Diaspora

The term diaspora (in Ancient Greek, διασπορά – "a scattering or sowing of seeds") refers to any people or ethnic population who are forced or induced to leave their traditional homelands, the dispersal of such people, and the ensuing developments in their culture.

Jewish diaspora

The Jewish diaspora(Hebrew: Tefutzah, "scattered," or Galut גלות, "exile"), was the result of the expulsion of the Jews from the land of Israel, voluntary migrations, and, to a lesser extent, religious conversion to Judaism in lands other than Israel. The diaspora is commonly accepted to have begun with the conquests of the ancient Jewish kingdoms from the eighth to the sixth century B.C.E., when the Israelites were forcibly exiled first from the northern kingdom of Israel to Assyria and then from the southern kingdom of Judah to Babylon. Even after the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem and the return of many Jews from Babylonia, Jews continued to settle elsewhere in the during the periods of the Greek and Roman empires. Major centers of Jewish culture emerged in such places as Alexandria, Egypt and Asia Minor, and Baylonia as well as Jerusalem and its environs.

A second major expulsions of Jews from the Holy Land took place as a result of destruction of the Second Temple in the wake of the Jewish Revolt of 70 C.E. and the [[Bar Kokhba}} revolt, of the mid second century during the Roman occupation of Judea.

Pre-Roman Diaspora

In 722 B.C.E., the Assyrians under Shalmaneser V conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and many Israelites were deported to the Assyrian province of Khorasan. Since then, for over 2,700 years, the Persian Jews have lived in the territories of today's Iran.

After the overthrow in of the kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon beginning in 588 B.C.E. and the subsequent deportation of a considerable portion of its inhabitants to Mesopotamia, the Jews had two principal cultural centers: Babylonia and the land of Israel.

Although a majority of the Jewish people, especially the wealthy families, were to be found in Babylonia, the existence it led there, under the successive rules of the Achaemenids, the Seleucids, the Parthians, and the Sassanians, was obscure and devoid of political influence. The more pious elements among the exiles returned to Judaea during the reign of the Achaemenids. There, with the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem as their center, they reorganized themselves into a community animated by a remarkable religious ardor and a tenacious attachment to the Torah, which thenceforth constituted the focus of its identity.

After numerous vicissitudes, and especially owing to internal dissensions in the Seleucid dynasty and to the interested support of the Romans, the cause of Jewish independence temporarily triumphed. Under the Hasmonean princes, who were at first high priests and then also kings, the Jewish state prospered and even annexed several territories. Soon, however, discord in the royal family and the growing disaffection of the pious made the Jewish nation an easy prey to the ambition of the Romans, the successors of the Seleucids. In 63 B.C.E., Pompey invaded Jerusalem, and Gabinius subjected the Jewish people to tribute.

As early as the middle of the second century B.C.E., the Jewish author of the third book of the Sibylline oracles, addressing the "chosen people," says: "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.

Alexandria was by far the most important of the diasporan Jewish communities, with the Jews in Philo's time (d. 50 C.E.). He gives the number of Jewish inhabitants in Egypt as 1 million one-eighth of the population. The number of Jewish residents in Cyprus and in Mesopotamia was also large. Based on tax records, it has been estimated that there were about 180,00 Jews in Asia Minor in the year 62/61 B.C.E. . In the city of Rome, at the commencement of the reign of Caesar Augustus, there were well over 7,000 Jews, since this is the number that reportedly escorted the envoys who came to demand the deposition of Herod Archelaus (reigned 4 B.C.E. to 6 C.E.).

King Agrippa I (d. 44 C.E.), in a letter to Caligula, enumerates communities of Jewish diaspora in almost all the Hellenized and non-Hellenized countries of the Orient. Except for the Land of Israel and Babylonia, the Jewish population was densest in Syria, according the first century Jewish historian Josephus, particularly in Antioch and Damascus. Some 10,000-18,000 Jews were reportedly massacred at Damascus during the Jewish Revolt of 70 C.E.

Post-Roman diaspora

In Rome the Arch of Titus still stands, depicting the enslaved Judeans and objects from the Temple being brought to Rome.

The complete destruction of Jerusalem ins 70 C.E., followed by the settlement of several Greek and Roman colonies in Judea, indicated the express intention of the Roman government to prevent the political regeneration of the Jewish nation. Jews sought to establishe commonwealths in Cyrene, Cyprus, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. These efforts suppressed by Trajan during the persecutions of 115-117). The attempt of the Jews of Palestine to regain their independence during the Bar Kochba revolt (132-135) was even more brutally crushed.

From this time on, the Jews of Palestine—reduced in numbers, destitute, and crushed—lost their preponderance in the Jewish world. Jerusalem, renamed as "Ælia Capitolina," had become a Roman colony, a city entirely pagan. Jews were forbidden entrance, under pain of death, and some, like Rabbi Akiva, suffered martyrdom as a result. Nevertheless, in the sixth century, 43 Jewish communities in Palestine, scattered along the coast, in the Negev, east of the Jordan, and in villages in the Galilee region and in the Jordan River valley.

