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Diaspora or Homeland?
The Jews of Babylonia did not regard themselves as exiles and made attempts
to locate sites of Jewish historical importance in their vicinity that would actually testify to their local roots.
That explains how they ‘discovered’ the furnace in which Abraham burned the idols,
the gravesite of Daniel the Prophet, and other places.
Babylonia received a renewed geographical-legal definition.
Against that backdrop, various traditions also evolved in Babylonia,
such as the claim that the synagogue in Nehardea was built out of stones taken from the Temple in Jerusalem.
There was even a widespread belief that in the future,
after the coming of the Messiah,
all the Jews of the world would suffer the birth pangs of the Messiah
and only the Jews of Babylonia would be exempt from them.
