Jews

Jews

יְהוּדִים‬‎ (Yehudim)
The Star of David, a common symbol of the Jewish people
Total population
15.1 million Enlarged population (includes full or partial Jewish ancestry): 19.9 million[note 1][1] (2021, est.)
Regions with significant populations
Israel (including occupied territories)	6,905,000–7,401,000[1]
United States	6,000,000–11,500,000[1]
France	440,000–600,000[1][2]
Canada	398,000–550,000[1][2]
United Kingdom	312,000–370,000[1][2]
Russia	150,000–460,000[1]
Argentina	175,000–310,000[1]
Germany	118,000–225,000[1]
Australia	118,000–145,000[1]
Brazil	92,000–150,000[1]
Ukraine	43,000–140,000[1]
Hungary	47,000–100,000[1]
South Africa	52,000–75,000[1]
Mexico	40,000–50,000[1]
Netherlands	30,000–53,000[1]
Belgium	29,000–40,000[1]
Italy	27,000–41,000[1]
Switzerland	18,000–25,000[1]
Chile	16,000–24,000[1]
Uruguay	16,000–24,000[1]
Sweden	15,000–25,000[1]
Turkey	15,000–21,000[1]
Languages
Predominantly spoken:[3] Modern Hebrew English Russian French Spanish Historical: Judeo-Arabic others Sacred: Talmudic Aramaic
Religion
Majority: Judaism Minority: Irreligion,[4] Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Samaritans,[5][6][7] Arabs,[6][8][9][10] Assyrians,[11] Others

This article contains Hebrew text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hebrew letters.

The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎, ISO 259-2: Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation: [jehuˈdim]) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group^[12] and nation^{[13][14][15][16][17][excessive citations]} originating from the Israelites of the ancient Near East,^{[18][19][20][21][22][excessive citations]} and whose traditional religion is Judaism.^[23][24] Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated,^[25][26] as Judaism is an ethnic religion,^[27][28] although not all ethnic Jews practice it.^[29][30] Despite this, religious Jews regard individuals who have formally converted to Judaism as part of the community.^[29][31]

The Israelites emerged from within the

The term "Jew" is derived from the

Some scholars prefer translating Ioudaios as "Judean" in the Bible since it is more precise, denotes the community's origins and prevents readers from engaging in antisemitic eisegesis.^[66][67] Others disagree, believing that it erases the Jewish identity of Biblical characters such as Jesus.^[59]

Daniel R. Schwartz distinguishes "Judean" and "Jew". Here, "Judean" refers to the inhabitants of Judea, which encompassed southern Palestine. Meanwhile, "Jew" refers to the descendants of Israelites that adhere to Judaism. Converts are included in the definition. ^[68] But Shaye J.D. Cohen argues that "Judean" should include believers of the Judean God and allies of the Judean state.^[69]

The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., يَهُودِيّ yahūdī (sg.), al-yahūd (pl.), in Arabic, "Jude" in German, "judeu" in Portuguese, "Juif" (m.)/"Juive" (f.) in French, "jøde" in Danish and Norwegian, "judío/a" in Spanish, "jood" in Dutch, "żyd" in Polish etc., but derivations of the word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., in Italian (Ebreo), in Persian ("Ebri/Ebrani" (Persian: عبری/عبرانی)) and Russian (Еврей, Yevrey).^[70] The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuːdə], the corresponding adjective "jüdisch" [ˈjyːdɪʃ] (Jewish) is the origin of the word "Yiddish".^[71]

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition (2000),

It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on the council, which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun.^[72]

Identity

Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. These definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the Oral Torah into the Babylonian Talmud, around 200 CE. Interpretations by Jewish sages of sections of the Tanakh – such as Deuteronomy 7:1–5, which forbade intermarriage between their Israelite ancestors and seven non-Israelite nations: "for that [i.e. giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,] would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods" ^{[32][failed verification]} – are used as a warning against intermarriage between Jews and gentiles. Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This is complemented by Ezra 10:2–3, where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children.^[79][80] A popular theory is that the rape of Jewish women in captivity brought about the law of Jewish identity being inherited through the maternal line, although scholars challenge this theory citing the Talmudic establishment of the law from the pre-exile period.^[81] Another argument is that the rabbis changed the law of patrilineal descent to matrilineal descent due to the widespread rape of Jewish women by Roman soldiers.^[82] Since the anti-religious Haskalah movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries, halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged.^[83]

According to historian Shaye J. D. Cohen, the status of the offspring of mixed marriages was determined patrilineally in the Bible. He brings two likely explanations for the change in Mishnaic times: first, the Mishnah may have been applying the same logic to mixed marriages as it had applied to other mixtures (Kil'ayim). Thus, a mixed marriage is forbidden as is the union of a horse and a donkey, and in both unions the offspring are judged matrilineally.^[84] Second, the Tannaim may have been influenced by Roman law, which dictated that when a parent could not contract a legal marriage, offspring would follow the mother.^[84] Rabbi Rivon Krygier follows a similar reasoning, arguing that Jewish descent had formerly passed through the patrilineal descent and the law of matrilineal descent had its roots in the Roman legal system.^[81]

Origins

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 and variety, written in at least ten Near Eastern languages. 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. The prehistory and ethnogenesis of the Jews are closely intertwined with archaeology, biology, and historical textual records, as well as religious literature and mythology. Jews originally trace their ancestry to a confederation of Iron Age Semitic-speaking tribes known as the Israelites that inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods.^[22] Modern Jews are named after and also descended from the southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah.^{[91][92][93][22][94][95]} Gary A. Rendsburg links the early Canaanite nomadic pastoralists confederation to the Shasu known to the Egyptians around the 15th century BCE.^[96]

According to the

Tribes of Israel
The Tribes of Israel Reuben Simeon Levi Judah Dan Naphtali Gad Asher Issachar Zebulun Joseph Manasseh Ephraim Benjamin
Other tribes Caleb Keni Rechab Jerahmeel
Related topics Leaders Israelites Ten Lost Tribes Jews Samaritans
v t e

Israel and Judah

The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele, which dates to around 1200 BCE. The majority of scholars agree that this text refers to the Israelites, a group that inhabited the central highlands of Canaan, where archaeological evidence shows that hundreds of small settlements were constructed between the 12th and 10th centuries BCE.^[123][124] The Israelites differentiated themselves from neighboring peoples through various distinct characteristics including religious practices, prohibition on intermarriage, and an emphasis on genealogy and family history.^{[125][126][126]}

In the 10th century BCE, two neighboring Israelite kingdoms—the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah—emerged. Since their inception, they shared ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious characteristics despite a complicated relationship. Israel, with its capital mostly in Samaria, was larger and wealthier, and soon developed into a regional power.^[127] In contrast, Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem, was less prosperous and covered a smaller, mostly mountainous territory. However, while in Israel the royal succession was often decided by a military coup d'état, resulting in several dynasty changes, political stability in Judah was much greater, as it was ruled by the House of David for the whole four centuries of its existence.^[128]

