The Timeline is this website’s heart – a huge grid describing Jewish conditions in 25 year increments from 300 CE to 1600 CE for 28 regions in Eurasia and parts of Africa. Each cell in the grid lists representative events affecting the Jewish condition for that place and time, along with a color code rating the political freedom level for Jews from Excellent (green) to Banned (red). Each event is footnoted for additional details and source identification. There is also an annotated bibliography of primary and secondary sources to help readers further explore topics of interest on their own.

The Timeline has a one-page Summary with each grid-cell’s conditions rating and an indicator of whether Jewish fighters are known to have existed at that time/place. Readers may choose to start in the Summary here and then go to the Timeline itself to drill down on areas of interest.

The detailed Timeline has been broken down into four sections for readability, with each section linking to the footnotes for that section:

• The West, covering from northwestern Africa, Portugal, and Spain to France and Italy.
• Northern/Eastern Europe, covering from Holland and Germany to Russia.
• The Middle East, covering from Greece and Byzantium to Arabia. It also includes Ethiopia because in the Middle Ages Ethiopia often had ties to Yemen.
• Eastern Asia, covering from Armenia, Kurdistan, and Daghestan to China.

Each cell in the detailed Timeline’s grid describes selected events happening in that country during that 25-year period, with color codes indicating the level of Jewish political freedom:

• Green = Excellent. Jews have full equality and hold high positions, but that polity may be at war with others in the same region.
• Blue = Free Island. As “Excellent” but only in a very small section of the region. The rest of the region might be any rating from cyan to red.
• Cyan = Moderate. Jews are either free but only a tiny fraction of the population, or some moderate restrictions/threats exist.
• Yellow = Oppressive. Jews face heavy restrictions, assaults, and/or limited expulsions in most of the zone. In some cases there may be Moderate islands.
• Red = Banned. Jews are forbidden and must keep either their Jewishness or their presence secret.
• White = Insufficient data to form a conclusion.

As my research continues, I will continue updating this Timeline with additional relevant events and refinements to my freedom-level assessments.

Annotated bibliographies:
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources