DISPERSION (from

See also:

• LAT

Lat. dispergere, to scatter)  , the act or process of separation and distribution . Apart from the technical use of the term, especially in optics (see below), the expression particularly applied to the settlements of Jews in foreign countries outside Palestine . These were either voluntary, for purposes of trade and commerce, or the results of conquest, such as the captivities of Assyria and . Babylonia . The word diaspora (Gr . &avaopa) is also used of these scattered communities, but is usually confined to the dispersion among the Hellenic and Roman peoples, or to the body of Christian Jews outside Palestine (see JEws) .