The Connection of Wanderers
Connections do not have to have a singular point of origin to end up at the same point. This is best exemplified by two cultures of people that crisscrossed through history from different origins, but often taking the same paths. The Jews made the mistake to rebelling against their Roman rules only to find themselves cast out of their homeland destined to "wander" through Europe for 2000 years. The Romany people left their place of origin in Northern India about 1000 years later but would find themselves traversing much of the same ground.
In AD 66 The people of Israel began their first war to throw off the shackles of Roman rule. This would end with the destruction of Jerusalem and culminate with the last stand at Masada. However; it wasn't until the Bar Kokhba revolt in AD 132 that the jews would begin to scatter. After a brief 2 years of success the Roman armies destroyed the revolt, killed more than half a million jews, and banned them from Jerusalem. While some remained in the newly renamed territory of Palestine, there was not enough economic means to support the great many and they began to leave Palestine.
The Jews left Palestine in five basic routes (south to East Africa and Ethiopia, south and west to North Africa and Morocco, East to Babylon and Yemen, north through Anatolia into the Caucasus's region and north, then west toward the Iberian peninsula (modern day Spain). In some sense this was the high point for Jews of the second diaspora. Spain, especially under Moorish rule, provided a fairly tolerable living standard. In the Caucasus region an empire known as the Khazarians appears to have been quite hospitable to the jews with even the Khazar leadership converting to judaism.
It was around this time (AD 1000) that the Romany people left northern India. Their history is much more speculative but linguistic and genetic evidence seems to point to this period as the exodus of the Roma. The Roma would actually follow many of the same routes as the Jews, finding a tolerant culture in Spain and a less tolerant, but not deadly culture around the west bank of the black sea (modern Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine). They would also follow similar paths into North Africa and even to Palestine.
While a portion of each culture assimilated with the local cultures, there was a 400 year period where both cultures seemed to settle down. Each culture found a means for surviving in the Christian territories. The Jews provided financial activities that were severely limited by the Catholic church. The Roma gain favor with Christian lords by portraying themselves as refugees from Egypt and assuming titles such as "duke," "count," and "lord." This is also where the term "gypsy" originates although it was used derogatorily. The Roma also provided spiritual and divination services (tarot reading) that proved very popular among the locals and they were considered to bring good luck.
This would come to a rather abrupt end beginning in the 14th century. First, the black death decimated Europe and both Jews and Gypsies would be blamed. The Jews, because they did not believe in Jesus as the Messiah; the Gypsies because they had come from the east and "logically" must have brought the plague with them. This would be followed a century later by two cataclysmic events. In Spain a religious backlash would lead to the expulsion or conversion of all non-Catholics. (Those that remained in Spain as "Conversos" would shortly be subject to the newly formed inquisition). The Jews and Gypsies that left headed north, finding few hospitable places to make their homes except for small pockets in Germany and eastward in Poland.
In Eastern Europe around the same time the Russians came from the North and the Muslims from the South. Both Gypsies and Jews would be on the move again, this time not really finding any hospitable areas to call home. When Khazaria fell the Jews moved north. When Byzantium fell in 1453 the Roma moved wherever they could, usually around the areas of Wallachia, Moldavia, the Balkans and also into Germany and Poland.
For nearly 500 years the Jews and Gypsies would live up and down existences usually somewhere between persecution/death and impoverished but sustainable. Each tried to maintain their cultural distinctions but there was significant assimilation by both groups as individuals traded their culture for their lives. Ultimately, it did not matter as both the Jews and Gypsies would meet identical fates. 90% of the Jews would perish in the holocaust and 80% of the Roma would meet the same fate.
The parallel stories end here. The remanent of the Jews would re-establish their homeland in Israel. The Roma would scatter in small pockets to all parts of Europe and America to try and resume their traditional culture. The present world population of Jews: approximately 14-15 million. The present world population of Romany: approximately 14-15 million.
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