The Oxford Handbook of the Jewish Diaspora

by Diner, Hasia R.

• ISBN13: 9780190240943
• ISBN10: 0190240946
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2021-11-12
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

For as long as historians have contemplated the Jewish past, they have engaged with the idea of diaspora. Dedicated to the study of transnational peoples and the linkages these people forged among themselves over the course of their wanderings and in the multiple places to which they went, the term “diaspora” reflects the increasing interest in migrations, trauma, globalism, and community formations.

The Oxford Handbook of the Jewish Diaspora acts as a comprehensive collection of scholarship that reflects the multifaceted nature of diaspora studies. Persecuted and exiled throughout their history, the Jewish people have also left familiar places to find better opportunities in new ones. But their history has consistently been defined by their permanent lack of belonging. This Oxford Handbook explores the complicated nature of diasporic Jewish life as something both destructive and generative. Contributors explore subjects as diverse as biblical and medieval representations of diaspora, the various diaspora communities that emerged across the globe, the contradictory relationship the diaspora bears to Israel, and how the diaspora is celebrated and debated within modern Jewish thought. What these essays share is a commitment to untangling the legacy of the diaspora on Jewish life and culture.

This volume portrays the Jewish diaspora not as a simple, unified front, but as a population characterized by conflicting impulses and ideas. The Oxford Handbook of the Jewish Diaspora captures the complexity of the Jewish diaspora by acknowledging the tensions inherent in a group of people defined by trauma and exile as well as by voluntary migrations to places with greater opportunity.

Author Biography

Hasia R. Diner is the Paul and Sylvia Professor of American Jewish History at New York University. She is the author of numerous books on Jewish history, as well women's history, the history of immigration to the United States, and food history. She directs the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History at NYU.

Table of Contents

Contributors

Introduction, Hasia R. Diner

PART I: DIASPORA AND CANONICAL WORKS

1. Exile and Diaspora in the Bible, Adele Berlin
2. Diaspora in Rabbinic Sources, Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert
3. Diaspora in Jewish Liturgy, Ruth Langer
4. The Doctrine of Exile in Kabbalah, Sharon Flatto
5. The Jewish Diaspora in Christian Thinking, Joshua Garroway

SECTION TWO: THE DIASPORA AND JEWISH THOUGHT

6. Distinctiveness and Diaspora in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish Thought, Michah Gottlieb
7. Diaspora in Modern Jewish Thought, Noam Pianko
8. Zionism and the Negation of the Diaspora, David Engel
9. The Intellectual Defense of the Diaspora, David Weinberg
10. The Territorial Ideology of the Diaspora, 1903-1957, Gur Alroey

SECTION THREE: Four Diaspora Centers

11. Babylonia: A Diaspora Center, Geoffrey Herman
12. Spain: A Diaspora Center, Jane Gerber
13. Jews in The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: An Embedded Diaspora, Magda Teter
14. A New World Babylonia: The United States of America, Deborah Dash Moore

SECTION FOUR: JEWISH DIASPORAS ACROSS TIME AND SPACE

15. The Mediterranean Jewish Diaspora of Late Antiquity, Ross S. Kraemer
16. Emergence of the Medieval Northern European Diaspora, Robert Chazan
17. Jews and Diaspora in the Medieval Islamic Middle East, Eve Krakowski
18. The Ashkenazic Diaspora of Early Modern Central Europe, Joshua Teplitsky
19. The Western Sephardic Diaspora, Miriam Bodian
20. The Mediterranean Sephardim between the 15th and 20th Centuries, Jonathan Ray
21. The Eastern European Jewish Diaspora, Tobias Brinkmann
22. German Jews Beyond Germany, Marion Kaplan
23. Holocaust Survivor Diasporas, Laura Jockusch and Avinoam J. Patt
24. The Modern Diasporas of the Jews from the Arab Middle East and North Africa, Daniel Schroeter
25. Israel and the Diaspora to 1967, Ronald Zweig
26. The Jewish Israeli Diaspora, Steven J. Gold
27. Soviet Jews and the Future of the Global Jewish Diaspora, David Shneer

SECTION FIVE: THEMES ACROSS DIASPORAS

28. International Jewish Aid, Lisa Moses Leff
29. Global Jewish Organizations, David Slucki
30. Philanthropy and the Jewish Diaspora in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Zohar Segev
31. Reporting the Diaspora: The Global Jewish Press, Yaron Tsur
32. Speaking Across the Diaspora: Jewish Languages Beyond Borders, Benjamin Hary
33. Liturgical Music in the Jewish Diaspora, Mark Kligman
34. Jewish Food in the Diaspora, Ari Ariel