Interview 5

Abstract

The historical prototype of a diaspora is of course the Jews in the “dispersion” after the Second Jewish war. With the Jewish defeat in that war in 135 they were no longer allowed to live in Palestine, and were “dispersed” all over the Mediterranean world and further afield. It is true that also prior to that momentous event there had been permanent Jewish communities outside Palestine, but we nevertheless associate Jewish diaspora-ness with a people deprived of a homeland. Also some other diasporas conform to this understanding, for instance, the Polish diaspora in (primarily) Western Europe in the period between the eradication of the Polish-Lithuanian state in 1795 and the resurrection of modern Poland in 1919.