title: Mike Oldfield

text: After leaving school Oldfield accepted an invitation from his sister Sally to form a folk duo The Sallyangie, taking its name from her name and Oldfield's favourite Jansch tune, "Angie". They toured England and Paris and struck a deal with Transatlantic Records, for which they recorded one album, "Children of the Sun" (1969). After they split in the following year Oldfield had a nervous breakdown. He auditioned as bassist for Family in 1969 following the departure of Ric Grech, but the group did not share Roger Chapman's enthusiasm towards Oldfield's performance. Oldfield spent much of the next year living off his father and performing in an electric rock band named Barefoot that included his brother Terry on flute, until the group disbanded in early 1970.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In February 1970, Oldfield auditioned as the bassist in The Whole World, a new backing band that former Soft Machine vocalist Kevin Ayers was putting together. He landed the position despite the bass being a new instrument for him, but he also played occasional lead guitar and later looked back on this time as providing valuable training on the bass. Oldfield went on to play on Ayers's albums "Shooting at the Moon" (1970) and "Whatevershebringswesing" (1971), and played mandolin on "Edgar Broughton Band" (1971). All three albums were recorded at Abbey Road Studios, where Oldfield familiarised himself with a variety of instruments, such as orchestral percussion, piano, Mellotron, and harpsichord, and started to write and put down musical ideas of his own. While doing so Oldfield took up work as a reserve guitarist in a stage production of "Hair" at the Shaftesbury Theatre, where he played and gigged with Alex Harvey. After ten performances Oldfield grew bored of the job and was fired after he decided to play his part for "Let the Sunshine In" in 7/8 time.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: By mid-1971, Oldfield had assembled a demo tape containing sections of a longform instrumental piece initially titled "Opus One". Attempts to secure a recording deal to record it professionally came to nothing. In September 1971, Oldfield, now a session musician and bassist for the Arthur Louis Band, attended recording sessions at The Manor Studio near Kidlington, Oxfordshire, owned by businessman Richard Branson and run by engineers Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth. Branson already had several business ventures and was about to launch Virgin Records with Simon Draper. Newman and Heyworth heard some of Oldfield's demos and took them to Branson and Draper, who eventually gave Oldfield one week of recording time at The Manor, after which Oldfield had completed what became "Part One" of his composition, "Tubular Bells". He recorded "Part Two" from February to April 1973. Branson agreed to release "Tubular Bells" as the first record on the Virgin label and secured Oldfield a six-album deal with an additional four albums as optional.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: "Tubular Bells" was released on 25 May 1973. Oldfield played more than twenty different instruments in the multi-layered recording, and its style moved through diverse musical genres. Its 2,630,000 UK sales puts it at No. 34 on the list of the best-selling albums in the country. The title track became a top 10 hit single in the US after the opening was used in the film "The Exorcist" in 1973. It is today considered to be a forerunner of the new-age music movement.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In late 1974, his follow-up LP, "Hergest Ridge", was No. 1 in the UK for three weeks before being dethroned by "Tubular Bells". Although "Hergest Ridge" was released over a year after "Tubular Bells", it reached No. 1 first. "Tubular Bells" spent 11 weeks (10 of them consecutive) at No. 2 before its one week at the top. Like "Tubular Bells", "Hergest Ridge" is a two-movement instrumental piece, this time evoking scenes from Oldfield's Herefordshire country retreat. It was followed in 1975 by the pioneering world music piece "Ommadawn" released after the death of his mother, Maureen.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 1975, Oldfield recorded a version of the Christmas piece "In Dulci Jubilo" which charted at No. 4 in the UK.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 1975, Oldfield received a Grammy award for Best Instrumental Composition in "Tubular Bells – Theme from "The Exorcist"".


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 1976, Oldfield and his sister joined his friend and band member Pekka Pohjola to play on his album "Mathematician's Air Display", which was released in 1977. The album was recorded and edited at Oldfield's Througham Slad Manor in Gloucestershire by Oldfield and Paul Lindsay. Oldfield's 1976 rendition of "Portsmouth" remains his best-performing single on the UK Singles Chart, reaching No. 3.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield recorded the double album "Incantations" between December 1977 and September 1978. This introduced more diverse choral performances from Sally Oldfield, Maddy Prior, and the Queen's College Girls Choir. When it was released on 1 December 1978, the album went to No. 14 in the UK and reached platinum certification for 300,000 copies sold.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In June 1978, during the recording of "Incantations", Oldfield and his siblings completed a three-day Exegesis seminar, a controversial self-assertiveness programme based on Werner Erhard's EST training programme. The experience had a significant effect on Oldfield's personality, who recalled that he underwent a "rebirth experience" by reliving past fears. "It was like opening some huge cathedral doors and facing the monster, and I saw that the monster was myself as a newborn infant, because I'd started life in a panic." Following the Exegesis seminar, the formerly reclusive Oldfield granted press interviews, posed nude for a promotional photo shoot for "Incantations", and went drinking with news reporters. He had also conquered his fear of flying, gained a pilot's licence, and bought his own plane.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 1979, Oldfield supported "Incantations" with a European tour that spanned 21 dates between March and May 1979. The tour was documented with the live album and concert film, "Exposed". Initially marketed as a limited pressing of 100,000 copies, the strength of sales for the album were strong enough for Virgin to abandon the idea shortly after, transferring it to regular production. During the tour Oldfield released the disco-influenced non-album single "Guilty", for which he went to New York City to find the best session musicians and write a song with them in mind. He wrote a chord chart for the song and presented it to the group, who completed it in the studio. Released in April 1979, the song went to No. 22 in the UK and Oldfield performed the song on the national television show "Top of the Pops".


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield's music was used for the score of "The Space Movie" (1980), a Virgin Films production that celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. In 1979, he recorded a version of the signature tune for the BBC children's television programme "Blue Peter", which was used by the show for 10 years.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield's fifth album, "Platinum", was released in November 1979 and marked the start of his transition from long compositions towards mainstream and pop music. Oldfield performed across Europe between April and December 1980 with the In Concert 1980 tour.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 1980, Oldfield released "QE2", named after the ocean liner, which features a variety of guest musicians including Phil Collins on drums. This was followed by the European Adventure Tour 1981, during which Oldfield accepted an invitation to perform at a free concert celebrating the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in Guildhall. He wrote a new track, "Royal Wedding Anthem", for the occasion.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: His next album, "Five Miles Out", followed in March 1982, with the 24-minute track "Taurus II" occupying the whole of side one. The Five Miles Out World Tour 1982 saw Oldfield perform from April to December of that year. "Crises" saw Oldfield continue the pattern of one long composition with shorter songs. The first single from the album, "Moonlight Shadow", with Maggie Reilly on vocals, became Oldfield's most successful single, reaching No. 4 in the UK and No. 1 in nine other countries. The subsequent Crises Tour in 1983 concluded with a concert at Wembley Arena to commemorate the tenth anniversary of "Tubular Bells". The next album, "Discovery", continues with this trend, being the first single "To France" and subsequent Discovery Tour 1984.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield later turned to film and video, writing the score for Roland Joffé's acclaimed film "The Killing Fields" and producing substantial video footage for his album "Islands". "Islands" continued what Oldfield had been doing on the past couple of albums, with an instrumental piece on one side and rock/pop singles on the other. Of these, "Islands", sung by Bonnie Tyler and "Magic Touch", with vocals by Max Bacon (in the US version) and Glasgow vocalist Jim Price (Southside Jimmy) in the rest of the world, were the major hits. In the US "Magic Touch" reached the top 10 on the Billboard album rock charts in 1988. During the 1980s, Oldfield's then-wife, Norwegian singer Anita Hegerland, contributed vocals to many songs including "Pictures in the Dark".


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Released in July 1989, "Earth Moving" features seven vocalists across the album's nine tracks. It is Oldfield's first to consist solely of rock and pop songs, several of which were released as singles: "Innocent" and "Holy" in Europe, and "Hostage" in the US.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: For his next instrumental album, Virgin insisted that Oldfield use the title "Tubular Bells 2". Oldfield's rebellious response was "Amarok", an hour-long work featuring rapidly changing themes, unpredictable bursts of noise and a hidden Morse code insult, stating "Fuck off RB", allegedly directed at Branson. Oldfield did everything in his power to make it impossible to make extracts and Virgin returned the favour by barely promoting the album.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: in February 1991, Oldfield released his final album for Virgin, "Heaven's Open", under the name "Michael Oldfield". It marks the first time he handles all lead vocals. In 2013, Oldfield invited Branson to the opening of St. Andrew's International School of The Bahamas, where two of Oldfield's children were pupils. This was the occasion of the debut of "Tubular Bells for Schools", a piano solo adaptation of Oldfield's work.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: By early 1992, Oldfield had secured Clive Banks as his new manager and had several record label owners listen to his demo of "Tubular Bells II" at his house. Oldfield signed with Rob Dickins of WEA Warner and recorded the album with Trevor Horn as producer. Released in August 1992, the album went to No. 1 in the UK. Its live premiere followed on 4 September at Edinburgh Castle which was released on home video as "Tubular Bells II Live". Oldfield supported the album with his Tubular Bells II 20th Anniversary Tour in 1992 and 1993, his first concert tour since 1984. By April 1993, the album had sold over three million copies worldwide.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield continued to embrace new musical styles, with "The Songs of Distant Earth" (based on Arthur C. Clarke's novel of the same name) exhibiting a softer new-age sound. In 1994, he also had an asteroid, 5656 Oldfield, named after him.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 1995, Oldfield continued to embrace new musical styles by producing the Celtic-themed album "Voyager". In 1992, Oldfield met Luar na Lubre, a Galician Celtic-folk band (from A Coruña, Spain), with the singer Rosa Cedrón. The band's popularity grew after Oldfield covered their song "O son do ar" ("The sound of the air") on his "Voyager" album.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 1998, Oldfield produced the third "Tubular Bells" album (also premiered at a concert, this time in Horse Guards Parade, London), drawing on the dance music scene at his then new home on the island of Ibiza. This album was inspired by themes from "Tubular Bells", but differed in lacking a clear two-part structure.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: During 1999, Oldfield released two albums. The first, "Guitars", used guitars as the source for all the sounds on the album, including percussion. The second, "The Millennium Bell", consisted of pastiches of a number of styles of music that represented various historical periods over the past millennium. The work was performed live in Berlin for the city's millennium celebrations in 1999–2000.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: He added to his repertoire the MusicVR project, combining his music with a virtual reality-based computer game. His first work on this project is "Tr3s Lunas" launched in 2002, a virtual game where the player can interact with a world full of new music. This project appeared as a double CD, one with the music, and the other with the game.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 2002 and 2003, Oldfield re-recorded "Tubular Bells" using modern equipment to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the original. He had wanted to do it years before but his contract with Virgin kept him from doing so. This new version features John Cleese as the Master of Ceremonies as Viv Stanshall, who spoke on the original, died in the interim. "Tubular Bells 2003" was released in May 2003.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: On 12 April 2004 Oldfield launched his next virtual reality project, "Maestro", which contains music from the "Tubular Bells 2003" album and some new chillout melodies. The games have since been made available free of charge on Tubular.net.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 2005, Oldfield signed a deal with Mercury Records UK, who secured the rights to his catalogue when the rights had reverted to himself. Mercury acquired the rights to Oldfield's back catalogue, in July 2007. Oldfield released his first album on the Mercury label, "Light + Shade", in September 2005. It is a double album of music of contrasting mood: relaxed (Light) and upbeat and moody (Shade). In 2006 and 2007, Oldfield headlined the Night of the Proms tour, consisting of 21 concerts across Europe. Also in 2007, Oldfield released his autobiography, "Changeling".