Expulsion of the Jews in the Reign of the Emperor Hadrian (135 C.E.): How Heraclius turned the Jews out of Jerusalem. (Facsimile of a Miniature in the Histoire des Empereurs, Manuscript of the 15th century, in the Library of the Arsenal, Paris.)

The destruction of Judea exerted a decisive influence upon the dispersion of the Jewish people throughout the world, as the center of worship shifted from the temple priesthood to rabbinic tradition in the local synagoues.

Some Jews were sold as slaves or transported as captives after the fall of Judea. Others joined the existing diaspora, while still others remained in Judea. Jewish communities were thereby largely expelled from Judea and sent to various Roman provinces in the Middle East, Europe and North Africa. Jews in the diaspora, they were generally accepted into the Roman Empire, but with the rise of Christianity, restrictions against them grew. With the advent of Islam, Jews generally fared better in Muslim lands that Christian ones. The center of Jewish intellectual life thus shifted from Palestine to Babylonia, which had already been development a strong academic tradition at the great yeshivas of Sura and Pumpedita. These centered developed the Babylonian Talmud, which came to be seen as more authoritative than its Palestinian counterpart.

During the Middle Ages, Jews gradually moved into Europe, settling first in Muslim Spain and later the Christian areas of the Rhineland. The Jewish diaspora thus divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two groupings: the Ashkenazi (Northern and Eastern European Jews) and Sephardic Jews (Spanish and Middle Eastern Jews). The Christian reconquest of Spain led ultimately to the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian peninsula in the late fifteenth century. By 1764, there were about 750,000 Jews in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The worldwide Jewish population was estimated at 1.2 million.

The "Negation of the Diaspora" by Zionism

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 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, which they preserved in the Diaspora, where it could only give rise to deformed results. However once conditions changed the “seed” could still give a plentiful harvest.

In this matter Sternhell distinguishes two schools of thought in Zionism. One was the liberal or utilitarian school of Herzl and Nordau. Especially after the Dreyfus Affair they held that anti-Semitism would never disappear, and saw Zionism as a rational solution for Jewish individuals. The other was the organic nationalist school. It was prevalent among the Zionists in Palestine, and saw Zionism as a project to rescue the Jewish nation and not as a project to rescue Jewish individuals. Zionism was a matter of the "Rebirth of the Nation".

The Diaspora in Contemporary Jewish life

Numerous subsequent exiles and persecution, as well as political and economic conditions and opportunities, affected the numbers and dynamics of Jewish diaspora.

As of 2006, the largest number of Jews lives in Israel (5,309,000), United States (5,275,000), France (492,000), Canada (372,000), and the United Kingdom (297,000).

The Jewish Autonomous Oblast continues to be an Autonomous Oblast of Russia. [1] The Chief Rabbi of Birobidzhan, Mordechai Scheiner, says there are 4,000 Jews in the capital city. [2] Governor Nikolay Mikhaylovich Volkov has stated that he intends to, "support every valuable initiative maintained by our local Jewish organizations." [3] The Birobidzhan Synagogue opened in 2004 on the 70th anniversary of the region's founding in 1934. [4] An estimated 70,000 Jews live in the vast Siberia region.

Metropolitan areas with the largest Jewish populations:

1. Gush Dan (Tel Aviv and surroundings) - Israel - 2,900,000.
2. New York - U.S. - 1,970,000.
3. Haifa - Israel - 800,000.
4. Los Angeles - U.S. - 621,000.
5. Jerusalem - Israel - 600,000.
6. Miami - U.S. - 514,000.
7. Paris - France - 310,000.
8. Philadelphia - U.S. - 276,000.
9. Chicago - U.S. - 261,000.
10. Boston - U.S. - 227,000.
11. San Francisco - U.S. - 210,000.
12. London - United Kingdom - 195,000.
13. Buenos Aires - Argentina - 175,000.
14. Toronto - Canada - 175,000.
15. Washington, D.C. - U.S. - 165,000.
16. Beer Sheva - Israel - 165,000.
17. Moscow - Russia - 108,000.
18. Baltimore - U.S. - 95,000.
19. Montreal - Canada - 95,000.
20. Detroit - U.S. - 94,000.

Footnotes

• Immigration to Israel from North America hits 22-Year High ([5])

See also

• Timeline of Jewish history
• Jewish history
• Jewish population
• Jews by country
• History of Israel
• Jewish refugees
• Antisemitism and History of antisemitism
• Christianity and antisemitism
• Timeline of Jewish Polish history
• Islam and antisemitism
• History of the Jews under Muslim rule
• Jewish exodus from Arab lands
• Arabs and antisemitism

External links

• Jewish Diaspora at the JewishEncyclopedia.com
• Livius.org: The Jewish diaspora in Rome
• How ALL ISRAEL will be saved, about Paul's apostleship to the diaspora (including the Gentiles)

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Origins

Initially the term diaspora meant "the scattered" and was used by the Ancient Greeks to refer to citizens of a dominant city-state who emigrated to a conquered land with the purpose of colonization, to assimilate the territory into the empire. The current meaning started to develop from this original sense when the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the word "diaspora" there being used to refer to the population of Jews exiled from Judea in 586 B.C.E. by the Babylonians, and from Jerusalem in 136 C.E. by the Roman Empire. Probably the earliest use of the word in reference specifically to Jewish exiles is in the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy 28:25, "thou shalt be a dispersion in all kingdoms of the earth."

