Embracing Exile

A new interpretation of historical and contemporary Jewish texts that views diaspora as a positive outcome for Jews and for the world Jewish people have always wandered. According to their origin story, they wandered from Ur of Chaldees to Canaan, then Egypt, and then back to Canaan. From there, they were exiled to Babylon, where they lived for centuries. They also settled in Persia, Egypt, Morocco, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Poland, Ukraine, England, the United States, among many other places. Diaspora became normal to Jews, and though they may have hoped for a return to their "Promised Land" at the "End of Days," they made sense of their many homes, defending diaspora as the realm where Jewish life could grow, and they could fulfil their obligations to God. Embracing Exile analyzes biblical and rabbinic texts, philosophical treatises, studies of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and a multiplicity of modern expressions. It offers revised readings of the Bible's book of Esther, a survey of Talmudic treatments of exile, an in-depth analysis of the thought of the early modern master, the Maharal of Prague, as well as the work of novelist Philip Roth, among other modern authors. David Kraemer shows that Diaspora Jews through the ages insisted that God joined them in their exiles, that "Zion" was found in Babylon and Eastern Europe, and that, as citizens of the world, Jews could only live throughout the world. The result is a convincing assertion that lament has not been the most common Jewish response to diaspora and that Zionism is not the natural outcome of either Jewish ideology or history. Kraemer also argues that as the world's most experienced surviving refugees, Jews also offer a model to more contemporary refugees, demonstrating how they may not only survive but thrive and endure.

David Kraemer is Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he has also served as Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics for many years. As Librarian, he is at the helm of the most extensive collection of Judaica-rare and contemporary-in the Western hemisphere. He is the author of several books on Rabbinic Judaism and its texts, the social and religious history of Jews in antiquity, and Jewish rituals and their development.

- Preface - 1. Introduction - 2. Biblical Explanations of Exile - 3. Biblical Narratives of Diaspora - 4. Zion in Babylon - 5. Medieval Jewish Teachings on Exile - 6. Exile, the Jewish Mystical Tradition, and the Sephardi Diaspora - 7. The Great Theorizer: The Maharal of Prague - 8. Hasidism and the Eastern European Diaspora - 9. Haskalah (Enlightenment), Reform, and Early Zionism - 10. Modern Jews on Exile/Diaspora - 11. Exiles and their Diasporas: the Lessons of the Jews - Bibliography