I have just finished reading a few sources on the Hellenic diaspora, and I confirm your conclusion. Not only was this diaspora voluntary, but it was huge, with the resulting populations outside Judah dwarfing those in this Promised Land. I will provide detail once I have sorted out my notes.
In Jewish tradition the notion of the exile, the last one, is mostly about the destruction of the place of worship, not being slaves in Rome as in Passover story for example, so its not the "forced removal" of ppl that tradion stresses but the destruction of the Temple and outlawing Judaism. 1) The Abrahimic Exile: Israel Yuval (Israeli historian): “The Jewish exile was not born after the destruction of the temple. Jewish exile existed since eternity. The Bible is the product of exile. The first thing that God tells Abraham is to leave the land of his ancestors for the Land He will show him. Abraham is the first person to go into exile. [/QUOTE] Not that it matters but that's not what "exile" means, exile points to that your life center in somewhere else from where you are now, Abe migrated. Yes but many also joined Judah and Binyamin tribes that lived in Judea Kingdom, that's actually the first time the refernce of "Judean" was used in general to describe the ppl rather than the tribe. The Jewish virtual library is a bit "childish" to be quted in a real reasearch work IMO....., but still, why "most' and not "many" that chose to stay in Babylon ? that exile had 2 waves, at first the nobility and priesthood and the 2nd the rich and educated, the poor remained in Judea. then came the immigrants from Babylon and practiced worship to God as was custumed to worship the local diety in ancient times - these were later known as Samaritans. Destroying the first Temple and lost of the Ark had a profound affect on ancient ppl so dont waive it as "just build another if you so miss it", returning and rebuilding is not for granted, but once again, why "majority" and not "alot"? The trend of Israelites getting their asses kicked in the Bible.......
Yep - by treachery /deception and falsehoods. And Not all that "successful" considering more Jews became were killed - hated there than anywhere else since 1948. Here's another source : Extracts : "Then, there was the story of the Diaspora that after Jewish uprisings against the Romans in the First and Second centuries A.D., the Jews were exiled from the land of Israel and dispersed throughout the Western world. They often were isolated from European populations, suffered persecution, and ultimately were marked for extermination in the Nazi Holocaust. Finally after centuries of praying for a return to Israel, the Jews achieved this goal by defeating the Arab armies in Palestine and establishing Israel in 1948. This narrative spanning more than three millennia is the singular, elemental and sustaining claim of the State of Israel as a Jewish nation. But a new book by Israeli scholar Shlomo Sand challenges this narrative, claiming that beyond the religious question of whether God really spoke to Moses the Roman-era Diaspora did not happen at all or at least not as commonly understood. --- "In When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?, Dr. Sand, an expert on European history at the University of Tel Aviv, says the Diaspora was largely a myth that the Jews were never exiled en masse from the Holy Land and that many European Jewish populations converted to the faith centuries later. Thus, Sand argues, many of todays Israelis who emigrated from Europe after World War II have little or no genealogical connection to the land. ---- ---Like almost everything in the Middle East, this new scholarship is fraught with powerful religious, historical and political implications. If Sands thesis is correct, it would suggest that many of the Palestinian Arabs have a far more substantial claim to the lands of Israel than do many European Jews who arrived there asserting a God-given claim. Indeed, Sand theorizes that many Jews, who remained in Judea after Roman legions crushed the last uprising in 136 A.D., eventually converted to Christianity or Islam, meaning that the Palestinians who have been crowded into Gaza or concentrated in the West Bank might be direct descendants of Jews from the Roman era. Despite the political implications of Sands book, it has not faced what might be expected: a withering assault from right-wing Israelis. The criticism has focused mostly on Sands credentials as an expert on European history, not ancient Middle Eastern history, a point that Sand readily acknowledges === Reality from Mythology In January 2009, as the Israeli army bombarded Palestinians in Gaza in retaliation for rockets fired into southern Israel, the world got an ugly glimpse of what can result when historical myths are allowed to drive wedges between people who otherwise might have a great deal in common. After the conflict ended with some 1,400 Palestinians dead, including many children and other non-combatants the Israeli government investigated alleged war crimes by its army and heard testimony from Israeli troops that extremist Rabbis had proclaimed the invasion a holy war. The troops said the Rabbis brought them booklets and articles declaring: We are the Jewish people. We came to this land by a miracle. God brought us back to this land, and now we need to fight to expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land. In his book and in an interview with Haaretz about his book Sand challenged this core myth. In the interview, he said: ""I started looking in research studies about the exile from the land - a