1.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
2.
Yiddish
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Yiddish is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. Yiddish is written with a fully vocalized alphabet based on the Hebrew script, the earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז or טײַטש, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון, distinguishing it from לשון־קדש, the term Yiddish, short for Yiddish-Teitsch, did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century the language was commonly called Jewish, especially in non-Jewish contexts. Modern Yiddish has two major forms, Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern, Mideastern, and Northeastern dialects, Eastern Yiddish differs from Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern, Midwestern, and Northwestern dialects, the term Yiddish is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with Jewish, to designate attributes of Ashkenazi culture. Prior to the Holocaust, there were over 10 million speakers of Yiddish, 85% of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers, assimilation following World War II further decreased the use of Yiddish both among survivors and Yiddish-speakers from other countries. However, the number of speakers is increasing in global Hasidic communities, the established view is that, as with other Jewish languages, Jews speaking distinct languages learned new co-territorial vernaculars, which they then Judaized. Exactly what German base lies behind the earliest form of Yiddish is disputed, both Weinreich and Solomon Birnbaum developed this model further in the mid-1950s. In Weinreichs view, this Old Yiddish substrate later bifurcated into two versions of the language, Western and Eastern Yiddish. They retained the Semitic vocabulary needed for religious purposes and created a Judeo-German form of speech, recent linguistic research has finessed, contested, or challenged the Weinreich model, providing alternative approaches to the origins of Yiddish. Some theorists argue that the fusion occurred with a Bavarian dialect base, the two main candidates for the germinal matrix of Yiddish, the Rhineland and Bavaria, are not necessarily incompatible. There may have been developments in the two regions, seeding the Western and Eastern dialects of Modern Yiddish. Dovid Katz proposes that Yiddish emerged from contact between speakers of High German and Aramaic-speaking Jews from the Middle East, wexlers model has met with little academic support, and strong critical challenges, especially among historical linguists. Alternative theories recognize the extent of Yiddishs Germanic vocabulary. Ashkenaz was centered on the Rhineland and the Palatinate, in what is now the westernmost part of Germany and its geographic extent did not coincide with the German principalities of the time, and it included northern France. Ashkenaz bordered on the inhabited by another distinctive Jewish cultural group, the Sephardim or Spanish Jews
3.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
4.
Judaism
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Judaism encompasses the religion, philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people. Judaism is an ancient monotheistic Abrahamic religion, with the Torah as its text, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the relationship that God established with the Children of Israel. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth-largest religion in the world, Judaism includes a wide corpus of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic, today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. Major sources of difference between groups are their approaches to Jewish law, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditional interpretation of Judaisms requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced Jewish law, today, these still exist. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, the history of Judaism spans more than 3,000 years. Judaism has its roots as a religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Judaism is considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions, the Hebrews and Israelites were already referred to as Jews in later books of the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, with the term Jews replacing the title Children of Israel. Judaisms texts, traditions and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam, many aspects of Judaism have also directly or indirectly influenced secular Western ethics and civil law. Jews are a group and include those born Jewish and converts to Judaism. In 2015, the world Jewish population was estimated at about 14.3 million, Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism, the belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of humankind. According to the Tanakh, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation, many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God, that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate Gods concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to one another, that is. These commandments are but two of a corpus of commandments and laws that constitute this covenant, which is the substance of Judaism
5.
Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, 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 factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
6.
Ashkenazi Jews
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The traditional diaspora language of Ashkenazi Jews is Yiddish, with Hebrew used only as a sacred language until relatively recently. Throughout their time in Europe, Ashkenazim have made important contributions to philosophy, scholarship, literature, art, music. Ashkenazim originate from the Jews who settled along the Rhine River, in Western Germany, there they became a distinct diaspora community with a unique way of life that adapted traditions from Babylon, The Land of Israel, and the Western Mediterranean to their new environment. The Ashkenazi religious rite developed in such as Mainz, Worms. The eminent French Rishon Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki would have a significant impact on the Jewish religion, in the late Middle Ages, the majority of the Ashkenazi population shifted steadily eastward, moving out of the Holy Roman Empire into the Pale of Settlement. The genocidal impact of the Holocaust devastated the Ashkenazim and their culture, immediately prior to the Holocaust, the number of Jews in the world stood at approximately 16.7 million. Statistical figures vary for the demography of Ashkenazi Jews, oscillating between 10 million and 11.2 million. Sergio DellaPergola in a calculation of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. Other estimates place Ashkenazi Jews as making up about 75% of Jews worldwide, genetic studies on Ashkenazim—researching both their paternal and maternal lineages—suggest a significant proportion of Middle Eastern ancestry. Ashkenazi Jews are popularly contrasted with Sephardi Jews, who are descendants of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, there are some differences in how the two groups pronounce certain Hebrew letters, and in points of ritual. The name Ashkenazi derives from the figure of Ashkenaz, the first son of Gomer, son of Khaphet, son of Noah. The name of Gomer has often been linked to the ethnonym Cimmerians, the intrusive n in the Biblical name is likely due to a scribal error confusing a waw ו with a nun נ. In Jeremiah 51,27, Ashkenaz figures as one of three kingdoms in the far north, the others being Minni and Ararat, perhaps corresponding to Urartu, called on by God to resist Babylon. Ashkenaz is linked to Scandza/Scanzia, viewed as the cradle of Germanic tribes and his contemporary Saadia Gaon identified Ashkenaz with the Saquliba or Slavic territories, and such usage covered also the lands of tribes neighboring the Slavs, and Eastern and Central Europe. In modern times, Samuel Krauss identified the Biblical Ashkenaz with Khazaria, sometime in the early medieval period, the Jews of central and eastern Europe came to be called by this term. In conformity with the custom of designating areas of Jewish settlement with biblical names, Spain was denominated Sefarad, France was called Tsarefat, Rashi uses leshon Ashkenaz to describe German speech, and Byzantium and Syrian Jewish letters referred to the Crusaders as Ashkenazim. Given the close links between the Jewish communities of France and Germany following the Carolingian unification, the term Ashkenazi came to refer to both the Jews of medieval Germany and France. Outside of their origins in ancient Israel, the history of Ashkenazim is shrouded in mystery, the most well-supported theory is the one that details a Jewish migration from Israel through what is now Italy and other parts of southern Europe
7.
Sephardi Jews
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They established communities throughout Spain and Portugal, where they traditionally resided, evolving what would become their distinctive characteristics and diasporic identity. Spoken by Sephardim in the Eastern Mediterranean, Haketia, an Arabic influenced Judaeo-Spanish variety also derived from Old Spanish, with numerous Hebrew and Aramaic terms. Taken with them in the 15th century after the expulsion from Spain in 1492, Early Modern Spanish and Early Modern Portuguese, including in a mixture of the two. Traditionally spoken or used liturgically by the ex-converso Western Sephardim, taken with them during their later migration out of Iberia in the 16th to 18th centuries as conversos, after which they reverted to Judaism. In most cases these varieties have incorporated loanwords from the languages of the Americas introduced following the Spanish conquest. This article deals with Sephardim within the narrower ethnic definition, the name Sephardi means Spanish or Hispanic, derived from Sepharad, a Biblical location. The location of the biblical Sepharad is disputed, but Sepharad was identified by later Jews as Hispania, that is, Sepharad still means Spain in modern Hebrew. In its most basic form, this broad definition of a Sephardi refers to any Jew, of any ethnic background. The term Sephardi in the sense, thus describes the nusach used by Sephardi Jews in their Siddur. A nusach is defined by a liturgical traditions choice of prayers, order of prayers, text of prayers, Sephardim traditionally pray using Minhag Sefarad. Additionally, Ethiopian Jews, whose branch of practiced Judaism is known as Haymanot, have come under the umbrella of Israels already broad Sephardic Chief Rabbinate. The divisions among Sephardim and their descendants today is largely a result of the consequences of the Royal edicts of expulsion. In the case of the Alhambra Decree of 1492, the purpose was to eliminate their influence on Spains large converso population. Indeed, a number of those Jews who had not yet joined the converso community finally chose to convert. While the stipulations were similar in the Portuguese decree, King Manuel then largely prevented Portugals Jews from leaving, by blocking Portugals ports of exit. This failure to leave Portugal was then reasoned by the king to signify a default acceptance of Catholicism by the Jews, actual physical forced conversions, however, were also experienced throughout Portugal. Sephardi Jews, therefore, encompass Jews descended from those Jews who left the Iberian Peninsula as Jews by the expiration of the respective decreed deadlines. This group is divided between those who fled south to North Africa, as opposed to those who fled eastwards to the Balkans, West Asia
8.
Mizrahi Jews
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Yemeni Jews are sometimes also included, but their history is separate from Babylonian Jewry. The use of the term Mizrahi can be somewhat controversial, before the establishment of the State of Israel, Mizrahi Jews did not identify themselves as a separate Jewish subgroup. Instead, Mizrahi Jews generally characterized themselves as Sephardi, as follow the traditions of Sephardic Judaism. From the point of view of the official Israeli rabbinate, any rabbis of Mizrahi origin in Israel are under the jurisdiction of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, as of 2005, over 61% of Israeli Jews are of at least partial Mizrahi ancestry. Mizrahi is literally translated as Oriental, Eastern, מזרח, Hebrew for east, in the past the word Mizrahim, corresponding to the Arabic word Mashriqiyyun, referred to the natives of Syria, Iraq and other Asian countries, as distinct from those of North Africa. In medieval and early times the corresponding Hebrew word maarav was used for North Africa. In Talmudic and Geonic times, however, this word maarav referred to the land of Israel as contrasted with Babylonia, for this reason many object to the use of Mizrahi to include Moroccan and other North African Jews. In modern Israeli usage, it refers to all Jews from Central and West Asian countries, the term came to be widely used more by Mizrahi activists in the early 1990s. Since then in Israel it has become an accepted semi-official and media designation, most of the Mizrahi activists actually originated from North African Jewish communities, traditionally called Westerners, rather than Easterners. g. Moroccan Jew, or prefer to use the old term Sephardic in its broader meaning, today, many identify all non-Ashkenazi rite Jews as Sephardic - in modern Hebrew Sfaradim, mixing ancestral origin and religious rite. This broader definition of Sephardim as including all, or most, the reason for this classification of all Mizrahim under Sephardic rite is that most Mizrahi communities use much the same religious rituals as Sephardim proper due to historical reasons. The prevalence of the Sephardic rite among Mizrahim is partially a result of Sephardim proper joining some of Mizrahi communities following the 1492 expulsion from Sepharad. Even before this assimilation, the rite of many Jewish Oriental communities was already closer to the Sephardi rite than to the Ashkenazi one. Many of the Sephardic Jews exiled from Spain resettled in greater or lesser numbers in many Arabic-speaking countries, such as Syria, in Syria, most eventually intermarried with and assimilated into the larger established communities of Arabic-speaking Jews and Mizrahi Jews. In some North African countries such as Morocco, Sephardic Jews came in greater numbers, in Arab nations, Mizrahim most often speak Arabic, although Arabic is now mainly used as a second language, especially by the older generation. Most of the many notable philosophical, religious and literary works of the Jews in Spain, North Africa, Neo-Aramaic is a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. It is identified as a Jewish language, since it is the language of major Jewish texts such as the Talmud and Zohar, traditionally, Aramaic has been a language of Talmudic debate in yeshivoth, as many rabbinic texts are written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. The current alphabet used for Hebrew, known as Assyrian lettering or the script, was in fact borrowed from Aramaic
9.