Around 720 BCE, Kingdom of Israel was destroyed when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which came to dominate the ancient Near East.^[97] Under the Assyrian resettlement policy, a significant portion of the northern Israelite population was exiled to Mesopotamia and replaced by immigrants from the same region.^[129] During the same period, and throughout the 7th century BCE, the Kingdom of Judah, now under Assyrian vassalage, experienced a period of prosperity and witnessed a significant population growth.^[130] Later in the same century, the Assyrians were defeated by the rising Neo-Babylonian Empire, and Judah became its vassal. In 587 BCE, following a revolt in Judah, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple, putting an end to the kingdom. The majority of Jerusalem's residents, including the kingdom's elite, were exiled to Babylon.^[131][132]

Second Temple period

According to the

The Jewish–Roman wars, a series of unsuccessful revolts against Roman rule during the first and second centuries CE, had significant and disastrous consequences for the Jewish population of Judaea.^[143][144] The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. The severely reduced Jewish population of Judaea was denied any kind of political self-government.^[145] A few generations later, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) erupted, and its brutal suppression by the Romans led to the depopulation of Judea. Following the revolt, Jews were forbidden from residing in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and the Jewish demographic center in Judaea shifted to Galilee.^{[146][147][148]} Similar upheavals affected the Jewish communities of the empire's south-eastern provinces, when a significant uprising known as the Kitos War (115–117 CE) resulted in the complete disappearance of the influential Jewish community of Egypt and Alexandria.^[145]

sectarian nature.^[149]: 69 Two of the three main sects that flourished during the late Second Temple period, namely the Sadducees and Essenes, eventually disappeared, while Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis of Rabbinic Judaism, which emerged as the prevailing form of Judaism since late antiquity.^[150]

Babylon and Rome

Further information: History of the Jews in the Roman Empire and Talmudic academies in Babylonia

The Jewish diaspora existed well before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and had been ongoing for centuries, with the dispersal driven by both forced expulsions and voluntary migrations.^[151][145] By 200 BCE, Jewish communities already existed in Egypt and Mesopotamia ("Babylonia" in Jewish sources). In the two centuries that followed, Jewish populations were also present in Asia Minor, Greece, Macedonia, Cyrene, and, beginning in the middle of the first century BCE, in the city of Rome.^[152][145] Later, in the first centuries CE, as a result of the Jewish-Roman Wars, a large number of Jews were taken as captives, sold into slavery, or compelled to flee from the regions affected by the wars, contributing to the formation and expansion of Jewish communities across the Roman Empire as well as in Arabia and Mesopotamia.

After the

Christianized Byzantine Empire under Constantine, Jews came to be persecuted by the church and the authorities, and many immigrated to communities in the diaspora. In the fourth century CE, Jews are believed to have lost their position as the majority in Syria Palaestina.^[156][153]

The long-established Jewish community of Mesopotamia, which had been living under

Babylonian Talmud, a centerpiece of Jewish religious law, was compiled in Babylonia in the 3rd to 6th centuries.^[157]

Middle Ages

Further information:

Sephardi Jews

Jewish diaspora communities are generally described to have

Ethiopian Jews, Bukharan Jews, Mountain Jews, and other groups also predated the arrival of the Sephardic diaspora.^[159]

Despite experiencing repeated waves of persecution, Ashkenazi Jews in Western Europe worked in a variety of fields, making an impact on their communities' economy and societies. In

expulsion of Jews from England (1290). As a result, Ashkenazi Jews were gradually pushed eastwards to Poland, Lithuania and Russia.^[160]

During the same period, Jewish communities in the Middle East thrived under Islamic rule, especially in cities like Baghdad, Cairo, and Damascus. In Babylonia, from the 7th to 11th centuries the Pumbedita and Sura academies led the Arab and to an extant the entire Jewish world. The deans and students of said academies defined the Geonic period in Jewish history.^[161] Following this period were the Rishonim who lived from the 11th to 15th centuries. Like their European counterparts, Jews in the Middle East and North Africa also faced periods of persecution and discriminatory policies, with the Almohad Caliphate in North Africa and Iberia issuing forced conversion decrees, causing Jews such as Maimonides to seek safety in other regions.

Initially, under Visigoth rule, Jews in the Iberian Peninsula faced persecutions, but their circumstances changed dramatically under Islamic rule. During this period, they thrived in a golden age, marked by significant intellectual and cultural contributions in fields such as philosophy, medicine, and literature by figures such as Samuel ibn Naghrillah, Judah Halevi and Solomon ibn Gabirol. However, in the 12th to 15th centuries, the Iberian Peninsula witnessed a rise in antisemitism, leading to persecutions, anti-Jewish laws, massacres and forced conversions (peaking in 1391), and the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition that same year. After the completion of the Reconquista and the issuance of the Alhambra Decree by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, the Jews of Spain were forced to choose: convert to Christianity or be expelled. As a result, around 200,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, seeking refuge in places such as the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, Italy, the Netherlands and India. A similar fate awaited the Jews of Portugal a few years later. Some Jews chose to remain, and pretended to practice Catholicism. These Jews would form the members of Crypto-Judaism.^[162]

Modern period

Further information: Zionism, The Holocaust, and History of Israel (1948–present)

In the 19th century, when Jews in Western Europe were increasingly granted equality before the law, Jews in the Pale of Settlement faced growing persecution, legal restrictions and widespread pogroms. Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, aiming to re-establish a Jewish polity in the Land of Israel, an endeavor to restore the Jewish people back to their ancestral homeland in order to stop the exoduses and persecutions that have plagued their history. This led to waves of Jewish migration to Ottoman-controlled Palestine. Theodor Herzl, who is considered the father of political Zionism,^[163] offered his vision of a future Jewish state in his 1896 book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State); a year later, he presided over the First Zionist Congress.^[164]

The antisemitism that inflicted Jewish communities in Europe also triggered a mass exodus of more than two million Jews to the

Auschwitz camp complex alone. The Holocaust

is the name given to this genocide, in which six million Jews were systematically murdered.

Before and during the Holocaust, enormous numbers of Jews immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, upon the termination of the mandate, David Ben-Gurion declared the creation of the State of Israel, a Jewish and democratic state in the Land of Israel. Immediately afterwards, all neighboring Arab states invaded, yet the newly formed IDF resisted. In 1949, the war ended and Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of Aliyah from all over the world.

