The Jewish Community of Ascalon

Ascalon, or Ashqelon, a coastal city in the land of Israel, has long been a major site of Jewish settlement. Synagogue ruins and inscriptions exist from the ancient period. Jews continued to live there under Muslim rule, and the town sheltered Jewish refugees from Jerusalem after the conquest of that city by Crusaders in 1099. Crusader armies took Ascalon in 1153, and the Jewish population began to relocate. By the end of the twelfth century, the remaining Jews of Ascalon had moved to Jerusalem and established communities there, not to return to the coastal city until the modern establishment of the State of Israel.