Jews

== History ==
{{main|Jewish history}}
{{For timeline|Timeline of Jewish history}}

{{Tribes of Israel}}

=== Israel and Judah ===
{{further|History of ancient Israel and Judah|}}
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the [[Merneptah Stele]], which dates to around 1200 BCE. The majority of scholars agree that this text refers to the [[Israelites]], a group that inhabited the central highlands of [[Canaan]], where archaeological evidence shows that hundreds of small settlements were constructed between the 12th and 10th centuries BCE.{{sfn|Stager|1998|p=91}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dever |first=William G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6-VxwC5rQtwC&dq=What+did+the+biblical+writers+know&pg=PA102 |title=What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?: What Archeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8028-2126-3 |language=en}}</ref> The Israelites differentiated themselves from neighboring peoples through various distinct characteristics including [[Yahwism|religious practices]], [[Endogamy|prohibition on intermarriage]], and an emphasis on genealogy and family history.{{sfn|McNutt|1999|p=35}}{{sfn|Dever|2003|p=206}}{{sfn|Dever|2003|p=206}}

In the 10th century BCE, two neighboring Israelite kingdoms—the northern [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|Kingdom of Israel]] and the southern [[Kingdom of Judah]]—emerged. Since their inception, they shared ethnic, cultural, [[Biblical Hebrew|linguistic]] and [[Yahwism|religious]] characteristics despite a complicated relationship. Israel, with its capital mostly in [[Samaria (ancient city)|Samaria]], was larger and wealthier, and soon developed into a regional power.{{sfn|Finkelstein|Silberman|2002|pp=146–7|ps=Put simply, while Judah was still economically marginal and backward, Israel was booming. [...] In the next chapter we will see how the northern kingdom suddenly appeared on the ancient Near Eastern stage as a major regional power}} In contrast, Judah, with its capital in [[Jerusalem]], was less prosperous and covered a smaller, mostly mountainous territory. However, while in Israel the royal succession was often decided by a military coup d'état, resulting in several dynasty changes, political stability in Judah was much greater, as it was ruled by the [[Davidic line|House of David]] for the whole four centuries of its existence.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lemaire |first=André |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1017604304 |title=The Oxford Illustrated History of the Holy Land |date=2018 |others=Robert G. Hoyland, H. G. M. Williamson |isbn=978-0-19-872439-1 |edition=1st  |pages=61–85 |chapter=Israel and Judah |publisher=Oxford University Press |oclc=1017604304}}</ref>

Around 720 BCE, Kingdom of Israel was destroyed when it was conquered by the [[Neo-Assyrian Empire]], which came to dominate the ancient Near East.<ref name="Broshi 2001 174" /> Under the [[Resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire|Assyrian resettlement policy]], a significant portion of the northern Israelite population was [[Assyrian captivity|exiled to Mesopotamia]] and replaced by immigrants from the same region.{{sfn|Tobolowsky|2022|pp=69–70; 73–75}} During the same period, and throughout the 7th century BCE, the Kingdom of Judah, now under Assyrian [[Vassal state|vassalage]], experienced a period of prosperity and witnessed a significant population growth.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2kSovzudhFUC |title=A History of the Jewish People |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1976 |isbn=978-0674397316 |editor-last=Ben-Sasson |editor-first=Haim Hillel |editor-link=H.H. Ben-Sasson |page=142 |quote=Sargon's heir, Sennacherib (705–681), could not deal with Hezekiah's revolt until he gained control of Babylon in 702 BCE. |access-date=12 October 2018}}</ref> Later in the same century, the Assyrians were defeated by the rising [[Neo-Babylonian Empire]], and Judah became its vassal. In 587 BCE, following a [[Judah's revolts against Babylon|revolt in Judah]], the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II [[Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC)|besieged and destroyed Jerusalem]] and the [[Solomon's Temple|First Temple]], putting an end to the kingdom. The majority of Jerusalem's residents, including the kingdom's elite, were [[Babylonian captivity|exiled to Babylon]].{{sfn|Lipiński|2020|p=94}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lipschits |first=Oded |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/j.ctv1bxh5fd |title=The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule |date=2005 |publisher=Penn State University Press |isbn=978-1-57506-297-6 |pages=367 |doi=10.5325/j.ctv1bxh5fd|jstor=10.5325/j.ctv1bxh5fd }}</ref>

