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Educated Wandering Jews, 800–1250

Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein

in The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492

This chapter shows that once the Jews became literate, urban, and engaged in skilled occupations, they began migrating within the vast territory under Muslim rule—stretching from the Iberian ... More

This chapter shows that once the Jews became literate, urban, and engaged in skilled occupations, they began migrating within the vast territory under Muslim rule—stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to India during the eighth through the twelfth centuries, and from the Byzantine Empire to western Europe via Italy and within western Europe in the ninth through the thirteenth centuries. In early medieval Europe, the revival of trade concomitant with the Commercial Revolution and the growth of an urban and commercial economy paralleled the vast urbanization and the growth of trade that had occurred in the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates four to five centuries earlier. The Jewish diaspora during the early Middle Ages was mainly the outcome of literate Jewish craftsmen, shopkeepers, traders, scholars, teachers, physicians, and moneylenders migrating in search of business opportunities to reap returns on their investment in literacy and education.Less

10 Re-thinking Jewish Ethnicity through Social Network Analysis

Anna Collar

in Network Analysis in Archaeology: New Approaches to Regional Interaction

This chapter uses the epigraphic data for the Jewish Diaspora to argue that, if the rabbinic reforms of Judaism were necessitated by the destruction wrought in Judaea, then this cataclysm also ... More

This chapter uses the epigraphic data for the Jewish Diaspora to argue that, if the rabbinic reforms of Judaism were necessitated by the destruction wrought in Judaea, then this cataclysm also ‘activated’ the ethnic network of the Diaspora Jews. Before the destruction of the Temple, Diaspora Jews did not define themselves (epigraphically) as such. This was because there was an inherent centre to their religious life, manifest in the Temple. The destruction of the real and psychological centre of Judaism changed Jewish existence forever. It is argued that the tenets of rabbinic halakhah — the laws and moral codes defined in the Mishnah — were swiftly transmitted across the newly activated ethnic network of the Diaspora, shown clearly in the epigraphic record as a renewed knowledge of the wider Jewish network.Less

Jews and Samaritans in a Greek Christian World

Fergus Millar

in Religion, Language and Community in the Roman Near East: Constantine to Muhammad

This chapter focuses on the presence of large settled populations of Jews and Samaritans, both urban and rural, in Palestine in the first to fourth centuries, and how Jewish identity and belief was ... More

This chapter focuses on the presence of large settled populations of Jews and Samaritans, both urban and rural, in Palestine in the first to fourth centuries, and how Jewish identity and belief was expressed in the form of major literary works, in both Hebrew and Aramaic. It first considers two studies attributed to the Talmudic scholar, Saul Lieberman: one on the Greek context of Jewish life in Judaea/Palaestina in the first to fourth centuries; and one on the extensive presence of transliterated Greek words, and of Greek concepts, in rabbinic literature. It then looks at the co-existence and conflict between religious and ethnic communities in Palestine, citing evidence provided each by Sozomenus and Epiphanius. More specifically, it discusses some reports of overt inter-communal conflicts, which often involve Samaritans rather than Jews. It also describes Samaritan religion and culture, Jews and Judaism in Palestine, and the Jewish diaspora in the Roman Near East.Less

The Absence of Evidence as the Evidence of Absence

Ross Shepard Kraemer

in The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity: What Christianity Cost the Jews

Evidence for Jews in the late antique Mediterranean diaspora declines precipitously from the fourth to the seventh centuries CE. No identifiable writings in Greek or Latin survive from late antique ... More

Evidence for Jews in the late antique Mediterranean diaspora declines precipitously from the fourth to the seventh centuries CE. No identifiable writings in Greek or Latin survive from late antique Jews, forcing reliance on late Roman laws, accounts in non-Jewish authors, and limited archaeological remains. This increasing absence of evidence ultimately seems to be actual evidence of increasing absence. The category “diaspora”—in opposition to the homeland of Israel—has practical and theoretical limitations and is implicated in debates about contemporary Jewish identifications. Still, a study devoted almost exclusively to Jews of the late ancient Mediterranean is warranted by virtue of prior neglect, a history of privileging rabbinic sources, and a related tendency to assimilate the history of all Jews in late antiquity into that of the rabbis. The study tries to avoid the derogatory terms “pagan” and “heretics,” preferring the admittedly more cumbersome “dissident Christians” and “practitioners of (other) traditional Mediterranean religions.”Less