History of the Jews in Germany
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Jewish settlers founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community in the Early and High Middle Ages. The community survived under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades, accusations of well poisoning during the Black Death led to mass slaughter of German Jews, and they fled in large numbers to Poland. The Jewish communities of the cities of Mainz, Speyer, and this was a golden age as area bishops protected the Jews resulting in increased trade and prosperity. The First Crusade began an era of persecution of Jews in Germany, Entire communities, like those of Trier, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne, were murdered. The war upon the Hussite heretics became the signal for renewed persecution of Jews, the end of the 15th century was a period of religious hatred that ascribed to Jews all possible evils. The atrocities during the Khmelnytsky Uprising committed by Khmelnytskyis Cossacks drove the Polish Jews back into western Germany, with Napoleons fall in 1815, growing nationalism resulted in increasing repression. From August to October 1819, pogroms that came to be known as the Hep-Hep riots took place throughout Germany, during this time, many German states stripped Jews of their civil rights. As a result, many German Jews began to emigrate, from the time of Moses Mendelssohn until the 20th century, the community gradually achieved emancipation, and then prospered. In January 1933, some 522,000 Jews lived in Germany, however, following the growth of Nazism and its antisemitic ideology and policies, the Jewish community was severely persecuted. Over half emigrated during the first six years of the Nazi dictatorship, in 1933, persecution of the Jews became an active Nazi policy. In 1935 and 1936, the pace of persecution of the Jews increased, in 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them from exerting any influence in education, politics, higher education, and industry. The SS ordered the Night of Broken Glass to be carried out the night of November 9–10,1938, the storefronts of Jewish shops and offices were smashed and vandalized, and many synagogues were destroyed by fire. Increasing antisemitism prompted a wave of a Jewish mass emigration from Germany throughout the 1930s, only roughly 214,000 Jews were left in Germany proper on the eve of World War II. Beginning in late 1941, the community was subjected to systematic deportations to ghettos. In May 1943, Germany was declared judenrein, by the end of the war, an estimated 160,000 to 180,000 German Jews had been killed under the Nazi regime, by the Germans and their collaborators. A total of about 6 million European Jews were murdered under the direction of the Nazis, after the war, the Jewish community in Germany started to slowly grow again. Currently in Germany, denial of the Holocaust or that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust is a criminal act, violations can be punished with up to five years of prison. In 2007, the Interior Minister of Germany, Wolfgang Schäuble, pointed out the policy of Germany, We will not tolerate any form of extremism, xenophobia
10.
History of the Jews in the Czech Republic
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Jews in Bohemia, todays Czech Republic, are predominantly Ashkenazic Jews, and the current Jewish population is only a fraction of the pre-WWII Czechoslovakias Jewish population. As of 2005, there were approximately 4,000 Jews living in the Czech Republic, there are ten small Jewish communities all around the country. The umbrella organisation for the Jewish communities in the country is the Federation of Jewish Communities, services have been held in Prague and some other cities. As part of the original Czechoslovakia, and before that the Austro-Hungarian Empire the Jews had an association with this part of Europe. Throughout the last thousand years there have emerged over 600 Jewish communities in the Kingdom of Bohemia, according to the 1930 census, Czechoslovakia had a Jewish population of 356,830. Most Slovak Jews were deported by the pro-Nazi Slovak Fascist government directly to Auschwitz, Treblinka, and other extermination camps, where they were murdered. Most Czech Jews were initially deported by the German occupiers with the help of local Czech Nazi collaborators to Terezin, known in German as Theresienstadt concentration camp, however many Czechoslovakian children were rescued by Kindertransport and escaped to the United Kingdom and other Allied countries. Some were reunited with their families after the war while many lost parents, Jews are believed to have settled in Prague as early as the 10th century. The 16th century was an age for Jewry in Prague. One of the famous Jewish scholars of the time was Judah Loew ben Bezalel known as the Maharal and he is buried at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov, and his grave with its tombstone intact, can still be visited. It is said that the body of Golem lies in the attic of the Old New Synagogue where the genizah of Pragues community is kept, in 1708, Jews accounted for one-quarter of Prague’s population
11.
History of the Jews in Hungary
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Jews have a long history in the country now known as Hungary, with some records even predating the 895 AD Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, Jewish officials served the king during the reign of Andrew II. From the second part of the 13th century the religious tolerance decreased. The Jews of Hungary were fairly well integrated into Hungarian society by the time of the First World War, by the early 20th century, the community had grown to constitute 5% of Hungarys total population and 23% of the population of the capital, Budapest. Jews became prominent in science, the arts and business, starting in 1938, Hungary under Miklós Horthy passed a series of anti-Jewish measures in emulation of Germanys Nürnberg Laws. The vast majority of Jews who were deported were massacred in Kameniec-Podolsk, in the massacres of Újvidék and villages nearby,2, 550–2,850 Serbs, 700–1,250 Jews and 60–130 others were murdered by the Hungarian Army and Csendőrség in January 1942. A Jew living in the Hungarian countryside in March 1944 had a less than 10% chance of surviving the following 12 months, in Budapest, a Jews chance of survival of the same 12 months was about 50%. Jews from the Hungarian provinces outside Budapest and its suburbs were rounded up, the first transports to Auschwitz began in early May 1944 and continued even as Soviet troops approached. During the last years of World War II, they suffered severely, the 2011 Hungary census data had 10,965 people who self-identified religious Jews, of whom 10,553 declared themselves as ethnic Hungarian. Other media sources estimate an Hungarian population with Jewish ethnicity of around 48,200 mostly concentrated in Budapest, the intermarriage rates for Hungarian Jews is around 60%. It is not definitely known when Jews first settled in Hungary, According to tradition, King Decebalus permitted the Jews who aided him in his war against Rome to settle in his territory. Dacia included part of modern-day Hungary as well as Romania and Moldova and smaller areas of Bulgaria, Ukraine, prisoners of the Jewish Wars may have been brought back by the victorious Roman legions normally stationed in Provincia Pannonia. Marcus Aurelius ordered the transfer of some of his rebellious troops from Syria to Pannonia in 175 A. D and these troops had been recruited partly in Antioch and Hemesa, which still had a sizable Jewish population at that time. The Antiochian troops were transferred to Ulcisia Castra, while the Hemesian troops settled in Intercisa, stone inscriptions referring to Jews were found in Brigetio, Solva, Aquincum, Intercisa, Triccinae, Savaria, Sopianae and elsewhere in Pannonia. A Latin inscription, the epitaph of Septima Maria, discovered in Siklós, the Intercisa tablet was inscribed on behalf of Cosmius, chief of the Spondilla customhouse, archisynagogus Iudeorum during the reign of Alexander Severus. In 2008, a team of archeologists discovered a 3rd-century AD amulet in the form of a scroll with the words of the Jewish prayer Shema Yisrael inscribed on it in Féltorony. Hungarian tribes settled the territory 650 years later, in the Hungarian language, the word for Jew is zsidó, which was adopted from one of the Slavic languages. The first historical document relating to the Jews of Hungary is the letter written about 960 A. D, about the same time Ibrahim ibn Jacob says that Jews went from Hungary to Prague for business purposes
12.