=== Second Temple period ===
{{further|Second Temple period|Jewish–Roman wars}}
According to the [[Book of Ezra]], the Persian [[Cyrus the Great]] ended the [[Babylonian exile]] in 538 BCE,<ref name="rennert">{{cite web|url=http://www.biu.ac.il/js/rennert/history_4.html |title=Second Temple Period (538 BCE. to 70 CE) Persian Rule |publisher=Biu.ac.il |access-date=15 March 2014}}</ref> the year after he captured Babylon.<ref>''Harper's Bible Dictionary'', ed. by Achtemeier, etc., Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1985, p. 103</ref> The exile ended with the return under [[Zerubbabel]] the Prince (so called because he was a descendant of the royal line of [[David]]) and Joshua the Priest (a descendant of the line of the former [[High Priest of Israel|High Priests of the Temple]]) and their construction of the [[Second Temple]] circa 521–516 BCE.<ref name="rennert" /> As part of the [[Achaemenid Empire|Persian Empire]], the former Kingdom of Judah became the province of Judah (''[[Yehud Medinata]]'')<ref>Yehud being the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew Yehuda, or "Judah", and "medinata" the word for province</ref> with different borders, covering a smaller territory.<ref name="Grabbe355">{{cite book |last=Grabbe |first=Lester L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-MnE5T_0RbMC&q=gave+the+Jews+permission+to+return+to+Yehud+province+and+to+rebuild+the&pg=PA355 |title=A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period: Yehud – A History of the Persian Province of Judah v. 1 |publisher=T & T Clark |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-567-08998-4 |page=355}}</ref> The population of the province was greatly reduced from that of the kingdom, archaeological surveys showing a population of around 30,000 people in the 5th to 4th centuries BCE.<ref name="Finkelstein" />{{rp|308}}

Judea was under control of the [[Achaemenid Empire|Achaemenids]] until the fall of their empire in c. 333 BCE to [[Alexander the Great]]. After several centuries under foreign imperial rule, the [[Maccabean Revolt]] against the [[Seleucid Empire]] resulted in an independent [[Hasmonean dynasty|Hasmonean kingdom]], under which the Jews once again enjoyed political independence for a period spanning from 110 to 63 BCE.<ref name="BangScheidel2013">{{cite book |author1=Peter Fibiger Bang |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GCj09AmtvvwC&pg=PAPA184 |title=The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean |author2=Walter Scheidel |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-19-518831-8 |pages=184–187 |access-date=16 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409160404/https://books.google.com/books?id=GCj09AmtvvwC&pg=PAPA184 |archive-date=9 April 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> The [[Idumeans]], whom the Hasmoneans conquered, were influential in shaping Jewish society and religion. Most assimilated and intermarried with native Judeans and later, founded the [[Herodian dynasty]]. <ref name=":22">{{Cite journal |last=Levin |first=Yigal |date=2020-09-24 |title=The Religion of Idumea and Its Relationship to Early Judaism |journal=Religions |volume=11 |issue=10 |pages=487 |doi=10.3390/rel11100487 |issn=2077-1444 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Marshak |first=Adam Kolman |date=2012-01-01 |title=Rise of the Idumeans: Ethnicity and Politics in Herod's Judea |url=https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004218512/B9789004218512_008.xml |journal=Jewish Identity and Politics Between the Maccabees and Bar Kokhba |language=en |pages=117–129 |doi=10.1163/9789004218512_008 |isbn=9789004218512}}</ref><ref>[[Strabo]], ''Geography'' Bk.16.2.34</ref>In 63 BCE, Judea was conquered by the Romans. From 37 BCE to 6 CE, the Romans allowed the Jews to maintain some degree of independence by preserving the Herodian government. However, Judea eventually came directly under Roman control and was incorporated into the [[Roman Empire]] as the [[Judaea (Roman province)|province of Judaea]].<ref>{{cite book |author1=Peter Fibiger Bang |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GCj09AmtvvwC&pg=PA184 |title=The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean |author2=Walter Scheidel |publisher=OUP USA |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-19-518831-8 |pages=184–87}}</ref><ref name="Malamat1976">{{cite book |author=Abraham Malamat |url={{Google books|2kSovzudhFUC|page=PA223|keywords=|text=|plainurl=yes}} |title=A History of the Jewish People |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1976 |isbn=978-0-674-39731-6 |pages=223–239}}</ref>

