ABSTRACT
The global processes promote and amplify the similarities between the various ethno-national Diasporas. In turn, these similarities render academic legitimacy to the comparison of various ethno-national diasporas, and to the application of some conclusions about their historical experience and current situation to the Jewish Diaspora. Jewish leaders and intellectuals, the majority of the Jewish rank and file, as well as many gentiles, still regard the Jewish people as a unique cultural and social phenomenon. The persistence and proliferation of the ethnic entities, that maintain continuous contacts with national movements or with states dominated by a certain ethnic national group, serves as the basis for the use of the term "ethno-national" in describing the dispersed groups. The relations between all diasporas and their homelands are inherently problematic and marred by tensions and controversies. Even when the centrality/peripherality issue does not crop up or is somehow resolved, there are both long-term structural and immediate causes for controversy and conflict.
