Hebrew term used in the Bible to denote "exile" or "captivity" (II Kings 25:27; Jer. 29:22; Ezek. 33:21; Lam. 1:2); a synonym is Golah (II Kings 24:15-16; Jer. 24:5; Est. 2:6; I Chr. 5:22). Both Galut and Golah refer only to the particular group of Jewish exiles in Babylon, or to the fact of their having been "taken into captivity" there. Nowhere in the Bible is the word Galut used as an abstract term signifying exile, wandering, enslavement, or alienation either as an objective condition or as a state of consciousness. Its association with these concepts is rabbinic, postdating the destruction of the Second Temple. In time, also, Golah became synonymous with the Greek term diaspora ("dispersion"), i.e., any land outside Erets Israel where Jews live, regardless of how they came to be there (RH 1:4).
The concept of exile or of the Jewish people living outside their land is found early in the Bible. The Israelites' enslavement in Egypt, "the house of bondage," dominates the second book of the Pentateuch; and the Exodus from Egypt at God's hand constitutes one of the momentous events in Israel's relationship to God. Moreover, it is this "prenatal" Egyptian servitude which becomes the paradigm of Galut in the rabbinic mind. God's words to Abraham already contain a hint of future alienation ("strangers in a land not theirs," Gen. 15:13).
After the Israelites entered into the Covenant and received the Torah, they were repeatedly warned to keep God's commandments. Obedience will guarantee blessings, while transgression will bring dire punishments climaxing in expulsion from the land for "the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other ..." (Deut. 28:64).
Exile and dispersion are not irreversible, however, since God also promises that if Israel return to Him, "the Lord your God will turn your captivity ... and gather you from all the peoples ... and bring you into the land which your fathers possessed" (Deut. 30:3-5).
In the historical outlook of the literary prophets, expulsion and exile are the punishments visited on a sinful Israel. National repentance can avert the severe decree; even if exile should come, this does not mean that the covenant between Israel and God has been abrogated. The causal link between sin and expulsion is underlined by Amos (3:3 ff., 6:3-8). Hosea, who had already witnessed the exile of some of the northern tribes to Assyria, refers to it (6:6ff., 9:3). Similarly, for Isaiah (5:11-13) and Micah (1:5-7, 3:9-12), exile had become a historical fact, and its origin in the nation's waywardness had become self-evident. It remained for Jeremiah (3:19-20, 5:19, 7:9ff.) to apply the experience of the Northern Kingdom to
To the Jewish exiles in Babylonia, Ezekiel later brought a message of encouragement. God had not deserted them and could be a "minor sanctuary" even far from the Land of Israel (11:16). Furthermore, with His help, the Jewish people would revive and be restored to its heritage (11:17-20, 37:21ff.). In the sense of (returning) "captives," Galut is twice used by Obadiah (v. 20) with reference to the promised national redemption.
While the rabbis castigated the Babylonian Jewish community for not returning en masse to the Land of Israel when Cyrus gave them permission to do so (Yoma 9b), they also warned the Jews to obey a lawful Gentile ruler. God, said the rabbis, had compelled the Jewish people and the nations of the world to swear three oaths: "...that Israel would not escape from the Galut by force of arms, nor rebel against their host nations; and that the nations, in their turn, would not rule Israel oppressively" (Ket. 111a).
In rabbinic terminology, Galut came to mean the whole tragic state of exile and alienation, both physical and psychological, in which Jews found themselves after 70 CE. The rabbis, nevertheless, differentiated between living in Erets Israel under foreign rulers and actual expulsion from their land, between a Diaspora existence in areas close to Erets Israel and in areas far away, between dispersal in large centers of Jewish population and---far worse---in small scattered communities.
