1.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
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The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 13th century until 1795. The state was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija, the Grand Duchy later expanded to include large portions of the former Kievan Rus and other Slavic lands, including territory of present-day Belarus, parts of Ukraine, Poland and Russia. At its greatest extent in the 15th century, it was the largest state in Europe and it was a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state with great diversity in languages, religion, and cultural heritage. Consolidation of the Lithuanian lands began in the late 12th century, Mindaugas, the first ruler of the Grand Duchy, was crowned as Catholic King of Lithuania in 1253. The pagan state was targeted in the crusade by the Teutonic Knights. The multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state emerged only at the reign of Gediminas. The reign of Vytautas the Great marked both the greatest territorial expansion of the Grand Duchy and the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 and it also marked the rise of the Lithuanian nobility. After Vytautass death, Lithuanias relationship with the Kingdom of Poland greatly deteriorated, Lithuanian noblemen, including the Radvila family, attempted to break the personal union with Poland. However, the unsuccessful Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars with the Grand Duchy of Moscow forced the union to remain intact, eventually, the Union of Lublin of 1569 created a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In this federation, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania maintained its political distinctiveness and had separate government, laws, army, shortly after, the unitary character of the state was confirmed by adopting the Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations. The newly reformed Commonwealth was invaded by Russia in 1792 and partitioned between the neighbours, with a truncated state remaining only nominally independent, after the Kościuszko Uprising, the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and Austria in 1795. The Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania name the name of the state as Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia. The title of Grand Duchy was consistently applied to Lithuania from the 14th century onward, in the 12th century, Slavic chronicles refer to Lithuania as one of the areas attacked by the Rus. Pagan Lithuanians initially paid tribute to Polotsk, but they grew in strength. The sudden spark of military raids marked consolidation of the Lithuanian lands in Aukštaitija, the Livonian Order and Teutonic Knights, crusading military orders, were established in Riga in 1202 and in Prussia in 1226. The Christian orders posed a significant threat to pagan Baltic tribes, the peace treaty with Galicia–Volhynia of 1219 provides evidence of cooperation between Lithuanians and Samogitians. This treaty lists 21 Lithuanian dukes, including five senior Lithuanian dukes from Aukštaitija, although they had battled in the past, the Lithuanians and the Žemaičiai now faced a common enemy. Likely Živinbudas had the most authority and at least several dukes were from the same families, the formal acknowledgment of common interests and the establishment of a hierarchy among the signatories of the treaty foreshadowed the emergence of the state
2.
Belarus
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Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres is forested and its strongest economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Belarus declared independence as the Belarusian Peoples Republic, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922 and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland after the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921, during WWII, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years, in 1945 the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR. The parliament of the declared the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990. Alexander Lukashenko has served as the president since 1994. Belarus has been labeled Europes last dictatorship by some Western journalists, Lukashenko continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. Though not directly espousing communism like the five remaining communist countries of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea, in 2000 Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, with some hints of forming a Union State. Over 70% of Belaruss population of 9.49 million resides in urban areas, more than 80% of the population is ethnic Belarusian, with sizable minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians. Since a referendum in 1995, the country has had two official languages, Belarusian and Russian, the Constitution of Belarus does not declare any official religion, although the primary religion in the country is Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Belarus is the only European country to retain capital punishment in both law and practice, the name Belarus is closely related with the term Belaya Rus, i. e. White Rus. There are several claims to the origin of the name White Rus, an alternate explanation for the name comments on the white clothing worn by the local Slavic population. A third theory suggests that the old Rus lands that were not conquered by the Tatars had been referred to as white, other sources claim that, before 1267, the land not conquered by the Mongols was considered White Rus. The name Rus is often conflated with its Latin forms Russia and Ruthenia, in some languages, including German and Dutch, the country is generally called White Russia to this day. The Latin term Alba Russia was used again by Pope Pius VI in 1783 to recognize the Society of Jesus there, exclaiming Approbo Societatem Jesu in Alba Russia degentem, approbo, approbo. The first known use of White Russia to refer to Belarus was in the century by Englishman Sir Jerome Horsey. During the 17th century, the Russian tsars used White Rus to describe the lands added from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
3.