Culture

Main article: Jewish culture

Religion

Main article: Judaism

See also: Jewish atheism and Jewish secularism

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The Jewish people and the religion of Judaism are strongly interrelated. Converts to Judaism typically have a status within the Jewish ethnos equal to those born into it.^[167] However, several converts to Judaism, as well as ex-Jews, have claimed that converts are treated as second-class Jews by many born Jews.^[168] Conversion is not encouraged by mainstream Judaism, and it is considered a difficult task. A significant portion of conversions are undertaken by children of mixed marriages, or would-be or current spouses of Jews.^[169]

The

India,^[174] China,^[175] or the contemporary United States^[176] and Israel,^[177] cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews or specific communities of Jews with their surroundings, and still others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to from the religion itself. This phenomenon has led to considerably different Jewish cultures unique to their own communities.^[178]

Languages

Main article: Jewish languages

Babylonian Talmud. Dialects of these same languages were also used by the Jews of Syria Palaestina at that time.^{[citation needed}

]

For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, often developing distinctive

Judaeo-Malayalam and many others, have largely fallen out of use.^[3]

For over sixteen centuries Hebrew was used almost exclusively as a liturgical language, and as the language in which most books had been written on Judaism, with a few speaking only Hebrew on the

mother tongue since Tannaic times.^[179] Modern Hebrew is designated as the "State language" of Israel.^[182]

Despite efforts to revive Hebrew as the national language of the Jewish people, knowledge of the language is not commonly possessed by Jews worldwide and English has emerged as the lingua franca of the Jewish diaspora.^{[183][184][185][186][187]} Although many Jews once had sufficient knowledge of Hebrew to study the classic literature, and Jewish languages like Yiddish and Ladino were commonly used as recently as the early 20th century, most Jews lack such knowledge today and English has by and large superseded most Jewish vernaculars. The three most commonly spoken languages among Jews today are Hebrew, English, and Russian. Some Romance languages, particularly French and Spanish, are also widely used.^[3] Yiddish has been spoken by more Jews in history than any other language,^[188] but it is far less used today following the Holocaust and the adoption of Modern Hebrew by the Zionist movement and the State of Israel. In some places, the mother language of the Jewish community differs from that of the general population or the dominant group. For example, in

better source needed] as well as for Ashkenazic Jews in Azerbaijan,^[201][202] Georgia,^[203] and Tajikistan.^[204][205] Although communities in North Africa today are small and dwindling, Jews there had shifted from a multilingual group to a monolingual one (or nearly so), speaking French in Algeria,^[206] Morocco,^[201] and the city of Tunis,^[207][208] while most North Africans continue to use Arabic or Berber as their mother tongue.^{[citation needed}

]

Leadership

Main article: Jewish leadership

There is no single governing body for the Jewish community, nor a single authority with responsibility for religious doctrine.

Hasidic dynasty, there is no one commonly accepted leader of all Hasidic Jews. Many Jews believe that the Messiah will act a unifying leader for Jews and the entire world.^[211]

Theories on ancient Jewish national identity

A number of modern scholars of nationalism support the existence of Jewish national identity in antiquity. One of them is David Goodblatt,^[212] who generally believes in the existence of nationalism before the modern period. In his view, the Bible, the parabiblical literature and the Jewish national history provide the base for a Jewish collective identity. Although many of the ancient Jews were illiterate (as were their neighbors), their national narrative was reinforced through public readings. The Hebrew language also constructed and preserved national identity. Although it was not widely spoken after the 5th century BCE, Goodblatt states:^[213][214]

the mere presence of the language in spoken or written form could invoke the concept of a Jewish national identity. Even if one knew no Hebrew or was illiterate, one could recognize that a group of signs was in Hebrew script. … It was the language of the Israelite ancestors, the national literature, and the national religion. As such it was inseparable from the national identity. Indeed its mere presence in visual or aural medium could invoke that identity.

It is believed that Jewish nationalist sentiment in antiquity was encouraged because under foreign rule (Persians, Greeks, Romans) Jews were able to claim that they were an ancient nation. This claim was based on the preservation and reverence of their scriptures, the Hebrew language, the Temple and priesthood, and other traditions of their ancestors.^[215]

Demographics

Further information: Jewish population by country

Ethnic divisions

Main article: Jewish ethnic divisions

Sephardi Jewish couple from Sarajevo

in traditional clothing. Photo taken in 1900.

Within the world's

millennia of the Jewish diaspora the communities would develop under the influence of their local environments: political, cultural, natural, and populational. Today, manifestations of these differences among the Jews can be observed in Jewish cultural expressions of each community, including Jewish linguistic diversity, culinary preferences, liturgical practices, religious interpretations, as well as degrees and sources of genetic admixture.^[216]

Jews are often identified as belonging to one of two major groups: the

Iberia. The diverse groups of Jews of the Middle East and North Africa are often collectively referred to as Sephardim together with Sephardim proper for liturgical reasons having to do with their prayer rites. A common term for many of these non-Spanish Jews who are sometimes still broadly grouped as Sephardim is Mizrahim (lit. “easterners" in Hebrew). Nevertheless, Mizrahis and Sepharadim are usually ethnically distinct.^[217]

Smaller groups include, but are not restricted to,

African Jews, including most numerously the Beta Israel of Ethiopia; and Chinese Jews, most notably the Kaifeng Jews, as well as various other distinct but now almost extinct communities.^[218]

The divisions between all these groups are approximate and their boundaries are not always clear. The Mizrahim for example, are a heterogeneous collection of

Teimanim from Yemen are sometimes included, although their style of liturgy is unique and they differ in respect to the admixture found among them to that found in Mizrahim. In addition, there is a differentiation made between Sephardi migrants who established themselves in the Middle East and North Africa after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s and the pre-existing Jewish communities in those regions.^[218]

Ashkenazi Jews represent the bulk of modern Jewry, with at least 70 percent of Jews worldwide (and up to 90 percent prior to World War II and the Holocaust). As a result of their emigration from Europe, Ashkenazim also represent the overwhelming majority of Jews in the New World continents, in countries such as the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, and Brazil. In France, the immigration of Jews from Algeria (Sephardim) has led them to outnumber the Ashkenazim.^[218] Only in Israel is the Jewish population representative of all groups, a melting pot independent of each group's proportion within the overall world Jewish population.^[219]

Genetic studies

Main article:

Genetic studies on Jews

Y DNA studies tend to imply a small number of founders in an old population whose members parted and followed different migration paths.^[220] In most Jewish populations, these male line ancestors appear to have been mainly Middle Eastern. For example, Ashkenazi Jews share more common paternal lineages with other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than with non-Jewish populations in areas where Jews lived in Eastern Europe, Germany, and the French Rhine Valley. This is consistent with Jewish traditions in placing most Jewish paternal origins in the region of the Middle East.^[221][222]

Conversely, the maternal lineages of Jewish populations, studied by looking at mitochondrial DNA, are generally more heterogeneous.^[223] Scholars such as Harry Ostrer and Raphael Falk believe this indicates that many Jewish males found new mates from European and other communities in the places where they migrated in the diaspora after fleeing ancient Israel.^[224] In contrast, Behar has found evidence that about 40 percent of Ashkenazi Jews originate maternally from just four female founders, who were of Middle Eastern origin. The populations of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish communities "showed no evidence for a narrow founder effect."^[223] Subsequent studies carried out by Feder et al. confirmed the large portion of non-local maternal origin among Ashkenazi Jews. Reflecting on their findings related to the maternal origin of Ashkenazi Jews, the authors conclude "Clearly, the differences between Jews and non-Jews are far larger than those observed among the Jewish communities. Hence, differences between the Jewish communities can be overlooked when non-Jews are included in the comparisons."^{[11][225][226]} A study showed that 7% of Ashkenazi Jews have the haplogroup G2c, which is mainly found in Pashtuns and on lower scales all major Jewish groups, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese.^[227][228]

