Twenty-five year ago, give or take, I asked myself a rather straightforward question: “Why is it seemingly impossible to have peace in the Middle East?”
After expending a quarter century in research, shedding blood, sweat and tears in the process, I believe I found the answer to my question. But one short article cannot do justice to the unraveling of the proverbial Gordian Knot.
The Alpha and Omega of awareness and a thorough understanding, however, has to start and end with the Persians and their Iranian descendants, the world’s oldest continuous civilization, dating back to 4000 BCE.
Once again, the Tom-Toms of war are beating between the U.S, Israel and Iran. An attempt to intercede is currently in the works as I write this, hopefully preventing what could very well be the opening act of World War III as humanity is left standing on a precipice, peering into the abyss.
A history of peace
The animosity between Jews, Persians/Iranians and Muslims has not always been so. In fact, had it not been for the latter, the former would have ended up in the dustbin of history. Jews would have long ago become extinct. If ever the world needs to be made aware of this Jewish indebtedness, it is now.
“If ever the world needs to be made aware of this Jewish indebtedness, it is now.”
Before the rise of Zionism, a political, social and religious movement founded 125 years ago by Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer and journalist, there was relative tranquility in Palestine between Jews and their Iranian and Muslim brethren. The primary purpose of Zionism and select segments of Rabbinic Orthodoxy was to create and support not just the rise of contemporary Israel but a Return to Zion.
For many, returning to Zion was synonymous with the biblical borders of ancient Israel — God’s Promised Land — which in their eyes included the Egyptian Sinai, Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus, Syria, part of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Turkey.
Modern-day Israel has no constitution defining its borders; allowing it to repossess the surrounding land and continuously expand through war. The United Nations partitioned Palestine into distinct Arab and Jewish states with set borders. United Nations resolutions condemn the Israeli occupation of Palestine as a violation of international law and the Charter of the U.N.
It should come as no surprise to learn that most of the warlike unpleasantness in the Levant —the Middle East — has occurred since 1948 after the founding of the new state of Israel under Zionist tutelage. Christian Zionists support of Israel’s anything goes policy helped to ensure there would be no peace in the valley.
How was it that on more than one occasion Jews came within a hair’s breadth of vanishing off the face of the earth? The article touches upon historical elements that played a major role in preventing the Jews’ destruction, interwoven with a brief discussion of Abrahamic or biblical Judaism versus rabbinic Pharisaic Judaism.
Help from the Persians
Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, and his Persians were true to the precepts of Zoroastrianism, a monotheistic faith generally thought to pre-date ancient Judaism by as much as a millennium. As an aside, the Syriac Infancy Gospel cites Zorodascht, the spiritual founder of Zoroastrianism, as the source of the prophecy that motivated the magi to follow a miraculous guiding star to Bethlehem to seek the infant Jesus.
“The Persians’ faith taught them every human being is to work toward establishing social justice on earth.”
The Persians’ faith taught them every human being is to work toward establishing social justice on earth, which led to Persian/Iranian intervention to save the Jews from disappearing as a people after King Nebuchadnezzar laid waste to Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, also known as the First Temple, in 570 BCE.
Jews of rank or substance carted off into captivity in Babylon languished for 30 years until Persia’s king, the Great Cyrus, subdued Nebuchadnezzar’s Chaldean Empire. He freed the Jews, and some of the exiles and their offspring repatriated to Jerusalem, where he provided them the resources and protection necessary to begin the restoration of Herod’s Temple, also known as the Second Temple.
Cyrus is referred to in Isaiah 45 as God’s anointed one. Cyrus’ successor, Darius I, decreed anyone interfering with Jewish building efforts would be put to death. He also commanded the rulers in Syria and Phoenicia to cut down and carry cedar trees from Lebanon to Jerusalem to assist the Jews in building the city.
A repeat performance
The Jews’ indebtedness to the Persians may have begun with Cyrus the Great pulling their chestnuts out of the fire but it did not end there. The Persians did a repeat performance in 70 CE when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem and destroyed Herod’s Temple. Worship ceased in a temple that no longer existed, hence there was no need of the Sadducee priestly class, who like the mystic Essenes soon disappeared from the historical record after the first century.
