How did Judaism Spread to Europe?

Judaism has its early roots in Mesopotamia, where Semitic peoples like Abraham’s family originated around 2000 BC, through the Hebrew captivity in Egypt and the exodus to Canaan around 1600 BC, culminating in King David’s conquest of Jerusalem from the Jebusites around 1000 BC. During this time, Jewish communities emerged across the Levant and beyond, supported by Talmudic academies and yeshivot that taught Halakha, encompassing laws from the Ten Commandments to social, food, and priestly instructions. Significant early communities included Damascus, a Semitic hub since ancient times with 10,000 Jews by Roman times, and Elephantine, Egypt, where Jewish mercenaries maintained a temple from 650 BC into the 2nd century AD. The Babylonian exile in 586 BC marked the diaspora’s start, splitting Jewish centers between Babylonia and Israel, with notable yeshivot like Sura and Pumbedita thriving in Babylonia under various empires until the 11th century, while poorer exiles returned to rebuild Jerusalem after Cyrus’s conquest.

The Jewish diaspora expanded further under Hellenistic, Roman, and later empires, reaching Alexandria – home to a diverse Jewish population of peasants, generals, and officials – and Turkey, linked to Noah’s Ark and Abraham’s origins, with communities documented by the 4th century BC. In Europe, Greece hosted Jews from the 3rd century BC, with synagogues like Delos dated to 250-175 BC, while Josephus notes a diaspora of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin into Asia Minor and Europe by 90 AD. Italy saw a Jewish presence from the 2nd century BC, growing in Rome after 63 BC with freed slaves, and Spain’s Jewish roots trace to Roman exiles and Jerusalem nobles post-Titus’s conquest. By the 5th-11th centuries, Jewish communities spread north of the Alps and Pyrenees, notably in France (Provence, Paris) and Germany (Mainz, Cologne), driven by trade, migration from Babylonia and North Africa, and Roman garrison towns, establishing a lasting presence across the Mediterranean and beyond.