About Jewishness

According to Prof. Ze'ev Herzog, Director of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, "This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel.... The many Egyptian documents that we have make no mention of the Israelites' presence in Egypt and are also silent about the events of the exodus."
The views of the mainstream archaeological community can be represented by Israel Finkelstein and William Dever. Finkelstein points to the appearance of settlements in the central hill country around 1200 as the earliest of the known settlements of the Israelites. A cyclical pattern to these highland settlements, corresponding to the state of the surrounding cultures, suggests that the local Canaanites combined an agricultural and nomadic lifestyles. When Egyptian rule collapsed after the invasion of the Sea Peoples (probably Tyrrhenians), the central hill country could no longer sustain a large nomadic population, so they went from nomadism to sedentism. Dever agrees with the Canaanite origin of the Israelites but allows for the possibility of some immigrants from Egypt among the early hilltop settlers, leaving open the possibility of a Moses-like figure in Transjordan ca 1250-1200. Biblical minimalists such as Philip Davies and Niels Peter Lemche regard the Exodus as a fiction composed in the Persian period or even later, without even the memory of a historical Moses. Hector Avalos, in "The End of Biblical Studies," states that the Exodus, as depicted in the Bible, is an idea that most biblical historians no longer support.

Biblical history
c. 2100 BCE Abraham, the founder of Judaism, born in Ur
c. 1440 BCE Moses promulgates the Ten Commandments
c. 1047 BCE-c. 1007 BCE King Saul
1037 BCE-c. 970 BCE King David
960 BCE Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem completed, according to secular historians; (see 832 BCE)
1001 BCE-c. 931 BCE King Solomon
930 BCE-c. 910 BCE King Jeroboam
920 BCE Split between Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) and Kingdom of Judah
740 BCE-c. 722 BCE Kingdom of Israel falls to Neo-Assyrian Empire. Jewish dispersal. Many Jews are deported to Khorasan, a historical geographic region spanning north-eastern and east of Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, western and northern Afghanistan. For over 2,700 years since, Persian Jews have lived in the territories of today's Iran
715 BCE-c. 687 BCE King Hezekiah of Judah
605 BCE Nebuchadnezar founds a new Babylonian empire
597 BCE start of deportation and exile of the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to Babylon
588 BCE After the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon and the deportation of a considerable portion of its inhabitants to Mesopotamia, the Jews had two principal cultural centers: Babylonia and the land of Israel. Although most of the Jewish people, especially the wealthy families, were to be found in Babylonia, a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, , about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad.
586 BCE Jerusalem falls to Nebuchadnezzar and Solomon's Temple destroyed, according to secular historians.
539 BCE the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great gave the Jews permission to return to their native land, and more than 40,000 are said to have availed themselves of the privilege.
516 BCE Second Temple of Jerusalem consecrated, according to secular historians.
460 BCE Ezra comes to Jerusalem

Post-Biblical history

332 BCE Alexander the Great conquered Phoenicia and Gaza, passing by Judea probably without entering the Jewish dominated hill country, on his way into Egypt.
167-161 BCE The Maccabees (Hasmoneans) revolt against the Hellenistic Empire of Seleucids, led by Judah Maccabee, resulting in victory and installation of the Hanukkah holiday.
1567-129 BCE Hasmonean dynasty establishes its royal dominance in Judea during renewed war with Seleucid Empire.

1st century BCE
63 BCE The Romans intervene in a civil war in Judea, which becomes a Roman province, see Iudaea Province.
40 BCE-4 BCE Herod the Great, appointed King of the Jews by the Roman Senate.

1st century
1 CE Following the 1st century Great Revolt and the 2nd century Bar Kokhba revolt, the destruction of Judea exerted a decisive influence upon the dispersion of the Jewish people throughout the world, as the centre of worship shifted from the Temple to Rabbinic authority.
Some Jews were sold as slaves or transported as captives after the fall of Judea, others joined the existing diaspora, while still others remained in Judea and began work on the Jerusalem Talmud. For those Jews in the diaspora, they were generally accepted into the Roman Empire, but with the rise of Christianity, restrictions grew. Forced expulsions and persecution resulted in substantial shifts in the international centers of Jewish life to which far-flung communities often looked; although not always unified due to the Jewish people's dispersion itself. Jewish communities were thereby largely expelled from and sent to various Roman provinces in the Middle East, Europe and North Africa.
6 CE Census of Quirinius
10 CE Hillel the Elder, considered the greatest Torah sage, dies, leading to the dominance of Shammai till 30, see also Hillel and Shammai.
30-70 CE Schism within Judaism during the Second Temple era. A sect within Hellenised Jewish society starts Jewish Christianity.
47-49 The apostle Paul takes Christianity beyond its roots in Israel
66-70 The Great (First) Jewish Revolt against Roman occupation ended with destruction of the Second Temple and the fall of Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin was relocated to Yavne by Yochanan ben Zakai.
73 Final events of the Great Jewish Revolt - the fall of Masada.

