This some brief info about countries with Jews in ancient times and Middle Ages
from Jewish Virtual Library
Malta - Malta, a European island nation located in the Mediterranean Sea, is one of the world's smallest yet most densely populated countries. The history of Jews in Malta may date back more three thousand years.
The history of the small Jewish Community of Malta goes back to the arrival of the Semitic Phoenician settlers almost three thousand five hundred years ago. It is believed that they were accompanied by Israelite mariners from the seafaring tribes of Zevulon and Asher.
At the time in the city of Tyre lived Princess Jezebel, who in 906 BCE married the Jewish Sultan Omri’s Ohab. After this marriage relations between the Jews and the Phoenicians grew so warm and cordial that they began to sail the seas and occupy various lands together. Some of them stayed in our islands.
We have evidence that at the time the Phoenicians were occupying Malta, the first Jews landed on Gozo and there they left behind the first signs of their presence. You can find this near the inner apse of the southern temple of Ggantija in Xaghra, one cannot fail to notice that on the ground under your feet is scratched the first Jewish evidence on Gozo.
This Jewish evidence is an inscription in the Phoenician alphabet, discovered and made known in 1912 by Ms N. Erichson and Ms. R. Cleveland. This inscription is in two lines and has ten words: seven in the first line and three in the second. Translated this inscription reads: "To the love of our Father Jahwe."
On the other hand the discovery of carved menorahs (candlesticks with seven branches) and Hellenistic inscriptions in a number of Jewish catacombs at Rabat and Tabja attests to a community living here in Grecian and Roman times.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/malta-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Iraq - The Jewish community of Iraq was one of the most ancient and storied of the Jewish diaspora. Jews came to the area after the destruction of the First Temple (586 B.C.E.) - and maybe even 10 years earlier with the exile of Jehoiachin. They integrated into their land of captivity and took part in its economic and cultural development.
The Jews of Babylonia, who had suffered from persecutions at the end of the rule of the Persian Sasanid dynasty, welcomed the Arab conquest of the land, which became known as Iraq.
The legal status of the Jews, as dhimmīs, was defined by the Shari'a (the Islamic Law), under which they had certain rights including the right to worship and to administer their own religious law. On the other hand they were required to pay the jizya (poll tax) in exchange for protection by the Islamic rulers. They were also exempted from serving in the Muslim armies.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/iraq-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Iran - The Jewish community of Iran is one of the oldest in the Diaspora with its roots reaching back to the 6th century B.C.E., the time of the First Temple. Jewish history in the pre-Islamic period of Iran is intertwined with that of neighboring Babylon. Jewish colonies were scattered from centers in Babylon to Persian provinces and cities such as Hamadan and Susa. The books of Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel give a favorable description of the relationship of the Jews to the official government and court.
The earliest report of a Jewish population in Iran goes back to the 12th century. It was Benjamin of Tudela who claimed that there was a population of about 600,000 Jews. This number was later reduced to 100,000 in the Safavid period (1501–1736), and it further diminished to 50,000 at the beginning of the 20th century, as reported by the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) emissaries in Iran. The drastic decrease in number was the result of persecution, forced conversions, Muslim laws of inheritance (which encouraged conversion and allowed the convert to inherit the properties of his Jewish family), and massacres. These problems continued at least up to the Constitutional Revolution in Iran (1905–09).
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/iran-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Turkey - The Republic of Turkey, a transcontinental country located mostly on Anatolia in Western Asia and East Thrace in Southeastern Europe, has a Jewish history dating back possibly to the 4th century B.C.E.
The history of the Jews in Anatolia, however, started many centuries before the migration of Sephardic Jews. Remnants of Jewish settlement from the 4th century B.C.E. have been uncovered in the Aegean region, where Jews lived and traded in the ancient cities of Ephesus, Sardis, Pergamon, and Smyrna (renamed Izmir by the Turks). The historian Josephus Flavius relates that Aristotle "met Jewish people with whom he had an exchange of views during his trip across Asia Minor."
Second and third century Greek inscriptions tell of a flourishing Jewish community in Smyrna. Ancient synagogue ruins have also been found in Sardis, near Izmir, dating from 220 B.C.E. and traces of other Jewish settlements have been discovered near Bursa, in the southeast and along the Aegean, Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts. A bronze column found in Ankara confirms the rights the Emperor Augustus accorded the Jews of Asia Minor.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/turkey-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Greece - There may have been isolated Jews living in Greek cities as far back as the Babylonian exile, but the first organized Jewish communities in Greece were established in approximately 400 B.C.E. The communities flourished during the reign of Alexander the Great and the subsequent Hellenistic period in around 300 B.C.E. Jewish immigrants flooded Hellenist cities along the Aegean Coast and the Greek mainland. The Greeks were polytheistic and maintained a glamorous lifestyle. While most Jews retained their monotheism, many wealthy Jews were attracted to Greek culture and created a class of assimilated, pro-Greek Jews.
