Jewish history began around 1900 B.C.E. (3,920 years ago), with Abraham, who lived in Ur, in Mesopotamia, what is now Iraq. He moved to Haran, in what is now Syria. Answering a divine call, he then travelled to Canaan, i.e. what is now the land of Israel. Abraham was a Hebrew, as were his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. Jacob was later called Israel, and his 12 sons are therefore referred to as the children of Israel, or Israelites. Judah, one of the sons of Jacob, was the ancestor of the Jewish people. Approximately 1600 B.C.E. (3,620 years ago), Joseph, another son of Jacob, was sold into slavery by his brothers, was transported to Egypt, obtained his freedom and eventually became viceroy of Egypt. Owing to a famine in the land of Israel, his father and brothers later joined him and they were reconciled. At this time, the economic position of the Israelites in Egypt was very good.

Some time after the passing of Joseph and his brothers, some generations later, the Pharaoh of Egypt of that time became very unfavorably disposed toward the Israelites and their social and economic position declined drastically and they were eventually enslaved. After 400 years of slavery, approximately 1200 B.C.E. (3,220 years ago), through divine intervention, the Israelites left Egypt, under the leadership of the prophet Moses. They journeyed to Canaan, afterward called the land of Israel. Along the way, the greatest event in Israelite and Jewish history occurred, which was God’s revelation on Mount Sinai before the entire assembled people of Israel and the giving of the Torah (which means “teaching” in Hebrew).

After 40 years in the wilderness, under Moses’ successor Joshua, the Israelites entered the land of Israel. After that followed approximately 200 years of warfare between the Israelites and the Canaanites, Philistines and other inhabitants of the land, before the final conquest of the land under King David.

The kingdom of Israel began with King Saul, approximately 1000 B.C.E. (3,020 years ago). It continued with King David, and David’s son Solomon. King Solomon supervised the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem. It was important, because the religious life of the people now had a focal point, in Jerusalem.

King Solomon built an empire which extended as far north as the Euphrates river in what is now Iraq, and it encompassed all of what is now Israel, most of what is now Jordan and a large part of present-day Syria.

After King Solomon died in approximately 900 B.C.E. (2,920 years ago) , there was a split in the nation. There were now two kingdoms: the northern kingdom, consisting of the 10 northern tribes, called Israel (or sometimes Ephraim, after one of the main tribes) with its capital in Shechem (Samaria) and the southern kingdom, with its capital in Jerusalem, consisting of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and some of the tribe of Levi. The two kingdoms sometimes fought each other, and sometimes allied with the great powers of the time i.e. Egypt or Assyria in efforts to defeat the other.

Approximately 725 B.C.E. (2,745 years ago), the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians (from the northern part of what is now Iraq and from the eastern part of what is now Syria). Many of its inhabitants, especially the upper classes, were exiled and never returned . It is thought that they were assimilated into the populations of present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. Only the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah, was left unconquered.

The kingdom of Judah was in turn conquered, by the Babylonians, approximately 585 B.C.E. (2605 years ago). The upper classes of the kingdom of Judah were carried off into exile in Babylonia (the southern part of modern-day Iraq). However, unlike the former inhabitants of the northern kingdom, they did not assimilate. Approximately 70 years after they were forcibly re-located to Babylonia, the Babylonians were themselves conquered by the Persians (the inhabitants of present day Iran). Cyrus, king of Persia, allowed and encouraged the exiles from Judah to return to the kingdom of Judah and re-build the temple of Jerusalem, which they did. This temple is referred to as the 2^nd Temple.

The 2^nd Temple period lasted from approximately 500 B.C.E. (2520 years ago) until about 70 C.E. (1950 years ago). It was marked by a restored monarchy, which was semi-independent of the great powers of the time, at first becoming a province of the Persian Empire.

