Al Reguel Ajat

Jacob Neusner says: “If you talk to any Jew who cares about Judaism, the subject of “assimilation” will surely come up, a term fraught with negative connotations for loyal and devout Jews. They argue that assimilation can only lead to the end of the Jewish people as an autonomous community and to the end of Judaism as a religious or cultural tradition.”

Neusner continues: “Built into this concern is a fear of change. They argue that change is bad. They say that one can define the specific characteristics of Judaism, those that all Jewish communities in the world have in common, and one must strive to preserve these common characteristics, because failure to preserve them means failure to preserve Judaism.”

Neusner says this conception of Judaism is flawed for two reasons. The first is because it sees Judaism as something static, unchanging, with only one dimension and unitary, that can be defined and described in only one way—its only way of being Jewish. But it is not difficult to demonstrate that those characteristics that are considered uniquely Jewish today were not considered so at the time they were adopted from the outside world. Yiddish, a language intrinsically linked to the identity of Ashkenazi Jews, had a non-Jewish origin in medieval German. The current way ultra-Orthodox Jews dress in black was borrowed from the dress of Christian Poles.

The second, says Neusner, is when the fear of assimilation reveals a lack of confidence in the resources available to Judaism and in the Jewish people’s ability to adapt and adopt the best features of universal culture. He says that assimilation, properly channeled, is not a bad thing, as it is a source that has revitalized Judaism. This is precisely the argument of Gerson D. Cohen, former rector of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Cohen quotes from the Talmud (Vaykra Rabah 32:5) what Bar Kappara, a second-century CE sage, said: one of the four factors that led to the Israelites’ redemption from Egypt was that they spoke Hebrew. And it is true that at that time the people of Israel spoke Hebrew. But in the time of the Mishnah, the Jews spoke Aramaic, and many also spoke Greek, like the Jewish community of Alexandria. The name of Hillel’s famous edict, the «prosbul,» comes from the Greek «prosbole.» Later, Arabic replaced Aramaic and Greek. Maimonides wrote his «Guide for the Perplexed» in Arabic. And the Sephardic Jews brought Ladino with them from Spain as their language. The change in language did not end Judaism; on the contrary, it renewed it. This ability to translate, readapt, and reorient oneself to a new situation, while retaining the basic Jewish core, is responsible for the survival and vitality of Judaism, says Cohen.

Cohen concludes: The dilemma of whether assimilation is a good thing or a bad thing comes down to a simple question: if non-Jewish forms of expression are assimilated into Jewish life, then assimilation is positive. Medieval German became Yiddish. But if Judaism and Jews are assimilated into the way of life of other peoples, then Jewishness is lost, and that is no longer a blessing.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Gerson D. Cohen: “The Blessing of Assimilation in Jewish History.” Jacob Neusner: “Understanding Jewish Theology: Classical Issues and Modern Perspectives.”

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was born in Berlin in 1925 and grew up in Baden, near Vienna, where his father, Naftali Carlebach, was the chief rabbi. With the arrival of Nazism in Germany, the Carlebach family began a journey through several countries, finally arriving in New York in 1939. There, he and his twin brother, Eli Chaim, studied at Mesivta Tora Vodaas High School, a Haredi yeshiva. In 1943, they entered Rabbi Aharon Kotler’s Kolel and later the Chaim Berlin Yeshiva in Brooklyn, where Shlomo received his smicha, his rabbinical title, in 1954.

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach is considered one of the most influential composers of 20th-century Jewish religious music. Dedicated to Jewish liturgical music for over 40 years, he composed hundreds of melodies and recorded more than 25 albums that remain popular and appealing to this day. His influence is still felt in the Carlebach minyanim.

Carlebach was simultaneously a rabbi, religion teacher, composer, and singer, though he was always known as «the singing rabbi.» Although his roots were in traditional Orthodoxy, he branched out to create his own style, one that combined Hasidic Judaism, personal interaction, and public concerts with his music.

In 1950, Carlebach attended the Hebrew-language ulpan (school) of the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, where he would often play Hasidic melodies on the piano. Someone heard him and invited him to sing at the Hillel Center on Convent Avenue, an offer he reluctantly accepted. The poster for the event read: «The Place of Music in the Hasidic Tradition.» Years later, Carlebach would say that this poster «gave him the title of his life’s work.»

