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Jew

 
() pronunciation
n.
  1. An adherent of Judaism as a religion or culture.
  2. A member of the widely dispersed people originally descended from the ancient Hebrews and sharing an ethnic heritage based on Judaism.
  3. A native or inhabitant of the ancient kingdom of Judah.

[Middle English Jeu, from Old French giu, from Latin Iūdaeus, from Greek Ioudaios, from Aramaic yəhudāy, from Hebrew yəhûdî, inhabitant of Judah, from yəhûdâ, Judah. See Judah2.]

USAGE NOTE   It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on the council, which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun.


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Any person whose religion is Judaism. In a wider sense the term refers to any member of a worldwide ethnic and cultural group descended from the ancient Hebrews who traditionally practiced the Jewish religion. The Hebrew term Yehudi, translated as Judaeus in Latin and Jew in English, originally referred to a member of the tribe of Judah. In Jewish tradition, any child born of a Jewish mother is considered a Jew; in Reform Judaism a child is considered a Jew if either parent is Jewish.

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Encyclopedia of Judaism:

Jew ("Who is a Jew?")

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Controversy concerning the definition of who is a member of the Jewish people. Historically, the definition of a Jew has been according to Halakhah, namely a person born of a halakhically Jewish mother, or who was converted according to halakhah. Halakhic conversion requires Circumcision for males and immersion in a Mikveh (ritual bath) for both males and females, as well as the acceptance of the dictates of halakhah. With the advent of the Reform movement in the first half of the 19th century, Orthodox circles questioned those conversions which dispensed with the ritual aspects (i.e., circumcision and immersion) and which were satisfied with a pledge by the new converts to be faithful Jews. A relatively recent decision of the Reform movement, whereby a child of a Jewish father (and a non-Jewish mother) is also to be considered Jewish (the so-called Patrilineal Descent ruling), evoked strong opposition fromm both the Orthodox and Conservative movements, who accept only the halakhic guidelines as to who is a Jew. The Orthodox, however, also dispute whether members of the Conservative rabbinate are following halakhic guidelines.

While the various religious denominations debate the legalities of "who is a Jew?" a secular approach regards being Jewish as more of a national than a religious definition, whereby anyone voluntarily associating with the Jewish people's lot is to be considered Jewish. This view regards the Jewish religion as but one of the components of being Jewish, and not necessarily an essential one. Others, including Jean-Paul Sartre, have suggested simply that a Jew is anyone considered by non-Jews to be a Jew.

While the debates in the Diaspora have been to a large extent theoretical, the question of "who is a Jew?" has had practical and political repercussions in Israel. The problem stems from the Law of Return, which entitles any Jew to immigrate to Israel and automatically receive Israeli citizenship without having to be naturalized. In the law, as originally formulated, there was no qualification whatsoever as to who was a Jew; anyone who declared himself a Jew was registered as such. Under pressure to change this definition, the then Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, sent a questionnaire to 50 leading thinkers throughout the world, as to whom they considered a Jew. The majority replied in halakhic terms. Two court cases then defined the issue more precisely. The first, known as that of Brother Daniel (Oswald Rufeisen) concerned a Polish Jew who had converted to Catholicism and became a monk. He then moved to Israel, but refused to apply for citizenship as a resident in the country. Instead, basing himself on the Law of Return, he demanded the right as a Jew to receive Israeli citizenship. When the case reached the High Court of Israel in 1966, it ruled---although this was not stated as such in the law itself---that any person opting out of the history and destiny of the Jewish people, though halakhically Jewish, is not eligible for citizenship under the Law of Return. A second case eventually led to a change in the wording of the law. Benjamin Shalit, who had married a non-Jewish woman, demanded that his children be registered as Jews on their identity cards under "nationality," and as having no religion. As the law did not specify differently, the High Court ruled that the children had to be registered as Jews. Under pressure of the religious political parties, the Knesset then modified the law now defining Jews as those born of a Jewish mother or who have converted.

The latter phrase has been a bone of contention ever since the law was passed. As it stands, any convert to Judaism, regardless of whether the rabbi performing the conversion was Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform, is eligible to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return. Ever since the law was passed, there have been efforts by various Orthodox religious groups to modify the law to specify "conversion in accordance with the halakhah." Those pressing for this change hope thus to limit the right to immigrate to Israel only to those born Jewish or those who have converted under Orthodox auspices, thereby excluding Conservative and Reform converts under the law. Since the Law of Return was passed, demands for such a change have been a standard request by various religious parties as part of coalition negotiations with whichever party was asked by the Israeli president to form a new government. While a bill to modify the law has been submitted numerous times, it has never won the required majority.

In view of their failure to change the Law of Return, the religious parties in Israel have also sought to introduce a new law, which would serve to differentiate between Orthodox and other conversions. Under this proposal, all converts entering Israel under the Law of Return would be required to have their conversions validated by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an Orthodox body.

In reality, the provisions of the Law of Return affect only a handful of individuals each year. Many see the attempts to modify the law as aimed at delegitimizing Conservative and Reform Judaism and their rabbis by invalidating their conversions. This is perhaps especially the case with the Conservative movement which, in spite of some Orthodox claims to the contrary, insists that its conversion procedures are in accordance with halakhic requirements. As such, these attempts have been vehemently opposed by non-Orthociox Jews in the Diaspora (especially in the United States, where the great majority of synagogue-affiliated Jews belong to the Reform and Conservative movements), who have warned that the acceptance of such legislation could lead to a schism between Israel and the Diaspora.


Bible Dictionary and Concordance:

Jew, Jews, Jewish

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An ethnic designation variously applied in both OT and NT. Jacob's wife Leah named her fourth son Judah, saying "Now I will praise (or thank) the Lord" (Gen 29:35). The family or tribe descended from Judah was called by the same name, as was the geographic territory which they occupied after the conquest of the land by Joshua. As the split between north and south gradually began to develop, the entire southern area of Judah and Benjamin came to be known as Judah (cf II Sam 5:5; I Kgs 12:21ff). Later on the inhabitants of the region are called Yehudim (men of Judah, Judahites, Judeans, Jews; see II Kgs 16:6; 25:25). Among the earliest uses of the name are those which appear in the narrative sections towards the end of Jeremiah (Jer 34:9; 40:11-15; 44:1). A pattern can be discerned in the remaining OT uses (all in Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther plus twice in Daniel chapter 3 and once in Zechariah chapter 8) whereby the name "Jew" is used either by non-Jews, or Jews residing outside the land of Israel (Est 9:15-19; Dan 3:8; Zech 8:23). Jews inside the land used the name "Israel" (as does Ezra from the moment he arrives in the land. Cf Mark 15:26, where the Romans designate Jesus "King of the Jews", and Mark 15:32, where he is mocked by chief priests and scribes as "King of Israel").

By NT times the name had come into common use, and hence it appears far more often in the NT than in the OT. Especially to be noted are the uses of the word in the Gospel of John. Compared to a total of the 16 times the word Ioudaios appears in the Synoptic Gospels, John has it 71 times. Sometimes he intends it to describe Judeans as compared to Galileans (John 7:1; 11:7ff, 54; 18:36). At other places it is a substitute for Pharisees (John 1:19, 24; 8:13, 22; 9:13, 18. Here it is to be noted that at the time when John wrote - after the disaster of A.D. 70 - Judaism had effectively become exclusively Pharisaic Judaism). When foreigners are involved (John 4:22), the usage reflects the pattern of Ezra. Most frequently John uses the title "the Jews" to designate people in positions of authority (John 18:14 with 11:47-50; 19:6-7; and especially chaps. 7 and 8). In one passage (Rom 2:28-29) Paul speaks of "Jew" as something other than just an ethnic title. There he seems to play with the root meaning of the word, saying that the true Jew is one who is circumcised in heart and not just in flesh. Another non-standard usage is found in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9, which speaks of those "who say they are Jews, and are not, but lie".

Concordance
II Kgs 25:25. Ezra 4:12, 23; 5:1, 5; 6:7-8,14. Neh 1:2; 2:16; 4:1-2; 12; 5:1, 8, 17; 6:6; 13:23. Est 2:5; 3:4, 6, 10,13; 4:3, 7, 13-14, 16; 5:13; 6:10, 13; 8:1,3, 5, 7-9, 11,13, 16-17; 9:1-3, 5-6, 10, 12-13, 15-16, 18-20, 22-25, 27-31; 10:3. Jer 32:12; 34:9; 38:19; 40:11-12, 15; 41:3; 44:1; 52:28,30. Dan 3:8,12. Zech 8:23. Matt 2:2; 27:11, 29, 37; 28:15. Mark 7:3; 15:2, 9,12, 18, 26. Luke 7:3; 23:3, 37-38,51. John 1:19; 2:6, 13, 18,20; 3:1, 25; 4:9, 20, 22; 5:1, 10, 15-16,18; 6:4, 41,52; 7:1-2, 11,13, 15, 35; 8:22, 31, 48,52, 57; 9:18,22; 10:19, 24,31, 33; 11:8,19, 31, 33, 36,45, 54-55; 12:9, 11; 13:33; 18:12,14, 20, 31, 33,35-36, 38-39; 19:3, 7, 12,14, 19-21, 31,38, 40, 42; 20:19. Acts 2:5, 10; 9:22-23; 10:22, 28,39; 11:19; 12:3, 11; 13:5-6, 42-43, 45,50; 14:1-2, 4-5, 19; 16:1, 3,20; 17:1, 5,10, 13, 17; 18:2, 4-5, 12,14, 19, 24, 28; 19:10, 13-14,17, 33-34; 20:3, 19, 21; 21:11, 20-21,27, 39; 22:3,12, 30; 23:12,20, 27, 30; 24:5, 9, 18,24, 27; 25:2,7-10, 15, 24; 26:2-4, 7, 17,21, 23; 28:17,19, 29. Rom 1:16; 2:9-10,17, 28-29; 3:1,9, 29; 9:24; 10:12. I Cor 1:22-24; 9:20; 10:32; 12:13. II Cor 11:24. Gal 2: 13-15; 3:28. Col 3:11. I Thes 2:14. Titus 1:14. Rev 2:9; 3:9


Though there must have been individual Jews in Anglo-Saxon England, there is no evidence of settled communities. But after the Norman Conquest, hundreds of Jews entered the country, mainly from Normandy where there had been settlements. As their numbers increased and they moved outside London into provincial towns, tensions rose. As early as 1144 the accusation of ritual murder was made against them, with the charge that they had killed a small boy in Norwich, ‘St William’. Severe restrictions were placed upon them. They were confined to Jewries, from 1218 were obliged to wear badges, and in 1232 a domus conversorum was opened in London for proselytizing. Fresh hostility came with the crusading movement. At the accession of Richard I in 1189—a notable crusader—there were attacks on Jews in London, which spread to the provinces, and culminated in the slaughter of 150 Jews in the castle at York. Religious zeal was reinforced by greed and envy. Some of the Jews were already very wealthy—Aaron of Lincoln in the 1170s dealt with kings, archbishops, municipalities, and monasteries.

The difficulties of the Jews continued in the 13th cent. The story of William of Norwich was repeated in 1255 with the account of Hugh of Lincoln—another boy said to have been butchered, and again given saintly status. In 1290, in exchange for a large subsidy from Parliament, Edward I expelled all Jews from the kingdom, giving them three months to leave.

Between 1290 and the 1650s there were no Jewish communities of any size, though individuals slipped through, sometimes professing conversion. When approached in the 1650s, Cromwell was more sympathetic than his council, perhaps because he had made use of some Jews in espionage and diplomacy. There was no dramatic reversal of policy but Jews were allowed in once more. Their numbers and status built up and the financial and commercial revolutions of the early 18th cent. gave them enhanced possibilities. Sir Samuel Gideon was prominent in assisting the government with loans in the crisis of 1745, and his son was given an Irish peerage in 1789. But old hatreds died hard and when the Pelhams brought in a modest measure to facilitate naturalization in 1753, the public outcry was so great that they were forced to repeal it.

