This week, Israel celebrated its 77th Independence Day — a moment of national pride, reflection, and defiance. But Israel’s story didn’t begin in 1948. Its true birth stretches back more than 3,500 years, rooted deeply in a land where the Jewish people first built their Temple in Jerusalem around the year 957 BCE. From the Western Wall, the only remaining vestige of that holy sanctuary, to the ancient synagogues of Tzfat, the fortress of Masada, and the ruins of King David’s palace, Israel is not merely a modern state — it is the very soil of Jewish history and civilization.