According to Maccabees I 15:23 and also the Jewish historian Philo (c. 30 B.C.E.–c. 45 C.E.), in the years following the revolt the Jews built up communities in Sparta, Delos, Sicyon, Samos, Rhodes, Kos, Gortynia, Crete, Cnidus, Aegina, Thessaly, Boeotia, Macedonia, Aetonia, Attica, Argos, Corinth and Cyprus. When the Christian Saint Paul visited Greece during the first century C.E., he found well-established Jewish communities in Thessaloniki, Veroia, Athens, Corinth and other towns.
The Jews in these communities were called “Romaniot,” a Hellenized Latin term implying that they lived in the empire of the “second Rome,” meaning Greece. They developed customs now known as “minhag Romania.” They translated traditional Jewish prayers into Greek and recited them in Greek, although the prayers were written with Hebrew letters. The Jews’ political existence was tenuous and “they absorbed from the Greeks before the birth of Christ more than the Greeks absorbed from them” (Levi, p. 203).
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/greece-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Cyprus - Cyprus, the third largest Mediterranean island, is located south of Turkey and west of Syria and Lebanon. Jews first settled in Cyrpus possibly as early as the third century B.C.E. and they had close relationships with many of the other religious groups on the island and were seen favorably by the Romans.
The Jewish community prospered under Roman rule in Cyprus and there existed at least three synagogues in Golgoi, Lapethos and Constantia-Salamine. During this period, first Paul and then Barnabus, a native of Cyprus, preached Christianity in Cyprus and attempted to the Jews. In 117 C.E., under the leadership of Artemion, the Cypriot Jews participated in the great uprising against the Romans, which was eventually suppressed. As punishment, the Romans forbade Jews from setting foot on the island, however they returned soon after and Jewish residents continued to live there.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/cyprus-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Afghanistan - Afghanistan, also called Khorasan or Khurasan in medieval Muslim and Hebrew sources, has a Jewish history that may date back 2,700 years to the destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian exile. In 2013, a trove of ancient manuscripts discovered in former Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan provided the first physical evidence of a thriving Jewish community from the area that was more than a thousand years old.
“The history of Jews in this region goes back to way before the birth of the nation state of Afghanistan,” said Afghan academic Omar Sadr. “There are mentions in history of Jews living in this region, during the period of Cyrus the Great, the Persian emperor and his conquest of Babylon in 538.”
Early biblical commentators regarded Khorasan as a location of the Ten Lost Tribes. Today, several Afghan tribes including the Durrani, Yussafzai, Afridi and Pashtun believe they are decedents of King Saul. They call themselves Bani-Israel, like the Hebrew, B’nai Israel, meaning the children of Israel. Even some Muslim scholars and writers accept this.
The exiled Afghan Royal family also traces its roots to ancient Israel, the tribe of Benjamin specifically. As evidence, they cite Makhzan-i-Afghani, a chronicle published in 1635, in the time of King Jahangir by Khawaja Nimatullah of Herat.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/afghanistan-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Egypt - Egyptian Jewry traced its history back to the time of Jeremiah (Letter of Aristeas, 35), but it was not until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.E. that the second great wave of Jewish emigration to Egypt began. Alexander’s successors in Egypt, the Ptolemid dynasty, attracted many Jews early in their reign to settle in Egypt as tradesmen, farmers, mercenaries, and government officials. During their reign Egyptian Jewry enjoyed both tolerance and prosperity. They became significant in culture and literature, and by the first century C.E., accounted for an eighth of the population of Egypt. The majority of the Jews of Egypt lived, as the Greeks, in Alexandria, but there were also very many in the ehora, the provincial districts outside Alexandria.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/egypt-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Italy - Jews have lived in Italy without interruption from the days of the Maccabees until the present, through a period Probably preceded by individual Jews who visited Italy as traders, a Jewish embassy was dispatched to Rome in 161 B.C.E. by Judah Maccabee to conclude a political treaty with the Roman senate. It was followed by others sent by his brother Jonathan 15 years later, by Simeon in 139, and by Hyrcanus I in 133. In 139, either these emissaries or the other Jews living in Rome were apparently accused of conducting religious propaganda among the Roman population and expelled from the city. However, the decree soon became obsolete. Jewish prisoners taken by Pompey during his invasion of Ere? Israel, 63–61 B.C.E., were brought to Italy, but most were probably freed after a short time.