Catholic emancipation in 1829 left the Jews as the only religious group suffering under severe disabilities. Yet the progress of Jews in society was unmistakable. David Salomons was made sheriff of London in 1835 and lord mayor in 1855; Francis Goldsmid was the first practising Jew to be given a baronetcy in 1841. When first Lionel Rothschild (1847) and then Salomons (1851) were elected to Parliament, only to be kept out by their inability to take the oath as a Christian, the plight of the Jews was dramatized, and the law was changed in 1858. The first government minister of Jewish faith was appointed in 1871, the first judge in 1873. The obstacles facing Jews remained substantial, but they were personal and social rather than legal.

England shared the assumption (general until the later 20th century) that Jews lost their homeland as punishment for murdering Jesus, and have ever since been accursed. Symbolically, this was expressed through the medieval legend of the Wandering Jew, doomed to roam the earth till Christ's Second Coming because he had shouted at him to move faster on the way to Calvary. The story first appeared in Matthew Paris's Chronicle of the Abbey of St Albans (begun in 1235), which declares that an Armenian Bishop who visited the Abbey in 1228 had often seen this Jew, now a devoutly penitent Christian hoping for forgiveness on Doomsday. It remained popular all over Europe till late in the 19th century, publicized through ballads and chapbooks, many of which claimed the wanderer had actually been sighted in one town or another. There is a circumstantial English account of his passing through Stamford on Whitsunday 1658, and curing a consumptive by advising him to drink daily a brew of ‘two leaves of red sage and one of bloodworte’. A related notion is that of Jews present during the Crucifixion whose punishment is to become restless night birds, the Seven Whistlers, or mine-haunting knockers.

Another important medieval theme was the accusation that Jews kidnapped Christian children and crucified them on Good Friday or Easter Sunday; two child saints, William of Norwich and Hugh of Lincoln, are alleged to have been ‘martyred’ in this way, and to have miraculously revealed the whereabouts of their corpses by singing prayers after death. Hugh's story was told in ballads, and also by Chaucer as ‘The Prioress's Tale’.

Jewish religion was assumed to consist of sorcery and devil-worship, leading Christians to apply the terms ‘synagogue’ and ‘sabbath’ to gatherings of witches. Yet, paradoxically, Hebrew was seen as the most sacred of all languages, outranking even Latin and Greek; hence the widespread use of Hebrew words, letters, and symbols in ritual magic, and in healing charms.

Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.

  • Venetia Newall, in The Witch Figure, ed. V. Newall (1973), 95-124
  • George K. Anderson, The Legend of the Wandering Jew (1967)
  • S. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (1877), 1-31

In September 1654, twenty-three Sephardic Jews sailed into New Amsterdam's harbor aboard the St. Catherine. Fleeing the collapse of Dutch colonial rule in Brazil, the Jews sought refuge in New Amsterdam. They received a cold welcome from New Amsterdam's governor, Peter Stuyvesant, a Calvinist who viewed Jews as "blasphemers of the name of Christ" as well as a potential burden on his colonial coffers. Undeterred, the Jews appealed to brethren in Amsterdam to intervene on their behalf to the directors of the Dutch West India Company.

They succeeded. In 1655, the directors granted Jews permission to settle in New Amsterdam as long as they did not worship publicly, a right Jews had enjoyed in both Brazil and Amsterdam, and they assumed total responsibility for their indigent. In the colonies, economic potential often outweighed religious affiliation, and most white people enjoyed an equality of opportunity. The colonies consistently complained of labor shortages and the directors knew that Jews made good colonists: they quickly established roots in their new home, they remained loyal citizens, they developed international trade networks through contacts in Europe and the Caribbean, and wealth tended to flow along these networks. By forcing the poor Jews who arrived in 1654 to become a viable colonial population, perhaps the directors hoped that the new arrivals would stimulate needed economic growth. Beginning with New Amsterdam, Jews established communities in numerous colonial port cities, including New Port (1677), Savannah (1733), Philadelphia (1745), and Charleston (1750).

Establishing Communities

The Jews who settled in Dutch and, after 1664, British North America participated in a broad international migration that continued well into the twentieth century. They were Sephardim, part of the Iberian-Jewish diaspora created by the expulsion of all Jews from Spain and Portugal during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Soon, Ashkenazi Jews, who traced their roots to northern and central Europe, began to join the Sephardim. Generally poorer, and differing in religious ritual and Hebrew pronunciation, the Ashkenazim constituted the majority of American Jews by 1720.

Immediately upon arrival in North America, Jews established the necessities of full political and religious freedom. In 1655, the Jewish community received permission to construct a cemetery so they could bury the dead according to Jewish religious ritual. In 1656, one year after Lutherans lost their right to worship in their homes, Jews gained that exact privilege. After two years of legal wrestling, Asser Levy, one of New Amsterdam's, and later New York's, most prominent Jews, won Jews burgher rights—citizenship—in 1657. Although Jews did not receive the official right to worship publicly until the end of the seventeenth century, the nascent community worshiped in a building on Mill Street commonly known as the "Jew's Synagogue." The building, which included a mikveh, or ritual bath used primarily by women for rituals associated with family purity laws, served as colonial Jews' house of worship until 1728, when they established Shearith Israel, North America's first permanent synagogue.

Outwardly, the Jews who settled in America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries could not be distinguished from their neighbors. This, as well as the low number of marriageable Jews, led to the emergence of intermarriage as a common feature of American Jewish life. Jews differed from their peers, however, in their professional activities. Whereas non-Jewish immigrants tended to work in agriculture or artisanry, Jews concentrated in commerce. Relying primarily upon family and community ties, Jews established trade networks among the colonies, with the Caribbean, and with Europe. These business arrangements provided Jews with the bonds necessary to sustain religious, cultural, economic, and familial interests. By 1730, when about 300 Jews lived in New York, only two Jews listed occupations other than commerce.

While most Jewish merchants traded in rum, hardware, spices, candles, lumber, and fur, some found the most lucrative commodity to be African slaves. Lured by the promise of substantial profit, Jewish notables from the shipping center of Newport, Rhode Island, participated in the traffic of humans. Moreover, like many of their white neighbors, Jews in both the North and the South owned slaves. In fact, the 1703 census revealed that 75 percent of Jewish households owned slaves. Because slavery functioned as the central determinant of American political, economic, and social systems, owning—or seeking to liberate—slaves existed as a central feature of American life for both Jews and non-Jews alike until the Civil War (1861–1865).

The American Revolution and subsequent ratification of the Constitution legitimized the rights and ad hoc privileges that had organized American Jewish life during the past century. The Constitution instituted the legal separation of church and state—a condition of existence quite different from Europe, where religion could determine an individual's political and legal rights.

Nineteenth Century Arrivals

Beginning in the 1820s, a new migration of Jews from Europe began, one that would continue unabated until its climax during the first decades of the twentieth century. Jews migrated westward between 1820 and 1920 in response to upheavals in European society caused by political emancipation, industrialization, and urbanization. Unlike other immigrant groups, that often returned to Europe after earning enough money to sustain a family, Jews tended to immigrate permanently.

Between 1820 and 1880, the Jewish population in America rose from 4,000 to almost 250,000. Historians usually refer to members of this first wave as "German" immigrants, but the name is incorrect. Jewish immigrants who arrived in America between 1820 and 1880 generally left from areas eventually included in unified Germany (1871) or countries deeply influenced by German culture, such as Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and Moravia. Yet the pre-1880 contingent also included many Jews whose culture was decidedly Polish, from Silesia and Posen, provinces annexed by Prussia and later assumed into unified Germany, as well as Lithuania, western Russia, and Galicia. These Polish and Eastern European Jews, characterized by poverty, religious traditionalism, and the Yiddish language, more closely resembled the Jews who would begin their exodus to America in the final decades of the nineteenth century.

By the Civil War, Jews lived in over 160 communities in America. Many earned their keep by peddling, a profession that required no initial investment and functioned entirely on credit. Moreover, if successful, an itinerant peddler could earn enough to become a store owner. At a time when few retail stores existed outside the large cities, peddlers provided rural Americans and ethnic neighborhoods with their everyday necessities. Peddlers bought their supplies in large cities like New York, Chicago, or St. Louis and set out either for the hinterlands or the city streets. With their wares slung over their backs, on horse-carts, or on pushcarts, they roved from town to town or neighborhood to neighborhood selling small items like buttons, stoves, glass, needles, old clothes, and plates. Peddling resulted in the creation of extensive peddler-supplier-creditor networks in which Jews across the United States became linked in a collective endeavor to earn a living from the constant pulse of supply and demand. Indeed, this network of peddlers, general stores, and wholesalers served as the foundation for the evolution of the American department store.

Early Judaism in America

After the establishment of Shearith Israel in 1728, synagogues began to spring up wherever Jews settled, including the Touro Synagogue in Newport (1762) and Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia (1782). These first synagogues followed the traditional Sephardic rite. In 1801, resenting Sephardic control over synagogue administration and ritual, a group of Ashkenazim in Philadelphia formed the first "second" synagogue in an American Jewish community.

Because no ordained rabbi arrived in the United States until the 1840s, American Judaism developed almost entirely by improvisation. Moreover, due to their white skin color and their position outside the scope of nativist concerns with Irish Catholics, American Jewish modes of worship and religious institutions developed relatively free from outside interference. Laypeople generally led congregations and a synagogue's board determined religious ritual. Negotiating Jewish tradition, congregational demands, and desires for social acceptance, Jewish leaders oversaw a burgeoning American Judaism as chaotic and diverse as its new homeland. By the close of the 1800s, three major institutions—the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations—all claimed to speak for American Jewry.

Starting in 1870, the same processes that had led earlier arrivals to immigrate to America—market capitalism, industrialization, urbanization, and growing anti-Jewish violence—set in motion a new migration from eastern Europe to America. Between 1870 and 1924, when Congress officially legislated the end of free and open immigration, the 2.5 million Jews who immigrated to the United States radically altered American Jewry's demography, social structure, cultural life, and communal order.

Adjusting to America

After crossing the Atlantic, Jewish immigrants landed at Ellis Island. There, they encountered employees of the U.S. government, who checked papers and performed rigorous medical exams, and representatives of settlement houses or the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, organizations founded in the late nineteenth century to guide immigrants through landing procedures and provide financial aid, shelter, professional training, and acculturation skills. Whether meeting a family member already established in America or arriving alone, most immigrants headed directly from Ellis Island to one of the major ethnic neighborhoods that saturated America's cities, such as Chicago's West Side, Boston's North End, downtown Philadelphia, or New York's Lower East Side.

The immigrant neighborhood bustled. A cacophony of life, work, and leisure, one square block could hold among its tenements workshops of the garment trades, synagogues, saloons, cafes, wives, children, intellectuals, political functionaries, religious students, gamblers, con artists, and prostitutes. By 1910, 540,000 Jews lived within the 1.5 square miles considered the Lower East Side, cramped into five-or six-story tenement houses. Entire families, as many as seven or eight people, lived in three-or four-room apartments. Often, they took in boarders to help pay the rent. Usually a single male, the boarder would occupy one full room in the tiny apartment, cramping the rest of the family into even smaller quarters.