The [[Jewish–Roman wars]], a series of unsuccessful revolts against Roman rule during the first and second centuries CE, had significant and disastrous consequences for the Jewish population of [[Judaea (Roman province)|Judaea]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Zissu |first=Boaz |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/988856967 |title=Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: The Interbellum 70‒132 CE |date=2018 |others=Joshua Schwartz, Peter J. Tomson |isbn=978-90-04-34986-5 |pages=19 |chapter=Interbellum Judea 70-132 CE: An Archaeological Perspective |publisher=Brill |oclc=988856967}}</ref><ref name="FahlbuschBromiley2005">{{cite book |author1=Erwin Fahlbusch |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C5V7oyy69zgC&pg=PAPA15 |title=The Encyclopedia of Christianity |author2=Geoffrey William Bromiley |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-8028-2416-5 |pages=15– |access-date=16 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409160412/https://books.google.com/books?id=C5V7oyy69zgC&pg=PAPA15 |archive-date=9 April 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> The [[First Jewish–Roman War|First Jewish-Roman War]] (66–73 CE) culminated in the [[Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)|destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple]]. The severely reduced Jewish population of Judaea was denied any kind of political self-government.<ref name="AHJ-GM">{{Cite book |last=Goodman |first=Martin |title=A History of Judaism |date=2018 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-18127-1 |location=Princeton Oxford |pages=21, 232}}</ref> A few generations later, the [[Bar Kokhba revolt]] (132–136 CE) erupted, and its brutal suppression by the Romans led to the depopulation of [[Judea]]. Following the revolt, Jews were forbidden from residing in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and the Jewish demographic center in [[Judaea (Roman province)|Judaea]] shifted to [[Galilee]].<ref name="Mor, M. 2016. P471">Mor, M. ''The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kokhba War, 132–136 CE''. Brill, 2016. P471/</ref><ref name="raviv2021">{{Cite journal |last1=Raviv |first1=Dvir |last2=Ben David |first2=Chaim |date=27 May 2021 |title=Cassius Dio's figures for the demographic consequences of the Bar Kokhba War: Exaggeration or reliable account? |journal=Journal of Roman Archaeology |language=en |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=585–607 |doi=10.1017/S1047759421000271 |issn=1047-7594 |s2cid=236389017 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>Powell, ''The Bar Kokhba War AD 132-136'', Osprey Publishing, Oxford, ç2017, p.80</ref> Similar upheavals affected the Jewish communities of the empire's south-eastern provinces, when a significant uprising known as the [[Kitos War]] (115–117 CE) resulted in the complete disappearance of the influential Jewish community of Egypt and [[Alexandria]].<ref name="AHJ-GM" />
[[File:Iudaea_capta_reverse_of_Vespasian_sestertius.jpg|thumb|A Roman coin inscribed ''[[Judaea Capta coinage|Ivdaea Capta]],'' or "captive Judea" (71 CE), representing Judea as a seated mourning woman (right), and a Jewish captive with hands tied (left)]]The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE brought profound changes to Judaism. With the Temple's central place in Jewish worship gone, religious practices shifted towards [[Jewish prayer|prayer]], [[Torah study]] (including [[Oral Torah]]), and communal gatherings in [[synagogue]]s. Judaism also lost much of its [[sectarian]] nature.<ref name="Magness">{{cite book |author=Jodi Magness |title=Was 70 CE a Watershed in Jewish History?: On Jews and Judaism before and after the Destruction of the Second Temple |publisher=Brill |year=2011 |isbn=978-90-04-21744-7 |editor1=Daniel R. Schwartz |chapter=Sectarianism before and after 70 CE |editor2=Zeev Weiss |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VecxAQAAQBAJ&q=diaspora+70+ce&pg=PA189}}</ref>{{rp|69}} Two of the three main sects that flourished during the late Second Temple period, namely the [[Sadducees]] and [[Essenes]], eventually disappeared, while [[Pharisees|Pharisaic]] beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis of [[Rabbinic Judaism]], which emerged as the prevailing form of Judaism since late antiquity.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Karesh |first=Sara E. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1162305378 |title=Encyclopedia of Judaism |year=2006 |publisher=Facts On File |isbn=978-1-78785-171-9 |oclc=1162305378 |quote=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.}}</ref>