In about 334 B.C.E. (2354 years ago) Alexander of Macedon (a country to the north of Greece) conquered Persia. He conquered most of what had been the Persian empire, including the province of Judah. After the death of Alexander in approximately  323 B.C.E. (2343 years ago), his empire was divided among his generals. The kingdom of Judah fell under the sway of general Seleucis and his successors of the Seleucid empire. The Seleucid empire’s capital was Seleucia-on-Tigris, a city located near what is now Baghdad, Iraq. The Seleucid empire, at its apex, stretched from present-day Greece to the western border of India. Initially, the Seleucid empire initially did not intervene much in the internal affairs of the kingdom of Judah, which it ruled over as a dependent province. However, the Seleucid empire’s rulers made continuous efforts to impose Greek culture over their entire empire, as a way to achieve unity of the empire. Over the course of time, Jews who adopted Greek culture in greater or lesser measure, also called “Hellenists” clashed more and more with traditional Jews who rejected almost all aspects of Greek culture and were advocates of full Torah observance. This led to a civil war between the Hellenists and the traditionalists.

Eventually, in approximately 167 B.C.E. (approximately 2187 years ago) Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the then ruler of the Seleucid empire intervened in this internal struggle and his forces attacked Judah to bring it more fully into submission. The Judean guerilla forces under the command of the Maccabean brothers and their father Matthias, a priest, initially met with many reverses, finally however driving out the Seleucid forces in 160 B.C.E. (approximately 2180 years ago) and re-dedicating the defiled Temple of Jerusalem.

Over the course of time, the Seleucid empire declined, and was finally defeated by the Romans under general Pompey in 63 B.C.E. (approximately 2023 years ago).

Initially the Romans did not intervene in the internal affairs of Judah. However, in due course, the Judeans became more and more restive as Roman rule became more oppressive.

Many citizens of the Roman Empire converted to Judaism. It is estimated that approximately 10% of the Roman Empire’s population converted to Judaism. Given that the Roman Empire’s population was approximately 70 million people, therefore the number of converts to Judaism in the Empire is estimated to have been about 7 million people. Many of the converts to Judaism were aristocratic Roman women.

In the course of time, Roman rule over Judah became more oppressive and finally, in 66 C.E. (approximately 1954 years ago), the Judeans revolted. Initially the Romans did not take the revolt seriously and sent in only a small force and that not being of their best soldiers. So, they were defeated by the Judeans, who at that time were united. Later the Romans sent a large elite force. Also, by this time the various factions among the Judeans had begun to fight against each other, and so the Roman commander Titus achieved a resounding success, utterly laying waste to Judah, destroying the Temple of Jerusalem and expelling the inhabitants, in 70 C.E. (approximately 1,950 years ago).

The Jews expelled from the land of Judah in 70 C.E. (some 1,950 years ago) travelled in two parallel routes. One group travelled via Babylon (present day southern Iraq) to North Africa, Spain, the Balkans and what became the Muslim world. Also, in North Africa, some of the original inhabitants, the Berbers, converted to Judaism.

The other group went to Rome, northern Italy, France, Germany and eventually central and eastern Europe. A Jewish community was established in Cologne, Germany in approximately 321 C.E. (699 years ago). Also, a fairly large group of Sorbs (a pagan tribe living in what is now eastern Germany/ western Poland) converted to Judaism in 900 C.E., approximately 1120 years ago.

         The main centre of Jewish learning and civilization from 70 C.E. (1,950 years ago) until approximately 1000 C.E. (1,020 years ago) was centered around the yeshivas of Sura and Pumbedita in Babylon (what is now Iraq). A yeshiva is an academy of Jewish learning. The Talmud, an extremely long and extensive commentary on the laws of the Jewish Bible and a record of the debates in the yeshivas of Babylon was finally written down in 500 C.E. (1520 years ago).

          The Jews spread out over western Europe, establishing communities in England from approximately 1066 C.E. (954 years ago), in the wake of the Norman invasion of England.

          The Crusades was a war waged by Christians against Muslims for the control of the “Holy Land” (an area which encompassed most of modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and part of Syria. It lasted from approximately 1096 C.E. to 1291 C.E. i.e. from 924 to 729 years ago. The Crusades resulted in heavy oppression and persecution of the Jews of western Europe, beginning in the Rhineland area of Germany in 1096 C.E. and continuing for several years, and in several European countries. Also, the Jews were expelled from England in 1290 C.E.

