Monday, August 3, 2015

Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History


Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History

Sergio DellaPergola

A fruitful, intriguing relationship exists between population genetics and
historical  demography.  While  the  former  seeks  information  on  the
changing  size  and  geographical  distribution  of  populations  to  draw
inference on the odds and timing of observed mutations (Fraikor, 1977;
Motulsky, 1995; Risch et al., 1995), the latter may draw notions about the
timing  and  direction  of  past  international  migrations  from  observed
patterns of genetic similarity or dissimilarity (Bonné-Tamir et al., 1992).
The purpose of this paper is to describe some salient stages and processes
in Jewish population history, while trying to keep away from the obvious
risk  of  circular  argumentation.  More  specifically,  I  search  for  certain
macro-historical  and  macro-social  patterns  which  may  have  been
underlying the demographic evolution of the Jews and the transmitted
experience  of  Jewish  peoplehood  in  the  long  run.  Discussion  of  these
fundamental issues may enhance the understanding of various associate
and dependent processes, including aspects of Jewish population genetics,
and of Jewish genetic disease particularly.
The proceedings of the 1990 conference on Genetic Diversity Among
Jews in memory of Richard Goodman carried a descriptive article on the
development  of  Jewish  population  in  historical  perspective,  with  an
emphasis on the last hundred years (DellaPergola, 1992). The present
paper complements the previous one by substantially extending the time
framework for the assessment of the historical development of Jewish
population. In cautiously addressing a span of forty centuries since the
origins  to  the  threshold  of  the 21st century,  I  am  fully  aware  of  the
analytic hiatus involved in trying to bridge between solid and documented scholarship,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  mixture  of  raw  data,  inference, literary memory, and imagination, on the other.


Ethnogenesis, Ethnomaintenance, Ethnoextinction

Before  embarking  in  a  discussion  of  Jewish  demographic  history,  the general  mechanisms  of  the  origins  and  transformation  of  Jewish populations should be outlined. Jewish communities represent a special case of a group or subpopulation defined by symbolic particularism--be it religious, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, or of any other sort. All along history, countless such subpopulations have come into being, have existed for longer or shorter spans of time, and have disappeared.
The birth, or ethnogenesis, of such a group in a given place may
occur because of one of four possible processes (see Figure 1): (a) the
initial  immigration  of  the  given  group  to  a  new  territory; (b)  the

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annexation of a territory where the given group was already present by
another territorial entity where it was not; (c) ideational innovation or split
out of another existing group; or (d) the merger of two or more existing
groups generating a new group with its own durable characteristics. The
opposite  phenomenon  of  ethnoextinction  in  a  certain  place  may  occur
under any of five possible circumstances: (a) the total emigration of the
given group; (b) territorial cession, including all members of the given
group; (c) complete assimilation of the group; (d) extinction as the result
of an excess of deaths over births; or (e) genocide. Each of these different
mechanisms of population change can be assumed to have operated at
various points of time in the case of Jewish demographic history.

FIGURE 1. SCHEME OF ETHNOGENESIS, TRANSFORMATION, AND
              ETHNOEXTINCTION OF GROUP/SUBPOPULATION




























Once a subpopulation has been established, its changing size and
internal structure will be determined at any moment by a complex of
biological, social, and cultural factors: (a) the balance between births and
deaths; (b) the balance between immigration and emigration; and (c) the
balance between accessions of new members to the group and secessions
of old ones from it. The dynamics of these socio-demographic and socio-

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cultural events ceaselessly affects the given group’s composition according to a variety of relevant characteristics, namely age, sex, marital status, socio-economic  status,  and  cultural  characteristics.  Each  of  the  latter personal traits, in turn, affects the likelihood of a given socio-demographic or socio-cultural event to occur.
While  the  vital  balance  of  births  and  deaths  and  geographical
mobility are universal features affecting any population, the boundary of a
group defined by symbolic criteria tends to be quite fluid and open. Over
long  periods  in  the  past,  Jewish  communities  were  quite  closed  and
segregated  from  the  surrounding  societies,  and  hence,  culturally,
demographically, and genetically isolated. On the other hand, at discrete
points in time in the past, and with increasing continuity and frequency
more  recently,  varying  amounts  of  people joined the Jewish group or
seceded  from  it.  The  condition  of  a  closed  and  isolated  population,
therefore, tended to apply only to a (probably declining) set of Jewish
demographic processes. The frequency of Jews with non-Jewish origins, as
well  as  of  non-Jews  with  Jewish  origins  tended  to  grow,  making  the
analytic  distinction  necessary  between  a “core  Jewish  population”  of
currently  Jewish  individuals,  and  an   “enlarged  Jewish  population”  also
inclusive  of  current  non-Jews  with  some  Jewish  ancestry  and  of  nonJewish  members  in  Jewish  households.  This  trend  will  conceivably continue in the future.


The Long-Term Historical View
T aking now a very long-term historical look at the known or presumed
facts, in Figure 2 we try to compare the development of Jewish population
from the very origins to the present day, with that of the world’s total
population (Biraben, 1979).  The  emerging  profile  involves  dramatic
sequences  of  expansion  and  shrinkage  in  the  (assumed)  total  size  of Jewish  population.  A  unique  blend  of  continuity  and  discontinuity  is observed, or at least inferred.
Since  the  beginnings   of  Jewish  transmitted  collective  history,
relevant textual testimony illustrates the unique demographic saga of the
Jews. One of the significant paradigms in Biblical tradition is the growth of
the  Israelites  from  one,  Abraham’s,  extended  family,  into  full-scale
peoplehood.
 Genesis  (46:8-27)  specifies  the  names  of  fewer  than 70
Jewish  males--sons  and  grandsons  of  Jacob--who  migrated  to  Egypt. Exodus (11:37) mentions the over 600,000 Jewish male adults who left Egypt 430 years later. Numbers (1:1-50; 26:1-65) suggests an extremely low rate of total Jewish population growth, but substantially different rates of growth for each of the Israelite tribes during the 40 years of wandering in the desert under Moses’ leadership.
While we cannot elaborate here o n the details and reliability of such
early demographic accounts--or, for that matter, on the whole approach
to the origin of the Jews--what we do have demonstrated, through ancient
textual evidence, are three relevant and fundamental principles that will

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affect  all  the  ensuing  demographic  experience  of  the  Jews:       (a)  the
unequal pace of growth over time of Jewish population as a whole; (b) the differential growth of different sections of the Jewish population at any given  point  in  time,  affecting  the  compositional  characteristics  of  the whole  group;  and  (c)  international  migration  as  a  large  scale  process affecting the location and characteristics of the Jews.

FIGURE 2. WORLD JEWISH AND TOTAL POPULATIONS - ROUGH ESTIMATES,
                                                 2000 B.C.E. to 2000 C.E.



