=== Babylon and Rome ===
{{further|History of the Jews in the Roman Empire|Talmudic academies in Babylonia}}

The [[Jewish 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.<ref>[[Erich S. Gruen]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=t1IR4WtFjGUC&pg=PA3 Diaspora: Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans] [[Harvard University Press]], 2009 pp. 3–4, 233–34: 'Compulsory dislocation, .…cannot have accounted for more than a fraction of the diaspora. … The vast bulk of Jews who dwelled abroad in the Second Temple Period did so voluntarily.' (2)' .Diaspora did not await the fall of Jerusalem to Roman power and destructiveness. The scattering of Jews had begun long before-occasionally through forced expulsion, much more frequently through voluntary migration.'</ref><ref name="AHJ-GM"/> By 200 BCE, Jewish communities already existed in [[Egypt]] and [[Mesopotamia]] ("[[History of the Jews in Iraq|Babylonia]]" in Jewish sources). In the two centuries that followed, Jewish populations were also present in [[Anatolia|Asia Minor]], [[Greece]], [[Macedonia (ancient kingdom)|Macedonia]], [[Cyrene, Libya|Cyrene]], and, beginning in the middle of the first century BCE, in the city of [[Rome]].<ref name="Smallwood">{{cite book |author=E. Mary Smallwood |title=The Cambridge History of Judaism: The early Roman period, Volume 3 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1984 |isbn=978-0521243773 |editor1=William David Davies |chapter=The Diaspora in the Roman period before AD 70 |editor2=Louis Finkelstein |editor3=William Horbury |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AW2BuWcalXIC&q=Diaspora+before+70&pg=PA168}}</ref><ref name="AHJ-GM"/> Later, in the first centuries CE, as a result of the [[Jewish–Roman wars|Jewish-Roman Wars]], 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 the [[Roman Empire]] as well as in [[Arabian Peninsula|Arabia]] and Mesopotamia.