2nd century
115-117 Kitos War (Revolt against Trajan, Second Jewish Revolt) was a second Jewish-Roman War initiated in large Jewish communities of Cyprus, Cyrene (modern Libya), Aegipta (modern Egypt) and Mesopotamia (modern Syria and Iraq). It led to mutual killing of hundreds of thousands Jews, Greeks and Romans , ending with a total defeat of Jewish rebels and extermination of Jewish presence in Cyprus and Cyrene by the newly installed Emperor Hadrian.
131-135 The Roman emperor Hadrian, among other provocations, renames Jerusalem "Aelia Capitolina". Bar Kokhba (Bar Kosiba) leads a large doomed Jewish revolt (Third Jewish Revolt) against Rome in response to Hadrian's actions. In the aftermath of the revolt, most Jewish population was annihilated and Hadrian renamed the province of Judea as Syria Palaestina forbidding Jews to set foot in Jerusalem, except for Tisha B'av.

3rd century
200 The Mishnah, the standardization of the Jewish oral law as it stands today, is redacted by Judah haNasi in Eretz Israel.


4th century
315-337 Roman Emperor Constantine I enacts new restrictive legislature. Conversion of Christians to Judaism is outlawed, congregations for religious services are curtailed, but Jews are also allowed to enter Jerusalem on the anniversary of the Temple's destruction.
338-1458 Byzantium (East-Roman Empire). The Byzantine rulers weren't exactly friendly to the Jews, because of the increasing power of the Christian Church.
351-352 Another Jewish revolt, directed against Constantius Gallus, is put down.
358 Because of the increasing danger of Roman persecution, Hillel II creates a mathematical calendar for calculating the Jewish month. After adopting the calendar, the Sanhedrin in Tiberias is dissolved.
361-363 The last pagan Roman Emperor, Julian, allows the Jews to return to "holy Jerusalem which you have for many years longed to see rebuilt" and to rebuild the Second Temple
363 Galilee earthquake
381 Christianity becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire

During the Middle Ages (5th to 16th century), Jews divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two primary geographical groupings: the Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe and Sephardic Jews of Iberia, North Africa and the Middle East. These groups have parallel histories sharing many series of persecutions and forced expulsions, which finally culminated in events in the 20th century that led to the State of Israel.

5th century
483 The Empress Eudocia removes the ban on Jews' praying at the Temple site and the heads of the Community in Galilee issue a call "to the great and mighty people of the Jews": "Know that the end of the exile of our people has come"!


6th century
500-523 Yosef Dhu Nuwas,the last King of Himyarite Kingdom (Modern Yemen)is converting to Judaism, upgrading already existing Yemenese Jewish center. His kingdom has fallen in war against Axum and the Christians, yet was later restored in the 7th century as a vassal kingdom of Sassanid Persia until the Muslim conquest.
c. 570 Probable birth of Muhammad, the founder of Islam
550-700 Period of the savoraim, the sages in Persia who put the Talmud in its final form. Jews at this time in Israel were living under the oppressive rule of the Byzantines under whom there were one more Jewish revolt and three Samaritan revolts.

7th century
613 Spanish decree that Jews should be converted or expelled.
613 Jews led by Benjamin of Tiberias gain autonomy in Jerusalem after the revolt in 613 as a joint military campaign with ally Sassanid Empire under Khosrau II, but are subsequently annihilated and expelled in 628, leaving Israel (part of Syria Palaestina province) empty of Jewish presence for the first time since Babylonian exile.
638 Muslims capture Jerusalem
7th century The rise and domination of Islam among largely pagan Arabs in the Arabian peninsula results in the almost complete removal and conversion of the ancient Jewish communities there, and sack of Syria-Palaestina from the hands of Byzantines.
7th century The Khazars (a Turkic semi-nomadic people from Central Asia whose King and members of the upper class would adopt Judaism at 740CE) founded the independent Khazar kingdom in the southeastern part of today's Europe. The Khazarate would last until 10th century, being overrun by Russians, and finally conquered by Russian and Byzantian forces in 1016.

