Relations between the Diaspora and the Land of Israel

Abstract

The great Jewish Diaspora, in the Parthian and in the Roman Empires, was linked by many ties, on various levels and over a long period, with the centre of Jewish life in the Land of Israel. These contacts had a great influence on the way of life and the organization of Jews in the Diaspora, and on the development and destiny of Judaism in the lands in question. But these contacts were also of great importance for the Jews of the homeland, and especially for life in the city of Jerusalem. Relations between the Diaspora and the centre in the homeland depended on a number of basic factors in Judaism, and on the political and military realities of the period. But in the main, the relationship depended on the quality of Judaism in the Diaspora in the time in question. We know little about the character and quality of Judaism in the Parthian Empire in early times. More ample information in this regard becomes available mainly after the destruction of the Second Temple, and for the second century of the Christian era in particular. As regards the first century c. E. and the period immediately preceding it, we can only piece together fragments of information. However, even for this period we can give a general outline which will be clear enough to indicate its distinctive features and so throw light on the relationship between the Diaspora and the centre. We know a great deal more about the Judaism of the Hellenistic Diaspora, and in particular about the great Jewish centre in Egypt. The Judaism of the Hellenistic Diaspora was undoubtedly closely linked to Hellenistic culture. Not only was Greek the language used by these Jews in ordinary intercourse, but even a Greek literature was produced, especially in Egypt. It was a literature which was closely identified with the rich culture of the Greeks, and with the mentality which dominated there. Various documents discovered in Egypt during the present century show us how closely the Jews were attached to institutions of Hellenistic law and to concepts tributary to this sphere. But the Jews of Egypt and the Hellenistic

Common Law and Jewish Law. The Diasporic Principle of dina de-malkhuta dina

“…All the same, even when the diverse meanings of the term Ioudaios in the Greek Roman world are taken into account, Jews were in considerable proportions, sometimes even in greater numbers, more outside than inside their homeland (Safrai 1974). Thus, as is already known, the huge Alexandrian, Roman and Antioch Jewish communities represented the most legendary instances of remote Jewish centres, inasmuch from the perspective of demography, than from the perspective of cultural life, power, and influence.…”