It subsequently came to be used to refer interchangeably to the historical movements of the dispersed ethnic population of Israel, the cultural development of that population, or the population itself. The term was assimilated from Greek into English in the mid 20th century, and an academic field of diaspora studies has been established relating to the wider modern meaning of 'diaspora'.

Sometimes refugees of other origins or ethnicities may be may be called a diaspora, but the two terms are far from synonymous. Long term expatriates in significant numbers from one particular country may also be referred to as a diaspora. In all cases, the term diaspora carries a sense of displacement; that is, the population so described find themselves for whatever reason separated from their national territory; and usually they have a hope, or at least a desire, to return to their homeland at some point, if the "homeland" still exists in any meaningful sense.

History contains numerous diaspora-like events. The Migration Period relocations, which included several phases, are just one set of many. The first phase Migration Period displacement from between 300 C.E. and 500 C.E. included relocation of the Goths, (Ostrogoths, Visigoths), Vandals, Franks, various other Germanic tribes, (Burgundians, Langobards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Suebi, Alemanni, Varangians), Alans and numerous Slavic tribes. The second phase, between 500 C.E. and 900 C.E., saw Slavic, Turkic, and other tribes on the move, re-settling in Eastern Europe and gradually making it predominantly Slavic, and affecting Anatolia and the Caucasus as the first Turkic peoples (Avars, Bulgars, Huns, Khazars, Pechenegs) arrived. The last phase of the migrations saw the coming of the Magyars and the Viking expansion out of Scandinavia.

However, such colonizing migrations cannot be considered as Diasporas indefinitely; over very long periods, eventually the migrants assimilate into the settled area so completely that it becomes their new homeland. Thus the modern population of Germany do not feel that they really belong in the Siberian steppes that the Alemanni left 16 centuries ago, the Hungarian Magyars are not drawn back to the Altai, and the English descendants of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes do not yearn to reoccupy the plains of northwest Germany. Compare, nevertheless, the Jewish Sephardim of Iberia and Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe, settled in those areas for many centuries, and yet never allowed to fully assimilate there.

The 20th century and beyond

The twentieth century saw huge population movements. Some of these were due to natural disasters, as has happened throughout history, but some involved large-scale transfers of people by government action. Some Diasporas occurred because the people accepted, or could not avoid, the consequences of political decisions (such as Stalin's desire to populate Eastern Russia, Central Asia, and Siberia; or the transfer of millions of people between India and Pakistan in the 1947 Partition). Other Diasporas have occurred as people fled ethnically directed persecution or oppression: for example, European Jews fleeing the Holocaust during World War II; other European nationalities moving west away from Soviet Union annexation , and the Iron Curtain regimes after World War II; and the Hutu and Tutsi trying to escape the Rwandan Genocide in 1994.

During the Cold War era huge populations of refugees formed out of areas of conflict, especially from Third World nations; all over Africa (e.g., and 1.5 millions Armenians forced out of Armenia by the Turks. Forced to march in the Syrian dessert where a lot of them ended up settling, over 80,000 South Asians expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1975), South America (e.g., thousands of Uruguayan refugees fled to Europe during the military rule in the 1970s and 80's) and Central America (e.g., Nicaraguans, Salvadorians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Costa Ricans and Panamanians), the Middle East (the Iranians who fled the 1978 Islamic revolution), the Indian subcontinent (thousands of former subjects of the British Raj went to the UK after India and Pakistan became independent in 1947), and Southeast Asia (e.g., the displaced 30,000 French colons from Cambodia expelled by the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot). The millions of Third World refugees created more diaspora populations than ever before.

Many economic migrants may gather in such numbers outside their home country that they form an effective diaspora: for instance, the Turkish Gastarbeiter in Germany; South Asians in the Persian Gulf; and Filipinos throughout the world. And in a rare example of a diaspora in a prosperous Western democracy, there is talk of a New Orleans, or Gulf Coast, "diaspora" in the wake of Hurricane Katrina of 2005, if a significant number of evacuees do not start to return.

List of notable diasporas

History provides us with many examples of notable Diasporas.

In popular culture

• Futuristic science fiction sometimes refers to a "Diaspora," taking place when much of humanity leaves Earth to settle on far-flung "colony worlds."

See also

• Diaspora studies
• Diaspora politics
• Exodus is another Biblical term related to migration, but with a connotation of grouping rather than the scattering of a diaspora.
• Displaced person
• Ethnic cleansing
• Population transfer
• Slave trade
• Immigration
• Refugee

Notes

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