Judaism Timeline

Adherents of Judaism and Islam have interacted with each other since the 7th century, when Islam originated and spread in the Arabian Peninsula.

Image source: Islamic–Jewish relations

Like the Sadducees who relied only on the Torah, some Jews in the 8th and 9th centuries rejected the authority and divine inspiration of the oral law as recorded in the Mishnah, relying instead only upon the Tanakh.

Image source: Karaite Judaism

The period under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates between 712 and 1066 has been called the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain.

Image source: Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain

Some countries completely expelled Jews—for example, the English Edict of Expulsion in 1290. Jews were readmitted to England in 1655.

Image source: Edict of Expulsion

At times, Jews were restricted in their choice of residence—in Morocco, for example, Jews were confined to walled quarters (mellahs) beginning in the 15th century and increasingly since the early 19th century.

Image source: Mellah

Spain expelled its Jews in 1492; they were readmitted in 1868.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest citation of the term 'Judaism' in English was in Robert Fabyan's 1516 book The New Chronicles of England and France, describing it as the profession or practice of the Jewish religion.

Image source: Robert Fabyan

Jews in Muslim countries were not entirely free from persecution—many were killed, exiled or forcibly converted by the Zaydi imams of Yemen in the 17th century (see Mawza Exile).

Image source: Mawza Exile

The first Jewish settlers in North America arrived in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1654; they were forbidden to hold public office, open a retail shop, or establish a synagogue.

When the colony was seized by the British in 1664, Jewish rights remained unchanged; by 1671, Asser Levy was the first Jew to serve on a jury in North America.

Image source: Asser Levy

Hasidic Judaism was founded by Yisroel ben Eliezer (1700–1760), also known as the Ba'al Shem Tov (or Besht).

Image source: Hasidic Judaism

Subbotniks (Sabbatarians) are a movement of Jews of Russian ethnic origin in the 18th–20th centuries, the majority of whom belonged to Rabbinic and Karaite Judaism.

Image source: Subbotniks

In the late 18th century CE, Europe was swept by a group of intellectual, social and political movements known as the Enlightenment, leading to major changes in Jewish life and thought.

Image source: Age of Enlightenment

Since the anti-religious Haskalah movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries, halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged.

Image source: Haskalah

In 1791, Revolutionary France was the first country to abolish disabilities altogether, followed by Prussia in 1848.

Image source: Jewish emancipation

Emancipation of the Jews in the United Kingdom was achieved in 1858 after an almost 30-year struggle championed by Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, with Jews given the right to sit in parliament with the passing of the Jews Relief Act 1858.

Image source: Jews Relief Act 1858

The newly created German Empire in 1871 abolished Jewish disabilities in Germany, which were reinstated in the Nuremberg Laws in 1935.

According to the Jewish Year Book (1901), the global Jewish population in 1900 was around 11 million.

Image source: Jewish population by country

According to the 2001 edition of the National Jewish Population Survey, in the United States' Jewish community—the world's second largest—4.3 million Jews out of 5.1 million had some sort of connection to the religion.

Image source: National Jewish Population Survey

In 2002, according to the World Jewish Population Survey, there were 13.3 million Jews around the world. Jewish population growth is currently near zero percent, with 0.3% growth from 2000 to 2001.

According to Pew Research Center (2020), about 85% of the global Jewish population of 14,780,000 is concentrated in Israel and the United States, the only nations with Jewish populations exceeding one million.

In 2022, the world Jewish population was estimated at 15.2 million, with the majority living in one of two countries: Israel and the United States.

In 2025, the world Jewish population was estimated at 14.8 million, although religious observance varies from strict to non-existent.

The Jewish disabilities abolished by the German Empire in 1871 were reinstated in the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 under Nazi rule.

Image source: Nuremberg Laws

In 2008, Israel's highest religious court invalidated the conversion of 40,000 Jews, mostly from Russian immigrant families, even though they had been approved by an Orthodox rabbi.

In December 2015, the Vatican released a 10,000-word document that, among other things, stated that Catholics should work with Jews to fight antisemitism.