>>17874448Rome only fell in the west, not the East. The eastern empire was the one that ruled over Palestine (formerly Judea). And by the time the western empire fell in the 5th century the Jews had spent centuries in exile. They were scattered all over the place, had only limited contact with other enclaves, and most of Europe was hostile to them, barely tolerating their presence. Often they were sheltered by the nobility or the Catholic Church, who found their literacy and skill with numbers useful, and frequently employed them as tax collectors. Else they were just allowed to live unmolested, and Jews being Jews they'd inevitably amass wealth at which point the nobility or the king would smash the Jewish piggy bank open and reap the spoils. Nobody objects from a royal shakedown when the victims are unpopular, and nobody was less popular than Jews, in Europe.
Hell, Jews were so widely hated that during the First Crusade, the "people's Crusade" that preceded the knightly one swept through Europe lynching Jews in every town and city they passed through basically "just because". The Jews weren't the target of the Crusade, had basically nothing at all to do with why it was called or its objectives, but people were worked up into a religious fervor and everybody liked seeing Christ-killers swing from a tree.