Julius Caesar, who believed the Jews represented a cohesive element in the Roman world, granted them certain exemptions to enable them to fulfill their religious duties. These exemptions were subsequently confirmed by most of the Roman emperors. Under Augustus, the number of Jews in the capital increased. In 19 C.E., during the reign of Tiberius, his minister Sejanus deported 4,000 Jewish youths to Sardinia to fight banditry, ostensibly to punish the Jews for having tried to defraud a woman of the Roman nobility. In fact, this was part of the policy to suppress the Oriental cults, and an edict was also issued ordering the Jews to leave Italy unless they abandoned their religious practices. Tiberius abrogated the measures after Sejanus' execution.
The growing friction between the Jews of Rome and the rising Christian sect led Claudius to rid Rome of both elements (49–50), but this time also the decree was short-lived. The Jewish revolt in Judea against the Romans ended in 70 with wholesale destruction and massacre and mass deportations of Jewish prisoners, a large number of whom were brought to Italy. According to later sources, 1,500 arrived in Rome alone, and 5,000 in Apulia. There too they attained freedom after a relatively short time, and many remained in Italy.of more than 21 centuries.
50,000 Jews in Italy during the first century of the Roman Empire, of whom more than half were concentrated in or around Rome.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/italy-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Syria - Dating back to biblical times, the Jewish community in Syria developed due to the proximity of the Jewish center in Palestine. Thus, according to Josephus, Ezra was commanded by the Persian Xerxes to appoint judges among the Jews "to hold court in all of Syria and Phoenicia " (Ant. 11:129). During the Second Temple period, the Jewish community apparently thrived, and even Roman governors of Syria were known to fall under the influence of the Jewish multitudes (cf. Philo, Legatio ad Gaium 355 – 367). Similarly, Josephus, in describing the tribulations of the Jews of Antioch, begins by stressing that "the Jewish race, densely interspersed among the native populations of every portion of the world, is particularly numerous in Syria, where intermingling is due to the proximity of the two countries. It was at Antioch that they especially congregated, possibly owing to the greatness of that city, but mainly because the successors of King Antiochus [Epiphanes, 175–164 B.C.E.] had enabled them to live there in security" (Wars 7:43). These Jews therefore flourished and were in a position to send costly offerings to the Temple at Jerusalem. The community was granted citizen rights equal to those of the Greeks (ibid.; cf. Apion 2:39, where these rights were granted by the founder of the city, Seleucus I Nicator), and this probably caused considerable envy of the Jews, which erupted into violence upon the declaration in Palestine of the great war against Rome (66 C.E.). Jewish influence was also felt in Damascus , where a majority of the female Greek population had strong leanings toward Judaism. This, however, did not prevent the Greeks of that city from slaughtering the entire Jewish population of 10,500 with the outbreak of the Jewish-Roman War (Wars 2:561).
Both the proximity to Ereẓ Israel and the great number of Syrian Jews subsequently convinced the rabbis to consider the area similar to Palestine in certain respects, and thus the halakhot "pertaining to the land" (מִצְווֹת הַתְּלוּיוֹת בָּאָרֶץ) were often applied to Syria. The Mishnah states that: "He who buys land in Syria is as one who buys in the outskirts of Jerusalem" (Hal. 4:11); "If Israelites leased a field from gentiles in Syria, R. Eliezer declares their produce liable to tithes and subject to the Sabbatical laws, but R. Gamaliel declares it exempt" (ibid. 4:7). Numerous tannaitic traditions discuss the particular halakhic status of Syria (cf. Tosef., Kelim BK 1:5, Ter. 2:9–13; Av. Zar. 2:8), and it appears that the rabbis differentiated between certain districts in Syria (Tosef. Peah 4:6). Nevertheless, the Jews of Syria probably considered themselves part of the Diaspora, and this would explain not only financial support of the Palestinian rabbis, but also the fact that a number of Syrian Jews were brought to Bet Shearim for burial.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/syria-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Spain - The history of Spanish Jewry dates back at least two thousand years to when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and brought Jews with them back to Europe.
While the area of modern-day Spain (formerly a collection of kingdoms which included Castile, Aragon, and Catalonia) was still controlled by the Holy Roman Empire, the Catholic Church convened at the Council of Elvira where they issued 80 canonic decisions, many of which were intended to ostracize the Jews from the general Spanish community. Canon 49, for example, prohibited Jews from blessing their crops, and Canon 50 refused communion to any cleric or layperson that ate with a Jew.
During the early 5th century, the Visigoths captured the Iberian Peninsula from Roman rule. While initially anti-Christian, the Visigoths later converted to Christianity and adopted many of the previous laws that existed during Roman rule.
Under the rein of Toledo III, children of mixed marriages were forcibly baptized and Jews were barred from holding public office. The situation got progressively worse and, in 613 CE, the Jews were ordered to convert to Christianity or face expulsion. Though many Jews chose to leave rather than convert, a large number of them still practiced Judaism in secret, a tradition that survivedfor centuries.
