During the Crusades, the few Jews in Jerusalem suffered similar fates to thousands of Muslims, facing killings, burnings, and torture at the hands of the Crusader forces who occupied Palestine and established the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1187. The number of resident Jews in Jerusalem during the Crusader era diminished to only one person, documented as a dyer by Rabbi Petachia.
However, after the liberation of Jerusalem by Salah al-Din (Saladin), who confronted the Crusades, he worked to revive the Jewish presence in the city. Indeed, all Islamic lands, after the collapse of the Crusades, became a safe haven for Jews from Europe, in contrast to the Crusaders who were antagonistic toward both Semitism and Islam.
Under the Ottoman Empire, which ruled over the entire West Asia region from 1516 until the end of World War I, the Ottomans upheld Islamic practices of tolerance and moderation towards Christian religious interests in Palestine. The Ottoman Empire also opened its doors to hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing religious persecution in Christian countries like Spain. However, the majority of these Jews, following their ancestors' path after the Crusades, avoided living in the same Palestine. Consequently, the Jewish population in Jerusalem decreased significantly under Ottoman rule, from 1330 to 980 individuals in the first century of Ottoman rule, plummeting further to 150 individuals in the second century and dwindling to 115 by the mid-18th century. By the 19th century, only a few Jews had settled in Palestine.
Those who decided to live in Palestine mostly settled in four cities: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias. The Ottomans established a set of regulations and rules that safeguarded the rights and duties of Jews and Christians, allowing them to practice their religious rites in their places of worship. These regulations were grounded in customary law and the rights recognized by Muslim rulers since the Umarian Covenant.