Jewish history
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, and their nation, religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Although Judaism as a religion first appears in Greek records during the Hellenistic period (323–31 BCE) and the earliest mention of Israel is inscribed on the Merneptah Stele dated 1213–1203 BCE, religious literature tells the story of Israelites going back at least as far as c. 1500 BCE. The Jewish diaspora began with the Assyrian captivity and continued on a much larger scale with the Babylonian captivity. Jews were also widespread throughout the Roman Empire, and this carried on to a lesser extent in the period of Byzantine rule in the central and eastern Mediterranean. In 638 CE the Byzantine Empire lost control of the Levant. The Arab Islamic Empire under Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem and the lands of Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt. The Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain coincided with the Middle Ages in Europe, a period of Muslim rule throughout much of the Iberian Peninsula. During that time, Jews were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life blossomed. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Ashkenazi Jews experienced extreme persecution in Central Europe, which prompted their massive emigration to Poland.

During the Classical Ottoman period (1300–1600), the Jews, together with most other communities of the empire, enjoyed a certain level of prosperity. In the 17th century, there were many significant Jewish populations in Western Europe. During the period of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, significant changes occurred within the Jewish community. Jews began in the 18th century to campaign for Jewish emancipation from restrictive laws and integration into the wider European society. While Jews in Western Europe were increasingly granted equality before the law, they faced growing persecution and legal restrictions in the Pale of Settlement, including widespread pogroms, which caused a mass exodus of more than two million Jews to the United States between 1881 and 1924. During the 1870s and 1880s the Jewish population in Europe began to more actively discuss emigration back to Israel and the re-establishment of the Jewish Nation in its national homeland. The Zionist movement was founded officially in 1897. Meanwhile, 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 scientist Albert Einstein and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Many Nobel Prize winners at this time were Jewish, as is still the case.

In 1933, with the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, the Jewish situation became more severe. Economic crises, racial anti-Semitic laws, and a fear of an upcoming war led many Jews to flee from Europe to Palestine, to the United States and to the Soviet Union. In 1939 World War II began and until 1941 Hitler occupied almost all of Europe, including Poland—where millions of Jews were living at that time—and France. In 1941, following the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Final Solution began, an extensive organized operation on an unprecedented scale, aimed at the annihilation of the Jewish people, and resulting in the persecution and murder of Jews in political Europe, inclusive of European North Africa (pro-Nazi Vichy-North Africa and Italian Libya). This genocide, in which approximately six million Jews were methodically exterminated, is known as the Holocaust or the "Shoah" (Hebrew term). In Poland, three million Jews were killed in gas chambers in all concentration camps combined, with one million at the Auschwitz camp complex alone. 

Palestine, which had been under a British mandate since 1920, saw large waves of Jewish migration before and during the Holocaust. After the mandate expired in 1948, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed on May 14 the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel to be known as the State of Israel. Immediately afterwards all neighbouring Arab states attacked, yet the newly formed IDF resisted. In 1949 the war ended and the state of Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world. As of 2020, Israel is a parliamentary democracy with a population of 9.2 million people, of whom 6.7 million are Jewish. The largest Jewish communities are in Israel and the United States, with major communities in France, Canada, Argentina, Russia, United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany. For statistics related to modern Jewish demographics see "Jewish population".
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Jews
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religion
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culture
Concept
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Hellenistic period
Concept
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Israel
Concept
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Merneptah Stele
LOC
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Jewish diaspora
Concept
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Assyrian captivity
Concept
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Babylonian captivity
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Roman Empire
LOC
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Byzantine
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Mediterranean
LOC
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Islamic Empire
LOC
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Caliph Omar
PER
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Jerusalem
LOC
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Mesopotamia
LOC
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Syria
ORG
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Egypt
LOC
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Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain
Concept
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Middle Ages
TIME
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Muslim rule
LOC
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Iberian Peninsula
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Ashkenazi Jews
Concept
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Poland
LOC
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European Renaissance
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Jewish emancipation
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Pale of Settlement
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pogrom
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Albert Einstein
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Nobel Prize
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Adolf Hitler
PER
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Nazis
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Germany
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anti-Semitic laws
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Palestine
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Soviet Union
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World War II
EVE
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occupied almost all of Europe
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Poland
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France
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invasion
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Final Solution
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North Africa
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pro-Nazi
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Vichy
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North
Concept
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Africa
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Italian Libya
LOC
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genocide
Concept
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the Holocaust
EVE
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gas chambers
Concept
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Auschwitz
LOC
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British mandate
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David Ben-Gurion
PER
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Jewish state
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Eretz Israel
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State of Israel
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Israel
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parliamentary democracy
Concept
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Jewish
PER
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United States
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Germany
PER
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Jewish population
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Jewish history
Concept
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facet of
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