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Abraham is born around 1813 BCE. According to the first five books of the Bible, God chooses Abraham to be the father of Isaac, the founder of the Jewish people.
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Around 1713 BCE, Abraham circumcises himself, and this act symbolizes the covenant between God and all his descendants.
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King Solomon of Israel builds his crowning achievement, the First Temple, on Mount Moriah around 970 BCE.
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When King Solomon dies around 920 BCE, northern tribes revolt, and the land of the Hebrews splits into two kingdoms: the kingdom of Israel in the north, and the kingdom of Judah in the south.
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Around 722 BCE, the Assyrians conquer the kingdom of Israel and force the ten tribes to resettle in other parts of the empire, according to Assyrian custom.
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Alexander the Great's successors launch a campaign of Hellenization in Israel, and they erect a statue of Zeus in the second Temple of Jerusalem and outlaw Jewish observances.
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In 66 CE the Jews launch the Great Revolt against their Roman rulers, which becomes one of the great tragedies of the Jewish tradition.
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Because of these tragedies, Jewish academics focus on compiling and codifying the teachings of the Rabbis. Around 200, the Mishna, or a collection of rabbinic teachings, sayings, and interpretations, is compiled.
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After enjoying a golden age in European cities, the Jews' fortune reverses. In 1096 members of the First Crusade, which attempts to purge Christian landmarks of heathens, massacre Jewish citizens of European cities.
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For several hundred years, the Jews are enslaved in Egypt. Moses, a Jewish man raised as an Egyptian prince, is appointed God's prophet. Around 1280 BCE he leads his people out of enslavement on a journey to Canaan.
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In 1698 Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov is born, and he goes on to found Hasidism, perhaps the single most important religious movement in Jewish history.
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Reform Judaism begins to emerge in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as a response to the major social and political changes happening in Europe. In 1839 Abraham Geiger joins a Jewish community and eventually becomes one of Judaism's most staunch defenders.
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Germany enacts the Nuremberg Laws on September 15, 1935, the first of many anti-Jewish statutes aiming to rescind Jewish rights.
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Partially in response to the tragedies of the Holocaust, the state of Israel is created on May 14, 1948, when the United Nations partitions land between the Jews and the Arabs.