The Jewish diaspora (Hebrew: Tfutza, תְּפוּצָה) or exile (Hebrew: Galut, גָּלוּת; Yiddish: Golus) refers to the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of the globe.
In terms of the Hebrew Bible, the term "Exile" denotes the fate of the Israelites who were taken into exile from the Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BCE, and the Judahites from the Kingdom of Judah who were taken into exile during the 6th century BCE. While in exile, the Judahites became known as "Jews" (יְהוּדִים, or Yehudim), "Mordecai the Jew" from the Book of Esther being the first biblical mention of the term.
The first exile was the Assyrian exile, the expulsion from the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) begun by Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria in 733 BCE. This process was completed by Sargon II with the destruction of the kingdom in 722 BCE, concluding a three-year siege of Samaria begun by Shalmaneser V. The next experience of exile was the Babylonian captivity, in which portions of the population of the Kingdom of Judah were deported in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE by the Neo-Babylonian Empire under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II.
A Jewish diaspora existed for several centuries before the fall of the Second Temple, and their dwelling in other countries for the most part was not a result of compulsory dislocation. Before the middle of the first century CE, in addition to Judea, Syria and Babylonia, large Jewish communities existed in the Roman provinces of Syria Palaestina, Egypt, Crete and Cyrenaica, and in Rome itself; after the Siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE, when the Hasmonean kingdom became a protectorate of Rome, emigration intensified. In 6 CE the region was organized as the Roman province of Judea. The Judean population revolted against the Roman Empire in 66 CE in the First Jewish–Roman War which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. During the siege, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and most of Jerusalem. This watershed moment, the elimination of the symbolic centre of Judaism and Jewish identity constrained many Jews to reformulate a new self-definition and adjust their existence to the prospect of an indefinite period of displacement.
In 132 CE, Bar Kokhba led a rebellion against Hadrian, a revolt connected with the renaming of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina. After four years of devastating warfare, the uprising was suppressed, and Jews were forbidden access to Jerusalem.
During the Middle Ages, due to increasing migration and resettlement, Jews divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two primary geographical groupings: the Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe, and the Sephardic Jews of Iberia (Spain and Portugal), North Africa and the Middle East. These groups have parallel histories sharing many cultural similarities as well as a series of massacres, persecutions and expulsions, such as the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the expulsion from England in 1290, and the expulsion from Arab countries in 1948–1973. Although the two branches comprise many unique ethno-cultural practices and have links to their local host populations (such as Central Europeans for the Ashkenazim and Hispanics and Arabs for the Sephardim), their shared religion and ancestry, as well as their continuous communication and population transfers, has been responsible for a unified sense of cultural and religious Jewish identity between Sephardim and Ashkenazim from the late Roman period to the present.
Steven Bowman argues that diaspora in antiquity connoted emigration from an ancestral mother city, with the emigrant community maintaining its cultural ties with the place of origin. Just as the Greek city exported its surplus population, so did Jerusalem, while remaining the cultural and religious centre or metropolis (ir-va-em be-yisrael) for the outlying communities. It could have two senses in Biblical terms, the idea of becoming a 'guiding light unto the nations' by dwelling in the midst of gentiles, or of enduring the pain of exile from one's homeland. The conditions of diaspora in the former case were premised on the free exercise of citizenship or resident alien status. Galut implies by comparison living as a denigrated minority, stripped of such rights, in the host society. Sometimes diaspora and galut are defined as 'voluntary' as opposed to 'involuntary' exile. Diaspora, it has been argued, has a political edge, referring to geopolitical dispersion, which may be involuntary, but which can assume, under different conditions, a positive nuance. Galut is more teleological, and connotes a sense of uprootedness. Daniel Boyarin defines diaspora as a state where people have a dual cultural allegiance, productive of a double consciousness, and in this sense a cultural condition not premised on any particular history, as opposed to galut, which is more descriptive of an existential situation, that properly of exile, conveying a particular psychological outlook.
The Greek word διασπορά (dispersion) first appears as a neologism in the translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, where it occurs 14 times, starting with a passage reading: ἔση διασπορὰ ἐν πάσαις βασιλείαις τῆς γῆς (thou shalt be a diaspora (or dispersion) in all kingdoms of the earth) (Deuteronomy xxviii:25), translating 'ləza‘ăwāh', whose root suggests 'trouble, terror'. In these contexts it never translated any term in the original Tanakh drawn from the Hebrew root glt (גלה) which lies behind galah, and golah, nor even galuth. Golah appears 42 times, and galuth in 15 passages, and first occurs in the 2 Kings 17:23's reference to the deportation of the Judean elite to Babylonia. Stéphane Dufoix, in surveying the textual evidence, draws the following conclusion:
In modern times, the contrasting meanings of diaspora/galut have given rise to controversy among Jews. Bowman states this in the following terms,
In terms of the Hebrew Bible, the term "Exile" denotes the fate of the Israelites who were taken into exile from the Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BCE, and the Judahites from the Kingdom of Judah who were taken into exile during the 6th century BCE. While in exile, the Judahites became known as "Jews" (יְהוּדִים, or Yehudim), "Mordecai the Jew" from the Book of Esther being the first biblical mention of the term.
The first exile was the Assyrian exile, the expulsion from the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) begun by Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria in 733 BCE. This process was completed by Sargon II with the destruction of the kingdom in 722 BCE, concluding a three-year siege of Samaria begun by Shalmaneser V. The next experience of exile was the Babylonian captivity, in which portions of the population of the Kingdom of Judah were deported in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE by the Neo-Babylonian Empire under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II.
A Jewish diaspora existed for several centuries before the fall of the Second Temple, and their dwelling in other countries for the most part was not a result of compulsory dislocation. Before the middle of the first century CE, in addition to Judea, Syria and Babylonia, large Jewish communities existed in the Roman provinces of Syria Palaestina, Egypt, Crete and Cyrenaica, and in Rome itself; after the Siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE, when the Hasmonean kingdom became a protectorate of Rome, emigration intensified. In 6 CE the region was organized as the Roman province of Judea. The Judean population revolted against the Roman Empire in 66 CE in the First Jewish–Roman War which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. During the siege, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and most of Jerusalem. This watershed moment, the elimination of the symbolic centre of Judaism and Jewish identity constrained many Jews to reformulate a new self-definition and adjust their existence to the prospect of an indefinite period of displacement.
In 132 CE, Bar Kokhba led a rebellion against Hadrian, a revolt connected with the renaming of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina. After four years of devastating warfare, the uprising was suppressed, and Jews were forbidden access to Jerusalem.
During the Middle Ages, due to increasing migration and resettlement, Jews divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two primary geographical groupings: the Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe, and the Sephardic Jews of Iberia (Spain and Portugal), North Africa and the Middle East. These groups have parallel histories sharing many cultural similarities as well as a series of massacres, persecutions and expulsions, such as the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the expulsion from England in 1290, and the expulsion from Arab countries in 1948–1973. Although the two branches comprise many unique ethno-cultural practices and have links to their local host populations (such as Central Europeans for the Ashkenazim and Hispanics and Arabs for the Sephardim), their shared religion and ancestry, as well as their continuous communication and population transfers, has been responsible for a unified sense of cultural and religious Jewish identity between Sephardim and Ashkenazim from the late Roman period to the present.
