Flight from Governmental Repression or Popular Violence

Beginning in the twelfth century, edicts of expulsion set in motion for the first time since early antiquity forced Jewish population movement. There have arguably been two further sources of pre-modern involuntary Jewish migration—repressive governmental edicts that made Jewish life spiritually or materially impossible and popular violence so threatening as to necessitate flight. Neither of these pressures is clear-cut in its impact, as were the edicts of expulsion from European states. This chapter considers the impact of both these pressures on Jewish population movement. It describes instances of abrogation of basic Jewish religious rights, expressed as governmental demands that Jews convert to the ruling faith.