From 1951 to 1954, he joined the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, and the Rebbe asked him to visit college campuses to «reconnect Jewish students with Judaism.» In 1965, he composed «Am Ysrael Chai,» a song that became an anthem for the movement on behalf of Soviet Jewry. In 1966, he met Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and other folk singers, who helped him participate in the Berkeley Festival. It was then that he decided to remain in the San Francisco area to help what he called «lost Jewish souls,» runaway youth, for whom he founded a center he called «The House of Love and Prayer.» In 1969, his song «Vehaer Eineninu» won first place at the Hasidic music festival in Israel. Carlebach died in 1994. During his lifetime, he was not well regarded by many of his Orthodox colleagues. He had excelled in Talmudic studies at the yeshiva, so many had hoped he would become its director. They viewed his choice of musical path with suspicion. Furthermore, they questioned his public activities, especially when women sang, which they considered a violation of halacha. Nevertheless, today the music of the «Singing Rabbi» can be heard in synagogues from the most Orthodox to the most Reform.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Shlomo Carlebach Foundation, article by Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman and Ari L. Goldman.

It is written in Kiddushin 3:12: To be Jewish, one must be the son of a Jewish mother or have converted to Judaism. By this rule, scholars say that Judaism is «matrilineal.»

However, this was not always the case. Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen of Harvard University states: “Numerous Israelite heroes and kings married foreign wives: for example, Judah married a Canaanite, Joseph an Egyptian, Moses a Midianite and an Ethiopian, David a Philistine, and Solomon married women of all kinds. By marrying an Israelite man, a foreign woman joined her husband’s clan, people, and religion. It never occurred to anyone before the Roman exile to argue that such marriages were null and void, that foreign women should «convert» to Judaism, or that the children of such marriages were not Israelites if the women did not convert.” In biblical times, Judaism was “patrilineal”; it was passed from father to son, and there was no process of “conversion” to Judaism.

 Some scholars attribute the beginning of the shift from patrilineal to matrilineal to Ezra the scribe. The Book of Ezra tells us how, after returning to the Land of Israel from the Babylonian exile, he ordered that all Israelite men divorce their foreign wives because of the potential risk this posed to Jewish identity (6th and 5th centuries BCE). Others explain the shift to matrilineal status by the influence of the Roman Code among the sages of the Academy of Yavne, established after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the 1st century CE. Finally, when the Mishnah was codified by Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi in the 2nd century CE, the concept of matrilineality was established as the norm that defines who is a Jew.

But new changes began to take place in 1970 when the Law of Return was amended in Israel. It recognizes as Jewish those who are descended from a Jewish mother, father, grandmother, or grandfather and do not practice another religion, as well as those who converted to Judaism. Years later, in 1983, the Reform movement broke with the traditional halachic definition and declared that a child is Jewish if at least one of his or her parents, either the father or the mother, is Jewish and raised as such. The Reconstructionist movement also adopts the same position, remaining faithful to its principles of complete religious equality for all.

In contrast, Orthodox Judaism today considers as Jewish only those born to a Jewish mother, and this status, for them, is never lost, even if the person practices another religion. They also accept converts to Orthodox Judaism. On the other hand, the Rabbinical Assembly, the association of Conservative rabbis, has reiterated its commitment to the current halachic norm, although more and more members of this movement believe that patrilineal descent should be accepted.

The definition of who is Jewish has focused for centuries on the paradigm of descent. Our religious authorities, of any denomination, only pay attention to who the parents were. They forget that being Jewish is much more than being someone’s child.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Various sources.

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardoso tells us: “The greatness of the Talmudic sages was that they shared their own conflicts and doubts with their students, as well as their attempts to resolve them. This is demonstrated in the debates over halachic issues, especially between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, and between Rava and Abaye. These disagreements were rooted in each student’s view of life and Judaism. The students shared their teachers’ inner lives, and this led to heated discussions. The teachers created tension in their classes, waged battles with their own ideas, and asked their students to question them with all their might. They were not interested in teaching them the final halachic rulings, but rather asked them to dismantle the conclusions to rediscover the questions. These teachers realized that not all halachic paradoxes can be resolved, because life itself is full of paradoxes.”