8th century
700-1250 Period of the Gaonim (the Gaonic era). Jews in southern Europe and Asia Minor lived under the often intolerant rule of Christian Kings and clerics. Most Jews lived in the Muslim Arab realm (Andalusia, North Africa, Palestine, Iraq and Yemen). Despite sporadic periods of persecution, Jewish communal and cultural life flowered in this period. The universally recognized centers of Jewish life were in Jerusalem and Tiberias (Syria), Sura and Pumbeditha (Iraq). The heads of these law schools were the Gaonim, who were consulted on matters of law by Jews throughout the world. During this time, the Niqqud is invented in Tiberias.
711 Muslim armies invade and occupy most of Spain (At this time Jews made up about 8% of Spain's population). Under Christian rule, Jews had been subject to frequent and intense persecution, but this was alleviated under Muslim rule. Some mark this as the beginning of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain.
711-1248 Iberian Peninsula occupied by the Moors. In 1492 the last Muslim resistance was conquered by the Spanish king and in that same year the Jews were expelled.

9th century
846 In Sura, Iraq, Rav Amram Gaon compiles his siddur (Jewish prayer book.)
incomplete marriage contract dated to October 6 of this year is the earliest dated document found in the papers of the Cairo Geniza.

10th century
900-1090 The Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain. Abd-ar-Rahman III becomes Caliph of Spain in 912, ushering in the height of tolerance. Muslims granted Jews and Christians exemptions from military service, the right to their own courts of law, and a guarantee of safety of their property. Jewish poets, scholars, scientists, statesmen and philosophers flourished in and were an integral part of the extensive Arab civilization. This ended with the invasion of Almoravides in 1090.


11th century
1012 Jews are expelled from Germany. Most of them go to Poland (Lodz).
1013-1073 Rabbi Yitchaki Alfassi (from Morocco, later Spain) writes the Rif, an important work of Jewish law.
1016 Jews are expelled from the Crimea. They go to Russia, or south, to Constantinople.
1095-1291 Christian Crusades begin, sparking warfare with Islam in Palestine. Crusaders temporarily capture Jerusalem in 1099. Tens of thousands of Jews are killed by European crusaders throughout Europe and in the Middle East.
1096-1192 Jews are expelled from Germany and go to Poland and Lithuania.

12th century
1107 Moroccan Almoravid ruler Yoseph Ibn Tashfin expels Moroccan Jews who do not convert to Islam.
1141 Yehuda Halevi issues a call to the Jews to emigrate to Palestine and eventually dies in Jerusalem.
1182 Jews are expelled from France and go to the Provence, then under Catalan rule.

13th century
1248 Jews are expelled from Germany and go to Poland (Lodz).
1250-1300 The life of Moses de Leon, of Spain. He publishes to the public the Zohar the 2nd century C.E. esoteric interpretations of the Torah by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his disciples. This begins the modern form of Kabbalah (esoteric Jewish mysticism).
1250-1550 Period of the Rishonim, the medieval rabbinic sages. Most Jews at this time lived in lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea or in Western Europe under feudal systems. With the decline of Muslim and Jewish centers of power in Iraq, there was no single place in the world which was a recognized authority for deciding matters of Jewish law and practice. Consequently, the rabbis recognized the need for writing commentaries on the Torah and Talmud and for writing law codes that would allow Jews anywhere in the world to be able to continue living in the Jewish tradition.
1267 Nahmanides (Ramban) settles in Jerusalem and builds the Ramban Synagogue.
1290 Jews are expelled from England by Edward I after the banning of usury in the 1275 Statute of Jewry. Most of them go to France.
1299-November 1, 1922 Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman regime has always been very friendly to the Jews and allowed them significant autonomy.

14th century
1306-1394 Jews are repeatedly expelled from France and readmitted, for a price. Most of them seek refuge in Spain and Italy.
1343 Jews persecuted in Western Europe are invited to Poland by Casimir the Great.
1348 Jews are expelled from Germany. Most of them go to Poland (Lemberg).
1349-1360 Jews are expelled from Hungary and go to Poland.
1350 Jews are expelled from Crimea and go to Russia.
1394 Jews are expelled from the Provence (then under French rule).

15th century
1420 Jews are expelled from the Provence. Most of them go to Spain.
1478-1833 Spanish Inquisition, mostly targeting "New Christians" (crypto-Jews).
1481 Jews are expelled from the Provence.
1486 First Jewish prayer book published in Italy.
1492 The Alhambra Decree: Approximately 200,000 Jews are expelled from Spain, The expelled Jews relocate to the Netherlands, Turkey, Arab lands, and Judea; some eventually go to South and Central America. However, most emigrate to Poland. In later centuries, more than 50% of Jewish world population lived in Poland. Many Jews remain in Spain after publicly converting to Christianity, becoming Crypto-Jews.
1492 Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire issued a formal invitation to the Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal and sent out ships to safely bring Jews to his empire.
1493 Jews expelled from Sicily. As many as 137,000 exiled. Most of them settle in Napels, Rome and Livorno.
1495 Jews expelled from Lithuania. Many go to the Crimea and Russia.
1496 Jews expelled from Portugal and from many German cities.
1497 Exodus of Jews from Portugal to Brazil, Holland, Germany and North Africa.

