Judaism

The Diaspora

The enforced dispersion of the Jews, after the botched insurrection against the Romans and the burning of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple in 70 CE, entailed many changes for the expelled survivors. One was the imposed transformation of the character of the Jewish community in exile, especially with regard to members’ affiliation and attachment to the collective community. As a result of the termination of Jewish independence or self-rule, Jews were compelled to follow the directives of the local authorities in each location where they settled. Instead of natural and, later, voluntary communities in which Jews cultivated their religious and culturally unique identity from birth and then continued and perpetuated their association by free choice, in the Diaspora the community became an enforced and compulsory affiliation. The rulers of ancient Mesopotamia, Catholic Spain, or medieval Ukraine, as examples of large concentrations of exiled Jewry, had a similar political preference: to isolate “their” Jews in separate and segregated social enclaves amenable to rigorous control and manipulation. This situation meant that the Jew as an individual citizen did not exist, and his or her sole reality was expressed as a component of the community. The personal identity was submerged and taken over by the collective identity. Furthermore, because, out of expediency, the hosting authorities usually empowered the Jewish governance to levy taxes on their people, these local community elites accumulated a tremendous amount of power over their constituencies, rendering the Jewish community all-inclusive and self-sustaining in every possible walk of life. Hence, whereas the globalization of Christianity and Islam meant expanding the horizons of their religion and encountering new worlds to be subdued, the globalization of Judaism was a humbling experience. It led to introverted and reclusive Jewish communities that appeared alien in the eyes of their host nations.

However, these dismal conditions and the loss of political sovereignty and jurisdiction created the necessity to make adjustments and generated new types of Jewish community life, institutions, and leadership. Adaptation yielded innovative approaches and an emphasis on community building and self-sustenance. Due to the absence of a unified political center and a single hierarchical system, decentralization of authority and multiplicity of autonomous communities became the central features of Jewish reorganization in the postexilic world. First, in Palestine and the regions in its immediate vicinity: Syria, Egypt, Babylon, and Mesopotamia; next in expanding concentric circles reaching to the Near East and the Mediterranean; and finally with the Islamic expansion between the 7th and 12th centuries to North Africa and Spain, these structures and principles of Jewish existence prevailed. After the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, the contours of the Jewish Diaspora were extended even further to central and eastern Europe. Yet through these tribulations, and perhaps because of them, Jewish communities managed to preserve and cultivate their exilic existence. Jewish communities in Diaspora were based on four elements: (1) communal organization and communal bases of power, (2) spiritual and educational leadership, (3) an emphasis on oral law, and (4) messianic dreams of redemption. The communal structure was an inevitability spawned by the historical developments that pulverized the Jewish commonwealth into small and underprivileged entities reliant on the mercy of local authorities. Under such circumstances, Jewish collective existence became reticent, introverted, and inwardly oriented. Assimilation with the host population was unfeasible, impractical, and undesired; assuming sovereignty and political independence was also a far-fetched and deceptive dream. Hence, the only plausible option left to maintain their unity [Page 987]and unique identity was for Jews to invest their energy and skills in regrouping and upholding their distinct way of life from within. Because political and economic existence was totally dependent on external powers, building an internal infrastructure of subsistence and retaining their inimitable character meant concentrating on education and spiritual conservation. Communal leadership committees such as the Council of the Four Lands (Vaad Arba Aratzot) in Poland, Lithuania, and other eastern European territories of the 16th and 17th centuries were typical examples of such local leadership arrangements. The leaders of such bodies managed and supervised the administrative affairs of their respective communities in addition to being the liaisons between their societies and the state authorities. This crucial responsibility of mediating between the official government of the land and the Jewish constituency was mainly expressed in the assessment and collection of taxes for the central establishment.

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