It is often suggested that all of the constituent groups of the Jewish Diaspora incorporated histories of persecutions and forced expulsions into their narratives of identity, even before the Holocaust and the foundation of the State of Israel in the 20th century. Is there indeed something unusual about the ‘homeland-diaspora paradigm' as the phenomenon finds its embodiment in the Jewish context? Or does the Jewish Diaspora constitute a paradigmatic case for Diaspora Studies in general? Being rendered stateless and having a religion and cultural/ethnic identity that one can ‘carry along' as one wanders from place to place--these appear to be the quintessential conditions for the making of the Jewish diasporic identity. Yet, these qualifiers also constitute a generic framework for diasporic existence of many other groups. If so, what is unique and what is comparable about the forced expulsions and persecutions throughout the centuries that resulted in substantial shift of the centers of Jewish life from Judea and Babylonia to the Ottoman Middle East, Europe, Asia, and finally the Americas? This edited volume is an attempt to answer these questions in a comparative context. It is a compilation of articles written by a group of scholars coming from different disciplines and yet all with a keen investment in Jewish and Diaspora Studies.
Introduction
New Perspectives on the Jewish DiasporaNergis Canefe
Part I: Conceptual Debates
The Jewish Diaspora as a Paradigm: Religion, Geography, and PoliticsWilliam Safran
Shape-Shifting as a Diasporic Constant: The Jewish Project as Paradigm and ChallengeStuart Schoenfeld
Interrogating Diasporas in Dialogue: The Jewish Diaspora's Relationship to African Diaspora ScholarshipKim Butler
Part II: The Jewish Diaspora in the Old World- Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Mizrahim
The Birth of the Judean/Jewish Diaspora(s)Carl S. Ehrlich
The Emergence of a New Jewish Diaspora Conciousness 1837-1850Uri R. Kaufmann
The Globalization of Diaspora Communications Among Jews at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: An Analysis of Schmuel N. Gottlieb'sOhole-Schem Ira Robinson
Ottoman Jews to Turkish Citizens: Characters in Search of an AuthorNergis Canefe
Part III: The Jewish Diaspora in the New World-The Canadian Experience in a Comparative Context
Rethinking Nation, Homeland, Diaspora: One Self-Narrative at a TimeBina Toledo Freiwald
From Bi-Nationalism to Multiculturalism to the Open Society: The Impact on Canadian Jews Michael Brown
Toronto Jewish Diaspora as a Mentor to Chinese CanadiansHoward Adelman
"Welcome Home, I'll Be Your Tour Guide": Understanding the Experience of Jewish Diasporic Attachment to IsraelEmma Jo Aiken-Klar