Russian Jews
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Jews in the Russian Empire have historically constituted a large religious diaspora, the vast territories of the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest population of Jews in the world. The presence of Jewish people in the European part of Russia can be traced to the 7th–14th centuries CE, in the 11th and 12th centuries, the Jewish population in Kiev, in present-day Ukraine, was restricted to a separate quarter. Evidence of the presence of Jewish people in Muscovite Russia is first documented in the chronicles of 1471, during the reign of Catherine II in the 18th century, Jewish people were restricted to the Pale of Settlement within Russia, the territory where they could live or immigrate to. Beginning in the 1880s, waves of pogroms swept across different regions of the empire for several decades. More than two million Jews fled Russia between 1880 and 1920, mostly to the United States, before 1917 there were 300,000 Zionists in Russia, while the main Jewish socialist organization, the Bund, had 33,000 members. Only 958 Jews had joined the Bolshevik Party before 1917, thousands joined after the Revolution, the chaotic years of World War I, the February and October Revolutions, and the Russian Civil War had created social disruption that led to anti-Semitism. Some 150,000 Jews were killed in the pogroms of 1918–1922,125,000 of them in Ukraine,25,000 in Belarus and these were probably the largest-scale European massacres of Jews to date. The pogroms were perpetrated by anti-communist forces, sometimes, Red Army units engaged in pogroms as well. After a short period of confusion, the Soviets started executing guilty individuals, the Russian Civil War pogroms shocked world Jewry and rallied many Jews to the Red Army and the Soviet regime, and also strengthened the desire for the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people. In August 1919 the Soviet government arrested many rabbis, seized Jewish properties, including synagogues, the Jewish section of the Communist Party labeled the use of the Hebrew language reactionary and elitist and the teaching of Hebrew was banned. Zionists were persecuted harshly, with Jewish communists leading the attacks, following the civil war, however, the new Bolshevik governments policies produced a flourishing of secular Jewish culture in Belarus and western Ukraine in the 1920s. At the beginning of the 1930s, the Jews were 1.8 percent of the Soviet population, in 1934 the Soviet state established the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Russian Far East, but the region never came to have a majority Jewish population. Today, the JAO is Russias only autonomous oblast and, aside of Israel, the observance of the Sabbath was banned in 1929, foreshadowing the dissolution of the Communist Partys Yiddish-language Yevsektsia in 1930 and worse repression to come. Numerous Jews were victimized in Stalins purges as counterrevolutionaries and reactionary nationalists, the share of Jews in the Soviet ruling elite declined during the 1930s, but was still more than double their proportion in the general Soviet population. According to Israeli historian Benjamin Pinkus, We can say that the Jews in the Soviet Union took over the privileged position, in the 1930s, many Jews held high rank in the Red Army High Command, Generals Iona Yakir, Yan Gamarnik, Yakov Smushkevich and Grigori Shtern. During World War Two, an estimated 500,000 soldiers in the Red Army were Jewish, about 160,000 were decorated, and more than a hundred achieved the rank of Red Army general. Over 150 were designated Heroes of the Soviet Union, the highest award in the country, more than two million Soviet Jews are believed to have died during the Holocaust in warfare and in Nazi-occupied territories. For many years during this period, Russia had a rate of immigration to Israel than any other country
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History of the Jews in Ukraine
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Jewish communities have existed in the territory of Ukraine from the time of Kievan Rus and developed many of the most distinctive modern Jewish theological and cultural traditions such as Hasidism. According to the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish community in Ukraine constitute the third biggest Jewish community in Europe, while at times it flourished, at other times the Jewish community faced periods of persecution and antisemitic discriminatory policies. In the Ukrainian Peoples Republic, Yiddish was a state language along with Ukrainian and Russian, at that time there was created the Jewish National Union and the community was granted an autonomous status. Yiddish was used on Ukrainian currency in 1917-1920, before World War II, a little under one-third of Ukraines urban population consisted of Jews who were the largest national minority in Ukraine. Ukrainian Jews are comprised by a number of groups, including Ashkenazi Jews, Mountain Jews, Bukharan Jews, Crimean Karaites, Krymchak Jews. In the westernmost area of Ukraine, Jews were mentioned for the first time in 1030, an army of Cossacks and Crimean Tatars massacred and took into captivity a large number of Jews, Roman Catholic Christians and Uniate Christians in 1648–49. Recent estimates range from fifteen thousand to thirty thousand Jews killed or taken captive, during the 1821 anti-Jewish riots in Odessa after the death of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople,14 Jews were killed. Some sources claim this episode as the first pogrom, at the start of 20th century, anti-Jewish pogroms continued to occur. When part of the Russian Empire in 1911 to 1913, the antisemitic attitudes can be seen in the number of libel cases. In 1915, the government expelled thousands of Jews from the Empires border areas, during the 1917 Russian Revolution and the ensuing Russian Civil War, an estimated 31,071 Jews were killed during 1918–1920. During the establishment of the Ukrainian Peoples Republic, pogroms continued to be perpetrated on Ukrainian territory, in Ukraine, the number of civilian Jews killed during the period was between 35 and 50 thousand. Pogroms erupted in January 1919 in the northwest province of Volhynia, the actions of the Soviet government by 1927 led to a growing antisemitism in the area. Ukraine had 840,000 Jews in 1959, a decrease of almost 70% from 1941, Ukraines Jewish population declined significantly during the Cold War. In 1989, Ukraines Jewish population was slightly more than half of what it was thirty years earlier. The overwhelming majority of the Jews who remained in Ukraine in 1989 left Ukraine and moved to countries in the 1990s during. Antisemitic graffiti and violence against Jews are still a problem in Ukraine, by the 11th century, Byzantine Jews of Constantinople had familial, cultural, and theological ties with the Jews of Kiev. For instance, some 11th-century Jews from Kievan Rus participated in an assembly held in either Thessaloniki or Constantinople. One of the three Kievan city gates in the times of Yaroslav the Wise was called Zhydovski, in Halychyna, the westernmost area of Ukraine, Jews were mentioned for the first time in 1030
14.
Austrians
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Austrians are a Germanic ethnic group and nation, native to Austria that share a common Austrian culture, Austrian descent and Austrian history. The English term Austrians was applied to the population of Habsburg Austria from the 17th or 18th century, subsequently, during the 19th century, it referred to the citizens of the Empire of Austria, and from 1867 until 1918 to the citizens of Cisleithania. In the closest sense, the term Austria originally referred to the historical March of Austria, historically, Austrians were regarded as ethnic Germans and viewed themselves as such. Austria was part of the Holy Roman Empire and the German Confederation until the Austro-Prussian war in 1866 which resulted in Prussia expelling Austria from the Confederation, thus, when Germany was founded as a nation-state in 1871, Austria was not a part of it. In 1867, Austria was reformed into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the First Austrian Republic was founded in 1919. The Third Reich annexed Austria with the Anschluss in 1938, today, majority of Austrians do not identify as German. Austrians may be described either as a nationality or as a homogeneous Germanic ethnic group, the English word Austrian is a derivative of the proper name Austria, which is a latinization of Österreich, the German name for Austria. This word is derived from Ostarrîchi, which first appears in 996 and this, in turn, is probably a translation of the Latin Marcha Orientalis, which means eastern borderland. It was a margraviate of the Duchy of Bavaria, ruled by the House of Babenberg from AD976, during the 12th century, the Marcha Orientalis under the Babenbergs became independent of Bavaria. What is today known as Lower Austria corresponds to the Marcha Orientalis, the territory of what is today Austria in the Roman era was divided into Raetia, Noricum and Pannonia. Noricum was a Celtic kingdom, while the Pannonii were of Illyrian stock, the Raetians were an ancient alpine people probably akin to the Etruscans. During the Migration period, these territories were settled by the Bavarians and other Germanic groups in the west, in the 8th century, the former territories of Raetia and Noricum fell under Carolingian rule, and were divided into the duchies of Swabia, Bavaria and Carinthia. Pannonia until the end of the 8th century was part of the Avar Khaganate, the East March during the 9th century was the boundary region separating East Francia from the Avars and the Magyars. The site of Vienna had been settled since Celtic times, the various populations of these territories were not unified under the single name of Austrians before the early modern period. The term Austrian in these times was used for identifying subjects of the Domus Austriae, although not formally a united state, the lands ruled by the Habsburgs would sometimes be known by the name Austria. In reality they remained a disparate range of states, most of which were part of the complex network of states that was the Holy Roman Empire. However, the half of the 18th century saw an increasingly centralised state begin to develop under the regency of Maria Theresa of Austria. After the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon, the emperor Franz II formally founded the Austrian Empire in 1804 and these non-Hungarian lands were not officially called the Austrian Empire
15.
Jew (word)
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It thus ultimately originates in the Biblical Hebrew word Yehudi meaning from the Tribe of Judah, from the Kingdom of Judah, or Jew. The Jewish ethnonym in Hebrew is יהודים, Yehudim, according to the Book of Genesis, Judah was the name of the fourth son of the patriarch Jacob. During the Exodus, the name was given to the Tribe of Judah, after the conquest and settlement of the land of Canaan, Judah also referred to the territory allocated to the tribe. After the splitting of the united Kingdom of Israel, the name was used for the kingdom of Judah. The kingdom now encompassed the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Simeon, with the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of Judah became the sole Jewish state and the term yhudi was applied to all Israelites. When the word makes its first appearance in writing its meaning has already expanded to include converts to the Jewish religion as well as descendants of Israelites, the term Yehudi occurs 74 times in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible. The plural, Yehudim first appears in 2 Kings 16,6 where it refers to a defeat for the Yehudi army or nation, and in 2 Chronicles 32,18, jeremiah 34,9 has the earliest singular usage of the word Yehudi. The name appears in the Bible as a verb in Esther 8,17 which states, Many of the people of the land became Yehudim because the fear of the Yehudim fell on them. In some places in the Talmud the word Israel refers to somebody who is Jewish but does not necessarily practice Judaism as a religion, more commonly the Talmud uses the term Bnei Yisrael, i. e. Children of Israel, to refer to Jews, according to the Talmud then, there is no distinction between religious Jews and secular Jews. In modern Hebrew, the word is still used to mean both Jews and Judeans. In Arabic the terms are yahūdī, al-yahūd, and بَنُو اِسرَائِيل banū isrāʼīl, the Septuagint and other Greek documents translated יְהוּדִי, Yehudi and the Aramaic Yhūdāi using the Koine Greek term Ioudaios, which had lost the h sound. The Latin term, following the Greek version, is Iudaeus, the Old French giu, earlier juieu, had elided the letter d from the Latin Iudaeus. The Middle English word Jew derives from Old English where the word is attested as early as 1000 in various forms, such as Iudeas, Gyu, Giu, Iuu, Iuw, the Old English name is derived from Old French. The modern French the term is juif, most European languages have retained the letter d in the word for Jew. Etymological equivalents are in use in languages, e. g. Jude in German, judeu in Portuguese, jøde in Danish and Norwegian, judío in Spanish, jood in Dutch. In some languages, derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. Ebreo in Italian, Ebri/Ebrani in Persian and Еврей, Yevrey in Russian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch, in modern English, the term Israelite was used to refer to contemporary Jews as well as to Jews of antiquity until the mid-20th-century
16.
Jewish identity
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Jewish identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as a Jew and as relating to being Jewish. Under a broader definition, Jewish identity does not depend on whether a person is regarded as a Jew by others, or by a set of religious, or legal. Jewish identity does not need to imply religious orthodoxy, accordingly, Jewish identity can be cultural in nature. Jewish identity can involve ties to the Jewish community, orthodox Judaism bases Jewishness on matrilineal descent. According to Jewish law, all born of a Jewish mother are considered Jewish. Jews who are atheists may have a Jewish identity, Jewish identity can be described as consisting of three interconnected parts, Jewish peoplehood, an ethnic identity composed of several subdivisions that evolved in the Diaspora. Jewish religion, observance of spiritual and ritual tenets of Judaism, Jewish culture, celebration of traditions, secular and religious alike. Jewish identity can be cultural, religious, and/or through ancestry, however, Jewish identity is firmly intertwined with Jewish ancestry dating back to the historical Kingdom of Israel, which was largely depopulated by the Roman Empire c. First century CE, leading to what is known as today as the Jewish Diaspora, Jewish identity began to gain the attention of Jewish sociologists in the United States with the publication of Marshall Sklares Lakeville studies. Among other topics explored in the studies was Sklares notion of a good Jew, the good Jew was essentially an idealized form of Jewish identity as expressed by the Lakeville respondents. According to the social-psychologist Simon Herman, antisemitism plays a part in shaping Jewish identity and this view is echoed by religious leaders such as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who writes that modern Jewish communities and the modern Jewish identity are deeply influenced by antisemitism. What makes Jewish Identity on the web, HERMAN, Simon N. Jewish Identity, A Social Psychological Perspective. GOLDBERG, David Theo & KRAUSZ, Michael, half-jewish Three Intellectuals and a People, by Laurent Cohen
17.
