Jews: Diaspora

As political aspirations subsided, the Jewish community was increasingly led by scholars and rabbis. Even during the period of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine, large Jewish communities developed in Egypt and Babylonia. After the fall of the Temple, Babylon's Jewish community became the most important in world Jewry and its academies the most influential centers of Jewish learning. In 8th-century Iberia, a large Jewish community played an important part in intellectual and economic life. From the 9th to the 12th cent., Spanish Jewry enjoyed a golden age of literary efflorescence marked by a highly creative interaction between Jewish and Islamic culture.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Zionism and Mass Migration
• Emancipation and Secularization
• From the Crusades to the Enlightenment
• Diaspora
• Biblical Period
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2025, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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