Origins and uses of the terms
Diaspora has been a common phenomenon for many peoples since antiquity, but what is particular about the Jewish instance is the pronounced negative, religious, indeed metaphysical connotations traditionally attached to dispersion and exile (galut), two conditions which were conflated. The English term diaspora, which entered usage as late as 1876, and the Hebrew word galut though covering a similar semantic range, bear some distinct differences in connotation. The former has no traditional equivalent in Hebrew usage.Steven Bowman argues that diaspora in antiquity connoted emigration from an ancestral mother city, with the emigrant community maintaining its cultural ties with the place of origin. Just as the Greek city exported its surplus population, so did Jerusalem, while remaining the cultural and religious centre or metropolis (ir-va-em be-yisrael) for the outlying communities. It could have two senses in Biblical terms, the idea of becoming a 'guiding light unto the nations' by dwelling in the midst of gentiles, or of enduring the pain of exile from one's homeland. The conditions of diaspora in the former case were premised on the free exercise of citizenship or resident alien status. Galut implies by comparison living as a denigrated minority, stripped of such rights, in the host society. Sometimes diaspora and galut are defined as 'voluntary' as opposed to 'involuntary' exile. Diaspora, it has been argued, has a political edge, referring to geopolitical dispersion, which may be involuntary, but which can assume, under different conditions, a positive nuance. Galut is more teleological, and connotes a sense of uprootedness. Daniel Boyarin defines diaspora as a state where people have a dual cultural allegiance, productive of a double consciousness, and in this sense a cultural condition not premised on any particular history, as opposed to galut, which is more descriptive of an existential situation, that properly of exile, conveying a particular psychological outlook.
The Greek word διασπορά (dispersion) first appears as a neologism in the translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, where it occurs 14 times, starting with a passage reading: ἔση διασπορὰ ἐν πάσαις βασιλείαις τῆς γῆς (thou shalt be a diaspora (or dispersion) in all kingdoms of the earth) (Deuteronomy xxviii:25), translating 'ləza‘ăwāh', whose root suggests 'trouble, terror'. In these contexts it never translated any term in the original Tanakh drawn from the Hebrew root glt (גלה) which lies behind galah, and golah, nor even galuth. Golah appears 42 times, and galuth in 15 passages, and first occurs in the 2 Kings 17:23's reference to the deportation of the Judean elite to Babylonia. Stéphane Dufoix, in surveying the textual evidence, draws the following conclusion:
galuth and diaspora are drawn from two completely different lexicons. The first refers to episodes, precise and datable, in the history of the people of Israel, when the latter was subjected to a foreign occupation, such as that of Babylon, in which most of the occurrences are found. The second, perhaps with a single exception that remains debatable, is never used to speak of the past and does not concern Babylon; the instrument of dispersion is never the historical sovereign of another country. Diaspora is the word for chastisement, but the dispersion in question has not occurred yet: it is potential, conditional on the Jews not respecting the law of God. . .It follows that diaspora belongs, not to the domain of history, but of theology.'In Talmudic and post-Talmudic Rabbinic literature, this phenomenon was referred to as galut (exile), a term with strongly negative connotations, often contrasted with geula (redemption). Eugene Borowitz describes Galut as "fundamentally a theological category The modern Hebrew concept of Tefutzot תפוצות, "scattered", was introduced in the 1930s by the Jewish-American Zionist academic Simon Rawidowicz, who to some degree argued for the acceptance of the Jewish presence outside the Land of Israel as a modern reality and an inevitability. The Greek term for diaspora (διασπορά) also appears three times in the New Testament, where it refers to the scattering of Israel, i.e., the Ten Northern Tribes of Israel as opposed to the Southern Kingdom of Judah, although James (1:1) refers to the scattering of all twelve tribes.
In modern times, the contrasting meanings of diaspora/galut have given rise to controversy among Jews. Bowman states this in the following terms,
(Diaspora) follows the Greek usage and is considered a positive phenomenon that continues the prophetic call of Israel to be a 'light unto the nations' and establish homes and families among the gentiles. The prophet Jeremiah issues this call to the preexilic emigrants in Egypt. . . Galut is a religious–nationalist term, which implies exile from the homeland as a result of collective sins, an exile that will be redeemed at YHWH’s pleasure. Jewish messianism is closely connected with the concept of galut.’In Zionist debates a distinction was made between galut and golus/gola. The latter denoted social and political exile, whereas the former, while consequential on the latter, was a psycho-spiritual framework that was not wholly dependent on the conditions of life in diasporic exile, since one could technically remain in galut even in Eretz Israel. Whereas Theodore Herzl and his follows thought that the establishment of a Jewish state would put an end to the diasporic exile, Ahad Ha-am thought to the contrary that such a state's function would be to 'sustain Jewish nationhood' in the diaspora.
Pre-Roman diaspora
Paths of Jewish deportation
In 722 BCE, the Assyrians, under Sargon II, successor to Shalmaneser V, conquered the Kingdom of Israel, and many Israelites were deported to Mesopotamia. The Jewish proper diaspora began with the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE.
After the overthrow of the Kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon and the deportation of a considerable portion of its inhabitants to Mesopotamia, the Jews had two principal cultural centers: Babylonia and the land of Israel.
Deportees returned to the Samaria after the Neo-Babylonian Empire was in turn conquered by Cyrus the Great. The biblical book of Ezra
includes two texts said to be decrees allowing the deported Jews to
return to their homeland after decades and ordering the Temple rebuilt.
The differences in content and tone of the two decrees, one in Hebrew
and one in Aramaic, have caused some scholars to question their
authenticity. The Cyrus Cylinder,
an ancient tablet on which is written a declaration in the name of
Cyrus referring to restoration of temples and repatriation of exiled
peoples, has often been taken as corroboration of the authenticity of
the biblical decrees attributed to Cyrus,
but other scholars point out that the cylinder's text is specific to
Babylon and Mesopotamia and makes no mention of Judah or Jerusalem. Lester L. Grabbe asserted that the "alleged decree of Cyrus"
regarding Judah, "cannot be considered authentic", but that there was a
"general policy of allowing deportees to return and to re-establish
cult sites". He also stated that archaeology suggests that the return
was a "trickle" taking place over decades, rather than a single event.
There is no sudden expansion of the population base of 30,000 and no
credible indication of any special interest in Yehud.
Although most of the Jewish people during this period, especially
the wealthy families, were to be found in Babylonia, the existence they
led there, under the successive rulers of the Achaemenids, the Seleucids, the Parthians, and the Sassanians,
was obscure and devoid of political influence. The poorest but most
fervent of the exiles returned to Judah / the Land of Israel during the
reign of the Achaemenids (c. 550–330 BCE). There, with the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem
as their center, they organized themselves into a community, animated
by a remarkable religious ardor and a tenacious attachment to the Torah
as the focus of its identity. As this little nucleus increased in
numbers with the accession of recruits from various quarters, it awoke
to a consciousness of itself, and strove once again for national
independence and political enfranchisement and sovereignty.
