Generally speaking throughout the course of history jews have been mistreated quite often.  Their humble beginnings arose from a brave story of a man named Moses who rescued nomadic Israelites from slavery to the homeland, the current Israel.  These Israelites joined others and spread out across their country and eventually conquered the Palestinian Canaan during times of chaos.  They took over as a result of the collapse of Canaan.  During this time these people were simply likeminded individual tribes having similar beliefs, however, through good leadership and reform, they were able to build their own monarchial, monotheistic empire.  They were united under a wise and insightful leader named David who had an early role in the conquest of Israel.  When he died, he passed the throne to his son, Solomon, and during his authority his empire peaked.  Their traditions and economy flourished due to their dominance in monotheistic religion, powerful military, and successful trade through exploration.  During this time they reflected many characteristics of Mesopotamia, they invested lots of time and resources building places of worship and they influenced  commerce by trading many precious minerals and rocks that were available to them and their land. Conflict created a divide in this powerful empire which was the beginning of their decline.  As a result of their location, more ethnic Syrian, Babylonian, and Iranian people settled in their society along with their own adverse beliefs.  Do to their geographic area Judah was constantly in threat of other nearby polytheistic empires.  A century later, the great Israelite empire was toppled by a new Neo-Babylonian kingdom who attempted destroy not only their city but also their religion.  Luckily, many jews escaped to the beautiful islands of Cyprus, there, they were able to redevelop their society while sticking close together.  But during the fifth and sixth centuries the jews returned to restore their city of Jerusalem to its original culture.  The survival of the Jewish religion is truly incredible.  Through persecution and violence the jews still managed to carry on sticking together and continuing their rich traditions, from being enslaved to building a kingdom and taking refuge in Cyprus, they refused to accept other religions they were not passionate about.  They believed in one god and through that shared belief they are still able to be a major religion around the world today.  Perhaps it was because of all the oppression and hardship from other empires who didn't accept their religion that drove jews to be even more cemented together and to survive and carry on their culture.