Persecution of Jews

The persecution of Jews is a major component of Jewish history, and has prompted shifting waves of refugees and the formation of diaspora communities around the world. The earliest major event was in 597 BCE, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the Kingdom of Judah and then persecuted and exiled many of its Jewish subjects. Antisemitism has been widespread across many regions of the world and practiced by many different peoples, governments, and adherents of other religions.

Jews have been commonly used as scapegoats for tragedies and disasters such as the Black Death, the decline of the Russian Empire, and the ideology of Nazism, which led to the Holocaust, the mass murder of six million Jews during World War II.