Jewish Diaspora

The Concept of Diaspora versus Exile

It is no accident that until modern times, Jewish and Gentile sources used the term exile in reference [Page 624]to the Jewish dispersion throughout the world. Diaspora is a more value-neutral term—either an involuntary expulsion or a voluntary migration. Exile, in contrast, clearly implies that wherever Jews live, their rightful place, their home, is in the land of Israel and thus, every other place is, by definition, not truly home. Moreover, exile indicates that Jews have been forced to live else-where—by God, based on historical circumstance, or for some other reason. It implies that given the opportunity, Jews would leave that place and return to their homeland. In all cases, exile was seen as a provisional form of existence that could or should be terminated.

Conceptually, Jewish dispersion took on many meanings throughout the ages. In the Bible, exile is portrayed as a punishment for the Israelites' sinfulness that led to a breach of the covenant with God. On their repentance, God would gather them from among the nations where they had been scattered and bring them into the land (see Deuteronomy 28:64, 30:3–5). The rabbis continue this pattern of thought by attributing the exile of the Jews to their commission of the three cardinal sins of idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed.

However, in rabbinic thought, galut and the entire notion of Jewish dispersion additionally took on profoundly new and complex meanings. For the rabbis, galut transcended time and place to become a metaphysical condition that would lead to eventual redemption, as continually iterated by Jewish liturgy. They incorporated into key prayers a profound longing for the ingathering of the exiles (qibbuts galuyyot) from “the four corners of the earth,” an allusion to the messianic future when ultimately God “will assemble the outcast of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isaiah 11:12). Thus, exile is likened to Jewish homelessness, alienation, and imperfection, whereas restoration to the land denotes Jewish security, messianic redemption, and finally utopia. Even the afterlife, known as “the world to come,” is contrasted with exile and envisioned within the aforementioned paradigm.

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