Editing Jewish diaspora (section)

===Middle Ages===

====Ashkenazi Jews====
[[Ashkenazi Jews]] is a general category of Jewish populations who immigrated to what is now Germany and northeastern France during the [[Middle Ages]] and until modern times used to adhere to the [[Yiddishkeit|Yiddish culture]] and the [[Nusach Ashkenaz|Ashkenazi prayer style]]. There is evidence that groups of Jews had immigrated to [[Germania]] during the [[Roman Empire|Roman Era]]; they were probably merchants who followed the Roman Legions during their conquests. However, for the most part, modern Ashkenazi Jews originated with Jews who migrated or were forcibly taken from the Middle East to southern Europe in antiquity, where they established Jewish communities before moving into northern France and lower Germany during the [[High Middle Ages|High]] and [[Late Middle Ages]]. They also descend to a lesser degree from Jewish immigrants from Babylon, Persia, and North Africa who migrated to Europe in the Middle Ages. The Ashkenazi Jews later migrated from Germany (and elsewhere in Central Europe) into Eastern Europe as a result of persecution.<ref>Ben-Jacob, Abraham (1985), "The History of the Babylonian Jews".</ref><ref>Grossman, Abraham (1998), "The Sank of Babylon and the Rise of the New Jewish Centers in the 11th Century Europe"</ref><ref>Frishman, Asher (2008), "The First Asheknazi Jews".</ref><ref name=britannica>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ashkenazi Ashkenazi] - Definition, ''Encyclopedia Britannica''</ref> Some Ashkenazi Jews also have minor ancestry from [[Sephardi Jews]] exiled from Spain, first during [[Persecution by Muslims|Islamic persecutions]] (11th–12th centuries) and later during Christian reconquests (13th–15th centuries) and the [[Spanish Inquisition]] (15th–16th centuries). Ashkenazi Jews are of mixed Middle Eastern and European ancestry, as they derive part of their ancestry from non-Jewish Europeans who intermixed with Jews of migrant Middle Eastern origin.

In 2006, a study by Doron Behar and Karl Skorecki of the Technion and Ramban Medical Center in Haifa, Israel demonstrated that the vast majority of Ashkenazi Jews, both men and women, have Middle Eastern ancestry.<ref name="Wade">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/14/science/14gene.html |work=The New York Times |first=Nicholas |last=Wade |title=New Light on Origins of Ashkenazi in Europe |date=January 14, 2006}}</ref> According to Nicholas Wades' 2010 Autosomal study Ashkenazi Jews share a common ancestry with other Jewish groups and Ashkenazi and [[Sephardi Jews]] have roughly 30% European ancestry with the rest being Middle Eastern.<ref name="nytimes.com">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/science/10jews.html?adxnnl=1&ref=homepage&src=me&adxnnlx=1276466486-+ZqzWCnAH+wZr3wU9gONXw |work=The New York Times |first=Nicholas |last=Wade |title=Studies Show Jews' Genetic Similarity |date=June 9, 2010}}</ref> According to Hammer, the Ashkenazi population expanded through a series of bottlenecks—events that squeeze a population down to small numbers—perhaps as it migrated from the Middle East after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, to Italy, reaching the [[Rhine|Rhine Valley]] in the 10th century.

David Goldstein, a Duke University geneticist and director of the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation, has said that the work of the Technion and Ramban team served only to confirm that genetic drift played a major role in shaping Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited in a matrilineal manner. Goldstein argues that the Technion and Ramban mtDNA studies fail to actually establish a statistically significant maternal link between modern Jews and historic Middle Eastern populations. This differs from the patrilineal case, where Goldstein said there is no doubt of a Middle Eastern origin.<ref name="Wade" />