In 633, the Fourth Council of Toledo, convened to address the problem of crypto-Judaism and Marranos (Jews who converted to Christianity to escape persecution, yet observed Jewish law in private). While opposing compulsory baptism, the Council decided that if a professed Christian was determined to be a practicing Jew, his or her children were to be taken away and raised in monasteries or trusted Christian households.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/spain-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Portugal - Legends say that Jews first came to the Iberian peninsula during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th century BCE or maybe even beforehand during the reign of King Solomon in 900s BCE. Jews lived and remain active in social and commercial life of the peninsula during the Visigoth and Muslim periods of occupation 5th -8th century C.E.
Several important Jewish communities were already active when the kingdom of Portugal was founded in the 12th century. During the first dynasty, Jews enjoy relative protection from the crown. The crown recognized the Jewish community as a distinct legal entity and appointed specific rulers to adjucate their cases. King Affonso Henriques (1139-85) entrusted Yahia ben Yahi III, a Jew, with the role of royal tax collector and supervisor; Yahia be Yahi III also became the first chief Rabbi of the Portuguese Jewish community. Yahia ben Yahi’s grandson, Jose ben Yahi was appointed High Steward of the Realm, by Henriques’ successor, King Sancho I (1185-1211).
Tensions arose between the Jewish community, who choose to remain faithful to their religion, and the local clergy and middle/lower classes. The clergy wanted to invoke restrictions of the Lateran Council against the Jews, but King Dinis (1279-1235) resisted and reassured the Jews that they did not have to pay tithes to the church.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/portugal-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Lebanon - Like most high mountains, Mt. Lebanon was imagined in early times to have been the abode of a god, Baal Lebanon, who is sometimes identified with Hadad. The area was inhabited by a number of different peoples in the prehistoric period. It appears to have been eventually settled by a West-Semitic population, later designated Canaanite and in Hellenistic sources Phoenician. The mountains of the Lebanon, rich in cedars and other coniferous trees, attracted the attention of the rulers of the treeless Nile Valley at an early date. As early as the fourth dynasty, the pharaoh Snefru probably sent to Byblos for cedars, firs, pines, and other trees. For 1,500 years the forests of the Lebanon supplied Egypt with wood for a number of purposes, including shipbuilding and construction of temples, sacred and funerary boats, and doors for palace gates. As the mountains became denuded, more and more harbors were opened by the Egyptians. From the 12th century B.C.E. onward the Assyrians competed with the Egyptians for the wood of Lebanon. Tiglath-Pileser I advanced into the region in order to obtain wood for building temples to the gods Anu and Adad. In 877 B.C.E. Ashurnaṣirpal II took firs and pines from the Lebanon back to Assyria. The devastation caused by Sennacherib among the cedars and firs is described in the Lord’s answer to Hezekiah’s prayer (II Kings 19:23). According to Isaiah, the trees of the Lebanon rejoiced when Sargon of Assyria passed away (14:8).
In general, the Lebanon marks the northern boundary of the Promised Land (Deut. 1:7; 3:25; 11:24; Josh. 1:4; 9:1). Its cedars are praised as the finest of trees (I Kings 5:13) and are contrasted with the bramble in Jotham’s parable (Judg. 9:15). Isaiah praises the cypress, the plane tree, and the larch of the region (60:13). In the Song of Songs and other books of the Bible the wild animals, waters, trees, flowers, wine, and snow of the Lebanon are described in glowing terms. When Solomon built the Temple, he was supplied with cedars from the Lebanon by his ally Hiram, king of Tyre (I Kings 5:15–24), who sent the logs in floats to a harbor near Jaffa (Tell Qasīla; II Chron. 2:15). The same procedure was repeated for the construction of the Second Temple, at which time the forests belonged to the king of Persia (Ezra 3:7). In Hellenistic and Roman times, the Lebanon was divided among the various Phoenician cities then largely Hellenized; it became part of the province of Syria, and from the third century a separate province, Phoenicia (Augusta Libanensis).
There is scant information about the existence of Jews between the seventh and 15th centuries, but small Jewish communities continued to exist in the area which is now Lebanon. The Arab author al-Balādhuri relates that the Caliph Mu’āwiya settled Jews in Tripoli . The Palestinian academy established its seat in Tyre in 1071. Benjamin of Tudela, in the 12th century, relates that the Jews lived in the same area as the Druze, with whom they traded and engaged in various crafts. In crusader times, the Lebanon was divided between the count of Tripoli and the king of Jerusalem, remaining in the hands of the crusaders almost until the end of the Latin kingdom (1291).
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/lebanon-virtual-jewish-history-tour
North Macedonia - The Jewish presence in Macedonia dates back to the first century BCE, where the ruins of an ancient synaogue can be seen in the city of Stobi. Today, there remain but 100 Jews in what is now North Macedonia.
