AH challenge: 100 million Jews

NothingNow

Banned
I think you mean Khazar Vs Levantine as most Ashkenazim (and Sephardim for that matter) are of Levantine ancestry to one extent or another. It does bring up a good point. How are we defining Jew? Self identification? Ancestry? Some permutation of Halakha? Whether or not they eat pork while carving idols on Saturday?
Let's go with at least partial Levantine (incl. Falasha and the Lemba) or Turkic (Kazar) ancestry and following Halakhic law.


Why not Judaify the Vikings or Prussians instead of the 'Rus? :D;)
Well, it'd be in the 800's or 900's, there's still plenty of time for that.
 

NothingNow

Banned
What about Jewish merchants like the Radhanites spreading Judaism into China or India. That way there might be a small segment of the population who are actually jewish, but even that would eventually amount to 100 million.
It's not a proselytizing religion, so it's fairly hard for the necessary numbers to happen, since the same thing occurred IOTL, and even before the Holocaust, there less than 20 Million Jews World Wide. Now if the Radhanites had been something like the Mongols or Arabs? It'd have been doable.
 
It's not a proselytizing religion, so it's fairly hard for the necessary numbers to happen, since the same thing occurred IOTL, and even before the Holocaust, there less than 20 Million Jews World Wide. Now if the Radhanites had been something like the Mongols or Arabs? It'd have been doable.

I guess I was thinking about a trade colony that intermarried a great deal with the local population. Through genetic expansion alone, and the fact that China and India were historically tolerant nations I think it would work out.
 
Actually a even the most thriving of possible Jewish communities in India or China wouldn't do it. Here's another idea:


Jews in Sierra Leon: the Portuguese first settled their colonies like Cap Verde, Sao Thome, and the few mainland settlements with converso Jews from Portugal. Often they would totally revert to their religion. There was also infiltration of Portuguese west africa by Flemish jewish merchants, to the point that the Portuguese had to crack down. Besides the portuguese, the very environment was hazardous, but perhaps through intermarriage and conversion a west african jewish kingdom could be established.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Actually a even the most thriving of possible Jewish communities in India or China wouldn't do it. Here's another idea:


Jews in Sierra Leon: the Portuguese first settled their colonies like Cap Verde, Sao Thome, and the few mainland settlements with converso Jews from Portugal. Often they would totally revert to their religion. There was also infiltration of Portuguese west africa by Flemish jewish merchants, to the point that the Portuguese had to crack down. Besides the portuguese, the very environment was hazardous, but perhaps through intermarriage and conversion a west african jewish kingdom could be established.

This, with Beta Isreal (the Falasha) and the Lemba, could earn Africa the nickname "Land of the Jews" ITTL. Maybe have some Sephardi and Ashkenazi set up a Settlement in the Cape Colony as well?
Then with Jewish *Boers, those stupid "Israeli Apartheid" Comments would actually make sense. Especially if South Africa becomes TTL's Israel.

Actually, all these won't get the numbers needed for the Challenge.
However, if we get the Axumites under Menelik I's descendants to basically conquer and Convert all of East Africa, we can do it.

Actually Here's a more than slightly ASB map of that (roughly around 400 BC), without the Lemba.
Dark Blue- Judea-Israel Complex.
Light Blue- Axumite (Ethiopian) Empire.

Solomonic Dynasty map.png
 

Nomad

Banned
Eh nice challenge.The most easy one to solve it is to make the Khazars to conquer Russia and spreading some modified form of Judaism,one that seeks converts,exactly like Christianity and Judaism and that would seek to "make every man on Earth to become part of the Nation of Israel".Result would be a Turco-Slavic OTL equivalent of Russia with some sort of universalistic,open to all,Judaism.An unsuccesful Kabar rebellion would also help to the Judeo-Turks.Another nice idea would be to make Dhu Nawas,the Yemenite jewish king,to be,well,to fuck less with the christians there,since they were an effective Roman lobby in Yemen.If we make Dhu Nawas to fuck less with the christians,for example to avoid persecuting them,but just,let's say...making them 2nd class citizens,we would get him making Judaism the official religion in Yemen and making him convert(in some way or another)something like 70-75% of Yemen,most of all ex-pagans without making the Romans and the Ethiopians angry.The problem,anyway,would be with the rise of islam,how would the Yemenite Jews survive Islam,I dunno.
 
The problem,anyway,would be with the rise of islam,how would the Yemenite Jews survive Islam,I dunno.
Who says Islam has to rise? If Islam doesn't rise, and if the Jews remain in Judaea rather than being exiled, there could be a larger number Jews. Retain the Khazars, make a Jewish Axum and a Jewish Yemen, and let go of the Christian persecution of Jews, have a few more Jewish missionarism around in India and/or China, and before you know it, we shall have 100 million Jews by the 21st century.
 

Nomad

Banned
Heh,you're saying this like it's nothing :D
Seriously speaking,were there even jewish rulers of the Kingdom of Axum in Ethiopia?I knew about Yemen,but not also Ethiopia.Also,how couldn't the Christians persecute the jews during the Middle Ages?Jews were persecuted right because they were jews,because they didn't adapted to be western Christians.What should we do?Invent some Pope who is against anti-semitism?
 
Somebody here said that if, perhaps, the council of Nicaea decided that Jews should be protected from persecution for whatever reason, than it could be good.
 
