WEBVTT

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(mournful music)

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(narrator): For centuries,

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Jews around the world
have been lamenting

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the destruction of Jerusalem
and their Temple,

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which they believe
was the beginning

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of their long 2,000 years
of exile.

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(narrator): But what has been
considered as fact for centuries

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has been challenged
by archaeological evidence

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unearthed across Israel.

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Here,
only 70 miles from Jerusalem,

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in the ancient town
of Sepphoris,

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evidence does not point
to a people driven into exile,

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but, on the contrary,
to a population that flourished.

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So why has exile been perceived
as a tangible reality

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for thousands of years?

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And if it never existed,

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what accounts
for the millions of Jews

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who over centuries
have settled around the world?

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And perhaps
the inevitable question:

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what happened to inhabitants
of places likes Sepphoris

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who were never exiled?

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(music)

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(music playing on radio)

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Jews rebelled
against Rome twice.

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As a punishment,
Jerusalem was destroyed

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and Jews were forbidden
to resettle in it,

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prompting a series of migrations

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to the Galilee and Sepphoris.

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The influx of refugees
after the two rebellions

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must have brought with it

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the hard personal lessons
learned from the failures

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of religious militancy.

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(man speaking Hebrew)

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(narrator): Sepphoris
not only grew and expanded,

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its rabbis tried
to fill the huge gap

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created by the destruction
of the Temple,

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the centre of Jewish worship

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and religious rituals.

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(people singing in Hebrew)

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The rabbis\' efforts cannot
be archeologically supported,

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but found
in the religious rituals

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that emerged
after the destruction.

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(singing)

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(man praying in Hebrew)

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A family sits down
to celebrate the Seder,

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the traditional Passover meal.

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Before the destruction
of the Temple,

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Jews were required to make
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem

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to offer sacrifices
in the Temple.

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(singing)

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(chanting)

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(narrator): The message is:

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Jewish tradition existed
long before the Temple,

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and it can survive its loss.

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New Jewish rituals
were constructed

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in places like Sepphoris.

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They could be performed at home
or in a synagogue,

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and were no longer tied
to Jerusalem.

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(celestial music)

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- But this emerging
Jewish tradition

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was being challenged
by another group of people.

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They, too, were sitting around
the table on Passover Eve.

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Today,
they would be called Christians.

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Back then,
they considered themselves Jews

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who followed Jesus.

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They, too, were trying
to reconstruct their theology

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after the destruction
of the Temple.

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Their Hagada
was not about the Exodus.

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They retold the life of Jesus.

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(hymn)

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(narrator):
This argument revolves

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not only around the concept
of redemption,

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but the meaning
of the destruction

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of Jerusalem and the Temple.

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The new Christians saw this
as the wrath of God.

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Judaism, in contrast,

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chose to emphasize continuity

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over the destruction.

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(thunder rumbling)

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(hymn)

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(hymn)

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- Now, in these circles,

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the defeat of the revolt

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and the destruction
of the Temple

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begin to be seen
as a divine sign,

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a divine sign that God
has pronounced a judgement

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against Israel.

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(bell tolling)

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(soft music)

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(thunder rumbling)

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(narrator): With the expansion
of Christianity

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throughout the Roman Empire,

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how did this theological
interpretation of exile

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impact the Jewish communities
in the Diaspora?

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(music)

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(indistinct chatter)

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- We are now in one
of the Jewish catacombs of Rome.

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We have entered the catacombs;

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we\'re about 30 feet
below the surface of the earth.

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And catacombs
are underground burial places,

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so this is where the Jewish
community buried its dead.

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(narrator): The catacombs
are the only surviving remnant

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of the Jewish community
in ancient Rome,

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a community that arrived
long before

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the destruction of Jerusalem.

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- The Roman Jewish community
began as an immigrant community.

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We don\'t know
exactly when they came.

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There was a Jewish community
here

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at least in the 1st century BC,

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but it is possible
that they came even earlier.

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The Jewish community, of course,
needed a place to bury,

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and they had to think
about this carefully,

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because they were used
to burying their dead,

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as opposed to cremation,

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which is something that the
Romans practiced at the time.

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The catacombs, in that sense,
also tell us much

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about what Jewish life
in the Diaspora was like.

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The people that constructed
these catacombs

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and used them continuously
for hundreds of years

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were people
that were really at home here.

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This was their home.

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This was the place
where most of them were born.

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(soft music)

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(water dripping)

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(wind howling)

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- A huge majority of Jews
lived in the Diaspora already.

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The number of Jews
who lived in Judea and Galilee

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is really a minority
of the total population

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of Judaism in the Roman world.

