the effort to understand the geographical relationships between countries,
peoples, and also bodies of water and other geographical areas.
-
Organize your material
o
Go back and review your material.
o
Use the blog, your book, and other material you’re
provided with to help you create an order to your material.
o
Go beyond your computer to work with material.
Creating timelines, tables, flow charts and mind maps can help you get a
structure to material. Having a structure allows you to be in control of the
information. You need to able to master material in order to develop your own
arguments.
*************************************
In order to gain historical knowledge relevant to the issue
of Arab-Israeli conflict of the past 70+ years, we have been discussing, in
brief, a number of different topics.
Jewish
populations
Jews have lived in the area of Judea and surrounding areas
in what today is the land bordering the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea
since at least 1300 years ago —1100 B.C.
When the area was under the rule of the Roman Empire, Jews
revolted against the empire. In the second century A.D., Jews were expelled
from the area. They began to migrate mostly west but also east. Many ended up
in northern Africa and southern Europe, as far west as modern-day Spain.
During the Middle Ages, Jews were often persecuted. For
example, during the Crusades, Europeans eager to fight non-Christians sometimes
massacred large numbers of Jews. And during the time of the Black Death,
particularly in the 1300s, Jews were sometimes considered the cause of the
disease and death. As a result of these persecutions, Jews often moved on to
new areas.
By 1939 and the outbreak of World War II, the largest Jewish
populations globally were in eastern Europe. These people were the main target
of the Holocaust perpetuated by Nazi Germany.
As a result of the war, millions of Jews were exterminated –
through torture, starvation, disease, and execution.
The majority of those who survived did so because they
managed to emigrate or escape, most often to the West.
Today, the largest Jewish populations are in Israel and the
United States.
Palestine
From at least 1100 B.C., Jews lived in Judea and surrounding
areas in what today is the land bordering the eastern end of the Mediterranean
Sea.
Many different empires have conquered and controlled this
area.
From the time of the Romans, it has been controlled by
-Romans
-Arabs and Christians (Crusades)
-Muslim
Turks under the Ottoman Empire since the 1500s —up to 1918 (World War I).
Islam
Islam began with the teachings of Mohammed around 600 A.D.
He was based in Medina, in what today is Saudi Arabia.
The teachings of Islam were spread by Arabs up into the area
of Palestine not long after Mohammad’s death.
Today, the most important holy sites of Islam are in Saudi
Arabia and Jerusalem. (We haven’t fully discussed these yet.)
At the end of chapter 10, we looked at pages on different religions, and at the end of those there was a
table of key information about these largest religions.
Nations
The country of Israel was established in 1948.
In ancient history there was an Israeli kingdom, and there
have been large Jewish populations in various places before, but as part of
other kingdoms and later countries.
The countries of Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan were all
created in the 20th century.
There has never been a recognized country of Palestine.
