Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jewish life underwent a massive transformation, creating a scattered people in what we call the Diaspora. Jews were either killed, enslaved, or forced out of Jerusalem and the lands of Israel. Many rejoined the thriving Jewish community created in Babylon following the fall of the First Temple, a few stayed in Israel, and the rest were scattered to the winds throughout the known world. Early on, Jews established communities in Egypt, North Africa, the Mediterranean islands, and Italy.
“The Jews proved not only unassimilated, but inassimilated, and … the demonstration that this was so proved one of the most significant turning points in Greek history, owing to the gigantic influence exerted throughout subsequent ages by their religion, which not only survived intact, but subsequently gave birth to Christianity as well.”
— Michael Grant
The period was one of transition, as the Temple’s destruction meant sacrifices could no longer be offered, rabbinic Judaism came under development. This focussed on the study of Torah, of prayer, of community, and of ethical conduct. It was during this time that the Mishnah and the Talmud were developed. For example, in Babylon, Jews had a major scholastic hub — the Babylonian Talmud, a central text of Judaism, was debated and codified.
Jews continued to migrate, building communities throughout Western Europe — such as in France (then known as Gaul), Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula. Under Roman laws, Jews enjoyed times of more freedom and others of oppression — such as when they faced periods of persecution under Emperor Hadrian. As they spread throughout the Persian and Roman empires, they began to form a more distinct identity as a people without a homeland. Keeping their core religious and cultural practices, they adapted to their local environments. These core practices, in the shift to a rabbinic Judaism, centered around Torah study, observance of holidays and Shabbat, as well as dietary and ethical laws.
The Jewish people eventually built two major identities for themselves — Ashkenazic and Sephardic — as they spread out from their historic homeland. The Jews of Northern Europe, began to be identified as Ashkenazic Jew. Facing periodic persecution, they were still essential in medieval economies as merchants, artisans, and moneylenders — especially when Christians were more or less not permitted to engage in lending practices. The Sephardic Jews, concentrated on the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal), were able to flourish and played a major role in the economic, scientific, and cultural life of the region.
As they integrated themselves, or tried to, in their communities, Jews developed new languages. Amongst the Ashkenazi, Yiddish developed — a combination of Hebrew, German, Aramaic, and Slavic languages — and became the primary spoken language of the Jewry in Eastern Europe. In the Sephardic community, a language called Ladino developed — incorporating medieval Spanish, Hebrew, and other local languages. Jewish culture birthed a plethora of literature, music, and theatre in these languages.
Europe and the Weight of Christendom
Jews primarily, though not exclusively, settled in urban areas — they faced systemic discrimination in many societies, and often were not allowed to buy land for themselves. In the cities, they were artisans, merchants, medical professionals, and financiers. They grouped together, often, in semi-autonomous areas for varied reasons — sometimes externally imposed, sometimes not (such as for communal protection, worship communities, etc.) — in ghettos. This segregation from the dominant Christian society that surrounded them frequently fostered suspicion of them, as we will see later.
During the early medieval period, Jews in Western Europe faced mounting hostility — from massacres, expulsions, forced conversions, and more. Especially during the First Crusades, many Jews began migrating into Eastern Europe. These communities, in modern Poland and Lithuania, became the beating heart of Judaism in Europe. In the 14th and 15th centuries, Jewish persecution intensified throughout Western Europe and large numbers of Jews joined their brethren in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe. Poland offered Jews a relatively safe haven with certain privileges — such as being able to self-govern their communities. Life in Poland allowed Jews to thrive, building vibrant communities that gave birth to Yiddish culture.
Diaspora under Islam
Under Muslim rule in al-Andalus (modern Spain), particularly during the so-called Golden Age between the 8th and 12th centuries, Sephardic Jews experienced relative peace. Some Jews enjoyed relatively prominent positions in society — as physicians, diplomats, poets, scholars. This isn’t to say, however, that they weren’t discriminated against. Quite the contrary, in fact. Jews were considered dhimmis—a sort of second-class status that non-Muslims were subjected to under Muslim-rule. This status came with onerous tax burdens, prohibitions on public religious practices, requirements to wear distinctive dress, as well as restrictions on bearing arms, riding horses, and building new synagogues, amid other legal disabilities.
