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Jews originated from theIsraelites andHebrews of historicalIsrael and Judah, two related kingdoms that emerged in theLevant during theIron Age.[1][2] The earliest mention ofIsraelites is inscribed on theMerneptah Stelec. 1213–1203 BCE; later religious literature tells the story of Israelites going back at least as far asc. 1500 BCE. Traditionally, the nameIsrael is said to originate with the Hebrew patriarchJacob, who provides a narrativeetiology for the name – after wrestling with an angel, Jacob is renamed Israel, meaning "he who struggles with God". TheKingdom of Israel based inSamaria fell to theNeo-Assyrian Empirec. 720 BCE,[3] and theKingdom of Judah to theNeo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE.[4] Part of the Judean population was exiled toBabylon. TheAssyrian andBabylonian captivities are regarded as representing the start of theJewish diaspora.
After theAchaemenid Empire conquered the region, the exiled Jews wereallowed to return andrebuild the temple; these events mark the beginning of theSecond Temple period.[5][6] After several centuries of foreign rule, theMaccabean Revolt against theSeleucid Empire led to anindependent Hasmonean kingdom,[7] but it was gradually incorporated into theRoman imperial system.[8] TheJewish–Roman wars, a series of unsuccessful revolts against the Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, resulted in thedestruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple,[9] and the expulsion of many Jews.[10] The Jewish population inSyria Palaestina gradually decreased during the following centuries, enhancing the role of the Jewish diaspora and shifting the spiritual and demographic centre from the depopulatedJudea toGalilee and then toBabylon, with smaller communities spread out across theRoman Empire. During the same period, theMishnah and theTalmud, central Jewish texts, were composed. In the following millennia, the diaspora communitiescoalesced into three majorethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled: theAshkenazim inCentral andEastern Europe, theSephardim initially inIberia, and theMizrahim in theMiddle East andNorth Africa.[11][12]
Theearly Muslim conquests endedByzantine control over theEastern Mediterranean, with the newly establishedRashidun Caliphate taking over theLevant,Mesopotamia, and North Africa during the 7th century, and theIberian Peninsula during the 8th century.Jewish culture enjoyed a golden age in Spain, with Jews becoming widely accepted in society and their religious, cultural, and economic life blossomed before the arrival of the intolerantAlmohades. In 1492 theJews were forced to leave Spain and migrated in great numbers to theOttoman Empire andItaly. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Ashkenazi Jews experienced extreme persecution in Central Europe, which prompted their mass migration toPoland.[13][14] The 18th century saw the rise of theHaskalah intellectual movement. Also starting in the 18th century, Jews began to campaign forJewish emancipation from restrictive laws and integration into the wider European society.
In the 19th century, when Jews inWestern Europe were increasingly granted equality before the law, Jews in thePale of Settlement faced growing persecution, legal restrictions and widespreadpogroms. During the 1870s and 1880s, the Jewish population in Europe began to more actively discuss emigration toOttoman Syria with the aim of re-establishing a Jewish polity inPalestine. TheZionist movement was officially founded in 1897. The pogroms also triggered a mass exodus of more than two million Jews to the United States between 1881 and 1924.[15] The Jews of Europe and the United States gained success in the fields of science, culture and the economy. Among those generally considered the most famous wereAlbert Einstein andLudwig Wittgenstein. ManyNobel Prize winners at this time were Jewish, as is still the case.[16]
In 1933, with the rise to power ofAdolf Hitler and theNazi Party inGermany, the situation for Jews became severe. Economic crises, racialantisemitic laws, and a fear of an upcoming war led many to flee from Europe toMandatory Palestine, to the United States and to theSoviet Union. In 1939,World War II began and until 1941 Germanyoccupied almost all of Europe. In 1941, following theinvasion of the Soviet Union, theFinal Solution began, an extensive organized operation on an unprecedented scale, aimed at the annihilation of the Jewish people, and resulting in the persecution and murder of Jews in Europe and North Africa. In Poland, three million were murdered ingas chambers in all concentration camps combined, with one million at theAuschwitz camp complex alone. Thisgenocide, in which approximately six million Jews were methodically exterminated, is known asthe Holocaust.
Before and during the Holocaust, enormous numbers of Jews immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. On May 14, 1948, upon the termination of the British Mandate,David Ben-Gurion declared the creation of theState of Israel, aJewish and democratic state inEretz Israel (Land of Israel). Immediately afterwards, all neighbouring Arab states invaded, yet the newly formedIDF resisted. In 1949, the war ended and Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves ofAliyah from all over Europe andMiddle Eastern countries. As of 2022,[update] Israel is aparliamentary democracy with a population of 9.6 million people, of whom 7 million areJewish. The largest Jewish community outside Israel is theUnited States, while large communities also exist in France, Canada, Argentina, Russia, United Kingdom, Australia, andGermany.
Ancient Jewish history is known from theBible, extra-biblical sources,apocrypha andpseudepigrapha, the writings ofJosephus,Greco-Roman authors andChurch Fathers, as well as archaeological finds, inscriptions, ancient documents (such as thePapyri from Elephantine and theFayyum, theDead Sea scrolls, theBar Kokhba letters, theBabatha Archives and theCairo Genizah documents) supplemented byoral history and the collection of commentaries in theMidrash andTalmud.
With the advent of theprinting press in theearly modern period, Jewish histories andearly editions of the Hebrew Bible were published which dealt with the history of the Jewish religion, and increasingly,national histories of the Jews,Jewish peoplehood andidentity. This was a move from amanuscript or scribal culture to aprinting culture. Jewish historians wrote accounts of their collective experiences, but also increasingly used history for political, cultural, and scientific or philosophical exploration. Writers drew upon a corpus of culturally inherited text in seeking to construct a logical narrative to critique or advance the state of the art. Modern Jewish historiography intertwines with intellectual movements such as the EuropeanRenaissance and theAge of Enlightenment but drew upon earlier works in theLate Middle Ages and into diverse sources in antiquity. Today, the history of the Jews and Judaism is often divided into seven periods:
The history of the early Jews, and their neighbours, centres on theFertile Crescent and east coast of theMediterranean Sea. It begins among those people who occupied the area lying between theNile andMesopotamia. Surrounded by ancient seats of culture inEgypt andBabylonia, by the deserts ofArabia, and by the highlands ofAsia Minor, the land ofCanaan (roughly corresponding to modern Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, and Lebanon) was a meeting place of civilizations.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in theMerneptah Stele ofancient Egypt, dated toc. 1200 BCE. According to the modern archaeological account, the Israelites and their culture branched out of theCanaanite peoples and their cultures through the development of a distinctmonolatristic—and latermonotheistic—religion centred on the national godYahweh.[19][20][21] They spoke an archaic form of theHebrew language, known today asBiblical Hebrew.[22]
From the mid-1st millennium BCE, the understanding Jews traditionally had of their own history was centred around the narratives in theHebrew Bible. According to this view,Abraham, signifying that he is both the biological progenitor of the Jews and the father of Judaism, is the first Jew.[23] Later,Isaac was born to Abraham, andJacob was born to Isaac. Following astruggle with an angel, Jacob was given the nameIsrael. Following a severe drought, Jacob and his twelve sons fled toEgypt, where they eventually formed theTwelve Tribes of Israel. The Israelites were laterled out of slavery in Egypt and subsequently brought to Canaan byMoses; they eventuallyconquered Canaan under the leadership ofJoshua.
Modern scholars agree that the Bible does not provide an authentic account of the Israelites' origins; the consensus supports that the archaeological evidence showing largely indigenous origins of Israel in Canaan, not Egypt, is "overwhelming" and leaves "no room for an Exodus from Egypt or a 40-year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness".[24] Many archaeologists have abandoned the archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus as "a fruitless pursuit".[24] However, it is accepted that this narrative does have a "historical core" to it.[25][26][27][28] A century of research by archaeologists and Egyptologists has arguably found no evidence that can be directly related to the Exodus narrative of an Egyptian captivity and the escape and travels through the wilderness, leading to the suggestion thatIron Age Israel—the kingdoms of Judah and Israel—has its origins in Canaan, not in Egypt:[29][30] The culture of theearliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult-objects are those of the Canaanite godEl, the pottery remains in the local Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet used is early Canaanite. The almost sole marker distinguishing the "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones, although whether this can be taken as an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute.[31]
According to theBiblical narrative, theLand of Israel was organized into a confederacy of twelve tribes ruled by a series ofJudges for several hundred years.
Two Israelite kingdoms emerged during Iron Age II:Israel and Judah. The Bible portrays Israel and Judah as the successors of an earlierUnited Kingdom of Israel, althoughits historicity is disputed.[32][33] Historians and archaeologists agree that the northernKingdom of Israel existed fromc. 900 BCE[1]: 169–195 [34] and that theKingdom of Judah existed fromca. 700 BCE.[2] TheTel Dan Stele, discovered in 1993, shows that the kingdom, at least in some form, existed by the middle of the 9th century BCE, but it does not indicate the extent of its power.[35][36][37]
Biblical tradition tells that the Israelite monarchy was established in 1037 BCE underSaul, who was anointed by the prophet Samuel,[38] and continued underDavid and his son,Solomon. David greatly expanded the kingdom's borders andconquered Jerusalem from theJebusites, turning it into the national, political and religious capital of the kingdom. Solomon, his son, later built theFirst Temple onMount Moriah in Jerusalem. Upon his death, traditionally dated to c. 930 BCE, a civil war erupted between the ten northern Israelite tribes, and the tribes ofJudah (Simeon was absorbed into Judah) andBenjamin in the south. The kingdom then split into the Kingdom of Israel in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the south.