Later  literary  and  archeological  sources  provide  the  basis  for inference  about  the  continuing  development  of  Jewish  population  in antiquity. In very synthetic generalization, as against a relatively slow and steady development of total world population until the eve of the 20th century, three periods of major Jewish population expansion stand out (see also Baron 1971; Biraben, 1979):
1. The first corresponds with the period of         the Kings, at the height of Israel’s
political influence in antiquity. King David’s censuses can be interpreted to
provide a figure around 2-2.5 million people--possibly including non-Jews
under  Jewish  rule--within  the  extended  boundaries  of  the  Kingdom  of
Israel. After the fall of the First Temple in Jerusalem, during the 8th
century B.C.E., and the consequent deportation of Israelites to Babylon, the permanent bases of a Jewish Diaspora were created.
2. The emergence of a second Jewish population peak can b e posited toward
the time of the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem during the
Hasmonean period (3rd-2nd century B.C.E.). This new peak, variously
estimated, and here cautiously put at around 4.5 million people during the
first century B.C.E., has been interpreted by some scholars as reflecting,
among  other  factors,  significant  numbers  of  non-Jews  around  the

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Mediterranean basin joining into the fold of Judaism. On the other hand, the Jews’ first and second century’s struggle against the Roman Empire and their final defeat determined a dramatic Jewish population decline, possibly down to around 1-1.5 million individuals, or less. Most of this decrease was presumably due to the loss of a distinct Jewish identity and the assimilation of large masses of Jews into the surrounding cultures, under the hegemony of Christianity and, later, of Islam.
3. The long period of over one thousand years that follows can be defined by
  
“unstable stability”: little major Jewish population change in the long run,
   accompanied  by  continuous  and  significant  changes  in  the  short  run.
  
Operating here is a combination of endogenous and exogenous factors,
   partly shared with the population at large, partly acting uniquely toward
   Jewish  communities.  High  mortality  due  to  general  epidemics,  wars,
   natural disasters, and more specifically focused expulsions, mass murder,
  
and  forced  conversions  of  Jews,  periodically  wiped  out  any  Jewish
   population  build-up  that  might  have  accumulated  during  more  stable
  
times. Most likely the Jewish population at the beginning of the 17th
   century, here estimated at 1.1 million, was equal to or smaller than that
   found at the end of the 12th century.
4. The  third  Jewish  population  peak  r eflects  the  effects  of  the  modern
“demographic transition”: modernization and its influences on population
processes, namely the general declines in mortality and fertility from high
or very high to much lower levels. The impressive Jewish population surge
during  the  late                18th,  the                 19th,  and  the  early                         20th  centuries--mostly
occurring in Eastern Europe--was mostly driven by early improvements in
morbidity and mortality levels, possibly linked to socio-cultural and socio-
economic differences between Jewish communities and the surrounding
populations.  The  Jewish  transition  to  high  rates  of  population  growth clearly  preceded  similar  trends  that  were  to  emerge  among  the  total population several tens, if not one or two hundreds of years later.
5. This  period  of  steady  demographic  expansion,  peaking  at  abo 16.5 ut
million, was suddenly terminated by the Shoah, the destruction of about 6 million Jews during World War II.
6. The 11 million Jews surviving wo rldwide after the war are estimated to
have grown to 13 million at present. The Jewish population worldwide has currently   reached   an   overall   rate   of   growth   approaching   zero (DellaPergola, 1997).


Outline of Main Jewish Migrations in Antiquity and the Early Middle
Ages

M igrations  in  ancient  eras  and  during  the  early  Middle  Ages  crucially
shaped the geographic distribution of the Jews. Influences of that distant
past until very recently still decisively affected the main patterns of Jewish
population distribution. Given the importance of migrations for population
genetics, it may be useful to recapitulate the chronology of some of the
main steps in population dispersal in the past. Figure 3 shows the main

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migration  streams  and  some  of  the  main  areas  of  settlement  and resettlement. Six main stages are indicated:

FIGURE 3. SCHEMATIC REPRESENTATION OF MAIN JEWISH MIGRATION FLOWS
                                IN ANTIQUITY AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

























1.T he  first  Diaspora,  from  Eretz  Israel (the  Land  of  Israel)  to  Babel
(Babylon),  beginning  with  the  occupation  and  fall  of  the  First  Temple during the 8th century B.C.E.;
2. The Shivat Zion (Return to Zio n) movement which, according to Biblical
sources, brought back to the Land of Israel about 40,000 Jews from the Babylonian exile;
3. The second Diaspo ra, parallel to the falling of the Second Temple (1st-2nd
century  C.E.).  Among  other  lands,  the  southern  part  of  the  Italian peninsula, as well as other areas along the Mediterranean coasts of North Africa  and  southern  Europe,  housed  the  development  of  Jewish communities;
4. The northboun d migration from Italy and southern France, possibly since
the 4th and through the 10th centuries gave origin to the initial nucleus of Ashkenazic Jewry in the regions around the Rhine Valley, today part of northeast France and northwest Germany;
5. The westbound migration from Babel, reach ing the north shores of Africa
and  the  south  shores  of  Europe--especially  the  Iberian  Peninsula--
reaching its peak in correspondence with the westward expansion of Islam (7th-8th centuries and after);

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6. The eastbound expansion of the Ashkenazic settlement, starting after the
  
11th century and continuing into the 16th.
These main migrations were accompanied by other streams to areas
such as Yemen, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the northern shores of the
Black  Sea,  and  possibly  Ethiopia.  If  this  scheme  is  fairly  accurate,  a
number of significant implications ensue:
1. The common demographic sources of world Jewish population would be
implicit in the ancient stage of settlement      in Eretz Israel;
2. The first significant partition of Jewish population occurred when the most
  
ancient Diaspora was created in Babylon in the area betwe en today’s Syria
and Iran;
3. Still in antiquity, yet much later, a Jewish population had experienced a
  
prolonged Mediterranean-Southern  European  residence.  These  Jews,
  
originating in the main from Eretz Israel and only to a minor extent from
  
Babel, would generate the backbone of Ashkenazic Jewry. They had little
   direct contact with the Jewish community in the Babylonian Diaspora;
4. The  same  population  nucleus  had  left  the  Mediterranean-Southern
  
European  shores  northwards  well  before  these  areas--especially the
Iberian  peninsula--began  to  attract  larger  numbers  of  Jews  with  a Babylonian  background,  finally  coalescing  into  the  Sephardic  Jewish community;
5. It is likely, therefore, that the basic differentiation between what was to
   become Ashk enazic Jewry and what was to become Sephardic Jewry can
   be traced to the much different frequency of their ancestral roots in
Eretz
   Israel
and in Babel, respectively. Support for this view comes from an
  
analysis of Jewish religious practices, pointing to different prayer rituals
  
and to a preference for responsa in the respective versions of the Talmud
   (
Yerushalmi vs. Bavli)(Grossman, 1973; Bonfil, 1983);
6. This  interpretation  suggests  that  the  same  initial  Jewish  population
   became subdivided into two quite separate subpopula tions (
Ashkenazim
and Sephardim) between the 2nd and the 8th centuries.
In each instance of a significant Jewish migration movement, it can
be assumed that a minority moved away from the local e stablished Jewish
community while the majority remained. The Jewish migrant community settling  and  developing  in  a  new  place  therefore  probably  included  a rather limited and self-selected pool of individuals. On the other hand, the communities that remained in the pre-existing locales were exposed to processes  of  change  which  possibly  often  led  to  serious  demographic erosion if not disappearance.
In  the  more  circumscribed  context  of  the  discussion  about  the
origins  of  Ashkenazic  Jewry ,  if  the  assumptions  presented  here  are
correct,  namely  regarding  a  relatively  closed  group  of  people  moving
gradually from the Middle East to South Europe, then to North Europe,
and finally to East Europe, modern genetic studies should show some
degree of similarity between Jews of Eastern European origin and Jews of
southern  European,  Mediterranean,  and  Middle  Eastern  origin.  On  the
other  hand,  research  findings  and  hypotheses  by  linguists  and  other
scholars who have found substantial Slavic and Turkish influences on the

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Yiddish  language  and  literature,  would  imply  that  Ashkenazic  Jewry
emerged from the fusion of Jewish immigrants with substantial numbers
of non-Jews in the Eastern European context (Herzog, 1979; King, 1992).
The  consequence  for  modern  genetic  studies  would  be  substantial
similarity between Jews and other persons belonging to those regional
societies.
Further genetic research is needed here to adjudicate between these conflicting historical, demographic, and philological hypotheses.