The Jewish presence in Macedonia dates back to the first century, B.C.E., where the ruins of an ancient synagogue can be seen in the city of Stobi. Jews began to migrate to Macedonia during the Roman (Second Temple) Period. Persecution forced many Jews to flee from the lands controlled by the Romans, and a small number of Jews chose to make their home in Macedonia. The Jews of Macedonia were, and are, of Sephardic descent, and spoke the medieval language of the Sephardim, Ladino.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/macedonia-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Bulgaria - Bulgaria, an east Balkan republic located along the Black Sea, can trace its Jewish community back to the time of Caligula in the first century CE. Today, the Jewish population of Bulgaria is approximately 2,000 people.
A Jewish settlement is known to have existed in Macedonia in the time of Caligula (37–41 C.E.; Philo, Embassy to Gaius, par. 281). A late-second century Latin inscription found at the village of Gigen on the shore of the Danube (near Nikopol, the site of the ancient Roman settlement Oescus) bearing a menorah testifies to the existence of a Jewish community. The Latin inscription mentions the archisynagogos Joseph. Theodosius I’s decree to the governors of Thrace and Illyria in 379 shows that Jews were persecuted in these areas and synagogues destroyed.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/bulgaria-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Albania - According to Albanian historian Apostol Kotani, Jews may have first arrived in Albania as early as 70 C.E. as captives on Roman ships that washed up on the country’s southern shores. Kotani believes that is was the descendants of these captives that would build the first synagogue in the southern port city of Sarande in the fifth century.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/albania-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Mauritania - There were Jews living in Mauritania - located between Senegal, Western Sahara, and the North Atlantic Ocean - as early as the fall of the biblical Jewish state when the Temple was destroyed in 70 BCE. At that point, many Jews spread throughout the Roman Empire, including the province of Mauritania. Divided into groups that paid taxes to the Romans, they raised cattle, farmed, and traded.
Under the Romans and Vandals (after 429), the Jews of Mauritania flourished. After the Byzantines gained control in 534, a series of restrictive laws were enacted agains the Jews, Arians, Donatists, and other dissenters.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/mauritania-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Hungary - Jews have lived in Hungary since the time of the Roman Empire, even before the Magyar (Hungarian) tribes arrived and conquered the land in the 9th century. Today, the Jewish population of Hungary is approximately 48,200 people, the sixth largest Jewish community in Europe.
The Jewish community grew in the second half of the 11th century due to large numbers of immigrants from Germany, Bohemia and Moravia. Jews settled in the towns of Buda, Esztergom, Sopron, Tata and Old Buda.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hungary-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Tajikstan - Bukharan Jews are an ethnic group in Central Asia, mainly in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The term “Bukharan Jewry” was conceived by European travelers when the Jewish community lived under the rule of the Emir of Bukhara. The group's ancestry can be traced to an Israelite tribe exiled during the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century B.C.E., who made their way to Central Asia.
Bukharan Jews call themselves Isro'il or Yahudi and speak Bukhori or Judeo-Tajik, a distinct dialect of the Tajiki-Persian language that incorporated a number of Hebrew words. The group is concentrated in Tajikistan's capital, Dushanbe.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/tajikistan-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Bahrain - According to Talmudic references, Jews have lived in Bahrain since ancient times. It was also recorded in Arabic sources that Jews lived in Hajar, the capital of Bahrain, in 630 C.E. and refused to convert to Islam when Muhammad sent an army to occupy the territory.
Benjamin of Tudela recorded in the 12th century that nearly 500 Jews lived in Qays and that a population of 5,000 resided in al-Qatifa. Benjamin also recounted that these Jews controlled the local pearl industry.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/bahrain-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Lebanon - There is scant information about the existence of Jews between the seventh and 15th centuries, but small Jewish communities continued to exist in the area which is now Lebanon. The Arab author al-Balādhuri relates that the Caliph Mu’āwiya settled Jews in Tripoli . The Palestinian academy established its seat in Tyre in 1071. Benjamin of Tudela, in the 12th century, relates that the Jews lived in the same area as the Druze, with whom they traded and engaged in various crafts. In crusader times, the Lebanon was divided between the count of Tripoli and the king of Jerusalem, remaining in the hands of the crusaders almost until the end of the Latin kingdom (1291).
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/lebanon-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Georgia - Georgian Jews have a 2,600-year history in the region.
Georgian-speaking Jewry is one of the oldest surviving Diaspora Jewish communities. The origin of Georgian Jews, also known as Gurjim or Ebraeli, is debated, but some claim they are descendants of the ten tribes exiled by Shalmaneser. Others say the first Jews made their way to southern Georgia after Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. after first fleeing to Babylonia.