After the [[Bar Kokhba revolt]], the Jewish population in [[Judaea (Roman province)|Judaea]], now significantly reduced in size, made efforts to recover from the revolt's devastating effects, but never fully regained its previous strength.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Ehrlich |first=Michael |title=The Islamization of the Holy Land, 634–1800 |publisher=Arc Humanities Press |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-64189-222-3 |location=Leeds, UK |pages=3–4 |oclc=1302180905 |quote=The Jewish community strove to recover from the catastrophic results of the Bar Kokhva revolt (132–135 CE). Although some of these attempts were relatively successful, the Jews never fully recovered. During the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, many Jews emigrated to thriving centres in the diaspora, especially Iraq, whereas some converted to Christianity and others continued to live in the Holy Land, especially in Galilee and the coastal plain. During the Byzantine period, the three provinces of Palestine included more than thirty cities, namely, settlements with a bishop see. After the Muslim conquest in the 630s, most of these cities declined and eventually disappeared. As a result, in many cases the local ecclesiastical administration weakened, while in others it simply ceased to exist. Consequently, many local Christians converted to Islam. Thus, almost twelve centuries later, when the army led by Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in the Holy Land, most of the local population was Muslim.}}</ref><ref>Oppenheimer, A'haron and Oppenheimer, Nili. ''Between Rome and Babylon: Studies in Jewish Leadership and Society''. Mohr Siebeck, 2005, p. 2.</ref> In the second to fourth centuries CE, the region of [[Galilee]] emerged as the new center of Jewish life in [[Syria Palaestina]], experiencing a cultural and demographic flourishing. It was in this period that two central rabbinic texts, the [[Mishnah]] and the [[Jerusalem Talmud]], were composed.<ref name=":03">{{Cite book |last=Leibner |first=Uzi |url=https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/43969 |title=Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee: An Archaeological Survey of the Eastern Galilee |date=2009 |publisher=Mohr Siebeck |isbn=978-3-16-151460-9 |pages=321–324; 362–371; 396–400; 414–416 |hdl=20.500.12657/43969 |language=English}}</ref> However, as the Roman Empire was replaced by the [[Historiography of Christianization of the Roman Empire|Christianized]] Byzantine Empire under [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]], Jews came to be persecuted by the church and the authorities, and many immigrated to communities in the diaspora. In the fourth century CE, Jews are believed to have lost their position as the majority in [[Syria Palaestina]].<ref name="Kessler20102">{{cite book |author=Edward Kessler |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=87Woe7kkPM4C&pg=PA72 |title=An Introduction to Jewish-Christian Relations |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-521-70562-2 |page=72 |quote=Jews probably remained in the majority in Palestine until some time after the conversion of Constantine in the fourth century. [...] In Babylonia, there had been for many centuries a Jewish community which would have been further strengthened by those fleeing the aftermath of the Roman revolts.}}</ref><ref name=":12" />

The long-established Jewish community of Mesopotamia, which had been living under [[Parthian Empire|Parthian]] and later [[Sasanian Empire|Sasanian]] rule, beyond the confines of the Roman Empire, became an important center of [[Jewish studies|Jewish study]] as Judea's Jewish population declined.<ref name="Kessler20102" /><ref name=":12" /> Under the political leadership of the [[exilarch]], who was regarded as a royal heir of the House of David, this community had an autonomous status and served as a place of refuge for the Jews of [[Syria Palaestina]]. A number of significant [[Talmudic academies in Babylonia|Talmudic academies]], such as the [[Nehardea Academy|Nehardea]], [[Pumbedita Academy|Pumbedita]], and [[Sura Academy|Sura]] academies, were established in Mesopotamia, and many important ''[[Amoraim]]'' were active there. The [[Babylonian Talmud]], a centerpiece of Jewish religious law, was compiled in Babylonia in the 3rd to 6th centuries.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2008 |title=Talmud and Midrash (Judaism) :: The making of the Talmuds: 3rd–6th century |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/581644/Talmud-and-Midrash/34869/The-making-of-the-Talmuds-3rd-6th-century#ref=ref24372 |access-date=28 October 2013}}</ref>

=== Middle Ages ===
{{further|History of the Jews in Europe|History of European Jews in the Middle Ages|Mizrahi Jews|Sephardi Jews}}
Jewish diaspora communities are generally described to have [[Coalescent theory|coalesced]] into three major [[Jewish ethnic divisions|ethnic subdivisions]] according to where their ancestors settled: the ''[[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazim]]'' (initially in the Rhineland and France), the ''[[Sephardi Jews|Sephardim]]'' (initially in the [[Spanish and Portuguese Jews|Iberian Peninsula]]), and the ''[[Mizrahi Jews|Mizrahim]]'' ([[History of the Jews under Muslim rule|Middle East]] and [[North Africa]]).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ben-Sasson, Haim Hillel |title=Jewish society through the ages |publisher=Schocken Books |year=1972 |editor=Ettinger, Samuel |oclc=581911264 |orig-year=1969}}</ref> [[Romaniote Jews]], [[Tunisian Jews]], [[Yemenite Jews]], [[Egyptian Jews]], [[Ethiopian Jews]], [[Bukharan Jews]], [[Mountain Jews]], and other groups also predated the arrival of the Sephardic diaspora.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/simo10796 |title=The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times |date=2002 |publisher=Columbia University Press |jstor=10.7312/simo10796 }}</ref>