In order to meet their monthly expenses, every family member earned wages. Generally poorer and more religious than their predecessors, the new arrivals made work a top priority. Unlike their predecessors, the Eastern European Jews who arrived in the decades surrounding the turn of the century tended to be skilled laborers, primarily in the garment industry. In fact, in 1900, one out of every three Jewish immigrants labored in the garment trades, although cigar making, peddling, and butchering were also popular professions. Due to the pressure to earn money, women, working in the needle trades, and children, who labored on assembly lines or in the streets selling whatever possible, joined men in the factories, back-room sweatshops, and small street stalls.

To compensate for these tough conditions, Jews developed an array of cultural and political responses to their new environment. The Yiddish theater offered low-cost, high-quality performances of original plays, translations, comedies, and variety shows. Likewise, socialism and Zionism became the dominant secular ideologies of the immigrant neighborhood. The language of these political ideologies, Yiddish, served as a source of literary and theatrical productions. Between 1885 and 1914, over 150 Yiddish dailies, weeklies, monthlies, quarterlies, and yearbooks appeared in print.

Jewish immigrants also produced institutional responses to immigration. Modeled after American fraternal orders, Jews organized landsmanschaften, societies for individuals who originated from the same town. The landsmanschaften provided various forms of financial aid such as sick and bereavement benefits, and organized small synagogues, lectures, and social opportunities. Trade unionism also provided Jews with opportunities for mutual aid and political expression. The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, the most famous of the Jewish trade unions, organized in 1900 to provide support to the thousands of women working in the needle trades. The union opened a health center, experimented in cooperative housing, provided unemployment and health insurance and retirement benefits, and offered recreational and vocational programs. In 1909, the union participated in one of the largest strikes to date, known as the "Uprising of the 20,000," where women shirtwaist workers protested their poor salaries, poor working conditions, and culture of sexual abuse.

The ethnic neighborhood served primarily as a way station for new immigrants. Although it served as the first place of residence for a tremendously high percentage of immigrant Jews, its piteous living conditions encouraged immigrants to move to better neighborhoods as quickly as possible. In these areas of second settlement, public schools, interethnic contacts, and American popular culture all served as a cauldron of integration, tutoring immigrants and their children how to look, sound, and act like Americans. Indeed, by the 1930s, American Jewry became, for the first time, a largely native-born population. Thus, when the depression hit, Jews, like all Americans, suffered financial hardship, bankruptcies, and barriers to financial and educational advancement, as well as the disappointment of the expectations that accompanied general upward mobility.

Following World War II (1939–1945), in which over half a million American Jews served in the armed forces, American Jewry experienced a profound period of social and economic mobility. The Holocaust caused many American Jews to approach life with a new sense of responsibility. Now the world's largest Jewish community, American Jewry aimed for success, both as Americans and as Jews. Most important, they aimed to eradicate the distinctions that had marked earlier generations. Because of the opportunities offered by the GI Bill, Jewish men and women entered higher education in record numbers. As a result, by the end of the twentieth century most of America's 6 million Jews claimed college degrees, worked in white-collar jobs, and enjoyed comfortable lifestyles. Moreover, Judaism experienced a second period of transformation.

As America's Jews became increasingly assimilated, they diversified from the orthodoxy that had characterized the eastern European immigrants to more Americanized forms of Jewish expression. The birth of the State of Israel catalyzed the American Zionist movement. Numerous Jews participated in a wellspring of Jewish cultural expression in literature, academia, dance, and film. Others chose new religious opportunities. Some found "modern" Orthodoxy, a movement to combine traditional Judaism's strict lifestyle constraints with the realities of modern American society. Others chose the Havurah movement, which sprang up in the 1960s. Influenced by 1960s counterculture, members of havurot rejected traditional Judaism's formalism and sought to invest Jewish ritual with greater spirituality and attention to social justice. Most American Jews, however, identified as Re-form or Conservative, American Jewry's mainline religious movements.

Bibliography

Ashton, Dianne. Rebecca Gratz: Women and Judaism in Antebellum America. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1997.

Diner, Hasia R. A Time for Gathering: The Second Migration, 1820–1880. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

Ewen, Elizabeth. Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars: Life and Culture on the Lower East Side, 1890–1925. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1985.

Faber, Eli. A Time for Planting: The First Migration, 1654–1820. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

Glenn, Susan A. Daughters of the Shtetl: Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990.

Goldman, Karla. Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding Places for Women in American Judaism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Goren, Arthur A. New York Jews and the Quest for Community: The Kehillah Experiment, 1908–1922. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.

Grinstein, Hyman. The Rise of the Jewish Community of New York, 1654–1860. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1945.

Gurock, Jeffrey S., and Schacter, Jacob J., A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Judaism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

Heinze, Andrew R. Adapting to Abundance: Jewish Immigrants, Mass Consumption, and the Search for American Identity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Jick, Leon A. The Americanization of the Synagogue, 1820–1870. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England: Brandeis University Press, 1976 [1992].

Markowitz, Ruth Jacknow. My Daughter, The Teacher: Jewish Teachers in the New York City Schools. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1993.

Moore, Deborah Dash. At Home in America: Second-Generation New York Jews. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.

Morawska, Ewa T. Insecure Prosperity: Small-Town Jews in Industrial America, 1890–1940. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Rischin, Moses. The Promised City: New York's Jews, 1870–1914. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962.

Soyer, Daniel. Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880–1939. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Svonkin, Stuart. Jews Against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

Wenger, Beth S. New York Jews and the Great Depression: Uncertain Promise. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996.

Wertheimer, Jack, ed. The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England: Brandeis University Press, 1987.

The Russian Empire acquired a Jewish population through the partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795. By 1800 Russia's Jewish population numbered more than 800,000 persons. During the nineteenth century the Jews of the Russian Empire underwent a demographic explosion, with their population rising to more than five million in 1897 (a number that does not include the approximately one million persons who emigrated from the empire prior to 1914). Legislation in 1791, 1804, and 1835 required most Jews to live in the provinces acquired from Poland and the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the so-called Pale of Jewish Settlement. There were also some residence restrictions within the Pale, such as a ban on settlement in most districts of the city of Kiev, and restrictions on settlement within fifty kilometers of the foreign borders. The Temporary Laws of May 1882 forbade new Jewish settlement in rural areas of the Pale. Before 1882 the Russian state progressively permitted privileged categories of Jews (guild merchants, professionals, some army veterans, students, and master-craftsmen) to reside outside the Pale. Larger in size than France, the Pale included areas of dynamic economic growth, and its restrictions were widely evaded, but it was nonetheless considered the single greatest legal liability on Russian Jews. The regulations of the Pale, including the May Laws, did not apply to Jews in the Kingdom of Poland, although they too were barred from settlement in the Great Russian provinces.

Economic Life

Jews were primarily a trade-commercial class, serving in the feudal economy as the link between the peasants and the market, and as agents of the noble landowners and leasees of the numerous monopolies on private estates. They were particularly active in the production and sale of spirits, as agents of noble and state monopolies on this trade. Individual Jewish families lived in peasant villages, while larger communities were found in market towns, the shtetl of Jewish lore.

The Jewish population increase and internal migration contributed to the growth of urban centers such as Odessa, Kiev, Vilna, Warsaw, and Lodz. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Jews moved into occupations in urban-based factory work. A small elite gained prominence as tax farmers, bankers, railway contractors, and industrial entrepreneurs. A number of Jews had successful careers in the professions, chiefly law, medicine, and journalism. Most Jews, however, lived lives of relative poverty.

Religion and Culture

The vernacular of Jews in the empire comprised various dialects of Yiddish, a Germanic language with a substantial admixture of Hebrew and Slavic languages. Hebrew and Aramaic were languages of prayer and study. In the all-Russian census of 1897 more than 97 percent of Jews declared Yiddish their native language, although this figure obscures the high level of multi-lingualism among East European Jewry.

The empire's Jews were, with very few exceptions, Ashkenazi-a Yiddish-speaking cultural community that shared common rituals and traditions. It was a highly literate culture that valorized learning and the study of legal and homiletic texts, the Talmud. Ashkenazi culture also included elements of the Jewish mystical tradition, the Kabbalah. The main division between adherents to religious traditionalism in Eastern Europe was between the so-called Mitnagedim, (The Opponents) and the Hasidim (The Pious Ones). The latter contained many strands, each grouped around a charismatic leader, or tzaddik (righteous man). There was also a small band of maskilim, the adherents of Haskalah, which was the Jewish version of the European Enlightenment movement. They advocated religious reform and intellectual and linguistic acculturation.

In an effort to reach the non-acculturated masses, followers of the Russian Haskalah wrote literary works in Yiddish and Hebrew, helping to create standardized and modernized versions of both languages. The most notable of these writers were Abraham Mapu, Perez Smolenskin, and Reuven Braudes in modern Hebrew; Sholem Yakov Abramovich (pen name, Mendele Moykher-Sforim) in Hebrew and Yiddish; and Sholem Rabinovich (Sholem Aleichem) and Yitsak Leybush Perets in Yiddish. Avraam Goldfaden was the foremost creator of a Yiddish-language theater, although its growth was stunted by a governmental ban in 1883. The turn of the century saw the emergence of a number of outstanding Hebrew poets, most notably Khaim Nakhman Bialik and Shaul Chernikhovsky. There was a vigorous Jewish press in Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, and Polish.

In response to the challenges of modernity, religious movements such as Israel Lipkin Salanter's Musar Movement, which penetrated traditional study centers (yeshivas), sought ways to preserve a vigorous traditional style of life. While women were not expected to be scholars, many were literate. Both religious and secular literature aimed at a female audience was published in Yiddish.

All young males were expected to study in religious schools known as the cheder. A state initiative of 1844 created a state-sponsored Jewish school system with primary and secondary levels, offering a more modern curriculum. Total enrollment was low, but the schools served Jews as a point of entry into Russian culture and higher education. Most maskilim and acculturated Jews in the mid-nineteenth century had some connection with this school system. By the 1870s Jews in urban areas began to enter Russian schools in large numbers. Concerned that the Jews were swamping the schools, the state imposed quotas on the admission of Jews to secondary and higher education. A number of Jews became prominent artists in Russia, most notably the painter Isaac Levitan and the sculptor Mark Antokolsky.

Internal Government

Until 1844 the internal government of the Jews comprised the kahal (kagal in Russian), a system of autonomous local government inherited from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The kahal, dominated by local elites, exercised social control, selected the religious leadership (rabbis), and assessed and collected taxes under a system of collective responsibility. After 1827 the kahal also oversaw the selection of recruits for the army. A number of taxes were unique to the Jews, most notably a tax on kosher meat (korobochka) and a tax on sabbath candles. Jews in Poland and Lithuania created a number of national bodies, the va'adim (the singular form is va'ad), which assessed taxes on communities, negotiated with the secular authorities, and attempted to set social standards. Although similar bodies were abolished in Poland in 1764, the Russian state allowed Jews to create them on a regional basis. These included provincial kahals, and the institution of Deputies of the Jewish People, which lasted until 1825. Seen as an obstacle to Jewish integration, the kahal system was technically abolished in 1844, but virtually all of its functions endured unchanged.

Within each community existed a wide variety of societies (hevrah, plural: hevrot) that over-saw an extensive range of devotional, educational, and charitable functions. The most important of these was the burial brotherhood, the hevrah kaddisha.

Legal Status

The defining characteristic of a Jew in Russian law was religious confession; a convert from Judaism to any other faith ceased legally to be a Jew. In other respects Russian law possessed numerous and contradictory provisions that applied only to Jews. In Russia's social-estate based system, almost all Jews were classed as townspeople (meshchane) or merchants (kuptsy), and the general regulations for these groups applied to them, but with many exceptions. Confusingly, all Jews were also placed in the social category of aliens (inorodtsy), which included groups such as Siberian nomads, who were under the special protection of the state. A huge body of exceptional law existed for all aspects of Jewish life, including tax assessment, military recruitment, residence, and religious life. Jewish emancipation in Russia would have had to encompass the removal of all such special legislation.