The Kingdom of Israel was the more prosperous of the two kingdoms and soon developed into a regional power.[39] During the days of theOmride dynasty, it controlledSamaria,Galilee, the upperJordan Valley, theSharon and large parts of theTransjordan.[40]Samaria, the capital, was home to one of the largest Iron Age palaces in the Levant.[41][42] The kingdom of Israel was destroyedc. 720 BCE, when it was conquered by theNeo-Assyrian Empire.[3]
The Kingdom of Judah, with its capital inJerusalem, controlled theJudaean Mountains, theShephelah, theJudaean Desert and parts of theNegev. After the fall of Israel, Judah became aclient state of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In the 7th century BCE, the kingdom's population increased greatly, prospering underAssyrianvassalage, despiteHezekiah's revolt against the Assyrian kingSennacherib.[43]
Large parts of the Hebrew Bible were written during this period. This includes the earliest portions ofHosea,[44]Isaiah,[45]Amos[46] andMicah,[47] along withNahum,[48]Zephaniah,[49] most ofDeuteronomy,[50] the first edition of theDeuteronomistic history (the books ofJoshua/Judges/Samuel/Kings),[51] andHabakkuk.[52]
With the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 605 BCE, a power struggle emerged betweenEgypt and theNeo-Babylonian Empire for control of theLevant,[53] leading to Judah's rapid decline. In 601 BCE, KingJehoiakim of Judah, who had recently submitted to Babylon, rebelled against the empire. He was soon succeeded by his son, Jehoiachin, who continued his father's policy and faced a Babylonian invasion.[53] In March 597 BCE,[54] Jehoiachin surrendered to the Babylonians and was taken captive to Babylon.[53] This defeat is documented in theBabylonian Chronicles.[55][56]Zedekiah, Jehoiachin's uncle, was then installed as king by the Babylonians.[53]
In 587 or 586 BCE,Nebuchadnezzar II, responding to a second revolt in Judah,besieged and destroyed Jerusalem.[57][53] TheFirst Temple was razed, and its sacred vessels were seized as spoils.[58] The destruction was followed by a mass exile: the surviving inhabitants of the city, including other segments of the population, were carried off to Mesopotamia,[58] marking the onset of the era known in Jewish history as the "Babylonian Captivity". Zedekiah himself was captured, blinded, and transported to Babylon.[58] Othersfled to Egypt.[citation needed] The people of Judah lost their statehood, and, for those in exile, their homeland.[59] Following the dissolution of the monarchy, the former kingdom was annexed as a province of the Babylonian Empire.[53][58]
During the several decades between the fall of Judah and theirreturn to Zion under Persian rule, Jewish history enters an obscure phase. Many Jews were exiled acrossBabylonia,Elam, andEgypt, while others remained inJudea.Jeremiah refers to communities in Egypt, including settlements inMigdol,Tahpanhes,Noph, andPathros. Moreover, a Jewish military colony existed atElephantine, established before the exile, where they built their own shrine.[59] Deuteronomy was expanded and earlier scriptures were edited during the exilic period. The first edition ofJeremiah, theBook of Ezekiel, the majority ofObadiah, and what is referred to in research as "Second Isaiah" were all written during this time period as well.[citation needed]
According to the Book of Ezra, PersianCyrus the Great, king of theAchaemenid Empire, brought an end to theBabylonian exile in 538 BCE,[60] a year after his conquest of Babylon.[61] The return from exile was led byZerubbabel, a prince from the royal line of David, and Joshua the Priest, descended from former High Priests of the Temple. They oversaw the construction of theSecond Temple, completed between 521 and 516 BCE.[60] As part of thePersian Empire, the former Kingdom of Judah became the province of Judah (Yehud Medinata)[62] with different borders, covering a smaller territory.[63] Contemporary scholars point to a gradual return process that extended into the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE.[64] The population of Persian Judah was greatly reduced from that of the kingdom, archaeological surveys showing a population of around 30,000 during the 5th—4th centuries BCE.[65]: 308
The final Torah is widely seen as a product of thePersian period (539–333 BCE, probably 450–350 BCE).[66] This consensus echoes a traditional Jewish view which givesEzra, the leader of the Jewish community on its return from Babylon, a pivotal role in its promulgation.[67]
Three prophets, considered the last in Jewish tradition, were active during this period:Haggai,Zechariah, andMalachi.[68] After the death of the last Jewish prophet and while still under Persian rule, the leadership of theJewish people passed into the hands of five successive generations ofzugot (pairs) of leaders. They flourished firstunder the Persians and then under the Greeks. As a result, thePharisees andSadducees were formed. Under the Persians then under the Greeks, Jewish coins were minted in Judea asYehud coinage.[citation needed]
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In 332 BCE,Alexander the Great ofMacedon defeated the Persians. After Alexander's death and the division of his empire among his generals, theSeleucid Kingdom was formed.
The Alexandrian conquests spread Greek culture to the Levant. During this time, currents of Judaism were influenced byHellenistic philosophy developed from the 3rd century BCE, notably theJewish diaspora inAlexandria, culminating in the compilation of theSeptuagint. An important advocate of the symbiosis of Jewish theology and Hellenistic thought isPhilo.
Triggered by anti-Jewish decrees from Seleucid kingAntiochus IV Epiphanes and tensions between Hellenized and conservative Jews, theMaccabean Revolt erupted in Judea in 167 BCE under the leadership ofMattathias. His son,Judas Maccabeus, recaptured Jerusalem in 164 BCE, purifying the Second Temple and reinstating sacrificial worship.[69] The successful revolt eventually led to the formation of an independent Jewish state under theHasmonean dynasty, which lasted from 165 to 63 BCE.[70]
Initially governing as both political leaders and High Priests, theHasmoneans later assumed the title of kings. They employed military campaigns and diplomacy to consolidate power.[69] Under the rule ofAlexander Jannaeus andSalome Alexandra, the kingdom reached its zenith in size and influence. However, internal strife erupted between Salome Alexandra's sons,Hyrcanus II andAristobulus II, leading to civil war and appeals to Roman authorities for intervention. Responding to these appeals, Pompey led a Roman campaign of conquest and annexation, which marked the end of Hasmonean sovereignty and ushered in Roman rule over Judea.[71]
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Judea had been an independent Jewish kingdom under the Hasmoneans, but it wasconquered and reorganized as a client state by the Roman general Pompey in 63 BCE.Roman expansion was going on in other areas as well, and it would continue for more than a hundred and fifty years. Later,Herod the Great was appointed "King of the Jews" by theRoman Senate, supplanting the Hasmonean dynasty. Some of his offspring held various positions after him, known as theHerodian dynasty. Briefly, from 4 BCE to 6 CE,Herod Archelaus ruled thetetrarchy of Judea asethnarch, the Romans denying him the title of King.
After theCensus of Quirinius in 6 CE, theRoman province of Judaea was formed as a satellite ofRoman Syria under the rule of aprefect (as wasRoman Egypt) until 41 CE, thenprocurators after 44 CE. The empire was often callous and brutal in its treatment of its Jewish subjects, (seeAnti-Judaism in the pre-Christian Roman Empire). In 30 CE (or 33 CE),Jesus of Nazareth, an itinerantrabbi fromGalilee, and the central figure ofChristianity, was put to death bycrucifixion in Jerusalem under the Roman prefect ofJudaea,Pontius Pilate.[72]
For a short time Judea was reunited and semi-independent underAgrippa the Great who had good relations with both the Roman aristocracy and local Jewish citizens. After his death Judea was again annexed by Rome and his less popular sonHerod Agrippa II was made ethnarch.[73]
Roman oppressive rule, combined with economic, religious, and ethnic tensions, eventually led to the outbreak of theFirst Jewish–Roman War, also known as the Great Revolt, in 66 CE. Future emperorVespasian quelled the rebellion inGalilee by 67 CE, capturing key strongholds.[74] He was succeeded by his sonTitus, who led the brutalsiege of Jerusalem, culminating in the city's fall in 70 CE. The Romans burned Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple.[75][76] The Roman victory was celebrated with atriumph in Rome, showcasing Jewish artefacts like themenorah, which were then put on display in the newTemple of Peace.[77] The Flavian dynasty leveraged this victory for political gain, erecting monuments in Rome and mintingJudaea Capta coins.[78] The war concluded with thesiege of Masada (73–74 CE). The Jewish population suffered widespread devastation, with displacement, enslavement, and Roman confiscation of Jewish-owned land.[79]
The destruction of the Second Temple marked a cataclysmic event in Jewish history, triggering far-reaching transformations within Judaism.[80][81][82] With the central role of sacrificial worship obliterated, religious practices shifted towardsprayer,Torah study, and communal gatherings insynagogues. According to Rabbinic tradition, Yohanan ben Zakkai secured permission from the Romans to establish a center for Torah study inYavneh, which then served as a focal point for Jewish religious and cultural life for a generation.[83][84][85] Judaism also underwent a significant shift away from its sectarian divisions.[86][87] TheSadducees andEssenes, two prominent sects in the late Second Temple period, faded into obscurity,[82] while the traditions of thePharisees, including their halakhic interpretations, the centrality of theOral Torah, andbelief in resurrection became the foundation ofRabbinic Judaism.[83]
TheJewish diaspora existed well before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and had been ongoing for centuries, with the dispersal driven by both forced expulsions and voluntary migrations.[88][89] In Mesopotamia, a testimony to the beginnings of the Jewish community can be found inJoachin's ration tablets, listing provisions allotted to the exiled Judean king and his family byNebuchadnezzar II, and further evidence are theAl-Yahudu tablets, dated to the 6th-5th centuries BCE and related to the exiles from Judea arriving after the destruction of theFirst Temple,[90] though there is ample evidence for the presence of Jews in Babylonia even from 626 BCE.[91] In Egypt, thedocuments from Elephantine reveal the trials of a community founded by a Persian Jewish garrison at two fortresses on the frontier during the 5th-4th centuries BCE, and according toJosephus the Jewish community in Alexandria existed since the founding of the city in the 4th century BCE byAlexander the Great.[92] By 200 BCE, there were well established Jewish communities both in Egypt and Mesopotamia ("Babylonia" in Jewish sources) and in the two centuries that followed, Jewish populations were also present inAsia Minor,Greece,Macedonia,Cyrene, and, beginning in the middle of the 1st century BCE, in the city ofRome.[93][89]
In the first centuries CE, as a result of theJewish–Roman wars,[94] a large number of Jews were taken as captives, sold into slavery, or compelled to flee from the regions affected by the wars, contributing to the formation and expansion of Jewish communities across theRoman Empire as well as in Arabia and Mesopotamia. Jewish communities across Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and Egypt were almost entirely obliterated due to the harsh Roman response to the Diaspora Revolt.[95][96]
TheNew Testament Book ofActs, as well as otherPauline texts, make frequent reference to the large populations ofHellenized Jews in the cities of the Roman world. These Hellenized Jews were affected by the diaspora only in its spiritual sense, absorbing the feeling of loss and homelessness that became a cornerstone of the Jewish creed, much supported by persecutions in various parts of the world. Of critical importance to the reshaping of Jewish tradition from the Temple-based religion to the rabbinic traditions of the Diaspora, was the development of the interpretations of the Torah found in theMishnah andTalmud.