Studies of autosomal DNA, which look at the entire DNA mixture, have become increasingly important as the technology develops. They show that Jewish populations have tended to form relatively closely related groups in independent communities, with most in a community sharing significant ancestry in common.^[229] For Jewish populations of the diaspora, the genetic composition of Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jewish populations show a predominant amount of shared Middle Eastern ancestry. According to Behar, the most parsimonious explanation for this shared Middle Eastern ancestry is that it is "consistent with the historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant" and "the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout the Old World".^[230] North African, Italian and others of Iberian origin show variable frequencies of admixture with non-Jewish historical host populations among the maternal lines. In the case of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews (in particular Moroccan Jews), who are closely related, the source of non-Jewish admixture is mainly Southern European, while Mizrahi Jews show evidence of admixture with other Middle Eastern populations. Behar et al. have remarked on a close relationship between Ashkenazi Jews and modern Italians.^[230][231] A 2001 study found that Jews were more closely related to groups of the Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks, and Armenians) than to their Arab neighbors, whose genetic signature was found in geographic patterns reflective of Islamic conquests.^[221][232]

The studies also show that

Y-DNA analyses in the 2000s have established a partially Middle-Eastern origin for a portion of the male Lemba population but have been unable to narrow this down further.^[235][236]

Population centers

For a more comprehensive list, see Jewish population by city.

Although historically, Jews have been found all over the world, in the decades since World War II and the establishment of Israel, they have increasingly concentrated in a small number of countries.^[237][238] In 2021, Israel and the United States together accounted for over 85 percent of the global Jewish population, with approximately 45.3% and 39.6% of the world's Jews, respectively.^[1]

According to the

The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, the world's Jewish population is 13.2 million.^[240] This statistic incorporates both practicing Jews affiliated with synagogues and the Jewish community, and approximately 4.5 million unaffiliated and secular Jews.^{[citation needed}

]

According to

Jewish population, in 2021 there were about 6.8 million Jews in Israel, 6 million in the United States, and 2.3 million in the rest of the world.^[1]

Israel

Main article: Israeli Jews

democratic and Jewish state on 14 May 1948.^[242] Of the 120 members in its parliament, the Knesset,^[243] as of 2016^[update], 14 members of the Knesset are Arab citizens of Israel (not including the Druze), most representing Arab political parties. One of Israel's Supreme Court judges is also an Arab citizen of Israel.^[244]

Between 1948 and 1958, the Jewish population rose from 800,000 to two million.

Ethiopian Jews, many of whom were airlifted to Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s.^[249][250] Between 1974 and 1979 nearly 227,258 immigrants arrived in Israel, about half being from the Soviet Union.^[251] This period also saw an increase in immigration to Israel from Western Europe, Latin America, and North America.^[252]

A trickle of immigrants from other communities has also arrived, including

Ashkenazi Holocaust survivors who had settled in countries such as the United States, Argentina, Australia, Chile, and South Africa. Some Jews have emigrated from Israel elsewhere, because of economic problems or disillusionment with political conditions and the continuing Arab–Israeli conflict. Jewish Israeli emigrants are known as yordim.^[253]

Diaspora (outside Israel)

Main article: Jewish diaspora

pogroms of the Russian Empire to the safety of the U.S. between 1881 and 1924.^[254]

Jews live in Siberia.^[255]

The waves of

Jewish exodus from Arab lands, all resulted in substantial shifts in the population centers of world Jewry by the end of the 20th century.^[256]

More than half of the Jews live in the Diaspora (see Population table). Currently, the largest Jewish community outside Israel, and either the largest or second-largest Jewish community in the world, is located in the United States, with 5.2 million to 6.4 million Jews by various estimates. Elsewhere in the Americas, there are also large Jewish populations in

History of the Jews in Latin America).^[257] According to a 2010 Pew Research Center study, about 470,000 people of Jewish heritage live in Latin-America and the Caribbean.^[258] Demographers disagree on whether the United States has a larger Jewish population than Israel, with many maintaining that Israel surpassed the United States in Jewish population during the 2000s, while others maintain that the United States still has the largest Jewish population in the world. Currently, a major national Jewish population survey is planned to ascertain whether or not Israel has overtaken the United States in Jewish population.^[259]

Eastern Europe, the exact figures are difficult to establish. The number of Jews in Russia varies widely according to whether a source uses census data (which requires a person to choose a single nationality among choices that include "Russian" and "Jewish") or eligibility for immigration to Israel (which requires that a person have one or more Jewish grandparents). According to the latter criteria, the heads of the Russian Jewish community assert that up to 1.5 million Russians are eligible for aliyah.^[261][262] In Germany, the 102,000 Jews registered with the Jewish community are a slowly declining population,^[263] despite the immigration of tens of thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union since the fall of the Berlin Wall.^[264] Thousands of Israelis also live in Germany, either permanently or temporarily, for economic reasons.^[265]

Prior to 1948, approximately 800,000 Jews were living in lands which now make up the

Iranian Jews peaked in the 1980s when around 80 percent of Iranian Jews left the country.^{[citation needed}

]

Outside

South Africa (70,000).^[40] There is also a 6,800-strong community in New Zealand.^[268]

Demographic changes

Main article:

Historical Jewish population comparisons

Assimilation

Main articles: Jewish assimilation and Interfaith marriage in Judaism

Since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks, a proportion of Jews have assimilated into the wider non-Jewish society around them, by either choice or force, ceasing to practice Judaism and losing their Jewish identity.^[269] Assimilation took place in all areas, and during all time periods,^[269] with some Jewish communities, for example the Kaifeng Jews of China, disappearing entirely.^[270] The advent of the Jewish Enlightenment of the 18th century (see Haskalah) and the subsequent emancipation of the Jewish populations of Europe and America in the 19th century, accelerated the situation, encouraging Jews to increasingly participate in, and become part of, secular society. The result has been a growing trend of assimilation, as Jews marry non-Jewish spouses and stop participating in the Jewish community.^[271]

Rates of interreligious marriage vary widely: In the United States, it is just under 50 percent,^[272] in the United Kingdom, around 53 percent; in France; around 30 percent,^[273] and in Australia and Mexico, as low as 10 percent.^[274] In the United States, only about a third of children from intermarriages affiliate with Jewish religious practice.^[275] The result is that most countries in the Diaspora have steady or slightly declining religiously Jewish populations as Jews continue to assimilate into the countries in which they live.^{[citation needed]}

War and persecution

Further information: Persecution of Jews, Antisemitism, and Jewish military history

The Jewish people and

Roman era and later by officially establishing them as second-class citizens during the Christian Roman era.^[276][277]

According to

James Carroll, "Jews accounted for 10% of the total population of the Roman Empire. By that ratio, if other factors had not intervened, there would be 200 million Jews in the world today, instead of something like 13 million."^[278]

Later in medieval Western Europe, further persecutions of Jews by Christians occurred, notably during the Crusades—when Jews all over Germany were massacred—and in a series of expulsions from the Kingdom of England, Germany, and France. Then there occurred the largest expulsion of all, when Spain and Portugal, after the Reconquista (the Catholic Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula), expelled both unbaptized Sephardic Jews and the ruling Muslim Moors.^[279][280]

