Jewish diaspora

The Jewish diaspora (Hebrew: Tefutzah, "scattered", or Galut ×'×œ×•×ª, "exile") is the dispersion of the Jewish people throughout Babylonia and the Roman Empire. It later spread throughout the world by either migration or conversion. The diaspora is commonly accepted to have begun with the 8th-6th century BCE conquests of the ancient Jewish kingdoms and expulsions of enslaved Jewish population. A number of Middle Eastern Jewish communities were established then as a result of tolerant policies and remained notable centers of Torah life and Judaism for centuries to come. The defeat of the Great Jewish Revolt in the year 70 and of Bar Kokhba's revolt in 135 against the Roman Empire notably contributed to the numbers and geography of the diaspora, as many Jews were scattered after losing their state Judea or were sold to slavery throughout the empire.

The term is also used - in a more spiritual sense - for Jews whose ancestors converted to the religion outside of Israel, even if those people strictly speaking could not be said to be exiles.

Pre-Roman Diaspora

In 722 BCE, the Assyrians led by Shalmaneser V conquered the (Northern) Kingdom of Israel and many Israelites were sent into captivity in Khorasan. Since then, for over 2,700 years, the Persian Jews have lived in the territories of today's Iran.

After the overthrow in 588 BCE of the kingdom of Judah by the Chaldeans (see Babylonian captivity), and the deportation of a considerable portion of its inhabitants to the valley of the Euphrates, the Jews had two principal cultural centers: Babylonia and 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 poorest but most fervent element among the exiles returned to Land of Israel during the reign of the Achaemenids. There, with the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem as its center, it organized itself into a community, animated by a remarkable religious ardor and a tenacious attachment to the Torah, which thenceforth constituted the focus of its identity. No sooner had this little nucleus increased in numbers with the accession of recruits from various quarters, than it awoke to a consciousness of itself, and strove for political enfranchisement.

After numerous vicissitudes, and especially owing to internal dissensions in the Seleucid dynasty, on the one hand, and to the interested support of the Romans, on the other, the cause of Jewish independence finally triumphed. 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 in the royal family, and the growing disaffection of the pious, the soul of the nation, toward rulers who no longer evinced any appreciation of the real aspirations of their subjects, made the Jewish nation an easy prey to the ambition of the Romans, the successors of the Seleucids. In 63 BCE Pompey invaded Jerusalem, and Gabinius subjected the Jewish people to tribute.

Early diaspora populations

As early as the middle of the 2nd century BCE, the Jewish author of the third book of the Oracula Sibyllina, 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), and Josephus, all bear testimony to the fact that the Jewish people were disseminated over the known world.

King Agrippa I, in a letter to Caligula, enumerates among the provinces of the Jewish diaspora almost all the Hellenized and non-Hellenized countries of the Orient; and this enumeration is far from being complete, as Italy and Cyrene are not included. The epigraphic discoveries from year to year augment the number of known Jewish communities. There is only scant information of a precise character concerning the numerical significance of these diverse Jewish conglomerations; and this must be used with caution. After the Land of Israel and Babylonia, it was in Syria, according to Josephus, that the Jewish population was the densest; particularly in Antioch, and then in Damascus, in which latter place, at the time of the great insurrection, 10,000 (according to another version 18,000) Jews were massacred. Philo gives the number of Jewish inhabitants in Egypt as 1,000,000; one-eighth of the population. Alexandria was by far the most important of the Jewish communities, the Jews in Philo's time were inhabiting two of the five quarters of the city. To judge by the accounts of wholesale massacres in 115, the number of Jewish residents in Cyrenaica, at Cyprus, and in Mesopotamia must also have been large. In Rome, at the commencement of the reign of Caesar Augustus, there were over 8,000 Jews: this is the number that escorted the envoys who came to demand the deposition of Archelaus. Finally, if the sums confiscated by the propraetor Flaccus in the year 62 represented actually the tax of a didrachma per head for a single year, the inference may be safely drawn that in Asia Minor the Jewish population numbered 45,000 males, or a total of at least 180,000 persons.

