Maps
Expulsions and Migrations
Settlement in Eastern Europe
The Partitions & the Pale of Settlement
Emigration 1890s-1930s
Crimea
Following the defeat of the Khazar kings in the 11th century. a Turkish group whose leaders had converted to Judaism, settled in Kiev and Chernigov in the earty 12th century.
Germany
The persecutions Of Jews in Germany (particularly in the Rhineland communities of Cologne, Speyer, Worms, and Mainz) during the First Crusade (1096-1099), and later in the Second Crusade (1144), led some Jews to move east to new communities in Poland.
England
Over the course of the 13th century. the Jews Of England found themselves increasingly persecuted, culminating in the July 18. 1290 edict by Edward l, which called for the banishment Of all Jews from England, The Jewish community. then numbering several thousand, made its way to Flanders, France. and Germany.
France
Philip the Fair first issued an order expelling the Jews from his kingdom in 1306, only to allow them to retum in i 315. Expulsion orders were subsequently issued and rescinded in 1322 and 1349. Each time, financial motives played a role in the expuIsion and readmittance of the Jews, Then Charles VI decreed on September 17, 1394, that Jewish residence would no longer be tolerated in the Kingdom of France. While Jews continued to live illegally in the kingdom, large sections of the community migrated south to Provence and Spain.
Germany
Over 300 Jewish communities were attacked during the Black Death (1348-1350), when Jews were accused of killing non-Jews by poisoning wells and other water sources. Many Jews sought refuge to the east in the developing communities of Poland.
Hungary
Fears generated by the Black Death in Hungary led to the first general expulsion of Jews there in 1349 and again in 1360.
Spain
In April 1492, all Jews who would not accept Christianity were ordered to be expelled from Spain by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. Over 100.000 Jewish exiles left the kingdom, many seeking temporary refuge in Portugal; others settled in North Afnca and Turkey. The last Jew is reputed to have left Spain on July 7, 1492 (the 7th of Av).
Portugal
Despite granting refuge to Jews from the neighboring Kingdom of Spain, Emmanuel I ordered that no Jew be allowed to remain in Portugal after November 1497, Many were killed and Others sought refuge in Amsterdam, Salonika, Turkey and in communities in the New World.
Lithuania
Jews were expelled from the Grand Duchy Of Lithuanta in 1495 but were brought back in 1503, with their property and opportunities for economic activity restored.
Vienna
Following a charge of host desecration leveled against the Jewish community of Vienna in 1420, Jews there were forcibly converted and attacked in 1421. Those not killed were expelled, with many seeking refuge in Bohemia.
Poland - Lithuania
1667-1771
The emergence Of Jewish cities coincided with the development of important political and econornic centers. In Eastern Europe, Jews were Often forced to live outside these centers forming a city-outside-city (parapolis) despite the various privileges offered to them, By the 16th century, the synagogues, the most rudimentary form of social organization in each community, linked up to form a national network of representation. called the Vaad Arba Aratzot (Council of the Four Lands). Lublin and Poznan, for instance, were two of the profiled cities where the Council met. Commerce, politics and scholarship mixed during the Council's seasonal meetings. Jewish organizational life was SO structured that the government took advantage of this organization by requiring it to collect taxes. New cities developed and the importance of Old ones shifted as the economy modernized and the population migrated. While all Jewish cities Shared the same institutional infrastructure necessary to make them Jewish centers, each was a kind of "state" of its own, as the cultural defining style left an imprint of their individual character.
Spain
In April 1492, all Jews who would not accept Christianity were ordered to be expelled from Spain by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. Over 100.000 Jewish exiles left the kingdom, many seeking temporary refuge in Portugal; others settled in North Afnca and Turkey. The last Jew is reputed to have left Spain on July 7, 1492 (the 7th of Av).
Portugal
Despite granting refuge to Jews from the neighboring Kingdom of Spain, Emmanuel I ordered that no Jew be allowed to remain in Portugal after November 1497, Many were killed and Others sought refuge in Amsterdam, Salonika, Turkey and in communities in the New World.