During theDiaspora Revolt (115–117 CE),Jewish diaspora communities across several eastern provinces of theRoman Empire engaged in widespread rebellion.[97] Driven by messianic fervor and hopes for theingathering of exiles and thereconstruction of the Temple, these communities may have sought to spark a broader movement possibly aimed at returning toJudea and rebuilding Jerusalem.[98][99][100] Ancient sources describe the revolt as extremely brutal, with cases of cannibalism and mutilation, though modern scholars often consider these accounts to be exaggerated.[97] The Roman suppression of the revolt was marked by severe measures, includingethnic cleansing, leading to the near-total destruction of Jewish diaspora communities inLibya,Cyprus andEgypt,[95][96] including the significant and influential community inAlexandria.[89][95]
From 132 to 136 CE, Judaea was the center of theBar Kokhba revolt, triggered by Hadrian's decision to establish the pagan colony ofAelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem.[101] Early successes led to the establishment of a short-lived Jewish state in Judea under the leadership ofSimon Bar Kokhba, styled asnasi or prince of Israel.[101] Therebel state's coinage proclaimed "Freedom of Israel" and "For the Freedom of Jerusalem", usingancient Hebrew script for nationalistic symbolism.[102][101] However, the Romans soon amassed six legions and additional auxiliaries underJulius Severus, who then brutally crushed the uprising. Historical accounts report the destruction of fifty major strongholds and 985 villages, resulting in 580,000 Jewish deaths and widespread famine and disease.[103] Archaeological research confirms the widespread destruction and depopulation of the Jewish heartland inJudea proper, where most of the Jewish population was either killed, sold into slavery, expelled, or forced to flee.[103][104][105] The Romans also suffered heavy losses.[102] Post-revolt, Jews were prohibited from entering Jerusalem, and Hadrian issued religious edicts,[106][107] including a ban on circumcision, later repealed byAntoninus Pius.[citation needed] The province of Judaea was renamedSyria Palaestina as a punitive act against the Jews, aimed at placating non-Jewish residents and erasing Jewish historical ties to the land.[101][108][109] Christians refused to participate in the revolt and from this point the Jews regarded Christianity as a separate religion.[110] The Jewish defeat marked the termination of efforts to reestablish a Jewish state until the modern era.[111]
A rabbi of this period,Simeon bar Yochai, is regarded as the author of theZohar, the foundational text for Kabbalistic thought. However, modern scholars believe it was written in Medieval Spain.[112]
The relations of the Jews with the Roman Empire in the region continued to be complicated.Constantine I allowed Jews to mourn their defeat and humiliation once a year onTisha B'Av at theWestern Wall. In 351–352 CE, the Jews of Galilee launchedyet another revolt, provoking heavy retribution.[113] The Gallus revolt came during the rising influence of early Christians in the Eastern Roman Empire, under theConstantinian dynasty. In 355, however, the relations with the Roman rulers improved, upon the rise of EmperorJulian, the last of the Constantinian dynasty, who unlike his predecessors defied Christianity. In 363, not long before Julian left Antioch to launch his campaign against Sasanian Persia, in keeping with his effort to foster religions other than Christianity, he ordered the Jewish Temple rebuilt.[114] The failure to rebuild the Temple has mostly been ascribed to the dramaticGalilee earthquake of 363 and traditionally also to the Jews' ambivalence about the project. Sabotage is a possibility, as is an accidental fire. Divine intervention was the common view among Christian historians of the time.[115] Julian's support of Jews caused Jews to call him "Julian theHellene".[116] Julian's fatal wound in the Persian campaign and his consequent death had put an end to Jewish aspirations, and Julian's successors embraced Christianity through the entire timeline of Byzantine rule of Jerusalem, preventing any Jewish claims.
In 438 CE, when the EmpressEudocia removed the ban on Jews' praying at theTemple site, the heads of the Community in Galilee issued a call "to the great and mighty people of the Jews" which began: "Know that the end of the exile of our people has come!" However, the Christian population of the city, who saw this as a threat to their primacy, did not allow it and a riot erupted after which they chased away the Jews from the city.[117][118]
During the 5th and the 6th centuries, a series ofSamaritan insurrections broke out across thePalaestina Prima province. Especially violent were the third and the fourth revolts, which resulted in almost the entire annihilation of the Samaritan community. It is likely that the SamaritanRevolt of 556 was joined by the Jewish community, which had also suffered a brutal suppression of Israelite religion.
In the belief of restoration to come, in the early 7th century the Jews made analliance with thePersians, who invaded Palaestina Prima in 614, fought at their side, overwhelmed theByzantine garrison in Jerusalem, and were given Jerusalem to be governed as an autonomy.[119] However, their autonomy was brief: theJewish leader in Jerusalem was shortly assassinated during a Christian revolt and though Jerusalem was reconquered by Persians and Jews within 3 weeks, it fell into anarchy. With the consequent withdrawal of Persian forces, Jews surrendered to Byzantines in 625 or 628 CE, but were massacred by Christian radicals in 629 CE, with the survivors fleeing to Egypt. The Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire) control of the region was finally lost to the Muslim Arab armies in 637 CE, whenUmar ibn al-Khattab completed the conquest of Akko.
After the fall of Jerusalem, Babylonia would become the focus of Judaism for more than a thousand years. The first Jewish communities in Babylonia started with the exile of the Tribe of Judah to Babylon byJehoiachin in 597 BCE as well as after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE.[94] Many more Jews migrated to Babylon in 135 CE after theBar Kokhba revolt and in the centuries after.[94] Babylonia, where some of the largest and most prominent Jewish cities and communities were established, became the centre of Jewish life up to the 13th century. By the 1st century, Babylonia already held a speedily growing[94] population of an estimated 1,000,000 Jews, which increased to an estimated 2 million[120] between the years 200 CE and 500 CE, both by natural growth and by immigration of more Jews from Judea, making up about 1/6 of the world Jewish population at that era.[120] It was there that they would write the Babylonian Talmud in the languages used by the Jews of ancient Babylonia:Hebrew andAramaic. The Jews establishedTalmudic Academies in Babylonia, also known as the Geonic Academies (from "Geonim", meaning "splendour" in Biblical Hebrew or "geniuses"), which became the centre for Jewish scholarship and the development of Jewish law in Babylonia from roughly 500 CE to 1038 CE. The two most famous academies were thePumbedita Academy and theSura Academy. Major yeshivot were also located atNehardea and Mahuza.[121] The TalmudicYeshiva Academies became a main part of Jewish culture and education, and Jews continued establishing Yeshiva Academies in Western and Eastern Europe, North Africa, and in later centuries, in America and other countries around the world where Jews lived in the Diaspora. Talmudic study in Yeshiva academies, most of them located in The United States and Israel, continues today.
