<P> Nevertheless, there was a continuous small Jewish presence and Galilee became its religious center . The Mishnah and part of the Talmud, central Jewish texts, were composed during the 2nd to 4th centuries CE in Tiberias and Jerusalem . The region came to be populated predominantly by Greco - Romans on the coast and Samaritans in the hill - country . Christianity was gradually evolving over Roman paganism, when the area stood under Byzantine rule . Through the 5th and 6th centuries, the dramatic events of the repeated Samaritan revolts reshaped the land, with massive destruction to Byzantine Christian and Samaritan societies and a resulting decrease of the population . After the Persian conquest and the installation of a short - lived Jewish Commonwealth in 614 CE, the Byzantine Empire reconquered the country in 628 . </P> <P> In 634--641 CE, the region, including Jerusalem, was conquered by the Arabs who had just recently adopted Islam . Control of the region transferred between the Rashidun Caliphs, Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Seljuks, Crusaders, and Ayyubids throughout the next three centuries . </P> <P> During the siege of Jerusalem by the First Crusade in 1099, the Jewish inhabitants of the city fought side by side with the Fatimid garrison and the Muslim population who tried in vain to defend the city against the Crusaders . When the city fell, about 60,000 people were massacred, including 6,000 Jews seeking refuge in a synagogue . At this time, a full thousand years after the fall of the Jewish state, there were Jewish communities all over the country . Fifty of them are known and include Jerusalem, Tiberias, Ramleh, Ashkelon, Caesarea, and Gaza . According to Albert of Aachen, the Jewish residents of Haifa were the main fighting force of the city, and "mixed with Saracen (Fatimid) troops", they fought bravely for close to a month until forced into retreat by the Crusader fleet and land army . However, Joshua Prawer expressed doubt over the story, noting that Albert did not attend the Crusades and that such a prominent role for the Jews is not mentioned by any other source . </P> <P> In 1165, Maimonides visited Jerusalem and prayed on the Temple Mount, in the "great, holy house ." In 1141 the Spanish - Jewish poet Yehuda Halevi issued a call for Jews to migrate to the Land of Israel, a journey he undertook himself . In 1187 Sultan Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, defeated the Crusaders in the Battle of Hattin and subsequently captured Jerusalem and almost all of Palestine . In time, Saladin issued a proclamation inviting Jews to return and settle in Jerusalem, and according to Judah al - Harizi, they did: "From the day the Arabs took Jerusalem, the Israelites inhabited it ." Al - Harizi compared Saladin's decree allowing Jews to re-establish themselves in Jerusalem to the one issued by the Persian king Cyrus the Great over 1,600 years earlier . </P>

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