God in Judaism
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God in Judaism is understood to be the absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable being who is the ultimate cause of all existence. Traditional interpretations of Judaism generally emphasize that God is personal, while some interpretations of Judaism emphasize that God is a force or ideal. God has a name, written YHWH in the Hebrew Bible. In Jewish tradition another name of God is Elohim, the name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton. Jews traditionally do not pronounce it, and instead refer to God as HaShem, in prayer this name is substituted with Adonai, meaning Master or Lord. The worship of gods and the concept of God having multiple persons are equally unimaginable in Judaism. The idea of God as a duality or trinity is heretical in Judaism – it is considered akin to polytheism, God, the Cause of all, is one. This does not mean one as in one of series, nor one like a species, nor one as in an object that is made up of many elements, rather, God is a unity unlike any other possible unity. In this way Judaism can be regarded as being similar to panentheism, Kabbalistic tradition holds that the divine consists of ten sefirot. Any belief that an intermediary between humanity and God could be used, whether necessary or even optional, has traditionally been considered heretical, all our prayers should be directed towards God, nothing else should even be considered. Some rabbinic authorities disagreed with this view, notably, Nachmanides was of the opinion that it is permitted to ask the angels to beseech God on our behalf. This argument manifests notably in the Selichot prayer called Machnisay Rachamim, modern printed editions of the Selichot include this prayer. Godhead refers to the aspect or substratum of God that lies behind Gods actions or properties, there is, in truth, no relation in any respect between God and any of Gods creatures. In Kabbalistic thought the term Godhead usually refers to the concept of Ein Sof, the knowability of the Godhead in Kabbalistic thought is no better that what is conceived by rationalist thinkers. As Jacobs puts it, Of God as God is in Godself—Ein Sof—nothing can be said at all, Ein Sof is a place to which forgetting and oblivion pertain. Because concerning all the sefirot, one can search out their reality from the depth of supernal wisdom, from there it is possible to understand one thing from another. However, concerning Ein Sof, there is no aspect anywhere to search or probe, nothing can be known of it, for it is hidden and concealed in the mystery of absolute nothingness. In traditional Judaism, God is conceived of as the eternal, omnipotent and omniscient creator of the universe, God has the power to intervene in the world
18.
Names of God in Judaism
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The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton YHWH. It is frequently anglicized as Jehovah and Yahweh and written in most English editions of the Bible as the Lord owing to the Jewish tradition of reading it as Adonai out of respect. Rabbinic Judaism describes seven names which are so holy that, once written, should not be erased, The Tetragrammaton, El, Eloah, Elohim, Shaddai, Ehyeh, and Tzevaot. The documentary hypothesis proposes that the Torah was compiled from original sources. The seven names of God that, once written, cannot be erased because of their holiness are the Tetragrammaton, El, Elohim, Eloah, Elohai, El Shaddai, in addition, the name Jah—because it forms part of the Tetragrammaton—is similarly protected. Rabbi Jose considered Tzevaot a common name and Rabbi Ishmael that Elohim was, all other names, such as Merciful, Gracious and Faithful, merely represent attributes that are also common to human beings. The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is YHWH, Hebrew is a right-to-left abjad, so the words letters Yōd, Hē, Vav, Hē are usually taken for consonants and expanded to Yahweh or Jehovah in English. The Tetragrammaton first appears in Genesis and occurs 6828 times in total in the Stuttgart edition of the Masoretic Text and it is thought to be an archaic third-person singular imperfect tense of the verb to be. This agrees with the passage in Exodus where God names Himself as I Will Be What I Will Be using the first-person singular imperfect tense. Rabbinical Judaism teaches that the name is forbidden to all except the High Priest and he then pronounces the name just as it is written. As each blessing was made, the people in the courtyard were to prostrate themselves completely as they heard it spoken aloud. As the Temple has been destroyed since CE70, most modern Jews never pronounce YHWH but instead read Adonai during prayer and while reading the Torah and as HaShem at other times. Similarly, the Vulgate used Dominus and most English translations of the Bible write the Lord for YHWH and the Lord God for Adonai YHWH instead of transcribing the name. Or Theos for occurrences of the name. )El appears in Ugaritic, Phoenician and other 2nd, in the Hebrew Bible El appears very occasionally alone, but usually with some epithet or attribute attached, in which cases it can be understood as the generic god. A common name of God in the Hebrew Bible is Elohim, despite the -im ending common to many plural nouns in Hebrew, the word Elohim when referring to God is grammatically singular, and takes a singular verb in the Hebrew Bible. When the Hebrew Bible uses elohim not in reference to God, there are a few other such uses in Hebrew, for example Behemoth. In Modern Hebrew, the singular word baalim looks plural, a number of scholars have traced the etymology to the Semitic root *yl, to be first, powerful, despite some difficulties with this view. Elohim is thus the plural construct powers, Hebrew grammar allows for this form to mean He is the Power over powers, just as the word Baalim means owner
19.
613 commandments
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The tradition that 613 commandments is the number of mitzvot in the Torah, began in the 3rd century CE, when Rabbi Simlai mentioned it in a sermon that is recorded in Talmud Makkot 23b. These principles of Biblical law are sometimes called connections or commandments and referred to collectively as the Law of Moses, Mosaic Law, Sinaitic Law, the word mitzvot is plural, singular is mitzvah. Although there have been attempts to codify and enumerate the commandments contained in the Torah. The 613 commandments include positive commandments, to perform an act, though the number 613 is mentioned in the Talmud, its real significance increased in later medieval rabbinic literature, including many works listing or arranged by the mitzvot. Three types of negative commandments fall under the self-sacrificial principle yehareg veal yaavor and these are murder, idolatry, and forbidden sexual relations. The 613 mitzvot have been divided also into three categories, mishpatim, edot, and chukim. Mishpatim include commandments that are deemed to be self-evident, such as not to murder, edot commemorate important events in Jewish history. For example, the Shabbat is said to testify to the story that Hashem created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, chukim are commandments with no known rationale, and are perceived as pure manifestations of the Divine will. Many of the mitzvot cannot be observed now, following the destruction of the Second Temple, According to one standard reckoning, there are 77 positive and 194 negative commandments that can be observed today, of which there are 26 commands that apply only within the Land of Israel. Furthermore, there are some time-related commandments from which women are exempt, some depend on the special status of a person in Judaism, while others apply only to men or only to women. 33,04 is to be interpreted to mean that Moses transmitted the Torah from God to the Israelites, Moses commanded us the Torah as an inheritance for the community of Jacob. The Talmud attributes the number 613 to Rabbi Simlai, but other classical sages who hold this view include Rabbi Simeon ben Azzai and it is quoted in Midrash Shemot Rabbah 33,7, Bamidbar Rabbah 13, 15–16,18,21 and Talmud Yevamot 47b. Many Jewish philosophical and mystical works find allusions and inspirational calculations relating to the number of commandments. The tzitzit of the tallit are connected to the 613 commandments by interpretation, principal Torah commentator Rashi bases the number of knots on a gematria, Each tassel has eight threads and five sets of knots, totalling 13. The sum of all numbers is 613 and this reflects the concept that donning a garment with tzitzit reminds its wearer of all Torah commandments. Rabbinic support for the number of commandments being 613 is not without dissent and, even as the number gained acceptance, some rabbis declared that this count was not an authentic tradition, or that it was not logically possible to come up with a systematic count. No early work of Jewish law or Biblical commentary depended on the 613 system, the classical Biblical commentator and grammarian Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra denied that this was an authentic rabbinic tradition. Nahmanides held that this particular counting was a matter of controversy
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Shabbat
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Shabbat observance entails refraining from work activities, often with great rigor, and engaging in restful activities to honor the day. Judaisms traditional position is that unbroken seventh-day Shabbat originated among the Jewish people, as their first and most sacred institution, variations upon Shabbat are widespread in Judaism and, with adaptations, throughout the Abrahamic and many other religions. According to halakha, Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night, Shabbat is ushered in by lighting candles and reciting a blessing. Traditionally, three meals are eaten, in the evening, in the early afternoon, and late in the afternoon. The evening meal begins with a blessing called kiddush and another blessing recited over two loaves of challah. Shabbat is closed the evening with a havdalah blessing. Shabbat is a day when Jews exercise their freedom from the regular labors of everyday life. It offers an opportunity to contemplate the spiritual aspects of life, the word Shabbat derives from the Hebrew verb shavat. Although frequently translated as rest, another translation of these words is ceasing. The related modern Hebrew word shevita, has the implication of active rather than passive abstinence from work. The notion of active cessation from labor is also regarded as consistent with an omnipotent Gods activity on the seventh day of Creation according to Genesis. Sabbath is given status as a holy day at the very beginning of the Torah in Genesis 2. It is first commanded after the Exodus from Egypt, in Exodus 16,26 and in Exodus 20, Sabbath is commanded and commended many more times in the Torah and Tanakh, double the normal number of animal sacrifices are to be offered on the day. Sabbath is also described by the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos, the longstanding traditional Jewish position is that unbroken seventh-day Shabbat originated among the Jewish people, as their first and most sacred institution. The Mosaic tradition quotes an origin from the Bible of special creation, though some suggest a later, naturalistic origin. Seventh-day Shabbat did not originate with the Egyptians, to whom it was unknown, the first non-Biblical reference to Sabbath is in an ostracon found in excavations at Mesad Hashavyahu, which is dated 630 BCE. The prohibitions on these days, spaced seven days apart, include abstaining from chariot riding, on these days officials were prohibited from various activities and common men were forbidden to make a wish, and at least the 28th was known as a rest-day. The difficulties of this theory include reconciling the differences between a week and a lunar week, and explaining the absence of texts naming the lunar week as Sabbath in any language
21.
Jewish holidays
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Certain terms are used very commonly for groups of holidays. These include the first and seventh days of Passover, Shavuot, by extension, outside the Land of Israel, the second-day holidays known under the rubric Yom tov sheni shel galuyot are also included in this grouping. Colloquially, Yom Kippur, a Biblically-mandated date on which even food preparation is prohibited, is included in this grouping. The English-language term High Holy Days refers to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur collectively, the term Three Pilgrimage Festivals refers to Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. Within this grouping Sukkot normally includes Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, certain terminology is used in referring to different categories of holidays, depending on their source and their nature, Shabbat, or Sabbath, is referred to by that name exclusively. Similarly, Rosh Chodesh is referred to by that name exclusively, moed, plural moadim, refers to any of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. When used in comparison to Yom Tov, it refers to Chol HaMoed, Ḥag or chag, plural chagim, can be used whenever yom tov or moed is. It is also used to describe Hanukkah and Purim, as well as Yom Haatzmaut, Taanit, or, less commonly, tzom, refers to a fast. These terms are used to describe the rabbinic fasts, although tzom is used liturgically to refer to Yom Kippur as well. The most notable feature of Shabbat and the Biblical festivals is the requirement to refrain from melacha on these days. Melacha is most commonly translated as work, perhaps a translation is creative-constructive work. Strictly speaking, Melacha is defined in Jewish law by 39 categories of labor that were used in constructing the Tabernacle while the Jews wandered in the desert, as understood traditionally and in Orthodox Judaism, On Shabbat and Yom Kippur all melacha is prohibited. On a Yom Tov which falls on a weekday, not Shabbat, some melacha related to preparation of food is permitted. On weekdays during Chol HaMoed, melacha is not prohibited per se, however, melacha should be limited to that required either to enhance the enjoyment of the remainder of the festival or to avoid great financial loss. On other days, there are no restrictions on melacha, in principle, Conservative Judaism understands the requirement to refrain from melacha in the same way as Orthodox Judaism. In practice, Conservative rabbis frequently rule on prohibitions around melacha differently from Orthodox authorities, still, there are a number of Conservative/Masorti communities around the world where Sabbath and Festival observance fairly closely resembles Orthodox observance. However, many, if not most, lay members of Conservative congregations in North America do not consider themselves Sabbath-observant, at the same time, adherents of Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism do not accept halacha, and therefore restrictions on melacha, as binding at all. Jews fitting any of these descriptions refrain from melacha in practice only as they see fit
22.