16th century
1501 King Alexander of Poland readmits Jews to Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
1516 Ghetto of Venice established, the first Jewish ghetto in Europe. Many others follow.
1516-1922 Israel under Ottoman rule.
1534 King Sigismund I of Poland abolishes the law that required Jews to wear special clothes.
1534 First Yiddish book published, in Poland.
1536-1821 Portuguese Inquisition, mostly targeting "New Christians" (crypto-Jews).
1547 First Hebrew Jewish printing house in Lublin.
1550 Moses ben Jacob Cordovero founds a Kabbalah academy in Safed.
1550 France welcomes Jews again, if they are converted. Crypto-Jews arrive from Spain and Portugal and are called "New Christians".
1567 First Jewish university Jeshiva was founded in Poland.
1567 Huguenots (French Protestants) start to emigrate from France and go to Holland and England. Some converted Jews take this opportunity to start a new life there, as "Huguenots". Soon more than 25% of the Amsterdam populations consists of French Huguenots, and probably quite a few crypto-Jews among them.
1577 A Hebrew printing press is established in Safed, the first press in Palestine and the first in Asia.
1580-1764 First session of the Council of Four Lands (Va'ad Arba' Aratzot) in Lublin, Poland. 70 delegates from local Jewish kehillot meet to discuss taxation and other issues important to the Jewish community.

17th century
1623 First time separate (Va'ad) Jewish Sejm for Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
1626-1676 False Messiah Sabbatai Zevi.
1633 Jews of Poznan granted a privilege of forbidding Christians to enter into their city.
1648 Jewish population of Poland reached 450,000 (i.e. 4% of the 11000000 population of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is Jewish), Bohemia 40,000 and Moravia 25,000. Worldwide population of Jewry is estimated at 750,000.
1648-1655 The Ukrainian Cossack Bohdan Chmielnicki leads a massacre of Polish gentry and Jewry that leaves an estimated 65,000 Jews dead and a similar number of gentry. The total decrease in the number of Jews is estimated at 100,000.
1655 Jews are expelled from the whole of France, but are allowed to settle in Bordeaux.
1655 Jews readmitted to England by Oliver Cromwell.

18th century
1700-1760 Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Ba'al Shem Tov, founds Hasidic Judaism, a way to approach God through meditation and fervent joy. He and his disciples attract many followers, and establish numerous Hasidic sects. The European Jewish opponents of Hasidim (known as Mitnagdim) argue that one should follow a more scholarly approach to Judaism. Some of the more well-known Hasidic sects today include Bobover, Breslover, Gerer, Lubavitch (Chabad) and Satmar Hasidim.
1700 Rabbi Yehuda HeHasid makes aliyah to Palestine accompanied by hundreds of his followers. A few days after his arrival, Rabbi Yehuda dies suddenly.
1720 Unpaid Arab creditors burn the synagogue unfinished by immigrants of Rabbi Yehuda and expel all Ashkenazi Jews from Jerusalem. See also Hurba Synagogue
1720-1797 Rabbi Elijah of Vilna, the Vilna Gaon.
1729-1786 Moses Mendelssohn and the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement. He strove to bring an end to the isolation of the Jews so that they would be able to embrace the culture of the Western world, and in turn be embraced by gentiles as equals. The Haskalah opened the door for the development of all the modern Jewish denominations and the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, but it also paved the way for many who, wishing to be fully accepted into Christian society, converted to Christianity or chose to assimilate to emulate it.
1740 Parliament of Great Britain passes a general act permitting Jews to be naturalized in the American colonies. Previously, several colonies had also permitted Jews to be naturalized without taking the standard oath "upon the true faith of a Christian."
1740 Ottoman authorities invite Rabbi Haim Abulafia (1660-1744), renowned Kabbalist and Rabbi of Izmir, to come to the Holy Land. Rabbi Abulafia is to rebuild the city of Tiberias, which has lain desolate for some 70 years. The city's revival is seen by many as a sign of the coming of the Messiah.
1740-1750 Thousands immigrate to Palestine under the influence of Messianic predictions. The large immigration greatly increases the size and strength of the Jewish Settlement in Palestine.
1747 Rabbi Abraham Gershon of Kitov (d. 1761) is the first immigrant of the Hasidic Aliyah. He is a respected Talmudic scholar, mystic, and brother-in-law of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (founder of the Hasidic movement). Rabbi Abraham first settles in Hebron. Later, he relocates to Jerusalem at the behest of its residents.
1759 Followers of Jacob Frank joined ranks of Polish szlachta (gentry) of Jewish origins.
1772-1795 Partitions of Poland between Russia, Kingdom of Prussia and Austria. Main bulk of World Jewry lives now in those 3 countries. Old privileges of Jewish communities are denounced.
1775-1781 American Revolution; guaranteed the freedom of religion.
1789 The French revolution. In 1791 France grants full right to Jews and allows them to become citizens, under certain conditions.
1790 In the USA, President George Washington sends a letter to the Jewish community in Rhode Island. He writes that he envisions a country "which gives bigotry no sanction...persecution no assistance". Despite the fact that the US was a predominantly Protestant country, theoretically Jews are given full rights. In addition, the mentality of Jewish immigrants shaped by their role as merchants in Eastern Europe meant they were well-prepared to compete in American society. So far, their number is limited.
1791 Russia creates the Pale of Settlement that includes land acquired from Poland with a huge Jewish population and in the same year Crimea. The Jewish population of the Pale was 750,000. 450,000 Jews lived in the Prussian and Austrian parts of Poland.
1798 Rabbi Nachman of Breslov travels to Palestine.
1799 While French troops were in Palestine besieging the city of Acre, Napoleon prepared a Proclamation making Palestine an independent Jewish state, but his unsuccessful attempt to capture Acre prevented it from being issued.

