diaspora

diaspora (from Greek, ‘dispersion’) Jewish communities that have dispersed outside Israel. The process began with Assyrian and Babylonian expulsions in 721 and 597 BC, was continued by voluntary migration, and accelerated by the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. By the 1st century AD there were Jewish communities from the Levant to Italy and notably in Babylon and Egypt.

By the early Middle Ages Spain was the main centre of Jewish scholarship, which it remained until the INQUISITION expelled all Jews in 1492. Distinguished Jewish scholars were also found in France and Germany, but from the time of the Crusaders, ANTI-SEMITISM began to develop, many cities confining Jews to ghettos. Poland and Lithuania welcomed Jewish victims of persecution, and by the 17th century Eastern Europe had become the diaspora's centre of gravity until the pogroms of the 1880s drove many westwards, via Germany and Britain, to the USA. The German HOLOCAUST, during World War II, destroyed many Jewish communities that remained in Europe. The main centre of the diaspora is now the USA, with some 6 million Jews.