Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, emerging from the Jewish communities that consolidated during the 10th century in the Rhineland and in Northern France, having migrated there from centers such as the Italian Peninsula and the Southern Levant. After the Crusades, they began a gradual eastward migration due to mounting restrictions within the Holy Roman Empire and the favorable policies of Casimir III the Great and others. This migration ramped up after the persecution during the Black Death, such that by the 16th century, the bulk of the Ashkenazi Jews had migrated to the Kingdom of Poland, which includes present-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Russia. This area became the main center of Ashkenazi Jewry until the Holocaust.