A Nation and Its Diaspora: A Re-examination of Israeli—Jewish Diaspora Relations

Abstract

Israelis and Diaspora Jews, who together form one of the oldest existing nations and diasporas (Sheffer, At Home Abroad; Smith, The Nation), express grave anxieties about two intertwined issues: the continuity and sustainability of Jewry across the world and Israel–Diaspora relations. In this respect, world Jewry is generally divided into two unequal camps: the majority is pessimistic, and only a minority is more optimistic about the future development of both issues. Increasingly, pessimistic scholars and analysts join those laymen who express concern about diasporic Jewish survival as a distinct trans-state entity endowed with a unique specific identity and about close Israel–Diaspora relations (S. Cohen; Kosmin; Vital; Rubin; DellaPergola; Wasserstein). The gist of their argument is that globalism, pluralism, multiculturalism, and tolerance toward the “other,” which now prevail in the more democratic host countries of the Jewish Diaspora, speed up assimilatory tendencies that demographically diminish world Jewry and consequently further erode Israeli–Diaspora relations. For these pessimistic analysts, the question is not whether or not these processes happen but, rather, at what speed they occur.