Jewish prayer
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Jewish prayer are the prayer recitations and Jewish meditation traditions that form part of the observance of Rabbinic Judaism. These prayers, often with instructions and commentary, are found in the siddur, however, if the Talmud mentions tefillah, it refers to the Shemoneh Esreh only. Prayer—as a service of the heart—is in principle a Torah-based commandment and it is not time-dependent and is mandatory for both Jewish men and women. You shall serve God with your whole heart, further additional prayers, Musaf are recited by Orthodox and Conservative congregations on Shabbat, major Jewish holidays, and Rosh Chodesh. A fifth prayer service, Neila, is recited only on Yom Kippur, the language of the prayers, while clearly from the Second Temple period, often employs Biblical idiom. However the differences are compared with the commonalities. Most of the Jewish liturgy is sung or chanted with traditional melodies or trope, synagogues may designate or employ a professional or lay hazzan for the purpose of leading the congregation in prayer, especially on Shabbat or holidays. According to the Talmud Bavli, tefillah is a Biblical command, what service is performed with the heart. Prayer is therefore referred to as Avodah sheba-Lev and it is not time-dependent and is mandatory for both Jewish men and women. Mentioning tefillah, the Talmud always refers to the Amidah, that is also called Shemoneh Esreh, the noted rabbi Maimonides likewise categorizes tefillah as a Biblical command of Written law, as the Babylon Talmud says. The Oral law, according to the Talmud Bavli gives two reasons why there are three basic prayers, According to Rabbi Jose b, Hanina, each of the Patriarchs instituted one prayer, Abraham the morning, Isaac the afternoon and Jacob the evening prayers. This view is supported with Biblical quotes indicating that the Patriarchs prayed at the times mentioned, however, even according to this view, the exact times of when the services are held, and moreover the entire concept of a mussaf service, are still based on the sacrifices. Each service was instituted parallel to an act in the Temple in Jerusalem, the morning Tamid offering, the afternoon Tamid offering. Therefore, the Anshei Knesset HaGedola based their Takkanah that Jewish men were required to pray three times a day from hints to personal habits of the forefathers in the tanach. Additional references in the Hebrew Bible have been interpreted to suggest that King David, moreover, it is generally accepted by Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, and Sephardic religious authorities that women are exempt from the evening prayer. Conservative Judaism regards the halakhic system of daily services as mandatory. According to halakha, all prayers and virtually all communal prayers may be said in any language that the person praying understands. Maimonides relates that until the Babylonian exile, all Jews composed their own prayers, the differences are quite minor compared with the commonalities
23.
Tzedakah
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It is based on the Hebrew word meaning righteousness, fairness or justice, and it is related to the Hebrew word Tzadik meaning righteous as an adjective. In Judaism, tzedakah refers to the obligation to do what is right and just. Tzedakah is considered to be one of the three acts that can annul a less than favorable heavenly decree. The term is synonymous with Sadaqah or Saddka, an Islamic term meaning voluntary charity, the Hebrew Bible teaches the obligation to aid those in need, but does not employ one single term for this obligation. The term tzedekah occurs 157 times in the Masoretic Text, typically in relation to righteousness per se, usually in the singular, in the Septuagint this was sometimes translated eleemosyne, almsgiving. Giving tzedakah anonymously to an unknown recipient via a person which is trustworthy, wise, giving tzedakah anonymously to a known recipient. Giving tzedakah publicly to an unknown recipient, giving in sadness, It is thought that Maimonides was referring to giving because of the sad feelings one might have in seeing people in need. Traditional Jews commonly practice maaser kesafim, tithing 10% of their income to support those in need. Nevertheless, in modern Israel, rabbis of Orthodox Judaism insist that Jews allow gleanings to be consumed by the poor and by strangers, in addition, one must be very careful about how one gives out tzedakah money. It is taught that Tzedakah money was never yours to begin with, rather, it belongs to God. Hence it is obligation to ensure that it is received by those deserving of it. There are many examples of Tzedakah funds that operate according to Maimonides principles above, including Hands on Tzedakah, paamonim is a nonprofit organization in Israel that operates according to Maimonides first principle. Gaon of Vilna considered about giving Tzedaqah to all householders in our city with tax-benefit, charity Gleaning Sadaqah and Zakat Social justice Qard al-Hassan Rabbi Wayne Dossick, Living Judaism, The Complete Guide to Jewish Belief, Tradition, and Practice. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime, The Treatment of Beggars According to Jewish Tradition, A Case in Point
24.
Brit milah
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The brit milah is a Jewish religious male circumcision ceremony performed by a mohel on the eighth day of a male infants life. The brit milah is followed by a celebratory meal,11 And ye shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token of a covenant betwixt Me and you. 12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any foreigner, that is not of thy seed. 13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. 14 And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, also, Leviticus 12,3 provides, And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. The word arel is also employed for impermeable, it is applied to the first three years fruit of a tree, which is forbidden. However, the Israelites born in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt were not circumcised, Joshua 5, 2-9, explains, all the people that came out of Egypt were circumcised, but those born in the wilderness were not. Therefore, Joshua, before the celebration of the Passover, had them circumcised at Gilgal specifically before they entered Canaan, Abraham, too, was circumcised when he moved into Canaan. The prophetic tradition emphasizes that God expects people to be good as well as pious, and that non-Jews will be judged based on their ethical behavior, see Noahide Law. Thus, Jeremiah 9, 25-26 says that circumcised and uncircumcised will be punished alike by the Lord, for all the nations are uncircumcised, the penalty of non-observance is kareth, as noted in Genesis 17, 1-14. Conversion to Judaism for non-Israelites in Biblical times necessitated circumcision, otherwise one could not partake in the Passover offering, today, as in the time of Abraham, it is required of converts in Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism. The Talmud, when discussing the importance of Milah, compares it to being equal to all other mitzvot based on the gematria for brit of 612. Covenants in ancient times were sometimes sealed by severing an animal, in Hebrew, the verb meaning to seal a covenant translates literally as to cut. It is presumed by Jewish scholars that the removal of the foreskin symbolically represents such a sealing of the covenant, memory of this tradition has been preserved in traditional Christian churches according to the Gospel of Luke. In Orthodox Christian tradition, children are named on the eighth day after birth with special naming prayers. Significantly, the tradition of baptism universally replaced circumcision amongst Christians as the rite of passage as found in Pauls Epistle to the Colossians. A mohel is a Jew trained in the practice of brit milah, however, most streams of non-Orthodox Judaism allow female mohels, called mohalot, without restriction. In 1984, Dr. Deborah Cohen became the first certified Reform mohelet and it is customary for the brit to be held in a synagogue, but it can also be held at home or any other suitable location
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Bar and Bat Mitzvah
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Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah are Jewish coming of age rituals. Bar is a Jewish Babylonian Aramaic word literally meaning son, while bat means daughter in Hebrew, thus bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah literally translate to son of commandment and daughter of commandment. However, in usage, the word bar means under the category of or subject to. Bar mitzvah therefore translates to an who is subject to the law, although the term is commonly used to refer to the ritual itself, in fact the phrase originally refers to the person. According to Jewish law, when Jewish boys become 13 years old, they become accountable for their actions, a girl becomes a bat mitzvah at the age of 12 according to Orthodox and Conservative Jews, and at the age of 13 according to Reform Jews. Prior to reaching bar mitzvah age, the parents hold the responsibility for the childs actions. After this age, the boys and girls bear their own responsibility for Jewish ritual law, tradition, and ethics, traditionally, the father of the bar mitzvah gives thanks to God that he is no longer punished for the childs sins. Bar mitzvah is mentioned in the Mishnah and in the Talmud, in some classic sources, the age of 13 appears for instance as the age from which males must fast on the Day of Atonement, while females fast from the age of 12. The age of bnai mitzvah roughly coincides with physical puberty, the bar or bat mitzvah ceremony is usually held on the first Shabbat after a boys thirteenth and a girls twelfth birthday. Reaching the age of bar or bat Mitzvah signifies becoming a member of the Jewish community with the responsibilities that come with it. According to Rabbi Mark Washofsky, The Reform Movement in North America has struggled over the bar/bat mitzvah, at one time, this ceremony was on the verge of extinction in Reform congregations. Most of them preferred to replace bar/bat mitzvah with confirmation, which considered a more enlightened. Yet the enduring popularity of bar/bat mitzvah prevailed and today, in our communities and he may also give a dvar Torah and/or lead part or all of the prayer services. In Orthodox circles, the occasion is celebrated during a weekday service that includes reading from the Torah. However, this does not delay the onset of rights and responsibilities of being a Jewish adult which comes about strictly by virtue of age, the obligation to lay tefillin begins when a boy reaches bar mitzvah age. In some Orthodox circles, however, the custom is for the bar mitzvah boy to begin putting on one to three months before his bar mitzvah. This way, by the time he is obligated in the commandment, Bar mitzvah festivities typically include a seudat mitzvah, a celebratory meal with family, friends, and members of the community. Others may celebrate in different ways such as taking the bar or bat mitzvah on a trip or organizing some special event in the celebrants honor
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Jewish views on marriage
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In traditional Judaism, marriage is viewed as a contractual bond commanded by God in which a man and a woman come together to create a relationship in which God is directly involved. Though procreation is not the purpose, a Jewish marriage is traditionally expected to fulfill the commandment to have children. However, some Jewish denominations such as Reconstructionist, Reform and Conservative Judaism recognize same-sex marriage and deemphasize procreation, however, this is seen not as an alternate interpretation but as a diversion from the Law of Judaism. In Jewish law, an engagement is a contract between a man and a woman where they mutually promise to each other at some future time. The promise may be made by the parties or by their respective parents or other relatives on their behalf. The promise is formalized in a document known as the Shtar Tenaim, the Document of Conditions, after this reading, the mothers of the future bride and groom break a plate. Today, some sign the contract on the day of the wedding, some do it as an earlier ceremony, the young couple is not forced to marry if either does not accept the other. In Jewish law, marriage consists of two acts, called erusin, which is the betrothal ceremony, and nissuin or chupah. Erusin changes the couples interpersonal status, while nissuin brings about the consequences of the change of status. Since the Middle Ages the two ceremonies have taken place as a ceremony performed in public. According to the Talmud, erusin involves the groom handing an object to the bride - either an object of such as a ring. In order to be valid, this must be done in the presence of two unrelated male witnesses, after erusin, the laws of adultery apply, and the marriage cannot be dissolved without a religious divorce. After nisuin, the couple may live together, marital harmony, known as shlom bayit, is valued in Jewish tradition. Similarly, a husband was expected to discuss with his wife any worldly matters that arise in his life. Tough love was frowned upon, the Talmud forbids a husband from being overbearing to his household and it was said of a wife that God counts her tears. A wife, also, was expected to be modest, even if the other person present with her was her husband. Gods presence dwells in a pure and loving home, traditionally, the obligations of the husband include providing for his wife. He is obligated to provide for her sustenance for her benefit, however, this is a right to the wife and she can release her husband of the obligation of sustaining her and she can then keep her income exclusively for herself
