What is the Jewish Diaspora?

Where did they go?  Where did the Jewish people go after the destruction of the Second Temple, a.d. 70 and 1948 when the State of Israel was reestablished? 

The Jewish Diaspora (from a Greek word meaning “scattering” or “dispersion”) refers to all the Jewish communities living outside the land of Israel after being exiled or dispersed over centuries.

 Let’s start back in a.d. 70 when the Jewish world changed forever. The Second Temple, the center of worship, their identity, and Israel’s national life, was gone—leveled. Over 10,000 Jews were made slaves, many died, and many remained in the Land. But many also scattered for survival. But they took with them the enduring parts of their culture.

• Scholarship. They still studied the Torah.

• Tradecraft. Resilient and adaptable, they built networks of routes and contacts.

• Innovation. They invented what they needed on the run.

• Most importantly, they never forgot their identity and worshiped God wherever they were. Though they were without their Temple, they established synagogues as the center of their new way of life that still exists today.   

And for those almost two thousand years, they still prayed toward Jerusalem. They never forgot their identity and stayed connected to each other and to their land by their faith, by their Scriptures, and a hope of returning to their home.

They ended every prayer with “Next year in Jerusalem” as the heartbeat of a people scattered but never divided from their homeland or their story.

70 - 100’s AD | Rome & Italy

• Many were killed, captured as slaves, or scattered.

• Many were taken as prisoners to Rome, where some were forced to build the Colosseum.

• Others ran for their lives to areas closer to Israel.

• More escaped by sea to North Africa and Turkey.

• Synagogues established in Italy.

200’s AD | Babylonia (modern Iraq)

• Jews moved here to get beyond Roman control. Formal Torah study established continued scholarship.

300’s - 500’s AD | North Africa & Egypt

• Jewish communities flourish in Egypt.

• Trade networks spread Jewish influence eventually reaching Spain, France, Germany, and Eastern Europe.

600’s - 700’s AD | Arabian Peninsula & Persia

• Jewish merchants and scholars joined new trade routes; Persian Torah schools thrive.

800’s - 1000’s AD | Spain & North Mediterranean

• Under Islamic rule, Jewish culture thrives in Spain.

1100’s - 1400’s AD | France & Germany (Ashkenaz)

• Persecution and opportunity shift Jewish populations north; Yiddish culture and medieval rabbinic centers develop.

1500’s - 1600’s AD | Eastern Europe & Ottoman lands

• Forced to leave Western Europe, Jews settle in Poland, Lithuania, and southeast Europe.

1700’s - 1800’s AD - Western Europe & North America

• New ways of thinking in Europe and the U.S. drew Jews to North America.

1900’s –2000’s AD | Global diaspora & return to Israel

• By 1900, Jewish communities live on every continent.

• 1933-1945, six million European Jews are murdered in the Holocaust.

• Waves of Aliyah draw Jewish people back to the land of Israel after 1948.