From Jerusalem it is easy to treat history as a theatre of large entities with clean names: “Rome,” “the Jews,” “the Revolution,” “the West.” The move is understandable. It gives the mind a sense of control. The problem is that it also produces bad analysis.

A non-essentialist approach begins with a simple premise: diaspora is not a single subject. It is a dispersion of lives across different legal regimes, class positions, languages, professions, geographies, and degrees of exposure to state violence and social pressure. In such a field, patterns can emerge without any unified “collective intention.” Often the pattern is structural: when doors are closed, certain corridors become crowded.

So why do Jewish names appear disproportionately in some revolutionary milieus of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially in the lands of the Russian Empire. Not because there is an “essence” of diaspora. Not because there is a hidden director. Because constraints produce channels.

If a population is marked by residency restrictions, educational quotas, occupational barriers, recurring waves of violence, and persistent administrative suspicion, then the repertoire of “ordinary” life strategies shrinks. People search for portable forms of security, portable forms of dignity, portable forms of future. Modern political movements can become such vehicles, not because they are a natural destiny, but because the existing order has already designated parts of the population as an anomaly inside the system.

This does not mean “the diaspora supported the Revolution.” There was no single stance. There were multiple socialisms, labor movements, liberal hopes, religious resistance, nationalist projects, assimilation strategies, and quiet practices of survival.........

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