10 Re-thinking Jewish Ethnicity through Social Network Analysis

Abstract

This chapter uses the epigraphic data for the Jewish Diaspora to argue that, if the rabbinic reforms of Judaism were necessitated by the destruction wrought in Judaea, then this cataclysm also ‘activated’ the ethnic network of the Diaspora Jews. Before the destruction of the Temple, Diaspora Jews did not define themselves (epigraphically) as such. This was because there was an inherent centre to their religious life, manifest in the Temple. The destruction of the real and psychological centre of Judaism changed Jewish existence forever. It is argued that the tenets of rabbinic halakhah — the laws and moral codes defined in the Mishnah — were swiftly transmitted across the newly activated ethnic network of the Diaspora, shown clearly in the epigraphic record as a renewed knowledge of the wider Jewish network.

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