Diaspor Jews Amidst Greeks And Romans

In Egypt the Jews were casted out when king Bocchoris believed that Jews were hateful to the gods, so he cast them out into the desert. This demonstrates how the Jews were discriminated against because of their race. Discrimination defined as “to make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, sex, or age.” So in this case the definition works. Using the evidence from the source, we can see how unfairly Jewish people were treated throughout the Ancient World.

Upon their return to Palestine after their release from exile, the Jews were struggling to “maintain their religious and social identity” (Wenham & Walton, 2011, p. 7) and found themselves in the midst of great military powers, first the Greeks, and then the Romans. Their influences on the Jews were remarkable. This essay will examine the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD by describing a typical Greco-Roman city, then discuss the various levels of Roman administrative structure, explain where local authority resided in the cities/villages of 1st-century Palestine, and finally support with Scripture the structure of authority within the Gospels and Acts.

Biblically, Jews in the City of Rome showed unpredictable tensions and riots against the civil government. “Roman Emperor, Claudius made an edict to expel the Jews from the City of Rome. Right after Claudius was assassinated, many Christian Jews moved back to Rome” (Maier, 1988, pg.355). Meanwhile, there were tensions in Judea. A growing compassion toward Zealots in Judea happened which encouraged the Roman Jews to rebel against the civil government.

Throughout the 1800’s to the mid-1900’s one problem restricted and threatened the Jewish race. Through trials, battles, immigration, and more the jews couldn’t catch a break. They were a despised people suffering due to an inability of the Jewish people to fully assimilate into other societies. This issue highlighted the political and cultural atmosphere and events throughout the time periods we studied. From beneath all the destruction and chaos occurring during this time period lies an important message.

In the fourteenth century famines and plaques struck Western Europe with a vengeance, in reaction to the problem many kings blamed and expelled the Jews from countries like, Spain, Germany, France, and Hungary. Jewish communities fled eastward to escape persecution, until the late 1700’s when Russia restricted Jewish movement within the

The Sumerian, Egyptian, Hebrew, and Hellenistic religions all have one concept in common. Religion is central to their lives. In Sumerian religion, it was believed humans were created to serve and provide for the gods. The Sumerian people spent their days accommodating the gods because of this belief. . The Jews lived by their God’s commandments in their day-to-day life. The Greek polis was notably tied to their religion. The people’s daily lives depended greatly on following their gods.

By the year 1000 B.C.E the Jews had founded Israel as their national state (“Jews”). They actively practiced a very distinctive religion, Judaism. Israel was conquered several times and eventually came under the rule of the Roman Empire (“Jews”). During this time, Jews were legal citizens of the Empire. However, the Jews and Christians diverged quickly; the Jews were marginalized for being different and strange. They rejected the belief that Jesus is the Messiah and other christian laws. Eventually the Jewish revolt in 135 C.E. drove the Jews out of Jerusalem (“Jews”). They then lived throughout the Roman Empire and the materializing medieval states. They lived in their own communities called ghettos because they were not allowed to own land

Daniel Otani 9 November 2014 Jewish History. Zeffren Isolation, Accommodation, and Assimilation in the Hellenistic Period During the Hellenistic period, Jewish individuals faced many challenges and threats, which were resolved by isolation, accommodation, or assimilation. Hellenism was so powerful and influential, because Alexander set it as the most “civilized” way of life. It included many Greek ideas and contradicted the Jewish belief in one G-d by practicing polytheism.

However, some Ashkenazi Jews experienced anti-semitism violence in these Christian countries. Many Jewish people were killed during this violence in what Robert Seltzer called a “supercharged religious atmosphere” (1980). In the closing centuries of the Middle Ages many Ashkenazi Jews moved to Italy and Poland in search of new and better opportunities and to escape their deteriorating living conditions in the Rhineland and central Europe, “migrations took place to Italy and Poland… by the sixteenth-century Poland had emerged as the foremost centre of Ashkenazic Jewish scholarship” (Eliezer, 2009, 67).

Jews’ interactions with Greek and Roman empires shaped and defined Jewish culture and practice. These empires affected Jewish culture through cultural adaptation whose lasting impacts can still be seen today. One of the first power struggles in Jewish history was during the Hellenistic period. At that time, the Jewish practice of circumcision became a negative identifier that alienated the Jewish people from Greek culture. Because a huge part of Greek culture involved social activities in the gymnasium done in the nude, Jewish males were immediately recognized and singled out.

The introduction and development of Judaism was not easy. On one hand the people have to adjust to the new place and on the other hand the Jews population have to deal with the different traditions , language, and economic between their religion. Therefore, the main challenge faced by the Jews was the division between German and Eastern European Jews, because it created dispersal communities incapables of supporting Jews in need after the Second World War.

Jews are human beings with their own history, philosophy, and eccentricities. They are a people apart from others not because of their separate religious beliefs, but because they are an ancient cultivating group of people who have their own original antiquities. At the end of the 19th century, millions of Jews are living throughout Europe, and Jews do not have the freedom of movement and live in areas where the government gives them special authorization . Anti-Semitism exists all in the nineteenth century European societies. During the First World War, large Jewish communities advance around the capitals. This concentration of Jewish population in large cities have a strong impact on their lifestyle and make them more visible in the economy and in the culture .

Latin America is characterized by the “multiple and complex interaction of culture.” It comprises of ethnic and national identities emerging from displacement and migration. The Jewish diaspora is one of the many ethnic groups in Latin America. Jews, a small proportion of total inhabitants in each Latin American nation, has an important cultural rople to play in spreading the network of Judaism throughout the region, thereby challenging the ‘homogeneity or coherence of nation-state’ (Vieira 2001).

The word Diaspora in Greek means dispersion. The Jewish Diaspora had three main periods to it: the Babylonian exile, the Hellenistic dispersion, and the Roman War (R. Sands, 1). The Jewish Diaspora began in 586 BCE when the Jews were deported from their motherland, Judea, as a result of shifts of power and war (R. Sands, 1). After this came the Hellenistic part of the Diaspora which was the voluntary movement of the Jews. In the Roman War, Jews were again forced to leave their homeland after the Romans destroyed their temple again for a second time. Despite these hardships, however, the Jewish people never forgot about God and His promises for His people. They believed that these things had to happen because they had been prophesized. The

After Alexander the Great untimely death, the Grecian Empire was dived into four sections, ruled by four generals (Tullock & McEntire, 2006, p. 336). Two of those generals’ dynasties, Ptolemy and Seleucus, went on to impact the Jewish community in an significant manner over the next two centuries. To begin with, as the Ptolemies assumed leadership of Palestine after Alexander the Great’s death in 323 B.C.E., they remained amenable to the Jewish community openly practicing Judaism. Subsequently, the Jewish community swelled to over 1 million people in Alexandria during the time of their reign. Furthermore, even as the Seleucidian ruler, Antiochus the Great, overthrew the Ptolemies and assumed control of Palestine in 223 B.C.E., the Greek