Galut, for the rabbis, was a dire and harrowing punishment rightly thrust upon Israel by Divine Providence (Avot 5:9; Sif. to Deut. 11:17). It meant homelessness, encountering hostility and discrimination, and an all-pervasive sense of alienation. Exile, however, was an unnatural condition and would not last forever. Through the liturgy and various halakhic practices, the rabbis kept the Jew mindful of the lapsed religious institutions which he might hope to see restored. Thus, in a sense, the rabbis never accepted the GaIut. While understanding it as a just punishment, they hastened to plead Israel's cause before God; and, in Midrashic works, they credited the patriarchs and prophets with various moving entreaties that Israel be released from the suffering and indignity of exile. At the same time, however, they were aware that hatred of the Jew often had the effect of inhibiting Assimilation and rekindling a sense of Jewish identity. Given a modicum of acceptance and an enlightened cultural environment, Jews might well succumb to the dangers of acculturation. Two different rabbinic approaches to Galut existence are discernible. On the one hand, "the seal-ring of Haman" legalizing the genocidal edict against Persian Jewry did more to bring Jews back to Judaism than all the preaching of the Hebrew prophets (Meg. 14a). On the other hand, it was claimed, "God scattered Israel among the nations only in order that proselytes should be numerous among them" (Pes. 87b).
It was the Egyptian paradigm that enabled the sages to view Israel's exile in such broad perspective. Just as they compared the first redeemer (Moses) to the final redeemer (Messiah of the house of David), and the first redemption to the final redemption, so they considered the first Galut to be the model for all future exiles. God's promise to Jacob was thus interpreted by the rabbis as applying to every Galut experience: "Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will ... go down with you into Egypt and surely bring you up again" (Gen. 46:3-4). The rabbis understand this literally to mean that God Himself, as it were, accompanies His people into exile. A new concept was thus born, known as Shekhinta be-Galuta, "the Divine Presence [is] in exile" (Meg. 29a), which would later become potent in the
This doctrine of "God's Presence in Exile" may also be seen as a promise of continued Torah creativity on the part of the people. The Jewish soul and intellect respond to the proximity of God, just as the study of Torah evokes His presence (Avot 3:6). Development of the Oral Law, which started in the period of the Second Temple, developed in Babylonia and would be maintained in the other exiles as well. Thus, the Galut would not simply endeavor to preserve what already existed, but could be expected to produce an effulgence of new cultural and religious forms: Shekhinta be-Galuta.
After the First Temple's destruction, the prophets had confidently assured those in captivity that their exile would not be of long duration. Earlier, in God's revelation to Abraham that his seed would be enslaved and oppressed "in a land that is not theirs," the 400-year length of that servitude was made clear (Gen. 15:13). For the rabbis, however, the age of prophecy had passed. While their faith remained strong that Israel's redemption was sure to come, no one knew for certain when that would be.
Each successive exilic community, from Babylonia to Spain and Poland, bore the title of a Galut. The Babylonian Exilarch was styled Resh Galuta ("Head of the Captivity"), and, when R. Gershom Ben Judah's brilliant scholarship pierced through the darkness of medieval Germany, he won lasting renown as Me'or ha-Golah ("Light of the Exile"). Among the great Hebrew poets of Spanish Jewry's Golden Age, Judah Halevi gave the most powerful expression to his people's feeling of estrangement. "As long as the Golus" became the proverbial Yiddish phrase, while the notion of Shekhinta be-Galuta was given a Ḥasidic imprint by Levi Yitsḥak of Berdichev: "Here in exile, God Himself is in exile."
From the mid-19th century, deteriorating conditions in Eastern Europe coupled with the rise of various European national movements helped to reawaken the age-old Jewish hope for kibbutz galuyyot, the Ingathering of the Exiles. Moses Hess, a German socialist, was one of the first to reappraise the historical experience and lessons of Galut from a Zionist viewpoint: "In exile", he wrote, "the Jewish people cannot be regenerated" (Rome and Jerulalem, 1862). Since the State of Israel's establishment in 1948, there has been an ongoing controversy over the role of Diaspora Zionism and the continued application of Galut to such important, free, and self-assertive Jewish communities as that of the United States. The classical Zionist position was affirmed by Hayim Greenberg: "Wherever Jews live as a minority [i.e., outside Israel] is Galut." The terms Golah, Artsot ha-Pezurah (lands of the dispersion), and Tefutsot (Diaspora) are used interchangeably in Israel when referring to Diaspora Jewry. Galut has acquired pejorative overtones, the adjective galuti signifying a timorous "ghetto" attitude or mentality. Long before the Jewish State came into being, Shmarya Levin (a Russian Zionist leader) underscored this pejorative sense in his aphorism: "It is easier to take the Jew out of Galut than to take Galut out of the Jew."
