• DOI:10.2979/ISR.2005.10.1.36
• Corpus ID: 144379115

The Jewish Diaspora in a Comparative and Theoretical Perspective

@article{Safran2005TheJD,
  title={The Jewish Diaspora in a Comparative and Theoretical Perspective},
  author={William Safran},
  journal={Israel Studies},
  year={2005},
  volume={10},
  pages={36 - 60}
}

• William Safran
• Published 21 March 2005
• History
• Israel Studies

FOR MANY GENERATIONS, THE PHENOMENON of Diaspora was dealt with only in connection with the Jews. Thus, the entry on "Diaspora" in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences published in 1937 was by Simon Dubnow, the prominent scholar of Jewish history.' With few exceptions, political scientists and historians ignored it, including those who focused on nationalism and ethnicity.2 The reason was simple: diaspora referred to a very specific case-that of the exile of the Jews from the Holy Land and their dispersal throughout several parts of the globe. Diaspora [galut] connoted deracination, legal disabilities, oppression, and an often painful adjustment to a hostland whose hospitality was unreliable and ephemeral. It also connoted the existence on foreign soil of an expatriate community that considered its presence to be transitory. Meanwhile, it developed a set of institutions, social patterns, and ethnonational and/or religious symbols that held it together. These included the language, religion, values, social norms, and narratives of the homeland. Gradually, this community adjusted to the hostland environment and became itself a center of cultural creation. All the while, however, it continued to cultivate the idea of return to the homeland.