constitutive event in Jewish history, almost like the Holocaust. But to my astonishment I discovered that it has no literature. The reason is that no one exiled the people of the country. The Romans did not exile peoples and they could not have done so even if they had wanted to. They did not have trains and trucks to deport entire populations. That kind of logistics did not exist until the 20th Century. From this, in effect, the whole book was born: in the realization that Judaic society was not dispersed and was not exiled." The True Descendants Asked if he was saying that the true descendants of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah are the Palestinians, Sand responded: "No population remains pure over a period of thousands of years. But the chances that the Palestinians are descendants of the ancient Judaic people are much greater than the chances that you or I are its descendents. The first Zionists, up until the Arab Revolt [1936-1939], knew that there had been no exiling, and that the Palestinians were descended from the inhabitants of the land. They knew that farmers don't leave until they are expelled. Even Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the second president of the State of Israel, wrote in 1929 that, 'the vast majority of the peasant farmers do not have their origins in the Arab conquerors, but rather, before then, in the Jewish farmers who were numerous and a majority in the building of the land.'" the Jewish people never existed as a nation race but were rather an ethnic mix of disparate peoples who adopted the Jewish religion over a great period of time. Sand dismisses the Zionist argument that the Jews were an isolated and seminal ethnic group that was targeted for dispersal by the Romans. Although ruthless in putting down challenges to their rule, the Romans allowed subjects in their occupied territories a great many freedoms, including freedom to practice religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. Thousands of Jews served in the Roman legions, and there was a sizable Jewish community in Rome itself. Three Jewish descendants of Herod the Great, the Jewish Emperor of Jerusalem, served in the Roman Senate. === Jewish dietary laws were respected under Roman law, as well as the right not to work on the Sabbath. Jewish slaves 1,000 carried to Italy by Emperor Titus after crushing the first Jewish rebellion in 70 A.D. were bought and set free by Jewish families already long settled into Roman society. After the final Jewish rebellion, the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-136 A.D., historians say the Romans placed restrictions on Jews entering Jerusalem, which caused other areas, such as Galilee in northern Palestine, to become centers of Jewish learning. But there is little or no evidence of a mass forced relocation. Obsessive Delusion Despite the lack of conclusive scientific or historical evidence, the Diaspora narrative proved to be a compelling story, much like the Biblical rendition of the Exodus from Egypt, which historians and archeologists also have questioned in recent years. It is certainly true that all nations use myths and legend for sustenance; some tales are based on fact, others are convenient self-serving contrivances. However, when myth and legend argue for excess, when they demand a racial, ethnic or religious purity to the exclusion of others so that some prophecy can be fulfilled or some national goal achieved reason and justice can give way to extremism and cruelty. read more here http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/041109b.html cheers ...
That might be the position of religious Judaism, but it is certainly not the position of political Zionism, which is the one that Zivs BBC documentary examined. In fact I am inclined to dispute the general understanding, particularly (perhaps?) amongst people with a Christian upbringing (such as myself) who make up the majority of Zionist supporters in the USA. I have also read that most Jews today are not active believers. The largest ancient (Hellenic) diaspora, as we will see, is one of elected migration, i.e. even further away from core roots. But I do appreciate our point. I agree. It is in the list for completeness sake only since Yuval brought it up to illustrate the point of longevity. Thank you for that information. I am new to the diasporas and internal migrations. For me this is here for completeness only; it has little relevance to the Israelite bloodline or to whether they were forced out or not plus the event is fraught with historic uncertainties. Again, thank you. For me the main learning point of the Babylonian saga is that it was indeed initially a forced diaspora, but later became one of choice. I can well imagine that. The reason that I used majority is because that is how Wiki described it in fact I now see that I made a mistake and the word used is most not Majority - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Zion LOL OK, that is one interpretation. But another would be how in ancient times populations were driven to migrate by being forced to, by moving to where the $$$s were; by moving to where it was more safe; by moving to be near the centre of your culture, etc. But the case of the Jews rarely shows full expulsion, and certainly not in 70 and 132 AD. The fact that the largest diaspora in ancient history was driven by many factors other than religious needs, and that the biggest diaspora of all times is on-going and is also by personal choice, seems to suggest that the Israeli national anthem (the Hatikvah) is not a majority wish.
