By Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden | 10 June 2026 (IDN) — There are questions that even today, historians don’t seem moved to investigate. Two important ones come to mind. Why was it that Pharaonic Egypt rarely went to war, with gaps of over a hundred years, until Ramesses 11 became pharaoh in 1303 BC? Isn’t it a fact that Jews in Europe were unmolested for most of the first millennium after the death of Jesus?
The Egyptian question is a bit of an idle curiosity since an answer probably won’t affect our behaviour today, although it should. Still, it is nice to know that we human beings aren’t constitutionally inclined to make war at all times, and that we don’t have to live as we did for hundreds of years in Europe—going to war at the drop of a hat and making the continent the most warlike place on Earth’s.
To learn more about the persecution of the Jews is highly relevant to today’s Palestinian-Israeli struggle for the ancient land of Palestine. The siege mentality that modern Israel exhibits could do with being leavened with a bit of honest history. Pogroms haven’t always marked Jewish history over two thousand years. The Holocaust only happened once, although once is one too many. As I’ve found, one has to really dig to uncover the first thousand-year history of Jewish persecution. Not many rabbis or scholars bother to.
For most of the time, over two millennia, the Jews in Europe got on with life and were not often persecuted. They may not have always been liked, but they were accepted.
Tolerance, Tensions and the Crusades
Even when, at the beginning of the second millennium, tolerance of the Jews did gradually give way to demonising them in some quarters, by and large, Jews lived on good terms with their Christian neighbours, as in Muslim-run Spain. Then, as now, they were considered to be materially successful and culturally brilliant.
The influential Christian scholar St. Anselm, in the 1090s, broke with St. Augustine’s long-held opinion that those who had crucified Christ had not known he was the son of God. Whether this had a profound influence on ordinary opinion can only be guessed at. Still, we do know that in the late eleventh and early twelfth Century outrages were perpetuated against Jews, albeit infrequently.
During the preparations for the crusade of 1096, Jews were massacred in significant numbers. Yet there were strong counter-currents. Pope Alexander 11, in the decrees of the Third Lateran Council in 1179, wrote that Jews were not to be deprived of land, money or goods, and their religious ceremonies should not be interrupted with sticks and stones.
Over the next 750 years, the Jews, for the most part, prospered. Occasionally, there were mass killings, but the word “mass” should be kept in proportion; barely was it more than 100 killings at a time, occasionally double that. We should also recall what murderous centuries these were in Europe—wars between kings, duchies and knights’ fiefdoms, not to mention the later almost continuous Protestant-Catholic wars. Compared with these, the anti-Jewish pogroms were relatively minor affairs.
Russia, Zionism and Diverging Jewish Experiences
In 1791, Catherine the Great of Russia created the Pale of Settlement, a territory where permanent Jewish settlement was allowed. Its population was about 5 million, comprising around 40% of the world’s Jewish population. However, Jews in the Pale—which covered about 20% of Russia’s European territory—were still a minority, perhaps 14% of the population. The host community resented this influx of Jews, and there were, from time to time, but not continuously, pogroms and anti-Jewish riots. In the big pogroms of 1891 and 1903, thousands were murdered.
Over two million fled, mainly to the US, but only rarely did they show themselves much interested in the Zionist cause. They were happy where they were and found themselves side by side with others who had also been severely persecuted in Europe. They discovered they weren’t the only ones, and this helped give them a sense of perspective that lasted until the Holocaust.
We should not be surprised then that although Zionism was a Western construct, its greatest appeal was to the remaining Eastern European Jews. Western European Jews had found a modus vivendi, and their chief concern was not physical oppression. It was the loss of identity through assimilation. What the Western Jews cared for was the spiritual redemption of their people. Hence, when Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, preached his cause at the end of the twentieth Century, he encountered considerable opposition from Western Jews.
However, by the later standards of Zionist leaders, Herzl was a moderate man. His urge for a Jewish state was a question of finding a suitable piece of land—it could be in Africa or South America. It did not have to be in Palestine.
Rethinking History and the Future
Israelis today need to reflect on all this. Apart from Hitler’s Holocaust—a one-off event if ever there was one—their forefathers were not singularly persecuted when compared with what else was going on at the time—wars, the torture of enemies and the persecution of minorities and those of a different religion. Until the end of the Second World War, popular Jewish opinion, either inside or outside the Middle East, did not countenance a takeover of Palestine. All they wanted was some modest settlement in a land they could call their own.
In the run-up to the forthcoming Israeli elections, Jewish voters should start to have a relook at their history. A two-state solution becomes ever more necessary. [IDN-InDepthNews]
Copyright: Jonathan Power.