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In March 2008 Oldfield released his first classical album, "Music of the Spheres"; Karl Jenkins assisted with the orchestration. In the first week of release the album topped the UK Classical chart and reached No. 9 on the main UK Album Chart. A single "Spheres", featuring a demo version of pieces from the album, was released digitally. The album was nominated for a Classical Brit Award, the NS&I Best Album of 2009.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 2008, when Oldfield's original 35-year deal with Virgin Records ended, the rights to "Tubular Bells" and his other Virgin releases were returned to him, and were then transferred to Mercury Records. Mercury announced that his Virgin albums would be reissued with bonus content from 2009. In 2009, Mercury released the compilation album "The Mike Oldfield Collection 1974–1983", that went to No. 11 in the UK chart.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 2008, Oldfield contributed a new track, "Song for Survival", to the charity album "Songs for Survival" in support of Survival International. Oldfield's daughter Molly played a large part in the project. In 2010, lyricist Don Black said that he had been working with Oldfield. In 2012, Oldfield was featured on "Journey into Space", an album by his brother Terry, and on the track "Islanders" by German producer Torsten Stenzel's York project. In 2013, Oldfield and York released a remix album entitled "Tubular Beats".


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield performed live at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London. His set included renditions of "Tubular Bells", "Far Above the Clouds" and "In Dulci Jubilo" during a segment about the National Health Service. This track appears on the officially released soundtrack album "Isles of Wonder". Later in 2012, the compilation album "Two Sides: The Very Best of Mike Oldfield" was released and reached No. 6 in the UK.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In October 2013, the BBC broadcast "Tubular Bells: The Mike Oldfield Story", a documentary on Oldfield's life and career.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield's latest rock-themed album of songs, titled "Man on the Rocks", was released on 3 March 2014 by Virgin EMI. The album was produced by Steve Lipson. The album marked a return of Oldfield to a Virgin branded label, through the merger of Mercury Records UK and Virgin Records after Universal Music's purchase of EMI. The track "Nuclear" was used for the E3 trailer of "".


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 2015, Oldfield told Steve Wright on his BBC radio show that a sequel album to "Tubular Bells" was in early development, which he aimed to record on analogue equipment. Later in 2015, Oldfield revealed that he had started on a sequel to "Ommadawn". The album, named "Return to Ommadawn", was finished in 2016 and released in January 2017. It went to No. 4 in the UK. Oldfield again hinted at a fourth "Tubular Bells" album when he posted photos of his new equipment, including a new Telecaster guitar.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: His 1970s recordings were characterised by a very broad variety of instrumentation predominantly played by himself, plus assorted guitar sound treatments to suggest other instrumental timbres (such as the bagpipe, mandolin, "Glorfindel" and varispeed guitars on the original "Tubular Bells").


title: Mike Oldfield

text: During the 1980s Oldfield became expert in the use of digital synthesizers and sequencers (notably the Fairlight CMI) which began to dominate the sound of his recordings: from the late 1990s onwards, he became a keen user of software synthesizers. He has, however, regularly returned to projects emphasising detailed, manually played and part-acoustic instrumentation (such as 1990's "Amarok", 1996's "Voyager" and 1999's "Guitars").


title: Mike Oldfield

text: While generally preferring the sound of guest vocalists, Oldfield has frequently sung both lead and backup parts for his songs and compositions. He has also contributed experimental vocal effects such as fake choirs and the notorious "Piltdown Man" impression on "Tubular Bells".


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield used a modified Roland GP8 effects processor in conjunction with his PRS Artist to get many of his heavily overdriven guitar sounds from the "Earth Moving" album onwards. Oldfield has also been using guitar synthesizers since the mid-1980s, using a 1980s Roland GR-300/G-808 type system, then a 1990s Roland GK2 equipped red PRS Custom 24 (sold in 2006) with a Roland VG8, and most recently a Line 6 Variax.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield has an unusual playing style, using fingers and long right-hand fingernails and different ways of creating vibrato: a "very fast side-to-side vibrato" and "violinist's vibrato". Oldfield has stated that his playing style originates from his musical roots playing folk music and the bass guitar.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Over the years, Oldfield has owned and used a vast number of synthesizers and other keyboard instruments. In the 1980s, he composed the score for the film "The Killing Fields" on a Fairlight CMI. Some examples of keyboard and synthesised instruments which Oldfield has made use of include Sequential Circuits Prophet-5s (notably on "Platinum" and "The Killing Fields"), Roland JV-1080/JV-2080 units (1990s), a Korg M1 (as seen in the "Innocent" video), a Clavia Nord Lead and Steinway pianos. In recent years, he has also made use of software synthesis products, such as Native Instruments.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield has self-recorded and produced many of his albums, and played the majority of the featured instruments, largely at his home studios. In the 1990s and 2000s he mainly used DAWs such as Apple Logic, Avid Pro Tools and Steinberg Nuendo as recording suites. For composing orchestral music Oldfield has been quoted as using the software notation program Sibelius running on Apple Macintoshes. He also used the FL Studio DAW on his 2005 double album "Light + Shade". Among the mixing consoles Oldfield has owned are an AMS Neve Capricorn 33238, a Harrison Series X, and a Euphonix System 5-MC.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield has been married four times and has seven children. In 1978 he married Diana Fuller, a relative of the Exegesis group leader, which lasted for three months. Oldfield recalled that he phoned Branson the day after the ceremony and said he had made a mistake. From 1979 to 1986, Oldfield was in a relationship with Sally Cooper, whom he met through Virgin. They had three children, daughter Molly and sons Dougal and Luke. In 2015, Dougal died after having collapsed while working at a film production company in London. By the time of Luke's birth in 1986, Oldfield's relationship with Cooper had broken down and they amicably split. Oldfield entered a relationship with Norwegian singer Anita Hegerland, lasting until 1991. The pair had met backstage at one of Oldfield's gigs while touring Germany in 1984. They lived in Switzerland, France, and England. They have two children: Greta and Noah.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In the late 1990s, Oldfield posted in a lonely hearts column in a local Ibiza newspaper. It was answered by Amy Lauer and the pair dated, but the relationship was troubled by Oldfield's bouts of alcohol and substance abuse and it ended after two months. In 2001, Oldfield began counselling and psychotherapy. Between 2002 and 2013, Oldfield was married to Fanny Vandekerckhove, whom he had met while living in Ibiza. They have two sons, Jake and Eugene.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield and his siblings were raised as Catholic, their mother's faith. He used drugs in his early life including LSD, which he said affected his mental health. In the early 1990s Oldfield set up Tonic, a foundation that sponsored people to receive counselling and therapy.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 1980 Oldfield, a longtime fan of model aircraft, acquired his pilot's licence. He later became a motorcycle enthusiast and has been inspired to write songs from riding them. He has owned various models, including a BMW R1200GS, Suzuki GSX-R750, Suzuki GSX-R1000, and a Yamaha R1.


title: Mike Oldfield

text: Oldfield has lived in Nassau, Bahamas, since 2009 and is a Bahamian citizen. He has also lived in Spain, Los Angeles and Monaco. In 2012, Oldfield stated that he had decided to leave England after feeling that the country had become a "nanny state" with too much surveillance and state control. Oldfield has remarked that while he is close to other celebrity residents in the Bahamas, he chose not to live within a wealthy gated community with staff and described his lifestyle as "austere."


