Comment by hax0ron3
2 years ago
>Keep in mind that the vast majority of the area was uninhabited swamps until the 1940s
Not saying you're necessarily wrong, but I find this hard to believe because the majority of the area was not uninhabited swamps back during the time of the Roman Empire, so why would it have become uninhabited swamps at some point between then and the 1940s? Of course terrain does change over time, but I've never heard of the Levant turning into swamps in post-Roman times.
> The 17th century saw a steep decline in the Jewish population of Palestine due to the unstable security situation, natural catastrophes, and abandonment of urban areas, which turned Palestine into a remote and desolate part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman central government became feeble and corrupt, and the Jewish community was harassed by local rulers, janissaries, guilds, Bedouins, and bandits. The Jewish community was also caught between feuding local chieftains who extorted and oppressed the Jews. The Jewish communities of the Galilee heavily depended on the changing fortunes of a banking family close to the ruling pashas in Acre. As a result, the Jewish population significantly shrank.
https://www.amazon.com/Zionism-Creation-Society-Studies-Hist...
For a couple of hundred years prior there were tens of thousands of Jews in the region, including at one point 30,000 counted just in Safed by the end of the 16th century.
Also keep in mind that in 1800 populations were an order of magnitude smaller than they are now.