How about the Year of the Four Emperors turns into a long, drawn out affair which sees no complete victory for any imperial contender for many years. Vespasian's inability to attain decisive victory forces him to recall Titus from the walls of Jerusalem and a more successful Batavian revolt would further drain Roman resources from the distant province of Judea. If the Jewish Revolt leaders can muster greater unity they might be able to bring one of the imperial contenders to the table, granting an independent Judea greater legitimacy. Or they could turn to the Parthians or assist a revolt in Egypt; anything the Romans would consider a greater threat than rebellious Jews. In fact in OTL, the Jewish rebels built a small but respectable flotilla at Jaffa that preyed on the ever-important grain shipments from Alexandria to Rome (as noted by Josephus), which could cripple the West into making concessions.

With continuous civil wars crippling the Roman's ability to strike back (a la Third Century Crisis but earlier), an independent Jewish state could develop within the boundaries of OTL Palmyrene Empire. With a strong finances based off control of the East-West trade, Jewish influence and religion could easily spread in Arabia, Africa and even to India and southeast Asia via trade ships (butterflying away Islam centuries later because the Arabs would already have the same Allah to worship just a different book). As the state religion of a powerful, somewhat maritime empire I could see its rulers amending Judaism to allow proselytism and Jerusalem, with the Second Temple still standing, could become the center of a global religion like Rome and Mecca in OTL. Eventually, with industrialization etc. 100 million could be reached.

I realize this TL involves defeating the Roman Empire at its height and thus is open to considerable criticism, but I took on the additional task of avoiding the destruction of the Second Temple and the Diaspora which I consider the root of all the Jew's problems for next 2000 years (yes, including the Holocaust, no diaspora means no Jews at the mercy of random majorities). Think about it, Judaism has all the ideological potency that led Christianity and Islam to conquer most of the world. If it managed to harness that before defeat, humiliation and dispersion by the Romans it could have achieved similar success.
 
I've actually been considering a timeline in the last couple of weeks that would accomplish this to some extent. After I finish the Mass Effect one I'm doing (read: procrastinating on) now, it'll be my next project.
 
1) Have the Kazar khangate more thoroughly adopt Judaism, instead of keeping the oldways partially alive, and then They Conquer the Rus instead of the other way 'round. Overtime the Rus will assimilate and become Culturally and Relgiously Jewish if not Ethnically so. meanwhile the Ethnic jews intermarry with the Descendants of Converts, increasing the number of at Least Partially Ethnic Jews (often enough with Norse/Rus, Slavic and Turkic Ancestry as well. By the mid XIXth Century you're talking about a Kazar-Jewish state the size of the Russian Empire with a Similar Population. Which in 1866 had an estimated population exceeding 180 Million. Even if only Half are Jews, that's still 90 million Quasi-Ethnic Jews, with the remainder worldwide easily racking up another 10+Million, and Ashkenazim/Kazarim Jews would easily be one of the largest nation on Earth, save for the Han Chinese and the Japanese. :)

2) Have Ghengis Khan and the Mongol Horde convert to Judaism and well, Rape, Pillage and Convert everything in their path in classical Old Testament Style. Second criteria is easily Completed if a Large Portion of His Horde happens to be Ethnically Jewish.:cool::eek:

3) Count Christians as Quasi-Jews, with only Kohanim being able to become Priests in any sect, while still being able to marry and have children.

There's a great story in Alternate Generals III about option 2...
 
Maybe we need to get Martin Luther to be not so anti-Semitic. Maybe he sees the Jews as some kind of time capsule and asserts that they should not be persecuted. That could get us a few tens of millions by 1900.

Maybe many more Jews move to the Americas, as they now have a larger population in Europe. Oglethorpe and Washington were chill with Judaism. Maybe ten million more here. And what about the Reconquista ? If they simply ignored Jews, you've got another couple million.
 
Judaism is maybe not evangelising much NOW, but it was more in the past - it is like Hinduism... there is now hinduism in bali, and in Nepal... so...

maybe it get more evangelizing, or remains it... that'd help for sure.
 
Maybe we need to get Martin Luther to be not so anti-Semitic. Maybe he sees the Jews as some kind of time capsule and asserts that they should not be persecuted. That could get us a few tens of millions by 1900.

Maybe many more Jews move to the Americas, as they now have a larger population in Europe. Oglethorpe and Washington were chill with Judaism. Maybe ten million more here. And what about the Reconquista ? If they simply ignored Jews, you've got another couple million.

I think Luther hated Jews even more than Catholics. He even went so far as to say that the Turks (and all other Muslims) were the fabled "Red Jews" who Alexander the great had walled off in Asia and had finally broken out to menace and destroy Christian Europe. Part of his libel against the Catholic Church was that the Jews were secretly behind the usury and corruption of the papacy, as well as the black death and other ridiculous things. Besides that nitpick I think a more tolerant Spain and major Jewish settlement in the Americas could certainly work. Jews were some of the first Europeans settlers to americas in OTL, often fleeing persecution. The synagogue in Netherlands Antilles is as old as those colonies, 1600s I think.
 
A bonus would be to Jewify Germany. Then Germany declares Barbarossa on the Russians for their pogroms, intending to acquire some lebensraum.
 

Nietzsche

Banned
Why not Judaify the Vikings or Prussians instead of the 'Rus? :D;)

Hmm. Increase Frederick II's policies for settling Jews and the like in the under-populated eastern marches and you could get a pretty large German-Jew community stretching from eastern Brandenburg into Posen, east & west Prussia and possibly into Congress Poland, slowly assimilating them by sheer factor of having most of the money.
 
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