World Jewish Population: Middle Ages to Early Modern Period

Tur ning to a more data-oriented analysis of Jewish demographic histor y,
B enjamin  de  Tudela’s  (ca.1170)  travel  itinerary  probably  provides  the
most comprehensive description of the geographical distribution and main
characteristics  of  Jewish  population  in  the  world  of  the  Middle  Ages.
Generally considered authoritative and reliable, withstanding the scrutiny
of modern historiography--at least for those locales he unquestionably
visited--de Tudela provides plenty of statistical data. Some of these can
be accepted at face value, some others surely need some adjustment.

TABLE 1. JEWISH POPULATION ESTIMATES BASED ON BENJAMIN DE TUDELA’S
ITINERARY - Ca. 1170



Region




Number
a



Percent


Original          Adjustedb


Total                                             974,454     1,200,000              100.0



Europe                                           14,613         150,000                12.5


West Europec                                             5,872        102,500               8.5


Balkansd                                                         8,741          40,000               3.4


East Europe                                   0           7,500               0.6


Asia                                              946,241         979,700                81.6


Near East                              22,241          52,900               4.4


Iraq                                    121,500        121,500             10.1


Arabian Pen.                         455,000        455,000             37.9


Iran                                    193,500        193,500             16.1


Central Asia                           50,000          52,300               4.4


India                                   101,000        101,000               8.4


East Asia                                 3,000            3,500               0.3


Africa                                              13,600           70,300                  5.9


N.E.Africa                              13,600          40,300               3.4


Maghreb                                        0         30,000               2.5


a. Not including Jews whose presence is reported by de Tudela without a figure being provided. See


also text above.


b. Including our estimates        for areas where de Tudela reported the presence of Jews without a


figure, and areas not reported by him where the presence of Jews is known from other sources.


See also text above.
c. Including Germany.
d. Greece and Turkey.



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The emerging picture is displayed in Table 1, which includes both
th e or iginal data and our adjustments for areas where de Tudela reported
a Jewish presence without specifying the numbers, as well as for areas he
did not touch and where a Jewish presence can be ascertained through
other sources. For the areas better documented by Benjamin, such as
Western  Europe  and  the  Near  East,  we  considered  his  data  as
representing  households,  and  multiplied  them  by  a  cautious  factor  of
4.375 persons per household. Data for other areas, whose descriptions
appear to be less reliable, were taken as total population figures.
       
After adjustments of the original figure of about 975,000 Jews, a
total estimate of 1.2 million obtains around the year 1170. Over 80% of
the adjusted Jewish population were located on the Asian continent. Some
of de Tudela’s figures, namely the huge Jewish concentrations reported in
the   Arabian   Peninsula,   admittedly   appear   quite   unreliable,   and
occasionally quite fantastic. The same applies to some of his descriptions
of India, Central Asia, and the Far East. If we were to dismiss these data
or to reduce them drastically, the total Jewish population estimate would
be  reduced  accordingly.  On  the  other  hand,  the  reported  information
about  the  large  communities  in  Constantinople  or  Baghdad  appear
reliable,  as  surely  is  the  case  for  the  smaller  communities  visited  in
western  European  countries,  or  the  report  of  Benjamin’s  visit  to  the
sparsely inhabited and desolate Holy Land.
We know from other evidence that Jewish population was growing in
western Europe during the 12th century. Jews were also beginning to spill
into Eastern Europe, although the assumed numbers there were still very
small. De Tudela was aware of that presence, as far as the Ukraine’s
capital city, Kiev, but he did not provide figures; nor did he for Jews who
had  arrived  from  the  south  and  probably  were  sparsely  settled  in
Southeast Europe, from the northern Balkans through Romania. Moreover,
de  Tudela  only  partially  covered  North  Africa,  which  included  long-
standing Jewish communities. His bare mentioning of Jews in the Upper
Nile Valley, south of Egypt, would be consistent with the assumption that
the growth of Jewish populations there was a later development.
Overall, the crucial fact provided by de Tudela about the Jewish
world in the Middle Ages, confirmed by numerous other observations, is
that at this stage the Jews still featured a predominantly Middle Eastern
geography, while their presence in Eastern Europe was extremely sparse
and scarce. During the successive two or three centuries the demography
of world Jewry would be transformed by migrations from the southeastern
Mediterranean to Western Europe, and from Western to Eastern Europe.
The  growth  of  these  regional  communities  would  also  be  significantly
affected by the differential impact of birth and death rates. On the other
hand, some of the communities that de Tudela was able to describe or at
least  to  mention  in  South  and  Central  Asia,  would  disappear  through
complete assimilation, thus fueling the myth of the “lost tribes”.
The process of geographical and demographic transformation within
a world Jewish population of rather stable total size between 1170 and
1700  is outlined in the upper lines of Table 2. The roughly estimated

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Jewish  population  of  Europe  tended  to  grow,  while--assuming  we  can
accept the figures for the earlier date--the tentatively combined estimates
for the communities in Asia and Africa tended to decline. Between 1170
and 1490, while the center of gravity of the Jewish people was transferred
westward  to  Europe,  the  main  Jewish  population  centers  in  Western
Europe were periodically wiped away by several successive expulsions,
most importantly from Spain and Portugal at the turn of the 15th and 16th
centuries. But, besides the dispersive effects of emigration, the major
Jewish population shift occurred within Eastern Europe. In the course of
the 17th  century,  despite  the  mid-century  Chemelnitzky  massacres,
Eastern Europe was to become the leading center of Jewish population
growth.


The Modern Demographic Transition and the Growth of Ashkenazic
                                                       Jewry
The crucial process in modern demographic history was the reduction in
the levels of mortality and subse quently of natality, usually described as
th e “demographic transition” (Bachi, 1976; DellaPergola, 1983). Modern Jewish and total population growth reflects the different timing in the modernization of the different factors of population change. Jews generally preceded the non-Jewish population in the same places in undergoing these  demographic  transitions.  Consequently  the  Jews  anticipated  the early take-off of rapid population growth, as in due course they would anticipate the modern slowing down of population growth.

TABLE 2. JEWISH POPULATION ESTIMATES, BY MAJOR REGIONS - 1170-1995

Year                         Number (Thousands)                             Percent
Total      West        East        Asiaa,    America,    Europe     East
Europe     Europe,      Africa    Oceania     as %     Europe
Balkans                                    of        as %
Total        of
Europe

1170        1,200        103             47     1,050              -      12.5       31.3
1300        1,200        385             65       750              -      37.5       14.4
1490        1,300        510             90       700              -      46.2       15.0
1700        1,100        146           573        377             4       65.4       79.7
1825        3,281        458         2,272        540            11       83.2       83.2
1880        7,663     1,044         5,727        630          262       88.4       84.6
1939      16,500     1,350         8,150     1,600       5,400       57.6       85.8
1948      11,500     1,035         2,665     2,000       5,800       32.2       72.0
1995      13,059     1,037           704     4,735       6,583       13.3       40.4
a. Including Palestine/Israel.
Sources: Adapted             from de      Tudela (ca     1170), Baron            (1971), DellaPergola                            (1992, 1997)


The  major  shifts  in  Jewish  population  size  and  geographic
distribution by major regions between 1700 and 1939 are outlined in the