The Pharisees who first appear by name in the time of Jonathan Maccabee (150 BCE) or 150 years before Jesus’ birth, were the only organized ancient sect of pre-Rabbinic Judaism to survive the destruction of the Second Temple. According to Flavius Josephus, a Roman-Jewish historian, the Pharisees numbered around 6,000 in 70 CE, a portion taking flight to Babylon.
“Once again, the Jews were under the protection of the Persians.”
Once again, the Jews were under the protection of the Persians. Judaism that flourished after the destruction of the First Temple, however, was not the same Judaism that arose after the destruction of the Second Temple. Christian understanding as to reasons for this discrepancy are sorely lacking among the faithful. I hope this article can help to shed light on a few of these dissimilarities.
Two kinds of Judaism
It is while in Babylon the Jewish Pharisees flourished, where unmolested for the next five centuries they were able to create the Babylon Talmud, a compilation of rabbinical analyses and commentaries (Gemara) and oral traditions (Mishnah) of the scribes and Pharisees. Few Christians ever heard of the Talmud or its possible inverse correlation to their own faith. The Talmud took precedence over the written Torah, becoming the central religious text and primary source of Jewish religious law of Rabbinic Pharisaic Judaism.
According to Robert Goldenberg, Professor of Judaic studies at the State University of New York:
The Talmud was Torah. … The Talmud was oral torah in written form, and as such it became the clearest statement the Jew could hear of God’s very word. The Talmud provided the means of determining how God wanted all Jews to live, in all places, at all times. Even if the details of the law had to be altered to suit newly arisen conditions, the proper way to perform such adaptation could itself be learned from the Talmud and its commentaries. … The Talmud revealed God speaking to Israel, and so the Talmud became Israel’s way to God.
Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler discusses Pharisaism in the online 12-volume version of the Jewish Encyclopedia, In part he says:
After the destruction of Second Temple, Jewish life was regulated by the teachings of the Pharisees; the whole history of Judaism was reconstructed from the Pharisaic point of view, and a new aspect was given to the Sanhedrin of the past. A new chain of tradition supplanted the older, priestly tradition. Pharisaism shaped the character of Judaism and the life and thought of the Jew for all the future.
The Babylon Talmud was composed between 200 CE and 500 CE when it was codified, five centuries after the birth of Christianity, but it was still edited even up through the eighth century CE.
“’Judaism’ in both share the same sound and are spelled the same but have different meanings.”
One might say the Judaism in Abrahamic/biblical Judaism and the Judaism in Rabbinic Pharisaic Judaism is a homonym. “Judaism” in both share the same sound and are spelled the same but have different meanings.
Abrahamic Judaism is often associated with the historical period of the Israelites and their relationship with God as described in the Hebrew Bible, focusing on the written Torah for divine inspiration. Rabbinic Pharisaic Judaism, on the other hand, is not restricted to a single temple as it was when Christ walked the earth. It emphasizes both the written Torah and the oral Torah (included in the Talmud) for guidance.
The term “Judeo-Christian” usually refers to the shared religious, ethical and cultural foundation between Judaism and Christianity. I believe Abrahamic/biblical Judaism is the “Judeo” part of the historical connection with Christianity, whereas Rabbinic Pharisaic Judaism is a misnomer, mistakenly associated with Christianity.
Monotheistic religions
Three monotheistic religions — Abrahamic/biblical Judaism, Christianity and Islam — are commonly acknowledged to have arisen out of the Abrahamic faith tradition, with Abraham the patriarchal figure, a tradition many scholars date back to 1800 BCE. Pharisaic Rabbinic Judaism, however, might well be considered a distinct fourth religion.
Abrahamic/biblical Judaism existed between the first and second temple periods, estimated to be roughly from 1000 BCE to 70 CE. Christianity began with the ministry of Jesus around 30-33 CE, predating Rabbinic Pharisaic Judaism by about 470 years.