title: Mike Oldfield

text: In 2017, Oldfield expressed support for then US President Donald Trump and said he would have played at Trump's inauguration if he had been invited to do so. In the same interview, he also stated that he was in favour of Brexit and supported Britain's withdrawal from the EU.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Jewish diaspora () or exile (Hebrew: ; Yiddish: ) is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of the globe.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In terms of the Hebrew Bible, the term "Exile" denotes the fate of the Israelites who were taken into exile from the Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BCE, and the Judahites from the Kingdom of Judah who were taken into exile during the 6th century BCE. While in exile, the Judahites became known as "Jews" (, or ), "Mordecai the Jew" from the Book of Esther being the first biblical mention of the term.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The first exile was the Assyrian exile, the expulsion from the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) begun by Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria in 733 BCE. This process was completed by Sargon II with the destruction of the kingdom in 722 BCE, concluding a three-year siege of Samaria begun by Shalmaneser V. The next experience of exile was the Babylonian captivity, in which portions of the population of the Kingdom of Judah were deported in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE by the Neo-Babylonian Empire under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: A Jewish diaspora existed for several centuries before the fall of the Second Temple, and their dwelling in other countries for the most part was not a result of compulsory dislocation. Before the middle of the first century CE, in addition to Judea, Syria and Babylonia, large Jewish communities existed in the Roman provinces of Egypt, Crete and Cyrenaica, and in Rome itself; after the Siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE, when the Hasmonean kingdom became a protectorate of Rome, emigration intensified. In 6 CE the region was organized as the Roman province of Judea. The Judean population revolted against the Roman Empire in 66 CE in the First Jewish–Roman War which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. During the siege, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and most of Jerusalem. This watershed moment, the elimination of the symbolic centre of Judaism and Jewish identity motivated many Jews to formulate a new self-definition and adjust their existence to the prospect of an indefinite period of displacement.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In 132 CE, Bar Kokhba led a rebellion against Hadrian, a revolt connected with the renaming of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina. After four years of devastating warfare, the uprising was suppressed, and Jews were forbidden access to Jerusalem.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: During the Middle Ages, due to increasing migration and resettlement, Jews divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two primary geographical groupings: the Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe, and the Sephardic Jews of Iberia (Spain and Portugal), North Africa and the Middle East. These groups have parallel histories sharing many cultural similarities as well as a series of massacres, persecutions and expulsions, such as the expulsion from England in 1290, the expulsion from Spain in 1492, and the expulsion from Arab countries in 1948–1973. Although the two branches comprise many unique ethno-cultural practices and have links to their local host populations (such as Central Europeans for the Ashkenazim and Hispanics and Arabs for the Sephardim), their shared religion and ancestry, as well as their continuous communication and population transfers, has been responsible for a unified sense of cultural and religious Jewish identity between Sephardim and Ashkenazim from the late Roman period to the present.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Diaspora has been a common phenomenon for many peoples since antiquity, but what is particular about the Jewish instance is the pronounced negative, religious, indeed metaphysical connotations traditionally attached to dispersion and exile ("galut"), two conditions which were conflated. The English term "diaspora", which entered usage as late as 1876, and the Hebrew word "galut" though covering a similar semantic range, bear some distinct differences in connotation. The former has no traditional equivalent in Hebrew usage.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Steven Bowman argues that diaspora in antiquity connoted emigration from an ancestral mother city, with the emigrant community maintaining its cultural ties with the place of origin. Just as the Greek city exported its surplus population, so did Jerusalem, while remaining the cultural and religious centre or metropolis ("ir-va-em be-yisrael") for the outlying communities. It could have two senses in Biblical terms, the idea of becoming a 'guiding light unto the nations' by dwelling in the midst of gentiles, or of enduring the pain of exile from one's homeland. The conditions of diaspora in the former case were premised on the free exercise of citizenship or resident alien status. Galut implies by comparison living as a denigrated minority, stripped of such rights, in the host society. Sometimes diaspora and galut are defined as 'voluntary' as opposed to 'involuntary' exile. Diaspora, it has been argued, has a political edge, referring to geopolitical dispersion, which may be involuntary, but which can assume, under different conditions, a positive nuance. Galut is more teleological, and connotes a sense of uprootedness. Daniel Boyarin defines diaspora as a state where people have a dual cultural allegiance, productive of a double consciousness, and in this sense a cultural condition not premised on any particular history, as opposed to galut, which is more descriptive of an existential situation, that properly of exile, conveying a particular psychological outlook.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Greek word διασπορά (dispersion) first appears as a neologism in the translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, where it occurs 14 times, starting with a passage reading: (‘thou shalt be a diaspora (or dispersion) in all kingdoms of the earth’, ), translating 'ləza‘ăwāh', whose root suggests 'trouble, terror'. In these contexts it never translated any term in the original Tanakh drawn from the Hebrew root "glt" (), which lies behind "galah," and "golah", nor even "galuth." "Golah" appears 42 times, and "galuth" in 15 passages, and first occurs in the 2 Kings 17:23's reference to the deportation of the Judean elite to Babylonia. Stéphane Dufoix, in surveying the textual evidence, draws the following conclusion:


title: Jewish diaspora

text: "galuth" and "diaspora" are drawn from two completely different lexicons. The first refers to episodes, precise and datable, in the history of the people of Israel, when the latter was subjected to a foreign occupation, such as that of Babylon, in which most of the occurrences are found. The second, perhaps with a single exception that remains debatable, is never used to speak of the past and does not concern Babylon; the instrument of dispersion is never the historical sovereign of another country. "Diaspora" is the word for chastisement, but the dispersion in question has not occurred yet: it is potential, conditional on the Jews not respecting the law of God. . . It follows that "diaspora" belongs, not to the domain of history, but of theology.'


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In Talmudic and post-Talmudic Rabbinic literature, this phenomenon was referred to as "galut" (exile), a term with strongly negative connotations, often contrasted with "geula" (redemption). Eugene Borowitz describes Galut as "fundamentally a theological category The modern Hebrew concept of "Tefutzot" תפוצות, "scattered", was introduced in the 1930s by the Jewish-American Zionist academic Simon Rawidowicz, who to some degree argued for the acceptance of the Jewish presence outside the Land of Israel as a modern reality and an inevitability. The Greek term for diaspora (διασπορά) also appears three times in the New Testament, where it refers to the scattering of Israel, i.e., the Ten Northern Tribes of Israel as opposed to the Southern Kingdom of Judah, although James (1:1) refers to the scattering of all twelve tribes.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In modern times, the contrasting meanings of diaspora/galut have given rise to controversy among Jews. Bowman states this in the following terms,


title: Jewish diaspora

text: (Diaspora) follows the Greek usage and is considered a positive phenomenon that continues the prophetic call of Israel to be a 'light unto the nations' and establish homes and families among the gentiles. The prophet Jeremiah issues this call to the preexilic emigrants in Egypt. . . Galut is a religious–nationalist term, which implies exile from the homeland as a result of collective sins, an exile that will be redeemed at YHWH’s pleasure. Jewish messianism is closely connected with the concept of galut.’


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In Zionist debates a distinction was made between "galut" and "golus/gola". The latter denoted social and political exile, whereas the former, while consequential on the latter, was a psycho-spiritual framework that was not wholly dependent on the conditions of life in diasporic exile, since one could technically remain in "galut" even in Eretz Israel. Whereas Theodor Herzl and his follows thought that the establishment of a Jewish state would put an end to the diasporic exile, Ahad Ha-am thought to the contrary that such a state's function would be to 'sustain Jewish nationhood' in the diaspora.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In 722 BCE, the Assyrians, under Sargon II, successor to Shalmaneser V, conquered the Kingdom of Israel, and many Israelites were deported to Mesopotamia. The Jewish proper diaspora began with the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: After the overthrow of the Kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (see Babylonian captivity) and the deportation of a considerable portion of its inhabitants to Mesopotamia, the Jews had two principal cultural centers: Babylonia and the land of Israel.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Deportees returned to the Samaria after the Neo-Babylonian Empire was in turn conquered by Cyrus the Great. The biblical book of Ezra includes two texts said to be decrees allowing the deported Jews to return to their homeland after decades and ordering the Temple rebuilt. The differences in content and tone of the two decrees, one in Hebrew and one in Aramaic, have caused some scholars to question their authenticity. The Cyrus Cylinder, an ancient tablet on which is written a declaration in the name of Cyrus referring to restoration of temples and repatriation of exiled peoples, has often been taken as corroboration of the authenticity of the biblical decrees attributed to Cyrus, but other scholars point out that the cylinder's text is specific to Babylon and Mesopotamia and makes no mention of Judah or Jerusalem. Lester L. Grabbe asserted that the "alleged decree of Cyrus" regarding Judah, "cannot be considered authentic", but that there was a "general policy of allowing deportees to return and to re-establish cult sites". He also stated that archaeology suggests that the return was a "trickle" taking place over decades, rather than a single event. There is no sudden expansion of the population base of 30,000 and no credible indication of any special interest in "Yehud".