The first Jews in Western Georgia arrived in the 6th century when the region was ruled by the Byzantine Empire. Approximately 3,000 of these Jews then fled to Eastern Georgia, controlled by the Persians, to escape severe persecution by the Byzantines. The existence of the Jews in these regions during this period is supported by archaeological evidence showing that Jews lived in Mtzheta, the ancient capital of the East Georgian state of Kartli.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/georgia-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Azerbaijan - Mountain Jews have lived in Caucasia for centuries and are said to be descendents of the Lost Tribes that left Israel after the destruction of the First Temple, in 587 BC. Their ancestors inhabited southern Azerbaijan, now the northwestern part of Iran, where they adopted the Muslim Tat language, but remained Jewish. The language has evolved to become a distinct Jewish dialect called Judeo-Tat or Judeo-Persian. After fleeing persecution in Persia, many Jews migrated to mountain villages on either side of the Black and Caspian Seas. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Mountain Jews lived as farmers and gardeners in their small, isolated communities. This historic way of life flourished in the towns of Privolnoe, Krasnaya Sloboda, and Vartashen.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/azerbaijan-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Romania - The territory of present-day Romania was known as Dacia in antiquity and Jewish tombstones dating from early times have been found there. The Jews may have come as merchants or in other capacities with the Roman legions that garrisoned the country from 101 C.E. and early missionary activity in Dacia may have been due to the existence of Jewish groups there.
The first real major wave of Jewish immigrants spread through Walachia (a Romanian principality founded around 1290) after they had been expelled from Hungary in 1367. In the 16th century some refugees from the Spanish expulsion came to Walachia from the Balkan Peninsula. A few served as physicians and even diplomats at the court of the sovereigns of Walachia. Since it was on the trade routes between Poland-Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire many Jewish merchants traveled through Moldavia, the second Romanian principality (in the northeast), founded in the middle of the 14th century. Some settled there and were favorably received by the rulers of this underpopulated principality.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/romania-virtual-jewish-history-tour
India - The Bene Israel ("Sons of Israel") lived primarily in the cities of Bombay (now Mumbai), Pune, Karachi (now in Pakistan), and Ahmadabad. The native language of the Bene Israel was Judeo-Marathi. They arrived in India nearly 2,100 years ago after a shipwreck stranded seven Jewish families from Judea at Navagaon near Alibag, just south of Mumbai.
The Bene Israel claim to be descended from Jews who escaped persecution in the Galilee in the 2nd century B.C.E. The Bene Israel resembled the non-Jewish Maratha people in appearance and customs, which indicates intermarriage between Jews and Indians. The Bene Israel, however, maintained the practices of Jewish dietary laws, circumcision, and observation of Sabbath as a day of rest.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/india-virtual-jewish-history-tour
Armenia - The Jewish community in Armenia can trace its roots back nearly 2,000 years to after the destruction of the First Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Today, the Jewish population in Armenia is approximately less than 100 people.
The Jewish community of Armenia dates back almost 2,000 years. Many historians date the arrival of the first Jewish settlement in Armenia back to the destruction of the First Temple. During the conquest of King Tigranes II the Great, Tigranes brought with him 10,000 Jewish captives to Armenia when he retreated from Palestine, because of the Roman attack on Armenia (69 B.C.E.). By 360-370 C.E., there was a massive increase in Jewish Hellenistic immigration into Armenia; many Armenian towns became predominately Jewish. During this period, however, the Persian Shapur II began deporting thousands of Jews to Iran.
Halakhic studies never prospered in Armenia, although there are a few references to the region in Jewish Hellenistic sources. During Medieval times, most of Armenian Jewry vanished as a distinct entity in the region, although many historians believe they became a part of the Kurdish Jewry. There is an ancient Jewish cemetery located in the region of Vayots Dzor, in the city of Eghegis, south and west of Yerevan. There are more than 40 tombstones dating back to the 13th century, 16 tombstones with Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/armenia-virtual-jewish-history-tour
From the fifth to the third centuries B.C.E., the Carthaginian gold market was situated in Morocco. On this historical basis, an ancient legend relates that some five centuries before the Carthaginian expansion, in the days of Solomon and the Phoenicians, the Hebrews came to Sala (Chella) in the vicinity of Salé (Rabat) in order to purchase gold in large quantities. In another legend, it is related that Joab was sent to Morocco to fight the Philistines, who had been driven out of Canaan; an inscription describing this expedition is said to have existed near the present-day town of Zagora. Wadi Oued Draa and the region of Oufran (Ifran of the Anti-Atlas) are said to have been the sites of important Jewish settlements before the destruction of the Second Temple. The earliest epigraphic evidence on the presence of Jews in Morocco, however, comes from the second century C.E. It consists essentially of inscriptions on tombstones found in the ruins of the Roman town of Volubilis, between Fez and Meknès , and another inscription discovered in Salé. The latter is in Greek, while one of the inscriptions of Volubilis is in Hebrew.