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mid-portion of Table 2, showing the different rhythm of growth of Jewish
populations in East Europe, West Europe, Asia and Africa, and in the newly
settled  worlds  across  the  Ocean,  the  Americas  and  Oceania.  The  late
Jewish population surge in America is obviously explained by international
migration.
Viewed  in  historical  perspective,  migrations  unquestionably  had
deep consequences in reshaping the social and cultural profile of Jewish
communitie s globally. Not only the geographic center of gravity, but also
the predominant focus and character of Jewish society were repeatedly
and decisively shifted as a consequence of massive migratory movements.
Migration disconnected and reconnected Jewish individuals and organized
communities in ways that promoted social and cultural change. Although
similar  interconnections  can  be  found  in  the  migration  experiences  of
other ethnoreligious or sociocultural groups, the Jewish case appears to
extend over a longer time span and is geographically more complex and
articulated.
However,  it  is  the  unfolding  of  demographic  processes  within Eastern European Jewry that commands special attention. A few thousand Ashkenazic Jewish  households  in  the  Middle  Ages  would  multiply  into several  hundreds  of  thousands  by  the  18th  century,  and  into  several millions toward the end of the 19th. Here the question has repeatedly been raised: Is it at all possible that the small initial Jewish population in Eastern Europe would grow to become the overwhelming majority of world Jewry, and if so, under what conditions?
The  partial  demographic  evidence  that  is  actually  available  from
censuses and vital records, combined with relatively simple and plausible
assumptions  about  the  main  factors  of  population  change,  i.e.  life-
expectancy and fertility levels, allows for an attempt to reconstruct this
crucial  phase  of  Jewish  demographic  history                            (see  also:  Mahler,                                                       1958;
Weinryb,   1972;  Baron,    1976;  Gieysztorowa,    1976;  Bloch,    1980;
DellaPergola, 1983; Stampfer, 1987; Jagur-Grodzinski, 1997).
Table 3 illustrates how the development of Eastern European Jewry
might be outlined for the period of over seven centuries between the
initial stages of settlement and the early stages of mass emigrat ion from
East E urope to America and other Western destinations. It should be
stressed that the geographical definition of our estimates does not refe r
only to the central nucleus of the Polish-Lithuanian communities, which
were the main centers of Jewish population growth, but also to a muc h
broader territory including the lands from Bohemia eastwards, Galicia,
Hungary, Romania, the whole southeastern extensions of Ukraine, and
Russia. This is done to take into account the likely existence of a small
pre-Ashkenazic Jewish population in Eastern Europe, and more
significantly, the geographical mobility from and into each of these area s
as an important factor in the coalescence over time of the Jewish population in Eastern Europe.




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TABLE 3. JEWISH POPULATION GROWTH IN EASTERN EUROPE - TENTATIVE ESTIMATES OF POPULATION SIZE AN D MAIN DEMOGRAPHIC INDICATORS,
                                                             1170-1900

Year                Jewish       Years span       Yearly             Life             Total
population,                          growth       expectancy   fertility rate
thousands                          rate, %        , female

1170                      7
130            0.9-1.0
1300                     25
190            0.3-0.4            25               5.8
1490                     50
160              1.0            27.5/30         6.4/5.9
1650                   250
115            1.1-1.2            30               5.9
1765                   910
60           1.5-1.6            35               5.9
1825                2,272a
55              1.7               40               5.5
1880                5,727a
20              2.0               45               5.4
1900                8,510b
a. Including Balkans.    b. Including emigrants overseas
Sources: adapted from Baron (1971), Bloch (1980),    DellaPergola (1992), Coale and Demeny [West
models] (1966), and author’s estimates.

T he observed (or assumed) Jewish population increase in such an
all-inclusive  definition  of  Eastern  Europe  would  possibly  correspond  to
25,000  persons in 1300, 50,000 in 1490, 250,000 after the mid-17th
century  Chemelnitzky  massacres,  910,000  in  1765  at  the  time  of  the
major census of Polish Jewry (see Stampfer, 1987), two and a quarter
million in 1825, over five and a half million in 1880, and over eight and a
half  million  in 1900.  These  developments  would  correspond  to  annual
rates of population growth gradually passing from about 0.3-0.4% during
the  earlier  stages  of  Jewish  settlement (14th-15th  centuries),  to
somewhat above 2% at the end of the 19th century. The higher initial
Jewish population growth rates are also meant to account for immigration,
although  this  was  relatively  small  in  terms  of  the  absolute  numbers
involved. One can further assume that the Jewish population growth rates
in the central area of Poland/Lithuania would be somewhat higher than
the average for the whole region considered here, higher growth setting in
at somewhat anticipated dates. These rates of Jewish population growth
are  generally  higher  than  those  for  the  total  population,  and  imply  a
gradual increase in the proportion of Jews out of total inhabitants.
The rates of Jewish population growth that we suggest in Table 3
can  be  compared  with  standard  population  models,  namely stable
population tables (Coale and Demeny, 1966) that mathematically link the
different  parameters  of  demographic  change  and  composition  under
varying assumptions of life-expectancy. These model tables allow for the
determination  of  the  level  and  range of variation of any demographic

12







parameter once one or more of the other main parameters are known or
have been estimated. Specifically, we shall use the Coale-Demeny models
to evaluate Jewish total fertility rates (TFR) that would be compatible with
estimated rates of Jewish population growth, and with assumed levels of
life  expectancy  among  the  Jewish  population.  Coale-Demeny “West”
models were preferred, as they better fit populations with relatively low child  mortality,  as  assumedly  was  the  case  of  the  Jews.  A  further assumption is an average generation length (the average age of women giving birth) around 29, implying a comparatively young age at marriage for Jewish brides, but also an extended period of childbearing.
Complementing our set of estimates of annual growth rates of the
Jewish population, we further assume that levels of Jewish female life-
expectancy at birth gradually improved from a very low level of 25 years
in the period 1300-1490, to 45 years toward the end of the 19th century,
as actually estimated on the basis of available data (Bloch, 1980). Two
alternative levels of life expectancy were suggested for the period 1490-
1650.  Under  the  conditions  indicated  here,  the  Jewish  average  total
fertility rate (TFR) would necessarily range most of the time around 5 to 6
children born alive per woman (only some of whom would survive to
adulthood). The higher the life expectancy during a certain time interval,
the lower would be the fertility level necessary to reach a given population
growth rate. Alternatively, a rather constant level of fertility combined
with improving life expectancies would produce rising population growth.
Early  improvements  in  the  longevity  of  the  Jews,  against
comparatively lower life-expectancies for contemporary populations, would
be facilitated by the adherence of Jewish communities to traditional ritual
prescriptions,  including  quality  control  over  food,  personal  and  family
hygienic  norms,  some  input  offered  by  relatively  frequent  Jewish
physicians and, significantly, social assistance traditionally awarded to the
Jewish poor. At a later stage, the impact of socioeconomic differences
most likely tended to become the main determinant of persisting mortality
and fertility differentials between Jews and non-Jews. More widespread
urbanization,  and  significant  differences  in  educational  levels  and
occupational concentrations could translate into relative advantages for
Jews in terms of survivorship levels.
Comparatively, though not exceptionally, high Jewish fertility levels
would be enhanced by the traditiona l support for, and active community
mobilization to achieve, universal marriage at relatively young ages, and
frequent remarriage of widowers in the closed and strictly endogamous
cultural context of Jewish communities. It should be noted that average
total fertility rates equivalent to 6-7 children have been customarily found
among historical populations, not to mention the North American Hutterite
community during the 1920s, or Israel’s Muslim community during the
1960s, among whom averages of 10 children or more were recorded.
Eventually,  many  of  the  same  social  factors  responsible  for  the  early
decline in Jewish mortality also translated into an earlier beginning and
quicker  development  of  the  transition  toward  lower  levels  of  Jewish
fertility.