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Although most of the Jewish people during this period, especially the wealthy families, were to be found in Babylonia, the existence they led there, under the successive rulers of the Achaemenids, the Seleucids, the Parthians, and the Sassanians, was obscure and devoid of political influence. The poorest but most fervent of the exiles returned to Judah / the Land of Israel during the reign of the Achaemenids (c. 550–330 BCE). There, with the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem as their center, they organized themselves into a community, animated by a remarkable religious ardor and a tenacious attachment to the Torah as the focus of its identity. As this little nucleus increased in numbers with the accession of recruits from various quarters, it awoke to a consciousness of itself, and strove once again for national independence and political enfranchisement and sovereignty.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The first Jewish diaspora in Egypt arose in the last century of pharaonic rule, apparently with the settlement there, either under Ashurbanipal or during the reign of Psammeticus of a colony of Jewish mercenaries, a military class that successively served the Persian, the Ptolemaic and Roman governments down to the early decades of the second century C.E., when the revolt against Trajan destroyed them. Their presence was buttressed by numerous Jewish administrators who joined them in Egypt's military and urban centres. According to Josephus, when Ptolemy I took Judea, he led 120,000 Jewish captives to Egypt, and many other Jews, attracted by Ptolemy's liberal and tolerant policies and Egypt's fertile soil, emigrated from Judea to Egypt of their own free will. Ptolemy settled the Jews in Egypt to employ them as mercenaries. Philadelphus subsequently emancipated the Jews taken to Egypt as captives and settled them in cleruchs, or specialized colonies, as Jewish military units.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: While communities in Alexandria and Rome dated back to before the Maccabean Revolt, the population in the Jewish diaspora expanded after the Pompey's campaign in 62 BCE. Under the Hasmonean princes, who were at first high priests and then kings, the Jewish state displayed even a certain luster and annexed several territories. Soon, however, discord within the royal family and the growing disaffection of the pious, towards rulers who no longer evinced any appreciation of the real aspirations of their subjects made the Jewish nation easy prey for the ambitions of the now increasingly autocratic and imperial Romans, the successors of the Seleucids. In 63 BCE Pompey invaded Jerusalem, the Jewish people lost their political sovereignty and independence, and Gabinius subjected the Jewish people to tribute.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: As early as the third century BCE Jewish communities sprang up in the Aegean islands, Greece, Asia Minor, Cyrenaica, Italy and Egypt. In Palestine, under the favourable auspices of the long period of peace - almost a whole century - which followed the advent of the Ptolemies, the new ways were to flourish. By means of all kinds of contacts, and particularly thanks to the development of commerce, Hellenism infiltrated on all sides in varying degrees. The ports of the Mediterranean coast were indispensable to commerce and, from the very beginning of the Hellenistic period, underwent great development. In the Western diaspora Greek quickly became dominant in Jewish life and little sign remains of profound contact with Hebrew or Aramaic, the latter probably being the more prevalent. Jews migrated to new Greek settlements that arose in the Eastern Mediterranean and former subject areas of the Persian Empire on the heels of Alexander the Great's conquests, spurred on by the opportunities they expected to find. The proportion of Jews in the diaspora in relation to the size of the nation as a whole increased steadily throughout the Hellenistic era and reached astonishing dimensions in the early Roman period, particularly in Alexandria. It was not least for this reason that the Jewish people became a major political factor, especially since the Jews in the diaspora, notwithstanding strong cultural, social and religious tensions, remained firmly united with their homeland. Smallwood writes that, 'It is reasonable to conjecture that many, such as the settlement in Puteoli attested in 4 BCE went back to the late (pre-Roman Empire) Roman Republic or early Empire and originated in voluntary emigration and the lure of trade and commerce." Many Jews migrated to Rome from Alexandria due to flourishing trade relations between the cities. Dating the numerous settlements is difficult. Some settlements may have resulted from Jewish emigration following the defeat of Jewish revolts. Others, such as the Jewish community in Rome, were far older, dating back to at least the mid second century BCE, although it expanded greatly following Pompey’s campaign in 62 BCE. In 6 CE the Romans annexed Judaea. Only the Jews in Babylonia remained outside of Roman rule. Unlike the Greek speaking Hellenized Jews in the west the Jewish communities in Babylonian and Judea continued the use of Aramaic as a primary language.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: As early as the middle of the 2nd century BCE the Jewish author of the third book of the Oracula Sibyllina addressed the "chosen people," saying: "Every land is full of thee and every sea." The most diverse witnesses, such as Strabo, Philo, Seneca, Luke (the author of the "Acts of the Apostles"), Cicero, and Josephus, all mention Jewish populations in the cities of the Mediterranean basin. See also History of the Jews in India and History of the Jews in China for pre-Roman (and post-) diasporic populations.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: King Agrippa I, in a letter to Caligula, enumerated among the provinces of the Jewish diaspora almost all the Hellenized and non-Hellenized countries of the Orient. This enumeration was far from complete as Italy and Cyrene were not included. The epigraphic discoveries from year to year augment the number of known Jewish communities but must be viewed with caution due to the lack of precise evidence of their numbers. According to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, the next most dense Jewish population after the Land of Israel and Babylonia was in Syria, particularly in Antioch, and Damascus, where 10,000 to 18,000 Jews were massacred during the great insurrection. The ancient Jewish philosopher Philo gives the number of Jewish inhabitants in Egypt as one million, one-eighth of the population. Alexandria was by far the most important of the Egyptian Jewish communities. The Jews in the Egyptian diaspora were on a par with their Ptolemaic counterparts and close ties existed for them with Jerusalem. As in other Hellenistic diasporas, the Egyptian diaspora was one of choice not of imposition.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: To judge by the later accounts of wholesale massacres in 115 CE, the number of Jewish residents in Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and Mesopotamia must also have been large. At the commencement of the reign of Caesar Augustus, there were over 7,000 Jews in Rome (though this is only the number that is said to have escorted the envoys who came to demand the deposition of Archelaus; compare: Bringmann: Klaus: Geschichte der Juden im Altertum, Stuttgart 2005, S. 202. Bringmann talks about 8,000 Jews who lived in the city of Rome.). Many sources say that the Jews constituted a full one-tenth (10%) of the population of the ancient city of Rome itself. Finally, if the sums confiscated by the governor Lucius Valerius Flaccus in the year 62/61 BCE represented the tax of a didrachma per head for a single year, it would imply that the Jewish population of Asia Minor numbered 45,000 adult males, for a total of at least 180,000 persons.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The 13th-century author Bar Hebraeus gave a figure of 6,944,000 Jews in the Roman world. Salo Wittmayer Baron considered the figure convincing. The figure of seven million within and one million outside the Roman world in the mid-first century became widely accepted, including by Louis Feldman. However, contemporary scholars now accept that Bar Hebraeus based his figure on a census of total Roman citizens and thus, included non-Jews. The figure of 6,944,000 being recorded in Eusebius' Chronicon. Louis Feldman, previously an active supporter of the figure, now states that he and Baron were mistaken. Philo gives a figure of one million Jews living in Egypt. John R. Bartlett rejects Baron's figures entirely, arguing that we have no clue as to the size of the Jewish demographic in the ancient world. The Romans did not distinguish between Jews inside and outside of the Land of Israel/Judaea. They collected an annual temple tax from Jews both in and outside of Israel. The revolts in and suppression of diaspora communities in Egypt, Libya and Crete in 115–117 CE had a severe impact on the Jewish diaspora.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Roman rule in Judea began in 63 BCE with the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey. After the city fell to Pompey's forces, thousands of Jewish prisoners of war were brought from Judea to Rome and sold into slavery. After these Jewish slaves were manumitted, they settled permanently in Rome on the right bank of the Tiber as traders. In 37 BCE, the forces of the Jewish client king Herod the Great captured Jerusalem with Roman assistance, and there was likely an influx of Jewish slaves taken into the diaspora by Roman forces. In 53 BCE, a minor Jewish revolt was suppressed and the Romans subsequently sold Jewish war captives into slavery. Roman rule continued until the First Jewish-Roman War, or the Great Revolt, a Jewish uprising to fight for independence, which began in 66 CE and was eventually crushed in 73 CE, culminating in the Siege of Jerusalem and the burning and destruction of the Temple, the centre of the national and religious life of the Jews throughout the world. The Jewish diaspora at the time of the Temple's destruction, according to Josephus, was in Parthia (Persia), Babylonia (Iraq), Arabia, as well as some Jews beyond the Euphrates and in Adiabene (Kurdistan). In Josephus' own words, he had informed "the remotest Arabians" about the destruction. Jewish communities also existed in southern Europe, Anatolia, Syria, and North Africa. Jewish pilgrims from the diaspora, undeterred by the rebellion, had actually come to Jerusalem for Passover prior to the arrival of the Roman army, and many became trapped in the city and died during the siege. According to Josephus, about 97,000 Jewish captives from Judea were sold into slavery by the Romans during the revolt. Many other Jews fled from Judea to other areas around the Mediterranean. Josephus wrote that 30,000 Jews were deported from Judea to Carthage by the Romans.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Exactly when Roman Anti-Judaism began is a question of scholarly debate, however historian Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson has proposed that the "Crisis under Caligula" (37–41) was the "first open break between Rome and the Jews". Meanwhile, the Kitos War, a rebellion by Jewish diaspora communities in Roman territories in the Eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, led to the destruction of Jewish communities in Crete, Cyprus, and North Africa in 117 CE, and consequently the dispersal of Jews already living outside of Judea to further reaches of the Empire.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Jerusalem had been left in ruins from the time of Vespasian. Sixty years later, Hadrian, who had been instrumental in the expulsion from Palestine of Marcius Turbo after his bloody repression of Jews in the diaspora in 117 CE., on visiting the area of "Iudaea", decided to rebuilt the city in 130 CE, and settle it, circumstantial evidence suggesting it was he who renamed it "Ælia Capitolina", with a Roman "colonia" and foreign cults. It is commonly held that this was done as an insult to the Jews and as a means of erasing the land's Jewish identity, Others argued that this project was expressive of an intention of establishing administratively and culturally a firm Roman imperial presence, and thus incorporate the province, now called Syro-Palaestina, into the Roman world system. These political measures were, according to Menachem Mor, devoid of any intention to eliminate Judaism, indeed, the pagan reframing of Jerusalem may have been a strategic move designed to challenge, rather, the growing threat, pretensions and influence of converts to Christianity, for whom Jerusalem was likewise a crucial symbol of their faith. Implementation of these plans led to violent opposition, and triggered a full-scale insurrection with the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), assisted, according to Dio Cassius, by some other peoples, perhaps Arabs who had recently been subjected by Trajan. The revolt was crushed, with the Jewish population of Judea devastated. Jewish war captives were again captured and sold into slavery by the Romans. According to Jewish tradition, the Romans deported twelve boatloads of Jews to Cyrenaica. Voluntary Jewish emigration from Judea in the aftermath of the Bar-Kokhba revolt also expanded Jewish communities in the diaspora. Jews were forbidden entrance to Jerusalem on pain of death, except for the day of Tisha B'Av. There was a further shift of the center of religious authority from Yavne, as rabbis regrouped in Usha in the western Galilee, where the Mishnah was composed. This ban struck a blow at Jewish national identity within Palestine, while the Romans however continued to allow Jews in the diaspora their distinct national and religious identity throughout the Empire.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The military defeats of the Jews in Judaea in 70 CE and again in 135 CE, with large numbers of Jewish captives from Judea sold into slavery and an increase in voluntary Jewish emigration from Judea as a result of the wars, meant a drop in Palestine's Jewish population was balanced by a rise in diaspora numbers. Jewish prisoners sold as slaves in the diaspora and their children were eventually manumitted and joined local free communities. It has been argued that the archaeological evidence is suggestive of a Roman genocide taking place during the Second revolt. A significant movement of gentiles and Samaritans into villages formerly with a Jewish majority appears to have taken place thereafter. During the Crisis of the Third Century, civil wars in the Roman Empire caused great economic disruption, and taxes imposed to finance these wars impacted the Jewish population of Palestine heavily. As a result, many Jews emigrated to Babylon under the more tolerant Sassanid Empire, where autonomous Jewish communities continued to flourish, lured by the promise of economic prosperity and the ability to lead a full Jewish life there.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Palestine and Babylon were both great centers of Jewish scholarship during this time, but tensions between scholars in these two communities grew as many Jewish scholars in Palestine feared that the centrality of the land to the Jewish religion would be lost with continuing Jewish emigration. Many Palestinian sages refused to consider Babylonain scholars their equals and would not ordain Babylonian students in their academies, fearing they would return to Babylon as rabbis. Significant Jewish emigration to Babylon adversely affected the Jewish academies of Palestine, and by the end of the third century they were reliant on donations from Babylon.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: It is commonly claimed that the diaspora began with Rome's twofold crushing of Jewish national aspirations. David Aberbach, for one, has argued that much of the European Jewish diaspora, by which he means exile or voluntary migration, originated with the Jewish wars which occurred between 66 and 135 CE. Martin Goodman states that it is only after the destruction of Jerusalem that Jews are found in northern Europe and along the western Mediterranean coast. This widespread popular belief holds that there was a sudden expulsion of Jews from Judea/Syria Palaestina and that this was crucial for the establishment of the diaspora. Israel Bartal contends that Shlomo Sand is incorrect in ascribing this view to most Jewish study scholars, instead arguing that this view is negligible among serious Jewish study scholars. These scholars argue that the growth of diaspora Jewish communities was a gradual process that occurred over the centuries, starting with the Assyrian destruction of Israel, the Babylonian destruction of Judah, the Roman destruction of Judea, and the subsequent rule of Christians and Muslims. After the revolt, the Jewish religious and cultural center shifted to the Babylonian Jewish community and its scholars. For the generations that followed, the destruction of the Second Temple event came to represent a fundamental insight about the Jews who had become a dispossessed and persecuted people for much of their history. Following the Bar Kokhba revolt Jews were reduced to a completely diaspora people.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Erich S. Gruen maintains that focusing on the destruction of the Temple misses the point that already before this, the diaspora was well established. Compulsory dislocation of people cannot explain more than a fraction of the eventual diaspora. Avrum Ehrlich also states that already well before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, more Jews lived in the Diaspora than in Israel. Jonathan Adelman estimated that around 60% of Jews lived in the diaspora during the Second Temple period. According to Gruen:


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Perhaps three to five million Jews dwelled outside Palestine in the roughly four centuries that stretched from Alexander to Titus. The era of the Second Temple brought the issue into sharp focus, inescapably so. The Temple still stood, a reminder of the hallowed past, and, through most of the era, a Jewish regime existed in Palestine. Yet the Jews of the diaspora, from Italy to Iran, far outnumbered those in the homeland. Although Jerusalem loomed large in their self-perception as a nation, few of them had seen it, and few were likely to.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Israel Yuval claimed the Babylonian captivity created a promise of return in the Jewish consciousness which had the effect of enhancing the Jewish self-perception of Exile after the destruction of the Second Temple, albeit their dispersion was due to an array of non-exilic factors.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In the 4th century, the Roman Empire split and Palestine came under the control of the Byzantine Empire. There was still a significant Jewish population there, and Jews probably constituted a majority of the population until some time after Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century. The ban on Jewish settlement in Jerusalem was maintained. There was a minor Jewish rebellion against a corrupt governor from 351 to 352 which was put down. In the 5th century, the collapse of the Western Roman Empire resulted in Christian migration into Palestine and the development of a firm Christian majority. Judaism was the only non-Christian religion tolerated, but the Jews were discriminated against in various ways. They were prohibited from building new houses of worship, holding public office, or owning slaves. The 7th century saw the Jewish revolt against Heraclius, which broke out in 614 during the Byzantine-Sasanian War. It was the last serious attempt by Jews to gain autonomy in the Land of Israel prior to modern times. Jewish rebels aided the Persians in capturing Jerusalem, where the Jews were permitted autonomous rule until 617, when the Persians reneged on their alliance. After Byzantine Emperor Heraclius promised to restore Jewish rights, the Jews aided him in ousting the Persians. Heraclius subsequently went back on his word and ordered a general massacre of the Jewish population, devastating the Jewish communities of Jerusalem and the Galilee. As a result, many Jews fled to Egypt.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In 638, Palestine came under Muslim rule with the Muslim conquest of the Levant. One estimate placed the Jewish population of Palestine at between 300,000 and 400,000 at the time. However, this is contrary to other estimates which place it at 150,000 to 200,000 at the time of the revolt against Heraclius. According to historian Moshe Gil, the majority of the population was Jewish or Samaritan. The land gradually came to have an Arab majority as Arab tribes migrated there. Jewish communities initially grew and flourished. Umar allowed and encouraged Jews to settle in Jerusalem. It was the first time in about 500 years that Jews were allowed to freely enter and worship in their holiest city. However, Umar II banned Jews from worshipping on the Temple Mount before his death in 720, a policy which was to remain in effect over the next 1,000 years of Islamic rule. In 717, new restrictions were imposed against non-Muslims that negatively affected the Jews. Heavy taxes on agricultural land forced many Jews to migrate from rural areas to towns. Social and economic discrimination caused significant Jewish emigration from Palestine, and Muslim civil wars in the 8th and 9th centuries pushed many Jews out of the country. By the end of the 11th century the Jewish population of Palestine had declined substantially.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: During the First Crusade, Jews in Palestine, along with Muslims, were indiscriminately massacred and sold into slavery by the Crusaders. The majority of Jerusalem's Jewish population was killed during the Crusader Siege of Jerusalem and the few thousand survivors were sold into slavery. Some of the Jews sold into slavery later had their freedom bought by Jewish communities in Italy and Egypt, and the redeemed slaves were taken to Egypt. Some Jewish prisoners of war were also deported to Apulia in southern Italy.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Relief for the Jewish population of Palestine came when the Ayyubid dynasty defeated the Crusaders and conquered Palestine. Some Jewish immigration from the diaspora subsequently took place, but this came to an end when Mamluks took over Palestine. The Mamluks severely oppressed the Jews and greatly mismanaged the economy, resulting in a period of great social and economic decline. The result was large-scale migration from Palestine, and the population declined. The Jewish population shrunk especially heavily, as did the Christian population. Though some Jewish immigration from Europe, North Africa, and Syria also occurred in this period, which potentially saved the collapsing Jewish community of Palestine from disappearing altogether, Jews were reduced to an even smaller minority of the population.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The result of these waves of emigration and expulsion was that the Jewish population of Palestine was reduced to a few thousand by the time the Ottoman Empire conquered Palestine, after which the region entered a period of relative stability. At the start of Ottoman rule in 1517, the estimated Jewish population was 5,000, composed of both descendants of Jews who had never left the land and migrants from the diaspora.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: During the Middle Ages, due to increasing geographical dispersion and re-settlement, Jews divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two primary geographical groupings: the Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe, and the Sephardic Jews of Iberia (Spain and Portugal), North Africa and the Middle East. These groups have parallel histories sharing many cultural similarities as well as a series of massacres, persecutions and expulsions, such as the expulsion from England in 1290, the expulsion from Spain in 1492, and the expulsion from Arab countries in 1948–1973. Although the two branches comprise many unique ethno-cultural practices and have links to their local host populations (such as Central Europeans for the Ashkenazim and Hispanics and Arabs for the Sephardim), their shared religion and ancestry, as well as their continuous communication and population transfers, has been responsible for a unified sense of cultural and religious Jewish identity between Sephardim and Ashkenazim from the late Roman period to the present.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: By 1764 there were about 750,000 Jews in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The worldwide Jewish population (comprising the Middle East and the rest of Europe) was estimated at 1.2 million.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Jews (, ), also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group who mainly trace their origins to the ancient Israelites of the Levant, as well as other contributory peoples/populations. The Samaritans consider themselves to be the remaining population of the Northern Kingdom of Israel who were not expelled during the ten tribes exile, and who joined with the incoming Assyrian populations to form the Samaritan community. Some biblical scholars also consider that parts of the Judean population had stayed to live in their homes during the exilic period and later joined the returning Israelites from Babylon and formed the Jews of the classic and Hasmonean era.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: After the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE, Judah ( ) became a province of the Persian empire. This status continued into the following Hellenistic period, when Yehud became a disputed province of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria. In the early part of the 2nd century BCE, a revolt against the Seleucids led to the establishment of an independent Jewish kingdom under the Hasmonean dynasty. The Hasmoneans adopted a deliberate policy of imitating and reconstituting the Davidic kingdom, and as part of this forcibly converted to Judaism their neighbours in the Land of Israel. The conversions included Nabateans (Zabadeans) and Itureans, the peoples of the former Philistine cities, the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites. Attempts were also made to incorporate the Samaritans, following takeover of Samaria. The success of mass-conversions is however questionable, as most groups retained their tribal separations and mostly turned Hellenistic or Christian, with Edomites perhaps being the only exception to merge into the Jewish society under Herodian dynasty and in the following period of Jewish-Roman Wars. While there are some references to maintaining the tribal separation among Israelites during the Hasmonean period, the dominant position of the tribe of Judah as well as nationalistic policies of Hasmoneans to refer to residents of Hasmonean Judea as Jews practically erased the tribal distinction, with the exception of the priestly orders of Levites and Kohanim (tribe of Levi).


