History of the Jews in Europe |Part of a series on| |Jews and
Judaism| Judaism in Europe has a long history, beginning with
the conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean by Pompey in 63 BCE,
thus beginning the History of the Jews in the Roman Empire,
though likely Alexandrian Jews had migrated to Rome slightly
before Pompey's conquest of the East. The pre-World War II
population of European Jews is estimated at close to 9 million.
It is believed that around 6,000,000 European Jews died in the
Holocaust of 1940-1945. Further population drain is due to
emigration, and the current Jewish population of Europe is
estimated at ca. 2 million (0.3%), composed of - Ashkenazi Jews
(about 1.4 million, mainly in France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine,
the United Kingdom, Hungary and Belgium) - Sephardi Jews (about
0.4 million, mainly in France, Turkey, Greece and Bosnia and
Herzegovina) - Mizrahi Jews (about 0.3 million, mainly in
France, Georgia and the United Kingdom) - Italian Jews (some
45,000, mostly Italian) - Romaniotes (so