The first Jewish diaspora in Egypt arose in the last century of pharaonic rule, apparently with the settlement there, either under Ashurbanipal or during the reign of Psammeticus of a colony of Jewish mercenaries, a military class that successively served the Persian, the Ptolemaic
and Roman governments down to the early decades of the second century
C.E., when the revolt against Trajan destroyed them. Their presence was
buttressed by numerous Jewish administrators who joined them in Egypt's
military and urban centres.
While communities in Alexandria and Rome dated back to before the Maccabean Revolt, the population in the Jewish diaspora expanded after the Pompey's campaign in 62 BCE. Under the Hasmonean
princes, who were at first high priests and then kings, the Jewish
state displayed even a certain luster and annexed several territories.
Soon, however, discord within the royal family and the growing
disaffection of the pious, the soul of the nation, towards rulers who no
longer evinced any appreciation of the real aspirations of their
subjects made the Jewish nation easy prey for the ambitions of the now
increasingly autocratic and imperial Romans, the successors of the
Seleucids. In 63 BCE Pompey invaded Jerusalem, the Jewish people lost their political sovereignty and independence, and Gabinius subjected the Jewish people to tribute.
Early diaspora populations
As early as the third century BCE Jewish communities sprang up in the
Aegean islands, Greece, Asia Minor, Cyrenaica, Italy and Egypt.
In Palestine, under the favourable auspices of the long period of peace
- almost a whole century - which followed the advent of the Ptolemies,
the new ways were to flourish. By means of all kinds of contacts, and
particularly thanks to the development of commerce, Hellenism
infiltrated on all sides in varying degrees. The ports of the
Mediterranean coast were indispensable to commerce and, from the very
beginning of the Hellenistic period, underwent great development. In the
Western diaspora Greek quickly became dominant in Jewish life and
little sign remains of profound contact with Hebrew or Aramaic, the
latter probably being the more prevalent. The proportion of Jews in the
diaspora in relation to the size of the nation as a whole increased
steadily throughout the Hellenistic era and reached astonishing
dimensions in the early Roman period, particularly in Alexandria. It was
not least for this reason that the Jewish people became a major
political factor, especially since the Jews in the diaspora,
notwithstanding strong cultural, social and religious tensions, remained
firmly united with their homeland.
Smallwood writes that,'It is reasonable to conjecture that many, such
as the settlement in Puteoli attested in 4 BCE went back to the late
(pre-Roman Empire) Roman Republic or early Empire and originated in
voluntary emigration and the lure of trade and commerce."
Dating the numerous settlements is difficult. Some settlements may have
resulted from the Jewish revolts. Others, such as the Jewish community
in Rome, were far older, dating back to at least the mid second century
BCE, although it expanded greatly following Pompey’s campaign in 62 BCE. In 6 CE the Romans annexed Judaea. Only the Jews in Babylonian remained outside of Roman rule.
Unlike the Greek speaking Hellenized Jews in the west the Jewish
communities in Babylonian and Judea continued the use of Aramaic as a
primary language.
As early as the middle of the 2nd century BCE the Jewish author of the third book of the Oracula Sibyllina addressed the "chosen people," saying: "Every land is full of thee and every sea." The most diverse witnesses, such as Strabo, Philo, Seneca, Luke (the author of the Acts of the Apostles), Cicero, and Josephus, all mention Jewish populations in the cities of the Mediterranean basin. See also History of the Jews in India and History of the Jews in China for pre-Roman (and post-) diasporic populations.
King Agrippa I, in a letter to Caligula,
enumerated among the provinces of the Jewish diaspora almost all the
Hellenized and non-Hellenized countries of the Orient. This enumeration
was far from complete as Italy and Cyrene were not included. The epigraphic
discoveries from year to year augment the number of known Jewish
communities but must be viewed with caution due to the lack of precise
evidence of their numbers. According to the ancient Jewish historian
Josephus, the next most dense Jewish population after the Land of Israel
and Babylonia was in Syria, particularly in Antioch, and Damascus,
where 10,000 to 18,000 Jews were massacred during the great
insurrection. The ancient Jewish philosopher Philo gives the number of
Jewish inhabitants in Egypt as one million, one-eighth of the population. Alexandria
was by far the most important of the Egyptian Jewish communities. The
Jews in the Egyptian diaspora were on a par with their Ptolemaic
counterparts and close ties existed for them with Jerusalem. As in other
Hellenistic diasporas, the Egyptian diaspora was one of choice not of
imposition.
To judge by the accounts of wholesale massacres in 115 BCE, the number of Jewish residents in Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and Mesopotamia was also large. At the commencement of the reign of Caesar Augustus,
there were over 7,000 Jews in Rome (though this is only the number that
is said to have escorted the envoys who came to demand the deposition
of Archelaus;
compare: Bringmann: Klaus: Geschichte der Juden im Altertum, Stuttgart
2005, S. 202. Bringmann talks about 8,000 Jews who lived in the city of
Rome.). Many sources say that the Jews constituted a full one-tenth
(10%) of the population of the ancient city of Rome itself. Finally, if
the sums confiscated by the governor Lucius Valerius Flaccus
in the year 62/61 BCE represented the tax of a didrachma per head for a
single year, it would imply that the Jewish population of Asia Minor numbered 45,000 adult males, for a total of at least 180,000 persons.
Under the Roman Empire
The 13th-century author Bar Hebraeus gave a figure of 6,944,000 Jews in the Roman world. Salo Wittmayer Baron considered the figure convincing.
The figure of seven million within and one million outside the Roman
world in the mid-first century became widely accepted, including by Louis Feldman.
However, contemporary scholars now accept that Bar Hebraeus based his
figure on a census of total Roman citizens and thus, included non-Jews.
The figure of 6,944,000 being recorded in Eusebius' Chronicon. Louis Feldman, previously an active supporter of the figure, now states that he and Baron were mistaken. Philo
gives a figure of one million Jews living in Egypt. John R. Bartlett
rejects Baron's figures entirely, arguing that we have no clue as to the
size of the Jewish demographic in the ancient world. The Romans did not distinguish between Jews inside and outside of the Land of Israel/Judaea. They collected an annual temple tax
from Jews both in and outside of Israel. The revolts in and suppression
of diaspora communities in Egypt, Libya and Crete in 115–117 CE had a
severe impact on the Jewish diaspora.
Roman destruction of Judea
Copy of relief panel from the Arch of Titus in the Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish People, depicting the triumphal parade of Roman soldiers celebrating "Judaea Capta" ("Judaea is enslaved/conquered") and leading newly enslaved Jews, while displaying spoils of the siege of Jerusalem.
