Early Jewish Diaspora Communities: Asia Minor

Several scholars have estimated a substantial Jewish population in Asia Minor by the first century CE, perhaps as much as 10–15 percent of the total population. When presenting several pieces of Hellenistic and Roman legislation pertaining to Jewish diaspora communities, Josephus most often considers the rights of Jews in Asia Minor in terms of whether they were able to practice ancestral customs, receive exemption from military service, and send periodic sums of money to Jerusalem to support the Temple (see Temple Sacrifices and Rituals). Like other diaspora communities in Asia Minor, the Jewish community in Ephesus, one of the largest Greek cities of the Roman Empire, is thought to have originated among either soldiers or captives being relocated to cities where they would have been of service to the empire.