Lithuania
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Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in Northern Europe. One of the three Baltic states, it is situated along the shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden. It is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.9 million people as of 2015, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The official language, Lithuanian, along with Latvian, is one of two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. For centuries, the shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, the King of Lithuania, and the first unified Lithuanian state, with the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772–95, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuanias territory. As World War I neared its end, Lithuanias Act of Independence was signed on 16 February 1918, in the midst of the Second World War, Lithuania was first occupied by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. As World War II neared its end and the Germans retreated, Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, a full member of the Eurozone, Schengen Agreement and NATO. It is also a member of the Nordic Investment Bank, the United Nations Human Development Index lists Lithuania as a very high human development country. Lithuania has been among the fastest growing economies in the European Union and is ranked 21st in the world in the Ease of Doing Business Index, the first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC. Over a millennium, the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population, the first written mention of Lithuania is found in a medieval German manuscript, the Annals of Quedlinburg, in an entry dated 9 March 1009. Initially inhabited by fragmented Baltic tribes, in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, after his assassination in 1263, pagan Lithuania was a target of the Christian crusades of the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. Despite the devastating century-long struggle with the Orders, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly, by the end of the 14th century, Lithuania was one of the largest countries in Europe and included present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia. The geopolitical situation between the west and the east determined the multicultural and multi-confessional character of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the ruling elite practised religious tolerance and Chancery Slavonic language was used as an auxiliary language to the Latin for official documents. In 1385, the Grand Duke Jogaila accepted Polands offer to become its king, Jogaila embarked on gradual Christianization of Lithuania and established a personal union between Poland and Lithuania. It implied that Lithuania, the fiercely independent land, was one of the last pagan areas of Europe to adopt Christianity, after two civil wars, Vytautas the Great became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign, Lithuania reached the peak of its expansion, centralization of the state began
4.
Lithuanian Jews
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Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The term is used to cover all Orthodox Jews who follow a Lithuanian style of life and learning. The area where Lithuanian Jews lived is referred to in Yiddish as Líta, Lithuania was historically home to a large and influential Jewish community that was almost entirely eliminated during the Holocaust. Before World War II, the Lithuanian Jewish population was some 160,000, Vilnius had a Jewish community of nearly 100,000, about 45% of the citys total population. There were over 110 synagogues and 10 yeshivas in Vilnius alone, about 2,000 Jews were counted in Lithuania during the 2005 census. Quoting the research done by H. G, using different sources Holocaust researchers claim there were between 60,000 and 65,000 Jewish soldiers in Polands independent army who identified themselves as Lithuanian Jews. The Yiddish adjective ליטוויש Litvish means Lithuanian, the noun for a Lithuanian Jew is Litvak. Of the main Yiddish dialects in Europe, the Litvishe Yiddish dialect was spoken by Jews in Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia and northeaster Poland, including Suwałki, Lomza, in modern Israel Litaim is often used for all Haredi Jews who are not Hasidim. Other expressions used for this purpose are Yeshivishe and Misnagdim, both the words Litvishe and Litaim are somewhat misleading, because there are also Hasidic Jews from greater Lithuania and lots of Lithuanian Jews who are not Haredim. The term Misnagdim on the hand is somewhat outdated, because the opposition between the two groups has lost much of its relevance. Yeshivishe is also problematic because Hasidim now make use of yeshivot as much as the Litvishe Jews, the characteristically Lithuanian approach to Judaism was marked by a concentration on highly intellectual Talmud study. Lithuania became the heartland of the traditionalist opposition to Hasidism, differences between the groups grew to the extent that in popular perception Lithuanian and misnagged became virtually interchangeable terms. However, a minority of Lithuanian Jews belong to Hasidic groups, including Chabad, Slonim, Karlin. The most famous Lithuanian institution of Jewish learning was Volozhin yeshiva, twentieth century Lithuanian yeshivas include Ponevezh, Telshe, Mir, Kelm, and Slabodka, which bear the names of their Lithuanian forebears. In theoretical Talmud study, the leading Lithuanian authorities were Chaim Soloveitchik, in the 19th century, the Orthodox Ashkenazi residents of the Holy Land, broadly speaking, were divided into Hasidim and Perushim, who were Lithuanian Jews influenced by the Vilna Gaon. In reality, both the ethnic makeup and the traditions of the misnagged communities are much more diverse. Customs of Lithuanian non Hasidic Jews consist of, Wearing of tefillin during non sabbath days of the days of the festival chol hamoed. The pronunciation of the holam as ej, although not widespread and uniform among Lithuanian Jews, the shin being pronounced the same way as sin
5.