These TalmudicYeshiva academies of Babylonia followed the era of theAmoraim (expounders)—the sages of the Talmud who were active (both in Judah and in Babylon) during the end of the era of the sealing of theMishnah and until the times of the sealing of the Talmud (220–500 CE), and following theSavoraim (reasoners)—the sages of beth midrash (Torah study places) in Babylon from the end of the era of the Amoraim (5th century) and until the beginning of the era of theGeonim. The Geonim were the presidents of the two great rabbinical colleges of Sura and Pumbedita, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of the worldwide Jewish community in the early medieval era, in contrast to theResh Galuta (Exilarch) who wielded secular authority over the Jews in Islamic lands. According to traditions, theResh Galuta were descendants of Judean kings, which is why the kings ofParthia would treat them with much honour.[122]
For the Jews of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the yeshivot of Babylonia served much the same function as the ancientSanhedrin—that is, as a council of Jewish religious authorities. The academies were founded in pre-Islamic Babylonia under the Zoroastrian Sassanid dynasty and were located not far from the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, which at that time was the largest city in the world. After the conquest of Persia in the 7th century, the academies subsequently operated for four hundred years under the Islamic caliphate. The first gaon of Sura, according toSherira Gaon, was Mar bar Rab Chanan, who assumed office in 609. The last gaon ofSura wasSamuel ben Hofni, who died in 1034; the last gaon of Pumbedita wasHezekiah Gaon, who was tortured to death in 1040; hence the activity of the Geonim covers a period of nearly 450 years.
One of principal seats of Babylonian Judaism wasNehardea, which was then a very large city made up mostly of Jews.[94] A very ancient synagogue, built, it was believed, by King Jehoiachin, existed in Nehardea. At Huzal, near Nehardea, there was another synagogue, not far from which could be seen the ruins of Ezra's academy. In the period before Hadrian, Akiba, on his arrival at Nehardea on a mission from the Sanhedrin, entered into a discussion with a resident scholar on a point of matrimonial law (Mishnah Yeb., end). At the same time there was at Nisibis (northernMesopotamia), an excellent Jewish college, at the head of which stoodJudah ben Bathyra, and in which many Judean scholars found refuge at the time of the persecutions. A certain temporary importance was also attained by a school atNehar-Pekod, founded by the Judean immigrant Hananiah, nephew ofJoshua ben Hananiah, which school might have been the cause of a schism between the Jews of Babylonia and those of Judea-Israel, had not the Judean authorities promptly checked Hananiah's ambition.
Jews were also widespread throughout the Roman Empire, and this carried on to a lesser extent in the period of Byzantine rule in the central and eastern Mediterranean. The militant and exclusive Christianity andcaesaropapism of theByzantine Empire did not treat Jews well, and the condition and influence of diaspora Jews in the Empire declined dramatically.
It was official Christian policy to convert Jews to Christianity, and the Christian leadership used the official power of Rome in their attempts. In 351 CE the Jews revolted against the added pressures of their governor,Constantius Gallus. Gallus put down the revolt and destroyed the major cities in the Galilee area where the revolt had started. Tzippori and Lydda (site of two of the major legal academies) never recovered.
In this period, the Nasi in Tiberias,Hillel II, created an official calendar, which needed no monthly sightings of the moon. The months were set, and the calendar needed no further authority from Judea. At about the same time, the Jewish academy at Tiberius began to collate the combined Mishnah,braitot, explanations, and interpretations developed by generations of scholars who studied after the death ofJudah HaNasi. The text was organized according to the order of the Mishna: each paragraph of Mishnah was followed by a compilation of all of the interpretations, stories, and responses associated with that Mishnah. This text is called theJerusalem Talmud.
The Jews of Judea received a brief respite from official persecution during the rule of the EmperorJulian the Apostate. Julian's policy was to return the Roman Empire to Hellenism, and he encouraged the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem. As Julian's rule lasted only from 361 to 363, the Jews could not rebuild sufficiently before Roman Christian rule was restored over the Empire. Beginning in 398 with the consecration ofSt. John Chrysostom asPatriarch, Christian rhetoric against Jews grew sharper; he preached sermons with titles such as "Against the Jews" and "On the Statues, Homily 17", in which John preaches against "the Jewish sickness".[123] Such heated language contributed to a climate of Christian distrust and hate toward the large Jewish settlements, such as those inAntioch andConstantinople.
In the beginning of the 5th century, theEmperor Theodosius issued a set of decrees establishing official persecution of Jews. Jews were not allowed to own slaves, build new synagogues, hold public office or try cases between a Jew and a non-Jew. Intermarriage between Jew and non-Jew was made a capital offence, as was the conversion of Christians to Judaism. Theodosius did away with theSanhedrin and abolished the post ofNasi. Under theEmperor Justinian, the authorities further restricted the civil rights of Jews,[124] and threatened their religious privileges.[125] The emperor interfered in the internal affairs of the synagogue,[126] and forbade, for instance, the use of the Hebrew language in divine worship. Those who disobeyed the restrictions were threatened with corporal penalties, exile, and loss of property. The Jews at Borium, not far from Syrtis Major, who resisted the Byzantine generalBelisarius in his campaign against theVandals, were forced to embrace Christianity, and their synagogue was converted to a church.[127]
Justinian and his successors had concerns outside the province of Judea, and he had insufficient troops to enforce these regulations. As a result, the 5th century was a period when a wave of new synagogues were built, many with beautiful mosaic floors. Jews adopted the rich art forms of the Byzantine culture. Jewish mosaics of the period portray people, animals, menorahs, zodiacs, and Biblical characters. Excellent examples of these synagogue floors have been found at Beit Alpha (which includes the scene of Abraham sacrificing a ram instead of his son Isaac along with a zodiac), Tiberius, Beit Shean, and Tzippori.
The precarious existence of Jews under Byzantine rule did not long endure, largely due to the explosion of the Muslim religion out of the remote Arabian peninsula (where large populations of Jews resided, seeHistory of the Jews under Muslim Rule for more). TheMuslimCaliphate ejected the Byzantines from the Holy Land (or the Levant, defined as modern Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) within a few years of their victory at theBattle of Yarmouk in 636. Numerous Jews fled the remaining Byzantine territories in favour of residence in the Caliphate over the subsequent centuries.
The size of the Jewish community in the Byzantine Empire was not affected by attempts by some emperors to forcibly convert the Jews of Anatolia to Christianity, as these attempts met with very little success.[128] Historians continue to research the status of the Jews in Asia Minor under Byzantine rule. (for a sample of views, see, for instance, J. StarrThe Jews in the Byzantine Empire, 641–1204; S. Bowman,The Jews of Byzantium; R. JenkinsByzantium; Averil Cameron, "Byzantines and Jews: Recent Work on Early Byzantium",Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 20 (1996)). No systematic persecution of the type endemic at that time in Western Europe (pogroms, the stake, massexpulsions, etc.) has been recorded in Byzantium.[129] Much of the Jewish population of Constantinople remained in place after the conquest of the city byMehmet II.[citation needed]
Cochin Jewish tradition holds that the roots of their community go back to the arrival of Jews atShingly in 72 CE, after theDestruction of the Second Temple. It also states that a Jewish kingdom, understood to mean the granting of autonomy by a local king, Cheraman Perumal, to the community, under their leader Joseph Rabban, in 379 CE. The first synagogue there was built in 1568. The legend of the founding of IndianChristianity in Kerala byThomas the Apostle relates that on his arrival there, he encountered a local girl who understood Hebrew.[130]
Perhaps in the 4th century, theKingdom of Semien, a Jewish nation in modernEthiopia was established, lasting until the 17th century.[131]
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In 638 CE the Byzantine Empire lost control of the Levant. The ArabIslamic Empire underCaliph Umar conquered Jerusalem and the lands ofMesopotamia,Syria, Palestine and Egypt. As a political system, Islam created radically new conditions for Jewish economic, social, and intellectual development.[133] Umar permitted the Jews to reestablish their presence in Jerusalem–after a lapse of 500 years.[134] Jewish tradition regards Umar as a benevolent ruler and the Midrash (Nistarot de-Rav Shimon bar Yoḥai) refers to him as a "friend of Israel".[134]
According to the Arab geographeral-Maqdisi, the Jews worked as "the assayers of coins, the dyers, the tanners and the bankers in the community".[135] During theFatimid period, many Jewish officials served in the regime.[135] ProfessorMoshe Gil believes that at the time of the Arab conquest in the 7th century, the majority of the population was Christian and Jewish.[136]
During this time Jews lived in thriving communities all across ancient Babylonia. In the Geonic period (650–1250 CE), the Babylonian Yeshiva Academies were the chief centres of Jewish learning; theGeonim (meaning either "Splendor" or "Geniuses"), who were the heads of these schools, were recognized as the highest authorities in Jewish law.
In the 7th century, the new Muslim rulers institute thekharaj land tax, which led to mass migration of Babylonian Jews from the countryside to cities likeBaghdad. This in turn led to greater wealth and international influence, as well as a more cosmopolitan outlook from Jewish thinkers such asSaadiah Gaon, who now deeply engaged with Western philosophy for the first time. When theAbbasid Caliphate and the city of Baghdad declined in the 10th century, many Babylonian Jews migrated to the Mediterranean region, contributing to the spread of Babylonian Jewish customs throughout the Jewish world.[137]
The golden age of Jewish culture in Spain coincided with theMiddle Ages in Europe, a period ofMuslim rule throughout much of theIberian Peninsula. During that time, Jews were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life blossomed.