13






While any claim to accuracy in the speculations just submitted is out
of the question, it is important to stress that the demographic parameters
postulated  here  are  entirely  feasible.  They  are  indeed  consistent  with
measures of Jewish population growth rates independently obtained for
various  portions  of  the 18th  and 19th  centuries.  The  feasibility  and
coherence of the figures suggested in Table 3 strongly argue against the
need to look for alternative explanations to the rapid growth of Eastern
European  Jewry,  such  as  continuing  mass  immigration,  or  large-scale
conversions to Judaism of members of local non-Jewish populations.

FIGURE 4. DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION AMONG JEWISH AND TOTAL
                  POPULATIONS IN FOUR COUNTRIES - 1800-1990






















Figure 4 illustrates these trends by providing four series of birth and
d eath rates during the 19th and 20th centuries: for two West European
countries (Italy and Germany); a country in Eastern Europe (Poland); and
a Western country where the Jewish population grew rapidly under the
impact  of  large-scale  international migration (the United Kingdom). In
spite  of  substantial  differences  in  the  timing  and  modes  of  diffusion,
differences in demographic transition between Jews and non-Jews quite
consistently  followed  the  same  rules.  In  each  instance,  death  rates
declined earlier among Jews than among the general population; and the
same happened later with regard to birth rates. The East-West differential
is evident for Jews and non-Jews alike in terms of the levels, timing and
speed of demographic transition. The Jews in England offer an interesting
case  of  a  passage  from  a  Western  to  an  East  European  pattern,  as

14






appropriate to a Jewish community whose composition changed under the impact  of  immigration  from  predominantly  German  to  mostly  East European stock. A similar process affected the Jewish population in the United States between the 1880s and the First World War.
Fundamental features of the Jewish fertility transition are further
clarified through a measure of the pace of family formation, as reflected
by parity progression ratios. Parity progression ratios measure a given
population’s average likelihood to expand a family of a given size through
an additional birth of higher rank. Figure 5 shows parity progression ratios
for selected age cohorts of Jewish women in four countries: Carpatho-
Russia--the easternmost province of Czechoslovakia during the interwar
period; Bohemia--a more Westernized province in the same country--in
1930;  France  in  the 1970s;  and  Israel  in  the 1980s (Blau, 1953;
Bensimon and DellaPergola, 1984; Israel, 1996).

FIGURE 5. PARITY PROGRESSION RATIOS AMONG EU ROPEAN JEWISH WOMEN
IN SELECTED COUNTRIES - BORN BEFORE 1860 TO 1938;
OBSERVED 1930-1983

































15







Four principal patterns of demographic behavior emerge: (a) the
persistently high and unchecked level of natural fertility, typical of Jewish
women in Carpatho-Russia born before 1860; (b) the beginning of fertility
control among Bohemian Jewish women born before 1860 and among
their peers born 30 years later in Carpatho-Russia; (c) a more moderate,
controlled, and bi-modal profile for the later Bohemian cohorts, and for
contemporary Israeli women; (d) and the much lower, down to extremely
low, yet still bi-modal fertility profile of contemporary Jewish women in
France.  Bi-modal  distributions  imply  a  largely  diffused  propensity  to
reduce the likelihood of an additional child as a function of the number of
children  already  born.  At  the  same  time,  women  reaching  a  certain
threshold--here around 6 births in the earlier data and around 4 in the
more recent ones--appear to be making lesser efforts to avoid births of a
higher rank.
Apparently while the diffusion of demographic modernization during
the 19th   century   implied   a   general   lowering   of   fertility   rates,
modernization  trends  by  no  means  synchronically  involved  the  whole
Jewish  population,  not  even  in  the  same  place.  Within  each  Jewish
community,  side  by  side  and  along  with  the  modernizing  majority,  a
minority  was  resilient  in  its  more  traditional  family  behaviors.  Similar
differentials  in  fertility  patterns  characterized  different  social  strata  as
well.  Significantly,  what  most  likely  characterized  the  East  European
Jewish context in an earlier past was an overlap between the higher social
classes and the more religiously observant strata of the Jewish population.
These  trends  consistently  imply  differential  Jewish  population  growth
between  communities,  as  well  as  between different sectors within the
same community. Even if not necessarily the same communities or sectors
all the time, in all instances the burden of Jewish population growth was
carried disproportionately by a relatively small minority of the total Jewish
population.  This  is  true  of  the  role  of  the  quite  small  initial  Eastern
European Jewry
vis-Ă -vis the rest of world Jewry; and of the minority of
more traditional Jewish families
vis-Ă -vis the poorer, and later the more
rapidly modernizing majority within any given locale, in Eastern Europe or
elsewhere.


Demographic Implications of the Holocaust

While  we  have  dealt  so  far  with  Jewish  population  growth  and  its
differential impact in the past, one question which looms large in more
recent Jewish demographic history and crucially affects the present status
of world Jewry is: What would have been the demographic profile of the
Jewish people if there had been no
Shoah (Holocaust) of European Jewry?
This surely is a most intractable question, as it involves a huge array of
hypotheses and speculation, if not fiction (DellaPergola, 1996). Indeed,
one cannot delete one major portion of history without asking what the
implications would be for other interrelated historical developments. One
main related issue is whether or not the State of Israel would have been

16







born without the Shoah. While historians have debated this question for years, there obviously is no answer to it. However, the boosting influence of an independent State of Israel on the later demographic development of Jewish population cannot be undervalued (see below).
Putting  aside  these  major  and  other  excruciating  conceptual
problems, it is nevertheless possible to assess the size, age composition,
and demographic dynamics that prevailed among world Jewish population
before World War II. One may then try to figure out some more likely
scenarios about what could have been the demographic development of
Jewish  populations  in  the  ensuing  years.  Some  computational,  albeit
purely speculative, results can thus be obtained. These are demonstrated
in Table 4.

TABLE 4. JEWISH POPULATION PROJECTIONS, ASSUMING THE SHOAH HAD NOT
                                           OCCURRED, MILLIONS, 1940-2000

Year                    Actual           Model A          Model B:         Model C:
estimate       Low fertility       Very low           Actual
fertility        growth rate

1940                    16.5               16.5               16.5               16.5
1950                    11.4               18.5               18.5               17.9
1960                    12.2               21.9               20.9               19.2
1970                    12.6               25.2               22.8               19.8
1980                    12.8               28.1               24.6               20.1
1990                    12.9               31.0               25.9               20.3
2000                    13.2               32.8               26.5               20.8
Source: Adapted from DellaPergola (1996). See text for explanations.

We projected the 1940 Jewish population under three alternative
and  extremely  conservative  assumptions:  (a)  moderate  to  low  fertility
levels after World War II; (b) extremely low fertility levels; and for the
sake of establishing a minimum estimate, (c) simply applying to the pre-
war Jewish population estimate the actual post-war growth rates--thus
incorporating the prominent after-effects of the
Shoah. The results clearly
reflect the relatively young age structure of Jewish populations, namely in
Eastern Europe, and the demographic momentum such young population
composition could be expected to generate. The more interesting finding
is not that without the
Shoah the Jewish population would have been
larger, but by how much. As against today’s 13 million Jews worldwide,
the more likely projections (A and B) indicate an expected population
ranging between 26 and 31 million in 1990. Moreover, while the present
world Jewish population clearly tends toward “zero population growth” and
substantial aging, according to our tentative projection Jewish population
in the 1990s still would have been in the process of growth.
The  selective  geographical  impact  implicit  in  this  fictional  yet
intriguing exercise is also of great significance. Eastern European Jewry
would have been the recipient of most of the potential population growth
that was terminated through the irreversible effects of the
Shoah. In the

17





real,  post-Shoah  world,  the  main  reservoir  of  the  Ashkenazic  Jewish community was now to be found in the United States of America.


