Mishna and a mass of more or less relevant additional matter), and kindred literary output. The compilers of the earlier period are known as the Tannaim; those of the later, Amoraim.
With the Christianization of the Roman Empire and the increase in numbers and power of the Christians in Palestine after Constantine the Great (312–337 A.D.), Palestinian Judaism weakened and almost disappeared, and its spiritual centre shifted to Babylonia, where it long continued to flourish. Theodosius abolished the 'Sanhedrin' (425 A.D.), and Palestine became a Christian country. Tiberias, however, still continued for some centuries to be a centre of Hebrew learning, and it was here, in the ninth century, that the system of vocalization now in use in Hebrew Bibles received its final shape.
Throughout the Middle Ages the Jewish population in Palestine remained a negligible quantity. Benjamin of Tudela visited the country in 1170–1 and found only about 1440 Jews. Moses ben Nahman Girondi in 1267 reports the existence of only two Jewish families in Jerusalem, engaged as dyers; as a result of Moses ben Nahman's efforts one of the old synagogues in Jerusalem was rebuilt, more families settled in the town, a Rabbinical College was set up and Jewish students began to resort to Jerusalem from neighbouring countries. Apart from Jerusalem, Jewish centres developed in Safed, Acre, Ramleh and Sarafend.
During the following century the condition of the Jews greatly improved, both numerically and economically, and at the beginning of the fifteenth century the immigration of Jews from Germany is first reported; these founded a settlement in Jerusalem, which was afterwards destroyed by the native Jews.
It was the expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1495) which first created a 'Return' on a considerable and effective scale. Many of the refugees were men of wealth, and more were men of learning. Little more than a generation saw the Jewish community in Palestine
