According to a leading research website, the history of the Jews in Alsace is one of the oldest in Europe. It was first attested to in 1165 by Benjamin of Tudela, who wrote about a “large number of learned men” in “Astransbourg”. It is assumed that it dates back to around the year 1000 AD. Although Jewish life in Alsace was often disrupted by outbreaks of pogroms since at least during the Middle Ages, and as it has been reined in by harsh restrictions on business and movement; it has had a continuous existence ever since it was first recorded. At its peak during the year 1870, the Jewish community of Alsace had numbered 35,000 people.

The language traditionally spoken by the Jews of Alsace was Judeo-Alsatian (Yédisch-Daïtsch), which was originally a mixture of Middle High German, Old Alsatian, Medieval Hebrew and Aramaic; and is also largely indistinguishable from Western Yiddish. From the 12th century onwards, due among other things to the influence of the nearby Rashi school in the Alsace, French linguistic elements were incorporated as well; and from the 18th century onwards, due to immigration, some elements from the Polish language (a Slavic language) were also blended into the Yédisch-Daïtsch dialect. Make a long story short, the Yédisch-Daïtsch dialect is a dialect of the Yiddish language, a Germanic language.

With the annexation of Alsace to France in 1681, Catholicism was restored as the principal religion of the area. However, the prohibition against Jews settling in Strasbourg, and the special taxes Jews were subjected to, were not lifted after the annexation by France. In the 18th century, Herz Cerfbeer of Medelsheim, the influential merchant and philanthropist, became the first Jewish person to be allowed to settle in the Alsatian capital again. The French Revolution then inflicted the re-admittance of Jews back into Strasbourg.

By 1790, the Jewish population of Alsace was approximately 22,500 and had accounted for about 3% of the provincial population. Another 7,500 Jews lived in the neighboring Lorraine province. Together they comprised three-fourths of the 40,000 Jews who lived in the entire nation of France at the time. The Jews were highly segregated and were subjected to long-standing anti-Jewish regulations. They maintained their own customs, language, and historic traditions within the tightly-knit ghettos. The Alsatian Jews had also adhered to the Talmudic law enforced by their rabbis. At this time, Alsatian Jews were barred from most cities and had instead lived in hundreds of small hamlets and villages. They were also barred from most occupations, and concentrated in trade, services, and especially in moneylending. They financed about a third of the mortgages in the entire province of the Alsace.

In 1940, Alsace was re-annexed to Germany and incorporated into the administrative unit of Baden-Elsaß (Elsass, the German name for the region). During WWII, the occupying power established the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, and a Jewish skeleton collection was housed in the Nazi University of Strasbourg (today, just simply the University of Strasbourg; a university that had originally been founded in 1538).

After the Algerian  War Of Independence (which resulted in Algeria gaining independence from France in 1962), starting that year immediately following Algeria gaining it’s independence; Sephardic Jews began to arrive in the Alsace from North Africa. In the year 2000, roughly 4,000 Jews in Strasbourg were Sephardic and had made up a little over 25% of the total Jewish population in the entire nation of France.