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
6.
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
7.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
8.
Lithuanian language
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Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.9 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania, Lithuanian is a Baltic language, related to Latvian. It is written in a Latin alphabet, Lithuanian is often said to be the most conservative living Indo-European language, retaining many features of Proto-Indo-European now lost in other Indo-European languages. Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant, among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is extraordinarily conservative, retaining many archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit or Ancient Greek. For this reason, it is one of the most important sources in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation, the Proto-Balto-Slavic languages branched off directly from Proto-Indo-European, then branched into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. Proto-Baltic branched off into Proto-West Baltic and Proto-East Baltic, according to some glottochronological speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic ones between AD400 and AD600. The Greek geographer Ptolemy had already written of two Baltic tribe/nations by name, the Galindai and Sudinoi in the 2nd century AD, the differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after AD800, for a long period, they could be considered dialects of a single language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th or 15th century, also, the 13th- and 14th-century occupation of the western part of the Daugava basin by the German Sword Brethren had a significant influence on the languages independent development. The earliest surviving written Lithuanian text is a translation dating from about 1503–1525 of the Lords Prayer, the Hail Mary, printed books existed after 1547, but the level of literacy among Lithuanians was low through the 18th century, and books were not commonly available. Brought into the country by book smugglers despite the threat of prison sentences. Jonas Jablonskis made significant contributions to the formation of the standard Lithuanian language and his proposal for Standard Lithuanian was based on his native Western Aukštaitijan dialect with some features of the eastern Prussian Lithuanians dialect spoken in Lithuania Minor. These dialects had preserved archaic phonetics mostly intact due to the influence of the neighbouring Old Prussian language, Lithuanian has been the official language of Lithuania since 1918. During the Soviet era, it was used in official discourse along with Russian, Lithuanian is one of two living Baltic languages, along with Latvian. An earlier Baltic language, Old Prussian, was extinct by the 18th century, such an opinion was first represented by the likes of August Schleicher, and to a certain extent, Antoine Meillet. Endzelīns thought that the similarity between Baltic and Slavic was explicable through language contact while Schleicher, Meillet and others argued for a kinship between the two families. An attempt to reconcile the opposing stances was made by Jan Michał Rozwadowski and he proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities, they had posterior contact. The genetic kinship view is augmented by the fact that Proto-Balto-Slavic is easily reconstructible with important proofs in historic prosody, vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov believed in the unity of Balto-Slavic, but not in the unity of Baltic. In the 1960s, they proposed a new division, that into East-Baltic, West-Baltic, the Ivanov–Toporov theory is gaining ground among students of comparative-historic grammar of Indo-European language, and seems to be replacing the previous two stances in most PIE textbooks
9.
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
10.
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
11.
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
12.
History of the Jews in Belarus
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The Jews in Belarus were the third largest ethnic group in the country in the first half of the 20th century. Before World War II, Jews were the third among the groups in Belarus and comprised more than 40% of the population in cities. The population of such as Minsk, Pinsk, Mahiliou, Babrujsk, Viciebsk. In 1897 there were 724,548 Jews in Belarus, or 13. 6% of the total population, some 800,000 Jews—90% of the Jewish population—were killed in Belarus during the Holocaust. According to the 2009 census, there were 12,926 Jews in Belarus, the Jewish Agency estimates the community of Jews in Belarus at 20,000. Most of the jews who live in belarus since post World War II are newly immigrated jews from the Soviet Union Marc Chagall, throughout several centuries the lands of modern Belarus and the Republic of Lithuania were both parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Therefore, the history of Belarusian Jews is closely related to the history of Jews in Lithuania, as early as the 8th century Jews lived in parts of the lands of modern Belarus. Beginning with that period they conducted the trade between Ruthenia, Lithuania, and the Baltic, especially with Danzig, Julin, and other cities on the Vistula, Oder, the origin of Belarusian Jews has been the subject of much speculation. It is believed that they were made up of two streams of Jewish immigration. The older and significantly smaller of the two entered the territory that would become the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the east. These early immigrants spoke