Diaspora

A diaspora (from Greek διασπορά, "scattering, dispersion") is a scattered population whose origin lies within a smaller geographic locale. Diaspora can also refer to the movement of the population from its original homeland. Diaspora has come to refer particularly to historical mass dispersions of an involuntary nature, such as the expulsion of Jews from Judea, the fleeing of Greeks after the fall of Constantinople, the African Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the southern Chinese or Hindus of South Asia during the coolie trade, the deportation of Palestinians in the 20th century and the exile and deportation of Circassians.

Recently, scholars have distinguished between different kinds of diaspora, based on its causes such as imperialism, trade or labor migrations, or by the kind of social coherence within the diaspora community and its ties to the ancestral lands. Some diaspora communities maintain strong political ties with their homeland. Other qualities that may be typical of many diasporas are thoughts of return, relationships with other communities in the diaspora, and lack of full integration into the host country.

Jewish diaspora

The Jewish diaspora (Hebrew: Tfutza, תפוצה) or Exile (Hebrew: Galut, גלות; Yiddish: Golus) refers to the dispersion of Israelites, Judahites, and later Jews out of their ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and the communities built by them across the world.

In terms of the Hebrew Bible, the term "Exile" denotes the fate of the Israelites who were taken into exile from the Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BCE, and the Judahites from the Kingdom of Judah who were taken into exile during the 6th century BCE. While in exile, the Judahites became known as "Jews" (יְהוּדִים, or Yehudim) - "Mordecai the Jew" from the Book of Esther being the first biblical mention of the term.

The first exile was the Assyrian exile, the expulsion from the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) by Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria in 733 BCE, and its completion by Sargon II with the destruction of the kingdom in 722 BCE, after the end of the three-year siege that Shalmaneser V started in Samaria.

It continued with the exile of a portion of the population of the Kingdom of Judah in 597 BCE with the Babylonian exile. The Babylonian exile ended after 70 years with Cyrus' declaration that the exiled Jews would be allowed to return to Jerusalem and build the Second Temple in Yehud Medinata, an autonomous province of the Achaemenid Empire.