Morocco, like the remainder of the Maghreb, was one of the favorite territories for Jewish missionary activities. The Jews, together with those whom they succeeded in converting, appear to have originally been numerous and particularly powerful. The great Arabic historian of the 14th century, Ibn Khaldūn, names a number of large Moroccan Berber tribes who were converted to Judaism prior to the Arab conquest. These were the Fandalāwqa, Madyūna, Bahlūla, Ghiyāta, and Bazāz tribes. The capital of the last was also named Bazāz or Qulʿat-Mlahdī. It was completely inhabited by Jews and did not disappear until the 12th century. It was situated near the present-day town of Sefrou. Other tribes, such as the Barghwāṭa, were also heavily Judaized. Between 581 and 693 many Jews were compelled to leave Spain as a result of the persecutions of the Visigoth kings who, while forcing them to accept baptism, also adopted draconian measures against them. According to later traditions, thousands of Spanish Jews had settled in Africa by 693. It is told that these Jews, together with their Moroccan coreligionists, plotted to conquer or deliver Spain into the hands of the more tolerant Muslims (694). Some historians maintain that there were Jews among the Berber-Muslim invaders of Spain in 711.
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Yemen - We do not know exactly how Jews came to settle in Yemen. According to Yemenite tradition, a group of well-off Jews left Jerusalem after they heard Jeremiah predict the destruction of the Temple in 629 BCE, 42 years before the destruction of the city. Historians believe that King Solomon's trading and naval networks brought Jews to Yemen from Judea around 900 BCE. The first evidence of Jewish presence in Yemen can be traced to the third century CE.
In the early part of Jewish settlement in Yemen, the Jewish presence in the country was very strong. Many Himyaties, who ruled at the time, converted to Judaism. Sometime after the third century CE, the Himyarite ruling family converted to Judaism, making Judaism the ruling religion. Jewish rule lasted until 525 CE, when the Christians from Ethiopia took over.
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Tunisia - Tunisia has had a significant Jewish minority since at least Roman times.
A tradition among the descendants of the first Jewish settlers were that their ancestors settled in that part of North Africa long before the destruction of the First Temple in the 6th century BCE. Though this is unfounded, the presence of Jews there at the appearance of Christianity is attested by the Jewish monument found by the French captain Prudhomme in his Hammam-Lif residence in 1883. After the dissolution of the Jewish state, a great number of Jews were sent by Titus to Mauritania, and many of them settled in Tunis. These settlers were engaged in agriculture, cattle-raising, and trade. They were divided into clans, or tribes, governed by their respective heads, and had to pay the Romans a capitation tax of 2 shekels. Under the dominion of the Romans and (after 429) of the fairly tolerant Vandals, the Jewish inhabitants of Tunis increased and prospered to such a degree that African Church councils deemed it necessary to enact restrictive laws against them. After the overthrow of the Vandals by Belisarius in 534, Justinian I issued his edict of persecution, in which the Jews were classed with the Arians and heathens.
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Ethiopia - Christianity spread through the Axum dynasty of Ethiopia in the 4th century CE. By the 7th century, however, Islam had surpassed Christianity and had separated Ethiopia from its Christian African neighbors.
Prior to this, the Beta Israel had enjoyed relative independence through the Middle Ages. Their reign was threatened in the 13th century CE under the Solomonic Empire, and intermittent fighting continuing for the next three centuries with other tribes.
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France - A Jewish presence existed in France during the Roman period, but the community mainly consisted of isolated individuals, rather than an established community. After the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, boats filled with Jewish captives landed in Bordeaux, Arles and Lyons. Archeological finds of Jewish objects with menorahs imprinted on them date back to the first through fifth century.
Jewish communities have been documented in 465 in Vannes (Brittany), in 524 in Valence and in 533 in Orléans. Jewish immigration increased during this period and attempts were made to convert the Jews to Christianity.
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Germany - Evidence of Jews in the area now known as Germany dates back to the early 4th century; in the 1930s, a Jewish graveyard from that era was found in the city of Cologne. When the first Jews migrated to the “barbarian lands,” Christianity had not yet arrived in Western Europe, and the Roman Empire was still the continent’s dominant power. Little is known about the early German Jews, but by the 8th century, Jews were flourishing among the German tribes along the banks of the Rhine. The Jews, for the most part, lived in harmony with their newly Christian neighbors. Jews could hold public office, own land, and work in whatever industries they chose; they spoke the same languages and often had the same names as the Germans. Many Germans even converted to Judaism.
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Russia - Jews are believed to have first arrived in the Caucasus region in the seventh century.
