Returning, the Land of Israel as a Focus in Jewish History
By Benjamin J. Segal
SECTION III THE DIASPORA
Overview and Chronology
SECTION THREE – OVERVIEW AND CHRONOLOGY
The Diaspora
Even before the destruction of the First Temple in 587 B.C.E., Jewish communities
had been established outside Israel. The Second Temple’s destruction
in 70 C.E., however, carried the Jews to the far corners of the settled world
and established the “Diaspora” (Greek for “dispersion”)
as the proper description of the Jewish condition. No longer was there an
independent national home to which one could turn or return. Given that situation,
the very existence of an historical entity called the “Jewish people”
is placed in doubt, and one must first note the legitimacy of the subject
of inquiry.
The argument for peoplehood begins with the unity that Jews themselves felt.
This Jewish cohesiveness over the centuries of the Diaspora is no mystery.
Jewish communities from Spain to India, from Yemen to Germany, shared as much
as each group had in common with its immediate neighbors. Their basic religious
patterns and cultural references had been established centuries earlier, when
the Jewish world was compact. The structure and the primary texts of both
prayer and law were a shared inheritance. Hebrew, though no longer spoken,
united the people both through the classic texts and as a language of written
communication.
Perhaps most important, all Jews understood their existence in terms of an
identical past-future axis. The beginnings were the same, preserved in the
Biblical records. The future, too, was the same, as set down in the visions
of the prophets and the rabbis. Nor was the present devoid of national unity.
Wherever Jews went, they would find a similar relationship to the outside
world: exclusion from the outside in, seclusion from the inside out. Times
were sometimes good and sometimes bad, but whatever the fate, it was shared.
A crisis in one part of the world would often bring help from afar. Occasionally,
the flowing lines of communication were sadly augmented by local or national
expulsions.
It was the literature of the Diaspora, which became diversified, though not
according to geographical areas. As time passed and numbers grew, there arose
a need for new literary genres. Among them there were three primarily internal
developments: law, prayer, and commentaries. The first, the law, initially
grew through explanations of the Talmud and through written responses to questions.
Later, law entered the continuing stage of collection and codification. Prayer
had achieved set form, practices, and even wording early in the Diaspora period,
and subsequent development was limited to relatively minor changes of text
and occasional original prayers from community to community. Organized commentaries,
on both the Bible and the Talmud, were the results of continuing study and
teaching throughout the Jewish world.
Other literary genres were “Judaized” through a process of adoption
and adaptation from other cultures. The Middle Ages witnessed the birth and
flowering of Jewish philosophy, encouraged by reading the great Greek philosophers,
as preserved in Arabic translation. Poetry took root and thrived in the Diaspora,
in each case influenced by the immediate cultural surroundings. Other new
forms of literature arose, each bearing its own fascination, including accounts
of travel, ethical treatises, and letters.
The leadership of the people became principally a local matter, though there
were exceptions. Ironically, the dispersion created situations whereby truly
outstanding scholars could gain (though often posthumously) international
fame and authority. Thus, in retrospect, the names of great scholars, law
authorities, and commentators such as “Rashi,” “Maimonides,”
and “Nachmanides” seem both to support the history of their times
and to stand above them as well.
The outstanding fact of this period, which can be dated from the completion
of the Talmud in the sixth century to Emancipation in the late eighteenth
century, remained the dispersion itself. The Jews were spread across the face
of the world, organized in separate if similar communities. It is not overly
difficult to conceive of a continuing relationship of the people to its God
even in such circumstances, but what of the Land? How did the people relate
to that territory while away so long? The sources bear witness to a difficult,
internal struggle as the people tried to hold on to both the dream and the
reality of the Land.
The Diaspora—A Chronology
I. GLOBAL EVENTS |
590 |
In Babylonia, inception of leadership through “Geonim”
(outstanding Jewish scholars of the day). Babylonian academies dominate
the Jewish world. |
614-622 |
Persian domination in Israel. |
622-634 |
Renewed Byzantine (Roman) domination. |
634-1099 |
Arab period. Jerusalem taken, 638 |
1099 |
Jerusalem captured by Crusaders. |
11879 |
Jerusalem captured by Saladin. |
1291-1516 |
Mameluk (Egyptian Moslem dynasty) domination over Israel. |
1516 |
Israel captured by Turks, beginning of Ottoman rule. |
1541 |
Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem. |
1665-1666 |
Shabbtai Tsvi proclaims himself Messiah, and is accepted by many; converts
to Islam. |
1799 |
Napoleon’s campaign in the Middle East. |
II. SPECIFIC EVENTS RELATING TO MATERIAL HERE FOLLOWING |
c. 850 |
First prayer book published. |
c. 900 |
Daniel el-Kumisi in Israel. |
921 |
Dispute between rabbis in Israel and Babylonia over right to set the
annual religious calendar. |
1075-1141 |
Yehuda Halevi, poet. |
1135-1204 |
Maimonides, philosopher. |
1210 |
Settlement in Israel of three hundred French and English rabbis. |
1267 |
Nachmanides arrives in Israel. |
1313 |
Estory Haparchi arrives. First geography of Israel. |
1538 |
Renewal of rabbinic ordination in Safed. |
c.1550-1625 |
Renewal of rabbinic ordination in Safed. |
1561 |
Joseph Nasi leases Tiberius from Turkish sultan. |
1700 |
Yehuda Hechasid and his followers arrive in Jerusalem. |
1777 |
Large Hassidic group settles in Galilee. |
1797 |
Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav’s trip to Israel. |
1808 |
Disciples of Elijah Gaon of Vilna settle in Jerusalem. |
Returning: The Land of Israel as a Focus in Jewish
History / Benjamin J. Segal.
Jerusalem, Israel : Dept. of Education and Culture of the World Zionist
Organization, 1987. xiii, 320 p.; 22 cm.