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We know, for instance,
that in the city of Alexandria,

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where we have some reasonable
demographic information,

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that there may have been
as many as a million.

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That may be an exaggeration,
but there may have been

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a million Jews
living in Alexandria and Egypt.

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Now, that\'s a huge number
and way more than the number

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of Jews who lived
in Judea and Galilee.

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They had carved out
for themselves -

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in places like Alexandria,
Asia Minor, the major cities

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of what is now
the western coast of Turkey,

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Rome and Italy, North Africa,
then further to the east,

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in Babylon and Syria -

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they had carved out an existence
for themselves for centuries.

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- The funerary inscriptions
are very interesting.

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They\'re a prime source
of information for us

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to learn more about the Jewish
community in ancient Rome.

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And the interesting thing
about these inscriptions

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is not just the fact that
they are in Greek and Latin,

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in any Greek or Latin,

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but that they were written
in precisely the Greek and Latin

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that were spoken in Rome
at the time.

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So linguistically the Jews
are completely integrated

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into the society
that they lived in.

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(narrator):
The Jewish community in Rome

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was part of a Diaspora
that historians now trace

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to the destruction
of the ancient Israeli kingdom

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almost a millennium
before the destruction

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of Jerusalem by the Romans.

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(soft music)

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- Traditionally, normally,

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the Diaspora is seen
as something of an anomaly,

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as sort of a temporary situation
that needs to be resolved

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by the whole Jewish community

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going back
to the land of Israel.

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Well, nothing
in the catacombs here

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suggests that these were people
ready to go back.

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They were building up
a new life.

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The artwork and the inscriptions
in the catacombs as we have them

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testify to that.

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They did find a good life here
and they were here to stay.

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(street traffic)

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(distant siren)

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(woman): At the beginning
of the 20th century,

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it was basically
a peaceful period...

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(narrator): If Rome\'s Jews
were once the centre

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of a large Jewish community
in the Roman Empire,

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today it is
but a small congregation

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in a far larger Jewish Diaspora.

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A Diaspora that has spread
for centuries

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all over the world.

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(prayer)

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We will never know
how each community

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came to be
or where it is originally from.

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But like the Jewish community
in Rome,

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they share the same rituals
and the same sense of exile.

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Once a year,
Jews all over the world lament,

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fast,

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and mourn the fall of Jerusalem

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and the destruction
of the Temple.

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(prayer)

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(sheep bleating)

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(soft music)

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(thunder rumbling)

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(narrator): The Torah
and Jewish laws

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were handed down in the desert,
not in the Holy Land.

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That land,
according to the Bible,

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had to be conquered
in a cruel and violent campaign.

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According to scholars
like Israel Yuval,

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no other ethnic
or religious group

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has a similar founding myth

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that describes the birth
of a people in exile

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and its promised homeland
as the result of conquest.

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(narrator):
Jews see their homeland

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as a conditional gift of God,

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so when Christians
interpreted exile

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as God\'s punishment,

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the Jews were able
to accept this explanation.

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(narrator): This complex
Jewish-Christian theology

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assumed a far more ominous
dimension

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after the Christianization
of Europe.

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(silent-film music, piano)

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(narrator): The Wandering Jew:

00:23:01.584 --> 00:23:05.958
an early 20th century
silent film depicting

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a centuries-old myth

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of Jews condemned
to roam the earth forever,

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an anti-Semitic image
of Jews in perpetual exile,

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the eternal foreigners.

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(piano music)

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(praying)

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(narrator):
The acceptance of exile

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as an explanation
for Jewish suffering

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led to the growing belief
in the messianic dream

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of returning to the Holy Land.

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(praying)

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(narrator):
The reality of exile,

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which has become associated
with suffering,

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even with genocide,

00:24:53.667 --> 00:24:57.291
helped to transform
the messianic dream of return

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into a political project.

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In November 1947,

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after the United Nations voted
to establish a Jewish state,

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some Roman Jews chose
to celebrate the event

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in front of Titus Gate,

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an enduring symbol
of the destruction of Jerusalem

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and the beginning of exile.

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Centuries of anti-Semitism

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reawakened
a Jewish national dream

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that was defeated in Jerusalem
in 70 AD,

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a dream first articulated
by Josephus.

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But to understand what happened
when the dream met reality,

00:25:49.375 --> 00:25:54.709
we have to go back
to the Galilee and to Sepphoris.

00:26:05.167 --> 00:26:07.334
(Middle Eastern music)

00:26:20.959 --> 00:26:23.542
(indistinct chatter)

00:26:25.959 --> 00:26:27.625
Suleiman Abu Ali

00:26:27.626 --> 00:26:30.459
is returning to his village.