The "jewish Question" in Russia

The guiding principles of Russia's Jewish policy were not based on traditional Russian, Orthodox Christian anti-Semitism, nor was there ever a sustained and coordinated effort to convert all Jews to Russian Orthodoxy, with the exception of conversionary pressures on Russian army recruits. Russian policy was influenced by the Enlightenment-era critique of the Jews and Judaism that saw them as a persecuted minority, but also isolated and backward, economically unproductive, and religious fanatics prone to exploit their Christian neighbors. In 1881 Russian policy was broadly aimed at the acculturation and integration of the Jews into the broader society. The anti-Jewish riots (pogroms) of 1881 and 1882 led to a reversal of this policy, inspiring efforts to segregate Jews from non-Jews through residence restrictions (the May Laws of 1882) and restricted access to secondary and higher education. Much of Russian legislation towards the Jews after 1889 lacked a firm ideological basis, and was ad hoc, responding to the political concerns of the moment.

Following the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, Russian public opinion, fearful of Jewish exploitation of the peasantry, grew increasing critical of the Jews. These critical attitudes were characterized as Judeophobia. Originally based on concrete, albeit exaggerated, socioeconomic complaints (exploitation, intoxication of the peasantry), Russian Judeophobia acquired fantastic elements by the end of the century, exemplified by forgeries like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which claimed to expose a Jewish plot bent on world domination. The presence of Jews in the revolutionary movement led the state to attribute political disloyalty to Jews in general. Right-wing political parties were invariably anti-Semitic, exemplified by their rallying cry, "Beat the Yids and Save Russia!"

Jews made significant contributions to all branches of the Russian revolutionary movement, including Populism, the Social Revolutionaries, and Marxist Social Democracy, which included a Jewish branch, the Bund, that concentrated on propaganda among the Jewish working class. Lev Pinsker, author of the 1882 pamphlet Auto-Emancipation!, and Ahad Ha'am were major ideologues of the early Zionist movement. East European Jews were the mainstay of Theodor Herzl's movement of political Zionism.

Bibliography

Aronson, I. Michael. (1990). Troubled Waters: The Origins of the 1881 Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Dubnow, S. M. (1916 - 1920). History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, 3 vols. Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society of America.

Frankel, Jonathan. (1981). Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862 - 1917. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Klier, John D. (1985). Russia Gathers Her Jews: The Origins of the Jewish Question in Russia. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.

Klier, John D. (1995). Imperial Russia's Jewish Question, 1885 - 1881. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Klier, John D., and Lambroza, Shlomo, eds. (1991). Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Mendelsohn, Ezra. (1970). Class Struggle in the Pale. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Miron, Dan. (1996). A Traveler Disguised: The Rise of Modern Yiddish Fiction in the Nineteenth Century. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Nathans, Benjamin. (2002). Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Rogger, Hans. (1986). Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia. London and New York: Macmillan.

Stanislawski, Michael. (1983). Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews: The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia, 1825 - 1855. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.

Tobias, Henry J. (1972). The Jewish Bund in Russia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Zipperstein, Steven J. (1986). The Jews of Odessa: A Cultural History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

—JOHN D. KLIER

Jews [from Judah], traditionally, descendants of Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, whose tribe, with that of his half brother Benjamin, made up the kingdom of Judah; historically, members of the worldwide community of adherents to Judaism. The degree to which national and religious elements of Jewish culture interact has varied throughout history and has been a matter of considerable debate. There were approximately 17.8 million Jews in the world in 1990, with 8 million in the Americas (of which about 5.7 million were in the United States), 3.5 million in Israel, and 3.5 million in Europe.

Biblical Period

According to the biblical account, much of which is impossible to verify in the archaeological record until late in the monarchial period, Jewish history begins with the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who considered Canaan (an area comprising present-day Israel and the West Bank) their home. Their history continues in Goshen, NE Egypt, where they settled as agriculturists many centuries before the Christian era. Under Ramses II the Jews were severely persecuted and, finally, Moses led them out of Egypt; at Mt. Sinai he delivered to them the Ten Commandments.

Many years of wandering in desert wildernesses followed before the Israelites conquered Canaan. Saul became the first king. Initially successful against the Philistines, he was finally defeated at Gilboa. David, of the tribe of Judah, ruled, conquered the enemies of the Jews, expanded his territory across the Jordan River, and brought prosperity and peace to his people. The reign of his son Solomon, who built the first Temple, was the last before a period of disruption. The tribes of the north formed the kingdom of Israel; those of the south formed the smaller but more strongly united kingdom of Judah.

In 722 B.C., Sargon II captured Samaria, capital of Israel, and most of the Israelites (the lost tribes) were exiled. Judah passed under Assyrian domination, then under Egyptian, and in 586 B.C., under Babylonian, when the Temple was destroyed and the people were exiled until their return was permitted by Cyrus the Great (538 B.C.). The rebuilding of the Temple was completed in 516 B.C. The Jews remained a strong religious group during the period of Hellenism, but regained political independence only under the Maccabees. A rebellion, led by Bar Kokba against the Romans in the 2d cent. A.D., ended in defeat. In 63 B.C. Rome conquered Palestine, and the second Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70.

Diaspora

As political aspirations subsided, the Jewish community was increasingly led by scholars and rabbis. Even during the period of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine, large Jewish communities developed in Egypt and Babylonia. After the fall of the Temple, Babylon's Jewish community became the most important in world Jewry and its academies the most influential centers of Jewish learning. In 8th-century Iberia, a large Jewish community played an important part in intellectual and economic life. From the 9th to the 12th cent., Spanish Jewry enjoyed a golden age of literary efflorescence marked by a highly creative interaction between Jewish and Islamic culture.

From the Crusades to the Enlightenment

From the time of the Crusades date the persecutions that persisted until the 18th cent. During this period the ownership of land and most occupations other than petty trading and moneylending were forbidden to European Jews; the ghetto came into existence. The Jews, who had earlier been an agricultural people, became an urban population. The Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and from France in 1306. In 1391, forced conversions began in Spain; in 1492 all remaining Jews were expelled. Many of the exiles perished; others found asylum in the Netherlands and in the Turkish possessions. The German Jews, who experienced periodic explusions throughout the 15th cent., fled to Poland, where, although subject to persecution, they build a thriving culture.

After 1492, Spanish Jews (see Sephardim) spread throughout the Mediterranean world, often absorbing smaller Jewish communities they encountered. In some places they continued to speak a Judeo-Spanish language known as Judezmo or Ladino into the 20th cent. Some Sephardim also migrated to Western Europe. The other large branch of the Jewish people, known as Ashkenazim, formed in the 9th cent. with the settlement of Jews in the Rhine valley. Marked by their use of Yiddish, a German-Jewish language, the Ashkenazim also migrated east into Poland. The Polish-Lithuanian community became a major center of world Jewry in the 16th cent., distinguished by its high level of Talmudic scholarship. The political vulnerability and religious faith of the Jews led to the rise of several messianic movements; one of the most important was led by Sabbatai Zevi. In the 18th cent. Hasidism arose among the Jews of Eastern Europe.

Emancipation and Secularization

Modern political emancipation of the Jews began with the American and French revolutions. In Germany and Austria emancipation of the Jews was proclaimed after the Revolution of 1848. Simultaneously, the Haskalah encouraged the secularization of Jewish life, and the integration of the Jews into the societies in which they lived. Especially in Western Europe, this led to considerable acculturation, and even assimilation, of Jewish communities. The religious Reform movement advocated a form of Judaism shorn of its national elements and emphasizing ethical content rather than adherence to traditional Jewish law.

Zionism and Mass Migration

In Eastern Europe in the late 1800s, new secular movements arose, particularly after a wave of pogroms in 1881. These movements sought to ameliorate the Jewish condition and establish Jewish life on a new national basis. Zionism advocated the return of the Jews to Palestine. The Zionist movement was formally established in Basel in 1897. During the 19th and early 20th cent., there was a mass migration of Jews westward from Eastern and Central Europe and the Ottoman Empire. During the period 1880 to 1924 some 2.5 million Jews emigrated to the United States, which after 1939 was home to the largest Jewish community in the world. Smaller numbers, under the influence of Zionism, settled in Palestine.

Between 1933, when the Nazis rose to power in Germany, and 1945, when Germany was defeated in World War II, the Jews faced persecution of unprecedented scope and violence; thousands were driven into exile and close to 6 million were systematically slaughtered (see anti-Semitism; Holocaust). After the war, great numbers of Jews sought refuge in Palestine. The Jewish state of Israel was established in 1948 from portions of Palestine, and in succeeding years absorbed many Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. Arab-Jewish relations have been complicated by the hostilities that have resulted in and from the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982.

Bibliography

See H. Graetz, History of the Jews (6 vol., tr. 1926; repr. 1956); A. L. Sachar, A History of the Jews (5th ed. 1965); C. Roth, The Jewish Contribution to Civilization (3d ed. 1956) and A Short History of the Jewish People (rev. ed. 1969); H. Feingold, Zion in America (1974); R. Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought (1981); S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (27 vol., 1952-83); N. de Lange, ed., The Illustrated History of the Jewish People (1997); S. Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews (2 vol., 1997-2007); A. Hertzberg and A. Hirt-Manheimer, Jews (1998); D. Vital, A People Apart (1999); M. Konner, Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jews (2003); J. R. Baskin and K. Seeskin, The Cambridge Guide to Jewish History, Religion, and Culture (2010).


The Israelites, particularly after their return from captivity in Babylon about five hundred years before the birth of Jesus; at that time, the Israelites were established as a religious group, founded on the Mosaic law, not simply a national group.

  • When the Jewish nation was destroyed by the Romans in the year a.d. 70 and the Jews were scattered throughout the world, their religious beliefs and customs allowed them to remain one people.

  •   See crossword solutions for the clue Jew.
    Jews
    יהודים (Yehudim)
    Jews2.png
    Albert Einstein • Maimonides
    Golda Meir • Emma Lazarus
    Total population
    13,428,300 [1]
    Regions with significant populations
     Israel 5,703,700 [1]
     United States 5,275,000 [1]
     France 483,500 [1]
     Canada 375,000 [1]
     United Kingdom 292,000 [1]
     Russia 205,000 [1]
     Argentina 182,300 [1]
     Germany 119,000 [1]
     Australia 107,500 [1]
     Brazil 95,600-150,000 [1][2]
     Ukraine 71,500 [1]
     South Africa 70,800 [1]
     Hungary 48,600 [1]
     Mexico 39,400 [1]
     Belgium 30,300 [1]
     Netherlands 30,000 [1]
     Italy 28,400 [1]
     Chile 20,500 [1]
     Poland 20,000 [3]
     Switzerland 17,600 [1]
     Turkey 17,600 [1]
     Uruguay 17,500 [1]
     Belarus 16,500 [1]
     Sweden 15,000 [1]
     Venezuela 12,000 [1]
     Spain 12,000 [1]
     Iran 10,400 [1]
     Romania 9,700 [1]
     Latvia 9,700 [1]
     Austria 9,000 [1]
     Panama 8,000 [1]
     New Zealand 7,500 [1]
     Azerbaijan 6,400 [1]
    Languages
    Historical Jewish languages
    Hebrew · Yiddish · Ladino · Judeo-Arabic · others
    Liturgical languages
    Hebrew · Aramaic
    Predominant spoken languages
    Hebrew, English, Yiddish, Russian, the vernacular languages of other countries in the Jewish diaspora.
    Religion

    Judaism

    The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎‎ ISO 259-3 Yhudim Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and an ethnoreligious group, originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation.[4][5][6] Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.

