Children of Dolhinov

It is a titanic story though one rather slow-moving by contemporary standards. In 79, the Temple destroyed, the Jewish rebellion crushed, the Romans enslaved thousands and deported them to Italy or southern France in order to extinguish the Jewish people forever. Yet they did not give up their religion or civilization. The Empire fell and the lights of civilization went out. Over almost one thousand years, their descendants moved ever northward and eastward, through the French-speaking lands into the German-speaking lands.
And after almost another five hundred years of prosperity alternating with persecution, they went on again, northward and eastward into the Polish and Lithuanian-speaking lands. There they sojourned another five hundred years, often of grinding poverty and sporadically of serious oppression. Then, again they were on the move but faster and farther than ever. Some to lands unknown for most of that time, North America and even to Australia and South Africa; more still back to the Land of Israel, full circle two millennia after they were supposed to cease existing, back to almost the precise spot from which they had set out.