Judeo-Slavic dialects which distinguished them from the later Jewish immigrants who entered the region from the Germanic lands, the later and much larger stream of immigration originated in the 12th century and received an impetus from the persecution of the German Jews by the Crusaders. The traditional language of the vast majority of Lithuanian Jews, Yiddish, is based largely upon the Medieval German, the peculiar conditions that prevailed in Belarus compelled the first Jewish settlers to adopt a different mode of life from that followed by their western ethnic brethren. At that time there were no cities in the sense of the word in Belarus. Some of the cities which became the important centers of Jewish life in Belarus were at first mere villages. Hrodna, one of the oldest, was first mentioned in the chronicles of 1128. Navahrudak was founded somewhat later by Yaroslav I the Wise, Kerlov in 1250, Voruta and Twiremet in 1252, Eiragola in 1262, Halshany and Kowno in 1280, Lida, Telšiai, Vilna and Troki in 1320. The probable importance of the southern Jews in the development of Belarus and they took an active part in the development of the new cities under the tolerant rule of duke Hiedzimin. Little is known of the fortunes of the Belarusian Jews during the times that followed the death of Hiedzimin
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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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Latvian Jews
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The History of the Jews in Latvia dates back to the first Jewish colony established in Piltene in 1571. Jews contributed to Latvias development until the Northern War, which decimated Latvias population, the Jewish community reestablished itself in the 18th century, mainly through an influx from Prussia, and came to play a principal role in the economic life of Latvia. Under an independent Latvia, Jews formed political parties and participated as members of parliament, Jewish parents had the right to send their children to schools using Hebrew as the language of instruction, as part of a significant network of minority schools. World War II ended the prominence of the Jewish Community, under Stalin, Jews, who formed only 5% of the population, constituted 12% of the deportees. This paled in comparison to the Holocaust, which killed 90% of Latvias Jewish population, the Latvian Jewish community today is small but active. Russia conquered Livonia, with the city of Riga, from Sweden in 1721, Courland, formerly an autonomous duchy under Polish suzerainty, was annexed into Russia as a province in 1795. received authorization to settle there. In the middle of the 19th century, there were about 9,000 Jews in the province of Livonia, by 1897 the Jewish population had already increased to 26,793, about three-quarters of whom lived in Riga. In Courland there were 22,734 Jews in the middle of the 19th century, while according to the Russian Imperial Census of 1897, the Jews of Courland formed a special group within Russian Jewry. On the one hand they were influenced by the German culture which prevailed in this region, haskalah penetrated early to the Livonia and Courland communities but assimilation did not make the same headway there as in Western Europe. Courland Jewry developed a character, combining features of both East European and German Jewry. During World War I when the Russian armies retreated from Courland, a considerable number later returned to Latvia as repatriates after the independent republic was established. At first, a liberal and progressive spirit prevailed in the young state, on May 15,1934, the prime minister, Karlis Ulmanis, dissolved parliament in a coup détat and Latvia became an autocracy. Ulmanis was proclaimed a president of the nation and his government inclined to be neutral. Before World War I there were about 190,000 Jews in the territories of Latvia, during the war years, many of them were expelled to the interior of Russia, while others escaped from the war zone. In 1920 the Jews of Latvia numbered 79,644, by 1925 the Jewish population had increased to 95,675, the largest number of Jews during the period of Latvia’s existence as an independent state. After that year the number of Jews gradually decreased, and in 1935 had declined to 93,479. The causes of decline were emigration by part of the younger generation. Between 1925 and 1935 over 6,000 Jews left Latvia, the largest communities were Riga with 43,672 Jews in 1935, Daugavpils with 11,106, and Liepāja with 7,379
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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
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History of the Jews in Estonia
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The history of the Jews in Estonia starts with individual reports of Jews in what is now Estonia from as early as the 14th century. The Nicholas soldiers and their descendants, and artisans were, basically, the Tallinn congregation, the largest in Estonia, was founded in 1830. The Tartu congregation was established in 1866 when the first fifty families settled there, synagogues were built, the largest of which were constructed in Tallinn in 1883 and Tartu in 1901. Both of these were destroyed by fire in World War II. The Jewish population spread to other Estonian cities where houses of prayer were erected, schools were opened to teach Talmud, and elementary schools were organised in Tallinn in the 1880s. The majority of the Jewish population at that time consisted of small tradesmen and artisans and this began to change at the end of the 19th century when several Jews entered the University of Tartu and later contributed significantly to enliven Jewish culture and education. 