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Factors of the Jewish Dispersion

Decent Essays

The destination of the Jewish dispersion varied especially based on the occupations of the Jews. The actual Diaspora really took place when thousands of Hebrew elites and craftsmen were deported and dispersed to Babylon. This occurred to concentrate the various skills of the Jewish in separate arenas and to use these individually skilled communities for the benefit of the Babylonians. For example, as previously mentioned the most skilled and elite Jews were dispersed to Babylon—the heart of the Babylonian empire. Thus, the better trained and more adept a Jew was, the more opportunity the Jew had to serve for empire in higher ranks solely to meet the needs of the empire and its rulers. This helped the empires exiling the Jews to prosper, but unfortunately created rifts and gaps within the Hebrew community. This pattern of dispersion, which was developed by the Babylonians and used by the Romans to scatter the Jews, allowed for these dominant empires to prosper, however, limited the interaction within the Hebrew community and resulted in the diminishing originality and novelty of the skilled Jews. Despite the use of the uniform dispersion pattern based on the occupations of the Jews, the reason why Jews were exiled and dispersed varied depending on the imposing empire of the time, which performed these actions. The Hebrew Diaspora was caused by different factors depending on the group exiling the Hebrews. In other words, the reason for dispersing the Hebrews depended on the

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