Rabbi Irwin Kula tells us: “In most cases, when a decision was reached, the verdict favored Hillel and not Shammai. But this was not because Hillel was objectively correct. The Talmud tells us of both teachings: ‘This and this are the words of the living God.’ Why then did the decisions favor Hillel’s school? The reason is because of the way Hillel arrived at his conclusions: Hillel always studied and analyzed Shammai’s position first, even teaching it before his own. His school understood and valued the other’s truth, and they used this to broaden their perspective and present a more inclusive position, which gave them a deeper understanding of life. They did not seek to defeat Shammai in the debate, but to benefit everyone from it.”

Kula says: “Throughout the centuries, our sages have sought to free us from our certainties so that we can discover deeper insights and expand our moral universe. They understood that since no two human situations are identical, the answer we give them today is, by nature, provisional. Every morning there will be a new moral dilemma. There are never definitive answers to life’s great questions; there are only deeper ones. There is something liberating and rich in this teaching. The search for truth is not about finding the final answer, but about going deeper. The goal is not to reach “the answer,” but to live the process of searching again and again.”

Al Reguel Ajat is just that: a continual search for answers. And every time we find an answer, we stumble upon a better question.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Nathan Lopes Cardozo: “The Manifesto of the David Cardozo Academy” and Irwin Kula: “Yearnings, Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life”

Breishit (Genesis), the first book of the Torah, recounts the lives of the first members of the Jewish people, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo questions how the patriarchs can be considered Jews if the rules defining who is Jewish were given to Moses hundreds of years later on Mount Sinai. Wouldn’t it have been more logical, then, for the patriarchs, especially Abraham, to have received the Torah instead of Moses? Thus, divine commandments would have governed the life of the Jewish people from the beginning.

The answer to this question is very important, Lopes Cardozo tells us: “No law, not even divine commandments, can work if it is not preceded by a narrative of the human moral condition and by the introduction of basic moral and religious values. These values ​​cannot simply be given; they must grow within the person through life experience. Such values ​​are not learned from a book; they must be developed gradually, on an existential level, shaped by the values ​​that God grants to each person from birth.”

Genesis 1:26-27 says: “And God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, like our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over the livestock and over all the earth and every creature that moves on the ground.’ So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them.” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks refers to these verses as perhaps one of the most transformative ideas in human history: the idea that all men were created equal. It might seem like an obvious truth, but in many societies it hasn’t. Even Socrates spoke of three types of men: those with souls of gold, those with silver, and those with bronze. Those with gold were destined to be leaders, those with silver to be warriors, and those with bronze to simply obey. The idea that all men were created equal wasn’t, and isn’t, so obvious. It still takes time to become so.

Cardozo continues: “This is why God did not give the laws of the Torah to the patriarchs. They first had to learn through personal trials and tribulations. The patriarchs and matriarchs needed to see with their own eyes what happens when humanity is not governed by law. They had to become aware of basic moral values. Only after man has been deeply immersed and affected by these ideas and values ​​can the law be introduced as a way of putting them into action.” Maimonides said it in his Guide for the Perplexed: it takes a long time for people to change.

The Book of Breishit undoubtedly established the ethical foundations of Judaism based on narratives: Creation, the expulsion from Paradise, Cain and Abel, the Tower of Babel, the Flood, etc. The people of Israel had to assimilate these ethical foundations before they could receive divine commandments. Therefore, Abraham Avinu could not have received the Torah. The people weren’t ready.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Nathan Lopes Cardozo: “The Desecration of Halacha.” Jonathan Sacks: “Essays on Ethics.”

The menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum, is undoubtedly the oldest Jewish symbol, even older than the shield of David, which is more recent. Not only is it older, but its design is also specified in the Torah, unlike the shield of David, which is not mentioned in the Bible.

In chapter 25 of the Book of Exodus, God commands the construction of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. And in verses 31-40 of the same chapter, He orders the making of a candelabrum for the Mishkan, which was to be hammered from pure gold, with seven branches, one in the center and three on each side, decorated with cups shaped like almond blossoms, apples, and flowers. Verse 40 says: “See that you make it according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.” Chapter 31 tells us that God chose Bezalel, the son of Uri, from the tribe of Judah, to build the Tabernacle, including the seven-branched menorah.