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He was 14 years old
when he left it 63 years ago.

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Suleiman is accompanied
by a young relative

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whose family
was born in the village.

00:27:34.792 --> 00:27:35.958
(mournful music)

00:27:35.959 --> 00:27:38.958
(narrator): Suleiman\'s village,
Safuri,

00:27:38.959 --> 00:27:40.999
does not exist anymore.

00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:46.209
It was destroyed
in the War of 1948.

00:27:51.042 --> 00:27:53.416
Safuri, the Palestinian village,

00:27:53.417 --> 00:27:58.542
was built on the ruins
of ancient Jewish Sepphoris.

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This picture was taken
by the archaeological team

00:28:02.167 --> 00:28:05.374
that came here
in the summer of 1931,

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three years
before Suleiman\'s birth.

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Leroy Waterman,

00:28:12.959 --> 00:28:15.958
a professor
from the University of Michigan,

00:28:15.959 --> 00:28:18.583
led the first
archaeological expedition

00:28:18.584 --> 00:28:22.958
to unearth the ancient
Jewish city of Sepphoris.

00:28:22.959 --> 00:28:26.833
Like all archaeologists
who came before him,

00:28:26.834 --> 00:28:29.918
Leroy was a devout Christian.

00:28:36.501 --> 00:28:40.959
He felt he was a traveller
in a biblical landscape.

00:28:45.459 --> 00:28:49.083
For him,
Safuri was barely visible.

00:29:15.792 --> 00:29:16.958
The Christian-Jewish town

00:29:16.959 --> 00:29:19.374
that Leroy Waterman
began to unearth

00:29:19.375 --> 00:29:22.333
had evolved
since the 7th century

00:29:22.334 --> 00:29:24.875
into a bustling,
primarily Muslim, village

00:29:24.876 --> 00:29:29.501
with a population
of more than 5,000 people.

00:29:35.959 --> 00:29:39.333
Slowly, ancient Sepphoris
was coming to life,

00:29:39.334 --> 00:29:44.125
and soon
it was going to devour Safuri.

00:29:49.209 --> 00:29:50.958
(distant explosion)

00:29:50.959 --> 00:29:53.125
(distant gunfire)

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The village was occupied
on July 16, 1948,

00:30:18.125 --> 00:30:19.958
as part of the last phase

00:30:19.959 --> 00:30:24.334
of what Israel calls
its War of Independence.

00:30:25.959 --> 00:30:28.959
The Palestinian villagers fled.

00:30:29.667 --> 00:30:31.333
Their village was destroyed,

00:30:31.334 --> 00:30:34.792
and they were barred
from returning.

00:30:58.959 --> 00:31:03.249
- Safuri villagers settled
in a nearby town

00:31:03.250 --> 00:31:04.958
and in neighbouring countries.

00:31:04.959 --> 00:31:10.374
The village\'s lands were divided
between an Israeli settlement

00:31:10.375 --> 00:31:13.083
and an archaeological park.

00:31:38.876 --> 00:31:42.374
(narrator): Safuri
was a densely populated village,

00:31:42.375 --> 00:31:47.542
so Leroy Waterman
was limited in his digging.

00:31:47.751 --> 00:31:50.958
The destruction
allowed Zeev Weiss,

00:31:50.959 --> 00:31:51.959
many years later,

00:31:51.960 --> 00:31:56.459
to unearth the full glory
of ancient Sepphoris.

00:32:01.959 --> 00:32:06.041
In the national park,
a visitor won\'t find out much

00:32:06.042 --> 00:32:09.875
about its 1,300 years
of Muslim history.

00:32:09.876 --> 00:32:10.958
The park\'s museum,

00:32:10.959 --> 00:32:12.875
formerly one
of Safuri\'s schools,

00:32:12.876 --> 00:32:17.542
highlights primarily
the Jewish history of the place.

00:32:27.125 --> 00:32:29.334
(sombre music)

00:32:32.250 --> 00:32:34.249
- Did the older generation
tell you

00:32:34.250 --> 00:32:37.208
where the roots
of the village from?

00:32:37.209 --> 00:32:39.334
Where did you come from?

00:34:29.959 --> 00:34:32.958
(narrator): This village
cemetery escaped destruction

00:34:32.959 --> 00:34:36.542
only after
a long legal struggle.

00:34:37.083 --> 00:34:39.291
It has a historical importance
to Muslims

00:34:39.292 --> 00:34:42.917
as the resting place
of some of the descendents

00:34:42.918 --> 00:34:45.334
of the prophet Mohammed.

