One of the outstanding features of Second Temple and post-Temple Jewish life was the existence of a major Jewish center in the land of Israel alongside a large and prosperous diaspora. This duality of Jewish existence and the ongoing Jewish dispersion raised questions that went to the heart of Jewish self-identity. Declarations of allegiance to the ancestral homeland were frequently accompanied by seemingly contrary expressions of 'local-patriotism' on the part of Jewish diaspora communities. With the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 CE and the subsequent failure under Bar Kokhba to revive political independence, diaspora Jews as well as those in Judaea were forced to re-evaluate the nature of the bonds that linked Jews throughout the world to 'The Land'. In this book, developed from the third Jacobs Lectures in Rabbinic Thought, delivered in Oxford in January 1994, Isaiah Gafni explores a historical theme that has a strong contemporary relevance.