Expulsions and exoduses of Jews
This article lists expulsions, refugee crises and other forms of displacement that have affected Jews.
Timeline
The following is a list of Jewish expulsions and events that prompted significant streams of Jewish refugees.Assyrian captivity
;733/2 BCE: Tiglath-Pileser III, King of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, sacked the northern Kingdom of Israel and annexed the territory of the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh in Gilead. People from these tribes were taken captive and resettled in the region of the Khabur River, in Halah, Habor, Hara and Gozan. Tiglath-Pileser also captured the territory of Naphtali and the city of Janoah in Ephraim, and an Assyrian governor was placed over the region of Naphtali. According to, the population of Naphtali was deported to Assyria.;722 BCE: In 722 BCE, Samaria, the capital city of the northern Kingdom of Israel, was taken by Sargon II, who resettled the Israelites in Halah, Habor, Gozan and in the cities of Media. Sargon recorded the capture of that city thus: "Samaria I looked at, I captured; 27,280 men who dwelt in it I carried away" into Assyria. Some people of the northern tribes were spared, and it has been suggested that many also fled south to Jerusalem.
Contemporary scholarship confirms that deportations occurred both before and after the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel in 722–720 BCE, with varying impacts across Galilee, Transjordan, and Samaria. During the earlier Assyrian invasions, Galilee and Transjordan experienced significant deportations, with entire tribes vanishing. In contrast, archaeological findings from Samaria suggest a more mixed picture. While some sites were destroyed or abandoned during the Assyrian invasion, major cities such as Samaria and Megiddo remained largely intact, and other sites show a continuity of occupation. Based on changes in material culture, Adam Zertal estimated that only 10% of the Israelite population in Samaria was deported, indicating that most Israelites continued to reside in Samaria.
Archaeologist Eric Cline believes only 10–20% of Samaria’s Israelite population were deported to Assyria in 720 BCE. About 80,000 Israelites fled to Judah whilst between 100,000 and 230,000 Israelites remained in Samaria. The latter intermarried with the foreign settlers, thus forming the Samaritans.
Babylonian captivity
;597 BCE: In 598 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire besieged Jerusalem, then capital of the southern Kingdom of Judah. The city fell after a three-month siege, and the new king Jeconiah, who was either 8 or 18, his court and other prominent citizens and craftsmen, were deported to Babylon. Jehoiakim's uncle Zedekiah was appointed king in his place.; 587/6 BCE: When Zedekiah revolted against Babylonian rule, Nebuchadnezzar responded by invading Judah. In December 589 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar began another siege of Jerusalem. During the siege, many Jews fled to surrounding Moab, Ammon, Edom and other countries to seek refuge. The city eventually fell after a thirty-month siege, and the Babylonian general Nebuzaradan was sent to complete its destruction. The city was plundered, and Solomon's Temple was destroyed. Most of the members of the elite class were taken into captivity in Babylon. The city was razed. Only a few people were permitted to remain and tend to the land.: In 537 BCE Cyrus the Great, the founding king of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, allowed the Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the Temple.
500–1 BCE
;139 BCE: Expulsion from the city of Rome under the accusation of aggressive proselytizing among the Romans.1–599 CE
;19 CE: Expulsion from the city of Rome by Emperor Tiberius together with practitioners of the Egyptian religion.;38 CE: Jews were expelled from one of their quarters in the city of Alexandria, in Egypt, under the instigation of Aulus Avilius Flaccus.
;41–53 CE: Claudius' expulsion of Jews from Rome.
;73 CE: The Jewish defeat in the First Jewish–Roman War resulted in significant loss of life from battle, famine, and disease, extensive city destruction—including Jerusalem—and widespread forced displacement. Many Jews were enslaved or sent into forced labor in locations such as Egypt and the Isthmus of Corinth, while others were dispersed across the Roman Empire. Young men were coerced into gladiatoral combat, and others were sold into brothels or slavery. As a result, a substantial portion of the Jewish population of Judaea was either expelled or displaced.
;117: The suppression of the Diaspora Revolt involved a devastating campaign of ethnic cleansing that resulted in the near-total annihilation and expulsion of Jews from Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and large portions of Egypt.
;135
;415: After a massacre of Christians by some Jews, Jews were expelled from Alexandria under the leadership of Saint Cyril of Alexandria. Sources differ over whether all Alexandrian Jews were expelled or just the ones involved in the massacre.
;418: Jews expelled from Minorca or asked to convert.
Sixth to tenth centuries
;612: Visigothic king Sisebut mandated that every Jew who would refuse for over a year to have himself or his children and servants baptized would be banished from the country and deprived of his possessions.;629: The entire Jewish population of Galilee massacred or expelled, following the Jewish rebellion against Byzantium.