In the Papal States, which existed until 1870, Jews were required to live only in specified neighborhoods called ghettos.^[281]

dhimmis, were allowed to practice their religions and administer their internal affairs, but they were subject to certain conditions.^[282] They had to pay the jizya (a per capita tax imposed on free adult non-Muslim males) to the Islamic state.^[282] Dhimmis had an inferior status under Islamic rule. They had several social and legal disabilities such as prohibitions against bearing arms or giving testimony in courts in cases involving Muslims.^[283] Many of the disabilities were highly symbolic. The one described by Bernard Lewis as "most degrading"^[284] was the requirement of distinctive clothing, not found in the Quran or hadith but invented in early medieval Baghdad; its enforcement was highly erratic.^[284] On the other hand, Jews rarely faced martyrdom or exile, or forced compulsion to change their religion, and they were mostly free in their choice of residence and profession.^[285]

Notable exceptions include the massacre of Jews and forcible conversion of some Jews by the rulers of the

better source needed

]

Throughout history, many rulers, empires and nations have oppressed their Jewish populations or sought to eliminate them entirely. Methods employed ranged from

Tsars;^[292] as well as expulsions from Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, and other countries in which the Jews had settled.^[280] According to a 2008 study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, 19.8 percent of the modern Iberian population has Sephardic Jewish ancestry,^[293] indicating that the number of conversos may have been much higher than originally thought.^[294][295]

The persecution reached a peak in

ghettos before being transported hundreds of kilometres by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority of them were murdered in gas chambers.^[302] Virtually every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics of the mass murder, turning the country into what one Holocaust scholar has called "a genocidal nation."^[303]

Migrations

Further information:

Expulsions of Jews

Throughout Jewish history, Jews have repeatedly been directly or indirectly expelled from both their original homeland, the

Children of Israel, in the Biblical story (whose historicity is uncertain) undertook the Exodus (meaning "departure" or "exit" in Greek) from ancient Egypt, as recorded in the Book of Exodus.^[307]

Centuries later, Assyrian policy was to deport and displace conquered peoples, and it is estimated some 4,500,000 among captive populations suffered this dislocation over three centuries of Assyrian rule.^[308] With regard to Israel, Tiglath-Pileser III claims he deported 80% of the population of Lower Galilee, some 13,520 people.^[309] Some 27,000 Israelites, 20 to 25% of the population of the Kingdom of Israel, were described as being deported by Sargon II, and were replaced by other deported populations and sent into permanent exile by Assyria, initially to the Upper Mesopotamian provinces of the Assyrian Empire.^[310][311] Between 10,000 and 80,000 people from the Kingdom of Judah were similarly exiled by Babylonia,^[308] but these people were then returned to Judea by Cyrus the Great of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.^[312]

Many Jews were exiled again by the

United States^[319] and, as a result of Zionism, back to Israel.^[320]

There were also many expulsions of Jews during the Middle Ages and Enlightenment in Europe, including: 1290, 16,000 Jews were expelled from England, see the (

Catholic church, followed by expulsions in 1493 in Sicily (37,000 Jews) and Portugal in 1496. The expelled Jews fled mainly to the Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands, and North Africa, others migrating to Southern Europe and the Middle East.^[322]

During the 19th century, France's policies of equal citizenship regardless of religion led to the immigration of Jews (especially from Eastern and Central Europe).[323] This contributed to the arrival of millions of Jews in the New World. Over two million Eastern European Jews arrived in the United States from 1880 to 1925.^[324]

In summary, the pogroms in Eastern Europe,^[292] the rise of modern antisemitism,^[325] the Holocaust,^[326] as well as the rise of Arab nationalism,^[327] all served to fuel the movements and migrations of huge segments of Jewry from land to land and continent to continent until they arrived back in large numbers at their original historical homeland in Israel.^[320]

In the latest phase of migrations, the

Soviet Union collapsed, many of the Jews in the affected territory (who had been refuseniks) were suddenly allowed to leave. This produced a wave of migration to Israel in the early 1990s.^[253]

Growth

Israel is the only country with a Jewish population that is consistently growing through

Haredi Jewish communities, whose members often shun birth control for religious reasons, have experienced rapid population growth.^[329]

Orthodox and Conservative Judaism discourage proselytism to non-Jews, but many Jewish groups have tried to reach out to the assimilated Jewish communities of the Diaspora in order for them to reconnect to their Jewish roots. Additionally, while in principle Reform Judaism favors seeking new members for the faith, this position has not translated into active proselytism, instead taking the form of an effort to reach out to non-Jewish spouses of intermarried couples.^[330]

There is also a trend of Orthodox movements reaching out to secular Jews in order to give them a stronger

gentiles who make the decision to head in the direction of becoming Jews.^[332]

Contributions

Jewish individuals have played a significant role in the development of

Jewish theatre, Jewish cuisine and Jewish medicine.^[336][337] Jews have established various Jewish political movements,^[45] and Jewish religious movements, and, though the authorship of the Hebrew Bible and parts of the New Testament,^[51][52] provided the foundation for Christianity,^[53] and for Islam.^[54] More than 20 percent^{[338][339][340][341][342][343]} of the awarded Nobel Prize have gone to individuals of Jewish descent.^[344]

Notes

1. ^ Starting from the core Jewish population estimate of 15,166,200 worldwide in 2021, if we add people who state they are partly Jewish and people who are currently not Jews but have one or two Jewish parents, a broader global population estimate of 19,937,600 is obtained. By adding those who say they have Jewish background but not a Jewish parent and all non-Jewish household members who live with Jews, we arrive at an enlarged estimate of 22,626,000.^[1]
2. who is a Jew may affect the figure considerably depending on the source.^[44]