A period of tolerance thus dawned for the Jews of theIberian Peninsula, whose number was considerably augmented by immigration from Africa in the wake of the Muslim conquest. Especially after 912, during the reign ofAbd-ar-Rahman III and his son,al-Hakam II, the Jews prospered, devoting themselves to the service of theCaliphate of Córdoba, to the study of the sciences, and to commerce and industry, especially to trading in silk and slaves, in this way promoting the prosperity of the country. Jewish economic expansion was unparalleled. InToledo, Jews were involved in translating Arabic texts to theRomance languages, as well as translating Greek and Hebrew texts into Arabic. Jews also contributed to botany, geography, medicine, mathematics, poetry and philosophy.[138][139] According toBernard Lewis:
Generally, the Jewish people were allowed to practice their religion and live according to the laws and scriptures of their community. Furthermore, the restrictions to which they were subject were social and symbolic rather than tangible and practical in character. That is to say, these regulations served to define the relationship between the two communities, and not to oppress the Jewish population.[140]
'Abd al-Rahman's court physician and minister was Hasdai ben Isaac ibn Shaprut, the patron of Menahem ben Saruq, Dunash ben Labrat, and other Jewish scholars and poets. Jewish thought during this period flourished under famous figures such as Samuel Ha-Nagid, Moses ibn Ezra, Solomon ibn GabirolJudah Halevi andMoses Maimonides.[138] During 'Abd al-Rahman's term of power, the scholarMoses ben Enoch was appointedrabbi ofCórdoba, and as a consequenceal-Andalus became the centre of Talmudic study, andCórdoba the meeting-place of Jewish savants.
The Golden Age ended with the invasion of al-Andalus by theAlmohads, a conservative dynasty originating in North Africa, who were highly intolerant of religious minorities.
Sermonical messages to avenge the death of Jesus encouraged Christians to participate in the Crusades. The 12th-century Jewish narration from R. Solomon ben Samson records that crusaders en route to the Holy Land decided that before combating the Ishmaelites they would massacre the Jews residing in their midst to avenge thecrucifixion of Christ. The massacres began atRouen and Jewish communities inRhine Valley were seriously affected.[141]
Crusading attacks were made upon Jews in the territory around Heidelberg. A huge loss of Jewish life took place. Many were forcibly converted to Christianity and many committed suicide to avoid baptism. A major driving factor behind the choice to commit suicide was the Jewish realisation that upon being slain their children could be taken to be raised as Christians. The Jews were living in the middle of Christian lands and felt this danger acutely.[142] This massacre is seen as the first in a sequence of antisemitic events which culminated in the Holocaust.[143] Jewish populations felt that they had been abandoned by their Christian neighbours and rulers during the massacres and lost faith in all promises and charters.[144]
Many Jews chose self-defence. But their means of self-defence were limited and their casualties only increased. Most of the forced conversions proved ineffective. Many Jews reverted to their original faith later. The pope protested this but Emperor Henry IV agreed to permitting these reversions.[141] The massacres began a new epoch for Jewry in Christendom. The Jews had preserved their faith from social pressure, now they had to preserve it at sword point. The massacres during the crusades strengthened Jewry from within spiritually. The Jewish perspective was that their struggle was Israel's struggle to hallow the name of God.[145]
In 1099, Jews helped the Arabs to defend Jerusalem against theCrusaders. When the city fell, the Crusaders gathered many Jews in a synagogue and set it on fire.[141] In Haifa, the Jews almost single-handedly defended the town against the Crusaders, holding out for a month, (June–July 1099).[135] At this time there were Jewish communities scattered all over the country, including Jerusalem, Tiberias, Ramleh, Ashkelon, Caesarea, andGaza. As Jews were not allowed to hold land during the Crusader period, they worked at trades and commerce in the coastal towns during times of quiescence. Most were artisans: glassblowers inSidon, furriers and dyers in Jerusalem.[135]
During this period, theMasoretes of Tiberias established theniqqud, a system ofdiacritics used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of theHebrew alphabet. Numerouspiyutim andmidrashim were recorded in Palestine at this time.[135]
Maimonides wrote that in 1165 he visited Jerusalem and went to the Temple Mount, where he prayed in the "great, holy house".[146] Maimonides established a yearly holiday for himself and his sons, the 6th ofCheshvan, commemorating the day he went up to pray on the Temple Mount, and another, the 9th of Cheshvan, commemorating the day he merited to pray at theCave of the Patriarchs inHebron.
In 1141Yehuda Halevi issued a call to Jews to emigrate to Palestine and took on the long journey himself. After a stormy passage fromCórdoba, he arrived in EgyptianAlexandria, where he was enthusiastically greeted by friends and admirers. AtDamietta, he had to struggle against his heart, and the pleadings of his friend Ḥalfon ha-Levi, that he remain in Egypt, where he would be free from intolerant oppression. He started on the rough route overland. He was met along the way by Jews inTyre andDamascus. Jewish legend relates that as he came near Jerusalem, overpowered by the sight of the Holy City, he sang his most beautiful elegy, the celebrated "Zionide" (Zion ha-lo Tish'ali). At that instant, an Arab had galloped out of a gate and rode him down; he was killed in the accident.[citation needed]
Nahmanides is recorded as settling in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1267. He moved toAcre, where he was active in spreading Jewish learning, which was at that time neglected in the Holy Land. He gathered a circle of pupils around him, and people came in crowds, even from the district of the Euphrates, to hear him.Karaites were said to have attended his lectures, among them Aaron ben Joseph the Elder. He later became one of the greatestKaraite authorities. Shortly after Nahmanides' arrival in Jerusalem, he addressed a letter to his son Nahman, in which he described the desolation of the Holy City. At the time, it had only two Jewish inhabitants—two brothers, dyers by trade. In a later letter from Acre, Nahmanides counsels his son to cultivate humility, which he considers to be the first of virtues. In another, addressed to his second son, who occupied an official position at theCastilian court, Nahmanides recommends the recitation of the daily prayers and warns above all against immorality. Nahmanides died after reaching seventy-six, and his remains were interred atHaifa, by the grave ofYechiel of Paris.
Yechiel hademigrated to Acre in 1260, along with his son and a large group of followers.[147][148] There he established the Talmudic academyMidrash haGadol d'Paris.[149] He is believed to have died there between 1265 and 1268. In 1488Obadiah ben Abraham, commentator on theMishnah, arrived in Jerusalem; this marked a new period of return for the Jewish community in the land.
During the Middle Ages, Jews were generally better treated by Islamic rulers than Christian ones. Despite second-class citizenship, Jews played prominent roles in Muslim courts, and experienced a Golden Age inMoorish Spain about 900–1100, though the situation deteriorated after that time. Riots resulting in the deaths of Jews did however occur in North Africa through the centuries and especially inMorocco,Libya andAlgeria, where eventually Jews were forced to live in ghettos.[151]
During the 11th century, Muslims in Spain conducted pogroms against the Jews; those occurred in Cordoba in 1011 and inGranada in 1066.[152] During the Middle Ages, the governments of Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen enacted decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues. At certain times, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in some parts of Yemen, Morocco andBaghdad.[153][better source needed] TheAlmohads, who had taken control of much of Islamic Iberia by 1172, surpassed theAlmoravides in fundamentalist outlook. They treated thedhimmis harshly. They expelled both Jews and Christians from Morocco and Islamic Spain. Faced with the choice of death or conversion, many Jews emigrated.[154] Some, such as the family ofMaimonides, fled south and east to more tolerant Muslim lands, while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.[155][156][better source needed]
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According toJames P. Carrol, "Jews accounted for 10% of the total population of the Roman Empire. By that ratio, if other factors had not intervened, there would be 200 million Jews in the world today, instead of something like 13 million."[158]
Jewish populations have existed in Europe, especially in the area of the former Roman Empire, from very early times. As Jewish males had emigrated, some sometimes took wives from local populations, as is shown by the variousMtDNA, compared toY-DNA among Jewish populations.[159] These groups were joined by traders and later on by members of the diaspora.[citation needed] Records of Jewish communities in France (seeHistory of the Jews in France) and Germany (seeHistory of the Jews in Germany) date from the 4th century, and substantial Jewish communities in Spain were noted even earlier.[citation needed]
The historianNorman Cantor and other 20th-century scholars dispute the tradition that the Middle Ages was a uniformly difficult time for Jews. Before the Church became fully organized as an institution with an increasing array of rules, early medieval society was tolerant. Between 800 and 1100, an estimated 1.5 million Jews lived in Christian Europe. As they were not Christians, they were not included as adivision of the feudal system of clergy, knights and serfs. This means that they did not have to satisfy the oppressive demands for labour and military conscription that Christian commoners suffered. In relations with the Christian society, the Jews were protected by kings, princes and bishops, because of the crucial services they provided in three areas: finance, administration and medicine.[160] The lack of political strengths did leave Jews vulnerable to exploitation through extreme taxation.[161]
Christian scholars interested in the Bible consulted with Talmudic rabbis. As the Roman Catholic Church strengthened as an institution, the Franciscan and Dominican preaching orders were founded, and there was a rise of competitive middle-class, town-dwelling Christians. By 1300, the friars and local priests staged the Passion Plays during Holy Week, which depicted Jews (in contemporary dress) killing Christ, according to Gospel accounts. From this period, persecution of Jews and deportations became endemic. Around 1500, Jews found relative security and a renewal of prosperity in present-dayPoland.[160]
After 1300, Jews suffered more discrimination and persecution in Christian Europe. Europe's Jewry was mainly urban and literate. The Christians were inclined to regard Jews as obstinate deniers of the truth because in their view the Jews were expected to know of the truth of the Christian doctrines from their knowledge of the Jewish scriptures. Jews were aware of the pressure to accept Christianity.[162] As Catholics were forbidden by the church to loan money for interest, some Jews became prominent moneylenders. Christian rulers gradually saw the advantage of having such a class of people who could supply capital for their use without being liable to excommunication. As a result, the money trade of western Europe became a speciality of the Jews. But, in almost every instance when Jews acquired large amounts through banking transactions, during their lives or upon their deaths, the king would take it over.[163] Jews became imperial"servi cameræ", the property of the King, who might present them and their possessions to princes or cities.