It is commonly claimed that the diaspora began with Rome's twofold
crushing of Jewish national aspirations. David Aberbach, for one, has
argued that much of the European Jewish diaspora, by which he means
exile or voluntary migration, originated with the Jewish wars which
occurred between 66 and 135 CE. Martin Goodman
states that it is only after the destruction of Jerusalem that Jews are
found in northern Europe and along the western Mediterranean coast.
This widespread popular belief holds that there was a sudden expulsion
of Jews from Judea/Syria Palaestina and that this was crucial for the
establishment of the diaspora. Israel Bartal contends that Shlomo Sand is incorrect in ascribing this view to most Jewish study scholars, instead arguing that this view is negligible among serious Jewish study scholars.
These scholars argue that the growth of diaspora Jewish communities was
a gradual process that occurred over the centuries, starting with the
Assyrian destruction of Israel, the Babylonian destruction of Judah, the
Roman destruction of Judea, and the subsequent rule of Christians and
Muslims. After the revolt, the Jewish religious and cultural center
shifted to the Babylonian Jewish community and its scholars. For the
generations that followed, the destruction of the Second Temple event
came to represent a fundamental insight about the Jews who had become a
dispossessed and persecuted people for much of their history. Following the Bar Kokhba revolt Jews were reduced to a wholly diaspora people.
Erich S. Gruen
maintains for example that focusing on the destruction of the Temple
misses the point that already before this, the diaspora was well
established. Compulsory dislocation of people cannot explain more than a
fraction of the eventual diaspora.
Avrum Ehrlich also states that already well before the destruction of
the Temple in 70 CE, more Jews lived in the Diaspora than in Israel.
According to Israel Yuval, the Babylonian captivity created a promise
of return in the Jewish consciousness which had the effect of enhancing
the Jewish self-perception of Exile after the destruction of the Second
Temple, albeit their dispersion was due to an array of non-exilic
factors.
Roman rule, which began in 63 BCE, continued until a revolt from
66–70 CE, a Jewish uprising to fight for independence, was eventually
crushed after four years, culminating in the capture of Jerusalem and
the burning and destruction of the Temple, the centre of the national
and religious life of the Jews throughout the world. The Jewish diaspora
at the time of the Temple's destruction, according to Josephus,
was in Parthia (Persia), Babylonia (Iraq), Arabia, as well as some Jews
beyond the Euphrates and in Adiabene (Kurdistan). In Josephus' own
words, he had informed "the remotest Arabians" about the destruction.
Exactly when Roman Anti-Judaism began is a question of scholarly debate, however historian Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson has proposed that the "Crisis under Caligula" (37–41) was the "first open break between Rome and the Jews". Meanwhile, the Kitos War
led to the destruction of Jewish communities in Crete and North Africa,
in 117 CE, and consequently the dispersal of Jews already living
outside of Judea to further reaches of the Empire.
Jerusalem had been left in ruins from the time of Vespasian. Sixty years later, Hadrian, who had been instrumental in the expulsion from Palestine of Marcius Turbo after his bloody repression of Jews in the diaspora in 117 CE., on visiting the area of Iudaea, decided to rebuilt the city in 130 CE, and settle it, circumstantial evidence suggesting it was he who renamed it Ælia Capitolina, with a Roman colonia
and foreign cults. it is commonly held that this was done as an insult
to the Jews and as a means of erasing the land's Jewish identity.
Other argued that this project was expressive of an intention of
establishing administratively and culturally a firm Roman imperial
presence, and thus incorporate the province, now called Syro-Palaestina,
into the Roman world system. These political measures were, according
to Menachem Mor, devoid of any intention to eliminate Judaism,
indeed, the pagan reframing of Jerusalem may have been a strategic move
designed to challenge, rather, the growing threat, pretensions and
influence of converts to Christianity, for whom Jerusalem was likewise a
crucial symbol of their faith. Implementation of these plans led to violent opposition, and triggered a full-scale insurrection with the revolt led by Bar Kochba (132–136 CE), assisted, according to Dio Cassius, by some other peoples, perhaps Arabs who had recently been subjected by Trajan. Jews were forbidden entrance to Jerusalem on pain of death, except for the day of Tisha B'Av. There was a further shift of the center of religious authority from Yavne, as rabbis regrouped in Usha in the western Galilee, where the Mishnah
was composed. This ban struck a blow at Jewish national identity within
Palestine, while the Romans however continued to allow Jews in the
diaspora their distinct national and religious identity throughout the
Empire.
The military defeats of the Jews in Judaea in 70 CE and again in 135
CE, with thousands sold into slavery, meant a drop in Palestine's Jewish
population was balanced by a rise in diaspora numbers. These slaves and
their children were eventually manumitted and joined local free
communities. It has been argued that the archaeological evidence is suggestive of a Roman genocide taking place during the Second revolt. A significant movement of gentiles and Samaritans into villages formerly with a Jewish majority appears to have taken place thereafter.
Post-Roman period Jewish populations
During the Middle Ages, due to increasing geographical dispersion and re-settlement, Jews divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two primary geographical groupings: the Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe, and the Sephardic Jews of Iberia (Spain and Portugal), North Africa and the Middle East.
These groups have parallel histories sharing many cultural similarities
as well as a series of massacres, persecutions and expulsions, such as
the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the expulsion from England in 1290, and the expulsion from Arab countries in 1948–1973.
Although the two branches comprise many unique ethno-cultural practices
and have links to their local host populations (such as Central Europeans for the Ashkenazim and Hispanics and Arabs
for the Sephardim), their shared religion and ancestry, as well as
their continuous communication and population transfers, has been
responsible for a unified sense of cultural and religious Jewish identity between Sephardim and Ashkenazim from the late Roman period to the present.
By 1764 there were about 750,000 Jews in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The worldwide Jewish population (comprising the Middle East and the rest of Europe) was estimated at 1.2 million.
Classic period: Jews and Samaritans
The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים, Yehudim), also known as the Jewish
people, are an ethnoreligious group who mainly trace their origins to
the ancient Israelites of the Levant, as well as other contributory
peoples/populations. The Samaritans consider themselves to be the remaining population of the Northern Kingdom of Israel who were not expelled during the ten tribes exile, and who joined with the incoming Assyrian populations to form the Samaritan
community. Some biblical scholars also consider that parts of the
Judean population had stayed to live in their homes during the exilic period and later joined the returning Israelites from Babylon and formed the Jews of the classic and Hasmonean era.
After the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE Judah (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה Yehuda) became a province of the Persian empire. This status continued into the following Hellenistic period,
when Yehud became a disputed province of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid
Syria. In the early part of the 2nd century BCE, a revolt against the
Seleucids led to the establishment of an independent Jewish kingdom
under the Hasmonean dynasty. The Hasmoneans adopted a deliberate policy of imitating and reconstituting the Davidic kingdom, and as part of this forcibly converted to Judaism their neighbours in the Land of Israel. The conversions included Nabateans (Zabadeans) and Itureans, the peoples of the former Philistine cities, the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites. Attempts were also made to incorporate the Samaritans,
following takeover of Samaria. The success of mass-conversions is
however questionable, as most groups retained their tribal separations
and mostly turned Hellenistic or Christian, with Edomites perhaps being the only exception to merge into the Jewish society under Herodian dynasty and in the following period of Jewish-Roman Wars.