Following the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, many Jews found refuge in the Ottoman Empire, particular in Istanbul, Smyrna, and Salonica. At first, they were welcomed by the ruling class as valuable contributors to the economy. This relatively tolerant environment allowed Jewish communities to rebuild and thrive.
Bound to the Land
Some Jews never left Israel — facing significant persecution and abuse. They were not forgotten by the Diaspora. Beyond prayer and remembrance, the Diaspora actively worked to help those still in the Holy Land. Through a system called halukka, Jews worldwide collected funds and sent them back to the Jewish community in Israel. Though this system dates back to the Second Temple, it was formalized and became particularly widespread during the medieval period.
The Jews remaining in the homeland often lived in abject poverty, and this support from far flung Jewish communities — from those in Europe, North Africa, and throughout the Middle East — helped support their material needs as well as to support the operation of yeshivas (centers of Jewish study and learning).
This practice of khalukah strengthened the spiritual and emotional bond between those in the Diaspora and those who remained in the land of Israel — further fostering a sense of connection and responsibility toward the Holy Land.
Hatred in Christian Europe
The origins of antisemitism in Europe are due to two primary factors. First, Jews were a people apart — they never fully assimilated, because they were permitted neither by the authorities around them nor by their practice — keeping to themselves and marrying within the Jewish community helped them survive, but it helped mark them as other. Second, within Europe, the origins of antisemitism are deeply rooted in the Christian theology of its time.
Early Christian teachings blamed Jews, collectively, for the death of Jesus — a concept called deicide which we will explore in a later chapter. For now, it is sufficient to know that according to this belief, Jews were responsible for rejecting Christ and therefore their suffering and dispersion was viewed as a divine punishment. Further, the so-called New Testament, was used to justify this antagonism. A verse that was (and is) often used to disparage the Jews, casting further suspicions, can be seen in the Gospel of John. Here, Jesus is quoted as saying to the Jews:
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
The Church taught that the Jews had forfeited their covenant with God, which belonged therefore exclusively to the Christians. This view contributed to the marginalization of the Jews and the belief that they were a people inherently in conflict with Christian society. Some theologians, such as St. Augustine, taught that Jews were to serve as witnesses to the Christian truth and should be allowed to survive though as an underclass. Humiliation serving as a reminder of Christian superiority.
As the Church grew, it codified many restrictions against Jews. Here again we see restrictions on what professions Jews could participate in, prohibitions against Jews holding public office, restrictions on the manner of dress Jews were allowed to adopt — such as forcing them to wear distinctive clothing, like badges or hats. This institutionalized segregation made Jews easy, visible targets for prejudice.
As many professions were closed to Jews, the Church tried to limit them to ones considered morally dubious or sinful by its Christian standards. These exclusions forced Jews into roles such as moneylending — further isolating them and fueling future accusations of exploitation and greed. This Church-sanctioned marginalization, over time, transformed Jews into social pariahs.
Libels and Lies
Often leading to violent pogroms, this othering gave birth to a number of myths. One of the most pernicious is known as the Blood Libel. This notorious myth accuses Jews of kidnapping and murdering Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals and to make Passover matzah. This baseless allegation was first reported in 1144. In this instance, Thomas of Monmouth, a Benedictine monk, moved to Norwich, England. Shortly before his arrival, the body of a 12-year-old boy named William was discovered in a forest. Thomas took it upon himself to investigate the death.
Though the death was initially unexplained, Thomas leaned into local rumors that Jews had kidnapped, tortured, and executed the boy in a ritualistic murder. Thomas had the goal of turning William into a martyr and a saint — likely this goal was fostered by personal ambition, animus, and desire for prestige. It would give the Church a significant boost locally and underscore the notion that the Jews were a source of harm for Christians both historically and in the present.