Israel’s Impact on Jewish Demography

What actually happened since World War II is demonstrated in the bottom
lines of Table 2, and Figure 6. Under the impact of international migration,
namely aliyah to Israel and of internal demographic developments locally,
the  Jewish  subpopulations  in  Israel  and  in  the  aggregate  of  Diaspora
Jewries  developed  according  to  two  quite  different  courses.  Jewish
population growth in Israel--especially rapid during the late 1940s and the
early 1990s--was more or less matched by stability or, more typically,
decline in the rest of world Jewry. At the end of 1995, the total world
Jewish population estimate of 13.1 million included 4.6 million in Israel
(35%) and 8.5 million in the rest of the world, 65% (over 5.7 million) of
whom lived in the United States (DellaPergola, 1997).

FIGURE 6. JEWISH POPULATION ESTIMATES - WORLD, ISRAEL, DIASPORA,
                                                             1945-1995






14
12
10
8
6
4
2

0
1945           1955            1965           1975            1985           1995


World               Israel               Diaspora


Underlying  these  trends  were  very  different  patterns  of  family
formation  in  Israel  versus  the  majority  of  other  Jewish  communities,
namely  higher  marriage  propensities,  younger  ages  at  marriage  and
persistently  higher  fertility  rates.  This  resulted  in  a  younger  Jewish
population composition in Israel, and comparatively fewer deaths which in

18







any healthy contemporary population are concentrated at the oldest end of  the  age  distribution.  The  product  was  a  moderate  rate  of  natural increase in Israel, as against a growing demographic deficit among Jewish populations  elsewhere.  These  trends  were  enhanced  by  impressive processes  of  social  mobility,  and  a  consistent  tendency  to  converge geographically towards the economically and culturally more developed national and urban centers of the world.

FIGURE 7. INDICATORS OF JEWISH HETEROGAMY - ISRAEL AND UNITED
                                                STATES, 1940s-1990s




60


50


40


30


20


10


0
Up 1948          1954-58           1964-68           1975-79           1985-89
1949-53           1959-63           1969-73           1980-84           1990-92

Israel: Ethnic Heterogamy Index   US: Jewish % Out-marrying


One momentous implication of changes in Jewish marriage patterns
is illustrated in Figure 7, which juxtaposes the trends in choice of partner
in  two  different  contexts:  of  Jewish  majority  in  Israel,  and  of  Jewish
minority  in  the  United  States.  The  Israeli  data  are  based  on  Benini
indexes--a statistical measure of the propensity to marry within one’s own
group independent of group size--based on a dichotomous classification of
European-American and Asian-African origins. They point to the growing
tendency  of  Jews  in  Israel  to  marry  a  partner  of  different  ethnic
background (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics). The US data report the
percentage of Jews who married a non-Jewish partner who did not convert
to Judaism. They point to an even faster developing trend to heterogamy
(Kosmin et al., 1991; Phillips, 1996). These are two distinct yet parallel
aspects  of  the  growing  interaction  and  assimilation  of  Jewish  sub-
populations within a broader societal context (whether Jewish or non-
Jewish). The implications for the future continuity of Jewish populations
are  obviously  different  in  Israel  and  in  the  Diaspora.  Both  trends,

19







however, point to the expansion of relevant pools underlying the search for marital partners, which is of sure interest for the future development of Jewish genetics.
One  significant  consequence  of  the  different  growth  of  Jewish
populations in Israel and in the Diaspora through the combined effect of
the
Shoah, international migration, differential birth and death rates, and
assimilation,  is  presented  in  Table 5.  It  shows  the  deep  geographic
compositional difference by countries of origin for Jews who live in Israel and elsewhere. Today most of the Jews of Asian and African origin live in Israel, while the largest concentration of Jews of Eastern European origin live in the United States.

TABLE 5. JEWS IN ISRAEL BY BIRTHPLACE AND COUNTRY OF ORIGIN, AND
         WORLD JEWISH POPULATION BY COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE, 1995

Country                             In Israel, by origina                       Jewish
Born abroad         Totalc               population
in countryb

Grand total                         1,747,800       4,495,100     13,059,000

Europe                                1,053,000       1,636,300       1,781,200
Former USSRd                                 651,400          792,800          660,000
Poland                             102,800          253,900             3,500
Romania                           135,700         252,300           14,000
Germany, Austria                 35,400           83,800           70,500
Bulgaria, Greece                  25,900           58,400             6,700
Hungary                             18,700           41,200           54,000
Czech, Slovakia                   15,800           36,700             5,900
Other                                67,300         117,200          966,600
Asia                                         255,600           732,600             39,800
Iraq                                   83,200         254,100                100
Yemen                               42,300         156,200                200
Iran                                   54,800         135,600           13,000
Turkeye                                                  34,400           85,700           19,200
India                                 18,600           42,900             4,300
Other                                22,100           58,100             3,000
Africa                                      330,000           842,700           105,700
Morocco                           181,800         504,400             6,300
Algeria, Tunisia                    44,600         126,400             1,700
Libya                                 21,900           73,900                   0
Egypt                                24,000           62,300               200
Ethiopia                             46,100           58,300               200
Other                                11,400           17,300           97,300
America, Oceania                 108,700           170,800       6,582,800
N. America, Oceania             60,800           93,100       6,148,600
Latin America                      47,900           77,000         434,200
Israel/Israel                                      =      1,112,700       4,549,500
a. Mid-year estimates.
b. End of year estimates.
c. Including Israel-born, by country of birth of father.
d. Including Asian territory.
e. Including European territory.
Sources: Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (1996); DellaPergola (1997).


20







According to an ongoing reevaluation of current Jewish population
trends, carried out at the Hebrew University, it is likely that Israel’s weight
within total world Jewry will continue to increase. At some date around the
first decade of the 21st century, there might be more Jews living in Israel
than in the United States, and at some later date in the third or fourth
decade of the century, Israeli Jewry might constitute more than one half
of  the  total  world  Jewish  population.  These  projections,  evidently,
presume  the  absence  of  any  dramatic  deviation  from  the  main
evolutionary patterns of Jewish population that have been observed in
recent  decades.  The  continuing  growth  of  Israel  on  the  world  Jewish
population scene also implies a changing predominance in the types and
incidence of genetic profiles and diseases that can be expected in the
future among Jews globally.


