What would have been the experience of a Jewish family fleeing Judea and settling in Egypt during the age of Augustus? What legal, linguistic, and cultural barriers would they have encountered? How comparable would the situation be to a modern European citizen relocating within the EU?

by aescolanus

Trying to put the 'was Jesus a refugee' argument into a more historical context here.

ajfonty

Interesting question. Naturally, it depends on where in Egypt you'd settle, but most likely the Jewish family would have very few barriers to encounter.

Egypt, especially Alexandria, had a huge Jewish population relatively speaking, and there were entire exclusively Jewish neighborhoods in the city -- two of the five districts of the city were devoted to the Jewish population. Not only that, but they held some considerably influential positions both in the city and in Egypt, functioning as administrators and soldiers. Egypt had considerable Jewish populations in other cities and tows as well, a marking of the early diaspora of the Jewish people. (Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 1985).

The Ptolemies, and later the Romans, were rather docile towards the Jews in Egypt (in the case of the Romans, that would change towards the middle of the first century CE). So, to answer your question, assuming the family migrated to one of the many Jewish settlements in Egypt, there would have been few, if any, barriers for that family in Egypt, because Egypt already had a sizable Jewish population at the time. (Yoder, Representatives of Roman Rule: Roman Provincial Governors in Luke-Acts, 2012).

agfa12

There is no historical evidence to back up the claim of exile in 70AD https://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel

Naturally, this is politically controversial http://www.haaretz.com/bbc-pulls-documentary-claiming-story-of-jewish-exodus-from-jerusalem-is-a-myth-1.518768

In fact the entire Bible story of a Kingdom of Judea and King David etc is very doubtful, historically. As the New York Times reported

Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, probably never existed. Nor did Moses. The entire Exodus story as recounted in the Bible probably never occurred. The same is true of the tumbling of the walls of Jericho. And David, far from being the fearless king who built Jerusalem into a mighty capital, was more likely a provincial leader whose reputation was later magnified to provide a rallying point for a fledgling nation. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/643380/posts