Gaza is Jewish. Very Jewish.
Israel can never leave Gaza again without assuming a level of risk which should be obviously unacceptable to any of us.
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This is a guest essay written by Joshua Namm, a longtime Jewish community professional.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
In 2005, Israel unilaterally ordered the removal of 10,000 Jews from 22 Jewish communities in Gaza, known collectively as “Gush Katif.”
Many of those Jews had to be forcibly removed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
There were no shouts of “ethnic cleansing” from the usual suspects.
The area that contained Gush Katif was in Southern Gaza between Rafah, Khan Yunis, Deir al Balah, and the Mediterranean Sea. Those names may be familiar to you by now, but it will still surprise many that those areas had thousands of Jews living in them until relatively recently.
Founded in 1968, Gush Katif was a thriving Jewish community with synagogues, schools, greenhouses, and anything else you would associate with a successful, modern community.
At one point it was responsible for exporting 95 percent of pest-free lettuce and greens, 70 percent of organic vegetables, 60 percent of cherry tomatoes, and 60 percent of geraniums exported from Israel to Europe.1 In all, its farmers annual exports totaled $100 million, representing 15 percent of Israel’s total agricultural exports.
After forcing the Israelis out of Gush Katif, Arabs destroyed much of the infrastructure built by Jews.
Even after 20 years, the forced relocation of Jews from Gush Katif (many of whom were relocated into refugee camps, an aspect of this story that is almost never discussed), remains a painful memory for former residents, and for many in the wider Jewish community. (Today, there is a museum commemorating life in Gush Katif.)
The fact that much of the rhetoric about Israel, particularly since the massive rise in antisemitism since October 7th, revolves around the lie that “Palestine” is some kind of ancient Arab land, and that the now “Judenrein”2 Gaza is owed to the “Palestinians” as part of their (imaginary) ancient heritage, makes the Jewish history of Gaza all the more ironic, and important to understand.
So, how Jewish is Gaza?
In November of 2023, after Israel entered Gaza following Hamas’ barbaric October 7th attacks, there was a story that erupted across Jewish social media about IDF soldiers davening (praying) in an ancient synagogue in Gaza.3
How ancient?
Dating back to 508 CE, it’s not that ancient by Jewish terms, but nonetheless predates Islam by a century. Its floor contained a mosaic depicting a man playing harp (which has since been moved to the Israel Museum after it was defaced by Arabs following the 1967 Six-Day War). The man’s name, David, is written in Hebrew. It is a mosaic of King David.
Going back a little farther than the sixth century synagogue, Gaza contained and important 3rd-century Jewish town called “Kfar Darom.” That town was destroyed (more on that later), re-established in 1946, and later became the first community in Gush Katif after being destroyed again in 1948.
At the end of the 19th century, the land of Kfar Darom was acquired by Tuvia Miller of Rehovot (a city in central Israel), who transformed swamps into a blossoming orchard. Yet the Arabs destroyed the orchard and its well during the anti-Jewish riots of 1936 to 1939.4
The Jewish presence in Kfar Darom was renewed in October 1946 along with 10 other communities, as a response to the British attempt to disengage the future Jewish state from the Negev. The village was evacuated following the Egyptian siege of 1948 and 1949, but became the first Jewish community to be rebuilt in Gaza following the 1967 Six-Day War.
Okay, so a 7th-century synagogue and a 3rd-century village, but what else?
Let’s go back to the very the beginning. The Torah, in describing the land G-d gave to Abraham (and therefore the Jewish People), makes it clear that Gaza is absolutely part of the biblical Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), and became part of the land given to the tribe of Yehudah (or “Judah,” which became “Judea,” which is where the word “Jewish” derives from, and now makes up a large part of what people ahistorically refer to as “the West Bank”).
The Torah also describes both Abraham and Isaac sojourning in Gaza. When the Jews entered Canaan in the 13th century BCE, Joshua divided the land between the 12 Tribes. Even though Gaza was given to the tribe of Yehudah, they never lived there, and it eventually became an Egyptian outpost later conquered by the Philistines.
The Philistines were, famously, enemies of the Jews as recorded in many places in Tanach (the Bible), including the Book of Judges, which tells the story of Samson and Delilah. That story took place in Gaza.