Thomas’s baseless claims could never be proven, and no one in the Jewish community was charged with the boy’s murder. Violence against the Jews in Norwich was prevented by some meagre protections offered by the English Crown, though suspicions remained. Thomas was unsuccessful in getting William officially recognized as a saint by the Church, however the boy was locally venerated. Notwithstanding this lack of success, this myth has set a dangerous precedent and has clung to the collective consciousness. It has led to similar accusations over the years, leaving scores of dead Jews in its wake — from violent pogroms to lynchings and extrajudicial executions.
Another key myth making its way around Christian society during the medieval period was one pertaining to host desecration. This slander rests on the Christian belief, ratified at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, that the communion wafer is transubstantiated into the real, literal body and blood of Christ — with each celebration of Mass a reenactment of Christ’s Passion. Clearly, devout Christians therefore held the host or wafer in high regard, venerating it as holy. In line with the Christian’s animosity towards Jews and view of them as so-called “Christ killers,” it should, unfortunately, come as no surprise when this was used to further attack Jews. The first recorded case of this myth that ended in bloodshed is from 1290 in Paris. Here a Jewish man was accused of buying a consecrated host from a Christian and then stabbing it, causing it to bleed. This was used by the Church to underscore the Eucharist as truly transubstantiated. The locals were aghast at the accused and burned him at the stake.
The slander spread rapidly throughout Europe, and was weaponized against the Jews. Allegations would often erupt in pogroms causing no small amount of harm. For example in the late 1330s, the town of Deggendorf — in Bavaria, Germany — was the site of a massive slaughter of its Jewish population. The killing of the Jews seems to stem from a fire that decimated the township. After the fire, locals took out loans from Jewish moneylenders to rebuild. They resented the Jews for this — especially as they had been conditioned to look down at the Jews as inferior. This resentment led to the townspeople to massacre the Jews and loot their property. Only later was the host desecration myth used to retroactively justify the violence. The ruler at the time, Duke Heinrich XIV, granted an official pardon to his citizens for their actions and permitted them to keep the property they stole from their victims. Though it was not all entirely selfish from the Christian perspective: they used some of the funds stolen from their Jewish victims to build a magnificent church.
This last point, that people were allowed to attack Jews and keep their property without punishment cannot be stressed enough. This was the rule, rather than the exception, throughout Medieval Europe, and, indeed, even in times more modern than that. Though we would expect the rule of law to help us now, even in the last century that wasn’t a reliable ally. Indeed, this host desecration libel has held on through the centuries, enabling Christians to target Jews for economic reasons under the cover of protecting the body of God. The myth has morphed, like most types of antisemitism, over time. After the Protestant Reformation, where the doctrine of transubstantiation fell out of favor outside of the Catholic Church, the idea that Jews were a threat to Christian religious practices held on and was used to fuel further persecution.
In the mid-14th century, the Black Death claimed about a third of Europe’s population as victims. Without knowing how the plague spread, people were consumed with fear. This fear and the ingrained suspicion of the Jews led to another pernicious libel against them: that of well poisoning. Because the Jews were segregated into their own ghettos, they had less contact with the Christian masses. It is believed that this segregation and their ritual washing helped them fare slightly better than the overall population with regard to escaping the bubonic plague.
That faring better combined with ancient suspicions and hatreds gave birth to an accusation that first appeared around 1348, in France, that the Jews contaminated the water supply (possibly in league with the Devil) in an effort to wipe out the Christian population. This lie spread quickly throughout Europe as they dovetailed with longstanding myths and stereotypes — such as the Jews collaborating with evil forces and secretly plotting against Christians. It also played into medieval fears about Jews as outsiders who harbored malice toward the broader Christian society.