    In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The modern State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish state in its Basic Laws, and Israel's Law of Return states: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh."[7] Israel is the only country where Jews are a majority of the population. Jews achieved political autonomy twice before in ancient history. The first of these periods lasted from 1350[8] to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, most Jews have lived in diaspora.[9] A minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

    As of 2010, the world Jewish population was estimated at 13.42 million by the North American Jewish Data Bank,[10] or roughly 0.2% of the total world population. According to this report, about 42% of all Jews reside in Israel (5.70 million), and about 42% in the United States (5.28 million) and Canada (0.38 million), with most of the remainder living in Europe (1.46 million).[10] These numbers include all those who consider themselves Jews, whether or not they are affiliated with a Jewish organization. The total world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure. In addition to issues with census methodology, there are halakhic disputes regarding who is a Jew and secular, political, and ancestral identification factors that may affect the figure considerably.[11]

    Contents

    Name and etymology

    The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, a loan from Old French giu, earlier juieu, ultimately from Latin Iudaeum. The Latin Iudaeus simply means Judaean, "from the land of Judaea". The Latin term itself, like the corresponding Greek Ἰουδαῖος, is a loan from Aramaic Y'hūdāi, corresponding to Hebrew: יְהוּדִי‎‎, Yehudi (sg.); יְהוּדִים, Yehudim (pl.), in origin the term for a member of the tribe of Judah or the people of the kingdom of Judah. The name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob.[12]

    The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced [jehuˈdi], with the stress on the final syllable, in Israeli Hebrew, in its basic form.[13]

    The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio (sg.); ג׳ודיוס, Djudios (pl.); Yiddish: ייִד: Yid (sg.); ייִדן, Yidn (pl.).

    The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., "Yahoud"/"Yahoudi" (Arabic: يهود/يهودي‎) in Arabic language, "jude" in German, "judeu" in Portuguese, "juif" in French, "jøde" in Danish, "judío" in Spanish, "joodse" in Dutch, etc., but derivations of the word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., in Italian (Ebreo), in Persian ("Ebri/Ebrani" (Persian: عبری/عبرانی)) and Russian (Еврей, Yevrey).[14] The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuːdə], and is the origin of the word Yiddish.[15] (See Jewish ethnonyms for a full overview.)

    According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (2000):

    It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on the council, which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun.[16]

    Origins

    According to their tradition, the Jewish people originated from the Israelites of the Southern Levant, who had several independent states before being overtaken first by the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and later the Roman Empire, with a large portion of the population being scattered throughout the world. According to the Hebrew Bible, all Israelites were descended from Abraham, who was born in the Sumerian city of Ur, and migrated to Canaan (commonly known as the Land of Israel) with his family. Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide do indeed bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East, and that they bear their strongest resemblance to the peoples of the Fertile Crescent, with only minor contribution from their host populations[17] (historically due to the taboo on intermarriage in Jewish tradition, the low number of converts to Judaism, as well as the general isolations and persecutions of Jews throughout history). According to some Biblical archaeologists, however, Israelite culture did not overtake the region, but rather grew out of Canaanite culture.

    Judaism

    Judaism guides its adherents in both practice and belief, and has been called not only a religion, but also a "way of life,"[18] which has made drawing a clear distinction between Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish identity rather difficult. Throughout history, in eras and places as diverse as the ancient Hellenic world,[19] in Europe before and after The Age of Enlightenment (see Haskalah),[20] in Islamic Spain and Portugal,[21] in North Africa and the Middle East,[21] India,[22] and China,[23] or the contemporary United States[24] and Israel,[25] cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews or specific communities of Jews with their surroundings, others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to from the religion itself. This phenomenon has led to considerably different Jewish cultures unique to their own communities, each as authentically Jewish as the next.[26]

    Who is a Jew?

    Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation, an ethnicity, a religion, and a culture, making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether a religious or national approach to identity is used.[27] Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who were born to a Jewish family regardless of whether or not they follow the religion; those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent); and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and therefore are followers of the religion.[28]

    Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. Historical definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the oral tradition into the Babylonian Talmud. Interpretations of sections of the Tanakh, such as Deuteronomy 7:1–5, by learned Jewish sages, are used as a warning against intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews because "[the non-Jewish husband] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This contrasts with Ezra 10:2–3, where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children.[29][30] Since the Haskalah, these halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged.[31]

    At times, conversion has accounted for a substantial part of Jewish population growth. In the first century of the Christian era, for example, the population more than doubled, from four to 8–10 million within the confines of the Roman Empire, in good part as a result of a wave of conversion.[32]

    Ethnic divisions

    Ashkenazi Jews of late 19th century Eastern Europe portrayed in Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur (1878), by Maurycy Gottlieb.

    Within the world's Jewish population there are distinct ethnic divisions, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating Israelite population, and subsequent independent evolutions. An array of Jewish communities were established by Jewish settlers in various places around the Old World, often at great distances from one another resulting in effective and often long-term isolation from each other. During the millennia of the Jewish diaspora the communities would develop under the influence of their local environments; political, cultural, natural, and populational. Today, manifestation of these differences among the Jews can be observed in Jewish cultural expressions of each community, including Jewish linguistic diversity, culinary preferences, liturgical practices, religious interpretations, as well as degrees and sources of genetic admixture.[33]

    Jews are often identified as belonging to one of two major groups: the Ashkenazim, or "Germanics" (Ashkenaz meaning "Germany" in Medieval Hebrew, denoting their Central European base), and the Sephardim, or "Hispanics" (Sefarad meaning "Spain/Hispania" or "Iberia" in Hebrew, denoting their Spanish, and Portuguese, base). The Mizrahim, or "Easterners" (Mizrach being "East" in Hebrew), that is, the diverse collection of Middle Eastern and North African Jews, constitute a third major group, although they are sometimes termed Sephardi for liturgical reasons.[34]

    Smaller groups include, but are not restricted to, Indian Jews such as the Bene Israel, Bnei Menashe, Cochin Jews, and Bene Ephraim; the Romaniotes of Greece; the Italian Jews ("Italkim" or "Bené Roma"); the Teimanim from Yemen and Oman; various African Jews, including most numerously the Beta Israel of Ethiopia; and Chinese Jews, most notably the Kaifeng Jews, as well as various other distinct but now almost extinct communities.[35]

    The divisions between all these groups are approximate and their boundaries are not always clear. The Mizrahim for example, are a heterogeneous collection of North African, Central Asian, Caucasian, and Middle Eastern Jewish communities that are often as unrelated to each other as they are to any of the earlier mentioned Jewish groups. In modern usage, however, the Mizrahim are sometimes termed Sephardi due to similar styles of liturgy, despite independent development from Sephardim proper. Thus, among Mizrahim there are Egyptian Jews, Iraqi Jews, Lebanese Jews, Kurdish Jews, Libyan Jews, Syrian Jews, Bukharian Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, Iranian Jews and various others. The Teimanim from Yemen and Oman are sometimes included, although their style of liturgy is unique and they differ in respect to the admixture found among them to that found in Mizrahim. In addition, there is a differentiation made between Sephardi migrants who established themselves in the Middle East and North Africa after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s and the pre-existing Jewish communities in those regions.[35]

    Despite this diversity, Ashkenazi Jews represent the bulk of modern Jewry, with at least 70% of Jews worldwide (and up to 90% prior to World War II and the Holocaust). As a result of their emigration from Europe, Ashkenazim also represent the overwhelming majority of Jews in the New World continents, in countries such as the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, and Brazil. In France, emigration of Jews from North Africa has led them to outnumber the Ashkenazim .[36] Only in Israel is the Jewish population representative of all groups, a melting pot independent of each group's proportion within the overall world Jewish population.[37]

    Jewish languages

    Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed l'shon ha-kodesh, "the holy tongue"), the language in which the Hebrew scriptures (Tanakh) were composed, and the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries. By the 5th century BCE, Aramaic, a closely related tongue, joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea.[38] By the third century BCE, Jews of the diaspora were speaking Greek.[39]

    For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, often developing distinctive dialectal forms or branches that became independent languages. Yiddish is the Judæo-German language developed by Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Central Europe. Ladino is the Judæo-Spanish language developed by Sephardic Jews who migrated to the Iberian peninsula. Due to many factors, including the impact of the Holocaust on European Jewry, the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, and widespread emigration from other Jewish communities around the world, ancient and distinct Jewish languages of several communities, including Gruzinic, Judæo-Arabic, Judæo-Berber, Krymchak, Judæo-Malayalam and many others, have largely fallen out of use.[40]

    For over sixteen centuries Hebrew was used almost exclusively as a liturgical language, and as the language in which most books had been written on Judaism, with a few speaking only Hebrew on the Sabbath.[41] Hebrew was revived as a spoken language by Eliezer ben Yehuda, who arrived in Palestine in 1881. It had not been used as a mother tongue since Tannaic times.[38] Modern Hebrew is now one of the two official languages of the State of Israel along with Arabic.[42]

    The three most commonly spoken languages among Jews today are Hebrew, English and Russian. Some Romance languages, such as French and Spanish, are also widely used.[40]

    Yiddish has been spoken by more Jews in history than any other language,[43] but it is far less used today, after the Holocaust and the adoption of Hebrew by the Zionist movement, then Israel.

    Genetic studies

    Genetic studies indicate various lineages found in modern Jewish populations; however, most of these populations share a lineage in common, traceable to an ancient population that underwent geographic branching and subsequent independent evolutions.[44] While DNA tests have demonstrated inter-marriage in all of the various Jewish ethnic divisions over the last 3,000 years, it was substantially less than in other populations.[45] The findings lend support to traditional Jewish accounts accrediting their founding to exiled Israelite populations, and counters theories that many or most of the world's Jewish populations were founded entirely by local populations that adopted the Jewish religion, devoid of any actual Israelite genetic input.[45]

    DNA analysis further determined that modern Jews of the priesthood tribe—"Kohanim"—share an ancestor dating back about 3,000 years.[46] This result is consistent for all Jewish populations around the world.[46] The researchers estimated that the most recent common ancestor of modern Kohanim lived between 1000 BCE (roughly the time of the Biblical Exodus) and 586 BCE, when the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple.[47] They found similar results analyzing DNA from Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews.[47] The scientists estimated the date of the original priest based on genetic mutations, which indicated that the priest lived roughly 106 generations ago, between 2,650 and 3,180 years ago depending whether one counts a generation as 25 or 30 years.[47] These Jews belong to the haplotypes J1e and J2a. However, more recent research has shown that many ethnic groups in the Middle East and Mediterranean area also share this genetic profile.[48]

    Although individual and groups of converts to Judaism have historically been absorbed into contemporary Jewish populations, it is unlikely that they formed a large percentage of the ancestors of modern Jewish groups, and much less that they represented their genesis as Jewish communities.[44][49]

    Biologist Robert Pollack stated in 2003 that one cannot determine the biological "Jewishness" of an individual because "there are no DNA sequences common to all Jews and absent from all non-Jews".[50] A 2009 study was able to genetically identify individuals with full or partial Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.[51]

    Male lineages: Y chromosomal DNA

    A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that "the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population", and suggested that "most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora".[44] Researchers expressed surprise at the remarkable genetic uniformity they found among modern Jews, no matter where the diaspora has become dispersed around the world.[44]

    Other Y-chromosome findings show that the world's Jewish communities are closely related to Kurds, Syrians and Palestinians.[46][52] Skorecki and colleague wrote that "the extremely close affinity of Jewish and non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations observed ... supports the hypothesis of a common Middle Eastern origin".[46] According to another study of the same year, more than 70% of Jewish men and half of the Arab men (inhabitants of Israel and the territories only) whose DNA was studied inherited their Y-chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years. The results are consistent with the Biblical account of Jews and Arabs having a common ancestor. About two-thirds of Israeli Arabs and Arabs in the territories and a similar proportion of Israeli Jews are the descendants of at least three common ancestors who lived in the Middle East in the Neolithic period. However, the Palestinian Arab clade includes two Arab modal haplotypes which are found at only very low frequency among Jews, reflecting divergence and/or large scale admixture from non-local populations to the Palestinians.[53]

