How did Israel respond to Jesus and to the apostles' preaching in the early Acts period?

Les explains that Israel could have had the King and the Kingdom, and could then have evangelized Gentiles, but that prospect was hypothetical in God's foreknowledge because Christ had to die. The nation rejected Him, crucified Him, and continued to reject Him in the early Acts period, although Peter and the eleven preached their hearts out. When Israel proved they were not going to believe, God raised up Saul of Tarsus, a Jew who hated Jesus of Nazareth, and saved him by grace. God told Saul before he left Damascus that He would send him far hence to the Gentiles. Israel would go into spiritual blindness, but Saul would go to the Gentiles. Because Israel rejected the Old Testament promises, her Messiah, and her King, and crucified Him, the windows of heaven were opened for Gentiles whose forefathers were pagan, idolatrous, occultic, or mythological. Israel alone had the true knowledge of the true God, but God did something totally different and sent this apostle among pagan Gentiles, who began to swarm to the Gospel with spiritual hunger.