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Babylonian Jewish community, though maintaining permanent ties with the Hasmonean and later Herodian kingdoms, evolved into a separate Jewish community, which during the Talmudic period assembled its own practices, the Babylonian Talmud, slightly differing from the Jerusalem Talmud. The Babylonian Jewry is considered to be the predecessor of most Mizrahi Jewish communities.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Ashkenazi Jews is a general category of Jewish populations who immigrated to what is now Germany and northeastern France during the Middle Ages and until modern times used to adhere to the Yiddish culture and the Ashkenazi prayer style. There is evidence that groups of Jews had immigrated to Germania during the Roman Era; they were probably merchants who followed the Roman Legions during their conquests. However, for the most part, modern Ashkenazi Jews originated with Jews who migrated or were forcibly taken from the Middle East to southern Europe in antiquity, where they established Jewish communities before moving into northern France and lower Germany during the High and Late Middle Ages. They also descend to a lesser degree from Jewish immigrants from Babylon, Persia, and North Africa who migrated to Europe in the Middle Ages. The Ashkenazi Jews later migrated from Germany (and elsewhere in Central Europe) into Eastern Europe as a result of persecution. Some Ashkenazi Jews also have minor ancestry from Sephardi Jews exiled from Spain, first during Islamic persecutions (11th-12th centuries) and later during Christian reconquests (13th-15th centuries) and the Spanish Inquisition (15th-16th centuries). Ashkenazi Jews are of mixed Middle Eastern and European ancestry, as they derive part of their ancestry from non-Jewish Europeans who intermixed with Jews of migrant Middle Eastern origin.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In 2006, a study by Doron Behar and Karl Skorecki of the Technion and Ramban Medical Center in Haifa, Israel demonstrated that the vast majority of Ashkenazi Jews, both men and women, have Middle Eastern ancestry. According to Nicholas Wades' 2010 Autosomal study Ashkenazi Jews share a common ancestry with other Jewish groups and Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews have roughly 30% European ancestry with the rest being Middle Eastern. According to Hammer, the Ashkenazi population expanded through a series of bottlenecks—events that squeeze a population down to small numbers—perhaps as it migrated from the Middle East after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, to Italy, reaching the Rhine Valley in the 10th century.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: David Goldstein, a Duke University geneticist and director of the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation, has said that the work of the Technion and Ramban team served only to confirm that genetic drift played a major role in shaping Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited in a matrilineal manner. Goldstein argues that the Technion and Ramban mtDNA studies fail to actually establish a statistically significant maternal link between modern Jews and historic Middle Eastern populations. This differs from the patrilineal case, where Goldstein said there is no doubt of a Middle Eastern origin.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In June 2010, Behar et al. "shows that most Jewish samples form a remarkably tight subcluster with common genetic origin, that overlies Druze and Cypriot samples but not samples from other Levantine populations or paired diaspora host populations. In contrast, Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) and Indian Jews (Bene Israel and Cochini) cluster with neighboring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and western India, respectively, despite a clear paternal link between the Bene Israel and the Levant.". "The most parsimonious explanation for these observations is a common genetic origin, which is consistent with an historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant." In conclusion the authors are stating that the genetic results are concordant "with the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout the Old World". Regarding the samples he used Behar points out that "Our conclusion favoring common ancestry (of Jewish people) over recent admixture is further supported by the fact that our sample contains individuals that are known not to be admixed in the most recent one or two generations."


title: Jewish diaspora

text: A 2013 study of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA by Costa et al., reached the conclusion that the four major female founders and most of the minor female founders had ancestry in prehistoric Europe, rather than the Near East or Caucasus. According to the study these findings 'point to a significant role for the conversion of women in the formation of Ashkenazi communities" and their intermarriage with Jewish men of Middle Eastern origin.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: A study by Haber, et al., (2013) noted that while previous studies of the Levant, which had focused mainly on diaspora Jewish populations, showed that the "Jews form a distinctive cluster in the Middle East", these studies did not make clear "whether the factors driving this structure would also involve other groups in the Levant". The authors found strong evidence that modern Levant populations descend from two major apparent ancestral populations. One set of genetic characteristics which is shared with modern-day Europeans and Central Asians is most prominent in the Levant amongst "Lebanese, Armenians, Cypriots, Druze and Jews, as well as Turks, Iranians and Caucasian populations". The second set of inherited genetic characteristics is shared with populations in other parts of the Middle East as well as some African populations. Levant populations in this category today include "Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians, as well as North Africans, Ethiopians, Saudis, and Bedouins". Concerning this second component of ancestry, the authors remark that while it correlates with "the pattern of the Islamic expansion", and that "a pre-Islamic expansion Levant was more genetically similar to Europeans than to Middle Easterners," they also say that "its presence in Lebanese Christians, Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, Cypriots and Armenians might suggest that its spread to the Levant could also represent an earlier event". The authors also found a strong correlation between religion and apparent ancestry in the Levant:


title: Jewish diaspora

text: all Jews (Sephardi and Ashkenazi) cluster in one branch; Druze from Mount Lebanon and Druze from Mount Carmel are depicted on a private branch; and Lebanese Christians form a private branch with the Christian populations of Armenia and Cyprus placing the Lebanese Muslims as an outer group. The predominantly Muslim populations of Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians cluster on branches with other Muslim populations as distant as Morocco and Yemen.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Another 2013 study, made by Doron M. Behar of the Rambam Health Care Campus in Israel and others, suggests that: "Cumulatively, our analyses point strongly to ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews primarily from European and Middle Eastern populations and not from populations in or near the Caucasus region. The combined set of approaches suggests that the observations of Ashkenazi proximity to European and Middle Eastern populations in population structure analyses reflect actual genetic proximity of Ashkenazi Jews to populations with predominantly European and Middle Eastern ancestry components, and lack of visible introgression from the region of the Khazar Khaganate—particularly among the northern Volga and North Caucasus populations—into the Ashkenazi community."