    A study of haplotypes of the Y-chromosome, published in 2000, addressed the paternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews. Hammer et al.[44] found that the Y chromosome of some Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews contained mutations that are also common among Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon in the general European population. This suggested that the male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews could be traced mostly to the Middle East. The proportion of male genetic admixture in Ashkenazi Jews amounts to less than 0.5% per generation over an estimated 80 generations, with "relatively minor contribution of European Y chromosomes to the Ashkenazim," and a total admixture estimate "very similar to Motulsky's average estimate of 12.5%." This supported the finding that "Diaspora Jews from Europe, Northwest Africa, and the Near East resemble each other more closely than they resemble their non-Jewish neighbors." However, when all haplotypes were included in the analysis, m (the admixture percentage) increased to 23% ± 7%. In addition, of the Jewish populations in this cluster, the Ashkenazim were closest to South European populations, specifically the Greeks.[44]

    In Jewish populations, Haplogroup J1 (defined by the 267 marker) constitutes 30% of the Yemenite Jews[54] 20.0% of the Ashkenazim results and 12% of the Sephardic results.[54][55][56][57] However, J1 is most frequent in Yemen (76%),[58][59] Saudi (64%)[60] Qatar (58%).[59] J1 is generally frequent amongst Negev Bedouins (62%[61]). It is also very common among other Arabs such as those of the Levant, i.e. Palestinian (38.4%),[55] Syria (30%), Lebanon (25%).[62][63] In Europe, higher frequencies have been reported in the central Adriatic regions of Italy: Gargano (17.2%),[64] Pescara (15%),[64] in the Mediterranean Paola (11.1%)[64] and in South Sicilian Ragusa (10.7%).[65] Fairly high frequencies have also been reported in other nearby Mediterranean areas: Crete (8.3%),[66] Malta (7.8%), Cyprus (6.2%),[67] Greece (5.3%).[66]

    Haplogroup J2 which is found in the Sephardic Jews (29%)[68] and Ashkenazi Jews (23%),[68] or 19%.[69] is found mainly in the Fertile Crescent, the Caucasus,[70] Anatolia, the Balkans, Italy, the Mediterranean littoral, the Iranian plateau, Central Asia, and South Asia.[68] More specifically, it is found in Iraq,[71] Syria, Lebanon,[72] Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Greece, Italy and the eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula,[64] and more frequently in Iraqis 29.7%,[73] Lebanese 25%,[74] Palestinians 16.8%,[68] Syrians 22.5%,[75] Kurds 28.4%, Saudi Arabia 15.92%,[76] Jordan 14.3%, Oman 10–15%,[77] UAE 10.4%, Yemen 9.7%,[59] in Israel,[68] in Palestine,[68] and in Turkey.[78]

    Female lineages: Mitochondrial DNA

    Before 2006, geneticists largely attributed the genesis of most of the world's Jewish populations to founding acts by males who migrated from the Middle East and "by the women from each local population whom they took as wives and converted to Judaism." , though no genetic relation was found between Jewish and non Jewish female lineages. However, more recent findings of studies of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, at least in Ashkenazi Jews, has led to a review of this archetype.[79] This research has suggested that, in addition to Israelite male, significant female founder ancestry might also derive from the Middle East-with 40% of Ashkenazim descended from four women lived about 1000–1500 years ago in the Middle East.[79] In addition, Behar (2006) suggested that the rest of Ashkenazi mtDNA is originated from about 150 women, most of those were probably of Middle Eastern origin.[80] Approximately 32% of people with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry belong to the mtDNA haplogroup K. This high percentage points to a genetic bottleneck occurring some 100 generations ago.[81]

    Research in 2008 found significant founder effects in many non-Asheknazi Jewish populations. In Belmonte, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Bene Israel and Libyan Jewish communities "a single mother was sufficient to explain at least 40% of their present-day mtDNA variation". In addition, "the Cochin and Tunisian Jewish communities show an attenuated pattern with two founding mothers explaining >30% of the variation." In contrast, Bulgarian, Turkish, Moroccan and Ethiopian Jews were heterogeneous with no evidence "for a narrow founder effect or depletion of mtDNA variation attributable to drift". The authors noted that "the first three of these communities were established following the Spanish expulsion and/or received large influxes of individuals from the Iberian Peninsula and high variation presently observed, probably reflects high overall mtDNA diversity among Jews of Spanish descent. Likewise, the mtDNA pool of Ethiopian Jews reflects the rich maternal lineage variety of East Africa." Jewish communities from Iraq, Iran, and Yemen showed a "third and intermediate pattern... consistent with a founding event, but not a narrow one".[82]

    In this and other studies Yemenite Jews differ from other Mizrahim, as well as from Ashkenazim, in the proportion of sub-Saharan African gene types which have entered their gene pools.[83] African-specific Hg L(xM,N) lineages were found only in Yemenite and Ethiopian Jewish populations.[82] Among Yemenites, the average stands at 35% lineages within the past 3,000 years.[83]

    Genome-wide association and linkage studies

    In genetic epidemiology, a genome-wide association study (GWA study, or GWAS) is an examination of all or most of the genes (the genome) of different individuals of a particular species to see how much the genes vary from individual to individual. These techniques were originally designed for epidemiological uses, to identify genetic associations with observable traits.[84]

    A 2006 study by Seldin, et al. used over five thousand autosomal SNPs to demonstrate European genetic substructure amongst the Ashkenazi. The results showed "a consistent and reproducible distinction between 'northern' and 'southern' European population groups". Most northern, central, and eastern Europeans (Finns, Swedes, English, Irish, Germans, and Ukrainians) showed >90% in the 'northern' population group, while most individual participants with southern European ancestry (Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Spaniards) showed >85% in the 'southern' group. Both Ashkenazi Jews as well as Sephardic Jews showed >85% membership in the "southern" group. Referring to the Jews clustering with southern Europeans, the authors state the results were "consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups".[85]

    A 2007 study by Bauchet, et al. found that Ashkenazi Jews were most closely clustered with Arabic North African populations when compared to Global population, and in the European structure analysis, they share similarities only with Greeks and Southern Italians, reflecting their east Mediterranean origins.[86][87]

    A 2010 study on Jewish ancestry by Atzmon-Ostrer et al. stated "Two major groups were identified by principal component, phylogenetic, and identity by descent (IBD) analysis: Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews. The IBD segment sharing and the proximity of European Jews to each other and to southern European populations suggested similar origins for European Jewry and refuted large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry.", as both groups - the Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews shared common ancestors in the Middle East about 2500 years ago. The study examines genetic markers spread across the entire genome and shows that the Jewish groups (Ashkenazi and non Ashkenazi) share large swaths of DNA, indicating close relationships and that each of the Jewish groups in the study (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek and Ashkenazi) has its own genetic signature but is more closely related to the other Jewish groups than to their non Jewish fellow countrymen.[88] Atzmon's team found that the SNP markers in genetic segments of 3 million DNA letters or longer were 10 times more likely to be identical among Jews than non-Jews. Results of the analysis also tally with biblical accounts of the fate of the Jews. Using their DNA analysis, the authors traced the ancestors of all Jews to Persia and Babylon, areas that now form part of Iran and Iraq.[89] The study also found that with respect to non-Jewish European groups, the population most closely related to Ashkenazi Jews are modern-day Italians. The study speculated that the genetic-similarity between Ashkenazi Jews and Italians may be due to inter-marriage and conversions in the time of the Roman Empire. It was also found that any two Ashkenazi Jewish participants in the study shared about as much DNA as fourth or fifth cousins[90][91]

    A 2010 study by Bray et al, using SNP microarray techniques and linkage analysis, estimated that 35 to 55 percent of the modern Ashkenazi genome is specifically traceable to Europe, and that European "admixture is considerably higher than previous estimates by studies that used the Y chromosome". The study assumed Druze and Palestinian Arabs populations to represent the reference to world Jewry ancestor genome. With this reference point, the linkage disequilibrium in the Ashkenazi Jewish population was interpreted as "matches signs of interbreeding or 'admixture' between Middle Eastern and European populations". In their press release, Bray stated: "We were surprised to find evidence that Ashkenazi Jews have higher heterozygosity than Europeans, contradicting the widely-held presumption that they have been a largely isolated group". Nevertheless, the authors indicated possible Achilles heels for their conclusions. These were, firstly, that their calculations might have "overestimated the level of admixture" in case that the true Jewish ancestor was genetically closer to Southern Europeans than Druze and Palestinian Arabs are and, secondly, predicted that using the non Ashkenazi Jewish Diaspora populations as reference for world Jewry ancestor genome will "underestimate the level of admixture". This would be because they find it reasonable that the non-Ashkenazi Jewish Diaspora has also "undergone the similar admixture".[92][93]

    Demographics

    Population centres

    There are an estimated 13–14 million Jews worldwide.[1] The table below lists countries with significant populations. Please note that these populations represent low-end estimates of the worldwide Jewish population, accounting for around 0.2% of the world's population.

    Country or Region Jewish population Total Population % Jewish Notes
    Israel 5,413,800 7,255,400 74.6% [1]
    United States 5,275,000 312,000,000 1.69% [1][94]
    Europe 1,455,900 809,344,000 0.2% [1]
    France 483,500 62,670,000 0.8% [1]
    Canada 375,000 33,890,000 1.1% [1]
    United Kingdom 292,000 62,129,000 0.5% [1]
    Russia 205,000 140,367,000 0.1% [1]
    Argentina 182,300 40,666,000 0.4% [1]
    Germany 119,000 82,057,000 0.1% [1]
    Australia 107,500 21,512,000 0.5% [1]
    Brazil 95,600 195,423,000 0.05% [1]
    Ukraine 71,500 45,433,000 0.2% [1]
    South Africa 70,800 50,492,000 0.1% [1]
    Hungary 48,600 9,973,000 0.5% [1]
    Mexico 39,400 110,645,000 0.04% [1]
    Asia (excl. Israel) 37,800 4,078,933,900 0.001% [1]
    Belgium 30,300 10,031,000 0.3% [1]
    Italy 28,400 60,098,000 0.05% [1]
    Poland 20,000 38,163,895 0.05% [95]
    Turkey 17,600 75,705,000 0.02% [1]
    Iran 10,400 75,078,000 0.01% [1]
    Romania 9,700 21,190,000 0.05% [1]
    New Zealand 7,500 4,303,000 0.2% [1]
    Total 13,428,300 6,900,047,000 0.2% [1]

    State of Israel

    David Ben Gurion (First Prime Minister of Israel) publicly pronouncing the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948.