Becoming Diaspora Jews

Karel van der Toorn

in Becoming Diaspora Jews: Behind the Story of Elephantine

This chapter attempts to solve the mysterious transformation of Samarian Arameans into Jews. Over a period of 100 years, perhaps longer, the Samarians of Palmyra became the Jews of Elephantine. Up to ... More

This chapter attempts to solve the mysterious transformation of Samarian Arameans into Jews. Over a period of 100 years, perhaps longer, the Samarians of Palmyra became the Jews of Elephantine. Up to a point, the new identity happened to them through the force of circumstance. The diaspora experience in Egypt led others to perceive them as Jews. The community became part of the network of Jewish diaspora nodes. Around 420 BCE, the Persian authorities included them in the Jewish nation. Commissioned by the Persians, a Jewish ambassador for religious affairs ordered them to bring their religious calendar into conformity with the calendar observed by Jews all over the empire. During the final decade of the fifth century, the leadership of the Elephantine Jews deliberately claimed their new identity to present their situation in the most favorable light. At first the Jewish identity had happened to them. In the end, they claimed it. They would henceforth be remembered as the Elephantine Jews.Less

Introduction

Matthias B. Lehmann

in Emissaries from the Holy Land: The Sephardic Diaspora and the Practice of Pan-Judaism in the Eighteenth Century

This chapter introduces the subject of this study: the Istanbul-based network of support for the Jews in Ottoman Palestine and the rabbinic emissaries who sustained its fundraising missions in the ... More

This chapter introduces the subject of this study: the Istanbul-based network of support for the Jews in Ottoman Palestine and the rabbinic emissaries who sustained its fundraising missions in the eighteenth century, and the changing dynamics of the relationship between the Holy Land and the Jewish communities of the diaspora. The introduction situates the current study in the broader context of modern Jewish historiography, challenging many assumptions not only of an older, teleological, and nationalist (Zionist) historical narrative, but also many of the assumptions of its post-Zionist critics.Less

Diaspora-Government Relations in Forging US Foreign Policies

Josh DeWind and Renata Segura

in Diaspora Lobbies and the US Government: Convergence and Divergence in Making Foreign Policy

This introductory chapter provides an overview of diaspora populations in the United States, who have sought to influence US foreign policies toward their homelands. Diasporas' actual or potential ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of diaspora populations in the United States, who have sought to influence US foreign policies toward their homelands. Diasporas' actual or potential influence on US foreign policies toward their homelands has been greatly controversial, particularly during times of crisis or war. Diasporas, whose many members have assimilated over multiple generations into American society and established a base of social and political power, such as Irish and Jewish immigrants and their descendants, seem to exert significant influence. However, while influential in many respects, the Irish diaspora has rarely been able to undermine the United States' alliance with Britain. In contrast, the Jewish diaspora has prevailed over other diasporas and over the United States' national interests in shaping US policies toward the Middle East. This book thus explores the nature of diasporas and the history of their relations with the US government.Less

Deploying Tourism

Shaul Kelner

in Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright Tourism

This chapter begins by analyzing states' deployment of mass tourism as a medium of diasporic political socialization, with a focus on the State of Israel. It then discusses how scholars of diaspora ... More

This chapter begins by analyzing states' deployment of mass tourism as a medium of diasporic political socialization, with a focus on the State of Israel. It then discusses how scholars of diaspora Jewish tours to Israel have demonstrated little interest in the lessons to be learned from the homeland tours of other diaspora communities. This can be partially attributed to the fact that literature on these other tours only began to appear in the mid-1990s, and even then, only at a trickle. The closest thing to a foundational text in this literature is a 1996 article by anthropologist Edward Bruner on African American tourism to the slave castles in Ghana. The chapter concludes with a description of the book's organization.Less

Counting the Jewish Population

Thomas A. Robinson

in Who Were the First Christians?: Dismantling the Urban Thesis

Claims about the size of the Jewish population in the Roman Empire vary wildly, from 2 million to 10 million or more. But any attempt to establish the size is doomed to fail because of the nature of ... More