In 1000 BCE, King Solomon built the first Temple in Jerusalem. It is written in chapter 7, 48:49 of the book of Kings: “Solomon made all the furnishings that were in the house of the Lord,… and the lampstands, five on the right side and five on the left side, in front of the sanctuary, of gold.” The lampstands remained in the Temple until 586 BCE, when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it. When the Temple was rebuilt 70 years later, a new menorah was crafted with the same design. In 70 CE, after destroying the Second Temple, Roman soldiers took the menorah to Rome, just as it is depicted on the Arch of Titus. The earliest known representation of the menorah appears on the coins of Antigonus Mattathias II (40-37 BCE), the last of the Hasmoneans. Ida Huberman tells us: After the destruction of the Temple, the menorah became a central figure in Jewish art. Professor Erwin Goodenough lists at least 182 examples of seven-branched candelabra among his finds. The menorah shape was depicted on synagogue doors and portals, and was incorporated into designs on mosaic floors, clay lamps, crystal goblets, and bracelets. The menorah shape has also been discovered carved in stone. Its use as a decorative motif was equally prevalent in Israel and in the Diaspora.

The menorah soon became a simple, often schematic, yet meaningful figure, a symbol that maintained its central position in Jewish tradition for centuries, even into modern times. German Jews placed menorahs in their homes, much as Christians placed crosses in theirs. In the 19th century, with the rise of Jewish nationalism, the seven-branched menorah re-emerged as a Zionist symbol, and since 1948 it has served as the emblem of the State of Israel.

An ancient midrash states that: «Three things presented difficulties to Moses, until the Blessed Holy One showed Moses with His finger: … the menorah.» According to another ancient tradition, not God, but the angel Gabriel drew a picture so that Moses could see in image what God was representing in words. Undoubtedly, the menorah was designed by the Great Architect.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Article by Ida Huberman, Encyclopaedia Judaica, and other sources.

In 1954, when he was Prime Minister of the State of Israel, David Ben-Gurion wrote to the rabbi of the Sephardic Jewish community of Amsterdam, Salamon Rodrigues Pereira, asking him to revoke the decree of excommunication (in Hebrew, «jerem») issued almost 300 years earlier, in 1656, against the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Obviously, Rabbi Rodrigues refused to do so.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was born in Amsterdam, the son of Jewish immigrants from Portugal, where they had been forced to convert to Catholicism and were able to return to their former faith thanks to the relative safety and tolerance they found in Holland. His father, Miguel, a wealthy merchant, was a member of the governing committee of the synagogue and the school his son attended. The young Spinoza received a traditional education in the Talmud and Torah, in addition to self-studying the classics of medieval Jewish philosophy. He spoke Portuguese, Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, and Latin. His father died when he was 21.

Spinoza broke with traditional dogmas. Steven Nadler says: “The God Spinoza presents in his book Ethics is a far cry from the traditional God of monotheistic religions. What Spinoza calls ‘God or Nature’ (Deus sive Natura) lacks all the psychological and ethical attributes of a providential deity. His God has no personal will, emotions, or preferences; he formulates no plans, issues no commands, has no expectations, and makes no judgments. Spinoza’s God is neither good, nor wise, nor just. For him, it is a mistake to think of God in normative or value terms. What God is, for Spinoza, is Nature itself.” Therefore, for Spinoza, there is no Divine Creation, no free will, nothing after death, no divine reward or punishment, no revelation on Mount Sinai, no reason to pray or supplicate, etc. He argued that belief in a divinity had created an immense superstructure of habits, institutions, and rituals—the entirety of organized religion—which, in turn, had led to the enslavement of the human mind. His books were also placed on the Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books.

Excommunication meant that Spinoza lost all ties with other Jews, including his family. He was able to maintain contact with a handful of them, but lived the rest of his life in the company of Christian humanist intellectuals. His work reflects a keen concern for the Jewish question and is a constant dialogue with the Torah, the prophets, the rabbis, and philosophers such as Maimonides. He never converted to Christianity, but took the Latin name Benedict instead of Baruch. Spinoza was a kind and gentle soul, calm, benevolent, and gregarious, who rarely lost his temper. His critics admit that, despite disagreeing with his philosophy, he was one of those rare individuals who demonstrated that one can live a holy and secular life without God.

