Had an Idea bumping around my head (which I won't develop until I get serious about finishing Mound of spring).
Without getting into too much academic controversy the general consensus is that Judaism spread throughout the Middle East and Europe by a process of exile, migration and gradual conversion and intermarriage as opposed to the post 330 Christian/Islamic mode of active missionaries, top-down conversion by state leaders and conquest.
The exceptions are
Ethiopia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Semien
, the Khazars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars#Judaism
Yemen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himyarite_Kingdom#From_300_until_the_advent_of_Islam_in_Yemen
and possibly some north African Berbers. Evidence for them is even more sketchy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihya#Disputed_origins_and_religion
who left behind small Jewish communities (Karaites, Tats, Beta Israel, etc) who were largely isolated from the main Ashkenazi/Sepharadi centers of Jewish scholarship and therefore maintained many preculiar customs- none of which had much impact on contemporary judaism (Sorry Granny, that's just the way it is).
There are all sorts of threads floating around considering the possibilities of some of those Jewish and "Jewish" polities surviving to the modern day. Generally, those threads die off for four reasons:
a. The history surrounding each of those polities is obscure. How can you make alternate history with little real history?
b. Too many butterflies. If Khazaria survives and remains Jewish then the whole history of central Asian migrations (Mongols, etc) changes. If Yemen Judaizes does Muhamad appear? Does a Jewish Jihad sweep into the power vaccum left by the Byzantine-Persian wars?
c. Basically, what makes Judaism and Jewish ATLs interesting is that Jews are UNLIKE members of the other universal religons. One reason they are unlike christianity and Islam is precisely because Jews spent 2000 years as opressed minorities and under these conditions were selected for an urbanized, second-third wave economy, developed an morality under conditions of powerlessness and had to settle internal theological disputes by words instead of swords.
OTL Israel is interesting, in the Chinese sense, precisely because of the tension between economic habits, morality and habits of thought developed as a minority and the reality of being a majority.
If Judaism became the state religion of Yemen/Arabia then how would it substantially differ from Islam? Well, the legal tradition would be different... but I'm not really sure that over time a clear distinction would remain.
Another point of interest is that Jews, as a minority in Europe (albeit mostly Eastern Europe from the 16th century onwards), either assimilated or participated in the development of Western technology and social structures- and then exported the Western package wholesale into a non-Western region. Would a Jewish Yemen/Arabia substantially differ in (little) technological development from a Muslim Yemen/Arabia? Not if you believe Jared diamond or Paul Kennedy. ANd would Jews be likely to persist as a European minority throughout the middle ages if they had an accesible alternate homeland? not likely.
d. All Jewish states failed for a reason. The reason is that as islands in a Christian/Muslim sea they got eventually dogpiled by an interreligous alliance system (Arabs-Turks and Viking Rus- Byzantines for Khazars, Axumites-Byzantines for Yemen, Chrsitian-Portugese for Beta Israel).
So, for a "Surviving Jewish state" TL to be interesting and doable you would need:
a. The Jewish state to develop in isolation of the mainstream Jewish community with little possibility of immigration until the late 19th century.
b. For that Jewish state to have little impact on global history until the late 19th century.
Ethiopia fits the bill perfectly. It had little contact with the West, save for a very brief contact with a Portugese expidition during the 16th century and It survived as a Christian Island in a Muslim sea.
While the history of Jews and "Jews" in Ethiopia is obscure the most likely (to me) timeline indicates that:
1. Judaism was prevalent in a large subpopulation in Axum, probably due to secondhand Jewish migration from Arabia and Yemen during the 1st-3rd century until Ezna's conversion to Christianity in the early 300s.
2. A large number of "jews" left Axum after the conversion and migrated inland to Lake Tana where they established their own kingdom (or more likely a number of chiefdoms).
3. around the 8th century the Christian kingdom of Axum, expanding southwards made an attempt to subjugate the Jewish kingdom(s), which met with very partial sucess.
4. During the 10th century, Taking advantage of Auxumite defeat in one of their southward expeditions, Muslim raids on Coastal Axum (Contemporary Eritrea), and alliances with semi-barbaric pagan Agaw tribes from the interior, the Beta-Israel sack Axum and establish temporary hegemony, only to be overwhelmed in term by a barbarian migration from the south, plunging the remmanents of axum into a dark age.
5. An Agaw based dynasty partially reestablishes an imperial system and gradually converts and promotes chrsitianity but without significant conflict with their Falasha kin.
5. During the 13th century the Amahara are first drawn into the imperial system and then take it over, promoting a more millitant christian identity, leading to conflict with the Jewish polity in the simien mountains.
6. Between the 13th-16th centuries the two polities raided and counterraided each other with the Beta Israel generally having the worst of it (though they enjoyed isolated sucesses as well).
7. during the 16th-17th century, Ethiopian civilization collapsed under the twin strains of Ottoman backed SOmali/Arab invasion and the Oromo migration northwards. The Beta Israel wasn devastated both more and was eventually eliminated in 1672.
What if the 10th century Beta-Israel period of domination persists and eventually does unto the ethiopian christians what they did onto the Jews? The Christian Axumites are cut off from outside support by the Islamic caliphate and there is no reason why a Jewish island in a Muslim sea in the highlands of ethiopia is less plausible than a christian one. The lack of portugese aid during the period of Ottoman backed Jihad may be difficult to overcome but a few Jewish exiles from Spain and Portugal (and Yemen) may provide the same knowledge of firearms the portugese provided OTL.
Then we get to the 19th century, with few major changes to OTL, Ethiopia restablishes contact with the world and as some form of Zionism begins to develop among european jews after 1878 things get... interesting.
