The Forgotten Refuge: Jewish Life in the Middle East vs. Europe’s Legacy of Persecution

A Stark Historical Contrast

For over a thousand years, Jewish communities in the Middle East lived under Islamic rule with relative stability, while European Jews faced relentless cycles of expulsion, massacre, and systemic persecution. This fundamental difference in historical experience has been obscured by modern narratives that falsely portray the Islamic world as inherently antisemitic.

Part I: The Middle East as a Jewish Sanctuary?

A curious claim in the German Wikipedia states that the first major medieval pogroms occurred in Islamic Spain. However, research from the Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture presents a different picture:

“One of the characteristic features of the early history of Spain is the successive waves of different people who spread across the Iberian Peninsula. Phoenicians, Greeks, Vandals, Visigoths, Muslims, Jews, and Christians all occupied Spain at one point or another. History records communities of Jews living on the Iberian Peninsula from as early as the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem. But it was during the realm of the Moors in Al-Andalus that the Jews thrived the greatest. Though this was a time of artistic, educational, and cultural enlightenment, it was not completely serene or without persecution for the Jewish people.”

While they don’t seem to update their website, it doesn’t exactly seem biased…

If you have any information backing this claim, please leave a comment!

The Ottoman Rescue of Spanish Jews (1492)

What is however is true is that after the Reconquista, when Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella expelled Spain’s Jewish population through the Alhambra Decree in 1492, Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire took extraordinary action. He dispatched ships to evacuate Sephardic Jews while famously mocking Spain’s decision:

“You call Ferdinand a wise king, he who impoverishes his own country to enrich mine?”

These refugees revitalized Jewish communities in Salonika, Istanbul, and Smyrna, where they flourished for centuries under Ottoman protection. This rescue operation stands in stark contrast to Europe’s pattern of expulsion and destruction.

2. Thriving Jewish Centers Under Islamic Rule

Major centers of Jewish life under Islamic rule included:

• Baghdad: Home to the Gaonate and great Talmudic academies
• Cairo: A hub of Jewish commerce and scholarship
• Damascus/Aleppo: Vital trade centers with continuous Jewish presence

While subject to restrictions Middle Eastern Jews were never victims of systematic genocide – a crucial distinction from European patterns.

Part II: Europe’s Unmatched Legacy of Violence

Ancient Foundations of Persecution

The Jewish Encyclopaedia documents early Roman persecutions:

“The Jews now passed through a period of bitter persecution: Sabbaths, festivals, the study of the Torah and circumcision were interdicted, and it seemed as if Hadrian desired to annihilate the Jewish people. His anger fell upon all the Jews of his empire, for he imposed upon them an oppressive poll-tax.”

Medieval Bloodshed

During the High Middle Ages, persecution reached its first peak during the Crusades:

“In the First Crusade (1096), flourishing communities on the Rhine and the Danube were utterly destroyed… In the Second Crusade (1147), Jews in France were subject to frequent massacres. The Jews were also subjected to attacks by the Shepherds’ Crusades of 1251 and 1320.”

Notable events:

• 1096 Rhineland Massacres: Crusaders annihilated entire communities in Worms, Mainz, and Speyer
• 1290 England Expulsion: First nationwide expulsion in Europe

The Black Death brought new horrors:
“As the Black Death epidemics devastated Europe in the mid-14th century… Jews were taken as scapegoats. Rumors spread that they caused the disease by deliberately poisoning wells. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed… Although Pope Clement VI tried to protect them by papal bull on July 6, 1348… 900 Jews were burnt alive in Strasbourg.”

Early Modern Horrors

• 1492 Alhambra Decree: 200,000 Jews expelled from Spain
• 1516 Venice Ghetto: First formal Jewish ghetto established
• 1648-57 Khmelnytsky Massacres: 100,000 Ukrainian Jews slaughtered

Modern Persecutions

Tsarist Russia’s policies were particularly brutal. After Alexander II’s assassination in 1881:
“The first pogrom is often considered to be the 1821 anti-Jewish riots in Odessa… The Virtual Jewish Encyclopedia claims that initiators of 1821 pogroms were the local Greeks.”

Under Alexander III:
“Tsar Alexander III was hostile to Jews; his reign brought a sharp deterioration in the Jews’ economic, social, and political condition… They banned Jews from inhabiting rural areas and shtetls and restricted the occupations in which they could engage.”

His minister Konstantin Pobedonostsev stated:
“One third will die out, one third will leave the country, and one third will be completely dissolved in the surrounding population.”

This led to mass emigration:
“Between 1881 and the outbreak of the First World War, an estimated 2.5 million Jews left Russia—one of the largest group migrations in recorded history.”

Part III: The World’s Shameful Abandonment (1930s)

Until 1941, the Nazi regime sought to make Germany’s Jewish population emigrate rather than kill them – the systematic extermination would come later.

Why did this mass emigration fail? It ultimately failed for one simple reason: almost no country was willing to accept Jewish refugees in meaningful numbers.

Correcting the Historical Record

The claim that the Middle East was always violently antisemitic represents a dangerous distortion:

• No Islamic state ever attempted Jewish genocide—while Jews were not equals, they were relatively safe.
• For over 1,200 years, Jewish communities thrived under Muslim rule while facing extermination in Europe.

Europe’s historical responsibility for antisemitic violence remains unparalleled. To project this legacy onto the Middle East is not just inaccurate—it represents a dangerous rewriting of history that absolves the actual perpetrators of centuries of persecution. The truth remains: for most of history, Jews found safer haven under Muslim rulers than under Christian kings, czars, and fascists.