The importance of Spinoza’s ideas would be seen centuries later with the arrival of the Enlightenment in Europe, especially in the Jewish communities of Germany. The new Reform Jews, the secular Zionists, the enlightened European Jews, even the Yiddishists, all saw in Spinoza’s ideas the theoretical justification for their positions. Why did Ben-Gurion want to abolish the cherem? Because for him, Spinoza represented the ideal Jew, the secular Jew who is completely detached from rabbinic Judaism. Because Spinoza was, without a doubt, the first secular Jew.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Articles by Steven Nadler, Steven B. Smith, Daniel B. Schwartz, and other sources.

During World War II, Columbia University anthropologist Ruth Benedict, in a study commissioned by President Roosevelt, popularized the idea that Japan was a «shame culture» unlike the West, which was a «guilt culture.»

Paul G. Hiebert characterizes the «shame culture» as follows: Shame is a reaction to other people’s criticism of oneself, a strong concern about our failure to live up to what others expect of us. In shame-oriented cultures, each person has a place and a duty in their society. Individuals maintain their self-esteem and «honor» by doing what is expected of them and not necessarily doing what is right according to their conscience. In a shame culture, we seek to be thought well of by others. In this sense, shame is always seen and recorded by the community. Social shame, a bad reputation, as well as honor, a good name, are visible to all.

On the other hand, Paul G. Hiebert himself defines the “guilt culture” as follows: Guilt is a feeling that arises when we violate the standards of morality within us, when we violate the values ​​dictated by our conscience. A person may feel guilty, and no one else may even know of their misconduct. This feeling of guilt is relieved by asking for forgiveness and making appropriate restitution. A true guilt culture relies on one’s own conscience as the driving force of good behavior and does not rely on what others will say.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains that the first biblical sin, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, is actually a story about the difference between guilt and shame. He quotes Bernard Williams, who says that shame is essentially a visual problem. Adam and Eve were ashamed of being “seen” naked. Guilt, on the other hand, is a hearing problem. Adam knew he had violated what the voice of God had told him. You can hide from shame, just as Adam did. Not so much the voice of your conscience, the voice of God, for it is within you.

Rabbi Sacks continues: The story of Adam and Eve is not about original sin or the «knowledge» of good and evil. It is about choosing between acting on the basis of what our eyes see or acting by listening to the ethical principles of the Torah. Judaism, the religion of the God who cannot be seen, but can be heard, bases its values ​​on a culture of guilt, not shame.

Unfortunately, a culture of shame has infiltrated Judaism, especially in extremely religious groups. For its members, the important thing is to comply with what their social group expects of them, not so much with what their conscience dictates. I comply with the rules, especially those that are clearly visible, primarily out of fear of being excluded, rather than because of my ethical judgment. Their actions are under rabbinic «supervision.»

Sacks says, “You don’t have to be religious to be moral. Every social group should have a code of conduct that enables its members to live constructively and collaboratively.” The question is how you do it: out of conscience or shame.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Jonathan Sacks, “Essays on Ethics: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible” and others.

It is written in the Talmud (Yoma 9b): «Why was the Second Temple destroyed? Because of sinat chinam, the senseless hatred of one Jew toward another.»

The Midrash Eichah tells us that when the Romans besieged Jerusalem (1st century CE), there was enough grain in its warehouses to last 20 years. Most of its inhabitants thought they could hold out and not have to go out and fight the Roman army. They felt safe and well protected within the walled city. However, the Zealots, a group of Jewish fanatics, insisted on fighting, so they burned the granaries inside the walled city, forcing the people to seek sustenance outside the city. This resulted in a direct confrontation with the Roman legions and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Many Jews were killed, and the survivors were sent into exile. This group of fanatics felt that their way was the only way.

Our sages explain that the people of the Second Temple generation were «pious» and intensely involved in Torah study. However, they were not «upright» in their relationships with others, whether in their actions, thoughts, or manner of expression. Therefore, due to the unjustified hatred each had for the other, one would often falsely accuse another of heresy simply because the other’s way of expressing themselves religiously did not agree with their own path. Those whose path was different were therefore labeled as nonbelievers and considered outside what they considered «authentic Judaism.»

