In the case of the Israelites, this deportation had several effects on their religious life. Until then, Israelite identity had been tied in large measure to the particular tribe to which one belonged. But tribes’ identities were derivative of the land they inhabited. Once Israelites were exiled from their land, tribal identity was almost impossibl

were less an attempt at religious revival than a continuation of life in the vast dirt camps in which so many millions of Afghans had gathered on the borders of their country when the Soviets invaded sixteen years before.

As the Peel Commission was later to conclude, assimilation was not feasible because of anti-Jewish prejudice stimulated by Muslim leaders.