Rabbinic Pharisaic Judaism officially came on the scene around 500 CE, after the codification of the Babylonian Talmud. Islam, founded by Muhammad, showed up about a century later, in 610 CE. All four faiths find common ground originating with the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible but with the exception of Abrahamic/biblical Judaism, the other three have their own primary religious text that takes precedence — the New Testament for Christians, the Qur’an for Islam and the Talmud for Rabbinic Pharisaic Judaism.
To refer to modern day Rabbinic Pharisaic Judaism is to speak of the Talmud, the founding document of Pharisaic Rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity. (Both the Sadducees, modern-day biblical Karaite Jews, which are estimated to be around 50,000 worldwide, and the founder of Christianity rejected the oral Torah of the Pharisees, which now exists in written form as part of the Talmud).
Considering the Talmud was created well after Christianity came into being and the New Testament depicts Jesus criticizing and condemning the Pharisees, it should not be a surprise to find Jesus, Mary and Christianity referenced in the Talmud. The Talmud does not refer to Islam, given it was codified before Islam came on the scene.
According to Peter Schäfer, professor of Judaic studies at Princeton University from 1998 to 2013, reputedly the leading scholar of rabbinic Judaism and early Jewish mysticism in the world today: “Scattered throughout the Talmud, the founding document of rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity, can be found quite a few references to Jesus — and they’re not flattering.”
The Talmud accuses Jesus of a variety of sexual indiscretions, condemned by God to hell to boil for eternity in “boiling excrement.” Mary the mother of Jesus is a harlot. These Talmudic texts increasingly carried real and dangerous consequences for Jews as Christianity became the dominant religion of the west.
“The first Christian censorship of the Talmud occurred in the year 521 CE. During the Middle Ages, more extensive censorship began to occur, notably under the directive of Pope Gregory IX. Catholic authorities accused the Talmud of blasphemous references to Jesus and Mary.”
“Islam respects and venerates Jesus Christ.”
Islam respects and venerates Jesus Christ. They consider him to be one of Almighty God’s greatest messengers to humankind. The Qur’an reaffirms his miraculous birth and his miraculous abilities. Furthermore, his mother Mary is regarded as one of the most pure and exalted women of all creation.
Islam embraces portions of the New Testament in the text of the Qur’an. Unfortunately, for Muslims, there is at present somewhat more tolerance and accommodation on the Islamic side for the founder of Christianity than on the Christian side of things.
According to Shlomo Sand, a contemporary historian who teaches at the University of Tel Aviv, in his book The Invention of the Jewish People, a book originally written in Hebrew, “The founders of Talmudic Judaism made their home in Babylon. Rabbinical schools were set up in Sura, Nehardea and Pumbedita, principal laboratories where their new religion was refined.”
Their exposure in their rabbinical schools to Zoroastrianism in Babylonia and Persia helped solidify basic elements of Talmudic Jewish belief. Most scholars, Jewish as well as non-Jewish, are of the opinion that Pharisaic Rabbinic Judaism (Talmudic Judaism) was strongly influenced by Zoroastrianism, in views relating to angelology and demonology, resurrection and eschatology (especially in the book of Daniel and the Catholic books of the Maccabees), beliefs not held by the Sadducees in Abrahamic/Biblical Judaism. The Pharisees borrowed the word “paradise” from the Persian word “pardes,” meaning “pleasure-ground” or “king’s garden.”
Were it not for the Persians/Iranians and Cyrus the Great, the ancient Abrahamic/biblical Jews of old would have disappeared in 586 BCE with the fall of Solomon’s Temple. Were it not for the Persians/Iranians after the destruction of Herod’s Temple in 70 CE, Rabbinic Pharisaic Judaism and its sacred book, the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli), would not have lived to see the day of its creation five centuries later.
Jews’ disappearance or just another cult
Islam also played a central role in keeping Jewry alive and well during the Middle Ages.