title: Jewish diaspora

text: A 2014 study by Fernández et al. found that Ashkenazi Jews display a frequency of haplogroup K in their maternal (mitochondrial) DNA, suggesting an ancient Near Eastern matrilineal origin, similar to the results of the Behar study in 2006. Fernández noted that this observation clearly contradicts the results of the 2013 study led by Costa, Richards et al. that suggested a European source for 3 exclusively Ashkenazi K lineages.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Sephardi Jews are Jews whose ancestors lived in Spain or Portugal. Some 300,000 Jews resided in Spain before the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century, when the Reyes Católicos reconquered Spain from the Arabs and ordered the Jews to convert to Catholicism, leave the country or face execution without trial. Those who chose not to convert, between 40,000 and 100,000, were expelled from Spain in 1492 in the wake of the Alhambra decree. Sephardic Jews subsequently migrated to North Africa (Maghreb), Christian Europe (Netherlands, Britain, France and Poland), throughout the Ottoman Empire and even the newly discovered Latin America. In the Ottoman Empire, the Sephardim mostly settled in the European portion of the Empire, and mainly in the major cities such as: Istanbul, Selânik and Bursa. Selânik, which is today known as Thessaloniki and found in modern-day Greece, had a large and flourishing Sephardic community as was the community of Maltese Jews in Malta.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: A small number of Sephardic refugees who fled via the Netherlands as Marranos settled in Hamburg and Altona Germany in the early 16th century, eventually appropriating Ashkenazic Jewish rituals into their religious practice. One famous figure from the Sephardic Ashkenazic population is Glückel of Hameln. Some relocated to the United States, establishing the country's first organized community of Jews and erecting the United States' first synagogue. Nevertheless, the majority of Sephardim remained in Spain and Portugal as Conversos, which would also be the fate for those who had migrated to Spanish and Portuguese ruled Latin America. Sephardic Jews evolved to form most of North Africa's Jewish communities of the modern era, as well as the bulk of the Turkish, Syrian, Galilean and Jerusalemite Jews of the Ottoman period.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Mizrahi Jews are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, largely originating from the Babylonian Jewry of the classic period. The term Mizrahi is used in Israel in the language of politics, media and some social scientists for Jews from the Arab world and adjacent, primarily Muslim-majority countries. The definition of Mizrahi includes the modern Iraqi Jews, Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, Persian Jews, Afghan Jews, Bukharian Jews, Kurdish Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews. Some also include the North-African Sephardic communities and Yemenite Jews under the definition of Mizrahi, but do that from rather political generalization than ancestral reasons.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Temanim are Jews who were living in Yemen prior to immigrating to Ottoman Palestine and Israel. Their geographic and social isolation from the rest of the Jewish community over the course of many centuries allowed them to develop a liturgy and set of practices that are significantly distinct from those of other Oriental Jewish groups; they themselves comprise three distinctly different groups, though the distinction is one of religious law and liturgy rather than of ethnicity. Traditionally the genesis of the Yemenite Jewish community came after the Babylonian exile, though the community most probably emerged during Roman times, and it was significantly reinforced during the reign of Dhu Nuwas in the 6th century CE and during later Muslim conquests in the 7th century CE, which drove the Arab Jewish tribes out of central Arabia.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Karaim are Jews who used to live mostly in Egypt, Iraq, and Crimea during the Middle Ages. They are distinguished by the form of Judaism which they observe. Rabbinic Jews of varying communities have affiliated with the Karaite community throughout the millennia. As such, Karaite Jews are less an ethnic division, than they are members of a particular branch of Judaism. Karaite Judaism recognizes the Tanakh as the single religious authority for the Jewish people. Linguistic principles and contextual exegesis are used in arriving at the correct meaning of the Torah. Karaite Jews strive to adhere to the plain or most obvious understanding of the text when interpreting the Tanakh. By contrast, Rabbinical Judaism regards an Oral Law (codified and recorded in the Mishnah and the Talmud) as being equally binding on Jews, and mandated by God. In Rabbinical Judaism, the Oral Law forms the basis of religion, morality, and Jewish life. Karaite Jews rely on the use of sound reasoning and the application of linguistic tools to determine the correct meaning of the Tanakh; while Rabbinical Judaism looks towards the Oral law codified in the Talmud, to provide the Jewish community with an accurate understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The differences between Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism go back more than a thousand years. Rabbinical Judaism originates from the Pharisees of the Second Temple period. Karaite Judaism may have its origins among the Sadducees of the same era. Karaite Jews hold the entire Hebrew Bible to be a religious authority. As such, the vast majority of Karaites believe in the resurrection of the dead. Karaite Jews are widely regarded as being halachically Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinate. Similarly, members of the rabbinic community are considered Jews by the Moetzet Hakhamim, if they are patrilineally Jewish.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Jews of Israel comprise an increasingly mixed wide range of Jewish communities making aliyah from Europe, North Africa, and elsewhere in the Middle East. While a significant portion of Israeli Jews still retain memories of their Sephardic, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi origins, mixed Jewish marriages among the communities are very common. There are also smaller groups of Yemenite Jews, Indian Jews and others, who still retain a semi-separate communal life. There are also approximately 50,000 adherents of Karaite Judaism, most of whom live in Israel, but their exact numbers are not known, because most Karaites have not participated in any religious censuses. The Beta Israel, though somewhat disputed as the descendants of the ancient Israelites, are widely recognized in Israel as Ethiopian Jews.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The ancestry of most American Jews goes back to Ashkenazi Jewish communities that immigrated to the US in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as more recent influxes of Persian and other Mizrahi Jewish immigrants. The American Jewish community is considered to contain the highest percentage of mixed marriages between Jews and non-Jews, resulting in both increased assimilation and a significant influx of non-Jews becoming identified as Jews. The most widespread practice in the U.S is Reform Judaism, which doesn't require or see the Jews as direct descendants of the ethnic Jews or Biblical Israelites, but rather adherents of the Jewish faith in its Reformist version, in contrast to Orthodox Judaism, the mainstream practice in Israel, which considers the Jews as a closed ethnoreligious community with very strict procedures for conversion.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Jews of modern France number around 400,000 persons, largely descendants of North African communities, some of which were Sephardic communities that had come from Spain and Portugal—others were Arab and Berber Jews from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, who were already living in North Africa before the Jewish exodus from the Iberian Peninsula—and to a smaller degree members of the Ashkenazi Jewish communities, who survived WWII and the Holocaust.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Mountain Jews are Jews from the eastern and northern slopes of the Caucasus, mainly Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Dagestan. They are the descendants of Persian Jews from Iran.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Bukharan Jews are an ethnic group from Central Asia who historically practised Judaism and spoke Bukhori, a dialect of the Tajik-Persian language.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Kaifeng Jews are members of a small Jewish community in Kaifeng, in the Henan province of China who have assimilated into Chinese society while preserving some Jewish traditions and customs.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Cochin Jews also called Malabar Jews, are the oldest group of Jews in India, with possible roots that are claimed to date back to the time of King Solomon. The Cochin Jews settled in the Kingdom of Cochin in South India, now part of the state of Kerala. As early as the 12th century, mention is made of the Black Jews in southern India. The Jewish traveler, Benjamin of Tudela, speaking of Kollam (Quilon) on the Malabar Coast, writes in his "Itinerary": "...throughout the island, including all the towns thereof, live several thousand Israelites. The inhabitants are all black, and the Jews also. The latter are good and benevolent. They know the law of Moses and the prophets, and to a small extent the Talmud and Halacha." These people later became known as the Malabari Jews. They built synagogues in Kerala beginning in the 12th and 13th centuries. They are known to have developed Judeo-Malayalam, a dialect of the Malayalam language.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Paradesi Jews are mainly the descendants of Sephardic Jews who originally immigrated to India from Sepharad (Spain and Portugal) during the 15th and 16th centuries in order to flee forced conversion or persecution in the wake of the Alhambra Decree which expelled the Jews from Spain. They are sometimes referred to as White Jews, although that usage is generally considered pejorative or discriminatory and it is instead used to refer to relatively recent Jewish immigrants (end of the 15th century onwards), who are predominantly Sephardim.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Paradesi Jews of Cochin are a community of Sephardic Jews whose ancestors settled among the larger Cochin Jewish community located in Kerala, a coastal southern state of India.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Paradesi Jews of Madras traded in diamonds, precious stones and corals, they had very good relations with the rulers of Golkonda, they maintained trade connections with Europe, and their language skills were useful. Although the Sephardim spoke Ladino (i.e. Spanish or Judeo-Spanish), in India they learned to speak Tamil and Judeo-Malayalam from the Malabar Jews.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Georgian Jews are considered ethnically and culturally distinct from neighboring Mountain Jews. They were also traditionally a highly separate group from the Ashkenazi Jews in Georgia.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Krymchaks are Jewish ethno-religious communities of Crimea derived from Turkic-speaking adherents of Orthodox Judaism.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: During the history of the Jewish diaspora, Jews who lived in Christian Europe were often attacked by the local Christian population, and they were often forced to convert to Christianity. Many, known as "Anusim" ('forced-ones'), continued practicing Judaism in secret while living outwardly as ordinary Christians. The best known Anusim communities were the Jews of Spain and the Jews of Portugal, although they existed throughout Europe. In the centuries since the rise of Islam, many Jews living in the Muslim world were forced to convert to Islam, such as the Mashhadi Jews of Persia, who continued to practice Judaism in secret and eventually moved to Israel. Many of the Anusim's descendants left Judaism over the years. The results of a genetic study of the population of the Iberian Peninsula released in December 2008 "attest to a high level of religious conversion (whether voluntary or enforced) driven by historical episodes of religious intolerance, which ultimately led to the integration of the Anusim's descendants.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Samaritans, who comprised a comparatively large group in classical times, now number 745 people, and today they live in two communities in Israel and the West Bank, and they still regard themselves as descendants of the tribes of Ephraim (named by them as "Aphrime") and Manasseh (named by them as "Manatch"). Samaritans adhere to a version of the Torah known as the Samaritan Pentateuch, which differs in some respects from the Masoretic text, sometimes in important ways, and less so from the Septuagint.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Samaritans consider themselves "Bnei Yisrael" ("Children of Israel" or "Israelites"), but they do not regard themselves as "Yehudim" (Jews). They view the term "Jews" as a designation for followers of Judaism, which they assert is a related but an altered and amended religion which was brought back by the exiled Israelite returnees, and is therefore not the true religion of the ancient Israelites, which according to them is Samaritanism.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Y DNA studies tend to imply a small number of founders in an old population whose members parted and followed different migration paths. In most Jewish populations, these male line ancestors appear to have been mainly Middle Eastern. For example, Ashkenazi Jews share more common paternal lineages with other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than with non-Jewish populations in areas where Jews lived in Eastern Europe, Germany and the French Rhine Valley. This is consistent with Jewish traditions which place most Jewish paternal origins in the region of the Middle East.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Conversely, the maternal lineages of Jewish populations, studied by looking at mitochondrial DNA, are generally more heterogeneous. Scholars such as Harry Ostrer and Raphael Falk believe this indicates that many Jewish males found new mates from European and other communities in the places where they migrated in the diaspora after fleeing ancient Israel. In contrast, Behar has found evidence that about 40% of Ashkenazi Jews originate maternally from just four female founders, who were of Middle Eastern origin. The populations of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish communities "showed no evidence for a narrow founder effect." Subsequent studies carried out by Feder et al. confirmed the large portion of the non-local maternal origin among Ashkenazi Jews. Reflecting on their findings related to the maternal origin of Ashkenazi Jews, the authors conclude "Clearly, the differences between Jews and non-Jews are far larger than those observed among the Jewish communities. Hence, differences between the Jewish communities can be overlooked when non-Jews are included in the comparisons."


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Studies of autosomal DNA, which look at the entire DNA mixture, have become increasingly important as the technology develops. They show that Jewish populations have tended to form relatively closely related groups in independent communities, with most people in a community sharing significant ancestry in common. For Jewish populations of the diaspora, the genetic composition of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jewish populations show a predominant amount of shared Middle Eastern ancestry. According to Behar, the most parsimonious explanation for this shared Middle Eastern ancestry is that it is "consistent with the historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant" and "the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout the Old World". North African, Italian and others of Iberian origin show variable frequencies of admixture with non-Jewish historical host populations among the maternal lines. In the case of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews (in particular Moroccan Jews), who are closely related, the source of non-Jewish admixture is mainly southern European, while Mizrahi Jews show evidence of admixture with other Middle Eastern populations and Sub-Saharan Africans. Behar "et al." have remarked on an especially close relationship of Ashkenazi Jews and modern Italians. Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the north of the Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks, and Armenians) than to Arabs.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The studies also show that persons of Sephardic Bnei Anusim origin (those who are descendants of the "anusim" who were forced to convert to Catholicism) throughout today's Iberia (Spain and Portugal) and Ibero-America (Hispanic America and Brazil), estimated that up to 19.8% of the modern population of Iberia and at least 10% of the modern population of Ibero-America, has Sephardic Jewish ancestry within the last few centuries. The Bene Israel and the Cochin Jews of India, Beta Israel of Ethiopia, and a portion of the Lemba people of Southern Africa, meanwhile, despite more closely resembling the local populations of their native countries, also have some more remote ancient Jewish descent.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: According to Eliezer Schweid, the rejection of life in the diaspora is a central assumption in all currents of Zionism. Underlying this attitude was the feeling that the diaspora restricted the full growth of Jewish national life. For instance the poet Hayim Nahman Bialik wrote:


title: Jewish diaspora

text: According to Schweid, Bialik meant that the "seed" was the potential of the Jewish people. Preserved in the diaspora, this seed could only give rise to deformed results; however, once conditions changed the seed could still provide a plentiful harvest.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In this matter Sternhell distinguishes two schools of thought in Zionism. One was the liberal or utilitarian school of Theodor Herzl and Max Nordau. Especially after the Dreyfus Affair, they held that antisemitism would never disappear and they saw Zionism as a rational solution for Jews.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The other was the organic nationalist school. It was prevalent among the Zionist olim and they saw the movement as a project to rescue the Jewish nation rather than as a project to only rescue Jews. For them, Zionism was the "Rebirth of the Nation".