Plausible? Intersting?
Without getting into too much academic controversy the general consensus is that Judaism spread throughout the Middle East and Europe by a process of exile, migration and gradual conversion and intermarriage as opposed to the post 330 Christian/Islamic mode of active missionaries, top-down conversion by state leaders and conquest.
The exceptions are
Ethiopia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Semien
, the Khazars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars#Judaism
Yemen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himyarite_Kingdom#From_300_until_the_advent_of_Islam_in_Yemen
and possibly some north African Berbers. Evidence for them is even more sketchy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihya#Disputed_origins_and_religion
who left behind small Jewish communities (Karaites, Tats, Beta Israel, etc) who were largely isolated from the main Ashkenazi/Sepharadi centers of Jewish scholarship and therefore maintained many preculiar customs- none of which had much impact on contemporary judaism (Sorry Granny, that's just the way it is).
There are all sorts of threads floating around considering the possibilities of some of those Jewish and "Jewish" polities surviving to the modern day. Generally, those threads die off for four reasons:
a. The history surrounding each of those polities is obscure. How can you make alternate history with little real history?
b. Too many butterflies. If Khazaria survives and remains Jewish then the whole history of central Asian migrations (Mongols, etc) changes. If Yemen Judaizes does Muhamad appear? Does a Jewish Jihad sweep into the power vaccum left by the Byzantine-Persian wars?
c. Basically, what makes Judaism and Jewish ATLs interesting is that Jews are UNLIKE members of the other universal religons. One reason they are unlike christianity and Islam is precisely because Jews spent 2000 years as opressed minorities and under these conditions were selected for an urbanized, second-third wave economy, developed an morality under conditions of powerlessness and had to settle internal theological disputes by words instead of swords.
OTL Israel is interesting, in the Chinese sense, precisely because of the tension between economic habits, morality and habits of thought developed as a minority and the reality of being a majority.
If Judaism became the state religion of Yemen/Arabia then how would it substantially differ from Islam? Well, the legal tradition would be different... but I'm not really sure that over time a clear distinction would remain.
Another point of interest is that Jews, as a minority in Europe (albeit mostly Eastern Europe from the 16th century onwards), either assimilated or participated in the development of Western technology and social structures- and then exported the Western package wholesale into a non-Western region. Would a Jewish Yemen/Arabia substantially differ in (little) technological development from a Muslim Yemen/Arabia? Not if you believe Jared diamond or Paul Kennedy. ANd would Jews be likely to persist as a European minority throughout the middle ages if they had an accesible alternate homeland? not likely.
d. All Jewish states failed for a reason. The reason is that as islands in a Christian/Muslim sea they got eventually dogpiled by an interreligous alliance system (Arabs-Turks and Viking Rus- Byzantines for Khazars, Axumites-Byzantines for Yemen, Chrsitian-Portugese for Beta Israel).
So, for a "Surviving Jewish state" TL to be interesting and doable you would need:
a. The Jewish state to develop in isolation of the mainstream Jewish community with little possibility of immigration until the late 19th century.
b. For that Jewish state to have little impact on global history until the late 19th century.
Ethiopia fits the bill perfectly. It had little contact with the West, save for a very brief contact with a Portugese expidition during the 16th century and It survived as a Christian Island in a Muslim sea.
While the history of Jews and "Jews" in Ethiopia is obscure the most likely (to me) timeline indicates that:
1. Judaism was prevalent in a large subpopulation in Axum, probably due to secondhand Jewish migration from Arabia and Yemen during the 1st-3rd century until Ezna's conversion to Christianity in the early 300s.
2. A large number of "jews" left Axum after the conversion and migrated inland to Lake Tana where they established their own kingdom (or more likely a number of chiefdoms).
3. around the 8th century the Christian kingdom of Axum, expanding southwards made an attempt to subjugate the Jewish kingdom(s), which met with very partial sucess.
4. During the 10th century, Taking advantage of Auxumite defeat in one of their southward expeditions, Muslim raids on Coastal Axum (Contemporary Eritrea), and alliances with semi-barbaric pagan Agaw tribes from the interior, the Beta-Israel sack Axum and establish temporary hegemony, only to be overwhelmed in term by a barbarian migration from the south, plunging the remmanents of axum into a dark age.
5. An Agaw based dynasty partially reestablishes an imperial system and gradually converts and promotes chrsitianity but without significant conflict with their Falasha kin.
5. During the 13th century the Amahara are first drawn into the imperial system and then take it over, promoting a more millitant christian identity, leading to conflict with the Jewish polity in the simien mountains.
6. Between the 13th-16th centuries the two polities raided and counterraided each other with the Beta Israel generally having the worst of it (though they enjoyed isolated sucesses as well).
7. during the 16th-17th century, Ethiopian civilization collapsed under the twin strains of Ottoman backed SOmali/Arab invasion and the Oromo migration northwards. The Beta Israel wasn devastated both more and was eventually eliminated in 1672.
What if the 10th century Beta-Israel period of domination persists and eventually does unto the ethiopian christians what they did onto the Jews? The Christian Axumites are cut off from outside support by the Islamic caliphate and there is no reason why a Jewish island in a Muslim sea in the highlands of ethiopia is less plausible than a christian one. The lack of portugese aid during the period of Ottoman backed Jihad may be difficult to overcome but a few Jewish exiles from Spain and Portugal (and Yemen) may provide the same knowledge of firearms the portugese provided OTL.
Then we get to the 19th century, with few major changes to OTL, Ethiopia restablishes contact with the world and as some form of Zionism begins to develop among european jews after 1878 things get... interesting.
Plausible? Intersting?
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