The presence of Jews in Germany has been established since the early 4th century. The community prospered under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades. (German Jews also founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community in the Dark and Middle Ages.) Accusations of well poisoning during the Black Death (1346–53) led to mass slaughters of German Jews^{[citation needed]}, and their fleeing in large numbers to Poland.

From the time of Moses Mendelssohn until the 20th century the community gradually achieved emancipation, and then prospered. However, following the growth of Nazism and its antisemitic ideology and policies, the Jewish community was severely persecuted and suffered a brutal genocide. In January 1933, some 522,000 Jews lived in Germany. Over half (approximately 304,000), emigrated during the first six years of the Nazi dictatorship, leaving only approximately 214,000 Jews in Germany proper (1937 borders) on the eve of World War II. By the end of the war between 160,000 and 180,000 German Jews had been killed in the Holocaust.

The first Jewish population in the region to be later known as Germany came with the Romans to the city now known as Cologne. A "Golden Age" in the first millennium saw the emergence of the Ashkenazi Jews, while the persecution and expulsion that followed the Crusades led to the creation of Yiddish and an overall shift eastwards. A change of status in the late Renaissance Era, combined with the Jewish Enlightenment – the Haskalah, meant that by the 1920s Germany had one of the most integrated Jewish populations in Europe, contributing prominently to German culture and society. The vast majority either left the country or were murdered in the Holocaust.

The following is a list of some famous Jewish people (by religion or descent) from Germany proper. Also note that the idea of German nationality is rather broad, due to the many Germanic tribes, Jewish assimilation into Germany, and separate German ruled states through the history of Europe. Therefore, the same set of people could at times be referred to as Germans, Jews, or German Jews alike.

The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎‎ ISO 259-3 Yhudim Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and an ethnoreligious group, originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation.Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.

In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The modern State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish state in its Basic Laws, and Israel's Law of Return states: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh." Israel is the only country where Jews are a majority of the population. Jews achieved political autonomy twice before in ancient history. The first of these periods lasted from 1350 to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, most Jews have lived in diaspora. A minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

Deborah Hertz, (born 1949, St. Paul, MN) , is the Herman Wouk Chair in Modern Jewish Studies and Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego.

With a focus on Modern Jewish and German History, her books include Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin (Yale, 1988) on the German Jewish Salon, and "How Jews Became Germans: The History of Conversion and Assimilation in Berlin," (Yale, 2007).

Hertz is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, BA, P.h.D., and her affiliations include the Leo Baeck Institute. In Israel, she has taught at the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University.

Hertz is a resident of La Jolla.