Lithuania
Jews were expelled from the Grand Duchy Of Lithuanta in 1495 but were brought back in 1503, with their property and opportunities for economic activity restored.
Vienna
Following a charge of host desecration leveled against the Jewish community of Vienna in 1420, Jews there were forcibly converted and attacked in 1421. Those not killed were expelled, with many seeking refuge in Bohemia.
The quintessential repository of Jewish history and culture is found in its scrolls and books. The first printed Jewish book (1475) IS Rashi's, although in 1444 a Jew is mentioned in connection With printing in Avignon, France. Jews in Germany had been denied the opportunity to study printing technology, which was under the strict control of the Christian guilds.
Once the printing technology spread to Rome, Italy in the late 16th century became the center for Hebrew printing. There are a few examples of printing houses in Eastern Europe from around this time, but it was only in the 18th century that the printing industry fully developed. In this region the main Jewish printing centers were found in Krakow, Lublin, Lvov, Vilna, and Warsaw. There were of course, many other smaller presses and their number multiplied in the 19th century, which is when the formal study of Jewish printing began and which continues today.
However. as with many other aspects of life and culture, during the Holocaust printing presses were shattered, books were left truncated and destroyed, while many libraries that housed these treasures were reduced to rubble.
As Poland found itself situated between three new and growing empires the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian Empire it became vulnerable territory. These stronger states coveted power and land and decided to subdivide the older, and now weaker Polish Commonwealth among themselves. The first partition was the result of fear from Russia's involvement with the Ottoman Empre (1768) and its expansion. Austria and Prussia responded politically by suggesting the partition, sensing that Russia's ambitions might be tempered by getting a piece of Polish territory.
As a result of the first partition, Poland lost about a third of its territory and about half of its population. Polish citizens, as well as other groups living there, became minorities in new political states, and had to adjust to new Cultures and new legal statuses. Jews in particular were affected, since, for the most, they lived in areas that continued to be absorbed by the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Once the pattern of empires allotting land to themselves was initiated, the same actions were reenacted.
The 20 years between the first and second partition strengthened Polish nationalism and its political dreams of reversing the partitions. The response to the second partition was a significant, but unsuccessful, national uprising led by Tadeusz Kosciuszko in 1794. As the empires divided the remnant of Poland amongst themselves in 1795, the sovereign Polish state effectively ceased to exist until after World War l, when the Polish Republic was restored in 1918.
This was the name of the Russian territory, much of which was annexed from Poland. where Jewish settlement was authorized; it amounted to about 1 million square kilometers. Jews had been officially excluded from Russian territory from the 15th century onward, but the annexation of the Polish territories created the necessity for the government to decide on how to handle a new, undesired Jewish population. Defining the actual borders started in 1795, after the third partition, but these borders were only fixed in 1815, with the inclusion Of areas
The figures shown here underscore the indisputable fact regarding the migration of Jews in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries: after 1881, there was a sharp rise in the number of Jews leaving Eastern Europe. This massive relocation continued until World War I when tighter immigration restrictions were imposed in many Western countries.
Prior to the mass migrations, there were nearly 9 million Jews in Europe; about half of them lived within the Pale of Settlement. Most were poor, working class, and urban Yiddish speakers. As illiteracy was an obstacle to admission in the United States, it was fortunate that the Jews were a highly literate group, and thus many could jump that hurdle until the doors were closed in 1924.
The prospect for socio-economic improvement was undoubtedly a great motivation for this drive to the West, but Jewish migration was also driven by the attempt to escape the anti-Jewish persecution and oppressive discrimination that were so prevalent in Eastern Europe.
Israel (at that time Palestine), a place that had always been central to the Jewish people in religion, law, ritual, and history, also presented itself as a destination for emigrating Jews. The purpose and intent of migration to Palestine were, of course, totally different and were fueled by ideological conviction, rather than by practical, socio-economic concerns.