              In contrast to the oppression and persecution of the Jews of western Europe, was the situation of the Jews in Spain. Jews had settled in Spain since before Roman times. After the decline of Roman power and with the conquest of Spain by the Visigoths beginning in 409 C.E., the Jews were persecuted by the Christian Visigoths. This situation would begin to change in 711 C.E. in the wake of the Muslim conquest. Within seven years of their landing near Gibraltar in 711 C.E. the Muslims had conquered the vast majority of the Iberian Peninsula, except for a small area in the extreme northwest. In particular the Muslim rulers thought of the Jews as useful subjects, since they were traders, physicians, and craftsmen. From 711 C.E to 1215 C.E, and in particular from 915 C.E. saw a flourishing of Jewish religious literature, Hebrew poetry, Jewish philosophy and many other aspects of Jewish religious and cultural life. Unlike the Christians, who strongly opposed Judaism due to its rejection of Jesus Christ, the Muslims thought of Judaism as a fellow monotheistic religion, to be allowed to subsist. Jews were generally far better treated by Muslim rulers than by Christian rulers. Spain became a major religious centre of Judaism. This was in addition to the increasing prosperity of much of the Jewish population.

          However, over a period of nearly five centuries, forces from the Christian kingdoms pushed south, conquering the various Muslim kingdoms. This was made easier by the often-fractious relations among the Muslim kingdoms and by the dissensions between the Muslims established in Spain and the North African dynasties who occasionally supported them.

In 1215 C.E. at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, the Christian forces scored a major victory over the Muslim forces. This marked the beginning of the end for the Muslim kingdoms and the beginning of the end for the Jewish communities of Spain, and although it would take nearly another three hundred years until the final end. By 1245 C.E about 80% of the area of Spain was occupied by the forces of Christian kingdoms. A small area around Granada survived as a Muslim state until 1492, largely due to dissensions among the Christian kingdoms, also due to some support from emirates and kingdoms of North Africa. Finally, in 1492, the combined Christian forces under the sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella conquered the (by then) tiny kingdom of Granada. The rulers of Granada were allowed to leave. The Jews of Spain, who at that time numbered about 250,000 were ordered to leave Spain unless they converted to Christianity. About 20,000 converted to Christianity, approximately 2,000 were executed by the Inquisition, and about 200,000 left Spain. The Inquisition had been instituted in 1478 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and the Catholic church in Spain allegedly to combat Jews who allegedly were influencing Jews who had previously converted to Christianity to return to Judaism. Over time, it became extremely merciless, seeking out unconverted Jews and persecuting them, as well as Jews who had previously converted to Christianity whom they suspected of “lapsing” back into Judaism.

The 200,000 Jews who fled Spain settled in the Ottoman Turkish empire, in North Africa, Italy and travelled as far as the Netherlands and eventually even to northeastern  Brazil and northwestern Mexico.

Some of the Jews who were expelled from England , and from France as well as Jews who were persecuted in Germany during the 14^th century  immigrated to Poland during the reign of Casimir III at his invitation, during the period from 1330 to 1370 and afterward.

In Europe, between 800 and 1100 C.E., the Jews were not part of the feudal system, the Christian church was still somewhat unorganized, local princes, bishops and kings largely protected the Jews since they often borrowed money from them. So, Jews did not often face large scale or sustained persecution, with the exception of the time of the Crusades (which began in 1096).

After 1100 C.E., a class of traders, moneylenders, administrators and physicians began to develop among a small sector of the Christian population of Europe. These people competed with the Jews, since they performed similar functions in the society that previously were the sole occupation of the Jews. This resulted, over the long term, in declining fortunes for the Jews, both socially and financially, and Jews suffered as a result. Furthermore, as the Church became more organized it campaigned more actively against the Jews. The Crusades, which lasted from 1096 to 1291, also resulted in heavy oppression of the Jews of Europe by the Christians and in many cases wholesale expulsions from several western European countries. Many of these Jews fled to the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom.

