This is Israel [antikvár]

"The Lord made a covenant ivith Abram land, from the river of Egypt unto the THE LAND OF ISRAEL IS THE REALIZATION OF A DREAM. Promised by God to Abraham and his descendants; the heritage to which the children of Israel were led by Moses after the Exodus from Egypt; welded into a powerful Hebrew nation under David and Solomon; the birthplace of Jesus and the cradle of the three great monotheistic religions, Israel is famed throughout the world as the well-spring of the Bible. From the beginning of recorded time Israel, sometimes called Palestine, has been a coveted prize. Its .fertility and strategic position attracted first the Canaanite tribes who displaced the earliest agriculturalists some 5,000 years ago, then the Hebrews, who united the country to form a strong kingdom about 1000 BCE. Israel, view from a , saying, unto thy seed have I given this Great River." Genesis 15 :1 8. Standing across the lines of communication between the great empires, Palestine was often overrun, and Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome and Byzantia in turn assumed control. Then came the Crusaders, the Mamelukes, the Turks and the British, but to none of them did the Holy Land have the significance it had for the Jews, bound to Eretz Israel by a deep, single-minded devotion. Despite these upheavals and the ever-changing waves of invaders, Jews never abandoned the hope of returning to their ancient home. Since the Roman destruction of the Second Temple 2,000 years back there has always been a larger or smaller Jewish presence in the Promised Land, while the believing Jew prays daily for the Lord to "Gather our disper- !atellite