00:35:58.334 --> 00:36:00.334
(soft music)

00:36:20.834 --> 00:36:22.625
(narrator): Eti Koriat Aharon

00:36:22.626 --> 00:36:24.791
was born
in the Jewish settlement

00:36:24.792 --> 00:36:26.875
established on the lands
of Safuri.

00:36:26.876 --> 00:36:30.959
Today she is a guide
in the national park.

00:37:25.584 --> 00:37:28.374
(narrator): To erase
the memory of the village,

00:37:28.375 --> 00:37:29.958
the Jewish National Fund

00:37:29.959 --> 00:37:33.501
covered the original site
with this forest.

00:37:33.876 --> 00:37:38.082
Young refugees like Suleiman
used to sneak in at night

00:37:38.083 --> 00:37:39.583
and uproot the saplings

00:37:39.584 --> 00:37:43.167
that were planted on the ruins
of their homes.

00:37:43.250 --> 00:37:45.583
The forest grew
over the village,

00:37:45.584 --> 00:37:47.959
but its memory survives.

00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:31.791
- In 1985, Eti participated
in the first expedition

00:38:31.792 --> 00:38:36.751
of the Hebrew University
to excavate Sepphoris.

00:38:39.876 --> 00:38:41.999
It is here, as an archaeologist,

00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:46.124
that she found
her family\'s name, Aharon,

00:38:46.125 --> 00:38:48.375
in the mosaic.

00:39:20.834 --> 00:39:23.249
(narrator):
There are many missing pieces

00:39:23.250 --> 00:39:24.958
in the thousands of years

00:39:24.959 --> 00:39:26.875
of Sepphoris\'s
and Safuri\'s history.

00:39:26.876 --> 00:39:31.374
The city was destroyed
and resettled several times.

00:39:31.375 --> 00:39:32.833
Yet in 1948,

00:39:32.834 --> 00:39:38.334
the city was for the first time
permanently erased.

00:39:40.167 --> 00:39:43.542
(distant gunfire)
(indistinct voices)

00:39:45.459 --> 00:39:46.958
During its long history,

00:39:46.959 --> 00:39:51.625
Jews left and resettled
Sepphoris several times.

00:39:51.626 --> 00:39:55.833
Yet the only record
of an actual exile

00:39:55.834 --> 00:39:56.792
is that of Suleiman

00:39:56.793 --> 00:40:00.751
and the 5,000 villagers
who once lived here.

00:40:02.250 --> 00:40:05.917
Is it possible
that some of these refugees

00:40:05.918 --> 00:40:07.082
are distant descendants

00:40:07.083 --> 00:40:09.958
of the Jewish population
of Sepphoris

00:40:09.959 --> 00:40:12.751
who were never exiled?

00:41:27.959 --> 00:41:29.082
(narrator): The evidence

00:41:29.083 --> 00:41:32.208
of this complex multiethnic
history of the region

00:41:32.209 --> 00:41:35.708
can be found everywhere
in the Galilee.

00:41:35.709 --> 00:41:39.291
The tantalizing possibility
that some Palestinians

00:41:39.292 --> 00:41:44.667
are descendents of ancient Jews
haunted many.

00:41:44.959 --> 00:41:46.166
Zvi Messinai,

00:41:46.167 --> 00:41:49.041
an activist
and an amateur historian,

00:41:49.042 --> 00:41:51.958
has made it his life\'s mission
to collect

00:41:51.959 --> 00:41:56.751
what he claims is evidence
of such a connection.

00:41:58.167 --> 00:41:59.958
(birds chirping)

00:41:59.959 --> 00:42:02.125
(soft music)

00:42:14.751 --> 00:42:15.958
In the Galilee,

00:42:15.959 --> 00:42:19.124
the faithful still observe
Jewish rituals

00:42:19.125 --> 00:42:21.709
in many Muslim shrines.

00:42:46.209 --> 00:42:49.958
(narrator):
Lighting candles is a ritual

00:42:49.959 --> 00:42:51.917
associated with Jewish tradition

00:42:51.918 --> 00:42:55.959
and not commonly practiced
in Islam.

00:42:57.000 --> 00:42:58.958
In a nearby Muslim cemetery,

00:42:58.959 --> 00:43:01.958
Zvi found signs
of a Star of David

00:43:01.959 --> 00:43:04.208
that he claims was altered

00:43:04.209 --> 00:43:07.125
to hide its Jewish origin.

00:43:34.751 --> 00:43:37.541
(narrator): In a nearby village,
old women show him

00:43:37.542 --> 00:43:40.583
how they set aside
a small piece of dough

00:43:40.584 --> 00:43:43.124
before baking their pita bread.

