History of the Jews in Europe

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The history of Jews in Europe spans a period of over two thousand years. Jews, a Semitic-speaking people originating from Judea in the Southern Levant, began migrating from Judea to Europe just before the rise of the Roman Empire (27 BCE), although Alexandrian Jews had already migrated to Rome, and some Gentiles had undergone Judaization on a few occasions. A notable early event in the history of the Jews in the Roman Empire was the 63 BCE siege of Jerusalem, where Pompey had interfered in the Hasmonean civil war. Jews have had a significant presence in European cities and countries since the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, including Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, and Russia. In Spain and Portugal in the late fifteenth century, the monarchies forced Jews to either convert to Christianity or leave and they established offices of the Inquisition to enforce Catholic orthodoxy of converted Jews. These actions shattered Jewish life in Iberia and saw mass...

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