Poland-Lithuania was, from the 14^th century to the 17^th century, an area where many Jews lived in relative prosperity and freedom. However, during the Chmielnicki uprising of the Cossacks in 1648, many Jews were murdered. Also, many Jews died during the Swedish wars in 1655. As a result, many Jews started moving back to western Europe. Over the course of the 18^th century, Poland became weaker, and in the late 18^th century, its territory was divided between the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia.

During the period from 1300 to 1600, the Middle East and North Africa were dominated by the Ottoman Turkish empire, and the Jews enjoyed some level of prosperity. Most professions were open to them, except the military and government administration.   

From the early 18^th century, western Europe began to modernize and secularize, and the Christian churches’ power began to wane. Trade, the discovery of new lands (which had already begun from the 15^th century), and the beginnings of the industrial revolution all combined to create more pragmatic, less ideological and more open societies. This benefited the Jews.

Over the course of the 18^th century, new ideas began to develop in western Europe. The ideas of progress and constitutional government were a main feature of the British enlightenment, whereas the ideas of liberty, toleration and fraternity were main features of the French enlightenment. Throughout much of western Europe, enlightenment ideas spread. In the wake of the French revolution, these ideas were further spread and often enforced on other parts of Europe by the armies of Napoleon. Even after Napoleon was defeated in 1815, these ideas persisted and were implemented, to a lesser or greater degree by various European governments. The European Enlightenment enabled the physical liberation of western Europe’s Jews from the ghetto and in general from segregation apart from the rest of European society. The previous system of Jewish communal self-government disappeared in most western European countries and Jews achieved full citizenship in many of them. In Eastern Europe i.e. in the Russian Empire, and the eastern part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Jews were still oppressed and poor.

The Jews of western Europe were on the path to assimilating into the greater society. There were various movements within Judaism which began to arise, especially in Germany in  in reaction to the liberalization and secularization of the society. The Reform movement advocated services mostly in German, use of a choir and many other changes to the traditional service. In reaction to these major changes, traditional Jews reacted and developed their own movement, later called Orthodox. In between were a group of moderate reformers, under the leadership of Rabbi Zacharias Frankel, who took a middle position in respect to Jewish religious law.

In spite of the fact that many jobs and professions were now open to Jews, and Jews progressed considerably in them, there was still a strong undercurrent of anti-Jewish sentiment in most western European societies. The 19^th century was a century dominated by romanticism and nationalism. There was an exaltation of national pride in most European countries. A side effect of this was to perpetuate anti-Jewish prejudice, now renamed anti-Semitism. The term “anti-Semitism” was invented by a German man in 1879. He himself was an anti-Semite. In Christian theology, a Jew could, by converting to Christianity, erase his Jewish identity. According to anti-Semitic ideology, with its pseudo-scientific classification of Jews as a race, even if a Jew converted to Christianity, he could never stop being a Jew and therefore could never assimilate into European society. According to anti-Semitic ideology therefore, the Jew would always remain foreign to Europe and therefore it was natural that he should be hated as a result. This ideology appealed to jealous, hateful people who were jealous of the Jews’ material and social advancement in 19^th century Europe. The old Christian anti-Jewish attitudes had not fully died out either, but were supplemented by this hateful race-based ideology. Most of the Jews who advanced socially and materially were not outwardly religious and indeed some of them even converted to Christianity. Karl Marx, Felix Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein were among the many German Jews (or German Jews who had converted to Christianity) who were prominent in many sectors of German society- in science, the arts, commerce, industry. Despite this, racial anti-Semitism continued unabated in German society.

In the Middle East and North Africa, over the course of the 19^th century, the Ottoman Turkish empire was on the wane. Some of the southeastern European nationalities under Ottoman rule began to struggle for independence. One of the earliest revolts occurred in what is now Greece, with the establishment of an independent Greek state in 1821. In 1830 the French conquered a large part of what is now Algeria (in North Africa). With these new developments, the Jews of the region began to follow European culture and started to study European languages and established schools which taught European curricula. So, many Jews in the region began to Europeanize. In 1870, the Jews of Algeria received French citizenship, which was denied to Algerians of the Muslim faith. In other parts of the Middle East, change came much more slowly.

