The Role Of Jews In The Diaspora

Jewish people throughout their history have struggled to maintain a unified community in which their cultural, social , and religious beliefs can be recognized as a nation. “Real or fancied grievances are in themselves [in] sufficient to produce, however strongly they may favour, the emergence of active hostility against a social order. For such an atmosphere to develop is necessary that there be groups to whose interest it is to work up and organize resentment, to nurse it , to voice it, and to lead it … The mass of people, never develops definite opinions on its own initiative. Still less is it able to articulate them and to turn them into consistent attitudes and actions. All it can do is to follow or refuse to follow such group leadership as may offer itself.” After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem many Jews became exiled from their homeland which led to the Diaspora and created a separation among Jews and Judaism. As Jews began to migrate towards the East and West, cultural, social , and religious tensions began to arise among the themselves as result of anti-semitism and lack of national pride among Jews. The different tensions experienced by Jews in the Diaspora …show more content…
Due to the religious and historical context Eretz Israel has with the Jewish community, Zionism represents the efforts to return to their native land and live the free and joyful life promised by God through the covenant. As Jews live in exile they dedicate their lives in finding methods to gain redemption to become worthy of returning to the land under God’s eyes during the Messianic age. On the other hand they faced assimilation and emancipation opportunities in their host nations which influenced the Haskalah movement: the movement to reeducate Jews as a way to integrate in modern