Conclusions

From the broad illustrations brought here, we learn that certain basic mechanisms  indeed  repeatedly  and  deeply  influenced  the  size  and composition of Jewish populations locally and globally.
1. The reconstruction submitted here clearly suggests that the demographic
   history of the Jews never did unfold as a straight-line. Rather, sudden
   growths  and  declines  in  Jewish  population  size  alternated  over  time
   globally, and to an even more dramatic extent within the circumscribed
   context of specific geographic regions, countries, or locales.
2. Implicit  in  the  preceding  feature,  and  evidently  fundamental  in  its
  
implications for human genetics, was the repeated substitution of large
  
sections  of  the  total  Jewish  population  stock.  Now  and  then,  entire
   sections  assimilated  out  and  disappeared  (the  “lost  tribes”),  and  to  a
   lesser  extent,  and  especially  in  the  more  distant  past,  new  members
  
joined.
3. Through the ceaseless influence of differential Jewish population growth,
   some  sections  grew  more  rapidly  than  others,  mostly  through  higher
  
levels  of  fertility.  This  produced  wide  diffusion  and  predominance  of
  
certain characteristics, at one and the same time physical and cultural,
   and the dilution or disappearance of others.
4. International migration constantly represented a major factor of global
  
change  and  adaptation,  determining  from  time  to  time  under  what
   environmental circumstances Jewish population processes would unfold--
  
more or less culturally and socially segregated.
Minority status, which prevailed most of the time, exposed Jewish
populations in the Diaspora to manifold legal, political, economic, and
cultural influences. Bottlenecks in the orderly demographic development
of Jewish population in a given locale repeatedly occurred through mass
emigration,  large  scale  withdrawal  from  belonging  to  the  Jewish
community,   or   violent   persecutions   and   mass   victimization.   The
symmetric  process  of  interaction  and  intermingling  of  Jews  with  non-
Jewish populations now and then brought about some expansions in the

21







Jewish  population,  though  more  often  the  balance  was  negative.
Continuity of the Jews as a collective did not, nor will it, necessarily imply
continuity at the level of individual genealogy. Yet cultural, demographic,
and physical continuity in a broader sense and in the very long term is a
feature  on  which  the  Jewish  population  uniquely  stands  out  in  the
comparative study of human society worldwide over the last 40 centuries.


Acknowledgements

This paper reflects ongoing research at the Division of Jewish Demography and  Statistics,  The  A.  Harman  Institute  of  Contemporary  Jewry,  The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.


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23

Continuous Jewish Presence in the "Holy Land"