19th century
1800-1900 The Golden Age of Yiddish literature, the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, and the revival of Hebrew literature.
1808-1840 Large-scale aliyah in hope of Hastening Redemption in anticipation of the arrival of the Messiah in 1840.
1820-1860 The development of Orthodox Judaism, a set of traditionalist movements that resisted the influences of modernization that arose in response to the European emancipation and Enlightenment movements; characterized by continued strict adherence to Halakha.
1824 the first Brazilian constitution allows freedom of belief. Many Sephardi Jews from Morocco emigrate to Brazil.
1830 Greece grants citizenship to Jews.
1831 Jewish militias take part in the defense of Warsaw against Russians.
1837 Moses Haim Montefiore is knighted by Queen Victoria, the first Jew to receive an English Knighthood.
1837 Galilee earthquake devastates Jewish communities of Safed and Tiberias.
1838-1933 Rabbi Yisroel Meir ha-Kohen (Chofetz Chaim) opens an important yeshiva. He writes an authoritative Halakhic work, Mishnah Berurah. 1800s of the rise of classical Reform Judaism. s Israel Salanter develops the Mussar Movement. While teaching that Jewish law is binding, he dismisses current philosophical debate and advocates the ethical teachings as the essence of Judaism. s Historical Judaism, later known as Conservative Judaism, is developed.
1841 David Levy Yulee of Florida is elected to the United States Senate, becoming the first Jew elected to Congress.
1851 Norway allows Jews to enter the country. They are not emancipated until 1891.
1858 Jews emancipated in England.
1860 Alliance Israelite Universelle, an international Jewish organization is founded in Paris with the goal to protect Jewish rights as citizens.
1860-1875 Moshe Montefiori builds Jewish neighbourhoods outside the Old City of Jerusalem starting with Mishkenot Sha'ananim.
1860-1864 Jews are taking part in Polish national movement, that was followed by January rising.
1860-1943 Henrietta Szold: educator, author, social worker and founder of Hadassah.
1861 The Zion Society is formed in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
1862 Jews are given equal rights in Russian-controlled Congress Poland. The privileges of some towns regarding prohibition of Jewish settlement are revoked.
1867 Jews emancipated in Hungary.
1868 Benjamin Disraeli becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Though converted to Christianity as a child, he is the first person of Jewish descent to become a leader of government in Europe.
1870-1890 Russian Zionist group Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) and Bilu (est. 1882) set up a series of Jewish settlements in the Land of Israel, financially aided by Baron Edmond James de Rothschild. In Rishon LeZion Eliezer ben Yehuda revives Hebrew as spoken modern language.
1870 Jews emancipated in Italy.
1871 Jews emancipated in Germany.
1875 Reform Judaism's Hebrew Union College is founded in Cincinnati. Its founder was Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the architect of American Reform Judaism.
1877 New Hampshire becomes the last state to give Jews equal political rights.
1878 Petah Tikva is founded by religious pioneers from Jerusalem, led by Yehoshua Stampfer.
1880 World Jewish population around 7.7 million, 90% in Europe, mostly Eastern Europe; around 3.5 million in the former Polish provinces.
1881-1884, 1903-1906, 1918-1920 Three major waves of pogroms kill tens of thousands of Jews in Russia and Ukraine. More than two million Russian Jews emigrate in the period 1881-1920.
1881 On December 30-31, the First Congress of all Zionist Unions for the colonization of Palestine was held at Focani, Romania.
1882-1903 The First Aliyah, a major wave of Jewish immigrants to build a homeland in Palestine.
1886 Rabbi Sabato Morais and Alexander Kohut begin to champion the Conservative Jewish reaction to American Reform, and establish The Jewish Theological Seminary of America as a school of 'enlightened Orthodoxy'.
1890 The term "Zionism" is coined by an Austrian Jewish publicist Nathan Birnbaum in his journal Self Emancipation and was defined as the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.
1895 First published book by Sigmund Freud.
1897 In response to the Dreyfus affair, Theodore Herzl writes Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), advocating the creation of a free and independent Jewish state in Israel.
1897 The Bund (General Jewish Labour Bund) is formed in Russia.
1897 First Russian Empire Census: 5,200,000 of Jews, 4,900,000 in the Pale. The lands of former Poland have 1,300,000 Jews or 14% of population.
1897 The First Zionist Congress was held at Basel, which brought the World Zionist Organization (WZO) into being.