As the plague ravished Europe and these libels spread, Jews were subjected to horrific persecution and violence. For example, in Strasbourg, several thousand Jews were burned alive based on allegations they poisoned the wells. This particular pogrom was fueled by three distinct aspects. First, fear of the black death. Second, there was a political revolt a few days earlier amongst the trade guilds — which were an extremely important political power at the time. Third, here too economic factors were at play. The Jews, mostly forbidden to own land, were allowed to be moneylenders. People resented them for their own debts. These factors were linked to rampant antisemitism and were personified in the Ammanmeister Peter Swarber — the head of the guilds — who the people believed was too powerful, who had a policy of protecting the Jews.
Economics and Scapegoats
These economic aspects of antisemitism were pervasive throughout Europe at the time, and indeed reach into our modern age. Jews were allowed to lend money, but were heavily taxed — far more than the broader society around them. This led to the perception that Jews were particularly hard headed and greedy. The reality was they were doing what they were forced into, as the economic conditions required lending facilities and the Christians were forbidden to engage in the practice by the Church. These laws didn’t stop at preventing Christians from engaging in the practice—they heavily regulated what the Jews were permitted to do. Among other aspects, these laws often capped interest rates, imposed onerous tax burdens, and restricted the circumstances under which loans could be made.
Since it wasn’t just the general public in need of credit facilities, Jews were called upon by the nobility to finance trade, infrastructure, and war. From the 16th century through the 18th century, so-called “Court Jews” served as financiers to monarchs and nobles, which came with some privileges also carried huge personal risk. If the projects of the nobility didn’t work out, the blame was easily shifted to the Court Jew — they didn’t finance enough, they charged too much, etc. The economic problems were laid at their feet in much the same was as the general public might resent their Jewish lenders if their crops or trade didn’t perform as well as expected. People would default on the loans, blame the Jew, and often kill or exile him—after all someone that isn’t around couldn’t collect on their debts.
Even while Court Jews sometimes enjoyed personal protection, the broader Jewish community did not escape ongoing instances of persecution. Throughout the diaspora, but especially in Central and Eastern Europe, pogroms were on the rise. For instance, the Khmelnytsky Uprising (in the mid-17th century) in Poland-Lithuania, the revolt against the Polish rulers led to the massacre of tens of thousands of Jews in the areas we now know as Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus. This period, in particular, is remembered as one of the most traumatic pre-Shoah events in the Jewish Diaspora. These events weren’t always so large — or well-remembered — Jews faced restrictions, expulsions, and intermittent pogroms throughout their diasporic history.
Over time, as the number of monarchies and the powers of absolute monarchs diminished, so too did the role of Court Jews. While Jews remained active in finance and trade, they lost much of the direct political influence the were once able to wield. Though, this did little to weaken the grip of antisemitism — in fact, the perception of Jews with wealth and economic manipulation only intensified.
Modern Pogroms and Expulsions
In the 19th century, Eastern Europe, particularly the Russian Empire, become the epicenter of pogroms. In Russia, Jews were confined to an area known as the Pale of Settlement — stretching from Poland to parts of present-day Belarus and Ukraine. In this area, antisemitism was widespread, and Jews were subsequently blamed for social, economic, and political troubles.
Following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, brutal pogroms were widespread for years. Rumors that Jews had conspired in the assassination, led to mob violence that decimated Jewish communities, seeing murders, assaults, and the destruction of homes and businesses. These pogroms were a key contributor in the mass emigration of Jews from Russia and Easter Europe to the United States, Western Europe, and back to their historic homeland in the Middle East. Pressure to continue to emigrate from Russia continued into the early 20th century, with even more pogroms — especially with the Russian Revolution and its ensuing civil war. To say nothing of the First World War and other events leading up to the Shoah.
Coming out of the ideas of the Enlightenment — those of an emphasis on reason, secular governance, and human rights — Jews took the new ideas of citizenship and tried to integrate into broader European societies. Yet, antisemitism, suspicion, and, sadly, the pogroms, continued relatively unabated.
