The Jewish Diaspora

Migration

Rhineland to northern France

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900–1100 CERhineland (Ashkenaz — the ShUM cities) → Northern France (Champagne & Île-de-France)

Why it happened

Early Ashkenaz spanned the Rhine and Seine as one world: the Rhineland's Mainz–Worms academies were its senior seat of Torah study,1 and northern-French scholars like Rashi trained there and carried that learning home,2 under old Carolingian privileges protecting Jewish merchants.3

The migration

Jews had lived in Gaul since Roman times3 and were protected as merchants under Charlemagne and Louis the Pious.3 By about 1000, Rabbeinu Gershom's Mainz academy had made the Rhineland a major center of Torah study,1 drawing students from across the region. Rashi, born at Troyes about 1040,2 crossed the Rhine at seventeen to study at Mainz under Jacob ben Yakar and Isaac ben Judah.42 Jacob had earlier been one of Worms's earliest scholars before studying in Gershom's Mainz yeshiva.4 About 1070 Rashi returned to Troyes and founded a yeshiva2 whose commentaries became 'the basis and starting point for the Ashkenazic tradition.'2 Northern France thus grew into a second Ashkenazi heartland; Rashi's grandsons and pupils, the Tosafists,5 taught at Troyes, Dampierre, Ramerupt, and Sens.6 The communities stayed small—Troyes held no more than 100 Jews in Rashi's day7—and mercantile, lending to lords and monasteries.6

Genetic corroboration

  • autosomalWhole-genome sequencing of Jews inferred a severe bottleneck of about 350 individuals,8 dated to roughly 25–32 generations ago,8 and an approximately even mixture of European and likely Middle Eastern ancestry.8 The study does not identify the Rhineland or northern France as the bottleneck's location.

Sources

  1. BEncyclopaedia Judaica. 2007. Gershom ben Judah Me'or Ha-Golah. Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.), via Encyclopedia.com link
  2. BEncyclopaedia Judaica. 2007. Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac). Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.), via Encyclopedia.com link
  3. CWikipedia contributors. 2026. History of the Jews in France. Wikipedia link
  4. BEncyclopaedia Judaica. 2007. Jacob ben Yakar. Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.), via Encyclopedia.com link
  5. BEncyclopaedia Judaica. 2007. Tosafot. Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.), via Encyclopedia.com link
  6. BEncyclopaedia Judaica. 2007. Champagne. Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.), via Encyclopedia.com link
  7. BEncyclopaedia Judaica. 2007. Troyes. Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.), via Encyclopedia.com link
  8. ACarmi S, Hui KY, Kochav E, et al.. 2014. Sequencing an Ashkenazi reference panel supports population-targeted personal genomics and illuminates Jewish and European origins. Nature Communications 5 4835. doi:10.1038/ncomms5835