If the least credit could be put to these accounts, it seems inevitable that the numerous Jewish communities in areas such as Alexandria could not all be made up of emigrants. Most likely, a large fraction of them were converts to the Jewish religion. It is well-known that the Jewish community assumed a missionary policy in the time before the destruction of the Temple. One famous convert was Herod the Great, an Idumaean.

Post-Roman Diaspora

Roman destruction of Judea

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

Roman rule continued until a revolt from 66-70, terminating in the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, the centre of the national and religious life of the Jews throughout the world. After this catastrophe, Judea formed a separate Roman province, governed by a legate, at first "pro prÃ¦tore," and later, "pro consule," who was also the commander of the army of occupation. The complete destruction of Jerusalem, and the settlement of several Grecian and Roman colonies in Judea, indicated the express intention of the Roman government to prevent the political regeneration of the Jewish nation. Nevertheless, forty years later the Jews put forth efforts to recover their former freedom. With Palestine exhausted, they strove, in the first place, to establish upon the ruins of Hellenism actual commonwealths in Cyrene, Cyprus, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. These efforts, resolute but unwise, were suppressed by Trajan (115-117); and under Hadrian the same fate befell the last attempt of the Jews of Palestine to regain their independence (133-135). From this time on, in spite of unimportant movements under Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, and Severus, the Jews of Palestine, reduced in numbers, destitute, and crushed, lost their preponderance in the Jewish world. The Jews no longer had a reason to cling to a soil where the recollection of their past grandeur only helped to render more bitter the spectacle of their present humiliation, where Jerusalem had become, under the name "Ã†lia Capitolina," a Roman colony, a city entirely pagan, to enter which was forbidden the Jews, under pain of death.

Dispersion of the Jews

Expulsion of the Jews in the Reign of the Emperor Hadrian (CE 135): 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 to Rabbinic authority.

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 and began work on the Palestinian Talmud. For those Jews in the diaspora, they were generally accepted into the Roman Empire, but with the rise of Christianity, restrictions grew. Forced expulsions and persecution resulted in substantial shifts in the international centers of Jewish life to which far-flung communities often looked; although not always unified due to the Jewish people's dispersion itself, moved from Judea to Babylonia to Spain to Poland to the United States and finally back to Israel.

During the Middle Ages Jews 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, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern Jews). These groupings incorporate parallel histories sharing many series of persecutions and forced expulsions, which finally culminated in events in the 20th century that led to the State of Israel.

The Diaspora in Jewish life

Between the Roman destruction of Judea and the re-establishment of a Jewish state with the independence of Israel in 1948, all Jews were considered to be living in the Diaspora. Currently, the term refers to Jews living outside of Israel.

Subsequent numerous exiles and persecution, as well as political and economic conditions and opportunities, affected the numbers and dynamics of Jewish diaspora. As of 2005, the largest number of Jews live in the United States (5,280,000), Former Soviet Union (1,000,000), France (494,000), Argentina (395,000) Canada (372,000), and the United Kingdom (298,000). As of 2006, however, it is estimated that the country with the largest number of Jews is the State of Israel, with the United States falling to #2 due to assimilation, a low birth rate, and emigration (over 3,000 North American Jews (including Canada) immigrated in 2005 to Israel). Although Israel's Jewish population (5,235,000) is greater than any of these but that of the United States, it is usually not considered as diaspora; see Demographics of Israel.

Footnotes

* Sergio DellaPergola, Yehezkel Dror, and Shalom S. Wald. Annual Assessment 2005: A Rapidly Changing World. Jerusalem: Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. (Summary, pdf)
* Ibid.
* Immigration to Israel from North America hits 22-Year High ([1])

Jewish diaspora: Encyclopedia BETA

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