While there are some references to maintaining the tribal separation
among Israelites during the Hasmonean period, the dominant position of
the tribe of Judah as well as nationalistic policies of Hasmoneans to
refer to residents of Hasmonean Judea as Jews practically erased the
tribal distinction, with the exception of the priestly orders of Levites and Kohanim (tribe of Levi).
The Babylonian Jewish community, though maintaining permanent
ties with the Hasmonean and later Herodian kingdoms, evolved into a
separate Jewish community, which during the Talmudic period assembled
its own practices, the Babylonian Talmud, slightly differing from the Jerusalem Talmud. The Babylonian Jewry is considered to be the predecessor of most Mizrahi Jewish communities.
Middle Ages
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews is a general category of Jewish populations who immigrated to what is now Germany and northeastern France during the Middle Ages and until modern times used to adhere to the Yiddish culture and the Ashkenazi prayer style. There is evidence that groups of Jews had immigrated to Germania during the Roman Era;
they were probably merchants who followed the Roman Legions during
their conquests. To a larger degree, modern Ashkenazi Jews are the
descendants of Jews who migrated into northern France and lower Germany
around 800–1000 CE, later migrating into Eastern Europe, as well as
local Europeans who intermixed with Jews. Many Ashkenazi Jews are also
descended from Sephardi Jews exiled from Spain, first during Islamic persecutions (11th-12th centuries) and later during Christian reconquests (13th-15th centuries) and the Spanish Inquisition
(15th-16th centuries). In this sense, the modern term "Ashkenazi"
refers to a subset of Jewish religious practices, adopted over time,
rather than to a strict ethno-geographic division, which became erased
over time.
In 2006, a study by Doron Behar and Karl Skorecki of the Technion
and Ramban Medical Center in Haifa, Israel demonstrated that the vast
majority of Ashkenazi Jews, both men and women, have Middle Eastern
ancestry.
According to Nicholas Wades' 2010 Autosomal study Ashkenazi Jews share a
common ancestry with other Jewish groups and Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews have roughly 30% European ancestry with the rest being Middle Eastern.
According to Hammer, the Ashkenazi population expanded through a series
of bottlenecks—events that squeeze a population down to small
numbers—perhaps as it migrated from the Middle East after the
destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, to Italy, reaching the Rhine Valley in the 10th century.
David Goldstein, a Duke University geneticist and director of the
Duke Center for Human Genome Variation, has said that the work of the
Technion and Ramban team served only to confirm that genetic drift
played a major role in shaping Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA),
which is inherited in a matrilineal manner. Goldstein argues that the
Technion and Ramban mtDNA studies fail to actually establish a
statistically significant link between modern Jews and historic Middle
Eastern populations. This differs from the patrilineal case, where
Goldstein said there is no doubt of a Middle Eastern origin.
In June 2010, Behar et al. "shows that most Jewish samples form a
remarkably tight subcluster with common genetic origin, that overlies
Druze and Cypriot samples but not samples from other Levantine
populations or paired diaspora host populations. In contrast, Ethiopian
Jews (Beta Israel) and Indian Jews (Bene Israel and Cochini)
cluster with neighboring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and
western India, respectively, despite a clear paternal link between the
Bene Israel and the Levant.".
"The most parsimonious explanation for these observations is a common
genetic origin, which is consistent with an historical formulation of
the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite
residents of the Levant." In conclusion the authors are stating that the
genetic results are concordant "with the dispersion of the people of
ancient Israel throughout the Old World". Regarding the samples he used
Behar points out that "Our conclusion favoring common ancestry (of
Jewish people) over recent admixture is further supported by the fact
that our sample contains individuals that are known not to be admixed in
the most recent one or two generations."
A 2013 study of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA by Costa et al.,
reached the conclusion that the four major female founders and most of
the minor female founders had ancestry in prehistoric Europe, rather
than the Near East or Caucasus. According to the study these findings
'point to a significant role for the conversion of women in the
formation of Ashkenazi communities".
A study by Haber, et al., (2013) noted that while previous
studies of the Levant, which had focused mainly on diaspora Jewish
populations, showed that the "Jews form a distinctive cluster in the
Middle East", these studies did not make clear "whether the factors
driving this structure would also involve other groups in the Levant".
The authors found strong evidence that modern Levant populations descend
from two major apparent ancestral populations. One set of genetic
characteristics which is shared with modern-day Europeans and Central
Asians is most prominent in the Levant amongst "Lebanese, Armenians,
Cypriots, Druze and Jews, as well as Turks, Iranians and Caucasian
populations". The second set of inherited genetic characteristics is
shared with populations in other parts of the Middle East as well as
some African populations. Levant populations in this category today
include "Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians, as well as North Africans,
Ethiopians, Saudis, and Bedouins". Concerning this second component of
ancestry, the authors remark that while it correlates with "the pattern
of the Islamic expansion", and that "a pre-Islamic expansion Levant was
more genetically similar to Europeans than to Middle Easterners," they
also say that "its presence in Lebanese Christians, Sephardi and
Ashkenazi Jews, Cypriots and Armenians might suggest that its spread to
the Levant could also represent an earlier event". The authors also
found a strong correlation between religion and apparent ancestry in the
Levant:
all Jews (Sephardi and Ashkenazi) cluster in one branch; Druze from Mount Lebanon and Druze from Mount Carmel are depicted on a private branch; and Lebanese Christians form a private branch with the Christian populations of Armenia and Cyprus placing the Lebanese Muslims as an outer group. The predominantly Muslim populations of Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians cluster on branches with other Muslim populations as distant as Morocco and Yemen.
Another 2013 study, made by Doron M. Behar of the Rambam Health Care
Campus in Israel and others, suggests that: "Cumulatively, our analyses
point strongly to ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews primarily from European and
Middle Eastern populations and not from populations in or near the
Caucasus region. The combined set of approaches suggests that the
observations of Ashkenazi proximity to European and Middle Eastern
populations in population structure analyses reflect actual genetic
proximity of Ashkenazi Jews to populations with predominantly European
and Middle Eastern ancestry components, and lack of visible
introgression from the region of the Khazar Khaganate—particularly among
the northern Volga and North Caucasus populations—into the Ashkenazi
community."
Sephardic Jews
Sephardi Jews
are Jews whose ancestors lived in Spain or Portugal. Some 300,000 Jews
resided in Spain before the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century,
when the Reyes Católicos
reconquered Spain from the Arabs and ordered the Jews to convert to
Catholicism, leave the country or face execution without trial. Those
who chose not to convert, between 40,000 and 100,000, were expelled from
Spain in 1492 in the wake of the Alhambra decree.
Sephardic Jews subsequently migrated to North Africa (Maghreb),
Christian Europe (Netherlands, Britain, France and Poland), throughout
the Ottoman Empire and even the newly discovered Latin America.
In the Ottoman Empire, the Sephardim mostly settled in the European
portion of the Empire, and mainly in the major cities such as: Istanbul, Selânik and Bursa.