Judaism in the Second Temple period was divided into several groups: the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Essenes, the Zealots, the Sicarii, and others. Some sources speak of up to 24 different groups. But the problem was not and is not plurality, but rather the lack of tolerance of one group toward the other. The Bal Shem Tov said: Why did the men of the Great Assembly specifically word the language of the prayer in the Amidah with the following apparent redundancy: «The GOD of Abraham, the GOD of Isaac, and the GOD of Jacob?» Because each of the three patriarchs had their own path to connecting with Him.

Some scholars have found a great similarity between Judaism in the Roman era and today. In both, there is a plurality of approaches to understanding the practice of Judaism, but also a marked intolerance of fanatic groups toward others. For those, like the Zealots, their way is the only way.

Hatred is a natural human reaction when their person, property, self-esteem, or beliefs have been unjustly attacked. Therefore, «sinat chinam» is understood as gratuitous, unfounded, or senseless hatred, since there is no apparent aggression from one person toward the other. Someone taking a different path should not be considered aggression toward the other. Unless, deep down, you have doubts about your own path. Then your hatred does make sense, because, deep down, the other person made you doubt your own.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Jewish Encyclopedia and other sources.

There is a widespread belief that the Jewish diaspora began during the Roman rule, when they destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE and defeated Bar Kokhba and his men in 135 CE. This is incorrect. The Jewish diaspora began in 733 BCE with the exile of the ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians and continued with the exile to Babylon of part of the population of the Kingdom of Judah in 597 BCE. In 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, conquered Babylon and issued a decree allowing the return of the exiles from Judah to the land of Israel, but many chose to remain in Babylon.

The Persian Empire was replaced by the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great, and upon his death in 323, it was divided in two, led by two generals: Ptolemy and Seleucus. The former governed the southern part, which included Egypt and the Land of Israel, and during his reign, many Jews went to Egypt as mercenaries, while others sought their fortune. By the second century BCE, according to Flavius ​​Josephus, nearly a million Jews lived in Egypt, and their presence extended as far as Cyrenaica, in present-day Libya. Soon, the Land of Israel fell into the hands of the Seleucids, who also ruled Syria, causing a migration of Jews to that territory. With the Maccabean Revolt, the Jews achieved a degree of autonomy, but in 63 BCE, the Romans invaded Jerusalem, and the Jewish people lost their independence and sovereignty. The Roman response to the Jewish rebellion included many being taken as slaves to Rome, where a significant Jewish community already existed.

As early as the middle of the second century BCE, the Jewish author of the Third Sibylline Oracle, a collection of prophecies, speaking of the Jews said, «Every land and every sea is full of you.» Strabo, a Greek geographer, Philo, Seneca, Luke, Cicero, and Flavius ​​Josephus all mention the existence of Jewish populations in the Mediterranean basin, in addition to communities in Mesopotamia. King Agrippa I, in a letter to Caligula, listed the provinces where the Jewish diaspora was located, and these included both Hellenized and non-Hellenized countries in the East. Only Italy and Cyrene in Libya were missing.

Daniel J. Elazar tells us: “The way in which Jews, as a community in the Diaspora, created their own way of life, with a calendar with each day clearly specified, which established a distinct rhythm of Jewish life and separated them from their neighbors, deserves further study. In parallel, it is possible to study how Jews were excluded from Christian and Muslim societies, through a combination of anti-Jewish attitudes and measures, on the one hand, and the mutually acceptable principle that Jews were a nation in exile and therefore deserving of corporate autonomy, on the other.”

The displacement of the great centers of Jewish life, from the Land of Israel to Babylon, then to Spain and North Africa, then to Europe, especially Poland and neighboring countries, and then to the United States and other countries in the Americas, until reaching the present-day State of Israel, gives us the image of a people on the move. These constant migrations were, on the one hand, disruptive, but on the other, they offered Jews the opportunity to renew their lives and adapt to new conditions. The Diaspora is a process of constant renewal for Judaism.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Daniel J. Elazar, “The Jewish People as the Classic Diaspora: A Political Analysis,” and other sources.