Last month I gave a lecture at the Jewish Museum in Berlin as part of a program on “What Does the Diaspora Mean for Jews and Muslims?” My 30-minuteish lecture (in English) begins at minute 4:27. The other speaker’s (excellent) lecture (in German) on Islamic views follows, and the panel discussion and questions (in English and German) begin at minute 1:15:00. My argument, in short is that even in antiquity three quite distinct notions of Jewish “Diaspora” existed, and the emergence (and acceptance, or not) of each can be tied to distinct socio-political conditions. These notions are: A center-periphery model, in which the Land of Israel was considered the center and was in many respects hierarchically above the periphery. This is probably the most common way in which Diaspora is viewed today; A center-periphery model, in which a center of Jewish learning is seen as hierarchically superior to the Land of Israel. This model is especially prominent in the Babylonian Talmud. Many Babylonian rabbis saw their own community as the center, to which those in the Land of Israel (and elsewhere) should defer; A trans-regional, diffuse model, in which there either is no center at all or are shifting and […]
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