Despite experiencing repeated waves of persecution, Ashkenazi Jews in Western Europe worked in a variety of fields, making an impact on their communities' economy and societies. In [[Francia]], for example, figures like [[Isaac the Jew|Isaac Judaeus]] and [[Armentarius (moneylender)|Armentarius]] occupied prominent social and economic positions. However, Jews were frequently the subjects of discriminatory laws, [[Jewish ghettos in Europe|segregation]], [[blood libel]]s and [[pogrom]]s, which culminated in events like the [[Rhineland massacres|Rhineland Massacres]] (1066) and the [[expulsion of Jews from England]] (1290). As a result, Ashkenazi Jews were gradually pushed eastwards to [[History of the Jews in Poland|Poland]], [[History of the Jews in Lithuania|Lithuania]] and [[History of the Jews in Russia|Russia]].<ref>Harshav, Benjamin (1999). ''The Meaning of Yiddish''. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 6. "From the fourteenth and certainly by the sixteenth century, the center of European Jewry had shifted to Poland, then ... comprising the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (including today's Byelorussia), Crown Poland, Galicia, the Ukraine and stretching, at times, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, from the approaches to Berlin to a short distance from Moscow."</ref>

During the same period, Jewish communities in the Middle East thrived under Islamic rule, especially in cities like [[Baghdad]], [[Cairo]], and [[Damascus]]. In Babylonia, from the 7th to 11th centuries the [[Pumbedita Academy|Pumbedita]] and [[Sura Academy|Sura]] academies led the Arab and to an extant the entire Jewish world. The deans and students of said academies defined the [[Geonim|Geonic period]] in Jewish history.<ref>{{Cite web |title=GAON – JewishEncyclopedia.com |url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6511-gaon |access-date=23 June 2020 |website=www.jewishencyclopedia.com}}</ref> Following this period were the [[Rishonim]] who lived from the 11th to 15th centuries. Like their European counterparts, Jews in the Middle East and North Africa also faced periods of persecution and discriminatory policies, with the [[Almohad Caliphate]] in [[North Africa]] and [[Iberian Peninsula|Iberia]] issuing forced conversion decrees, causing Jews such as [[Maimonides]] to seek safety in other regions.