From the mid-19^th century, and increasingly from the 1880’s, the Zionist movement developed. It was a movement established to found a national home for the Jews in what was then called Palestine, which covered most of what had been ancient Israel, and was part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Over the centuries a small Jewish community had always existed in Palestine, supplemented by various immigrations of religious Jews from eastern Europe and from Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East from the 16^th century onwards. However, this community remained small and divided. The Zionist movement was largely a secular movement in response to oppression in eastern Europe and societal anti-Semitism in western Europe.

In the course of the 1^st World War, British forces of the Triple Entente conquered part of the Middle East from the Ottoman Turkish empire, among which was Palestine. This led to the British occupation of Palestine. In 1917 the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, which stated in part, “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

As the 19^th century gave way to the 20^th century, the centuries-long struggle for European domination between Britain and France came to an end. However, the industrial and military competition between Britain and Germany heated up considerably. Finally, in 1914, war broke out between the Triple Entente (Britain, France and Russia) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy). It was the first World War, as the U.S.A. and Japan came in on the side of the Triple Entente, and Turkey came in on the side of the Triple Alliance. The 1^st World War ended with defeat of the Triple Alliance.

After the 1^st World War, the economies of the world slowly started recovering. The major economies of western Europe and the U.S.A. became overheated by 1929 and the stock market crashed, putting millions out of work. This in turn fuelled the growth of Fascist and Communist parties in many countries. Both advocated totalitarian regimes, the fascists advocating right-wing totalitarianism and the Communists advocating socialist totalitarianism.

There had already been a revolution in Russia in 1917, deposing the autocratic tsarist regime which had ruled Russia for more than 300 years and establishing the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). 

Soon after the war and into the 1920’s there was fighting between Communists and Fascists in Germany. In 1933, largely as a consequence of Germany’s Depression-era impoverishment and its desire for revenge for its defeat in World War 1, the Nazi party, a fascist party, came to power under Adolf Hitler. Virulent murderous anti-Semitism was part of its core principles.

The Soviet Union was against any kind of religion, but was not officially anti-Semitic, although old prejudices lingered under the surface.

Upon coming to power in Germany, the Nazi party rapidly took over all government administration and forced all other political parties from the parliament. It began immediately on its immediate goals of rapid industrialization and militarization. These goals were to support the German quest for domination over all of western and eastern Europe.

Another goal of the Nazis was to annihilate the Jews of Europe. This proceeded in several stages. First the Jews of Germany were stripped of all their status and possessions, inducing many of them to escape to other European countries and North America. Then, after the 2^nd World War broke out and especially after the German invasion of Russia in June 1941, German armies were followed by the SS, a Nazi paramilitary force which began the rounding-up of the Jews followed by their segregation in ghettos and eventual deportation to concentration camps where they were murdered with poison gas. Over the course of the war, approximately six million Jews were massacred by the Nazis by torture, starvation, execution and gassing. At the end of the war, from a pre-war Jewish population worldwide of 16 million, only 10 million were left.

Many of the survivors of the Nazi genocide immigrated to Palestine, the United States, Canada, South Africa and other parts of western Europe.

After the 2^nd World War ended, the Zionist settlement in Palestine, which had been growing in strength since the 1920’s, received support from various foreign nations. In 1948, the United Nations, by majority vote, partitioned Palestine into a Jewish section and an Arab section. The state of Israel was declared in the Jewish section on May 14, 1948. The next day Israel was attacked by several Arab armies. However, Israel survived and thrived.

Israel has fought several wars with the Arabs- in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982 and 2006. In spite of that, Israel has survived and prospered. In 1973, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty. This was later followed by a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan in 1994. In recent years, relations between Israel and other Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, have improved considerably. This is largely due to growing rivalry and animosity between Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states on the one side, and Iran and Syria on the other.

Over the last thirty years, Israel has grown and prospered economically. It is the home of many world-class high-tech companies and agricultural research companies. Its tourist industry has also thrived.

The worldwide Jewish population has grown very slowly since the end of World War 2. From 1945 to 2020, the worldwide Jewish population has increased from 10 million to 14.7 million.