Citations

1. ^
   Berman Jewish DataBank
   . Retrieved 4 September 2023.
2. ^ ^{a b c} "Global Jewish population hits 15.7 million ahead of new year, 46% of them in Israel | the Times of Israel". The Times of Israel.
3. ^
   Beth Hatefutsoth. Archived from the original
   on 26 March 2009. Retrieved 2 April 2012.
4. ^ "New Poll Shows Atheism on Rise, With Jews Found to Be Least Religious". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 19 July 2018. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
5. ISBN 978-1-61233-093-8
   .
6. ^
   S2CID 1571356
   .
7. ISBN 978-0-472-07280-4
   .
8. ^ Wade, Nicholas (9 June 2010). "Studies Show Jews' Genetic Similarity". The New York Times.
9. S2CID 8136092
   .
10. ^ "Jews Are the Genetic Brothers of Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese". Sciencedaily.com. 9 May 2000. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
11. ^
    PMID 20560205
    .
12. ^ ^{a b}
    • Ethnic minorities in English law. Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved on 23 December 2010.
    • Edgar Litt (1961). "Jewish Ethno-Religious Involvement and Political Liberalism". Social Forces. 39 (4): 328–32.
      JSTOR 2573430
      .
    • Craig R. Prentiss (2003). Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction. NYU Press. pp. 85–.
      ISBN 978-0-8147-6700-9
      .
    • The Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Eli Lederhendler Stephen S. Wise Professor of American Jewish History and Institutions (2001). Studies in Contemporary Jewry : Volume XVII: Who Owns Judaism? Public Religion and Private Faith in America and Israel: Volume XVII: Who Owns Judaism? Public Religion and Private Faith in America and Israel. Oxford University Press, USA. pp. 101–.
      ISBN 978-0-19-534896-5
      .
    • Ernest Krausz; Gitta Tulea. Jewish Survival: The Identity Problem at the Close of the Twentieth Century; [... International Workshop at Bar-Ilan University on the 18th and 19th of March, 1997]. Transaction Publishers. pp. 90–.
      ISBN 978-1-4128-2689-1
      .
    • John A. Shoup III (2011). Ethnic Groups of Africa and the Middle East: An Encyclopedia: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 133.
      ISBN 978-1-59884-363-7
      .
    • Tet-Lim N. Yee (2005). Jews, Gentiles and Ethnic Reconciliation: Paul's Jewish identity and Ephesians. Cambridge University Press. pp. 102–.
      ISBN 978-1-139-44411-8
      .
13. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8147-5822-9
    . "The Jews are a nation and were so before there was a Jewish state of Israel"
14. ^
    ISBN 978-0-664-25348-6
    . "That there is a Jewish nation can hardly be denied after the creation of the State of Israel"
15. ^
    ISBN 978-0-520-92706-3
    . "Jews are a people, a nation (in the original sense of the word), an ethnos"
16. ^ ^{a b} Brandeis, Louis (25 April 1915). "The Jewish Problem: How To Solve It". University of Louisville School of Law. Retrieved 2 April 2012. Jews are a distinctive nationality of which every Jew, whatever his country, his station or shade of belief, is necessarily a member
17. ^
    OCLC 51578088
    . Retrieved 2 April 2012.
18. OCLC 54913803
    . Few would seriously challenge the belief that most modern Jews are descended from the ancient Hebrews
19. ISBN 978-0-19-513941-9
    . Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites"
20. ISBN 978-1-4381-2676-0
    ."The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history"
21. ISBN 9780495502883
    . The people of Judah survived, eventually becoming known as the Jews and giving their name to Judaism, the religion of Yahweh, the Israelite God.
22. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-997638-6
    .
23. ^ "Jew | History, Beliefs, & Facts". Britannica. Archived from the original on 1 September 2022. Retrieved 20 August 2022. any person whose religion is Judaism. In the broader sense of the term, a Jew is any person belonging to the worldwide group that constitutes, through descent or conversion, a continuation of the ancient Jewish people, who were themselves descendants of the Hebrews of the Bible (Old Testament).
24. ^ Jew. Cambridge Dictionary. Archived from the original on 6 July 2021. a member of a people whose traditional religion is Judaism
    Jew. Oxford Dictionary. Archived from the original on 13 February 2023. a member of the people and cultural community whose traditional religion is Judaism and who come from the ancient Hebrew people of Israel; a person who believes in and practises Judaism
    Jew. Collins. Archived from the original on 22 July 2023. a person whose religion is Judaism", "a member of the Semitic people who claim descent from the ancient Hebrew people of Israel, are spread throughout the world, and are linked by cultural or religious ties
25. ISBN 978-0-19-534896-5
    . "Historically, the religious and ethnic dimensions of Jewish identity have been closely interwoven. In fact, so closely bound are they, that the traditional Jewish lexicon hardly distinguishes between the two concepts. Jewish religious practice, by definition, was observed exclusively by the Jewish people, and notions of Jewish peoplehood, nation, and community were suffused with faith in the Jewish God, the practice of Jewish (religious) law and the study of ancient religious texts"
26. ISBN 978-1-139-44411-8
    . "This identification in the Jewish attitude between the ethnic group and religious identity is so close that the reception into this religion of members not belonging to its ethnic group has become impossible."
27. ISBN 978-0-8147-5822-9
    . "The Jews are a nation and were so before there was a Jewish state of Israel"
28. ISBN 978-0-520-92706-3
    . "Jews are a people, a nation (in the original sense of the word), an ethnos"
29. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4128-2689-1
    . "A person born Jewish who refutes Judaism may continue to assert a Jewish identity, and if he or she does not convert to another religion, even religious Jews will recognize the person as a Jew"
30. ^ "A Portrait of Jewish Americans". Pew Research Center. 1 October 2013. But the survey also suggests that Jewish identity is changing in America, where one-in-five Jews (22%) now describe themselves as having no religion.
31. ^ "BBC - Religions - Judaism: Converting to Judaism". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 29 September 2023.
32. ^
    John Day
    (2005), In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel, Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 47.5 [48] 'In this sense, the emergence of ancient Israel is viewed not as the cause of the demise of Canaanite culture but as its upshot'.
33. ISBN 978-0-674-04108-0
    .
34. ^ "Knowledge Resources: Judaism". Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Archived from the original on 27 August 2011. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
35. ISBN 978-1-58983-055-4
    . Since the exilic era constitutes a gaping hole in the historical narrative of the Bible, historical reconstruction of this era faces almost insurmountable difficulties. Like the premonarchic period and the late Persian period, the exilic period, though set in the bright light of Ancient Near Eastern history, remains historically obscure. Since there are very few Israelite sources, the only recourse is to try to cast some light on this darkness from the history of the surrounding empires under whose dominion Israel came in this period.
36. ISBN 978-1-111-83720-4
    .
    • Botticini, Maristella; Eckstein, Zvi (1 September 2007). "From Farmers to Merchants, Conversions and Diaspora: Human Capital and Jewish History". Journal of the European Economic Association. 5 (5): 885–926.
      doi:10.1162/JEEA.2007.5.5.885
      . "The death toll of the Great Revolt against the Roman empire amounted to about 600,000 Jews, whereas the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 caused the death of about 500,000 Jews. Massacres account for roughly 40 percent of the decrease of the Jewish population in Palestine. Moreover, some Jews migrated to Babylon after these revolts because of the worse economic conditions. After accounting for massacres and migrations, there is an additional 30 to 40 percent of the decrease in the Jewish population in Palestine (about 1–1.3 million Jews) to be explained" (p. 19).
    • Boyarin, Daniel, and Jonathan Boyarin. 2003. Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Diaspora. p. 714 Archived 11 October 2020 at the Wayback Machine "...it is crucial to recognize that the Jewish conception of the Land of Israel is similar to the discourse of the Land of many (if not nearly all) "indigenous" peoples of the world. Somehow the Jews have managed to retain a sense of being rooted somewhere in the world through twenty centuries of exile from that someplace (organic metaphors are not out of place in this discourse, for they are used within the tradition itself). It is profoundly disturbing to hear Jewish attachment to the Land decried as regressive in the same discursive situations in which the attachment of native Americans or Australians to their particular rocks, trees, and deserts is celebrated as an organic connection to the Earth that "we" have lost" p. 714.
