Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Greek, ‘scattering’. In the Septuagint text of Jeremias 15: 7 God threatens jerusalem and its people with dispersion. In Isaias 49: 6 God tells the prophet: ‘It is a great thing to be called my servant, to establish the tribes of Jacob and to cause the diaspora of Israel to return …’ In Psalm 146/147: 2 the psalmist says: ‘The Lord builds up Jerusalem; and he will gather the scattered [diasporas] of Israel.’ The bible gives us the image of diaspora as the scattering of God's people from their homeland into foreign and often hostile territory, their scattering sometimes seen as a form of punishment, their return home as a saving act of God. In Jewish history, ‘diaspora’ came to refer to the Jews living outside the Holy Land. The term came be applied to ethnic communities living outside their homelands, whether because of expulsion, exile or emigration. Exiles, however, share a sense of diaspora identity sharply different from that of voluntary emigrants, who are normally also willing immigrants into a new homeland. Nostalgia for and a commitment to political and economic support for the motherland is common to diaspora communities, but for exiles there is also a sense of loss, deprivation, injustice, frustration and often utter impotence. There exist also exiled communities who after generations are firmly settled in a land where they arrived not as willing immigrants but as refugees. ... log in or subscribe to read full text