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Contrary to the negation of the diaspora view, the acceptance of Jewish communities outside Israel was postulated by those, like Simon Rawidowicz (also a Zionist), who viewed the Jews as a culture which had evolved into a new 'worldly' entity that had no reason to seek an exclusive return, either physical, emotional or spiritual to its indigenous lands, and who believed that the Jews could remain one people even outside Israel.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: It was argued that the dynamics of the diaspora which were affected by persecution, numerous subsequent exiles, as well as by political and economic conditions, had created a new Jewish awareness of the World, and a new awareness of the Jews by the World.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: In effect there are many Zionists today who do not embrace the "Negation of the Diaspora" as any kind of absolute , and who see no conflict—and even a beneficial and worldly and positive symbiosis—between a diaspora of healthy self-respecting Jewish communities (such as those which have evolved in the United States, Canada, and several other Western countries) and a vital and evolving Israeli society and state of Israel.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov (Bnei Yissaschar, Chodesh Kislev, 2:25) explains that each exile was characterized by a different negative aspect:


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Jewish fast day of Tisha B'Av commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem and the subsequent exile of the Jews from the Land of Israel. The Jewish tradition maintains that the Roman exile would be the last, and that after the people of Israel returned to their land, they would never be exiled again. This statement is based on the verse: "(You paying for) Your sin is over daughter of Zion, he will not exile you (any)more" [""].


title: Jewish diaspora

text: According to Aharon Oppenheimer, the concept of the exile beginning after the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple was developed by early Christians, who saw the destruction of the Temple as a punishment for Jewish deicide, and by extension as an affirmation of the Christians as God's new chosen people, or the "New Israel". In actually, in the period that followed the destruction of the Temple, Jews had many freedoms. The people of Israel had religious, economic and cultural autonomy, and the Bar Kochba revolt demonstrated the unity of Israel and their political-military power at that time. Therefore, according to Aharon Oppenheimer, the Jewish exile only started after the Bar Kochba revolt, which devastated the Jewish community of Judea. Despite popular conception, Jews have had a continuous presence in the Land of Israel, despite the exile of the majority of Judeans. The Jerusalem Talmud was signed in the fourth century, hundreds of years after the revolt. Moreover, many Jews remained in Israel even centuries later, including during the Byzantine period (many remnants of synagogues are found from this period). Jews have been a majority or a significant plurality in Jerusalem in the millennia since their exile with few exceptions (including the period following the Siege of Jerusalem (1099) by the Crusaders and the 18 years of Jordanian rule of eastern Jerusalem, in which Jerusalem's historic Jewish quarter was expelled).


title: Jewish diaspora

text: d. Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Belarus, Moldova, Russia (including Siberia), Ukraine.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: e. Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia), Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan).


title: Jewish diaspora

text: As of 2019, the largest numbers of Jews live in Israel (5,704,000), United States (5,275,000), France (484,000), Canada (375,000), the United Kingdom (292,000), Russia (205,000–1.5 million), Argentina (182,300), Germany (119,000), Australia (113,000–140,000), Brazil (107,000), South Africa (69,000-80,000), Ukraine (50,000-140,000) and Hungary (47,000-100,000). These numbers reflect the "core" Jewish population, defined as being "not inclusive of non-Jewish members of Jewish households, persons of Jewish ancestry who profess another monotheistic religion, other non-Jews of Jewish ancestry, and other non-Jews who may be interested in Jewish matters." Significant Jewish populations also remain in Middle Eastern and North African countries outside of Israel, particularly Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen. In general, these populations are shrinking due to low growth rates and high rates of emigration (particularly since the 1960s).


title: Jewish diaspora

text: The Jewish Autonomous Oblast continues to be an Autonomous Oblast of Russia. The Chief Rabbi of Birobidzhan, Mordechai Scheiner, says there are 4,000 Jews in the capital city. Governor Nikolay Mikhaylovich Volkov has stated that he intends to, "support every valuable initiative maintained by our local Jewish organizations." The Birobidzhan Synagogue opened in 2004 on the 70th anniversary of the region's founding in 1934. An estimated 75,000 Jews live in Siberia.


title: Jewish diaspora

text: Metropolitan areas with the largest Jewish populations are listed below, though one source at jewishtemples.org, states that "It is difficult to come up with exact population figures on a country by country basis, let alone city by city around the world. Figures for Russia and other CIS countries are but educated guesses." The source cited here, the 2010 World Jewish Population Survey, also notes that "Unlike our estimates of Jewish populations in individual countries, the data reported here on urban Jewish populations do not fully adjust for possible double counting due to multiple residences. The differences in the United States may be quite significant, in the range of tens of thousands, involving both major and minor metropolitan areas."


title: Bleach (Nirvana album)

text: Bleach is the debut studio album by American rock band Nirvana, released on June 15, 1989, by Sub Pop. After the release of their debut single "Love Buzz" on Sub Pop in November 1988, Nirvana rehearsed for two to three weeks in preparation for recording a full-length album. The main recording sessions for "Bleach" took place at Reciprocal Recording in Seattle, Washington between December 1988 and January 1989. It is the only Nirvana album released on the Sub Pop label and their only album to feature drummer Chad Channing.


title: Bleach (Nirvana album)

text: "Bleach" did not chart upon initial release, but was well received by critics. When reissued internationally by Geffen Records in 1992 following the success of Nirvana's second album, "Nevermind", "Bleach" peaked at number 89 on the "Billboard" 200, peaked at number 33 on the UK Albums Chart and number 34 on the Australian albums chart. In 2009, Sub Pop released a 20th anniversary edition of "Bleach" featuring a live recording of a 1990 Nirvana performance in Portland, Oregon as bonus material.


title: Bleach (Nirvana album)

text: "Bleach" had sold 40,000 copies in North America before the release of "Nevermind". It has since been certified platinum by the RIAA and has sold more than 1.9 million copies in the United States alone. It is Sub Pop's best-selling album to date and is unlikely to be surpassed by competitors. Frontman Kurt Cobain's death in April 1994 also led to a resurgence in the album's popularity, reaching number one on the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart. In April 2019, "Bleach" was ranked No. 13 on "Rolling Stone"'s 50 Greatest Grunge Albums list.


title: Bleach (Nirvana album)

text: After the release of its debut single "Love Buzz" on Sub Pop in November 1988, Nirvana practiced for two to three weeks in preparation for recording a full-length album, even though Sub Pop had only requested an EP. The main sessions for "Bleach" took place at Reciprocal Recording Studios in Seattle, with local producer Jack Endino.


title: Bleach (Nirvana album)

text: Nirvana began recording with a five-hour session on December 24, 1988. The band recorded again on December 29–31, and on January 14 and 24. Three of the album's songs – "Floyd the Barber", "Paper Cuts", and "Downer" – were recorded during a previous session at Reciprocal Studios in January 1988, featuring Dale Crover on drums. Despite attempts to re-record them with new drummer Chad Channing, the band ultimately decided to remix the versions recorded with Crover for the final version of "Bleach". "Big Long Now" was omitted from the album because vocalist/guitarist Kurt Cobain felt "there was already enough slow heavy stuff on "Bleach", and he 'didn't want that song to go out'", according to Endino. The album was edited and sequenced, but Sub Pop head Bruce Pavitt ordered that the album be completely re-sequenced. The record was further delayed for several months until Sub Pop was able to secure sufficient funds to issue it.


title: Bleach (Nirvana album)

text: Lead singer Kurt Cobain felt pressured to create music for "Bleach" that conformed to the grunge music style favored by his record label and the contemporary Seattle music scene. The album is regarded as quite negative and bleak; Cobain claimed that most of the lyrics were written the night before recording while he was feeling "pissed off", and that he did not regard them highly.


title: Bleach (Nirvana album)

text: Endino billed the band thirty hours of recording at $606.17. Jason Everman, a guitarist who was impressed by Nirvana's demo with Dale Crover, supplied the money. He briefly joined the group as second guitarist. Everman was credited as a guitarist on the album sleeve, and is the other guitarist on the cover of the album, even though he did not perform on the album. Bassist Krist Novoselic explained, "We just wanted to make him feel at home in the band."


title: Bleach (Nirvana album)

text: According to Cobain, the music on "Bleach" conformed with the grunge genre Sub Pop heavily endorsed. "There was this pressure from Sub Pop and the grunge scene to play 'rock music'", Cobain said, and noted that he "[stripped] it down and [made] it sound like Aerosmith." Cobain also felt he had to fit the expectations of the grunge sound to build a fanbase, and hence suppressed his arty and pop songwriting traits while crafting the record. Krist Novoselic said in a 2001 interview with "Rolling Stone" that the band had played a tape in their tour van that had an album by the Smithereens on one side and one by the band Celtic Frost on the other, and noted that the combination probably played an influence as well. The songs were described as "deliberately bleak, claustrophobic, and lyrically sparse, with none of the manic derangement or sense of release of the live performance". Cobain said that the song structures were "one–dimensional", and said that he sought to present a more "polished and urbane side of himself".


title: Bleach (Nirvana album)

text: "Bleach" was heavily influenced by the Seattle-based sludge metal scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s, pioneered by Melvins. Author Gillian G. Gaar wrote that "Bleach" "[has] its share – some would say more than its share – of dirty sludge", and Sub Pop describes the single Love Buzz/Big Cheese to be "heavy pop sludge."