In June 2010, Behar et al. "shows that most Jewish samples form a remarkably tight subcluster with common genetic origin, that overlies Druze and Cypriot samples but not samples from other Levantine populations or paired diaspora host populations. In contrast, Ethiopian Jews ([[Beta Israel]]) and [[Indian Jews]] (Bene Israel and [[Cochin Jews|Cochini]]) cluster with neighboring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and western India, respectively, despite a clear paternal link between the Bene Israel and the Levant."<ref name="nytimes.com" /><ref name="Behar2010">{{cite journal |author1=Doron M. Behar |author2=Bayazit Yunusbayev |author3=Mait Metspalu |author4=Ene Metspalu |author5=Saharon Rosset |author6=Jüri Parik |author7=Siiri Rootsi |author8=Gyaneshwer Chaubey |author9=Ildus Kutuev |author10=Guennady Yudkovsky |author11=Elza K. Khusnutdinova |author12=Oleg Balanovsky |author13=Ornella Semino |author14=Luisa Pereira |author15=David Comas |author16=David Gurwitz |author17=Batsheva Bonne-Tamir |author18=Tudor Parfitt |author19=Michael F. Hammer |author20=Karl Skorecki |author21=Richard Villems |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44657170 |title=The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people |journal=Nature |date=July 2010 |volume=466 |doi=10.1038/nature09103 |issue=7303 |pages=238–42 |pmid=20531471|bibcode=2010Natur.466..238B|s2cid=4307824|issn=0028-0836}}</ref> "The most parsimonious explanation for these observations is a common genetic origin, which is consistent with an historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant." In conclusion the authors are stating that the genetic results are concordant "with the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout the Old World". Regarding the samples he used Behar points out that "Our conclusion favoring common ancestry (of Jewish people) over recent admixture is further supported by the fact that our sample contains individuals that are known not to be admixed in the most recent one or two generations."

A 2013 study of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA by Costa et al., reached the conclusion that the four major female founders and most of the minor female founders had ancestry in prehistoric Europe, rather than the Near East or Caucasus. According to the study these findings 'point to a significant role for the conversion of women in the formation of Ashkenazi communities" and their intermarriage with Jewish men of Middle Eastern origin.<ref name=Costa>{{cite journal |author=M. D. Costa and 16 others |title=A substantial prehistoric European ancestry amongst Ashkenazi maternal lineages |journal=Nature Communications |year=2013 |doi=10.1038/ncomms3543 |volume=4 |pages=2543 |pmid=24104924 |pmc=3806353|bibcode=2013NatCo...4.2543C }}</ref>

A study by Haber, et al., (2013) noted that while previous studies of the Levant, which had focused mainly on diaspora Jewish populations, showed that the "Jews form a distinctive cluster in the Middle East", these studies did not make clear "whether the factors driving this structure would also involve other groups in the Levant". The authors found strong evidence that modern Levant populations descend from two major apparent ancestral populations. One set of genetic characteristics which is shared with modern-day Europeans and Central Asians is most prominent in the Levant amongst "Lebanese, Armenians, Cypriots, Druze and Jews, as well as Turks, Iranians and Caucasian populations". The second set of inherited genetic characteristics is shared with populations in other parts of the Middle East as well as some African populations. Levant populations in this category today include "Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians, as well as North Africans, Ethiopians, Saudis, and Bedouins". Concerning this second component of ancestry, the authors remark that while it correlates with "the pattern of the Islamic expansion", and that "a pre-Islamic expansion Levant was more genetically similar to Europeans than to Middle Easterners," they also say that "its presence in Lebanese Christians, Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, Cypriots and Armenians might suggest that its spread to the Levant could also represent an earlier event". The authors also found a strong correlation between religion and apparent ancestry in the Levant:

<blockquote>all Jews (Sephardi and Ashkenazi) cluster in one branch; Druze from Mount Lebanon and Druze from Mount Carmel are depicted on a private branch; and Lebanese Christians form a private branch with the Christian populations of Armenia and Cyprus placing the Lebanese Muslims as an outer group. The predominantly Muslim populations of Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians cluster on branches with other Muslim populations as distant as Morocco and Yemen.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Haber |first1=Marc |last2=Gauguier |first2=Dominique |last3=Youhanna |first3=Sonia |last4=Patterson |first4=Nick |last5=Moorjani |first5=Priya |last6=Botigué |first6=Laura R. |last7=Platt |first7=Daniel E. |last8=Matisoo-Smith |first8=Elizabeth |last9=Soria-Hernanz |first9=David F. |last10=Wells |first10=R. Spencer |last11=Bertranpetit |first11=Jaume |last12=Tyler-Smith |first12=Chris |last13=Comas |first13=David |last14=Zalloua |first14=Pierre A. |title=Genome-Wide Diversity in the Levant Reveals Recent Structuring by Culture |journal=PLOS Genetics |date=28 February 2013 |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=e1003316 |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1003316 |pmid=23468648 |pmc=3585000 |doi-access=free }}</ref></blockquote>