Selânik, which is today known as Thessaloniki and found in modern-day
Greece, had a large and flourishing Sephardic community as was the
community of Maltese Jews in Malta.
A small number of Sephardic refugees who fled via the Netherlands as Marranos
settled in Hamburg and Altona Germany in the early 16th century,
eventually appropriating Ashkenazic Jewish rituals into their religious
practice. One famous figure from the Sephardic Ashkenazic population is Glückel of Hameln.
Some relocated to the United States, establishing the country's first
organized community of Jews and erecting the United States' first
synagogue. Nevertheless, the majority of Sephardim remained in Spain and
Portugal as Conversos,
which would also be the fate for those who had migrated to Spanish and
Portuguese ruled Latin America. Sephardic Jews evolved to form most of
North Africa's Jewish communities of the modern era, as well as the bulk
of the Turkish, Syrian, Galilean and Jerusalemite Jews of the Ottoman
period.
Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, largely originating from the Babylonian Jewry
of the classic period. The term Mizrahi is used in Israel in the
language of politics, media and some social scientists for Jews from the
Arab world and adjacent, primarily Muslim-majority countries. The
definition of Mizrahi includes the modern Iraqi Jews, Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, Persian Jews, Afghan Jews, Bukharian Jews, Kurdish Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews.
Some also include the North-African Sephardic communities and Yemenite
Jews under the definition of Mizrahi, but do that from rather political
generalization than ancestral reasons.
Yemenite Jews
Temanim are Jews who were living in Yemen
prior to immigrating to Ottoman Palestine and Israel. Their geographic
and social isolation from the rest of the Jewish community over the
course of many centuries allowed them to develop a liturgy and set of
practices that are significantly distinct from those of other Oriental
Jewish groups; they themselves comprise three distinctly different
groups, though the distinction is one of religious law and liturgy
rather than of ethnicity. Traditionally the genesis of the Yemenite
Jewish community came after the Babylonian exile, though the community
most probably emerged during Roman times, and it was significantly
reinforced during the reign of Dhu Nuwas
in the 6th century CE and during later Muslim conquests in the 7th
century CE, which drove the Arab Jewish tribes out of central Arabia.
Karaite Jews
Karaim are Jews who used to live mostly in Egypt, Iraq, and Crimea during the Middle Ages. They are distinguished by the form of Judaism which they observe. Rabbinic Jews
of varying communities have affiliated with the Karaite community
throughout the millennia. As such, Karaite Jews are less an ethnic
division, than they are members of a particular branch of Judaism. Karaite Judaism recognizes the Tanakh
as the single religious authority for the Jewish people. Linguistic
principles and contextual exegesis are used in arriving at the correct
meaning of the Torah. Karaite Jews strive to adhere to the plain or most
obvious understanding of the text when interpreting the Tanakh. By
contrast, Rabbinical Judaism regards an Oral Law (codified and recorded in the Mishnah and the Talmud) as being equally binding on Jews, and mandated by God.
In Rabbinical Judaism, the Oral Law forms the basis of religion,
morality, and Jewish life. Karaite Jews rely on the use of sound
reasoning and the application of linguistic tools to determine the
correct meaning of the Tanakh; while Rabbinical Judaism looks towards
the Oral law codified in the Talmud, to provide the Jewish community
with an accurate understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.
The differences between Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism go back more than a thousand years. Rabbinical Judaism originates from the Pharisees of the Second Temple period. Karaite Judaism may have its origins among the Sadducees
of the same era. Karaite Jews hold the entire Hebrew Bible to be a
religious authority. As such, the vast majority of Karaites believe in
the resurrection of the dead.
Karaite Jews are widely regarded as being halachically Jewish by the
Orthodox Rabbinate. Similarly, members of the rabbinic community are
considered Jews by the Moetzet Hakhamim, if they are patrilineally
Jewish.
Modern era
Israeli Jews
Jews of Israel comprise an increasingly mixed wide range of Jewish communities making aliyah from Europe, North Africa, and elsewhere in the Middle East. While a significant portion of Israeli Jews
still retain memories of their Sephardic, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi
origins, mixed Jewish marriages among the communities are very common.
There are also smaller groups of Yemenite Jews, Indian Jews and others,
who still retain a semi-separate communal life. There are also
approximately 50,000 adherents of Karaite Judaism,
most of whom live in Israel, but their exact numbers are not known,
because most Karaites have not participated in any religious censuses.
The Beta Israel, though somewhat disputed as the descendants of the ancient Israelites, are widely recognized in Israel as Ethiopian Jews.
American Jews
European Jewish immigrants arriving in New York
The ancestry of most American Jews goes back to Ashkenazi Jewish
communities that immigrated to the US in the course of the 19th and
20th centuries, as well as more recent influxes of Persian and other
Mizrahi Jewish immigrants. The American Jewish community is considered
to contain the highest percentage of mixed marriages between Jews and
non-Jews, resulting in both increased assimilation and a significant
influx of non-Jews becoming identified as Jews. The most widespread
practice in the U.S is Reform Judaism,
which doesn't require or see the Jews as direct descendants of the
ethnic Jews or Biblical Israelites, but rather adherents of the Jewish
faith in its Reformist version, in contrast to Orthodox Judaism,
the mainstream practice in Israel, which considers the Jews as a closed
ethnoreligious community with very strict procedures for conversion.
French Jews
Expulsion of French Jews, 1182
The Jews of modern France number around 400,000 persons, largely
descendants of North African communities, some of which were Sephardic
communities that had come from Spain and Portugal—others were Arab and Berber Jews
from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, who were already living in North
Africa before the Jewish exodus from the Iberian Peninsula—and to a
smaller degree members of the Ashkenazi Jewish communities, who survived
WWII and the Holocaust.
Mountain Jews
Mountain Jews are Jews from the eastern and northern slopes of the Caucasus, mainly Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Dagestan. They are the descendants of Persian Jews from Iran.
Bukharan Jews
Bukharan Jews
are an ethnic group from Central Asia who historically practised
Judaism and spoke Bukhori, a dialect of the Tajik-Persian language.
Kaifeng Jews
The Kaifeng Jews are members of a small Jewish community in Kaifeng, in the Henan province of China who have assimilated into Chinese society while preserving some Jewish traditions and customs.
Cochin Jews
Cochin Jews also called Malabar Jews, are the oldest group of Jews in India, with possible roots that are claimed to date back to the time of King Solomon. The Cochin Jews settled in the Kingdom of Cochin in South India, now part of the state of Kerala. As early as the 12th century, mention is made of the Black Jews in southern India. The Jewish traveler, Benjamin of Tudela, speaking of Kollam (Quilon) on the Malabar Coast, writes in his Itinerary:
"...throughout the island, including all the towns thereof, live
several thousand Israelites. The inhabitants are all black, and the Jews
also. The latter are good and benevolent. They know the law of Moses and the prophets, and to a small extent the Talmud and Halacha." These people later became known as the Malabari Jews. They built synagogues in Kerala beginning in the 12th and 13th centuries. They are known to have developed Judeo-Malayalam, a dialect of the Malayalam language.
