Page 172 - Encyclopedia Of World History

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has changed substantially over the centuries. A recent enslaved Africans in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eigh-
scholarly debate over just how widely the term can be teenth centuries, Armenians threatened with genocide in
applied has not reached a satisfactory conclusion. Turkey after World War I, and displaced Palestinians—
which have also been called diasporas. Occasionally,
Early Use of the too, reference has been made to an Irish diaspora, the
Term Diaspora result of poor Irish farmers being forced from home by
Over two millennia ago, the Greek historian Thucydides the devastating potato blight and the threat of mass star-
used diaspora to describe those driven from their homes vation in the 1840s and 1850s. Nevertheless, for the
during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE). But for most part it was the Jewish experience of exile, home-
other Greek speakers, the term had a much broader lessness or statelessness, and attachment to a lost home
meaning. It referred to the dispersion of Greeks around that defined diaspora.
the Mediterranean and into western Asia between 800
and 600 BCE.These were not refugees but merchants and The Jewish Diaspora
colonizers who formed distinctive Greek settlements The destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and the sub-
amidst peoples of other cultures.The word diaspora sug- sequent Babylonian exile became central to Jewish life,
gested that like seeds, migrants could travel great dis- culture, and identity. Memories of this experience were
tances, yet once they took root, they would grow into passed from generation to generation, obscuring the fact
familiar forms: Greeks scattered outside Greece nonethe- that a significant contingent of early Jewish exiles restored
less remained culturally Greek and proud of their origins. the Temple in 515 BCE.At least since classical times, more
Perhaps because the term diaspora appeared in Greek Jews lived in scattered communities in Egypt and Anato-
translations of the Bible, describing the exile of Jews, the lia (peninsular Turkey) than in the Jewish homeland
meaning of the term subsequently narrowed. Hebrew around Jerusalem.The crushing of a Jewish revolt against
speakers initially preferred the term galut (exile) to de- the Romans in 70 CE, the second destruction of the Tem-
scribe Jews forced into exile after the destruction of the ple and a second exile, and, somewhat later, Christian
Temple of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. But over the centuries, assertions about Jews’ supposed role in the killing of
the term diaspora was applied so often, so consistently, Christ helped to solidify images of Jews as wanderers,
and in so many European languages to Jews who had persecuted wherever they traveled and never permanently
scattered while escaping from persecution that the earlier, settled anywhere.
broader Greek meaning of the term seemed almost com- In later periods, however, there is little evidence that
pletely forgotten. the large populations of Jews living in the Catholic or
Theorists have used other terms for minority groups Orthodox Mediterranean or in Muslim North Africa or
formed by forced migrations, calling them involuntary western Asia were substantially more mobile than major-
migrants, exiles, or refugees.They have suggested that the ity populations: Most Jews settled permanently in cities.
social, psychological, and cultural dynamics of ethnic Their reputation for tenacious commitments and for
group formation among forced migrants differ signifi- emotional attachment to their ancestral homeland was in
cantly from the dynamics among those who leave home part a product of social and economic discrimination that
voluntarily. In particular, forced migrants are believed to prevented them from ever belonging fully to host soci-
nurture especially strong connections to their homelands eties, whether those societies were Catholic, Orthodox
and to hope for their eventual return there. Such charac- Christian, or Muslim.
teristics were central to the concept of the Jewish Diaspora. Persecution sparked important Jewish migrations,
In the past two centuries, scholars have recognized a especially between 1000 and 1500. In Catholic Europe
limited number of other forced migrations—notably the Crusades heightened anti-Semitism; eventually