Another 2013 study, made by Doron M. Behar of the Rambam Health Care Campus in Israel and others, suggests that: "Cumulatively, our analyses point strongly to ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews primarily from European and Middle Eastern populations and not from populations in or near the Caucasus region. The combined set of approaches suggests that the observations of Ashkenazi proximity to European and Middle Eastern populations in population structure analyses reflect actual genetic proximity of Ashkenazi Jews to populations with predominantly European and Middle Eastern ancestry components, and lack of visible introgression from the region of the Khazar Khaganate—particularly among the northern Volga and North Caucasus populations—into the Ashkenazi community."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Behar |first1=Doron |last2=Metspalu |first2=Mait |last3=Baran |first3=Yael |last4=Kopelman |first4=Naama |last5=Yunusbayev |first5=Bayazit |last6=Gladstein |first6=Ariella |last7=Tzur |first7=Shay |last8=Sahakyan |first8=Havhannes |last9=Bahmanimehr |first9=Ardeshir |last10=Yepiskoposyan |first10=Levon |last11=Tambets |first11=Kristiina |last12=Khusnutdinova |first12=Elza |last13=Kusniarevich |first13=Aljona |last14=Balanovsky |first14=Oleg |last15=Balanovsky |first15=Elena |last16=Kovacevic |first16=Lejla |last17=Marjanovic |first17=Damir |last18=Mihailov |first18=Evelin |last19=Kouvatsi |first19=Anastasia |last20=Traintaphyllidis |first20=Costas |last21=King |first21=Roy |last22=Semino |first22=Ornella |last23=Torroni |first23=Antonio |last24=Hammer |first24=Michael |last25=Metspalu |first25=Ene |last26=Skorecki |first26=Karl |last27=Rosset |first27=Saharon |last28=Halperin |first28=Eran |last29=Villems |first29=Richard |last30=Rosenberg |first30=Noah |title=No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin for the Ashkenazi Jews |journal=Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints |date=1 December 2013 |volume=85 |issue=6 |url=https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol_preprints/41/}}</ref>

A 2014 study by Fernández et al. found that Ashkenazi Jews display a frequency of haplogroup K in their maternal (mitochondrial) DNA, suggesting an ancient Near Eastern matrilineal origin, similar to the results of the Behar study in 2006. Fernández noted that this observation clearly contradicts the results of the 2013 study led by Costa, Richards et al. that suggested a European source for 3 exclusively Ashkenazi K lineages.<ref name="ReferenceD">{{Cite journal |title=Ancient DNA Analysis of 8000 B.C. Near Eastern Farmers Supports an Early Neolithic Pioneer Maritime Colonization of Mainland Europe through Cyprus and the Aegean Islands |author1=Eva Fernández |author2=Alejandro Pérez-Pérez |author3=Cristina Gamba |author4=Eva Prats |author5=Pedro Cuesta |author6=Josep Anfruns |author7=Miquel Molist |author8=Eduardo Arroyo-Pardo |author9=Daniel Turbón |journal=PLOS Genetics |volume=10 |number=6 |date=5 June 2014 |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1004401 |pages=e1004401 |pmid=24901650 |pmc=4046922 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

====Sephardic Jews====
[[Sephardi Jews]] are Jews whose ancestors lived in Spain or Portugal. Some 300,000 Jews resided in Spain before the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century, when the [[Catholic Monarchs|Reyes Católicos]] reconquered Spain from the Arabs and ordered the Jews to convert to Catholicism, leave the country or face execution without trial. Those who chose not to convert, between 40,000 and 100,000, were expelled from Spain in 1492 in the wake of the [[Alhambra decree]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/10631714/Spain-invites-descendants-of-Sephardic-Jews-expelled-500-years-ago-to-return.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/10631714/Spain-invites-descendants-of-Sephardic-Jews-expelled-500-years-ago-to-return.html |archive-date=2022-01-12 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Spain invites descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled 500 years ago to return|website=www.telegraph.co.uk|date=11 February 2014 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> Sephardic Jews subsequently migrated to North Africa (Maghreb), Christian Europe (Netherlands, Britain, France and Poland), throughout the [[Ottoman Empire]] and even the newly discovered [[Latin America]]. In the Ottoman Empire, the Sephardim mostly settled in the European portion of the Empire, and mainly in the major cities such as: [[Istanbul]], [[Thessaloniki|Selânik]] and [[Bursa]]. Selânik, which is today known as Thessaloniki and found in modern-day Greece, had a large and flourishing Sephardic community as was the community of Maltese Jews in [[Malta]].