Paradesi Jews
Paradesi Jews are mainly the descendents of Sephardic
Jews who originally immigrated to India from Sepharad (Spain and
Portugal) during the 15th and 16th centuries in order to flee forced
conversion or persecution in the wake of the Alhambra Decree
which expelled the Jews from Spain. They are sometimes referred to as
White Jews, although that usage is generally considered pejorative or
discriminatory and it is instead used to refer to relatively recent
Jewish immigrants (end of the 15th century onwards), who are
predominantly Sephardim.
The Paradesi Jews of Cochin are a community of Sephardic Jews whose ancestors settled among the larger Cochin Jewish community located in Kerala, a coastal southern state of India.
The Paradesi Jews of Madras
traded in diamonds, precious stones and corals, they had very good
relations with the rulers of Golkonda, they maintained trade connections
with Europe, and their language skills were useful. Although the
Sephardim spoke Ladino (i.e. Spanish or Judeo-Spanish), in India they learned to speak Tamil and Judeo-Malayalam from the Malabar Jews.
Georgian Jews
The Georgian Jews
are considered ethnically and culturally distinct from neighboring
Mountain Jews. They were also traditionally a highly separate group from
the Ashkenazi Jews in Georgia.
Krymchaks
The Krymchaks are Jewish ethno-religious communities of Crimea derived from Turkic-speaking adherents of Orthodox Judaism.
Anusim
During the history of the Jewish diaspora, Jews who lived in
Christian Europe were often attacked by the local Christian population,
and they were often forced to convert to Christianity. Many, known as "Anusim"
('forced-ones'), continued practicing Judaism in secret while living
outwardly as ordinary Christians. The best known Anusim communities were
the Jews of Spain and the Jews of Portugal, although they existed throughout Europe. In the centuries since the rise of Islam, many Jews living in the Muslim world were forced to convert to Islam, such as the Mashhadi Jews of Persia, who continued to practice Judaism in secret and eventually moved to Israel. Many of the Anusim's descendants left Judaism over the years. The results of a genetic study of the population of the Iberian Peninsula
released in December 2008 "attest to a high level of religious
conversion (whether voluntary or enforced) driven by historical episodes
of religious intolerance, which ultimately led to the integration of
the Anusim's descendants.
Modern Samaritans
The Samaritans,
who comprised a comparatively large group in classical times, now
number 745 people, and today they live in two communities in Israel and the West Bank, and they still regard themselves as descendants of the tribes of Ephraim (named by them as Aphrime) and Manasseh (named by them as Manatch). Samaritans adhere to a version of the Torah known as the Samaritan Pentateuch, which differs in some respects from the Masoretic text, sometimes in important ways, and less so from the Septuagint.
The Samaritans consider themselves Bnei Yisrael ("Children of Israel" or "Israelites"), but they do not regard themselves as Yehudim
(Jews). They view the term "Jews" as a designation for followers of
Judaism, which they assert is a related but an altered and amended
religion which was brought back by the exiled Israelite returnees, and
is therefore not the true religion of the ancient Israelites, which
according to them is Samaritanism.
Genetic studies
Y DNA
studies tend to imply a small number of founders in an old population
whose members parted and followed different migration paths. In most Jewish populations, these male line ancestors appear to have been mainly Middle Eastern.
For example, Ashkenazi Jews share more common paternal lineages with
other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than with non-Jewish populations
in areas where Jews lived in Eastern Europe, Germany and the French Rhine Valley. This is consistent with Jewish traditions which place most Jewish paternal origins in the region of the Middle East.
Conversely, the maternal lineages of Jewish populations, studied by looking at mitochondrial DNA, are generally more heterogeneous. Scholars such as Harry Ostrer and Raphael Falk
believe this indicates that many Jewish males found new mates from
European and other communities in the places where they migrated in the
diaspora after fleeing ancient Israel.
In contrast, Behar has found evidence that about 40% of Ashkenazi Jews
originate maternally from just four female founders, who were of Middle
Eastern origin. The populations of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish
communities "showed no evidence for a narrow founder effect."
Subsequent studies carried out by Feder et al. confirmed the large
portion of the non-local maternal origin among Ashkenazi Jews.
Reflecting on their findings related to the maternal origin of Ashkenazi
Jews, the authors conclude "Clearly, the differences between Jews and
non-Jews are far larger than those observed among the Jewish
communities. Hence, differences between the Jewish communities can be
overlooked when non-Jews are included in the comparisons."
Studies of autosomal DNA,
which look at the entire DNA mixture, have become increasingly
important as the technology develops. They show that Jewish populations
have tended to form relatively closely related groups in independent
communities, with most people in a community sharing significant
ancestry in common. For Jewish populations of the diaspora, the genetic composition of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi
Jewish populations show a predominant amount of shared Middle Eastern
ancestry. According to Behar, the most parsimonious explanation for this
shared Middle Eastern ancestry is that it is "consistent with the
historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant" and "the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout the Old World". North African, Italian and others of Iberian
origin show variable frequencies of admixture with non-Jewish
historical host populations among the maternal lines. In the case of
Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews (in particular Moroccan Jews), who are closely related, the source of non-Jewish admixture is mainly southern European, while Mizrahi Jews show evidence of admixture with other Middle Eastern populations and Sub-Saharan Africans. Behar et al. have remarked on an especially close relationship of Ashkenazi Jews and modern Italians.
Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the north of
the Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks, and Armenians) than to Arabs.
The studies also show that persons of Sephardic Bnei Anusim origin (those who are descendants of the "anusim" who were forced to convert to Catholicism) throughout today's Iberia (Spain and Portugal) and Ibero-America (Hispanic America and Brazil),
estimated that up to 19.8% of the modern population of Iberia and at
least 10% of the modern population of Ibero-America, has Sephardic Jewish ancestry within the last few centuries. The Bene Israel and the Cochin Jews of India, Beta Israel of Ethiopia, and a portion of the Lemba people of Southern Africa,
meanwhile, despite more closely resembling the local populations of
their native countries, also have some more remote ancient Jewish
descent.
Zionist "Negation of the Diaspora"
According to Eliezer Schweid, the rejection of life in the diaspora is a central assumption in all currents of Zionism.
Underlying this attitude was the feeling that the diaspora restricted
the full growth of Jewish national life. For instance the poet Hayim Nahman Bialik wrote:
And my heart weeps for my unhappy people ...
How burned, how blasted must our portion be,
If seed like this is withered in its soil. ...
According to Schweid, Bialik meant that the "seed" was the potential
of the Jewish people. Preserved in the diaspora, this seed could only
give rise to deformed results; however, once conditions changed the seed
could still provide a plentiful harvest.
In this matter Sternhell distinguishes two schools of thought in Zionism. One was the liberal or utilitarian school of Theodor Herzl and Max Nordau. Especially after the Dreyfus Affair, they held that anti-Semitism would never disappear and they saw Zionism as a rational solution for Jewish individuals.
