Jews in Babylon: The Original Diaspora

From My Jewish Learning

Long before Baghdad existed, the land that is now Iraq was home to the first great Jewish community outside the Land of Israel. In this article, the historian Isaiah Gafni of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem traces how that community began and why it shaped Jewish life everywhere.

Beginnings

Exile in Babylon

The community began with the deportations from Judah around the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. Over the centuries, Babylonian Jews took pride in how old their community was, and they came to see themselves as the most distinguished branch of the Jewish people. Jews kept calling the region “Babel” long after the ancient city of Babylon had disappeared.

A community of its own

Outside the Roman world

Unlike Jews in the Land of Israel and around the Mediterranean, Babylonian Jews lived outside the Roman Empire, under Persian dynasties: first the Parthians, then from 224 CE the Sassanians. Untouched by Greek and Roman culture, they developed their own institutions. After the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE and crushed the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE, many sages moved east and strengthened the community's learning.

Leadership

The exilarch and the law of the land

By around the year 200, the community was led by the exilarch, or head of the exile, whom Jews believed to be a descendant of King David. The sage Samuel taught that “the law of the land is the law,” meaning Jews should obey the government where they lived. That principle helped bring centuries of stability and growth under Persian rule.

Legacy

The Babylonian Talmud

Between the third and fifth centuries, the great academies of Babylonia developed the discussions that became the Babylonian Talmud. Spread by later scholars known as the geonim, it has guided Jewish law and learning around the world for some fifteen centuries.

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This summary was written by JIMENA and is based on “Jews in Babylon” by Isaiah Gafni, published by My Jewish Learning. The original article belongs to My Jewish Learning.