01-19-2025, 04:24 PM
We discussed on the Skype call today and my comments were muddled. I need to correct what I said.
I referenced an article on Unz Review by Ron Unz himself that summarizes his survey of the scholarship on the question. To distill it down: The Jews who remained in Palestine were forcibly converted to Islam during that religion's era of conquest in that part of the world. Today's Palestinians are them, more or less. Meanwhile, the huge Jewish merchant population in the Mediterranean and Europe were most likely Phoenician and Carthaginian converts to Judaism. Later, many of them married southern European women who converted. The evidence Unz offers includes how modern Jews have a Phoenician business behavior and modern Judaism seems to exhibit religious ideas from known Phoenician religion. They came to dominate Jewish society at large worldwide.
I note something he does not mention: The ancient Phoenician language is nearly identical to Hebrew, as was their alphabet.
I referenced an article on Unz Review by Ron Unz himself that summarizes his survey of the scholarship on the question. To distill it down: The Jews who remained in Palestine were forcibly converted to Islam during that religion's era of conquest in that part of the world. Today's Palestinians are them, more or less. Meanwhile, the huge Jewish merchant population in the Mediterranean and Europe were most likely Phoenician and Carthaginian converts to Judaism. Later, many of them married southern European women who converted. The evidence Unz offers includes how modern Jews have a Phoenician business behavior and modern Judaism seems to exhibit religious ideas from known Phoenician religion. They came to dominate Jewish society at large worldwide.
I note something he does not mention: The ancient Phoenician language is nearly identical to Hebrew, as was their alphabet.
