| 1510 | 38 Jews were burned at the stake in Berlin. |
| 1516 | Jews in Venice are relegated to a ghetto, the most extreme segregation to which Jews had been submitted. Over time, Jews in many lands are similarly segregated. |
| 1483-1546 | Martin Luther. |
| 1517 | Luther posts "95 theses" in Wittenburg, Germany |
| 1520-1579 | Cracow Rosh Yeshiva whose major work was an adaptation of Caro's Shulchan Aruch to Europoean Jewry, Moses Isserles. |
| 1525-1609 | Brilliant Talmudist, mathematician and astronomer, popular with Emperor Randolh II. Judah Loew Ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague also created the Golem, a man from clay who protected the Jewish community. |
| 1534 | First Yiddish book published in Cracow, Poland. |
| 1534-1572 | Talmud and Kabbalah scholar, Isaac Ben Solomon Luria, given the name "The Ari" (The Lion). |
| 1543 | Luther writes "About the Jews and Their Lies," considered the first modern anti-Semitic tract. |
| ca. 1500-1650 | Protestant Christian Reformation. |
| 1509-1564 | John Calvin. |
| 1516 | Jewish ghetto instituted in Venice. |
| 1526 | The Prague Haggadah, which contains the oldest known printed Yiddush poem, is published. |
| 1547 | Ivan the Terrible becomes ruler of Russia and refuses to allow Jews to live in his kingdon. |
| 1555 | Jewish ghetto instituted in Rome. |
| 1559 | Pope Paul IV allows the first printing of the Zohar, a Jewish mystical text. |
| 1567/1571 | Shulhan Arukh (code of Jewish law by Joseph Caro).published. |
| 1569 | Isaac Luria writes the Kabbalist in Safed. Luria's ideas give rise to a new form of Jewish mysticism. |