20th century
1902 Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schechter reorganizes the Jewish Theological Seminary and makes it into the flagship institution of Conservative Judaism.
1903 St. Petersburg's Znamya newspaper publishes a literary hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Kishinev Pogrom caused by accusations that Jews practice cannibalism.
1904-1914 Second Aliyah, because of pogroms.
1905 Russian Revolution accompanied by pogroms.
1915 Yeshiva College (later University) and its Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Rabbinical Seminary is established in New York for training in a Modern Orthodox milieu.
1916 Louis Brandeis, on the first of June, is confirmed as the United States' first Jewish Supreme Court justice. Brandeis was nominated by American President Woodrow Wilson.
1917 British and Australian forces defeat the Turks and gain control of Jerusalem and Baghdad. The British issue the Balfour Declaration 1917 which gives official British support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people...it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". Many Jews interpret this to mean that all of Palestine was to become a Jewish state.
1917 February The Pale of Settlement is abolished, and Jews get equal rights. The Russian civil war leads to over 2000 pogroms with tens of thousands murdered and hundreds of thousand made homeless.
1918-1939 The period between the two World Wars is often referred to as the "golden age" of hazzanut (cantors). Some of the great Jewish cantors of this era include Abraham Davis, Moshe Koussevitzky, Zavel Kwartin (1874-1953), Jan Peerce, Josef "Yossele" Rosenblatt (1882-1933), Gershon Sirota (1874-1943), and Laibale Waldman.
1919-1923 Third Aliyah.
1920 At the San Remo conference Britain receives the League of Nations' British Mandate of Palestine.
1920s-Present A variety of Jewish authors, including Gertrude Stein, Allen Ginsberg, Saul Bellow, Adrienne Rich and Philip Roth, sometimes drawing on Jewish culture and history, flourish and become highly influential on the Anglophone literary scene.
1921 British military administration of the Mandate is replaced by civilian rule.
1921 Churchill creates Iraq and Transjordan at the Cairo Conference.
1921 Britain proclaims that all of Palestine east of the Jordan River is forever closed to Jewish settlement, but not to Arab settlement.
1921 Polish-Soviet peace treaty in Riga. Citizens of both sides are given rights to choose the country. Hundred thousands of Jews, especially small businesses forbidden in the Soviets, move to Poland.
1922 Reform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise established the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. (It merged with Hebrew Union College in 1950.)
1923 Britain gives the Golan Heights to the French Mandate of Syria. Arab immigration is allowed; Jewish immigration is not.
1924 2,989,000 Jews according to religion poll in Poland (10.5% of total). Jewish youth consisted 23% of students of high schools and 26% of students of universities.
1924-1925 Fourth Aliyah.
1926 Generally, prior to World War I, there were no chassidic yeshivot in Europe, but on Lag Ba'Omer 1926, the Rabbi Shlomo Chanoch Hacohen Rabinowicz, the fourth Radomsker Rebbe said, "The time has come to found yeshivos where the younger generation will be able to learn and toil in Torah.", leading to the founding of the "Kesser Torah" yeshivot throughout Poland.
1930 World Jewry: 15,000,000. Main countries USA(4,000,000), Poland (3,500,000 11% of total), Soviet Union (2,700,000 2% of total), Romania (1,000,000 6% of total). Palestine 175,000 or 17% of total 1,036,000.
1930-1947 Fifth Aliyah. Thousand of Jews were put in camps by the British rulers of Palestine.
1933 Hitler takes over Germany; his anti-Semitic sentiments are well-known, prompting numerous Jews to emigrate.
1937 Adin Steinsaltz born, author of the first comprehensive Babylonian Talmud commentary since Rashi in the 11th century.
1939 The British government issues the 'White Paper'. The paper proposed a limit of 10,000 Jewish immigrants for each year between 1940-1944, plus 25,000 refugees for any emergency arising during that period.
1938-1945 The Holocaust (Ha Shoah), resulting in the methodical extermination of nearly 6 million Jews across Europe.
1940s-Present Various Jewish filmmakers, including Billy Wilder, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and the Coen Brothers, frequently draw on Jewish philosophy and humor, and become some of the most artistically and popularly successful in the history of the medium.
1945 Syria and Lebanon gain independance from France.
1945-1948 Post-Holocaust refugee crisis. British attempts to detain Jews attempting to enter Palestine illegally.
1946-1948 The violent struggle for the creation of a Jewish state in the British mandate of Palestine is intensified by Jewish defense groups: Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi (group).
November 29, 1947 United Nations approves the creation of a Jewish State and an Arab State in the British mandate of Palestine. This plan was rejected by the Arabs. Start of the Civil War. The Arab economy collapsed and and 250,000 Arab Palestinians fled the country or were expelled.
May 14, 1948 State of Israel declares itself as an independent nation. Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Union's UN ambassador, calls for the UN to accept Israel as a member state. The UN approves.
May 15, 1948 Arab-Israeli War (War of Independence): Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon and Egypt invade Israel. The attack fails. See also 1949 Armistice Agreements and Immigration to Israel from Arab lands.
1948-1949 Almost 250,000 Holocaust survivors make their way to Israel. "Operation Magic Carpet" brings thousands of Yemenite Jews to Israel.
1949 Abdullah of Jordan seizes the West Bank and absorbs it into his country.
1956, 29 October, The Suez War (Sinai War). Egypt blockades the Gulf of Aqaba, and closes the Suez canal to Israeli shipping. Egypt's President Nasser calls for the destruction of Israel. Israel, England, and France go to war and force Egypt to end the blockade of Aqaba, and open the canal to all nations.
1958 Iraqi monarchy overthrown in bloodthirsty coup.