    Israel, the Jewish nation-state, is the only country in which Jews make up a majority of the citizens.[96] Israel was established as an independent democratic and Jewish state on May 14, 1948.[97] Of the 120 members in its parliament, the Knesset,[98] currently, 12 members of the Knesset are Arab citizens of Israel, most representing Arab political parties and one of Israel's Supreme Court judges is a Palestinian Arab.[99]

    Between 1948 and 1958, the Jewish population rose from 800,000 to two million.[100] Currently, Jews account for 75.8% of the Israeli population, or 5.4 million people.[101] The early years of the state of Israel were marked by the mass immigration of Holocaust survivors and Jews fleeing Arab lands.[102] Israel also has a large population of Ethiopian Jews, many of whom were airlifted to Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s.[103] Between 1974 and 1979 nearly 227,258 immigrants arrived in Israel, about half being from the Soviet Union.[104] This period also saw an increase in immigration to Israel from Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States[105]

    A trickle of immigrants from other communities has also arrived, including Indian Jews and others, as well as some descendants of Ashkenazi Holocaust survivors who had settled in countries such as the United States, Argentina, Australia and South Africa. Some Jews have emigrated from Israel elsewhere, due to economic problems or disillusionment with political conditions and the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict. Jewish Israeli emigrants are known as yordim.[106]

    Diaspora (outside Israel)

    The waves of immigration to the United States and elsewhere at the turn of the 19th century, the founding of Zionism and later events, including pogroms in Russia, the massacre of European Jewry during the Holocaust, and the founding of the state of Israel, with the subsequent Jewish exodus from Arab lands, all resulted in substantial shifts in the population centers of world Jewry by the end of the 20th century.[107]

    In this Rosh Hashana greeting card from the early 1900s, Russian Jews, packs in hand, gaze at the American relatives beckoning them to the United States. Over two million Jews fled the pogroms of the Russian Empire to the safety of the US between 1881 and 1924.[108]

    Currently, the largest Jewish community in the world is located in the United States, with 5.3 million to 6.4 million Jews by various estimates. Elsewhere in the Americas, there are also large Jewish populations in Canada, Argentina, and Brazil, and smaller populations in Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, and several other countries (see History of the Jews in Latin America).[101]

    Western Europe's largest Jewish community can be found in France, home to 490,000 Jews, the majority of whom are immigrants or refugees from North African Arab countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia (or their descendants).[109] There are 295,000 Jews in the United Kingdom. In Eastern Europe, there are anywhere from 350,000 to one million Jews living in the former Soviet Union, but exact figures are difficult to establish. The fastest-growing Jewish community in the world, outside Israel, is the one in Germany, especially in Berlin, its capital. Tens of thousands of Jews from the former Eastern Bloc have settled in Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall.[110]

    The Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East were home to around 900,000 Jews in 1945. Fueled by anti-Zionism[111] after the founding of Israel, systematic persecution caused almost all of these Jews to flee to Israel, North America, and Europe in the 1950s (see Jewish exodus from Arab lands). Today, around 8,000 Jews remain in all Arab nations combined.[112]

    Iran is home to around 10,800 Jews, down from a population of 100,000 Jews before the 1979 revolution. After the revolution some of the Iranian Jews emigrated to Israel or Europe but most of them emigrated (with their non-Jewish Iranian compatriots) to the United States (especially Los Angeles, where the principal community is called "Tehrangeles").[112][113]

    Outside Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and the rest of Asia, there are significant Jewish populations in Australia and South Africa.[112]

    Demographic changes

    Assimilation

    Since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks, a proportion of Jews have assimilated into the wider non-Jewish society around them, by either choice or force, ceasing to practice Judaism and losing their Jewish identity.[114] Assimilation took place in all areas, and during all time periods,[114] with some Jewish communities, for example the Kaifeng Jews of China, disappearing entirely.[115] The advent of the Jewish Enlightenment of the 18th century (see Haskalah) and the subsequent emancipation of the Jewish populations of Europe and America in the 19th century, accelerated the situation, encouraging Jews to increasingly participate in, and become part of, secular society. The result has been a growing trend of assimilation, as Jews marry non-Jewish spouses and stop participating in the Jewish community.[116]

    Rates of interreligious marriage vary widely: In the United States, they are just under 50%,[117] in the United Kingdom, around 53%, in France, around 30%,[118] and in Australia and Mexico, as low as 10%.[119][120] In the United States, only about a third of children from intermarriages affiliate themselves with Jewish religious practice.[121] The result is that most countries in the Diaspora have steady or slightly declining religiously Jewish populations as Jews continue to assimilate into the countries in which they live.

    War and persecution

    Related articles: Antisemitism, Islam and antisemitism, History of antisemitism, New antisemitism
    Jews (identifiable by the distinctive hats that they were required to wear) being killed by Christian knights. French Bible illustration from 1255.
    World War I poster shows a soldier cutting the bonds from a Jewish man, who says, "You have cut my bonds and set me free - now let me help you set others free!"

    The Jewish people and Judaism have experienced various persecutions throughout Jewish history. During late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages the Roman Empire (in its later phases known as the Byzantine Empire) repeatedly repressed the Jewish population, first by ejecting them from their homelands during the pagan Roman era and later by officially establishing them as second-class citizens during the Christian Roman era.[122][123]

    According to James Carroll, "Jews accounted for 10% of the total population of the Roman Empire. By that ratio, if other factors had not intervened, there would be 200 million Jews in the world today, instead of something like 13 million."[124]

    Later in medieval Western Europe, further persecutions of Jews in the name of Christianity occurred, notably during the Crusades—when Jews all over Germany were massacred—and a series of expulsions from England, Germany, France, and, in the largest expulsion of all, Spain and Portugal after the Reconquista (the Catholic Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula), where both unbaptized Sephardic Jews and the ruling Muslim Moors were expelled.[125][126]

    In the Papal States, which existed until 1870, Jews were required to live only in specified neighborhoods called ghettos.[127] In the 19th and (before the end of World War II) 20th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church adhered to a distinction between "good antisemitism" and "bad antisemitism". The "bad" kind promoted hatred of Jews because of their descent. This was considered un-Christian because the Christian message was intended for all of humanity regardless of ethnicity; anyone could become a Christian. The "good" kind criticized alleged Jewish conspiracies to control newspapers, banks, and other institutions, to care only about accumulation of wealth, etc.[128]

    Islam and Judaism have a complex relationship. Traditionally Jews and Christians living in Muslim lands, known as dhimmis, were allowed to practice their religions and to administer their internal affairs, but subject to certain conditions.[129] They had to pay the jizya (a per capita tax imposed on free adult non-Muslim males) to the Islamic state.[129] Dhimmis had an inferior status under Islamic rule. They had several social and legal disabilities such as prohibitions against bearing arms or giving testimony in courts in cases involving Muslims.[130] Many of the disabilities were highly symbolic. The one described by Bernard Lewis as "most degrading"[131] was the requirement of distinctive clothing, not found in the Qur'an or hadith but invented in early medieval Baghdad; its enforcement was highly erratic.[131] On the other hand, Jews rarely faced martyrdom or exile, or forced compulsion to change their religion, and they were mostly free in their choice of residence and profession.[132]

    Notable exceptions include the massacre of Jews and/or forcible conversion of some Jews by the rulers of the Almohad dynasty in Al-Andalus in the 12th century,[133] as well as in Islamic Persia,[134] and the forced confinement of Morrocan Jews to walled quarters known as mellahs beginning from the 15th century and especially in the early 19th century.[135] In modern times, it has become commonplace for standard antisemitic themes to be conflated with anti-Zionist publications and pronouncements of Islamic movements such as Hezbollah and Hamas, in the pronouncements of various agencies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and even in the newspapers and other publications of Turkish Refah Partisi."[136]

    Jews in Minsk, 1941. Before World War II some 40% of the population was Jewish. By the time the Red Army retook the city on 3 July 1944, there were only a few Jewish survivors.

    Throughout history, many rulers, empires and nations have oppressed their Jewish populations or sought to eliminate them entirely. Methods employed ranged from expulsion to outright genocide; within nations, often the threat of these extreme methods was sufficient to silence dissent. The history of antisemitism includes the First Crusade which resulted in the massacre of Jews;[125] the Spanish Inquisition (led by Torquemada) and the Portuguese Inquisition, with their persecution and autos-da-fé against the New Christians and Marrano Jews;[137] the Bohdan Chmielnicki Cossack massacres in Ukraine;[138] the Pogroms backed by the Russian Tsars;[139] as well as expulsions from Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, and other countries in which the Jews had settled.[126]

    The persecution reached a peak in Adolf Hitler's Final Solution, which led to the Holocaust and the slaughter of approximately 6 million Jews from 1939 to 1945.[140] According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics 19.8% of the modern Iberian population has Sephardic Jewish ancestry,[141] indicating that the number of conversos may have been much higher than originally thought.[142][143]

    The most notable modern day persecution of Jews remains the Holocaust — the state-led systematic persecution and genocide of European Jews (and certain communities of North African Jews in European controlled North Africa) and other minority groups of Europe during World War II by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.[144] The persecution and genocide were accomplished in stages. Legislation to remove the Jews from civil society was enacted years before the outbreak of World War II.[145]

    Concentration camps were established in which inmates were used as slave labour until they died of exhaustion or disease.[146] Where the Third Reich conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings.[147] Jews and Roma were crammed into ghettos before being transported hundreds of miles by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority of them were killed in gas chambers.[148] Virtually every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics of the mass murder, turning the country into what one Holocaust scholar has called "a genocidal nation."[149]

    Migrations

    Etching of the expulsion of the Jews from Frankfurt on August 23, 1614. The text says: "1380 persons old and young were counted at the exit of the gate"
    Jewish refugees in China in the Shanghai Ghetto during World War II. Shanghai offered unconditional asylum for tens of thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe escaping the Holocaust.[150]

    Throughout Jewish history, Jews have repeatedly been directly or indirectly expelled from both their original homeland and the areas in which they have resided. This experience as refugees has shaped Jewish identity and religious practice in many ways, and is thus a major element of Jewish history.[151] The incomplete list of major and other noteworthy migrations that follows includes numerous instances of expulsion or departure under duress:

    Growth

    Israel is the only country with a consistently growing Jewish population due to natural population increase, though the Jewish populations of other countries in Europe and North America have recently increased due to immigration. In the Diaspora, in almost every country the Jewish population in general is either declining or steady, but Orthodox and Haredi Jewish communities, whose members often shun birth control for religious reasons, have experienced rapid population growth.[173]

    Orthodox and Conservative Judaism discourage proselytism to non-Jews, but many Jewish groups have tried to reach out to the assimilated Jewish communities of the Diaspora in order for them to reconnect to their Jewish roots. Additionally, while in principle Reform Judaism favors seeking new members for the faith, this position has not translated into active proselytism, instead taking the form of an effort to reach out to non-Jewish spouses of intermarried couples.[174]

    There is also a trend of Orthodox movements pursuing secular Jews in order to give them a stronger Jewish identity so there is less chance of intermarriage. As a result of the efforts by these and other Jewish groups over the past 25 years, there has been a trend of secular Jews becoming more religiously observant, known as the Baal Teshuva movement, though the demographic implications of the trend are unknown.[175] Additionally, there is also a growing movement of Jews by Choice by gentiles who make the decision to head in the direction of becoming Jews.[176]

    Jewish leadership

    There is no single governing body for the Jewish community, nor a single authority with responsibility for religious doctrine.[177] Instead, a variety of secular and religious institutions at the local, national, and international levels lead various parts of the Jewish community on a variety of issues.[178]

    Notable Jews

    Jews have made contributions in a broad range of human endeavors, including the sciences, arts, politics, and business.[179][180] Although Jews comprise only 0.2% of the world's population, over 20%[180][181] of Nobel Prize laureates have been Jewish, with multiple winners in each field.