Later, during the time of the Hasmonean revolt, Gaza was a Greek outpost which made it a major source of Hellenization, causing the Jews to rebel against the Seleucid Greeks who controlled Judea. Gaza itself became a battleground.
Twenty years after the re-dedication of the Temple and the miracle of the oil, Jonathan the Hasmonean, brother of Judah the Maccabee, conquered Gaza and moved there in 145 BCE. It was at that point, over 2,000 years ago, that Gaza was absorbed into the Hasmonean Kingdom, becoming part of Judea.
Fast forward a few hundred years to the Talmudic era, when Gaza became a major center of Jewish learning. This was the period when the original Kfar Darom (and many other Jewish communities), were founded, as was the synagogue containing the mosaic depicting King David.
By that time, Gaza contained many synagogues and a renowned yeshiva5. Mentioned in the Talmud, Sotah discusses the famous sage Eliezer son of Yitzhak, saying that he came from Kfar Darom.
During the Middle Ages, Jews flourished in Gaza, including (ironically) in the city of Rafiah (Raffa in English). That period lasted for almost 300 years — until the Crusaders completely, and horrifically, destroyed those communities in the 12th century.
In the 15th century, many Jews moved to Gaza after fleeing the Inquisition and/or being expelled from Portugal and Spain. Rabbi Meshulam of Tuscany visited Gaza in 1481, writing that:
“There are sixty Jewish homeowners with a beautiful, small synagogue, vineyards, fields and houses, and they have already started making new wine … and the Jews dwell on the heights of the land, may the Lord be praised.”
After the Crusades, Jews began moving back to Gaza.
The 15th century saw an influx of even more Jews into Gaza having been expelled from Portugal and Spain, and fleeing the Inquisition.
In the 1600s, Rabbi Avraham Azoulai wrote the kabbalistic Chesed l’Avraham in Gaza. During the same period, Rabbi Yisrael Najara wrote the famous Shabbat song Kah Ribon Olam there as well. Rabbi Najara was buried in Gaza’s Jewish cemetery.
The Jewish roots of Gaza run so deep that there were carvings of Jewish symbols, including a menorah, in the “Great Mosque of Gaza.” Those were also destroyed by Arabs in the 20th century.
The last Chief Rabbi of Gaza was Rabbi Nissim Ohana. He served the community from 1907 to 1912, reestablished a Jewish cemetery, built a mikveh (Jewish ritual bath), and opened a Talmud Torah (Jewish elementary school).
Then, in 1929, Arabs committed atrocities across Israel, including the well-known massacre in Hebron. There were also riots in Safed and Gaza. On August 26th of that year, the British forcibly removed the last remaining Jews from Hebron and Gaza, thus beginning the myth that both areas had always been Arab, and had always been free of Jews.
The Jewish presence in Gaza goes back millennia. We were living and thriving there centuries before Islam even existed, and the largest Jewish community at the time of the Muslim invasion of the 7th century was, in fact, in Gaza. And like the rest of the lore, Gaza has never been, not even for a millisecond, part of an independent state called “Palestine.”
The closest that reality ever came to the myth was the period between 2003 and 2023 when, as part of the detestable Oslo Accords, Israel allowed Arabs to self-govern Gaza as an autonomous zone. The price we paid for that massive lapse in common sense was the barbarism of October 7th, and everything that has happened since.
Israel can never leave Gaza again without assuming a level of risk which should be obviously unacceptable to any of us. It is uncertain what Gaza will look like after the war, but one thing is certain: We have every right to reestablish communities on land that has a long and rich Jewish history.
“PA Farmers in Gaza: How Do Those Israelis Do It?” Israel National News.
German for “free of Jews”
“IDF soldiers pray in ancient 6th century Gaza synagogue for first time in decades.” The Jerusalem Post.
“Is Gaza Jewish?” Aish.
A traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel
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Independent Gaza has been a noble experiment, but one that has failed. You are quite correct - it can never be repeated if Israel is to survive.
Gaza from 1967 until 2005 when Israel made the mistake of witdrawing from Gaza, flourished under Israeli rule. When Israel withdrew, Hamas led thugs destroyed anything that the Israelis built including greenhouses that supported a substantial agricultural economy thus proving again that the Land of Israel only thrives under Jewish rule.