1962 Slavery finally abolished in Saudi Arabia.
1964 Jewish-Christian relations are revolutionized by the Roman Catholic Church's Vatican II.
1964 The PLO founded.
1966 Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888-1970) becomes the first Hebrew writer to win the Nobel Prize in literature.
May 16, 1967 President Nasser demands that the UN dismantle the UN Emergency Force I (UNEF I) between Israel and Egypt. The UN complies and the last UN peacekeeper is out of Sinai and Gaza by May 19.
May 16, 1967 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser closes the strategic Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping and states that Egypt is in a state of war with Israel. Egyptian troops group in the Sinai.
June 5-10, 1967 Six-Day War.
1967-1970 War of Attrition. War between the Israeli military and forces of the Egyptian Republic, the USSR and the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1967 to 1970. It was initiated by the Egyptians as a way of recapturing the Sinai from the Israelis, who had been in control of the territory since the mid-1967 . The hostilities ended with a ceasefire signed between the countries in 1970 with frontiers remaining in the same place as when the war began.
September 1, 1967 Arab Leaders meet in Khartoum, Sudan. The Three No's of Khartoum: No recognition of Israel. No negotiations with Israel. No peace with Israel.
1968 Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan formally creates a separate Reconstructionist Judaism movement by setting up the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia.
Mid-1970s to present revival of Klezmer music (The folk music of European Jews).
1970-1971 Black September in Jordan; took place when PLO attempted to take power in Jordan, backed by Syria. Israel backed up King Hussein, and launched an airstrike on the syrian forces.
1972 The Munich massacre. Informal name for events that occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually murdered by Black September, a militant group with ties to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization. The commando operation was officially named "Ikrit and Biram", after two Palestinian villages whose inhabitants had been killed or expelled by the Hagannah in 1948.
October 6-24, 1973 Yom Kippur War. Syria, Egypt and Morocco launch a surprise attack against Israel. Subsequently, OPEC reduces oil production, driving up oil prices and triggering a global economic crisis.
1973-1975 Initial phase of the Lebanese Civil War.
1975 President Gerald Ford signs legislation including the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which ties U.S. trade benefits to the Soviet Union to freedom of emigration for Jews.
1975 United Nations adopts resolution equating Zionism with racism. Rescinded in 1991.
1976 Israel rescues hostages taken to Entebbe, Uganda.
March 1978 Operation Litani - The 1978 South Lebanon conflict (code-named Operation Litani by Israel) was an invasion of Lebanon up to the Litani River carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in 1978.
September 18, 1978 At Camp David, near Washington D.C., Israel and Egypt sign a comprehensive peace treaty, The Camp David Accord, which included the withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai.
1978 Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer receives Nobel Prize
1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.
1979 Saddam Hussein President of Iraq.
1979 Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat are awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
1979 Overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the beginning of the Islamic Republic.
1979-1983 Operation Elijah: Rescue of Ethiopian Jewry.
1982 June-DecemberFirst Lebanon War. Israel invades Southern Lebanon to drive out the PLO.
1982 Phalangists massacre civilians in Sabra and Chatilla.
1983 American Reform Jews formally accept patrilineal descent, creating a new definition of who is a Jew.
1984-1985 Operations Moses, Joshua: Rescue of Ethiopian Jewry by Israel.
1985-2000 The fighting in Southern Lebanon - Israeli invasion of Lebanon with the intitial goal of destroying the Palestine Liberation Organization. After the Siege of Beirut, Israeli forces established a security zone to prevent attacks on the northern border of Israel. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.
1986 Elie Wiesel wins the Nobel Peace Prize
1986 Nathan Sharansky, Soviet Jewish dissident, is freed from prison.
1987-1993 First Palestinian Intifada against Israel.
1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall between East and West Germany, collapse of the communist East German government, and the beginning of Germany's reunification (which formally began in October 1990).
1990 The Soviet Union opens its doors to the three million Soviet Jews who had been held as virtual prisoners within their own country. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews choose to leave the Soviet Union and move to Israel.
1990-1991 Gulf War. Iraq invades Kuwait, triggering a war between Iraq and Allied United Nations forces. Israel is hit by 39 Scud missiles from Iraq.
1991 Operation Solomon: Rescue of the remainder of Ethiopian Jewry in a twenty four hour airlift.
October 30, 1991 The Madrid Peace Conference opens in Spain, sponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union.
1992 Palestinians and Israel start secret talks in Oslo.
1993 Israel and PLO sign the Oslo Accords in Washington, DC.
1994 The Lubavitcher (Chabad) Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, dies.
October 26, 1994 Israel and Jordan sign an official peace treaty. Israel cedes a small amount of contested land to Jordan, and the countries open official diplomatic relations, with open borders and free trade.
December 10, 1994 Arafat, Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres share the Nobel Peace Prize, "to honour a political act which called for great courage on both sides, and which has opened up opportunities for a new development towards fraternity in the Middle East."
November 4, 1995 Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated.
1996 Peres loses election to Benyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu (Likud party).
1999 Ehud Barak elected Prime Minister of Israel.