A small number of Sephardic refugees who fled via the Netherlands as [[Marrano]]s settled in Hamburg and Altona Germany in the early 16th century, eventually appropriating Ashkenazic Jewish rituals into their religious practice. One famous figure from the Sephardic Ashkenazic population is [[Glückel of Hameln]]. Some relocated to the United States, establishing the country's first organized community of Jews and erecting the United States' first synagogue. Nevertheless, the majority of Sephardim remained in Spain and Portugal as [[Converso]]s, which would also be the fate for those who had migrated to Spanish and Portuguese ruled Latin America. Sephardic Jews evolved to form most of North Africa's Jewish communities of the modern era, as well as the bulk of the Turkish, Syrian, Galilean and Jerusalemite Jews of the Ottoman period.

====Mizrahi Jews====
[[Mizrahi Jews]] are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, largely originating from the [[Babylonian Jewry]] of the classic period. The term Mizrahi is used in Israel in the language of politics, media and some social scientists for Jews from the Arab world and adjacent, primarily Muslim-majority countries. The definition of Mizrahi includes the modern [[Iraqi Jews]], [[Syrian Jews]], [[Lebanese Jews]], [[Persian Jews]], [[History of the Jews in Afghanistan|Afghan Jews]], [[Bukharian Jews]], [[Kurdish Jews]], [[Mountain Jews]], [[Georgian Jews]]. Some also include the North-African Sephardic communities and Yemenite Jews under the definition of Mizrahi, but do that from rather political generalization than ancestral reasons.

====Yemenite Jews====
{{main|Yemenite Jews}}
{{Unreferenced section|date=April 2021}}
[[Temanim]] are Jews who were living in [[Yemen]] prior to immigrating to Ottoman Palestine and Israel. Their geographic and social isolation from the rest of the Jewish community over the course of many centuries allowed them to develop a liturgy and set of practices that are significantly distinct from those of other Oriental Jewish groups; they themselves comprise three distinctly different groups, though the distinction is one of religious law and liturgy rather than of ethnicity. Traditionally the genesis of the Yemenite Jewish community came after the Babylonian exile, though the community most probably emerged during Roman times, and it was significantly reinforced during the reign of [[Dhu Nuwas]] in the 6th century CE and during later Muslim conquests in the 7th century CE, which drove the Arab Jewish tribes out of central Arabia.

====Karaite Jews====
[[Karaite Judaism|Karaim]] are Jews who used to live mostly in Egypt, Iraq, and [[Crimean Karaites|Crimea]] during the [[Middle Ages]]. They are distinguished by the form of Judaism which they observe. [[Rabbinic Jews]] of varying communities have affiliated with the Karaite community throughout the millennia. As such, Karaite Jews are less an ethnic division, than they are members of a particular branch of Judaism. [[Karaite Judaism]] recognizes the [[Tanakh]] as the single religious authority for the Jewish people. Linguistic principles and contextual exegesis are used in arriving at the correct meaning of the Torah. Karaite Jews strive to adhere to the plain or most obvious understanding of the text when interpreting the Tanakh. By contrast, [[Rabbinical Judaism]] regards an [[Oral Law]] (codified and recorded in the [[Mishnah]] and the [[Talmud]]) as being equally binding on Jews, and mandated by God. In Rabbinical Judaism, the Oral Law forms the basis of religion, morality, and Jewish life. Karaite Jews rely on the use of sound reasoning and the application of linguistic tools to determine the correct meaning of the Tanakh; while Rabbinical Judaism looks towards the Oral law codified in the Talmud, to provide the Jewish community with an accurate understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.

The differences between Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism go back more than a thousand years. Rabbinical Judaism originates from the [[Pharisees]] of the Second Temple period. Karaite Judaism may have its origins among the [[Sadducees]] of the same era. Karaite Jews hold the entire Hebrew Bible to be a religious authority. As such, the vast majority of Karaites believe in the [[resurrection of the dead]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.karaite-korner.org/karaite_faq.shtml|title = Karaite FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About Karaism}}</ref> Karaite Jews are widely regarded as being halachically Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinate. Similarly, members of the rabbinic community are considered Jews by the Moetzet Hakhamim, if they are patrilineally Jewish.{{citation needed|date=October 2009}}