Biblical times in the context of "Canaanite civilization"

The history of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel begins in the 2nd millennium BCE, when Israelites emerged as an outgrowth of southern Canaanites. During biblical times, a postulated United Kingdom of Israel existed but then split into two Israelite kingdoms occupying the highland zone: the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (circa 722 BCE), and the Kingdom of Judah by the Neo-Babylonian Empire (586 BCE). Initially exiled to Babylon, upon the defeat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire by the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great (538 BCE), many of the Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem, building the Second Temple.

In 332 BCE the kingdom of Macedonia under Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire, which included Yehud (Judea). This event started a long religious struggle that split the Jewish population into traditional and Hellenized components. After the religion-driven Maccabean Revolt, the independent Hasmonean Kingdom was established in 165 BCE. In 64 BCE, the Roman Republic conquered Judea, first subjugating it as a client state before ultimately converting it into a Roman province in 6 CE. Although coming under the sway of various empires and home to a variety of ethnicities, the area of ancient Israel was predominantly Jewish until the Jewish–Roman wars of 66–136 CE. The wars commenced a long period of violence, enslavement, expulsion, displacement, forced conversion, and forced migration against the local Jewish population by the Roman Empire (and successor Byzantine State), beginning the Jewish diaspora.

Historical fantasy is a category of fantasy and genre of historical fiction that incorporates fantastic elements (such as magic) into a more "realistic" narrative. There is much crossover with other subgenres of fantasy; those classed as Arthurian, Celtic, or Dark Ages could just as easily be placed in historical fantasy. Stories fitting this classification generally take place prior to the 20th century.

Films of this genre may have plots set in biblical times or classical antiquity. They often have plots based very loosely on mythology or legends of Greek-Roman history, or the surrounding cultures of the same era.

The history of the Jews in the current-day Spanish territory stretches back to Biblical times according to Jewish tradition, but the settlement of organised Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula possibly traces back to the times after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The earliest archaeological evidence of Hebrew presence in Iberia consists of a 2nd-century gravestone found in Mérida. From the late 6th century onward, following the Visigothic monarchs' conversion from Arianism to the Nicene Creed, conditions for Jews in Iberia considerably worsened.

After the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the early 8th century, Jews lived under the Dhimmi system and progressively Arabised. Jews of Al-Andalus stood out particularly during the 10th and the 11th centuries, in the caliphal and first taifa periods. Scientific and philological study of the Hebrew Bible began, and secular poetry was written in Hebrew for the first time. After the Almoravid and Almohad invasions, many Jews fled to Northern Africa and the Christian Iberian kingdoms. Targets of antisemitic mob violence, Jews living in the Christian kingdoms faced persecution throughout the 14th century, leading to the 1391 pogroms. As a result of the Alhambra Decree of 1492, the remaining practising Jews in Castile and Aragon were forced to convert to Catholicism (thus becoming 'New Christians' who faced discrimination under the limpieza de sangre system) whereas those who continued to practise Judaism (c. 100,000–200,000) were expelled, creating diaspora communities. Tracing back to a 1924 decree, there have been initiatives to favour the return of Sephardi Jews to Spain by facilitating Spanish citizenship on the basis of demonstrated ancestry.

The history of the Jews in Lebanon encompasses the presence of Jews in present-day Lebanon stretching back to biblical times. While Jews have been present in Lebanon since ancient times, their numbers had dwindled during the Muslim era. Through the medieval ages, Jewish people often faced persecution, but retained their religious and cultural identity.

In the early 20th century, for a brief period under the French Mandate of Lebanon and 1926 Constitution of Lebanon, the Jewish community was constitutionally protected. However, after 1948, the security of Jews remained fragile, and the main synagogue in Beirut was bombed in the early 1950s. In the wake of the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, there was mass emigration of around 6,000 Lebanese Jews from Lebanon to Israel and Western countries.