Jews were frequently massacred and exiled from various European countries. The persecution hit its first peak during theCrusades. In thePeople's Crusade (1096) flourishing Jewish communities on the Rhine and the Danube were utterly destroyed. In theSecond Crusade (1147) the Jews in France were subject to frequent massacres. They were also subjected to attacks by theShepherds' Crusades of 1251 and1320. The Crusades were followed by massive expulsions, including theexpulsion of the Jews from England in 1290;[164] in 1396 100,000 Jews were expelled from France; and in 1421, thousands were expelled from Austria. Over this time many Jews in Europe, either fleeing or being expelled, migrated to Poland, where they prospered into anotherGolden Age.
In Italy, Jews were allowed to live in Venice but were required to live in aghetto, and the practice spread across Italy (seeCum nimis absurdum) and was adopted in many places in Catholic Europe. Jews outside the Ghetto often had to wear a yellow star.[165][166]
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Significant repression of Spain's numerous community occurred during the 14th century, notably amajor pogrom in 1391 which resulted in the majority of Spain's 300,000 Jews converting to Catholicism. With theconquest of the Muslim Kingdom of Granada in 1492, the Catholic monarchs issued theAlhambra Decree, and Spain's remaining 100,000 Jews were forced to choose between conversion and exile. The expulsion of the Jews of Spain, is regarded by Jews as the worst catastrophe between the destruction of Jerusalem in 73 CE and theHolocaust of the 1940s.[167]
As a result, an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Jews left Spain, the remainder joining Spain's already numerousConverso community. Perhaps a quarter of a million Conversos thus were gradually absorbed by the dominant Catholic culture, although those among them who secretly practised Judaism were subject to 40 years of intense repression by theSpanish Inquisition. This was particularly the case up until 1530, after which the trials of Conversos by the Inquisition dropped to 3% of the total. Similar expulsions of Sephardic Jews occurred 1493 inSicily (37,000 Jews) and Portugal in 1496. The expelled Spanish Jews fled mainly to the Ottoman Empire and North Africa and Portugal. A small number also settled in Holland and England.
The expulsion followed a long process of expulsions and bans from what are now England, France, Germany, Austria, and Holland. In January 1492, thelast Muslim state was defeated in Spain and six months later the Jews of Spain (the largest community in the world) were required toconvert or leave without their property. 100,000 converted with many continuing tosecretly practice Judaism, for which the Catholic church's inquisition (led byTomás de Torquemada) now mandated a sentence of death by public burning. 175,000 left Spain.[168]
ManySpanish Jews moved to North Africa,Poland and the Ottoman Empire, especiallyThessaloniki (now in Greece) which became the world's largest Jewish city. Some groups headed to the Middle East and Palestine, within the domains of the Ottoman Empire. About 100,000 Spanish Jews were allowed into Portugal, however five years later, their children were seized and they were given the choice of conversion or departing without them.[169]
Historians who study modern Jewry have identified four different paths by which European Jews were "modernized" and thus integrated into the mainstream of European society. A common approach has been to view the process through the lens of the EuropeanEnlightenment as Jews faced the promise and the challenges posed by political emancipation. Scholars that use this approach have focused on two social types as paradigms for the decline of Jewish tradition and as agents of the sea changes in Jewish culture that led to the collapse of theghetto. The first of these two social types is theCourt Jew who is portrayed as a forerunner of the modern Jew, having achieved integration with and participation in the proto-capitalist economy and court society of central European states such as theHabsburg Empire. In contrast to the cosmopolitan Court Jew, the second social type presented by historians of modern Jewry is themaskil, (learned person), a proponent of theHaskalah (Enlightenment). This narrative sees the maskil's pursuit of secular scholarship and his rationalistic critiques of rabbinic tradition as laying a durable intellectual foundation for the secularization of Jewish society and culture. The established paradigm has been one in which Ashkenazic Jews entered modernity through a self-conscious process of westernization led by "highly atypical, Germanized Jewish intellectuals". Haskalah gave birth to the Reform and Conservative movements and planted the seeds ofZionism while at the same time encouraging cultural assimilation into the countries in which Jews resided.[170]At around the same time that Haskalah was developing,Hasidic Judaism was spreading as a movement that preached a world view nearly opposed to the Haskalah.
In the 1990s, the concept of the "Port Jew" has been suggested as an "alternate path to modernity" that was distinct from the EuropeanHaskalah. In contrast to the focus on Ashkenazic Germanized Jews, the concept of thePort Jew focused on the Sephardi conversos who fled the Inquisition and resettled in European port towns on the coast of the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Eastern seaboard of the United States.[171]
Court Jews were Jewish bankers or businessmen who lent money and handled the finances of some of the Christian European noble houses. Corresponding historical terms areJewish bailiff andshtadlan.
Examples of what would be later called court Jews emerged when local rulers used services of Jewish bankers for short-term loans. They lent money to nobles and in the process gained social influence. Noble patrons of court Jews employed them as financiers, suppliers, diplomats andtrade delegates. Court Jews could use their family connections, and connections between each other, to provision their sponsors with, among other things, food, arms, ammunition and precious metals. In return for their services, court Jews gained social privileges, including up to noble status for themselves, and could live outside the Jewish ghettos. Some nobles wanted to keep their bankers in their own courts. And because they were under noble protection, they were exempted from rabbinical jurisdiction.
From medieval times, court Jews could amass personal fortunes and gained political and social influence. Sometimes they were also prominent people in the local Jewish community and could use their influence to protect and influence their brethren. Sometimes they were the only Jews who could interact with the local high society and present petitions of the Jews to the ruler. However, the court Jew had social connections and influence in the Christian world mainly through his Christian patrons. Due to the precarious position of Jews, some nobles could just ignore their debts. If the sponsoring noble died, his Jewish financier could face exile or execution.[citation needed]
ThePort Jew is a descriptive term for Jews who were involved in the seafaring and maritime economy of Europe, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries. Helen Fry suggests that they can be considered "the earliest modern Jews". According to Fry, Port Jews frequently arrived as "refugees from the Inquisition" and the expulsion of Jews from Iberia. They were allowed to settle in port cities because merchants granted them permission to trade in ports such as Amsterdam, London, Trieste and Hamburg. Fry notes that their connections to theJewish Diaspora and their expertise in maritime trade made them particularly valuable to the mercantilist governments of Europe.[171] Lois Dubin describes Port Jews as Jewish merchants who were "valued for their engagement in the international maritime trade upon which such cities thrived".[172] Sorkin and others have characterized the socio-cultural profile of these men as marked by a flexibility towards religion and a "reluctant cosmopolitanism that was alien to both traditional and 'enlightened' Jewish identities".
From the 16th to the 18th century, Jewish merchants dominated the chocolate and vanilla trade, exporting to Jewish centres across Europe, mainly Amsterdam, Bayonne, Bordeaux, Hamburg and Livorno.[173]
During the Classical Ottoman period (1300–1600), the Jews, together with most other communities of the empire, enjoyed a certain level of prosperity. Compared with other Ottoman subjects, they were the predominant power in commerce and trade as well in diplomacy and other high offices. In the 16th century especially, the Jews were the most prominent under themillets', the apogee of Jewish influence could arguably be the appointment ofJoseph Nasi toSanjak-bey (governor, a rank usually only held by Muslims) of the island ofNaxos.[174]
At the time of theBattle of Yarmuk when the Levant passed under Muslim Rule, thirty Jewish communities existed in Haifa, Sh'chem, Hebron, Ramleh, Gaza, Jerusalem, and many in the north. Safed became a spiritual centre for the Jews and theShulchan Aruch was compiled there as well as many Kabbalistic texts. The first Hebrew printing press, and the first printing in Western Asia began in 1577.
Jews lived in the geographic area of Asia Minor (modern Turkey, but more geographically either Anatolia or Asia Minor) for more than 2,400 years. Initial prosperity in Hellenistic times had faded under Christian Byzantine rule, but recovered somewhat under the rule of the various Muslim governments that displaced and succeeded rule from Constantinople. For much of the Ottoman period, Turkey was a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution, and it continues to have a small Jewish population today. The situation where Jews both enjoyed cultural and economical prosperity at times but were widely persecuted at other times was summarised by G. E. Von Grunebaum:
It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizeable number of Jewish subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have attained to high rank, to power, to great financial influence, to significant and recognized intellectual attainment; and the same could be done for Christians. But it would again not be difficult to compile a lengthy list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted forced conversions, or pogroms.[175]
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In the 17th century, there were many significant Jewish populations in Western and Central Europe. The relatively tolerant Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe that dated back to the 13th century, and enjoyed relative prosperity and freedom for nearly four hundred years. However, the calm situation ended when Polish and Lithuanian Jews of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands by Ukrainian Cossacks during theKhmelnytsky Uprising (1648) and by theSwedish wars (1655). Driven by these and other persecutions, some Jews moved back to Western Europe in the 17th century, notably toAmsterdam. The last ban on Jewish residency in a European nation was revoked in 1654, but periodic expulsions from individual cities still occurred, and Jews were often restricted from land ownership, or forced to live inghettos.