Initially, under [[Visigothic Kingdom|Visigoth rule]], Jews in the Iberian Peninsula faced persecutions, but their circumstances changed dramatically under [[Al-Andalus|Islamic rule]]. During this period, they thrived in a [[Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain|golden age]], marked by significant intellectual and cultural contributions in fields such as philosophy, medicine, and literature by figures such as [[Samuel ibn Naghrillah]], [[Judah Halevi]] and [[Solomon ibn Gabirol]]. However, in the 12th to 15th centuries, the Iberian Peninsula witnessed a rise in antisemitism, leading to persecutions, anti-Jewish laws, massacres and forced conversions ([[Massacre of 1391|peaking in 1391]]), and the establishment of the [[Spanish Inquisition]] that same year. After the completion of the [[Reconquista]] and the issuance of the [[Alhambra Decree]] by the [[Catholic Monarchs of Spain|Catholic Monarchs]] in 1492, the Jews of Spain were forced to choose: convert to Christianity or be expelled. As a result, around 200,000 Jews were [[Expulsion of Jews from Spain|expelled from Spain]], seeking refuge in places such as the [[History of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman Empire]], [[North African Sephardim|North Africa]], [[History of the Jews in Italy#Early Modern period|Italy]], the [[Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands|Netherlands]] and [[Sephardic Jews in India|India]]. A [[Persecution of Jews and Muslims by Manuel I of Portugal|similar fate]] awaited the Jews of Portugal a few years later. Some Jews chose to remain, and pretended to practice [[Catholic Church|Catholicism]]. These Jews would form the members of [[Crypto-Judaism]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schloss |first=Chaim |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OV9jKGJzg3QC |title=2000 Years of Jewish History: From the Destruction of the Second Bais Hamikdash Until the Twentieth Century |date=2002 |publisher=Feldheim Publishers |isbn=978-1-58330-214-9 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Modern period ===
{{further|Zionism|The Holocaust|History of Israel (1948–present)|}}
In the 19th century, when Jews in [[Western Europe]] were increasingly granted [[Jewish emancipation|equality before the law]], Jews in the [[Pale of Settlement]] faced growing persecution, legal restrictions and widespread [[pogrom]]s. Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in [[Central Europe|Central]] and [[Eastern Europe]] as a national revival movement, aiming to re-establish a Jewish polity in the Land of Israel, an endeavor to restore the Jewish people back to their ancestral homeland in order to stop the exoduses and persecutions that have plagued their history. This led to waves of Jewish migration to [[Ottoman Syria|Ottoman-controlled Palestine]]. [[Theodor Herzl]], who is considered the father of political Zionism,<ref>{{Harvard citation no brackets|Kornberg|1993}} "How did Theodor Herzl, an assimilated German nationalist in the 1880s, suddenly in the 1890s become the founder of Zionism?"</ref> offered his vision of a future Jewish state in his 1896 book ''[[Der Judenstaat]]'' (''The Jewish State''); a year later, he presided over the [[First Zionist Congress]].<ref>{{cite web |date=21 July 2005 |title=Chapter One |url=http://www.jewishagency.org/israel/content/23396 |access-date=21 September 2015 |website=The Jewish Agency for Israel1 |archive-date=10 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181210124104/http://www.jewishagency.org/israel/content/23396 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The antisemitism that inflicted Jewish communities in Europe also triggered a mass exodus of more than two million Jews to the [[United States]] between 1881 and 1924.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Lewin |first=Rhoda G. |date=1979 |title=Stereotype and reality in the Jewish immigrant experience in Minneapolis |url=http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/46/v46i07p258-273.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Minnesota History |volume=46 |issue=7 |page=259 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200721002023/http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/46/v46i07p258-273.pdf |archive-date=21 July 2020 |access-date=10 August 2020}}</ref> 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 were [[Albert Einstein]] and [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]]. Many [[Nobel Prize]] winners at this time were Jewish, as is still the case.<ref name="Jewish Nobel Prize Winners">{{cite web |title=Jewish Nobel Prize Winners |url=http://www.jinfo.org/Nobel_Prizes.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181224211039/http://www.jinfo.org/Nobel_Prizes.html |archive-date=24 December 2018 |access-date=7 October 2011 |publisher=jinfo.org}}</ref>[[File:Jewish people around the world.svg|thumb|Map of the Jewish diaspora:<br>
{{Legend|#000000|Israel}}
{{Legend|#00216bff|+ 1,000,000}}
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{{Legend|#b3cbffff|+ 1,000}}|301x301px]]When [[Adolf Hitler]] and the [[Nazism|Nazis]] came to power in [[Nazi Germany|Germany]] in 1933, the situation for Jews deteriorated rapidly. Many Jews fled from Europe to [[Mandatory Palestine]], the United States, and the [[Soviet Union]] as a result of racial anti-Semitic laws, economic difficulties, and the fear of an impending war. [[World War II]] started in 1939, and by 1941, Hitler occupied almost all of Europe. Following the [[Operation Barbarossa|German invasion of the Soviet Union]] in 1941, the [[Final Solution]]—an extensive, organized effort with an unprecedented scope intended to annihilate the Jewish people—began, and resulted in the persecution and murder of Jews in Europe and [[North Africa]]. In Poland, three million were murdered in [[gas chambers]] in all concentration camps combined, with one million at the [[Auschwitz]] camp complex alone. The [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]] is the name given to this genocide, in which six million Jews were systematically murdered.

Before and during the Holocaust, enormous numbers of Jews immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, upon the termination of the mandate, [[David Ben-Gurion]] declared the creation of the [[Israel|State of Israel]], a [[Jewish and democratic state]] in the Land of Israel. Immediately afterwards, all neighboring Arab states invaded, yet the newly formed [[Israel Defense Forces|IDF]] resisted. In 1949, the war ended and Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of [[Aliyah]] from all over the world.