page_title: History of the Jews in Europe
section_title: Early presence
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in Europe / History / Early presence
caption_attribution_description: German Jews of the thirteenth century. From Herrad von Landsperg, Luftgarten. Published in the en:1901-en:1906 en:Jewish Encyclopedia, now in the en:public domain.
context_page_description: The history of the Jews in Europe spans a period of over two thousand years. Some Jews, a Judaean Israelite tribe from the Levant, migrated to Europe just before the rise of the Roman Empire. A notable early event in the history of the Jews in the Roman Empire was Pompey's conquest of the East beginning in 63 BCE, although Alexandrian Jews had migrated to Rome before this event.
  The pre-World War II Jewish population of Europe is estimated to have been close to 9 million, or 57% of Jews worldwide. Around 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, which was followed by the emigration of much of the surviving population.
  The Jewish population of Europe in 2010 was estimated to be approximately 1.4 million or 10% of the world’s Jewish population. In the 21st century, France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and Ukraine.
context_section_description: Hellenistic Judaism, originating from Alexandria, was present throughout the Roman Empire even before the Jewish–Roman wars. Large numbers lived in Greece (including the Greek isles in the Aegean and Crete) as early as the beginning of the 3rd century BCE. The first recorded mention of Judaism in Greece dates from 300-250 BCE, on the island of Rhodes. As early as the middle of the 2nd century BCE, the Jewish author of the third book of the Oracula Sibyllina, addressing the "chosen people," says: "Every land is full of thee and every sea." The most diverse witnesses, such as Strabo, Philo, Seneca, Cicero, and Josephus, all mention Jewish populations in the cities of the Mediterranean Basin. Most Jewish population centers of this period were, however, still in the East (Iudaea and Syria) and Alexandria in Egypt was by far the most important of the Jewish communities, with the Jews in Philo's time inhabiting two of the five sections of the city. Nevertheless, a Jewish community is recorded to have existed in Rome at least since the 1st century BCE, although there may even have been an established community there as early as the second century BCE, for in the year 139 BCE, the pretor Hispanus issued a decree expelling all Jews who were not Italian citizens. At the commencement of the reign of Caesar Augustus in 27 BCE, there were over 7,000 Jews in Rome: this is the number that escorted the envoys who came to demand the deposition of Archelaus. The Jewish historian Josephus confirms that as early as 90 Common Era (CE) there was already a Jewish diaspora living in Europe, made-up of the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. Thus, he writes in his Antiquities:  " …there are but two tribes in Asia (Turkey) and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now and are an immense multitude."
  The Roman Empire period presence of Jews in Croatia dates to the 2nd century, in Pannonia to the 3rd to 4th century. A finger ring with a Menorah depiction found in Augusta Raurica (Kaiseraugst, Switzerland) in 2001 attests to Jewish presence in Germania Superior. Evidence in towns north of the Loire or in southern Gaul date to the 5th century and 6th centuries. By late antiquity, Jewish communities were found in modern-day France and Germany.
  Persecution of Jews in Europe begins with the presence of Jews in regions that later became known as the lands of Latin Christendom (c. 8th century CE) and modern Europe. Not only were Jewish Christians persecuted according to the New Testament, but also as a matter of historical fact anti-Jewish pogroms occurred not only in Jerusalem (325 CE), Persia (351 CE), Carthage (250 CE), Alexandria (415), but also in Italy (224 CE), Milan (379 CE) and Menorca (418 CE), Antioch (489), Daphne-Antioch (506), Ravenna (519), amongst other places. Hostility between Christians and Jews grew over the generations under Roman sovereignty and beyond; eventually forced conversion, property confiscation, synagogue burning, expulsion, stake burning, enslavement and outlawing of Jews—even whole Jewish communities—occurred countless times in the lands of Latin Christendom.
caption: Jews of Germany, 13th century
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