With thePartitions of Poland in the late 18th century, the Polish-Jewish population was split between theRussian Empire,Austria-Hungary, and GermanPrussia, which divided Poland among themselves.
During the period of theEuropean Renaissance and Enlightenment, significant changes occurred within the Jewish community. TheHaskalah movement paralleled the wider Enlightenment, as Jews in the 18th century began to campaign for emancipation from restrictive laws and integration into the wider European society. Secular and scientific education was added to the traditional religious instruction received by students, and interest in a national Jewish identity, including a revival in the study of Jewish history and Hebrew, started to grow. Among the prominient Haskalah intellectuals wereMoses Mendelssohn,Naphtali Hirz Wessely,Isaac Satanow andIsaac Euchel.
Haskalah gave birth to theReform andConservative movements in Judaism and planted the seeds ofZionism while at the same time encouraging cultural assimilation into the countries in which Jews resided.
At around the same time another movement was born, one preaching almost the opposite of Haskalah,Hasidic Judaism. Hasidic Judaism began in the 18th century byRabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, and quickly gained a following with its more exuberant, mystical approach to religion. These two movements, and the traditional orthodox approach to Judaism from which they spring, formed the basis for the modern divisions within Jewish observance.
At the same time, the outside world was changing, and debates began over the potential emancipation of the Jews (granting them equal rights). The first country to do so was France, during theFrench Revolution in 1789. Even so, Jews were expected to assimilate, not continue their traditions. This ambivalence is demonstrated in the famous speech ofClermont-Tonnerre before theNational Assembly in 1789:
We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation and accord everything to Jews as individuals. We must withdraw recognition from their judges; they should only have our judges. We must refuse legal protection to the maintenance of the so-called laws of their Judaic organization; they should not be allowed to form in the state either a political body or an order. They must be citizens individually. But, some will say to me, they do not want to be citizens. Well then! If they do not want to be citizens, they should say so, and then, we should banish them. It is repugnant to have in the state an association of non-citizens, and a nation within the nation...
Hasidic Judaism is a branch ofOrthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalization ofJewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of theJewish faith. Hasidism comprises part of contemporaryUltra-Orthodox Judaism, alongside the previous TalmudicLithuanian-Yeshiva approach and the OrientalSephardi tradition. It was founded in 18th-century Eastern Europe by Rabbi IsraelBaal Shem Tov as a reaction against overlylegalistic Judaism. Opposite to this, Hasidic teachings cherished the sincerity and concealed holiness of the unlettered common folk, and their equality with the scholarly elite. The emphasis on theImmanent Divine presence in everything gave new value to prayer and deeds of kindness, alongside Rabbinic supremacy ofstudy, and replaced historicalmystical (kabbalistic) andethical (musar)asceticism andadmonishment with optimism, encouragement, and dailyfervour. This populist emotional revival accompanied the elite ideal of nullification to paradoxical DivinePanentheism, through intellectual articulation of inner dimensions of mystical thought. The adjustment of Jewish values sought to add to required standards of ritualobservance, while relaxing others where inspiration predominated. Its communal gatherings celebrate soulfulsong andstorytelling as forms of mystical devotion.[citation needed]
Though persecution still existed,Jewish emancipation spread throughout Europe in the 19th century.Napoleon invited Jews to leave theJewish ghettos in Europe and seek refuge in the newly created tolerant political regimes that offered equality under Napoleonic Law (seeNapoleon and the Jews). Gradually all European nations established in constitutions the principle of equality under the law and abolished all restrictions for Jews.[176][177][178][179]
Jews now could own land, enter the civil servicу. The abolition of restraints on political activism and the broadening of the electoral franchise on the basis of citizenship, not religion, made Jews most visible amongliberal,radical, andMarxist (Social Democratic) political parties.[176]
For centuries, so-calledcourt Jews acted as the principal financiers for the European aristocracys. In the 1760s, one of them,Mayer Amschel Rothschild, established a banking business in Germany that eventually became a vast international conglomerate and yield one of the largest family fortunes in world history. Thus the name of theRothschilds became synonymous with Jewish financial power. Across Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, other Jews also created a number of influential banks.[180]
The most important branch of Jewish economic life in Eastern Europe was trade. While most remained small shopkeepers, stallholders, and peddlers, others became owners of department stores and shopping arcades. During the 19th century Jews began to move from rural regions to cities, this contributed to the decline of traditional Jewish tavernkeeping. Jews made up a considerable proportion of all craftsmen in theRussian Empire andGalicia during the 19th century, but with the spread of industrialization large factories tended to squeeze out small Jewish-run workshops, and only limited numbers of Jews became employees in these modern factories. Jews were considered less desirable employees since they did not want to work on Saturdays and tended to organize into unions to demand improved working conditions, the foundation of theBund in the Russian Empire in 1897 strengthened this process.[181]
The economic achivements of Jews in the 19th century created the impression for some that Jews were being overrepresented in such lucrative occupations as finance, banking, trade, industry, medicine, law, journalism, art, music, literature, and theater. Despite increasing integration of the Jews with secular society, a new form ofantisemitism emerged,based on the ideas of race and nationhood rather than the religious hatred of the Middle Ages. This form of antisemitism held that Jews were a separate and inferior race from theAryan people of Western Europe, and led to the emergence of political parties in France, Germany, andAustria-Hungary that campaigned on a platform of rolling back emancipation. This form of antisemitism emerged frequently in European culture, most famously in theDreyfus Trial in France.[176][182][183]
During this period, Jewish migration to the United States (seeAmerican Jews) created a large new community mostly freed of the restrictions of Europe. Over 2 million Jews arrived in the United States between 1890 and 1924, most from the Russian Empire and Galicia. A similar case occurred in the southern tip of the continent, specifically in the countries ofArgentina andUruguay.
During the 1870s and 1880s, the Jewish population in Europe began to more actively discuss emigration toOttoman Syria with the aim of re-establishing a Jewish polity inPalestine and fulfilling the biblical prophecies related toShivat Tzion. In 1882 the first Zionist settlement—Rishon LeZion—was founded by immigrants who belonged to the "Hovevei Zion" movement. Later on, the "Bilu" movement established many other settlements in Palestine.
The Zionist movement was officially founded after theKattowitz convention (1884) and theWorld Zionist Congress (1897), and it wasTheodor Herzl who initiated the struggle to establish a state for the Jews.
After theFirst World War, it seemed that the conditions that made it possible for the Jews to establish such a state had arrived: The United Kingdom capturedPalestine from the Ottoman Empire, and the Jews received the promise of a "National Home" from the British in the form of theBalfour Declaration of 1917, given toChaim Weizmann.
In 1920, the British Mandate of Palestine was established and the pro-JewishHerbert Samuel was appointed High Commissioner of Palestine, theHebrew University of Jerusalem was established and several large Jewish immigration waves to Palestine occurred. The Arab inhabitants of Palestine grew hostile to increasing Jewish immigration, and as a result, they began to express their opposition to the establishment of Jewish settlements and the pro-Jewish policy of the British government.
New Jewish immigrants began to create militias and paramilitary groups such as theBar-Giora andHashomer.
Clashes between Jews and Arabs became more frequent. After the1920 Nebi Musa riots, the Jewish leadership in Palestine believed that the British had little desire to involve themselves in these clashes and maintain order. Believing that they could not rely on the British administration for protection, the Jewish leadership created theHaganah andIrgun paramilitary organizations in order to protect its community's farms andKibbutzim.
These paramilitary organization were involved in major riots, such as theJaffa riots,1929 Palestine riots and the1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. Arabs, Jews and Britons suffered in this violence.
Due to the increasing violence, the United Kingdom gradually started to backtrack from its original idea of supporting the establishment of a Jewish homeland and it also started to speculate on abinational solution to the crisis or the establishment of an Arab state that would have a Jewish minority.
The World War I and subsequent political changes, such as theRussian Revolution of 1917 and the establishment of new nation-states after 1918, led to far-reaching consequenсes for the Jews of Eastern Europe. The authorities of theSoviet Union viewed private commerce as negative and sought to bring all trade under the aegis of state enterprises. Therefore, many Jews, who had previously made their living from trade, were forced to find other occupations. In Poland, Hungary, and Romania, the authorities adopted policies aimed at ethnicizing their national economies, aiming to exclude Jews as far as possible from the marketplace.[181]
Nevertheless, the Jews of Europe and the United States gained success in the fields of science, culture and the economy. In Austria in the years between the two World Wars Jews were approximately 3.5% of the population but were 27.3% of university professors. In Germany between 1918 and 1933 Jews were 0.78% of the population but were 16% of the doctors, 15% of the dentists, 25% of the lawyers, 50% of the theatre directors and occupied 80% of the leading positions in theBerlin stock exchange. In Poland in 1931 Jews were 10.2% of the population but were 56% of the doctors in private practice, 33% of the lawyers, and 24% of the pharmacists. In Russia during the period 1917–1939 Jews were approximately 1.8% of the population, while Jews were 9% of the officers in military academies, 15% of the university graduates, 11% of the doctors and 14% of the university professors.[185]
Among those Jews who were generally considered the most famous were the scientistAlbert Einstein and the philosopherLudwig Wittgenstein. At that time, a disproportionate number ofNobel Prize winners were Jewish, as is still the case.[16]
In 1933, withAdolf Hitler and theNazi Party's rise to power in Germany, the Jewish situation became more severe.Economic crises,racial Anti-Jewish laws, and fear of an upcoming war led many Jews to flee from Europe and settle inPalestine, the United States and the Soviet Union.
