Diaspora, Trade, and Textual Mobility: Jewish Merchant Networks along the Silk Roads
Diaspora, Trade, and Textual Mobility: Jewish Merchant Networks along the Silk Roads

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the role of Jewish merchant diasporas within the circulation and transmission of texts across the interconnected trade networks of Central Eurasia between the sixth and thirteenth centuries CE. Moving beyond models that treat Silk Road exchange primarily in terms of commodity movement or state-sponsored communication, it proposes a framework of textual mobility grounded in the commercial, linguistic, and material ecology of long-distance trade. Rather than reconstructing a distinct Jewish trade network, the study demonstrates that Jewish merchants are most productively understood within the shared communicative, material, and documentary infrastructures of Central Eurasian commerce. Within these commercial environments, written communication constituted an integral component of long-distance exchange. Letters, accounts, and contractual documents functioned simultaneously as instruments of trade, mechanisms of coordination, and vehicles of information transfer. Although direct manuscript evidence for Jewish textual production in many regions of the Silk Roads remains fragmentary, comparative analysis of Central Asian commercial cultures suggests that multilingual scribal practices and adaptive documentary forms were widespread among merchant communities. By situating Jewish diasporic activity within these broader structures, the article highlights the importance of multilingualism and material constraints in shaping textual transmission. It further demonstrates how texts, as physical objects, were embedded in processes of mobility, adaptation, and recontextualization across culturally diverse environments. Interreligious contact zones documented in manuscript environments such as Dunhuang and, in particular, Dandan-Uiliq provide an important comparative framework for understanding these dynamics. The article concludes that Jewish merchant diasporas are best understood as participants in, rather than exceptions to, the broader ecology of textual circulation in Central Eurasia. By shifting attention from isolated communities toward the mechanisms that sustained long-distance exchange, the study offers a materially grounded and network-oriented perspective on Jewish participation in Silk Road connectivity.

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