A Walk on the Pool of Blood

BC 37 : Romans invade the Hasmonean kingdom of Isreal (with Jerusalem as capital), which was under the Jews then. They install King Herod, a Jew himself who conspired the whole invasion. King Herod rebuilds the Solomon temple with 9 years of hardship. After Herod, Jerusalem is directly under the Romans with their Governors ruling it. But they were always submissive to the Jewish religious leaders as they did not prefer any riots.

AD 70 : By now, Jesus was born and executed for the reasons that he contradicted the previous holy men. Caligula, the comedian of the roman kings, orders the Jews to only worship him. Here is something about Jews. They staunchly believe that they are god’s preferred race. They were educated, orderly and throughout history have never submitted to any oppressor. So here begins the Jewish revolt that led to a bloody roman assault. Romans believed that they have to erase the Jew identity so that they can avoid any uprising and hence they totally destroy the temple built by Herod. [Now, you will see this pattern repeating million times in the history in different parts of the world - until today]

AD 132 : Was peace until this time and then another Jewish uprising. This time the furious Romans almost eradicated the Jewish population. Those who left out were chased out of Jerusalem. To the Romans, the Jerusalem was the axis of evil. [Today, you know where it has shifted to]

AD 313 : Roman emperor Constantine, for the first time, adopts Christianity which sends a chill on every Jew’s spine. Back then, the kingdom follows the King’s religion which the Jews would never agree. And the Christians now begin to destroy Jewish synagogues, installing churches on top of them. [Has this happened until the recent past? Now, it will be rhetoric to keep mentioning this at the end of every para, so I am going to stop it here]

AD 614 : Here comes some relief to the Jews. Persians attacked Jerusalem and reinstall the Jews there. Once again, furious Romans came in and wreaked havoc. Mass murder of Jews followed and the rest elopes out of Jerusalem. Around this time, a new prophet with the name of Mohammed introduces Islam. Of course with contradictions to the previous scriptures. The race between Christianity and Islam starts here. The Jews refuse to buy both the accounts but are too weak to revolt. Interpretations were created to link Jerusalem as the 3rd holy place for Muslims (“Glory to He who took His servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to the furthest mosque”)

AD 638 : Kaliffa Umar wins over Jerusalem and Islam starts to rule. It was peace for sometime for the other religions as the muslim rulers were fair and tolerant. But those virtues diminish over the next few centuries. [Here is something to think very deeply about. Who can be blamed for this?]

AD 1096 : Wars of Crusades start. The Dark Age sets in. One faith wins the land only to be chased out by the other shortly later. The third faith conspires with first against the second. The generations of descendants continue the war and the same cycle repeats.

Present : Jews hold the land. Or so we think. The war is still on. On multiple lands a.k.a. axis of evils. With deadlier carpet bombs and drones. What did not change is the perennial flow of blood.


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“If the reader thus discovers and retraces the lost and forgotten road, by which man must have passed from……….. It is in tracing this slow succession that he will find the solution of a number of problems of politics and morals, which philosophers cannot settle” - Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the Discourse on Inequality.

I am no historian. There might be factual errors here. But I discovered that it is emotionally expanding and intellectually so enriching to walk on the same roads that our ancestors treaded. History may not give us the right solution but it definitely has tried most wrong answers.

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