Michael Toch, Hebrew University:
Q. When tracking the Diaspora do you break it up into where the tribes were dispersed?
A. That’s impossible, mostly that it is a myth.
Q. Why are the Middle Ages your starting period for tracing the Diaspora?
A. The Middle Ages (500-1500) are the periods when the European Diaspora came into the being. Before that in antique times there is very little evidence of a Diaspora into Western Europe. There was a Jewish Diaspora in the Byzantine Empire which was Asia Minor and the Greek islands and Crete. In Western Europe there were very few Jews except for Italy. The whole Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewry is a product of the Middle Ages into Europe, North of Europe, Iberian Europe.
Q. Have you done any research into the 6th century B.C. Diaspora?
A. The Jewish Diaspora developed as follows. During Antiquity, Jews migrated within the Middle East. Main areas of the migration of Jews before the destruction of the second temple, were Egypt, Mesopotamia (Iraq & Iran) and some places in North Africa (but not to a great extent). There was a huge Jewish Diaspora in Egypt in places like Alexandria and in other place in the Middle East. These people continued to stay in the Middle East and they continued to stay in place until the Middle Ages.
While the European Diaspora went to Italy and Mediterranean regions.
Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews came into being by migration from these regions during the Middle Ages.
Q. Where was the greatest concentration of Jews during the Middle Ages?
A. That’s quite easy, Iraq. While in Western Europe numbers were small and remained small until the onset of the early modern period. The Eastern European Diaspora grew very quickly and overtook the Sephardic Jews in numbers.
Q. Is tracking of the Diaspora passed down orally or is DNA testing starting to come into play?
A. Orally is a tricky business because the memory of people is something that you really cannot count on especially if the memory is supposed to go back as far as 800 years. What we have to look at is when do the archives come in? When do the states start keeping records? That’s only in the 8th and 9th century. So Jewish genealogy has to use other historical sources. DNA testing is fairly modern. It is not as refined yet in order to produce results that can resolve main questions involved. Migration for instance.
Q. Thoughts on organizations claiming to bring home Lost Tribes?
A. Russians Jews we know about. The Bnei Manashe is a myth. The whole ingathering of the Jews is a basic principle of Zionism that Jews from different cultures, backgrounds, continents, languages, had a homeland and have a homeland. And it might be a good idea to reconstruct Jewish life in a way that is normal in a sense to other nations who have a language, and a culture.
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