Jewish Diaspora

The word diaspora, Greek for “dispersion,” applies to the cultural scattering of a group of people as an outcome of voluntary migration or forced expulsion. Although the term is used to describe the cultural dispersions of many groups of people, particularly in recent times, Diaspora (capitalized) in the past has usually referred to the phenomenon of Jews or Jewish communities living outside the historic land of Israel, including the modern state of Israel after it was established in the mid-20th century. In Hebrew, the term t'futsa (“diaspora”) first appears in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) in Jeremiah 25:34; it comes from the root “to scatter” or “to disperse,” but this particular term is not applied to the larger dispersion of Jews from their land ...