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Bereavement in Judaism
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Bereavement in Judaism is a combination of minhag and mitzvah derived from Judaisms classical Torah and rabbinic texts. The details of observance and practice vary according to each Jewish community, in Judaism, the principal mourners are the first-degree relatives, parent, child, sibling, and spouse. There are some customs that are unique to an individual mourning a parent, halachos concerning mourning do not apply to those under thirteen years of age. Also, halachos of mourning do not apply when the deceased is aged 30 days or less, upon receiving the news of the passing, the following blessing is recited, Transliteration, Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh haolam, dayan ha-emet. Translation, Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the universe, there is also a custom of rending ones clothes at the moment one hears news of a passing. Another prevalent custom is to tear at the funeral so that the procedure is done properly, petira - passing Shomayr - watcher. At times deferred to funeral chapel or at the cemetery, keriah Onayn - generally the day when the news is heard, before burial. Aninut Tahara - purification of the body Preparing the body — Taharah Levaya - The funeral service, aveilut - mourning, Mourning Avelut Shiva - seven days, from the Hebrew word for seven. Shiva Shloshim -30 days, starting from the day of burial, Shloshim – Thirty days Yud Bais Chodesh - means 12 months, for a parent. Shneim asar chodesh – Twelve months Matzevah - means monument, Matzevah Yahrtzeit - Anniversary of the date of passing. Their job is to ensure that the body of the deceased is shown respect, ritually cleansed. Many local chevra kadishas in urban areas are affiliated with local synagogues, if no gravediggers are available, then it is additionally the function of the male society members to ensure that graves are dug. Many burial societies hold one or two annual fast days and organize regular study sessions to remain up to date with the relevant articles of Jewish law. In addition, most burial societies also support families during the shiva by arranging prayer services, preparing meals, there are three major stages to preparing the body for burial, washing, ritual purification, and dressing. The term taharah is used to both to the overall process of burial preparation, and to the specific step of ritual purification. Prayers and readings from Torah, including Psalms, Song of Songs, Isaiah, Ezekiel, the general sequence of steps for performing taharah is as follows. Any bleeding is stopped and all blood is buried along with the deceased, the body is thoroughly cleaned of dirt, body fluids, and solids, and anything else that may be on the skin. The body is purified water, either by immersion in a mikveh or by pouring a continuous stream of 9 kavim in a prescribed manner
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Jewish philosophy
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Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. With their acceptance into society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves. Medieval re-discovery of ancient Greek philosophy among the Geonim of 10th century Babylonian academies brought rationalist philosophy into Biblical-Talmudic Judaism, the philosophy was generally in competition with Kabbalah. Both schools would become part of classic Rabbinic literature, though the decline of scholastic rationalism coincided with events which drew Jews to the Kabbalistic approach. For Ashkenazi Jews, emancipation and encounter with secular thought from the 18th-century onwards altered how philosophy was viewed, Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities had later more ambivalent interaction with secular culture than in Western Europe. In the varied responses to modernity, Jewish philosophical ideas were developed across the range of emerging religious movements, Rabbinic literature sometimes views Abraham as a philosopher. Some have suggested that Abraham introduced a philosophy learned from Melchizedek, a midrash describes how Abraham understood this world to have a creator and director by comparing this world to a house with a light in it, what is now called the argument from design. Psalms contains invitations to admire the wisdom of God through his works, from this, some scholars suggest, Judaism harbors a Philosophical under-current. Ecclesiastes is often considered to be the only genuine philosophical work in the Hebrew Bible, its author seeks to understand the place of human beings in the world, Philo attempted to fuse and harmonize Greek and Jewish philosophy through allegory, which he learned from Jewish exegesis and Stoicism. Philo attempted to make his philosophy the means of defending and justifying Jewish religious truths and these truths he regarded as fixed and determinate, and philosophy was used as an aid to truth, and a means of arriving at it. To this end Philo chose from philosophical tenets of Greeks, refusing those that did not harmonize with Judaism such as Aristotles doctrine of the eternity and indestructibility of the world. Dr. Philosophical speculation was not a part of Rabbinic Judaism. Rabbi Akiva has also been viewed as a figure, his statements include 1. )How favored is man, for he was created after an image for in an image, Elokim made man,2. )Everything is foreseen. But the divine decision is made by the preponderance of the good or bad in ones actions, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, Rabbinic scholars gathered in Tiberias and Safed to re-assemble and re-assess Judaism, its laws, theology, liturgy, beliefs and leadership structure. In 219 CE, the Sura Academy was founded by Abba Arika, for the next five centuries, Talmudic academies focused upon reconstituting Judaism and little, if any, philosophic investigation was pursued. These investigations triggered new ideas and intellectual exchange among Jewish and Islamic scholars in the areas of jurisprudence, mathematics, astronomy, logic, Jewish scholars influenced Islamic scholars and Islamic scholars influenced Jewish scholars. Around 733 CE, Mar Natronai ben Habibai moves to Kairouan, then to Spain, borrowing from the Mutakallamin of Basra, the Karaites were the first Jewish group to subject Judaism to Muʿtazila. Rejecting the Talmud and Rabbinical tradition, Karaites took liberty to reinterpret the Tanakh and this meant abandoning foundational Jewish belief structures
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Kabbalah
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Kabbalah is an esoteric method, discipline, and school of thought that originated in Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist in Judaism is called a Mekubbal, Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an unchanging, eternal, and mysterious Ein Sof and the mortal and finite universe. While it is used by some denominations, it is not a religious denomination in itself. It forms the foundations of religious interpretation. Kabbalah seeks to define the nature of the universe and the human being, the nature and purpose of existence and it also presents methods to aid understanding of the concepts and thereby attain spiritual realisation. Kabbalah originally developed within the realm of Jewish tradition, and kabbalists often use classical Jewish sources to explain, traditional practitioners believe its earliest origins pre-date world religions, forming the primordial blueprint for Creations philosophies, religions, sciences, arts, and political systems. Safed Rabbi Isaac Luria is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah and it was popularised in the form of Hasidic Judaism from the 18th century onwards. According to the Zohar, a text for kabbalistic thought. These four levels are called pardes from their initial letters, peshat, the direct interpretations of meaning. Derash, midrashic meanings, often with imaginative comparisons with similar words or verses, sod, the inner, esoteric meanings, expressed in kabbalah. Kabbalah is considered by its followers as a part of the study of Torah – the study of Torah being an inherent duty of observant Jews. A third tradition, related but more shunned, involves the magical aims of Practical Kabbalah and they can be readily distinguished by their basic intent with respect to God, The Theosophical tradition of Theoretical Kabbalah seeks to understand and describe the divine realm. Consequently, it formed a minor tradition shunned from Kabbalah. According to traditional belief, early kabbalistic knowledge was transmitted orally by the Patriarchs, prophets, According to this view, early kabbalah was, in around the 10th century BC, an open knowledge practiced by over a million people in ancient Israel. Foreign conquests drove the Jewish spiritual leadership of the time to hide the knowledge and make it secret and it is hard to clarify with any degree of certainty the exact concepts within kabbalah. There are several different schools of thought with different outlooks, however. From the Renaissance onwards Jewish Kabbalah texts entered non-Jewish culture, where they were studied and translated by Christian Hebraists, syncretic traditions of Christian Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah developed independently of Jewish Kabbalah, reading the Jewish texts as universal ancient wisdom. Both adapted the Jewish concepts freely from their Judaic understanding, to merge with other theologies, religious traditions, with the decline of Christian Cabala in the Age of Reason, Hermetic Qabalah continued as a central underground tradition in Western esotericism
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Synagogue
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A synagogue, also spelled synagog, is a Jewish house of prayer. Synagogues have a hall for prayer, and may also have smaller rooms for study and sometimes a social hall. Some have a room for Torah study, called the beith midrash beis medrash —בית מדרש. Synagogues are consecrated spaces used for the purpose of prayer, Tanakh reading, study and assembly, halakha holds that communal Jewish worship can be carried out wherever ten Jews assemble. Worship can also be carried out alone or with fewer than ten people assembled together, however, halakha considers certain prayers as communal prayers and therefore they may be recited only by a minyan. The synagogue does not replace the long-since destroyed Temple in Jerusalem, israelis use the Hebrew term beyt knesset. Jews of Ashkenazi descent have traditionally used the Yiddish term shul in everyday speech, Sephardi Jews and Romaniote Jews generally use the term kal. Spanish Jews call the synagogue a sinagoga and Portuguese Jews call it an esnoga, persian Jews and some Karaite Jews also use the non-Hebrew term kenesa, which is derived from Aramaic, and some Arab Jews use kenis. Reform and some Conservative Jews use the word temple, the Greek word synagogue is used in English, to cover the preceding possibilities. The all-day Yom Kippur service, in fact, was an event in which the congregation both observed the movements of the kohen gadol as he offered the days sacrifices and prayed for his success. During the Babylonian captivity the Men of the Great Assembly formalized and standardized the language of the Jewish prayers, prior to that people prayed as they saw fit, with each individual praying in his or her own way, and there were no standard prayers that were recited. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, one of the leaders at the end of the Second Temple era and this contributed to the continuity of the Jewish people by maintaining a unique identity and a portable way of worship despite the destruction of the Temple, according to many historians. A synagogue dating from between 75 and 50 BCE has been uncovered at a Hasmonean-era winter palace near Jericho, more than a dozen Second Temple era synagogues have been identified by archaeologists. Any Jew or group of Jews can build a synagogue, there is no set blueprint for synagogues and the architectural shapes and interior designs of synagogues vary greatly. In fact, the influence from local religious buildings can often be seen in synagogue arches, domes. Historically, synagogues were built in the architectural style of their time. Thus, the synagogue in Kaifeng, China looked very like Chinese temples of that region and era, with its outer wall, the styles of the earliest synagogues resembled the temples of other sects of the eastern Roman Empire. The surviving synagogues of medieval Spain are embellished with mudéjar plasterwork, the surviving medieval synagogues in Budapest and Prague are typical Gothic structures
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Rabbi
