THE PRIMACY OF THE DIASPORA
MEDIEVAL REALITY AND THE LAND OF ISRAEL
Let us now see how the various attitudes toward the Land of Israel affected the Jewish relationship with that land. To what degree was resettlement practiced? What were the efforts over the centuries to make the“holiness” of the Land once more part of Jewish life and to give reality once more to the mitzvot that depended on the Land.
Until the days of Islamic domination of the Near East, settlement in Israel was dangerous and so could be discounted. The Byzantine rulers from the time of Helena, the mother of Constantine (ca. 324-337 C.E.), had turned the mountain on which the Temple stood into a refuse dump.'? The prohibition against Jewish pilgrimages to Jerusalem and, of course, settlement there had been enforced from 135 C.E.) to the Arab Conquest in 638 C.E. During this long period, however, Jews had settled in small numbers in Gaza , Tiberius , and elsewhere in the Land of Israel." Islamic control meant that all these areas were once more open to pilgrimages and settlement. The Omayyad(661-750) and Abbasid (750-1100) rule established an economic zone stretching thousands of miles, which provided stability for trade, travel, and population movement. Even after the fall of the Abbasids , for many centuries it was still relatively easy to travel between Islamic lands. This meant that the Land of Israel was accessible to Jews . Pilgrimages to the Land from the great Islamic Jewish centers and from the smaller
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