If it wasnt for the religous guys we probebly wouldnt be mentioning these events at all during the year..., the Orthodox Jews were always the "scribes" of the ppl, the record keepers. oops, my ride home is going now, will continue laterrrrr.......
4) The Hellenic diaspora(323 to 31 BCE): The Jewish Diaspora in the Hellenistic Period - http://classes.maxwell.syr.edu/his301-001/jeishh_diaspora_in_greece.htm Diasporas - Jewish Diaspora - Hellenism And The Jewish Diaspora - http://science.jrank.org/pages/9004/Diasporas-Jewish-Diaspora-Hellenism-Jewish-Diaspora.html The Cambridge History of Judaism (Volume 2) (Cambridge University Press; 2008 ); The Diaspora in the Hellenistic Age by Harald Hegerman, page 149: The Hellenistic diaspora was voluntary. Some scholars believe that many more Jews lived in this diaspora than were in the Holy Land [See BBC debate at http://ilanziv.com/ ]. This preference was made both on the grounds of security (compared to the turbulent times in the southern Levant), and to the commercial attraction of being at the great centres and ports of the Ptolemaic era. This voluntary election finds reflection in the strong southern Mediterranean and northern Levant genetic signatures, and the beginning of the dilution of the Middle Eastern J1 Y-chromosome haplotypes in the Ashkenazi DNA. Given the population numbers this was by far the largest diaspora of ancient times, dwarfed only by the current one. 5) The 70 AD diaspora - http://www.jeremiahhaber.com/2007/07/no-rivkele-there-wasnt-roman-exile-of.html Jewish tradition often reflects this as being the major diaspora. Examples are: # The Jewish state comes to an end in 70 AD, when the Romans begin to actively drive Jews from the home they had lived in for over a millennium - http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Diaspora.html], # The Roman army led by Titus conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple at 70 CE. - Jewish people were then exiled and dispersed to the Diaspora - http://www.science.co.il/Israel-history.php # "In A.D. 70, and again in 135, the Roman Empire brutally put down Jewish revolts in Judea, destroying Jerusalem, killing hundreds of thousands of Jews and sending hundreds of thousands more into slavery and exile" - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/04/AR2006050401458.html http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/666507-post.html - To this day, most lay people, Jews and non-Jews, accept the myth of the exile.... whereas no historian, Jew or non-Jew, takes it seriously. Why? Because it is in direct conflict with historical evidence as presented in 4). In 70 AD Jews were expelled from Jerusalem, not from Palestine. [See also the BBC debate at http://ilanziv.com/ ] 6) The Bar Kochba revolt: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozbt9bfLiYA Example: "After Bar Kochba Jewish emigration, a more or less permanent feature of ancient Palestinian demography, now assumed alarming proportions." Salo Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (New York/Philadelphia, 1952), vol. 2, pp. 122-3. http://www.jeremiahhaber.com/2007/07/no-rivkele-there-wasnt-roman-exile-of.html As opposed to this popular version, Jews were in fact expelled by the Romans from Jerusalem and Judea and moved to the Galilee. They were not expelled from Palestine. [See BBC debate at http://ilanziv.com/ ] See also 5) above. 7) The Modern Diaspora - 2014 The world's core Jewish population in early 2013 was estimated at 13.9 million people. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/jewpop.html This is a diaspora dating back to Roman times. According to 2012 statistics, 5901100 out of 13746100 live in Israel, or 42.9%. That means that 57.1% of Jews continue to choose to live in this diapora. Conclusions Historical evidence conflicts with the Jewish tradition that a great Diaspora occurred in 70 AD. In fact, the greatest ancient diaspora was during Hellenic/Ptolemaic times and was mainly voluntary. So where does that leave that the myth that, after having been expelled, the Jews should be allowed to return to the Land for which they have yearned for 2000 years? When combined with the continuous habitation of Palestine since ancient times, the link of the Canaanites to the Israelites; the self-consideration of early Christians as being Jewish and therefore not apostates; the lack of evidence of major expulsions during late-Roman and Byzantine times; the evidence for the conversion of Jews and Pagans to Christianity and of all of these faiths to Islam over more than a thousand years, and the lack of evidence of any mass-population transfers into Palestine, then there is compelling reason to strongly suggest a link of ancient Palestinian peoples to their modern equivalent. Exactly the same applies to the Jews.