1917 even saw the founding of the Jewish Drama Club in Tartu, approximately 200 Jews fought in combat in the Estonian War of Independence for the creation of the Republic of Estonia. 70 of these fighters were volunteers, the creation of the Republic of Estonia in 1918 marked the beginning of a new era in the life of the Jews. From the very first days of her existence as a state, Estonia showed tolerance towards all ethnic and this set the stage for energetic growth in the political and cultural activities of Jewish society. Between 11 and 16 May 1919, the first Estonian Congress of Jewish congregations was convened to discuss the new circumstances Jewish life was confronting and this is where the ideas of cultural autonomy and a Jewish Gymnasium in Tallinn were born. Jewish societies and associations began to grow in numbers, the largest of these new societies was the H. N. Bjalik Literature and Drama Society in Tallinn founded in 1918. Societies and clubs were established in Viljandi, Narva, and elsewhere, in 1920, the Maccabi Sports Society was founded and became well known for its endeavours to encourage sports among Jews. Jews also took a part in sporting events in Estonia. Sara Teitelbaum was a 17-time champion in Estonian athletics and established no fewer than 28 records, in the 1930s there were about 100 Jews studying at the University of Tartu,44 studied jurisprudence and 18 medicine. In 1934, a chair was established in the School of Philosophy for the study of Judaica, there were five Jewish student societies in Tartu Academic Society, the Womens Student Society Hazfiro, the Corporation Limuvia, the Society Hasmonea and the Endowment for Jewish Students. All of these had their own libraries and played important roles in Jewish culture, political organisations such as Zionist youth organisations Hashomer Hazair and Beitar were also established. Many Jewish youth travelled to Palestine to establish the Jewish State, the kibbutzim of Kfar Blum and Ein Gev were set up in part by Estonian Jews. On 12 February 1925, the Estonian government passed a law on the autonomy of minorities
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History of the Jews in Poland
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The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over 800 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world, Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the Partitions of Poland which began in 1772, in particular, from the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in 1025 through to the early years of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth created in 1569, Poland was the most tolerant country in Europe. Known as paradisus Iudaeorum, it became a shelter for persecuted and expelled European Jewish communities, according to some sources, about three-quarters of the worlds Jews lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century. With the weakening of the Commonwealth and growing religious strife, Polands traditional tolerance began to wane from the 17th century onward. Still, as Poland regained independence in the aftermath of World War I, Antisemitism was a growing problem throughout Europe in those years, from both the political establishment and the general population. At the start of World War II, Poland was partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, one-fifth of the Polish population perished during World War II, half of them were 3,000,000 Polish Jews murdered in The Holocaust, constituting 90% of Polish Jewry. Although the Holocaust occurred largely in German-occupied Poland, there was collaboration with the Nazis by its citizens. Collaboration by individual Poles has been described as smaller than in other occupied countries, statistics of the Israeli War Crimes Commission indicate that less than 0. 1% of Polish gentiles collaborated with the Nazis. Grouped by nationality, Poles represent the largest number of people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, britain demanded Poland to halt the exodus, but their pressure was largely unsuccessful. Most of the remaining Jews left Poland in late 1968 as the result of the Soviet-sponsored anti-Zionist campaign. After the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, the situation of Polish Jews became normalized, Religious institutions were revived, largely through the activities of Jewish foundations from the United States. The first Jews arrived in the territory of modern Poland in the 10th century, by travelling along the trade routes leading eastwards to Kiev and Bukhara, Jewish merchants, known as Radhanites, crossed the areas of Silesia. In the summer of 965 or 966 Jacob made a trade and diplomatic journey from his native Toledo in Moslem Spain to the Holy Roman Empire, the first actual mention of Jews in Polish chronicles occurs in the 11th century. It appears that Jews were then living in Gniezno, at time the capital of the Polish kingdom of the Piast dynasty. Among the first Jews to arrive in Poland were those banished from Prague, the first permanent Jewish community is mentioned in 1085 by a Jewish scholar Jehuda ha-Kohen in the city of Przemyśl. The first extensive Jewish emigration from Western Europe to Poland occurred at the time of the First Crusade in 1098. Under Bolesław III, the Jews, encouraged by the tolerant regime of this ruler, settled throughout Poland, Bolesław III recognized the utility of Jews in the development of the commercial interests of his country
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
Lithuania
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Lithuania". Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company.