In 1939,World War II began and until 1945,Germany occupied almost all of Europe, includingPoland—where millions of Jews were living at that time—andFrance. In 1941, following theinvasion of the Soviet Union, theFinal Solution began, an extensive organized operation on an unprecedented scale, aimed at the annihilation of the Jewish people, and resulting in the persecution and murder of Jews in Europe, as well as Jews in European North Africa (pro-NaziVichy-North Africa andItalian Libya). Thisgenocide, in which approximately six million Jews were methodically murdered with horrifying cruelty, is known asThe Holocaust or theShoah (Hebrew term). In Poland, as many as one million Jews were murdered ingas chambers at theAuschwitz camp complex.
The massive scale of the Holocaust, and the horrors that happened during it, were only understood after the war, and they heavily affected the Jewish nation and world public opinion. Efforts were then increased to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.
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In 1945 the Jewish resistance organizations in Palestine unified and established the Jewish Resistance Movement. The movement began guerrilla attacks against Arab paramilitaries and the British authorities.[186][better source needed] Following theKing David Hotel bombing,Chaim Weizmann, president of theWZO appealed to the movement to cease all further military activity until a decision would be reached by theJewish Agency. The Jewish Agency backed Weizmann's recommendation to cease activities, a decision reluctantly accepted by the Haganah, but not by theIrgun andLehi. The JRM was dismantled and each of the founding groups continued operating according to their own policy.[187]
The Jewish leadership decided to centre the struggle in the illegal immigration to Palestine and began organizing a massive number of Jewish war refugees from Europe, without the approval of the British authorities. This immigration contributed a great deal to the Jewish settlements in Israel in the world public opinion and the British authorities decided to let the United Nations decide upon the fate of Palestine.[citation needed]
On November 29, 1947, theUnited Nations General Assembly adoptedResolution 181(II) recommending partitioning Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state and the City of Jerusalem. The Jewish leadership accepted the decision but the Arab League and the leadership of Palestinian Arabs opposed it. Following a period ofcivil war the1948 Arab–Israeli War started.[citation needed]
In the middle of the war, after the last British soldiers of the Palestine Mandate left, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed on May 14, 1948, the establishment of aJewish state inEretz Israel to be known as theState of Israel. The war ended in 1949 and Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world, notablyArab countries.
Since 1948, Israel has been involved in a series of major military conflicts, including the 1956Suez Crisis, 1967Six-Day War, 1973Yom Kippur War,1982 Lebanon War, and2006 Lebanon War, as well as a nearly constant series ofongoing minor conflicts.
Since 1977, an ongoing and largely unsuccessful series of diplomatic efforts have been initiated by Israel, Palestinian organizations, their neighbours, and other parties, including the United States and the European Union, to bring about apeace process to resolve conflicts between Israel and its neighbours, mostly over the fate of the Palestinian people.
Israel is aparliamentary democracy with a population of over 8 million people, of whom about 6 million areJewish. The largest Jewish communities are in Israel and theUnited States, with major communities in France, Argentina, Russia, England, and Canada.
TheJewish Autonomous Oblast, created during theSoviet period, continues to be anautonomous oblast of the Russian state.[188] TheChief Rabbi ofBirobidzhan,Mordechai Scheiner, says there are 4,000 Jews in the capital city.[189]GovernorNikolay Mikhaylovich Volkov has stated that he intends to, "support every valuable initiative maintained by our local Jewish organizations".[190] TheBirobidzhan Synagogue opened in 2004 on the 70th anniversary of the region's founding in 1934.[191]
The number of people who identified as Jews inEngland and Wales rose slightly between 2001 and 2011, with the growth being attributed to the higher birth rate of theHaredi community.[192] The estimatedBritish Jewish population inEngland as of 2011 was 263,346.[193] As of 2021, per theBritish Census, the Jewish population of England and Wales was 271,327.[194]
On October 7, 2023,Hamas, along with otherPalestinian militant groups,attacked Israel from theGaza Strip, killing 1,139 people. The day is considered the deadliest day in Israel's history, and the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.[195] The attack escalated into amajor war between Israel and Hamas. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were displaced, and more than 250 hostages, including Israelis and foreign nationals, were taken by Hamas,Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other Gaza-based militant groups.[196]
After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible "historical figures" [...] archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit.
The Biblical account of the origins of the people of Israel (principally recounted in Numbers, Joshua and Judges) often conflicts with non-Biblical textual sources and with the archaeological evidence for the settlement of Canaan in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. [...] Israel is first textually attested as a political entity in Egyptian texts of the late 13th century BCE and the Egyptologist Donald Redford argues that the Israelites must have been emerging as a distinct group within the Canaanite culture during the century or so prior to this. It has been suggested that the early Israelites were an oppressed rural group of Canaanites who rebelled against the more urbanized coastal Canaanites (Gottwald 1979). Alternatively, it has been argued that the Israelites were survivors of the decline in the fortunes of Canaan who established themselves in the highlands at the end of the late Bronze Age (Ahlstrom 1986: 27). Redford, however, makes a good case for equating the very earliest Israelites with a semi-nomadic people in the highlands of central Palestine whom the Egyptians called Shasu (Redford 1992:2689–80; although see Stager 1985 for strong arguments against the identification with the Shasu). These Shasu were a persistent thorn in the side of the Ramessid pharaohs' empire in Syria-Palestine, well-attested in Egyptian texts, but their pastoral lifestyle has left scant traces in the archaeological record. By the end of the 13th century BCE, however, the Shasu/Israelites were beginning to establish small settlements in the uplands, the architecture of which closely resembles contemporary Canaanite villages.
Much has been made of the scarcity of pig bones at highland sites. Since small quantities of pig bones do appear in Late Bronze Age assemblages, some archaeologists have interpreted this to indicate that the ethnic identity of the highland inhabitants was distinct from Late Bronze Age indigenous peoples (see Finkelstein 1997, 227–230). Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish (1997) advise caution, however, since the lack of pig bones at Iron I highland settlements could be a result of other factors that have little to do with ethnicity.
As this essay will show, however, the premonarchic period long ago became a literary description of the mythological roots, the early beginnings of the nation and the way to describe the right of Israel on its land. The archeological evidence also does not support the existence of a united monarchy under David and Solomon as described in the Bible, so the rubric of "united monarchy" is best abandoned, although it remains useful for discussing how the Bible views the Israelite past. [...] Although the kingdom of Judah is mentioned in some ancient inscriptions, they never suggest that it was part of a unit comprised of Israel and Judah. There are no extrabiblical indications of a united monarchy called "Israel."
The Tel Dan inscription generated a good deal of debate and a flurry of articles when it first appeared, but it is now widely regarded (a) as genuine and (b) as referring to the Davidic dynasty and the Aramaic kingdom of Damascus.
Today, after much further discussion in academic journals, it is accepted by most archaeologists that the inscription is not only genuine but that the reference is indeed to the House of David, thus representing the first allusion found anywhere outside the Bible to the biblical David.
Some unfounded accusations of forgery have had little or no effect on the scholarly acceptance of this inscription as genuine.
Sargon's heir, Sennacherib (705–681), could not deal with Hezekiah's revolt until he gained control of Babylon in 702 BCE.
All the scholars, without exception, establish the date of the surrender of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, as the second day of Adar, the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon (March 16, 597 BC), following the Babylonian chronicle ... This unique date is undoubtedly the most precise in Israelite history during the biblical period.
The historical description is consistent with the archeological finds. Collapses of massive stones from the walls of the Temple Mount were exposed lying over the Herodian street running along the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. The residential buildings of the Ophel and the Upper City were destroyed by great fire. The large urban drainage channel and the Pool of Siloam in the Lower City silted up and ceased to function, and in many places the city walls collapsed. [...] Following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, a new era began in the city's history. The Herodian city was destroyed and a military camp of the Tenth Roman Legion established on part of the ruins.
Until the modern period, the destruction of the Temple was the most cataclysmic moment in the history of the Jewish people. Without the Temple, the Sadducees no longer had any claim to authority, and they faded away. The sage Yochanan ben Zakkai, with permission from Rome, set up the outpost of Yavneh to continue develop of Pharisaic, or rabbinic, Judaism.
Under the leadership of R. Yohanan ben Zakkai and his circle at Yavneh, Judaism sought to reconstitute itself and find a new equilibrium in the face of the disaster of 70.
The goal was not the triumph over other sects but the elimination of the need for sectarianism itself. [...] The destruction of the temple provided the impetus for this process: it warned the Jews of the dangers of internal divisiveness and it removed one of the major focal points of Jewish sectarianism.
This provoked the last Jewish war, which seems from our meager accounts [...] to have resulted in the desolation of Judaea and the practical extermination of its Jewish population.
It was the total defeat and the massive destruction of the 132–35 war which put paid to any hopes of a revived Jewish state for another 1800 years.
Port Jews were a social type, usually those who were involved in seafaring and maritime trade, who (like Court Jews) could be seen as the earliest modern Jews. Often arriving as refugees from the Inquisition, they were permitted to settle as merchants and allowed to trade openly in places such as Amsterdam, London, Trieste and Hamburg. 'Their Diaspora connections and accumulated expertise lay in exactly the areas of overseas expansion that were then of interest to mercantilist governments.'
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