    See also

    More complete guides to topics related to the Jews are available from the guide at the top or bottom of this page. Some topics of interest include:

    Notes

    1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd be "The Jewish Population of the World (2010)". Jewish Virtual Library. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/jewpop.html. , based on American Jewish Year Book. American Jewish Committee. http://www.ajcarchives.org/main.php?GroupingId=10142. 
    2. ^ Oreck, Alden. "Brazil". The Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Brazil.html. Retrieved 2008-06-09. 
    3. ^ The Canadian Foundation of Polish-Jewish Heritage. Polish-jewish-heritage.org (2005-01-08). Retrieved on 2010-08-22.
    4. ^ "The Jewish Problem: How To Solve It". Louis D. Brandeis, "Jews are a distinctive nationality of which every Jew, whatever his country, his station or shade of belief, is necessarily a member" (April 25, 1915), University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, Retrieved on June 15, 2009
    5. ^ "A history of the Jewish nation: from the earliest times to the present day". Palmer, Edward Henry. 1875. D. Lothrop & Co.. Retrieved on June 15, 2009.
    6. ^ "How I Became a Zionist". "The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 7: Berlin Years". "The Jewish Nation is a living fact". June 21, 1921). Princeton University Press. Retrieved on June 15, 2009.
    7. ^ A 1970 amendment to Israel's Law of Return defines "Jew" as "a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion." [1]
    8. ^ Ancient Canaan and Israel: an introduction. Golden, Jonathan M. (2009). Oxford University Press US.
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    141. ^ Study: 20 Percent of Spanish, Portuguese Have Jewish Ancestry. FoxNews.com. December 8, 2008.
    142. ^ DNA study shows 20 percent of Iberian population has Jewish ancestry. The New York Times. December 4, 2008.
    143. ^ "The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula". Cell.com. http://www.cell.com/AJHG/fulltext/S0002-9297(08)00592-2. Retrieved 2011-11-12. 
    144. ^ Donald L Niewyk, The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, Columbia University Press, 2000, p.45: "The Holocaust is commonly defined as the murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans in World War II." However, the Holocaust usually includes all of the different victims who were systematically murdered.
    145. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 484–8.
    146. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 490–2.
    147. ^ "Ukrainian mass Jewish grave found". BBC News. 2007-06-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6724481.stm. Retrieved 2011-11-12. 
    148. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 493–8.
    149. ^ Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know," United States Holocaust Museum, 2006, p. 103.
    150. ^ Melvin, Sheila; Jindong Cai (2004). Rhapsody in Red. New York: Algora Publishing. pp. 103–4. ISBN 0-87586-179-2. 
    151. ^ de Lange (2002), pp. 41–3.
    152. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 10.
    153. ^ Hirsch, Emil G.; Seligsohn, M.; Bacher, Wilhelm. "Nimrod". Jewish Encyclopedia. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=295&letter=N. 
    154. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 30.
    155. ^ Malamat, Abraham (2007). "Exile, Assyrian". In Fred Skolnik. Encyclopaedia Judaica (2d ed.). Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. ISBN 0-02-865928-7. , reprinted by the Jewish Virtual Library.
    156. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 70–1.
    157. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 78–9.
    158. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 85–6.
    159. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 147.
    160. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 163.
    161. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 177.
    162. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 231.
    163. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 460.
    164. ^ a b Gartner (2001), p. 431.
    165. ^ Gartner (2001), pp. 11–2.
    166. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 229–31.
    167. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 306.
    168. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 370.
    169. ^ Gartner (2001), pp. 213–5.
    170. ^ Gartner (2001), pp. 357–70.
    171. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 529–30.
    172. ^ Netzer, Amnon (2007). "Iran". In Fred Skolnik. Encyclopaedia Judaica. 10 (2d ed.). Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. pp. 13. ISBN 0-02-865928-7. 
    173. ^ Gartner (2001), pp. 400–1.
    174. ^ Kaplan (2003), p. 301.
    175. ^ Danzger (2003), pp. 495–6.
    176. ^ de Lange (2002), p. 220.
    177. ^ Eisenstadt, S.N. (2004). Explorations in Jewish Historical Experience: The Civilizational Dimension. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. p. 75. ISBN 90-04-13693-2. 
    178. ^ Lewis, Hal M. (2006). From Sanctuary to Boardroom: A Jewish Approach to Leadership. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 1. ISBN 0-7425-5229-2. 
    179. ^ Schwartz, Richard H. (2001). Judaism and Global Survival. New York: Lantern Books. p. 153. ISBN 1-930051-87-5. 
    180. ^ a b Brooks, David (January 11, 2010). "The Tel Aviv Cluster". The New York Times: p. A23. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/opinion/12brooks.html. Retrieved January 13, 2010. "Jews are a famously accomplished group. They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates. Jews make up 2 percent of the U.S. population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanthropists, 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction." 
    181. ^
      • Shalev, Baruch (2005). 100 Years of Nobel Prizes. p. 57. "A striking fact... is the high number of Laureates of the Jewish faith—over 20% of the total Nobel Prizes (138); including: 17% in Chemistry, 26% in Medicine and Physics, 40% in Economics and 11% in Peace and Literature each. These numbers are especially startling in light of the fact that only some 14 million people (0.2% of the world's population) are Jewish." 
      • Dobbs, Stephen Mark (October 12, 2001). "As the Nobel Prize marks centennial, Jews constitute 1/5 of laureates". j.. http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/17015/edition_id/335/format/html/displaystory.html. Retrieved January 23, 2009. "Throughout the 20th century, Jews, more so than any other minority, ethnic or cultural group, have been recipients of the Nobel Prize – perhaps the most distinguished award for human endeavor in the six fields for which it is given. Remarkably, Jews constitute almost one-fifth of all Nobel laureates. This, in a world in which Jews number just a fraction of 1 percent of the population." 
      • "Jewish Nobel Prize Winners". http://www.jewishbiography.com/biographies/list-of-jews/jewish-nobel-prize-winners/index.html. Retrieved 25 November 2011. 
      • Ted Falcon, David Blatner (2001). "28". Judaism for dummies. "Similarly, because Jews make up less than a quarter of one percent of the world's population, it's surprising that over 20 percent of Nobel prizes have been awarded to Jews or people of Jewish descent." 
      • Lawrence E. Harrison (2008). The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save It. Oxford University Press. p. 102. "That achievement is symbolized by the fact that 15 to 20 percent of Nobel Prizes have been won by Jews, who represent two tenths of one percent of the world's population." 
      • Jonathan B. Krasner, Jonathan D. Sarna (2006). The History of the Jewish People: Ancient Israel to 1880's America. Behrman House, Inc.. p. 1. "These accomplishments account for 20 percent of the Nobel Prizes awarded since 1901. What a feat for a people who make up only .2 percent of the world's population!" 

    References

    • Baron, Salo Wittmayer (1952). A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Volume II, Ancient Times, Part II. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.
    • Carr, David R. (2003) [2000]. "Judaism in Christendom". In Neusner, Jacob; Avery-Peck, Alan J.. The Blackwell Companion to Judaism. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-57718-058-5. 
    • Cowling, Geoffrey (2005). Introduction to World Religions. Singapore: First Fortress Press. ISBN 0-8006-3714-3. 
    • Danzger, M. Herbert (2003) [2000]. "The "Return" to Traditional Judaism at the End of the Twentieth Century: Cross-Cultural Comparisons". In Neusner, Jacob; Avery-Peck, Alan J.. The Blackwell Companion to Judaism. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-57718-058-5. 
    • Dekmejian, R. Hrair (1975). Patterns of Political Leadership: Egypt, Israel, Lebanon. State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-87395-291-X. 
    • de Lange, Nicholas (2002) [2000]. An Introduction to Judaism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-46073-5. 
    • Dosick, Wayne (2007). Living Judaism. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-062179-6. 
    • Elazar, Daniel J. (2003) [2000]. "Judaism as a Theopolitical Phenomenon". In Neusner, Jacob; Avery-Peck, Alan J.. The Blackwell Companion to Judaism. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-57718-058-5. 
    • Feldman, Louis H. (2006). Judaism and Hellenism Reconsidered. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. ISBN 90-04-14906-6. 
    • Gartner, Lloyd P. (2001). History of the Jews in Modern Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-289259-2. 
    • Goldenberg, Robert (2007). The Origins of Judaism: From Canaan to the Rise of Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-84453-3. 
    • Goldstein, Joseph (1995). Jewish History in Modern Times. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 1-898723-06-0. 
    • Johnson, Paul (1987). A History of the Jews. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-091533-1. 
    • Kaplan, Dana Evan (2003) [2000]. "Reform Judaism". In Neusner, Jacob; Avery-Peck, Alan J.. The Blackwell Companion to Judaism. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-57718-058-5. 
    • Katz, Shmuel (1974). Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine. Taylor Productions. ISBN 0-929093-13-5. 
    • Lewis, Bernard (1984). The Jews of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00807-8
    • Lewis, Bernard (1999). Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice. W. W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-31839-7
    • Littman, David (1979). "Jews Under Muslim Rule: The Case Of Persia". The Wiener Library Bulletin XXXII (New series 49/50). 
    • Neusner, Jacob (1991). Studying Classical Judaism: A Primer. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0-664-25136-6. 
    • Poliakov, Leon (1974). The History of Anti-semitism. New York: The Vanguard Press.
    • Ruderman, David B. Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History (Princeton University Press; 2010) 326 pages. Examines print culture, religion, and other realms in a history emphasizing the links among early modern Jewish communities from Venice and Krakow to Amsterdam and Smyrna.
    • Sharot, Stephen (1997). "Religious Syncretism and Religious Distinctiveness: A Comparative Analysis of Pre-Modern Jewish Communities". In Endelman, Todd M.. Comparing Jewish Societies. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-06592-0. 
    • Stillman, Norman (1979). The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. ISBN 0-8276-0198-0
    • Sweeney, Marvin A. (2003) [2000]. "The Religious World of Ancient Israel to 586 BCE". In Neusner, Jacob; Avery-Peck, Alan J.. The Blackwell Companion to Judaism. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-57718-058-5. 

    External links

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    Translations:

    Jew

    Top

    Dansk (Danish)
    n. - jøde

    idioms:

    • jew's harp    mundharpe, ankerring

    Nederlands (Dutch)
    jood, Israëliet, (minachtend) afzetten

    Français (French)
    n. - Juif

    idioms:

    • jew's harp    guimbarde

    Deutsch (German)
    n. - Jude

    idioms:

    • jew's harp    (Mus.) Maultrommel

    Ελληνική (Greek)
    n. - (εθνολ.) Εβραίος, Ιουδαίος

    idioms:

    • jew's harp    γινίσι, γκιμπάρντα, είδος μικρού πνευστού οργάνου

    Italiano (Italian)
    ebreo

    idioms:

    • jew's harp    scacciapensieri, piccola arpa triangolare usata nell'antichità

    Português (Portuguese)
    n. - judeu (m), judia (f)

    idioms:

    • jew's harp    pequeno instrumento (m) musical mantido entre os dentes e acionado com os dedos

    Русский (Russian)
    еврей

    idioms:

    • jew's harp    варган (муз. инструмент)

    Español (Spanish)
    n. - judío

    idioms:

    • jew's harp    birimbao, guimbarda

    Svenska (Swedish)
    n. - jude

    中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
    犹太人, 犹太教信徒, 守财奴

    idioms:

    • jew's harp    口拨琴, 单簧口琴, 咬在牙间用手指弹拨

    中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
    n. - 猶太人, 猶太教信徒, 守財奴

    idioms:

    • jew's harp    口撥琴, 單簧口琴, 咬在牙間用手指彈撥

    한국어 (Korean)
    n. - 유대인, 욕심쟁이

    日本語 (Japanese)
    n. - ユダヤ人, ユダヤ教信者, 強欲な商人
    adj. - ユダヤ人の
    v. - きつい取引をする

    العربيه (Arabic)
    ‏(الاسم) يهودي, عبري‏

    עברית (Hebrew)
    n. - ‮יהודי‬


     
     

     

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    Encyclopedia of Judaism. The New Encyclopedia of Judaism. Copyright © 1989, 2002 by G.G. The Jerusalem Publishing House, Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more
    Bible Dictionary and Concordance. Illustrated Dictionary & Concordance of the Bible. Copyright © 1986 by G.G. The Jerusalem Publishing House, Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more
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    Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: Bible. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
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