00:43:43.125 --> 00:43:46.416
This is reminiscent
of an old Jewish tradition,

00:43:46.417 --> 00:43:50.292
a symbolic donation
to the Temple priests.

00:43:51.667 --> 00:43:53.082
But what conclusion, if any,

00:43:53.083 --> 00:43:58.083
can we draw
from these folkloric details?

00:44:36.250 --> 00:44:38.166
(narrator):
A local journalist takes Zvi

00:44:38.167 --> 00:44:40.458
to an ancient grave
of a Jewish rabbi

00:44:40.459 --> 00:44:43.500
who\'s been revered
for over a millennium

00:44:43.501 --> 00:44:47.292
by the mostly Muslim population.

00:45:30.959 --> 00:45:33.958
(narrator): Local women
still hang those rags,

00:45:33.959 --> 00:45:37.334
seeking a blessing
from the rabbi.

00:46:29.000 --> 00:46:30.959
(soft music)

00:46:40.292 --> 00:46:43.124
(narrator): For centuries,
the peasants of Safuri

00:46:43.125 --> 00:46:45.500
preserved this grave
believed by some

00:46:45.501 --> 00:46:48.958
to be that
of Rabbi Yehuda Hanasie,

00:46:48.959 --> 00:46:51.959
Sepphoris\'s
most important scholar.

00:46:54.959 --> 00:46:56.500
The rabbi helped
transform Sepphoris

00:46:56.501 --> 00:47:01.249
into one of the most important
spiritual centres of Judaism

00:47:01.250 --> 00:47:04.125
after the fall of Jerusalem.

00:47:11.584 --> 00:47:13.751
(birds chirping)

00:48:12.083 --> 00:48:14.751
(mournful music)

00:48:43.167 --> 00:48:45.959
(soft music)

00:48:46.042 --> 00:48:49.958
(Seth Schwartz):
The job of historians...

00:48:49.959 --> 00:48:52.333
isn\'t to crush memory.

00:48:52.334 --> 00:48:54.249
It\'s not to destroy it.

00:48:54.250 --> 00:48:57.458
It\'s actually to hold it up

00:48:57.459 --> 00:48:58.917
and pull it apart,

00:48:58.918 --> 00:49:01.500
without necessarily standing
in the way of those people

00:49:01.501 --> 00:49:04.709
who want to put it
back together afterwards.

00:49:12.125 --> 00:49:14.166
I think that it\'s the job
of historians

00:49:14.167 --> 00:49:16.958
to remind people what\'s at stake
in their shared memories.

00:49:16.959 --> 00:49:20.249
That is, what the effects
of those shared memories are,

00:49:20.250 --> 00:49:23.751
and what use they can be put to.

00:49:32.959 --> 00:49:36.416
But I think
that there\'s actually some,

00:49:36.417 --> 00:49:38.958
you know, moral urgency,
seriously,

00:49:38.959 --> 00:49:41.249
in... in what historians do,

00:49:41.250 --> 00:49:45.249
in taking these things
and analyzing them

00:49:45.250 --> 00:49:49.541
and showing how far
they can be from, you know,

00:49:49.542 --> 00:49:50.791
ascertainable...

00:49:50.792 --> 00:49:55.166
historical realities
of the past.

00:49:55.167 --> 00:49:56.374
You know, that there\'s...

00:49:56.375 --> 00:49:57.958
You know,
go on believing your myths,

00:49:57.959 --> 00:50:02.083
but at least understand
what you\'re doing by doing that.

00:50:16.042 --> 00:50:18.041
(narrator):
What is being unearthed

00:50:18.042 --> 00:50:20.958
in the ruins
of Sepphoris and Safuri

00:50:20.959 --> 00:50:24.959
is a message of hope
and a warning.

00:50:25.792 --> 00:50:28.416
The promise of hope from a town

00:50:28.417 --> 00:50:31.166
that survived
for hundreds of years

00:50:31.167 --> 00:50:32.333
because of its capacity

00:50:32.334 --> 00:50:36.501
to embrace many cultures
and traditions.

00:50:38.250 --> 00:50:40.500
And a warning written
in the destruction

00:50:40.501 --> 00:50:44.958
brought about by blind faith
in a single narrative of history

00:50:44.959 --> 00:50:47.709
at the expense of others.

00:50:49.959 --> 00:50:51.959
(distant voices)

00:50:53.751 --> 00:50:55.249
(dog barking)

00:50:55.250 --> 00:50:57.792
(soft Middle Eastern music)

00:51:47.959 --> 00:51:51.751
Subtitling: CNST, Montreal