From the Crusade to NIF

Historically Jews lost their sovereignity  in Eretz Yirael to the Roman Empire with the destruction of the Second Temple 70AD.
At that time Jews were already living in Babilon (Iran, Iraq), in Rome, in Ethiopia (As a result of the previous Diaspora by Sanherib of Assyria) and probably in other European and North African countries.
Nevertheless most Jews continued to live in Eretz Yisrael that remained the Jewish centre and focal point of Judaism.
The Mishna was completed here in about 200AD and the Talmud in 600AD.The Sanhedrin (Jewish "High Court" and legislator) continued to operate.
It was the Crusaders that murdered and dispersed nearly all the Jews from Eretz Yisrael by the end of the first Millenum.  That was after a first Holocaust of European Jews by the Crusaders on route to "The Holy Land"  to "free it from Muslim control".

The Jews continued to live in the Diaspora. In Europe they lived in a pendalum between Antisemitic pogroms on the one hand and great Intelectual, economic and relogous success on the other hand.
In Islamic countries the Jews were Dhimies, like all other non Muslims in Islamic countries, but generally were not abused as in Christian countries.

With the start of active Zionism European Jews started buying land in Otoman Palestine and establishing new Jewish communities in 1870's Eretz Yisrael  with the declared objective of renewing our independence here.

(to be continued)