Claims about the size of the Jewish population in the Roman Empire vary wildly, from 2 million to 10 million or more. But any attempt to establish the size is doomed to fail because of the nature of the evidence. In spite of that, many scholars have asserted that Jews made up 20% of the Eastern Roman Empire, claiming also that the diaspora Jewish population was largely urban, with some claiming that this population was economically prosperous too. But such a scenario would not only saturate the cities of the Roman Empire with Jews, it would need to explain how a largely rural and farming population in the homeland of Palestine (with perhaps a million people) could have populated the urban areas of the Roman Empire with skilled artisans and traders. Perhaps a rural Jewish diaspora needs consideration.Less

Consuming Place

Shaul Kelner

in Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright Tourism

This chapter examines how the acts of ascribing meaning to Israel end up mapping culture onto place and place onto culture. It considers how structural elements of tourism, including sight-marker ... More

This chapter examines how the acts of ascribing meaning to Israel end up mapping culture onto place and place onto culture. It considers how structural elements of tourism, including sight-marker transformations, semiotics of difference, and themed environments all contribute to the territorialization of Jewishness in Israel and to the creation of a consumption-based form of diasporic engagement with the ethnic homeland. In other words, tours create an environment for expressing and developing an identification with the Jewish homeland and with Jewish culture through consumer acts such as purchasing souvenirs, eating foods, viewing films, visiting museums, and shooting photographs. This is clearly not the set of behaviors prescribed by rabbinic tradition as the preferred mode of Jewish ethno-religious practice. As such, it raises a host of normative questions that devotees of tradition may wish to ponder.Less

Messianic Leadership in Jewish History: Movements and Personalities

Marc Saperstein

in Leadership and Conflict: Tensions in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History and Culture

This chapter is a survey of the dynamics of messianic movements over a period of some two millennia. The most dramatic tests of leadership in the history of the Jewish diaspora have come when an ... More

This chapter is a survey of the dynamics of messianic movements over a period of some two millennia. The most dramatic tests of leadership in the history of the Jewish diaspora have come when an individual presented himself as playing a central role in the process that would bring an end to the exile of the diaspora. The messianic figure — whether claiming to be the actual messiah from the line of David or a prophet or forerunner of the messiah — transcended the accepted categories by which authority has been asserted and expressed in post-biblical Jewish life. However, rooted in traditional texts and expectations, the ideology of the incipient movement may have been, for the individual at its core this claim was by its very nature a radical departure from the norms, a revolutionary challenge to the status quo. This placed the more traditional Jewish leadership, especially the rabbinic authorities, who were structurally bound to a conservative position in society, in a difficult situation.Less

The American Diaspora: Philip Roth and the National Turn

Bryan Cheyette

in Diasporas of the Mind: Jewish and Postcolonial Writing and the Nightmare of History

Philip Roth, in his early and middle years, characterizes “race,” in the form of European anti-Semitism or the rage of African Americans, as the one discourse that limits the seemingly endless ... More

Philip Roth, in his early and middle years, characterizes “race,” in the form of European anti-Semitism or the rage of African Americans, as the one discourse that limits the seemingly endless zigzagging of his fiction. This chapter shows that by the time of Roth’s late work, it is the monumental history of the United States that acts as a brake on his transgressive imagination. By locating death and suffering at the heart of his idea of the nation, Roth both universalizes a victimized Jewish diaspora and ceases to be on the side of imaginative “chaos,” as he puts it in I Married a Communist (1998).Less

The Emergence of the Medieval Jewish Diaspora(s) of Europe from the Ninth to the Twelfth Centuries, with Some Thoughts on Historical DNA Studies

Michael Toch (ed.)

in Regional Identities and Cultures of Medieval Jews

This chapter discusses the genealogy of the European Jewish diaspora that has been relevant to the concerns of Jews and non-Jews alike, which has been continuously debated from the nineteenth century ... More

This chapter discusses the genealogy of the European Jewish diaspora that has been relevant to the concerns of Jews and non-Jews alike, which has been continuously debated from the nineteenth century onwards. It describes the different constituents of the European Jewish diaspora that can be part of one Jewish people or distinct cultures. It also analyses the single thread of origin that can be detected for the Jews living in different parts of Europe and the chronological point Jews were found in their countries of residence. The chapter highlights the weight of non-Jewish origins in the case of the Khazars, which was reputed to be the forefathers of Ashkenazi Jewry. It considers the issues of origins, migrations, and the chronology of settlement, which have a bearing on the topic of Jewish–Christian relations.Less

