These communities are still recognizable far afield and centuries after their creation, even in the United States. Some Jews have chosen to live outside Israel for centuries; in ancient times they formed communities in the Near East and eventually around the Mediterranean.
Exile in Babylonia gave rise to the first permanent Jewish community outside of Israel. Refusing to dwell upon their homelessness, the Jewish exiles adopted a novel attitude: they assimilated into the culture in which they found themselves, while maintaining their separate identity as Jews and their adherence to Jewish tradition and culture.
This interwoven pattern of assimilation and separatism would persist throughout the history of the Diaspora, a Greek term coined specifically for the dispersion of Jews throughout the Hellenistic Greek-speaking world.
Following the Hellenistic conquest of Palestine in BCE, Jews flocked to Ptolemaic Egypt, especially the city of Alexandria, where a flourishing community would later produce the Septuagint the Torah translated into Greek.
By 70 CE, following the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, Jewish communities could be found throughout the civilized world. Living in such widespread locales, Jews entered numerous occupations, including farming and horse breeding, crafts and manufacturing, business and trade, civil administration and the military.
After the final defeat of Israel at the hands of the Romans in CE, the pace of emigration from Israel quickened, and Jews continued to establish new communities even farther afield. The communal structure of the early Diaspora set the pattern for later Jewish communities elsewhere in the world: within sovereign states, larger Jewish communities often had their own internal administration.
Within sovereign cities, the Jewish community was often assigned a separate status and occupied a special quarter. Hence, the Jews of North Africa developed the communal district called a mellah , whereas the Jews of Central Europe were compelled to live in a confined area called a ghetto , so named after the first of its kind in 16th century Venice. Although the Babylonian Jews returned to Jerusalem in several waves during the Persian period, a sizeable Jewish population continued to reside in Mesopotamia, and…played an influential role in Jewish intellectual history beginning in the third century CE.
In Egypt, Jewish settlements were established by Jewish soldier contingents brought there by the Persians. These exilic and postexilic communities were a modest prelude to the remarkable expansion in the numbers and distribution of diaspora Jews that occurred in the Hellenistic era.
Diasporas were a common feature of the Hellenistic-Roman world. After the conquests of Alexander the Great, Greeks and Macedonians constituted an immense diaspora throughout the Near East. Ethnic resettlement and religious diffusion went hand in hand, as settlers brought with them ancestral cults and won for their gods new worshippers among the local population.
Although not unique, the Jewish diaspora was outstanding in its ability to preserve and perpetuate its identity at considerable distance from the homeland and over large stretches of time. Several factors guided the spread of the Jewish dispersions in Hellenistic times, of which the political history of the Mediterranean basin was the most important.
During Ptolemaic rule of Judea, large-scale Jewish settlement in Egypt began. Under the first Ptolemies, Jewish captives, when freed, established communities throughout the country. The Ptolemies brought in Jewish soldiers and their families, and other Jews migrated from Judea to Egypt probably for economic reasons. At its height, Egyptian Jewry in Hellenistic time was highly diversified: There were peasants and shepherds, Jewish generals in the Ptolemaic army, and Jewish officials in the civil service and police.
Baal Worship. Bar Kochba Revolt. Barcelona, Disputation of. Ben Sira, Alphabet of. Birth and Evolution of Judaism. Chronicles of Kings of Israel. Coins and Currency. Cult of Moloch. Dead Sea Scrolls. Egypt and Wanderings. Episcopus Judaeorum. Great Assembly. Great Revolt. Great Synagogue. Hannah and her Seven Sons. Herodian Dynasty. Hillel and Shammai.
Jewish High Priests. Jewish Links to Holy Land. Jews of Middle East. Judges of Bet Din. Judges of Israel. Juramentum Judaeorum. Kedemites or Easterners.
Kings of Israel. Kings of Judah. Land of Hebrews. Laws Affecting Jews CE. Leather Industry and Trade.
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