The ark of the covenant is in Ethiopia. Afrika is where the majority of Jews fled ever since the Gentiles flooded into israel
post a photo or it didn't happen. and no, most Jews migrated to the Roman Empire in Greece, Rome, Italy, Babylon and Asia Minor after AD 135.
Many did but most went into afrika away from the threat from the east/north. That is the shift as seen with every invasion. The folk move away from the threat not into the tidal wave
Are you saying that the Ashkenazi, who make up the majority of Jewry, originate from Ethiopia, and not from the eastern Mediterranean shores as Ronstar posted?
It is your opinion that ashkenaz make up majority of "Jewry". I disagree with both observations, ashkenaz making up majority of Jews and the term Jewry. So in essence we are on different pages
you have no evidence for that, just racist speculation. now, where is your photo of the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia?
Clearly one has to have even a basic knowledge of afrikan history to make that statement, so the first test is; who is my avatar?
Why are you avoiding a straight and honest reply to Ronstar by using a blatant strawman deflection? [By the way - as a petty niggle from a South African to a Welshman - the correct English spelling is "African" - with a capital and with a 'C'. Try Googling your version]
You provide only an opinion - no supporting references. Let me provide mine: - "DellaPergola in a rough calculation of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, implies that Ashkenazi make up less than 74% of Jews worldwide. Other estimates place Ashkenazi Jews as making up about 75% of Jews worldwide." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews Now according to the math that I was taught at school, that sounds like a majority to me, especially considering that the "other Jews" are made up of at least 9 different classes.
It's not a straw man, it's integral to his claims. It's a basic verification. How can he even know if his knowledge of afrika is so poor?
Of course that all is dependant on the theory that ashkanaz is a lineal descendant of Israel and not just a convert to a religion called Judaism. The lineal descendants, the Jews, migrated into afrika and I note that not one group of afrikan Jews makes it into your survey hence why you classify them as AN other and rightly so
When a nation is invaded the victims usually migrate away from the threat not into it, unless they have superior military and Israel historically was never acknowledged as a superior military presence. The jews were told not to retreat (into afrika) but they did and it was written that this would be the downfall of Israel and consequently was
sorry, but at one point 10% of the Roman Empire was Jewish. there were many Jews in Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, before the defeat by the Romans. hundreds of thousands of Jewish slaves were taken to Rome after the Bar Kochba revolt, and they built the Coliseum.
I agree. Good post. I seem to remember that it was after the 70 AD revolt that the slaves were sent to Rome. Not too many years later most were set free and they settled near Rome as traders and merchants. Most chose not to return to Judea, but to continue to live in the diaspora. But it was not only these ex-slaves who settled in Rome in that period: http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12816-rome#1005 "Jews have lived in Rome for over 2,000 years, longer than in any other European city. They originally went there from Alexandria, drawn by the lively commercial intercourse between those two cities."
Yes, the Jewish community in Rome is well ancient. More than that: it existed since 1st century BCE [so it's a Jewish community with some traditions coming from before the destruction of the Temple] and to say all, they made lobby activity on the Roman Senate to finance the works at the Temple. Caesar himself issued laws about the Roman Jewish community [for example during the Sabbath year Jews were exonerated from paying tributes to the state]. This is a clear evidence that the community was quite important in the "urbe". I would say that the masses of Jews deported to Rome met their own world in the city, where the Jewish community was already aged and integrated in the "civitas".
Many thanks AlpenLuke. Someone posted in an earlier thread that it is not the majority Jewish belief that they were ejected from Palestine and longed to return ever since. Here is a post from: I see. So why did ...: 1) ... the majority choose (voluntarily) to stay on in Babylonia once the Persians gave then the right to return to Judea? 2) ... the Hellenistic empire contain many more Jews in the diaspora than in Palestine ---- by choice? 3) ... when the Jewish fortunes changed, why did so many of these chose to move from Antioch and Alexandria --- not to Judea, but to Rome, and from there to elsewhere in Europe? 4) ... today, the exact same continue to be the case with an enormous number living in and around NYC .... not so, HB.
