demands are religious voices that echo Nahmanides . For them the mitzvah of settling in the Land is primary; they feel that the divine commandments can be carried out properly only in the Land of Israel. Orthodox Jews who have resettled in Israel express these sentiments through their commitment. A smaller number of Reform Jews have also made aliyah for religious reasons. We now face a situation somewhat akin to that of the Hellenistic world in the first century of our era. A vigorous group within the Land of Israel claims that Jewish life can be lived there only on its terms and that nothing in the Diaspora really matters. Equally strong forces in the Diaspora contest those claims on halakhic, ideological, and practical grounds. More than two thousand years have shown through the choices people have made that the Diaspora is more important than the Land of Israel. Until this century love for the Land, a desire to make a pilgrimage, and the hope that an ideal state will be created there did not translate into resettlement. Most Jews continue to live
outside the Land of Israel, and large numbers of Israelis regularly emigrate to the West to settle permanently. We may therefore say that the struggle for primacy will continue. The halakhah provides ample basis for both sides in this debate. For us in the Diaspora, however, it remains primary.
Notes
I. Jer. 42 and 44; Josephus ; Philo ; Maccabees 3.
2. S. Safrai and M. Stern , The Jewish People in the First Century(Philadelphia : Jewish PIs Society, 1974), Vol. 1, pp. 117 ff; G.Vermes , F. Millar , M. Goodman(eds.); we 0 7 History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ(Edinburgh : 1986), Vol. 3, Part 1, pp. 3ff.
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