The other was the organic nationalist school. It was prevalent
among the Zionist olim and they saw the movement as a project to rescue
the Jewish nation rather than as a project to only rescue Jewish
individuals. For them, Zionism was the "Rebirth of the Nation".
Contrary to the negation of the diaspora view, the acceptance of
Jewish communities outside Israel was postulated by those, like Simon Rawidowicz
(also a Zionist), who viewed the Jews as a culture which had evolved
into a new 'worldly' entity that had no reason to seek an exclusive
return, either physical, emotional or spiritual to its indigenous lands,
and who believed that the Jews could remain one people even outside
Israel.
It was argued that the dynamics of the diaspora which were
affected by persecution, numerous subsequent exiles, as well as by
political and economic conditions, had created a new Jewish awareness of
the World, and a new awareness of the Jews by the World.
In effect there are many Zionists today who do not embrace the "Negation of the Diaspora" as any kind of absolute,
and who see no conflict—and even a beneficial and worldly and positive
symbiosis—between a diaspora of healthy self-respecting Jewish
communities (such as those which have evolved in the United States,
Canada, and several other Western countries) and a vital and evolving
Israeli society and state of Israel.
Mystical explanation
Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov (Bnei Yissaschar, Chodesh Kislev, 2:25)
explains that each exile was characterized by a different negative
aspect:
- The Babylonian exile was characterized by physical suffering and oppression. The Babylonians were lopsided towards the Sefirah of Gevurah, strength and bodily might.
- The Persian exile was one of emotional temptation. The Persians were hedonists who declared that the purpose of life is to pursue indulgence and lusts—"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we may die." They were lopsided towards the quality of Chesed, attraction and kindness (albeit to the self).
- Hellenistic civilization was highly cultured and sophisticated. Although the Greeks had a strong sense of aesthetics, they were highly pompous, and they viewed aesthetics as an end in itself. They were excessively attached to the quality of Tiferet, beauty. This was also related to an appreciation of the intellect's transcendence over the body, which reveals the beauty of the spirit.
- The exile of Edom began with Rome, whose culture lacked any clearly defined philosophy. Rather, it adopted the philosophies of all the preceding cultures, causing Roman culture to be in a constant flux. Although the Roman Empire has fallen, the Jews are still in the exile of Edom, and indeed, one can find this phenomenon of ever-changing trends dominating modern western society. The Romans and the various nations who inherited their rule (e.g., the Holy Roman Empire, the Europeans, the Americans) are lopsided towards Malchut, sovereignty, the lowest Sefirah, which can be received from any of the others, and can act as a medium for them.
The Jewish fast day of Tisha B'Av commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem and the subsequent exile of the Jews from the Land of Israel.
The Jewish tradition maintains that the Roman exile would be the last,
and that after the people of Israel returned to their land, they would
never be exiled again. This statement is based on the verse: "(You
paying for) Your sin is over daughter of Zion, he will not exile you (any)more" ["תם עוונך בת ציון, לא יוסף להגלותך"].
In Christian theology
According to Aharon Oppenheimer,
the concept of the exile beginning after the destruction of the Second
Jewish Temple was developed by early Christians, who saw the destruction
of the Temple as a punishment for Jewish deicide, and by extension as an affirmation of the Christians as God's new chosen people,
or the "New Israel". In actually, in the period that followed the
destruction of the Temple, Jews had many freedoms. The people of Israel
had religious, economic and cultural autonomy, and the Bar Kochba revolt demonstrated the unity of Israel and their political-military power at that time. Therefore, according to Aharon Oppenheimer, it should be noted that the Jewish exile only started after the Bar Kochba revolt,
which devastated the Jewish community of Judea. Despite popular
conception, Jews have had a continuous presence in the Land of Israel,
despite the exile of the majority of Judeans. The Jerusalem Talmud was
signed in the fourth century, hundreds of years after the revolt.
Moreover, many Jews remained in Israel even centuries later, including
during the Byzantine period (many remnants of synagogues are found from
this period). Jews have been a majority or a significant plurality in Jerusalem in the millennia since their exile with few exceptions (including the period following the Siege of Jerusalem (1099)
by the Crusaders and the 18 years of Jordanian occupation of eastern
Jerusalem, in which Jerusalem's historic Jewish quarter was expelled).
Today
As of 2010 the largest numbers of Jews live in Israel (5,703,700), United States (5,275,000), France (483,500), Canada (375,000), the United Kingdom (269,000-292,000), Russia (205,000-1.5 million), Argentina (182,300), Germany (119,000) and Brazil (107,329).
These numbers reflect the "core" Jewish population, defined as being
"not inclusive of non-Jewish members of Jewish households, persons of
Jewish ancestry who profess another monotheistic religion, other
non-Jews of Jewish ancestry, and other non-Jews who may be interested in
Jewish matters." Significant Jewish populations also remain in Middle
Eastern and North African countries outside of Israel, particularly
Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen. In general, these populations
are shrinking due to low growth rates and high rates of emigration
(particularly since the 1960s).
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast continues to be an Autonomous Oblast of Russia. The Chief Rabbi of Birobidzhan, Mordechai Scheiner, says there are 4,000 Jews in the capital city. Governor Nikolay Mikhaylovich Volkov has stated that he intends to, "support every valuable initiative maintained by our local Jewish organizations." The Birobidzhan Synagogue opened in 2004 on the 70th anniversary of the region's founding in 1934. An estimated 75,000 Jews live in the vast Siberia region.
Metropolitan areas with the largest Jewish populations are listed below, though one source at jewishtemples.org,
states that "It is difficult to come up with exact population figures
on a country by country basis, let alone city by city around the world.
Figures for Russia and other CIS countries are but educated guesses."
The source cited here, the 2010 World Jewish Population Survey,
also notes that "Unlike our estimates of Jewish populations in
individual countries, the data reported here on urban Jewish populations
do not fully adjust for possible double counting due to multiple
residences. The differences in the United States may be quite
significant, in the range of tens of thousands, involving both major and
minor metropolitan areas."
- Gush Dan (Tel Aviv and surroundings) – Israel – 2,979,900
- New York City, New York – U.S. – 2,007,850
- Jerusalem – 705,000
- Los Angeles, California – U.S. – 684,950
- Haifa – Israel – 671,400
- Miami, Florida – U.S. – 485,850
- Be'er Sheva – Israel – 367,600
- San Francisco, California – U.S. – 345,700
- Paris – France – 284,000
- Chicago, Illinois – U.S. – 270,500
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – U.S. – 263,800
- Boston, Massachusetts – U.S. – 229,100
- Washington, D.C. – U.S. – 215,600
- London – United Kingdom – 195,000
- Toronto – Canada – 180,000
- Atlanta, Georgia – U.S. – 119,800
- Moscow – Russia – 95,000
- San Diego, California – U.S. – 89,000
- Cleveland, Ohio – U.S. – 87,000
- Phoenix, Arizona – U.S. – 82,900
- Montreal – Canada – 80,000
- São Paulo – Brazil – 75,000
