European countries where Jews were allowed to exist in 1500

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“The role that Christian dogmatism played should not be underestimated. Most of Europe was devoutly Christian right up until the 20th century, and old canards of Jews as “Christ killers” and heretics were always at the forefront of western anti-Semitism. Jews have historically bore the brunt of it because they were virtually the only non-Christian sect in Europe until relatively recently, with the notable exception of Moorish Spain and Roma Gypsies.

At the end of the day, the most simple answer is that Jews have always been outsiders, from the perspectives of both the host community and themselves. They tended to look different in physical appearance and had customs which other people often found strange. Sadly, it’s just part of human nature to distrust what you don’t understand.”

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“Life was not exactly a bed of roses for European Jews at that time. In many of the countries where they resided, such as the German and Italian states, Jews were forced to live in segregated ghettos under particularly harsh conditions. For instance, in German cities like Frankfurt, Jews were not allowed to vote, hold political office, join trade guilds or even to marry without a permit.
To paint a picture of life in a Jewish ghetto, the ghetto of Rome as one of the largest in Western Europe would perhaps be a fairly typical example. It existed from 1555 until the late 19th century.

“The ghetto was a walled quarter with three gates that were locked at night. The area of Rome chosen for the ghetto was one of the most undesirable quarters of the city, subject to constant flooding by the Tiber River.
Life in the Roman Ghetto was one of crushing poverty, due to the severe restrictions placed upon the occupations that Jews were allowed to perform. Roman Jews were allowed to work only at unskilled jobs, such as ragmen, secondhand dealers or fish mongers. They were permitted to be pawnbrokers (which had been prohibited to Christians), and this activity excited the hatred of many Christians against them. When Jews went outside the ghetto, the men had to wear a yellow cloth (the “sciamanno”), and the women a yellow veil.
The great number of people living in such a small area, together with the poverty of the population, caused terrible hygienic conditions. During the plague of 1656, 800 of the 4,000 inhabitants died because of the epidemic.”

Due to the expulsions, ghettos and systematic persecution in Western Europe during the middle ages, Eastern Europe remained the epicenter of Jewish existence in Europe right through to the mid 20th century. Poland in particular, is perhaps the only country in Europe at the time to give some semblance of civil rights to Jews, was home to as much as 80% of European Jewry in the 17th century.

When in 1791 Russia annexed Poland and Lithuania, the Pale of Settlement (essentially an ethnic enclave perhaps most analogous, ironically, to the Palestinian West Bank) was created in order to confine the Jewish population to one region. Under the Russian Tsars, the fate of the Jews was generally much harsher than under Polish rule. Besides curtailing their freedom of movement, a quota system was put in place that either restricted or completely abolished their participation in education, professional occupations, and voting, amongst numerous other disabilities.

Tensions between the Jews and the Russian authorities were often strained, but things abruptly came to a head following the assassination in 1881 of Tsar Alexander II, after a false rumor spread that Jews were behind the plot. The resulting pogroms throughout much of Eastern Europe precipitated the largest mass migration of Jews since Rome routed Judea. From then until the outbreak of WWII, a monumental demographic shift of Jewry from the Eastern Hemisphere to the West ensued. The resulting refugee crisis ultimately led to the creation of the Zionist movement, and eventually the state of Israel itself.”