The Jewish presence in "the Holy Land" -- at times tenuous -- persisted throughout its bloody history. In fact, the Jewish claim -- whether Arab-born or European-born Jew -- to the land now called Palestine does not depend on a two-thousand-year-old promise. Buried beneath the propaganda -- which has it that Jews "returned" to the Holy Land after two thousand years of separation, where they found crowds of "indigenous Palestinian Arabs" -- is the bald fact that the Jews are indigenous people on that land who never left, but who have continuously stayed on their "Holy Land." Not only were there the little-known Oriental Jewish communities in adjacent Arab lands, but there had been an unceasing strain of "Oriental" or "Palestinian" Jews in "Palestine" for millennia.1
The Reverend James Parkes, an authority on Jewish/non-Jewish relations inthe Middle East, assessed the Zionists' "real title deeds" in 1949.2
It was, perhaps, inevitable that Zionists should look back to the heroic period of the Maccabees and Bar-Cochba, but their real title deeds were written by the less dramatic but equally heroic endurance of those who had maintained the Jewish presence in The Land all through the centuries, and in spite of every discouragement. This page of Jewish history found no place in the constant flood of Zionist propaganda.... The omission allowed the anti-Zionists, whether Jewish, Arab, or European, to paint an entirely false picture of the wickedness of Jewry trying to re-establish a two thousand-year-old claim to the country, indifferent to everything that had happened in the intervening period. It allowed a picture of The Land as a territory which had once been "Jewish," but which for many centuries had been "Arab." In point of fact any picture of a total change of population is false....
It was only "politically" that the Jews lost their land, as Parkes reminded us. They never abandoned it physically, nor did they renounce their claim to their nation -- the only continuous claim that exists. The Jews never submitted to assimilation into the various victorious populations even after successive conquerors had devastated the Jewish organizational structure. But, more important, despite becoming "much enfeebled in numbers and deprived both of political and social leaders and of skilled craftsmen,"3 the Jews, in addition to their spiritual roots, managed to remain in varying numbers physically at all times on the land.
Thus, despite "physical violence against Jews and pagans" by the post-Roman Christians, more than forty Jewish communities survived and could be traced in the sixth century -- "twelve towns on the coast, in the Negev, and east of the Jordan [land ihat was part of the Palestine Mandate, called Transjordan in 1922, and declared the "Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan" only thirty-odd years ago] and thirty-one villages in Galilee and in the Jordan Valley."4
In A.D. 438 the Jews from Galilee optimistically declared, "the end of the exile of our people" when the Empress Eudocia allowed the Jews to pray again at their holy temple site.5Recent archaeological discoveries determine that in A.D. 614 the Jews fought along with the Persian invaders of Palestine, "overwhelmed the Byzantine garrison in Jerusalem," and controlled that city for five years.6 By the time the Arabs conquered the land two decades later, the Jews "had suffered three centuries of Christian intolerance, and monkish violence had been spasmodic during at least half of that period."7 And the Jews hopefully welcomed the Arab conquerors.
The Muslim Arabs who entered seventh-century Jerusalem found a strong Jewish identity. At that time, "we have evidence that Jews lived in all parts of the country and on both sides of the Jordan, and that they dwelt in both the towns and the villages, practicing both agriculture and various handicrafts"* A number of Jews lived in Lydda and Ramle-which have been identified by modem propaganda and even by more serious documents as historically "purely Arab" towns. "Large and important communities" of Jews lived "in such places as Ascalon, Caesarea and above all Gaza, which the Jews ... had made a kind of capital [when] ... they were excluded from Jerusalem.'"8
Jericho was home to many Jews9 -- the seventh-century Jewish refugees from Khaibar in Arabia among them. Khaibar had been a thriving Jewish community to the north of Mecca and Medina. After the Jews had "defended their forts and mansions with signal heroism," the Prophet Muhammad had "visited upon his beaten enemy inhuman atrocities," and "by the mass massacre of... men, women and children," the Prophet of Islam exterminated "completely" two Arabian Jewish tribes.10
The consequences of the war were catastrophic. For centuries the Jews of Khaibar had led a life of freedom, peace, labor and trade; now they had to bow under the yoke of slavery and degradation. They had prided themselves on the purity of their family life; now their women and daughters were distributed among and carried away by the conquerors.11
An Arab "notable" from Medina, who visited the site of hostilities afterward, was quoted by a ninth-century Arab historian:
Before the Moslem occupation, whenever there was a famine in the land, people would go to Khaibar.... The Jews always had fruit, and their springs yielded a plentiful supply of water. After the conquest of Khaibar, the Jews were said to design evil schemes against the Moslems. But hunger pressed us to go to their fields.... We found the landscape completely changed. We met none of the rich Khaibar landowners, but only destitute farmers everywhere ... When we moved on to Kuteiba we felt much relieved....12
The Jewish survivors from the area surrounding Khaibar were expelled from "the Arabian Peninsula" when the extent of the Muslim conquest was sufficient to add enough Arab farmers and replace the detested Jews. [See Chapter 8] Based on the Prophet Muhammad's theory, Caliph Omar implemented the decree "Let not two religions co-exist within the Arabian Peninsula."13
The Arab theologians' 1968 conference, 1,300 years later, continued to justify the Khaibar extermination of its Jews. One participant explained: ... Omar ... got experience that the Jews were the callers and instigators of the sedition at any time and everywhere. He purified Arabia from them. Most of them dwelt at Khaibar and its neighborhood. That was because he was informed that the Prophet said while he was dying: "Never do two religions exist in Arabia." [Sheikh Abd Allah Al Meshad]14
Another Arab participant at that conference emphazised,
All people want to get rid of the Jews by hook or by crook.... People are not prejudiced against them but the Jewish evil and the various wicked aspects ... are quite clear....When Bani Qoraiza were punished, an end was put to the Jews of Madina. Those Jews had been the strongest, the richest and the most pernicious and harmful ones. They had been deeply rooted in the society and they had had a high rank and an important status....
Some orientalists ignore the various reasons why the Jews of Khaibar and others were punished.... These orientalists alleged that the invasion of Khaibar was launched because the Prophet wished to reward the Muslims of Hodaibeya and comfort them.... but we have mentioned the most evident reasons of the punishment befalling the Jews. The question of the booty is casual and always subsidiary for waging the wars of the Prophet. It is mentioned in the Verses of the Quran about Jihad [holy war] as a secondary reason for striving against the Unbelievers. [Muhammad Azzah Darwaza]15
The seventh-century Jewish refugees from Khaibar's environs joined the indigenous Jewish population in "Transjordan, especially in Dera'a." In fact, Arabian Jewish exiles settled "as far as the hills of Hebron," but had they not "intermarried" with the established Jewish communities and connected somehow to the "Diaspora centers, they [the Jewish settlements] could hardly have survived as Jewish communities for hundreds of years." A settled Jewish community was present then in the northern Transjordanian city of Hamadan, "or Amatus" -"a city famed for its palms"-in the area that one day would be part of the League of Nations' [See Chapter 12] Mandated "Jewish National Home" in Palestine.16
The Christian Crusaders of the eleventh century were merciless but unsuccessful in their efforts to remove any vestige of Jewish tradition. In 1165, Benjamin of Tudela, the renowned Spanish traveler, found that the "Academy of Jerusalem" had been established at Damascus. Although the Crusaders had almost "wiped out" the Jewish communities of Jerusalem, Acre, Caesarea and Haifa, some Jews remained, and whole "village communities of Galilee survived."
Acre became the seat of a Jewish academy in the thirteenth century. And while "many may have merged themselves into the local population, Christian or Muslim," the Jews "stayed, to share and suffer from the disorder" of the aftermath of the Crusaders' "feudalism,"17 resisting conversion. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, "there was a constant trickle of Jewish immigrants into the country ... some from other Islamic territories and especially North Africa."18
Jews from Gaza, Ramle, and Safed were considered the "ideal guides" in the Holy Land in the fourteenth century, as Jacques of Verona, a visiting Christian monk, attested. After the Christian had "noted the long established Jewish community at the foot of Mount Zion, in Jerusalem," he wrote,
A pilgrim who wished to visit ancient forts and towns in the Holy Land would have been unable to locate these, without a good guide who knew the Land well, or without one of the Jews who lived there. The Jews were able to recount the history of these places since this knowledge had been handed down from their forefathers and wise men.So when I journeyed overseas I often requested and managed to obtain an excellent guide among the Jews who lived there.19
In 1438 a rabbi from Italy became the spiritual leader of the Jewish community in Jerusalem,20 and fifty years afterward, another Italian scholar, Obadiah de Bertinoro, founded the Jerusalem rabbinical school that dealt authoritatively "in rabbinic matters among the Jewish communities of the Islamic world."21
The Jews, meanwhile, were plentiful enough so that in 1486 "a distinguished pilgrim" to the Holy Land, the Dean of Mainz Cathedral, Bernhard von Breidenbach, advised that both Hebron's and Jerusalem's Jews "will treat you in full fidelity -- more so than anyone else in those countries of the unbelievers."22
The "Ishmaelite," or Islamic-bom, Jewish immigration to the Holy Land was prominent, and became intensified after the Spanish Inquisition. The Holy Land's throbbing, spirited Jewish life continued, even in Hebron, where "the prosperous Jewish community ... had been plundered, many Jews killed and the survivors forced to flee" in 1518, three years after Ottoman rule began. By 1540, Hebron's Jewry had recovered and reconstructed its Jewish Quarter, while the first Jewish printing press outside Europe was instituted in Safed in 1563.23
Under Turkish rule the Jews in Jerusalem and in Gaza maintained "cultural and spiritual unity," and Sultan Suleiman I allowed many Jews "to return to the Holy Land." In 1561, "Suleiman gave Tiberias, one of the four Jewish holy cities, to a former 'secret' Jew from Portugal, Don Joseph Nasi, who rebuilt the city and the villages around it." Nasi's efforts attracted Jewish settlement from many areas of the Mediterranean.24 And those "Ishmaelite" Jewish communities that did not or could not make the pilgrimage were nonetheless spiritually attached to their brothers in the Holy Land.
1. See Palestine Royal Commission Report (London, 1937), pp. 2-5, 7, 9, particularly p. 11, para. 23.
2. James Parkes, Whose Land?, A History of the Peoples of Palestine (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Great Britain: Penguin Books, 1970), p. 266.
3. Ibid., pp. 31, 26.
4. Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine (New York, 1973), p. 88.
5. Avraham Yaari, 1grot Eretz Yisrael (Tel Aviv, 1943), p. 46; see F. Nau, "Sur la synagogue de Rabbat Moab (422), et un mouvement sioniste favorisk par l'imperatrice Eudocie (438), d'apres la vie de Barsauma le Syrien," Journal Asiatique, LIX (1927), pp. 189-192.
6. A. MaIamat, H. Tadmor, M. Stern, S. Safrai, Toledot Am Yisrael Bi'mei Kedem (Tel Aviv, 1969), p. 348, cited by Katz, Battleground, p. 88.
7. Parkes, Whose LandZ p. 72.
8. Ibid.; also see S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 3 vols. (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1971), vol. 2, p. 61 the main synagogue [in Ramle] was the Palestinian."
9. Al-Waqidy, ninth-century Arab historian, recorded a Jewish-settled area in Jericho in the seventh century and "there are other references to Jewish communal life in Jericho as late as the ninth century." Cited by Itzhak Ben-Zvi, The Exiled and the Redeemed (Philadelphia, 1961), p. 146.
10. Ben-Zvi, The Exiled, pp. 144-145. The Nadhir and Kainuka Arabian-Jewish tribes' "battles for their survival ... is found in Dr. Israel Ben-Zeev's remarkable book, Jews in Arabia, " Ben-Zvi states.
11. Israel Ben Zeev, Jews in Arabia, cited by Ben-Zvi, The Exiled, p. 145. 
12. Ben-Zvi, The Exiled, p. 145. Ben-Zvi cites Arabian historian Al-Waqidy, as reported in Ben-Zeev, Jews in Arabia.
13. Ibid., p. 146. Ben-Zvi states that some Jews who could "produce letters of protection and treaties signed by or on behalf of the Prophet" were permitted to remain. "...there is reason to believe that these surviving Jewish communities were maintained intact until the twelfth century."
14. Quoted from SheikhAbd Allah Al Meshad, "Jews' Attitudes Towards Islam and Muslims in the First Islamic Era," in D.F. Green, ed., Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel (Geneva, 197 1), p. 22. Darwaza, "The Attitude of the Jews Towards
15. Quoted from Muhammad Azzah nto Him]-at the Islam, Muslims and the Prophet of Islam-P.B.U.H. [Peace Be Unto Him] - at the time of His Honourable Prophethood," in ibid., pp. 29-30.
16. Ben-Zvi, The Exiled, pp. 146-147 the existence of which we have records."
17. Parkes, Whose Land?, pp. 97-99.
18. Ibid., p. 110.
19. Martin Gilbert, Exile and Return, The Strugglefor a Jewish Homeland (Philadelphia and New York, 1978), p. 17. "In 1322 Jewish geographer from Florence, Ashtory Ha-Parhi, had settled in the Jezreel Valley where he wrote a book on the topography of Palestine....
20. Ibid., pp. 17-19. Elijah of Ferrara.
21. Parkes, Whose Land?, p. I 11.
22. Gilbert, Exile, p. 17.
23. Ibid., p. 21.
24. Ibid. For a more detailed account, see Joachim Prinz, The Secret Jews (New York, 1973), p. 147ff

This page was produced by Joseph E. Katz
Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst 
Brooklyn, New York 
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Source: "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters, 1984


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