Jews and Christians, sharing with Muslims the status of 'people of the book', are promised religious tolerance in the Qur'an

Karaism, relying on scripture rather than rabbinical commentary, develops among the Jewish community in Babylon

The Jews prosper in the Muslim and Carolingian empires, forming strong communities in Spain and in Germany

Saadiah Gaon writes a seminal work of Jewish philosophy in his Book of Beliefs and Opinions

The Jews, barred from any work which Christians want to do, find profitable employment as money-lenders

The German crusade begins with a massacre of Jews in many of the region's cities

Crusaders capture the holy city of Jerusalem and massacre the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants

The new Christian doctrine of Transubstantiation prompts rumours that the Jews desecrate the consecrated Host

The classical work of the Kabbalah, the Zohar, is almost certainly the work of the Spanish Kabbalist Moses de Leon

Massacres of Jews, rumoured to have caused the Black Death by poisoning wells, begin in southern France and spread through much of Europe

Torquemada persuades Ferdinand and Isabella to expel from Spain all Jews (about 160,000) who will not convert to Christianity

Bayazid II, the Turkish sultan, makes a special point of welcoming in Istanbul the Jews expelled from Spain

The original ghetto is established as a district to which the Jews of Venice are confined

Discussion of Henry VIII's proposed divorce hinges on rival verses from the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy and Leviticus

Jews return to England after Cromwell repeals the law of 1290 forbidding their residence in the country

A charismatic leader, Baal Shem Tov, develops Hasidism in Poland as an influential revivalist movement within Judaism

In developing the Haskalah, the German philosopher Moses Mendelssohn reconciles Judaism and the Enlightenment

The first Reform congregation within Judaism is established in Germany, in the Hamburg Temple

Samson Raphael Hirsch becomes rabbi of a synagogue in Frankfurt, where he develops the theme of neo-Orthodoxy

Lionel Nathan Rothschild becomes the first Jew to sit in Britain's House of Commons, taking his oath on the Old Testament

The first pogroms, or officially sanctioned attacks on Jews and their property, take place in Russia

The first settlements of European Jews, returning to the promised land, are established in Palestine

Theodor Herzl publishes The Jewish State, calling for a national homeland for all Jews

The first Zionist Congress is held in Basel with Theodor Herzl in the chair

Foreign Secretary A.J. Balfour declares Britain's conditional support for a homeland in Palestine for the Jews