As the President of the State of Israel, the author of the book before us must be impartial and uphold the Proclamation of Independence, which grants, among other hings, that “The State of Israel will be open to the immigration of Jews from all countries of their dispersion.” In such impartiality he accomplishes his purpose—to justify the claims for those seeking entrance into The Land as Jews.
In his survey of many sections of the people ho have claimed entrance into Israel, he admits,
“The evidence in our possession is of course insufficient for practical conclusions to e drawn therefrom, but of value. . . in probing e field of Jewish diaspora.” By a series of ye “books” he gathers together such sparse formation as may be gleaned mainly from the travel diaries of Christian priests, regarding the people as adhere to Jewish practices. here are times when the narration is intradictory and there is much repetition. quotation from the Scriptures (the Old Testament) is rare, and mainly confined to a verse or two at the beginning of a “book.”
Of the Yemani Jews he writes that their :ginnings are shrouded in myth, being some ho flouted the order of Moses to kill all the malekites and so were driven to Yemen. ater, he defines them as Arabs who embraced idaism in pre-Islam days.
There is a large section dealing with the Jews the region between the Black and the Caspian as to the north of Persia; where so many of those carried into Assyria and Babylon were dispersed. He says there is little doubt that they comprised both Judean and Samaritan exiles. Later, they were induced to accept the Moslem beliefs. Of these we are told, “in spite of the strong external resemblance to the average Moslem type in Bukhara, there was no mistaking the specifically Hebraic or Semitic traits in the Bukharan Jew.” Such Jews are called “Marranos.”
Concerning the Karaites1 of the Crimea who are thought to have migrated to Poland, it is stated that explorers have reached the conclusion that some of them were originally of non-Semitic stock who adopted the Jewish faith and intermarried with those of Jewish descent.
Regarding Hellenised Jews, we are told, “They were simple, pious folk who worshipped one Supreme God ; half Jews, half proselytes, they subscribed to the tenets and commandments of Judaism, in so far as they knew them”: drawing their instruction from the Septuagint and other Hellenistic works.
In the section dealing with the Samaritans the author avoids a valuable piece of Christian evidence that has been extant for nearly 2,000 years. We refer to the words of the Samaritan woman to Jesus that “the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans” (John 4:9). This is very expressive, but contrary to the intentions of the book. Instead, he gently praises the Samaritans for a stricter attention to the Law of Moses, which they interpret in a plainer way than do the Jews. He adds that they were quick to take advantage of the “Repatriation Law.”
An interesting point is the attempt to show that not the whole of the Ten Tribes were carried away into captivity by the Assyrians and that those who were left in the land converted the immigrants, who were sent in by the Assyrians, to the beliefs of Jewry.
There is the usual lamentable story of massacre and bloodshed of the Jews who would not deny their faith and turn to Islam, as that belief spread wider over the face of the Middle East into Central Asia and to the fringe of Europe ; as well as to the Far East and Africa.
When we think of the general irreligious manner of the people of Israel today it seems a strange commentary to read “It was the religion not race or language that was the cementing link between Judaised masses and the body of the Jews.”
“Proselytisation offered a wide door for the greatest variety of races to join the body of Israel . . . Parthians, Kurds, Persians, Arabians, Kharzars, Slays, Mongols, Nubians, Amharis, Hindoos, Berbers and Negro slaves.”
Quite often, aloofness, assertiveness, and the aggressive characteristics of a “tribe,” together with their rooted objection to subservience to others, are advanced as cumulative evidence that they are some offshoot of Jewry.
It is interesting to read that the Jews have ever desired the re-establishment of their national Home and that there have been not less than twelve attempts to establish politica sovereignty in other spheres ; but these were always regarded as temporary stopping place: on the way to the National Home in Palestine This is the tenor of the explanation of the present return of the Exiled to the State of Israe and no room is found for thanksgiving to God or enlargement of prophecy by which the movement was foretold so long ago.
The book is an apology for the varied types of physiology (of which there are a number of illustrations) that make up the population of Israel today. It is also a challenge to any Jew who dares to deride such “tribes” on the grounds that “I am holier than thou.” Re. specting this latter matter we have probed various Jewish authorities as to whether there are any Jews who can “prove” their true Jewish descent, but in vain. Rather do the avoid a direct answer. This gives adde emphasis to the appeal of the President that they should not question too closely the migrations of the people scattered among th nations, but now returning to the Land of their Inheritance.
There appears to be a wider issue involve which is not mentioned: the question that looms large with Jewry—”Who is a Jew?’ To some this presents no problem for they rest certain upon their Jewishness and maintain that they are not exiles and have no intention o returning voluntarily to Israel.
The ultimate decision rests with God an we know that His words will not fail.
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)