In the seventh century many Jews from Greece, Babylonia, Persia, the Middle East, and Mediterranean area immigrated to the Caucasus and beyond. From the early Middle Ages, Jewish merchants (known in Hebrew as holkhei Rusyah – Russian travelers) traveled through the Slavic and Khazar lands on their way to India and China. During the first half of the eighth century, the Khazars converted to Judaism. The Khazar kingdom essentially became a new Jewish kingdom. Some scholars trace the origins of Ashkenazi Jews to the conversion of the Khazars. The influence of the Khazar conversions are significant enough to be a major topic of research for scholars today.
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Algeria - Resistance against the Arab invasion in the seventh century was organized first near Biskra and later in the Aurès mountains, where the kāhina (an epithet meaning priestess), the “queen” of the Judeo-Berber tribe Jarawa, won brilliant victories. With the death of the kāhina in 693 came the collapse of Berber independence. Most of the Jarawa adopted Islam, others escaped to the west and south reinforcing the Jewish elements there. Oriental Jews, who followed in the wake of the Arab armies in large numbers, rebuilt the old destroyed communities of Algeria. The Jews in the urban centers, such as Mejana or Mesila, were Rabbanites; so also were the Jews in the capitals of the various Berber kingdoms – Ashir, Tahert (Tiaret), where the philologist R. Judah ibn Quraysh lived, Tlemcen, and Qalʿat Ḥammād, where R. Isaac Alfasi was probably born. These communities were in contact with the communities of Fez in the west and Kairouan in the east, and even with the geonim of Babylonia and Palestine. It is partly through them that the teachings of the academies of Sura and Pumbedita, and later of Kairouan, spread to Morocco, and from there to Spain. Thus, the influence of these communities on the intellectual and religious development of the Jews of Spain can be seen. The teachings of the sages were spread to the area north of the Sahara Desert from Gabès, Tunisia, to Sijilmassa (in the Ziz Valley), Morocco, by traveling merchants. The Jewish tribes of the region of Wargha were Karaites. They were nomad warriors. Their descendants were called “Bahusim” and remained in the eastern part of Algeria up to modern times. In the tenth century, a Jew named Abu al-Faraj instigated an important revolt against the Zirid sovereigns of the Berber tribes in the Setif region. Defeated, he was tortured to death in 989.
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Poland - There is no specific date that marks Jewish immigration to Poland. A journal account of Ibrahim ibn Jakub, a Jewish traveler, merchant and diplomat from Spain mentions Cracow and the First Duke of Poland, Mieszko I. More Jews arrived during the period of the first Crusade in 1098, while leaving persecution in Bohemia, according to the Chronicler of Prague. There is also archeological evidence, coins from the period with inscriptions in Hebrew, revealing that other Jewish merchants traveled to Poland in the 12th century. The coins may have belonged to 12th century Jewish traders, Holekhei Rusyah (travelers to Russia).
While persecution took place across Europe during the Crusades, in the 13th century, Poland served as a haven for European Jewry because of its relative tolerance. During this period, Poland began its colonization process. It suffered great losses from Mongol invasions in 1241 and therefore encouraged Jewish immigrants to settle the towns and villages. Immigrants flocked to Poland from Bohemia-Moravia, Germany, Italy, Spain and colonies in the Crimea. No central authority could stop the immigration. Refugees from Germany brought with them German and Hebrew dialects that eventually became Yiddish
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United Kingdom - The Jewish experience in the United Kingdom [England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland] is one of the longest in the world. Anglo-Jewry faced increasing persecution from its entrance into England in 1066 until the expulsion of 1290. Once Jews returned in the 16th century, however, they became more and more integrated into society.
There were individual Jews living in England in Roman and Anglo-Saxon times (80-1066 A.D.), but not an organized community. When William the Conqueror arrived in England in 1066, he encouraged Jewish merchants and artisans from northern France to move to England. The Jews came mostly from France with some from Germany, Italy and Spain, seeking prosperity and a haven from anti-Semitism. Serving as special representatives of the king, these Jews worked as moneylenders and coin dealers. Over the course of a generation, Jews established communities in London, York, Bristol, Canterbury and other major cities. They generally lived in segregated areas by themselves. However, until 1177 only one Jewish cemetery was allowed to be established in London.
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Serbia - Serbia has a Jewish history that can be traced back to the 12th century. Today, the Jewish population in Serbia is approximately 1,400 people.
From the period of the 12th century C.E. until the mid-18th century, Jews in Serbia were generally treated well. They were traders mainly involved in selling salt. By the end of the Turkish rule over Serbia, Jewish tradesmen were largely responsible for the trade route between the northern and southern ends of the lands ruled by the Turks.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/serbia-virtual-jewish-history-tour
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