    • Cohen, Robin (1997), Global Diasporas: An Introduction. p. 24 London: UCL Press. "...although the word Babylon often connotes captivity and oppression, a rereading of the Babylonian period of exile can thus be shown to demonstrate the development of a new creative energy in a challenging, pluralistic context outside the natal homeland. When the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in AD 70, it was Babylon that remained as the nerve- and brain-centre for Jewish life and thought...the crushing of the revolt of the Judaeans against the Romans and the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman general Titus in AD 70 precisely confirmed the catastrophic tradition. Once again, Jews had been unable to sustain a national homeland and were scattered to the far corners of the world" (p. 24).
    • Johnson, Paul A History of the Jews "The Bar Kochba Revolt," (HarperPerennial, 1987) pp. 158–61: Paul Johnson analyzes Cassius Dio's Roman History: Epitome of Book LXIX para. 13–14 (Dio's passage cited separately) among other sources: "Even if Dio's figures are somewhat exaggerated, the casualties amongst the population and the destruction inflicted on the country would have been considerable. According to Jerome, many Jews were also sold into slavery, so many, indeed, that the price of Jewish slaves at the slave market in Hebron sank drastically to a level no greater than that for a horse. The economic structure of the country was largely destroyed. The entire spiritual and economic life of the Palestinian Jews moved to Galilee. Jerusalem was now turned into a Roman colony with the official name Colonia Aelia Capitolina (Aelia after Hadrian's family name: P. Aelius Hadrianus; Capitolina after Jupiter Capitolinus). The Jews were forbidden on pain of death to set foot in the new Roman city. Aelia thus became a completely pagan city, no doubt with the corresponding public buildings and temples... We can...be certain that a statue of Hadrian was erected in the centre of Aelia, and this was tantamount in itself to a desecration of Jewish Jerusalem." p. 159.
    • Cassius Dio's Roman History: Epitome of Book LXIX para. 13–14: "13 At first the Romans took no account of them. Soon, however, all Judaea had been stirred up, and the Jews everywhere were showing signs of disturbance, were gathering together, and giving evidence of great hostility to the Romans, partly by secret and partly by overt acts; 2 many outside nations, too, were joining them through eagerness for gain, and the whole earth, one might almost say, was being stirred up over the matter. Then, indeed, Hadrian sent against them his best generals. First of these was Julius Severus, who was dispatched from Britain, where he was governor, against the Jews. 3 Severus did not venture to attack his opponents in the open at any one point, in view of their numbers and their desperation, but by intercepting small groups, thanks to the number of his soldiers and his under-officers, and by depriving them of food and shutting them up, he was able, rather slowly, to be sure, but with comparatively little danger, to crush, exhaust and exterminate them. Very few of them in fact survived. Fifty of their most important outposts and nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. Five hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. 2 Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate, a result of which the people had had forewarning before the war. For the tomb of Solomon, which the Jews regard as an object of veneration, fell to pieces of itself and collapsed, and many wolves and hyenas rushed howling into their cities. 3 Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war. Therefore Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, 'If you and our children are in health, it is well; I and the legions are in health'" (para. 13–14).
    • Safran, William (2005). "The Jewish Diaspora in a Comparative and Theoretical Perspective". Israel Studies. 10 (1): 36–60.
      Project MUSE 180371
      . "...diaspora referred to a very specific case—that of the exile of the Jews from the Holy Land and their dispersal throughout several parts of the globe. Diaspora [galut] connoted deracination, legal disabilities, oppression, and an often painful adjustment to a hostland whose hospitality was unreliable and ephemeral. It also connoted the existence on foreign soil of an expatriate community that considered its presence to be transitory. Meanwhile, it developed a set of institutions, social patterns, and ethnonational and/or religious symbols that held it together. These included the language, religion, values, social norms, and narratives of the homeland. Gradually, this community adjusted to the hostland environment and became itself a center of cultural creation. All the while, however, it continued to cultivate the idea of return to the homeland." (p. 36).
    • Sheffer, Gabriel (2005). "Is the Jewish Diaspora Unique? Reflections on the Diaspora's Current Situation". Israel Studies. 10 (1): 1–35.
      Project MUSE 180374
      . "...the Jewish nation, which from its very earliest days believed and claimed that it was the "chosen people," and hence unique. This attitude has further been buttressed by the equally traditional view, which is held not only by the Jews themselves, about the exceptional historical age of this diaspora, its singular traumatic experiences its singular ability to survive pogroms, exiles, and Holocaust, as well as its "special relations" with its ancient homeland, culminating in 1948 with the nation-state that the Jewish nation has established there... First, like many other members of established diasporas, the vast majority of Jews no longer regard themselves as being in Galut [exile] in their host countries.…Perceptually, as well as actually, Jews permanently reside in host countries of their own free will, as a result of inertia, or as a result of problematic conditions prevailing in other hostlands, or in Israel. It means that the basic perception of many Jews about their existential situation in their hostlands has changed. Consequently, there is both a much greater self- and collective-legitimatization to refrain from making serious plans concerning "return" or actually "making Aliyah" [to emigrate, or "go up"] to Israel. This is one of the results of their wider, yet still rather problematic and sometimes painful acceptance by the societies and political systems in their host countries. It means that they, and to an extent their hosts, do not regard Jewish life within the framework of diasporic formations in these hostlands as something that they should be ashamed of, hide from others, or alter by returning to the old homeland" (p. 4).
    • Davies, William David; Finkelstein, Louis; Katz, Steven T. (1984). The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4, The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period. Cambridge University Press.
      ISBN 978-0-521-77248-8
      . Although Dio's figure of 985 as the number of villages destroyed during the war seems hyperbolic, all Judaean villages, without exception, excavated thus far were razed following the Bar Kochba Revolt. This evidence supports the impression of total regional destruction following the war. Historical sources note the vast number of captives sold into slavery in Palestine and shipped abroad. ... The Judaean Jewish community never recovered from the Bar Kochba war. In its wake, Jews no longer formed the majority in Palestine, and the Jewish center moved to the Galilee. Jews were also subjected to a series of religious edicts promulgated by Hadrian that were designed to uproot the nationalistic elements with the Judaean Jewish community, these proclamations remained in effect until Hadrian's death in 138. An additional, more lasting punitive measure taken by the Romans involved expunging Judaea from the provincial name, changing it from Provincia Judaea to Provincia Syria Palestina. Although such name changes occurred elsewhere, never before or after was a nation's name expunged as the result of rebellion.
    • Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity: Identity Conflicts Between the Exiles and the People who Remained (6th–5th Centuries BCE), A&C Black, 2013 p. xv n.3: 'it is argued that biblical texts of the Neo-Babylonian and the early Persian periods show a fierce adversarial relationship(s) between the Judean groups. We find no expressions of sympathy to the deported community for its dislocation, no empathic expressions towards the People Who Remained under Babylonian subjugation in Judah. The opposite is apparent: hostile, denigrating, and denunciating language characterizes the relationships between resident and exiled Judeans throughout the sixth and fifth centuries.' (p. xvii)
37. ISBN 978-0-671-44103-6
    .
38. ^ Dosick (2007), pp. 59, 60.
39. ^ "Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews - Judaism 101 (JewFAQ)". www.jewfaq.org. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