Dubbed the “Iranian Schindler,” Islamic diplomat Abdol Hossein Sarari saved thousands of Jews from the Nazi regime by issuing Iranian passports to occupied Jews, helping 2,000 escape the Nazis.
The Great Mosque of Paris provided sanctuary and sustenance to Jews hiding from Vichy and Nazi troops.
Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, reports: “At every stage of the Nazi Vichy and Fascist persecution of Jews in Arab lands, and in every place that it occurred, Arabs helped Jews. … They bravely saved Jewish lives, at times risking their own in the process.”
“Jews were labeled a ‘protected people’ when living under Muslim rule in Moorish Spain.”
David J. Wasserstein, Eugene Greener Jr. Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University, expounded in a Jewish Chronicle article titled, “So, What Did the Muslims Do for the Jews?” the following:
By the fourth century, Christianity had become the dominant religion in the Roman empire. One aspect of this success was opposition to rival faiths, including Judaism, along with massive conversion of members of such faiths, sometimes by force, to Christianity. …
Jewish cultural prosperity in the Middle Ages operated in large part as a function of Muslim, Arabic cultural (and to some degree political) prosperity: when Muslim Arabic culture thrived, so did that of the Jews; when Muslim Arabic culture declined, so did that of the Jews. …
The cultural capital thus created also served as the seed-bed of further growth elsewhere — in Christian Spain and in the Christian world more generally. …
Had Islam not come along, Jewry in the West would have declined to disappearance and Jewry in the East would have become just another oriental cult.”
Jews were labeled a “protected people” when living under Muslim rule in Moorish Spain. Jewish religious, cultural and economic life flourished in what has been labeled a “Golden Age of Jewish culture” in Spain. In the Ottoman Empire, Jews “were left not merely to their own religion, but to their own laws and administration in matters that did not concern the Muslims. Greeks, Armenians and Jews were permitted to trade and travel unhindered.”
Final thoughts
Given Jewish and Christian Zionists’ beat for war with modern-day Iran, it is difficult to conclude this article without addressing a few of the poison arrows thrown Iran’s way. Iran continually stands accused of being on the brink of building a nuclear weapon, despite the fact that for 18 years and counting, The Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community (16 agencies) says otherwise, including the latest report in March 2025. Throw in, if you will, The Guardian’s report of leaked documents, including a Mossad secret report.
A statistic or two, if you please, to drive home the point.
It is not that Iran lacks the ability to construct a nuke. Of course they do, but thus far they have chosen to do otherwise. According to the World Economic Forum, the Russian Federation produced the largest number of engineering graduates in the world — 454,436. The United States ranked No. 2 with 237,826 graduates, and Iran produced the third-largest number of engineering graduates — at 233,695, with 70% of them women. That’s just 4,000 fewer graduates than the United States, a nation with 3.5 times the population.
Iran also has developed and produced hypersonic missiles, a technological marvel that poses significant challenges to existing air and missile defenses. Thus far, only three other nations have been able to accomplish this feat, and none of those countries are found in the West.
Israel is reputed to have between 200 and 300 nukes and Iran zilch. Even if, and so far that’s a gigantic if with no supporting evidence to back it up, in 10 years the Iranians were to accomplish building 20 nukes, they would be far outgunned, especially when the U.S. throws in its 5,200-plus “backup” nukes to Israel’s.
Iran would be assured destruction so complete, so massive that it would mean the total elimination of its population of 80 million. To use these imaginary weapons of mass destruction would mean the world’s oldest continuous civilization, the ancient Persians of Cyrus the Great, going back 6,000 years, had lost its collective mind, the same civilization that twice prevented the eradication and annihilation of the ancient Jews.
Jimmy R. Coleman is a former president of Garon Inc., a computer consulting company. He has devoted more than 20 years to studying the question of why Middle East peace remains elusive. His research has taken him to the four corners of the globe, and he has relied on some of the best experts in their respective areas — historians, theologians, political and military mindsets, and radical thinkers from the left and right. He considers himself not as an expert who sees the trees, but someone with a more generalist viewpoint of the forest.