21st century
May 24, 2000 Israel unilaterally withdraws its remaining forces from its security zone in southern Lebanon to the international border, fully complying with the UN Security Council Res. 425.
2000 July Camp David Summit. Discussions between Israel and PLO aborted.
2000, Summer Senator Joseph Lieberman becomes the first Jewish-American to be nominated for a national office (Vice President of the United States) by a major political party (the Democratic Party).
2000 September 29 The al-Aqsa Intifada (Second Palestinian Intifada) begins.
2001 Election of Ariel Sharon as Israel's Prime Minister.
2001 Jewish Museum of Turkey is founded by Turkish Jewry
2004 Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover of the Technion win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Jewish Autonomous Oblast builds its first synagogue, Birobidzhan Synagogue, in accordance with halakha.
March 31, 2005 The Government of Israel officially recognizes the Bnei Menashe people of North-East India as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, opening the door for thousands of people to immigrate to Israel.
2005 August The Government of Israel withdraws its military forces and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip.
2005 December Prime Minister Ariel Sharon falls into a coma; Deputy Premier Ehud Olmert takes over as Acting Prime Minister
2006 March Ehud Olmert leads the Kadima party to victory in Israeli elections, becomes Prime Minister of Israel.
2006 July-August. Second Lebanon War. A 34-day military conflict in Lebanon and northern Israel started on July 12.
2006, 26 January: Hamas, the radical Islamist and rejectionist party, wins the Palestinian elections.
2008, November 4, Israel violated the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
2008, December 18, One day before the expiration of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Hamas confirmed the end of the ceasefire, and indicated its refusal to renew it absent an Israeli commitment to abide by its conditions. Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns resumed with Israel having fully sealed Gaza's borders since November 4 2008.
2008 December 27, Israeli armed forces (IDF) launch Operation Cast Lead with a wave of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip with the stated aim of stopping the rocket attacks from and arms smuggling into the territory. An Israeli ground invasion began on January 3, 2009. The war ended on January 18, 2009 when Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire, followed by Hamas' announcing a one-week ceasefire twelve hours later. Israel completed its withdrawal on January 21 2009. Between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed, and tens of thousands of people were left homeless.
2009 March Benjamin Netanyahu becomes Prime Minister of Israel (also, continues as the Chairman of the Likud Party).