Refugees or Migrants: Pre-Modern Jewish Population Movement

A leading historian argues that historically Jews were more often voluntary migrants than involuntary refugees†‹

For millennia, Jews and non-Jews alike have viewed forced population movement as a core aspect of the Jewish experience. This involuntary Jewish wandering has been explained as the result of divine punishment, or as a response to maltreatment of Jews by majority populations, or as the result of Jews’ acceptance of their minority status perpetuating the maltreatment and forced mig...