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In Judaism, a rabbi /ˈræbaɪ/ is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רַבִּי rabi, meaning My Master, the word master רב rav literally means great one. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic era, the first sage for whom the Mishnah uses the title of rabbi was Yohanan ben Zakkai, active in the early to mid first century CE. Within the various Jewish denominations there are different requirements for rabbinic ordination, for example, Orthodox Judaism does not ordain women as rabbis, but other movements have chosen to do so for halakhic reasons as well as ethical reasons. Although the usage rabbim many the majority, the multitude occurs for the assembly of the community in the Dead Sea scrolls there is no evidence to support an association with the later title Rabbi, the root is cognate to Arabic ربّ rabb, meaning lord. As a sign of respect, some great rabbis are simply called The Rav. The titles Rabban and Rabbi are first mentioned in the Mishnah, the term was first used for Rabban Gamaliel the elder, Rabban Simeon his son, and Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai, all of whom were patriarchs or presidents of the Sanhedrin. The title Rabbi occurs in the books of Matthew, Mark, and John in the New Testament, other variants are rəvī and, in Yiddish, rebbə. The word could be compared to the Syriac word ܪܒܝ rabi, in ancient Hebrew, rabbi was a proper term of address while speaking to a superior, in the second person, similar to a vocative case. While speaking about a superior, in the person one could say ha-rav or rabbo. Later, the term evolved into a title for members of the Patriarchate. Thus, the title gained an irregular form, רַבָּנִים rabbanim. Rabbi as a title does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. All of the above personalities would have expected to be steeped in the wisdom of the Torah and the commandments. And honor is due only for Torah, as it is said, The wise shall inherit honor, and only Torah is truly good, as it is said, I have given you a good teaching, do not forsake My Torah. This was eventually encoded and codified within the Mishnah and Talmud and subsequent rabbinical scholarship, the title Rabbi was borne by the sages of ancient Israel, who were ordained by the Sanhedrin in accordance with the custom handed down by the elders. They were titled Ribbi and received authority to judge penal cases, Rab was the title of the Babylonian sages who taught in the Babylonian academies. After the suppression of the Patriarchate and Sanhedrin by Theodosius II in 425, a recognised scholar could be called Rab or Hacham, like the Babylonian sages
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Torah
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The Torah is the central reference of Judaism. It has a range of meanings and it can most specifically mean the first five books of the twenty-four books of the Tanakh, and it usually includes the rabbinic commentaries. In rabbinic literature the word Torah denotes both the five books and the Oral Torah, the Oral Torah consists of interpretations and amplifications which according to rabbinic tradition have been handed down from generation to generation and are now embodied in the Talmud and Midrash. According to the Midrash, the Torah was created prior to the creation of the world, traditionally, the words of the Torah are written on a scroll by a scribe in Hebrew. A Torah portion is read publicly at least once every three days in the presence of a congregation, reading the Torah publicly is one of the bases for Jewish communal life. The word Torah in Hebrew is derived from the root ירה, the meaning of the word is therefore teaching, doctrine, or instruction, the commonly accepted law gives a wrong impression. Other translational contexts in the English language include custom, theory, guidance, the earliest name for the first part of the Bible seems to have been The Torah of Moses. This title, however, is neither in the Torah itself. It appears in Joshua and Kings, but it cannot be said to refer there to the entire corpus, in contrast, there is every likelihood that its use in the post-Exilic works was intended to be comprehensive. Other early titles were The Book of Moses and The Book of the Torah, Christian scholars usually refer to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible as the Pentateuch, a term first used in the Hellenistic Judaism of Alexandria, meaning five books, or as the Law. The Torah starts from the beginning of Gods creating the world, through the beginnings of the people of Israel, their descent into Egypt, and it ends with the death of Moses, just before the people of Israel cross to the promised land of Canaan. Interspersed in the narrative are the teachings given explicitly or implicitly embedded in the narrative. This is followed by the story of the three patriarchs, Joseph and the four matriarchs, God gives to the patriarchs a promise of the land of Canaan, but at the end of Genesis the sons of Jacob end up leaving Canaan for Egypt due to a regional famine. They had heard there was a grain storage and distribution facility in Egypt. Exodus begins the story of Gods revelation to his people of Israel through Moses, Moses receives the Torah from God, and teaches His laws and Covenant to the people of Israel. It also talks about the first violation of the covenant when the Golden Calf was constructed, Exodus includes the instructions on building the Tabernacle and concludes with its actual construction. Leviticus begins with instructions to the Israelites on how to use the Tabernacle, leviticus 26 provides a detailed list of rewards for following Gods commandments and a detailed list of punishments for not following them. Numbers tells how Israel consolidated itself as a community at Sinai, set out from Sinai to move towards Canaan, even Moses sins and is told he would not live to enter the land
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Nevi'im
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Neviim is the second main division of the Hebrew Bible, between the Torah and Ketuvim. The Neviim are divided into two groups, the Former Prophets consists of the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, while the Latter Prophets include the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and The Twelve minor prophets. In Judaism, Samuel and Kings are each counted as one book, in addition, twelve relatively short prophetic books are counted as one in a single collection called Trei Asar or The Twelve Minor Prophets. The Jewish tradition thus counts a total of eight books in Neviim out of a total of 24 books in the entire Tanakh, the Book of Daniel is part of the Writings, or Ketuvim, in the Tanakh. The Former Prophets are the books Joshua, Judges, 1st & 2nd Samuel, after Moses death, Joshua, by virtue of his previous appointment as Moses successor, receives from God the command to cross the Jordan. The book essentially consists of three parts, The history of the conquest of the land, the allotment of the land to the different tribes, with the appointment of cities of refuge, the provision for the Levites, and the dismissal of the eastern tribes to their homes. The farewell addresses of Joshua, with an account of his death, the Book of Judges consists of three distinct parts, The Introduction giving a summary of the book of Joshua. The Main Text, discussing the five Great Judges, Abimelech, the Appendices, giving two stories set in the time of the Judges, but not discussing the Judges themselves. The Books of Samuel consists of five parts, The period of Gods rejection of Eli, Samuels birth, the period of the life of Saul prior to meeting David. The period of Sauls interaction with David, the period of Davids reign and the rebellions he suffers. An appendix of material concerning David in no order. A conclusion of sorts appears at 1 Kings 1-2, concerning Solomon enacting a final revenge on those who did what David perceived as wrongdoing, the Latter Prophets are divided into two groups, the Major prophets and the Twelve Minor Prophets collected into a single book. The 66 chapters of Isaiah consist primarily of prophecies of the judgments awaiting nations that are persecuting Judah and these nations include Babylon, Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Syria, Israel, Ethiopia, Egypt, Arabia, and Phoenicia. Chapter 6 describes Isaiahs call to be a prophet of God, Chapters 36–39 provide historical material about King Hezekiah and his triumph of faith in God. This section is seen by Jews as describing an actual king, a descendant of their king, David. The prophecy continues with some scholars have called The Book of Comfort which begins in chapter 40. In chapter 45,1 the Persian ruler Cyrus is named as the messiah who will overthrow the Babylonians, the remaining chapters of the book contain prophecies of the future glory of Zion under the rule of a righteous servant. The Book of Jeremiah can be divided into subsections
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Ketuvim
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Ketuvim is the third and final section of the Tanakh, after Torah and Neviim. In English translations of the Hebrew Bible, this section is usually entitled Writings, another name used for this section is Hagiographa. The Ketuvim are believed to have written under divine inspiration. Found among the Writings within the Hebrew scriptures, I and II Chronicles form one book, along with Ezra, collectively, eleven books are included in the Ketuvim. In masoretic manuscripts, Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing the parallel stichs in the verses, collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet. These three books are also the ones in the Hebrew Bible with a special system of cantillation notes that are designed to emphasize parallel stichs within verses. However, the beginning and end of the book of Job are in the prose system. The five relatively short books of Song of Songs, Book of Ruth and these are the latest books collected and designated as authoritative in the Jewish canon. These scrolls are read over the course of the year in many Jewish communities. The list below presents them in the order they are read in the synagogue on holidays, besides the three poetic books and the five scrolls, the remaining books in Ketuvim are Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles. Two of them are the books in Tanakh with significant portions in Aramaic. These two also describe relatively late events, the following list presents the books of Ketuvim in the order they appear in most printed editions. It also divides them into three based on the distinctiveness of Sifrei Emet and Hamesh Megillot. The Babylonian Talmud gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles. According to T. Henshaw, as early as 132 BCE some references suggesting that the Ketuvim was starting to take shape, jacob Neusner says something different, he argues that the notion of a biblical canon was not prominent in 2nd-century Rabbinic Judaism or even later. Against Apion, the writing of Josephus in 95 CE, treated the text of the Hebrew Bible as a canon to which. No one has ventured either to add, or to remove, michael Barber, however, avers that Josephus canon is not identical to that of the modern Hebrew Bible. For a long time, following this date, the inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs
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Talmud
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The Talmud is a central text of Rabbinic Judaism. It is also referred to as Shas, a Hebrew abbreviation of shisha sedarim, the six orders. Talmud translates literally as instruction in Hebrew, and the term may refer to either the Gemara alone, or the Mishnah, the entire Talmud consists of 63 tractates, and in standard print is over 6,200 pages long. The Talmud is the basis for all codes of Jewish law, Rabbis expounded and debated the Torah and discussed the Tanakh without the benefit of written works, though some may have made private notes, for example of court decisions. It is during this period that rabbinic discourse began to be recorded in writing, the earliest recorded oral Torah may have been of the midrashic form, in which halakhic discussion is structured as exegetical commentary on the Pentateuch. But an alternative form, organized by subject matter instead of by biblical verse, became dominant about the year 200 CE, the Oral Torah was far from monolithic, rather, it varied among various schools. The most famous two were the School of Shammai and the School of Hillel, in general, all valid opinions, even the non-normative ones, were recorded in the Talmud. The oldest full manuscript of the Talmud, known as the Munich Talmud, each tractate is divided into chapters,517 in total, that are both numbered according to the Hebrew alphabet and given names, usually using the first one or two words in the first mishnah. A perek may continue over several pages, each perek will contain several mishnayot with their accompanying exchanges that form the building-blocks of the Gemara, the name for a passage of gemara is a sugya. A sugya, including baraita or tosefta, will comprise a detailed proof-based elaboration of a Mishnaic statement. A sugya may, and often does, range widely off the subject of the mishnah, in a given sugya, scriptural, Tannaic and Amoraic statements are cited to support the various opinions. In so doing, the Gemara will highlight semantic disagreements between Tannaim and Amoraim, and compare the Mishnaic views with passages from the Baraita. Rarely are debates formally closed, in instances, the final word determines the practical law. There is a literature on the procedural principles to be used in settling the practical law when disagreements exist, see under #Logic. The Mishnah is a compilation of legal opinions and debates, statements in the Mishnah are typically terse, recording brief opinions of the rabbis debating a subject, or recording only an unattributed ruling, apparently representing a consensus view. The rabbis recorded in the Mishnah are known as the Tannaim, the Mishnahs topical organization thus became the framework of the Talmud as a whole. But not every tractate in the Mishnah has a corresponding Gemara, also, the order of the tractates in the Talmud differs in some cases from that in the Mishnah. In addition to the Mishnah, other tannaitic teachings were current at about the time or shortly thereafter
