The word diaspora is commonly used to designate the population of Jews outside the Land of Israel. But who first invented this Greek word, and what purpose was it meant to serve? This class will examine ancient Jewish letters that Jews within and without the Land of Israel wrote to one another which reveal profound disagreements about the diaspora – and about whether the category exists at all.

Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich is the Editor-in-Chief of the Jewish Publication Society and Visiting Professor at Yeshiva University’s Revel Graduate School for Jewish Studies, and served as the Crown-Ryan Chair of Jewish Studies and Director of Catholic-Jewish Studies at Catholic Theological Union from 2014–2024. Her first book, The Making of Jewish Universalism: From Exile to Alexandria, was published in 2016, and her second book, Discovering Second Temple Literature: The Scriptures and Stories That Shaped Early Judaism, was published with JPS in 2018 and received the 2019 AJL Judaica Reference Honor Award. Her third book, Letters From Home: The Creation of Diaspora in Jewish Antiquity, was published in June 2024. She is the author of over a hundred published articles, including pieces that have been published in journals such as the Harvard Theological Review, Sapir, the Journal for the Study of Judaism, the Jewish Review of Books, Tablet, Tradition, and The Christian Century. A Sacks Scholar for the Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Foundation, a past Leon Charney Fellow at the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies, and a past Kogod Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Simkovich speaks regularly to audiences across North America and beyond on topics related to the Hebrew Bible, Jewish history, and contemporary Jewish-Christian relations.