;7th century: Muhammad expelled two Jewish tribes: the Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir from Medina. The Banu Qurayza tribe was slaughtered and the Jewish settlement of Khaybar was ransacked.
Eleventh to thirteenth centuries
;1012: Jews expelled from Mainz.;1095–mid-13th century: The waves of Crusades destroyed many Jewish communities in Europe and in the Middle East.
;Mid-12th century: The invasion of Almohades brought to an end the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. Among other refugees was Maimonides, who fled to Morocco, then Egypt, then Palestine.
;12th–14th centuries: France. The practice of expelling the Jews accompanied by confiscation of their property, followed by temporary readmissions for ransom, was used to enrich the crown: expulsions from Paris by Philip Augustus in 1182, from France by Louis IX in 1254, by Philip IV in 1306, by Charles IV in 1322, by Charles V in 1359, by Charles VI in 1394.
;13th century: The influential philosopher and logician Ramon Llull called for expulsion of all Jews who would refuse conversion to Christianity. Some scholars regard Llull's as the first comprehensive articulation, in the Christian West, of an expulsionist policy regarding Jews.
;1231: Simon de Montfort expels the Jews of Leicester.
;1253: On July 23 the Jews of Vienne, France were expelled by order of Pope Innocent III.
;1275: King Edward I of England permits his mother Eleanor of Provence to expel Jews from her dowager lands, including Cambridge, Gloucester, Marlborough, and Worcester.
;1276: Jews expelled from Upper Bavaria.
;1287: Edward I of England expels Jews from Gascony.
;1288: Naples issues first expulsion of Jews in southern Italy.
;1289: Charles of Salerno expels Jews from Maine and Anjou.
;1290: King Edward I of England issues the Edict of Expulsion for all Jews from England. After 365 years, the policy was reversed in 1655 by Oliver Cromwell.
;1294: On June 24, the Jews of Berne, Switzerland were expelled. "Several Jews were put to death there in consequence of a blood libel", but a deal involving the Jews paying money reverted the expulsion.
14th century
;1360: Jews expelled from Hungary by Louis I of Hungary.;1392: Jews expelled from Bern, Switzerland. Although between 1408 and 1427 Jews were again residing in the city, the only Jews to appear in Bern subsequently were transients, chiefly physicians and cattle dealers.
15th century
;1420–1421: Duke Albert V orders the imprisonment and forcible conversion to Christianity of all Jews in Austria. Some convert and others leave the country. In 1421 Austrian authorities again arrest and expel Jews and Jews are banned from the capital Vienna.;1442: Jews again expelled from Upper Bavaria.
;1478: Jews expelled from Passau.
;1491: Jews of Ravenna expelled, synagogues destroyed.
;1492: Ferdinand II and Isabella I issued the Alhambra decree, General Edict on the Expulsion of the Jews from Castile and Aragon and from Sicily.
;1495: Charles VIII of France occupies Kingdom of Naples, bringing new persecution against Jews, many of whom were refugees from Spain.
;1496: Jews expelled from Portugal. Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, issues a decree expelling all Jews from Styria and Wiener Neustadt.
;1498: Jews expelled from Navarre.
;1499: Jews expelled from Nuremberg.
16th century
;1510: Jews expelled from Naples.;1515: Jews expelled from Dubrovnik. Exceptions are made for physicians and for short stays of merchants.
;1519: Jews expelled from Regensburg.
;1526: Jews expelled from Pressburg in the wake of the defeat of the Kingdom of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire.
;1551: All remaining Jews expelled from the duchy of Bavaria. Jewish settlement in Bavaria ceased until toward the end of the 17th century, when a small community was founded in Sulzbach by refugees from Vienna.
;1569: Pope Pius V expels Jews from the papal states, except for Ancona and Rome.
;1593: Pope Clement VIII expels Jews living in all the papal states, except Rome, Avignon and Ancona. Jews are invited to settle in Leghorn, the main port of Tuscany, where they are granted full religious liberty and civil rights, by the Medici family, who want to develop the region into a center of commerce.
;1597: Nine hundred Jews expelled from Milan.
17th century
;1614: Fettmilch Uprising: Jews are expelled from Frankfurt, Holy Roman Empire, following the plundering of the Judengasse.;1654:The fall of the Dutch colony of Recife in Brazil to the Portuguese prompted the Jewish arrival in New Amsterdam, the first group of Jews to flee to North America.
;1669–1670: Jews expelled from Vienna by Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor and subsequently forbidden to settle in the Austrian Hereditary Lands. The former Jewish ghetto on the Unterer Werd was renamed Leopoldstadt in honour of the emperor and the expropriated houses and land given to Catholic citizens.
;1679–1680: Jews throughout Yemen expelled from their towns and villages and sent to a desert place, in what is known as the Mawza Exile.
;1685: Jews expelled from the French Colonial Empire's Caribbean territories by Louis XIV's decree in the Code Noir.