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Mishnah
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The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions known as the Oral Torah. It is also the first major work of Rabbinic literature, most of the Mishnah is written in Mishnaic Hebrew, while some parts are Aramaic. The Mishnah consists of six orders, each containing 7–12 tractates,63 in total, the word Mishnah can also indicate a single paragraph or a verse of the work itself, i. e. the smallest unit of structure in the Mishnah. For this reason the work is sometimes called by the plural. The term Mishnah originally referred to a method of teaching by presenting topics in an order, as contrasted with Midrash. The Mishnah consists of six orders, each containing 7–12 tractates,63 in total, each masechet is divided into chapters and then paragraphs. In this last context, the word means a single paragraph of the work, i. e. the smallest unit of structure, leading to the use of the plural, Mishnayot. Because of the division into six orders, the Mishnah is sometimes called Shas, in each order, tractates are arranged from biggest to smallest. A popular mnemonic consists of the acronym ZMaN NaKaT, the Babylonian Talmud states that there were either six hundred or seven hundred orders of the Mishnah. Hillel the Elder organized them into six orders to make it easier to remember, the historical accuracy of this tradition is disputed. There is also a tradition that Ezra the scribe dictated from memory not only the 24 books of the Tanakh but 60 esoteric books. It is not known whether this is a reference to the Mishnah, interestingly, Reuvein Margolies posited that there were originally seven orders of Mishnah, citing a Gaonic tradition on the existence of a seventh order containing the laws of Stam and Berachot. A number of important laws are not elaborated upon in the Mishnah and these include the laws of tzitzit, tefillin, mezuzot, the holiday of Hanukkah, and the laws of conversion to Judaism. These were later discussed in the minor tractates, nissim ben Jacobs Hakdamah Lemafteach Hatalmud argued that it was unnecessary for Judah the Prince to discuss them as many of these laws were so well known. Rabbinic commentaries on the Mishnah from the four centuries, done in the Land of Israel. In themselves they are known as Gemara, the books which set out the Mishnah in its original structure, together with the associated Gemara, are known as Talmuds. Two Talmuds were compiled, the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud, unlike the Hebrew Mishnah, the Gemara is written primarily in Aramaic. The Mishnah does not claim to be the development of new laws, the term Mishnah is related to the verb shanah, to teach or repeat, and to the adjectives sheni and mishneh, meaning second
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Gemara
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The Gemara is the component of the Talmud comprising rabbinical analysis of and commentary on the Mishnah. After the Mishnah was published by Judah HaNasi, the work was studied exhaustively by generation after generation of rabbis in Babylonia and their discussions were written down in a series of books that became the Gemara, which when combined with the Mishnah constituted the Talmud. There are two versions of the Gemara, the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled by scholars of the Land of Israel, primarily of the academies of Tiberias and Caesarea, and was published between about 350–400 CE. The Talmud Bavli was published about 500 CE by scholars of Babylonia, primarily of the academies of Sura, Pumbedita, by convention, a reference to the Gemara or Talmud, without further qualification, refers to the Babylonian version. The main compilers were Revina and Rav Ashi, the Gemara and the Mishnah together make up the Talmud. The Talmud thus comprises two components, the Mishnah – the core text, and the Gemara – analysis and commentary which completes the Talmud, the rabbis of the Mishnah are known as Tannaim. The rabbis of the Gemara are referred to as Amoraim, the Gemara is mostly written in Aramaic, the Jerusalem Gemara in Western Aramaic and the Babylonian in Eastern Aramaic, but both contain portions in Hebrew. Sometimes the language changes in the middle of a story, in a narrow sense, the word Gemara refers to the mastery and transmission of existing tradition, as opposed to sevara, which means the deriving of new results by logic. Both activities are represented in the Gemara as a literary work, the analysis of the Amoraim is generally focused on clarifying the positions, words and views of the Tannaim. These debates and exchanges form the building-blocks of the gemara, the name for such a passage of gemara is a sugya, a sugya will typically comprise a detailed proof-based elaboration of the Mishna. Every aspect of the Mishnaic text is treated as a subject of close investigation and this analysis is aimed at an exhaustive understanding of the Mishnas full meaning. In the Talmud, a sugya is presented as a series of hypotheses and questions – with the Talmudic text as a record of each step in the process of reasoning. The Gemara thus takes the form of a dialectical exchange, the disputants here are termed the makshan and tartzan. The gemara records the semantic disagreements between Tannaim and Amoraim, some of these debates were actually conducted by the Amoraim, though many of them are hypothetically reconstructed by the Talmuds redactors. The distinctive character of the gemara derives largely from the use of argumentation and debate. In each sugya, either participant may cite scriptural, Mishnaic and Amoraic proof to build a support for their respective opinions. The process of deduction required to derive a conclusion from a prooftext is often logically complex, confronted with a statement on any subject, the Talmudic student will proceed to raise a series of questions before he satisfies himself of having understood its full meaning. The actual debate will usually centre on the categories, Why does the Mishna use one word rather than another
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Midrash
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The Midrash, capitalized, refers to a specific compilation of these writings, primarily from the first ten centuries CE. Gesenius ascribes the etymology of midrash to the Qal of the common Hebrew verb darash to seek, study, inquire. The word midrash occurs twice in the Hebrew Bible,2 Chronicles 13,22 in the midrash of the prophet Iddo, in Second Temple Jewish literature it began to be used in the sense of education and learning generally. According to the PaRDeS approaches to exegesis, interpretation of Biblical texts in Judaism is realized through peshat, remez, derash, the Midrash concentrates somewhat on remez but mostly on derash. Many different exegetical methods are employed in an effort to derive meaning from a text. This is not limited to the traditional thirteen textual tools attributed to the Tanna Rabbi Ishmael, in many cases, a dialogue is expanded manifold, handfuls of lines in the Biblical narrative may become long philosophical discussions. It is unclear whether the midrash assumes these dialogues took place in reality or if this refers only to subtext or religious implication, many midrashim start off with a seemingly unrelated sentence from the Biblical books of Psalms, Proverbs or the Prophets. This sentence later turns out to reflect the content of the rabbinical interpretation offered. This strategy is used particularly in a subgenre of midrash known as the Petikhta, some Midrash discussions are highly metaphorical, and many Jewish authors stress that they are not intended to be taken literally. Rather, other sources may sometimes serve as a key to particularly esoteric discussions. Later authors maintain that this was done to make this material accessible to the casual reader. In general the midrash is focused on either halakha or aggadic subject matter, Midrash halakha is the name given to a group of tannaitic expositions on the first four books of the Hebrew Bible. These Midrashim, which are written in Mishnahic Hebrew set out a distinction between the Biblical texts that they discuss, and the rabbinic interpretation of that text. They often go well beyond simple interpretation and derive or provide support for halakha and this work is based on pre set assumptions about the sacred and divine nature of the text, and the belief in the legitimacy that accords with rabbinic interpretation. By collecting and compiling these thoughts they could be presented in a manner which helped to refute claims that they were only human interpretations, Midrashim which seek to explain the non-legal portions of the Hebrew Bible are sometimes referred to as aggadah or haggadah. Some of these midrashim entail mystical teachings, the presentation is such that the Midrash is a simple lesson to the uninitiated, and a direct allusion, or analogy, to a Mystical teaching for those educated in this area. An example of a Midrashic interpretation, And God saw all that He had made, and there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. —Midrash, Rabbi Nahman said in Rabbi Samuels name, Behold, it was very good refers to the Good Desire, AND behold, can then the Evil Desire be very good
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Tosefta
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The Tosefta is a compilation of the Jewish oral law from the late 2nd century, the period of the Mishnah. In many ways, the Tosefta acts as a supplement to the Mishnah, the Mishnah is the basic compilation of the Oral law of Judaism, according to the tradition, it was compiled in 189 CE. The Tosefta closely corresponds to the Mishnah, with the divisions for sedarim. It is mainly written in Mishnaic Hebrew, with some Aramaic, at times the text of the Tosefta agrees nearly verbatim with the Mishnah. At others there are significant differences, the Tosefta often attributes laws that are anonymous in the Mishnah to named Tannaim. It also augments the Mishnah with additional glosses and discussions and it offers additional aggadic and midrashic material, and it sometimes contradicts the Mishnah in the ruling of Jewish law, or in attributing in whose name a law was stated. According to rabbinic tradition, the Tosefta was redacted by Rabbis Ḥiya, whereas the Mishna was considered authoritative, the Tosefta was supplementary. The Talmud often utilizes the traditions found in the Tosefta to examine the text of the Mishnah, the traditional view is that the Tosefta should be dated to a period concurrent with or shortly after the redaction of the Mishnah. This view pre-supposes that the Tosefta was produced in order to record variant material not included in the Mishnah, modern scholarship can be roughly divided into two camps. Some, such as Jacob N. Epstein theorize that the Tosefta as we have it developed from a proto-Tosefta recension which formed much of the basis for later Amoraic debate. Others, such as Hanokh Albeck, theorize that the Tosefta is a compendium of several baraitot collections which were in use during the Amoraic period. Professor Shamma Friedman, has found that the Tosefta draws on relatively early Tannaitic source material, ultimately, the state of the source material is such to allow divergent opinions to exist. These opinions serve to show the difficulties in establishing a clear picture of the origins of the Tosefta, Rabbi Sherira Gaon, in a letter written to the heads of the Jewish community in Kairuan, has disclosed somewhat about the authority of the Tosefta in relation to the Mishnah. There, he writes, We do not follow the opinion of R. Ḥiya, as expressed in a Baraita, if he disputes with Rebbe. For example, let us suppose that a certain halacha had originally been a matter of dispute between R. Meir and R. Yosi, but Rebbe decided to record in the Mishnah only R. Meirs opinion. Whenever R. Meir and R. Yosi disagree, the halacha follows R. Yosi, nevertheless, since in the Mishnah, Rebbe mentioned only R. Meirs opinion, we follow R. Meir. Rabbi Sherira Gaon then brings down the reverse of this example, Or, however, R. Ḥiya prefers R. Meirs argument, and therefore records it in a Baraita without mentioning R. Yosis opposing view. In such a case, we do not accept decision, three manuscripts exist of the Tosefta, they are, Vienna, Erfurt, and, London