Ideology and Politics in the Early Years of the State of Israel, 1951–1956

Mira Katzburg-Yungman

in Hadassah: American Women Zionists and the Rebirth of Israel

This chapter details further developments within the international Jewish community as well as Hadassah's role in these affairs. Despite Hadassah's unrelenting focus on practical work, it could not ... More

This chapter details further developments within the international Jewish community as well as Hadassah's role in these affairs. Despite Hadassah's unrelenting focus on practical work, it could not ignore the questions about the essence of Zionism that arose as a result of the establishment of the State of Israel. In the context of debates over aliyah and ḥalutsiyut, the question arose whether Hadassah was a Zionist organization or an organization of ‘friends of Israel’; the leaders of Hadassah firmly refused to ‘demote’ the organization to the level of ‘friends of Israel’. Another focus of debate between the Zionists in Israel and American Zionists was the concepts of ‘exile’ and ‘diaspora’. In this respect Hadassah, more than the other Zionist organizations in the United States, supported the view that can be defined as affirming the value and authenticity of Jewish life in the diaspora.Less

Introduction

Theodore Sasson

in The New American Zionism

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book shows that contrary to the claim of journalists and social scientists that American Jews are “distancing” from ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book shows that contrary to the claim of journalists and social scientists that American Jews are “distancing” from Israel, American Jews have actually stepped up their level of engagement with Israel across multiple fields, including advocacy, philanthropy, and tourism. The only change is that American Jewish engagement is developing along new lines that make them more like other contemporary diaspora groups. The book draws upon historical and social scientific evidence to describe developments in diverse “diaspora-homeland fields”. The notion of diaspora-homeland fields borrows a key concept from the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. As actors in a modern setting, diasporans organize their activities in relation to homelands in distinctive fields, each populated by characteristic organizations, professionals, and practices, and maintained through distinctive funding and training institutions, professional networks, and communications media.Less

The Land of Israel in Pre-Modern Jewish Thought: A History of Two Rabbinic Statements

Marc Saperstein

in Leadership and Conflict: Tensions in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History and Culture

This chapter analyses the history of interpretation of two well-known talmudic statements about the diaspora. The first has practical, legal, and financial consequences, pertaining to the right of a ... More

This chapter analyses the history of interpretation of two well-known talmudic statements about the diaspora. The first has practical, legal, and financial consequences, pertaining to the right of a husband to be freed from the financial obligation stipulated in the ketubah (marriage contract) if he divorced his wife because she refused to accompany him to live in the Land of Israel. The statement of the Talmud is clear, but the responsa literature reveals that in real-life cases, justifications were frequently found to protect the rights of the divorced wife against enforcement of the talmudic principle. The second statement is of powerful theological significance, addressing the relationship between God and the Land of Israel. It asserts that God may not be accessible outside the Land of Israel, implying that the possibilities for legitimate religious life in the diaspora were extremely limited. Here too exegetical literature sometimes explained the statement but frequently dissented from it, showing that diaspora Jews often refused to be bound by the more extreme anti-diaspora sentiments of their classical texts.Less

Max Diamant and Jewish Diaspora Nationalism in the Bukovina⋆

in From Vienna to Chicago and Back: Essays on Intellectual History and Political Thought in Europe and America

This chapter presents a discussion on Jewish diaspora nationalism in the Bukovina. Czernowitz became a significant center of Jewish diaspora nationalism. Nathan Birnbaum was the principal organizer ... More

This chapter presents a discussion on Jewish diaspora nationalism in the Bukovina. Czernowitz became a significant center of Jewish diaspora nationalism. Nathan Birnbaum was the principal organizer of the first Yiddish Language Conference in Czernowitz. Max Diamant, originally a Zionist, became increasingly attracted by galut nationalism and the cause of the Yiddish language. He authored a legal treatise on municipal law and municipal electoral regulations in the Bukovina. He decided to submit the by-laws of the proposed Jewish theater association not in German or another of the languages officially recognized in the Bukovina, but in Yiddish and in Yiddish orthography. In addition, he emphasized religion as the central unifying cultural characteristic of the Jews of the East. The arguments put forward by Diamant, particularly his speech before the Imperial Court in Vienna, deserve wider recognition as an outstanding document of galut nationalism and a resounding defense of the Yiddish language.Less