Jews and Healing in the Middle Ages: The Harmonisation of Jewish Beliefs with Theories and Practices of the Western Medical Traditions

Jews and Healing in the Middle Ages: The Harmonisation of Jewish Beliefs with Theories and Practices of the Western Medical Traditions

From approximately the period of the first Temple of Jerusalem–which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 597 BCE–, complex migratory processes, which developed especially throughout Greco-Roman times, led Jews to migrate and establish themselves in other regions. This dissemination increased dramatically after the second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE and Jews were forced to leave their homeland. They dispersed and settled mainly across the Near East, North Africa and Southern Europe. This phenomenon has been called the diaspora and, although the term has the general meaning of dispersion of any human group leaving its homeland, it has become a precise definition of the dissemination of Jewish people all over the world, being a concept still used to allude to Jewish communities living outside Israel.