Dreyfus and the Limits of Emancipation
Post-Enlightenment, the Jews of Europe felt they had a chance at being equal citizens. Then, at the turn of the century, France played host to a scandal which would become a turning point for their beliefs. The scandal centered around a French army officer falsely accused and convicted of treason in 1894 for allegedly passing military secrets to Germany. Despite overwhelming evidence proving his innocence, Dreyfus, a Jew, was scapegoated — a victim of antisemitism rampant throughout the military and the public. The Dreyfus Affair divided French society. Only after years of legal battles and public outcry was Dreyfus finally exonerated in 1906. This led to the feeling that — both within and without — the Jewish community needed a land of their own. They would never escape antisemitism in Europe.
Herzl and the Rise of Zionism
At a time when empires crumbled and nations were born, in the shadow of pogroms and broken promises, a daring vision ignited hopes of a future of their own — outside of the whims and mercies of foreign rulers. Jewish leaders — some with elevated social status, others with just the power of their ideas — built on the values of the Enlightenment and encouraged the community to continue to step out of religious isolation and modernize.
While this integration didn’t have the desired effect of allowing them to leave in peace within broader society, it did enable them to see more clearly the limits of the acceptance and tolerance they could expect to enjoy. It further permitted them to refine their own hopes and ideals. Of course, the notion of Jewish self-determination had existed in perpetuity — since before the tribes of Israel unified, before Saul, David, and Solomon — it wasn’t until the late 19th century that Zionism emerged as a cohesive, modern, political movement. One of the early, pivotal figures in this transformation was Theodor Herzl.
Theodor Herzl was a journalist and playwright who was well assimilated in Austrian society. A staunch believer in the Enlightenment, he thought Jewish emancipation was inevitable and antisemitism would fade over time. However, like many Jews, Herzl was shaken to the core of the Dreyfus Affair. Witnessing the virulent antisemitism that erupted in France — a country that was supposed to epitomize tolerance and liberty — Herzl came to the conclusion that a Jew could not be safe in Europe.
Herzl published a groundbreaking essay in 1896 called Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State). It laid out his vision for a Jewish state as the only solution to the Jewish problem. He argued that the Jews were a distinct nation — not solely a religious community — and like all nations, they deserved their homeland. He advocated for the establishment of a Jewish state in its homeland.
Building on the work, decades earlier, of Moses Hess, a Jewish philosopher, who argued that Jews could never fully assimilate and needed to return to their ancestral homeland. Hess’s ideas, along with a movement called Hibbat Zion (Lovers of Zion), which emerged in Eastern Europe in the 1880s, laid an intellectual foundation for Herzl’s work.
Herzl saw the world around him as one in a state of upheaval and flux — and he wasn’t wrong. As industrialization, mass migration, and the rise of nationalist movements swept across Europe, the Jews weren’t immune to their effects. Millions fled poverty and persecution in Eastern Europe for the hope of better, safer futures in the United States and Western Europe. Herzl believed that this was the perfect moment to secure a Jewish state — while the map of the world was still being redrawn.
Drawing upon the groundswell of support and momentum he built, Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. He envisioned this gathering as the beginning of a formal political movement that would unite Jews from around the globe behind the cause of re-establishing a Jewish homeland. The Basel Congress was a watershed moment in Jewish history. More than 200 delegates from 17 countries attended — from secular intellectuals to religious leaders. The delegates adopted a goal of establishing a home for the Jewish people in its homeland and secured by law.
Of course, from the very beginning, Zionism wasn’t a monolithic movement. There was fierce debate amongst the leaders of the movement, at Basel and beyond, about the best path forward. The political Zionists, with Herzl as their leader, believed the primary goals should be securing political sovereignty with international recognition. The practical Zionists focused on building Jewish settlements in the homeland as a means of gradually gaining control over it. The religious Zionists, unlike Herzl who envisioned a secular Jewish state, insisted that any Jewish state must be rooted in Jewish religious tradition.