40. ^ ^{a b} "The Jewish Population of the World (2014)". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 30 June 2015., based on American Jewish Year Book. American Jewish Committee.
41. ^ "The Holocaust". HISTORY.com. Retrieved 10 November 2015.
42. ^ Mitchell, Travis (22 January 2020). "What Americans Know About the Holocaust". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
43. ynetnews
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44. ^ Pfeffer, Anshel (12 September 2007). "Jewish Agency: 13.2 million Jews worldwide on eve of Rosh Hashanah, 5768". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 19 March 2009. Retrieved 24 January 2009.
45. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4411-1851-6
    ."Upon the foundation of Judaism, two civilizations centered on monotheistic religion emerged, Christianity and Islam. To these civilizations, the Jews added a leaven of astonishing creativity in business, medicine, letters, science, the arts, and a variety of other leadership roles."
46. ^ "Maimonides – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy". utm.edu. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
47. ISBN 978-1-4616-7459-7.^{[page needed}
    ]
48. ^ "Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy". DC Theatre Scene.
49. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 20 August 2022.
50. ^ Shatzmiller, Joseph. Doctors to Princes and Paupers: Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society. Berkeley: U of California, 1995. Print.
51. ^
    ISBN 978-1-101-14225-7
    . "During the subsequent five hundred years, under Persian, Greek and Roman domination, the Jews wrote, revised, admitted and canonized all the books now comprising the Jewish Old Testament"
52. ^
    ISBN 978-0-06-210475-5
    ."The fact that Jesus and his followers who wrote the New Testament were first-century Jews, then, produces as many questions as it does answers concerning their experiences, beliefs, and practices"
53. ^
    ISBN 978-0-521-46285-3
    ."Early Christianity began as a Jewish movement in first-century Palestine"
54. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4520-3049-4
    . "Judaism also contributed to the religion of Islam for Islam derives its ideas of holy text, the Qur'an, ultimately from Judaism. The dietary and legal codes of Islam are based on those of Judaism. The basic design of the mosque, the Islamic house of worship, comes from that of the early synagogues. The communal prayer services of Islam and their devotional routines resembles those of Judaism."
55. ^ ^{a b} Cambridge University Historical Series, An Essay on Western Civilization in Its Economic Aspects, p. 40: "Hebraism, like Hellenism, has been an all-important factor in the development of Western Civilization; Judaism, as the precursor of Christianity, has indirectly had much to do with shaping the ideals and morality of Western nations since the Christian era."
56. ^ "Judaism – The Judaic tradition | Britannica". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 20 August 2022. Judaism has played a significant role in the development of Western culture because of its unique relationship with Christianity, the dominant religious force in the West
57. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4
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58. ^ Cf. Marcus Jastrow's Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature, and the source he used: Megilla 13a:2 (Talmud).
59. ^ ^{a b} Amy-Jill Levine. The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006, page 162
60. ^ ^{a b} "Jew", Oxford English Dictionary.
61. ISBN 978-0-8028-2329-8
    .
62. ISBN 978-0-86705-183-4
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63. ISBN 978-0-87023-172-8
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64. S2CID 235573883
    – via Cambridge Core.
65. ^ Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East, Facts On File Inc., Infobase Publishing, 2009, p. 336
66. ^ Adele Reinhartz, "The Vanishing Jews of Antiquity" Archived 22 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine "Marginalia", L.A. Review of Books, 24 June 2014.
67. ISBN 978-0226039336
68. JSTOR 10.3138/j.ctt1287s34
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69. ISBN 9780520226937
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70. ISBN 0-8386-3660-8
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71. ISBN 0-87779-809-5
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72. ISBN 978-0-618-60499-9
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73. ^ Einstein, Albert (21 June 1921). "How I Became a Zionist" (PDF). Einstein Papers Project. Princeton University Press. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 November 2015. Retrieved 5 April 2012. The Jewish nation is a living fact
74. ISBN 978-0-7618-5793-8
    .: "Judaism is a culture and a civilization which embraces the secular as well"
75. ISBN 978-0-304-33758-3
    .: Although culture - and Judaism is a culture (or cultures) as well as religion - can be subdivided into different analytical categories..."
76. ISBN 0-8143-2030-9
    .: "Although Judaism is a culture - or rather has a culture - it is eminently more than a culture"
77. ^ Weiner, Rebecca (2007). "Who is a Jew?". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 6 October 2007.
78. ISBN 1-898723-48-6
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79. ^ "What is the origin of Matrilineal Descent?". Shamash.org. 4 September 2003. Archived from the original on 18 October 1996. Retrieved 9 January 2009.
80. ^ "What is the source of the law that a child is Jewish only if its mother is Jewish?". Torah.org. Archived from the original on 24 December 2008. Retrieved 9 January 2009.
81. ^
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82. ISBN 978-0-253-00482-6
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83. ^ Dosick (2007), pp. 56–57.
84. ^
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85. ISBN 978-1-4051-6070-4
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86. ISBN 978-1-118-89611-2
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87. ^ Curry, Andrew (2018). "The Rulers of Foreign Lands". Archaeology Magazine.
88. S2CID 199601200
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89. ISBN 978-1-4982-8143-0
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90. ISBN 978-1-58465-817-7
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91. ISBN 978-1-58983-097-4
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92. ISBN 978-0-06-233944-7
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93. ^ * "In the broader sense of the term, a Jew is any person belonging to the worldwide group that constitutes, through descent or conversion, a continuation of the ancient Jewish people, who were themselves the descendants of the Hebrews of the Old Testament."
    • "The Jewish people as a whole, initially called Hebrews (ʿIvrim), were known as Israelites (Yisreʾelim) from the time of their entrance into the Holy Land to the end of the Babylonian Exile (538 BC)."
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94. ISBN 978-0-691-14351-4
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95. ^ Adams, Hannah (1840). The History of the Jews: From the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Present Time. London Society House.
96. ISBN 978-0-8147-3308-0
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97. ^
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98. ^ "Judah". Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
99. ^ "Israelite refugees found high office in Kingdom of Judah, seals found in Jerusalem show". Haaretz.
100. ISBN 3-927120-37-5
     . After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible "historical figures" [...] archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit.
101. ^ Tubb, 1998. pp. 13–14^{[full citation needed]}
102. ^ Mark Smith in "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" states "Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (c. 1200–1000 BCE). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp. 6–7). Smith, Mark (2002) "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" (Eerdman's)
103. ^ Rendsberg, Gary (2008). "Israel without the Bible". In Frederick E. Greenspahn. The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship. NYU Press, pp. 3–5
104. ISBN 978-0-495-91324-5
     . What is generally agreed, however, is that between 1200 and 1000 B.C.E., the Israelites emerged as a distinct group of people, possibly united into tribes or a league of tribes
105. ISBN 978-0-567-44117-1
     .
106. ISBN 978-90-04-11943-7
     . They are rather a very specific group among the population of Palestine which bears a name that occurs here for the first time that at a much later stage in Palestine's history bears a substantially different signification.
107. ISBN 978-1-4514-9642-0
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108. ISBN 978-0-415-16216-6
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109. ISBN 90-04-11943-4
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110. ISBN 978-1-317-42815-2
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111. ISBN 978-1-85075-737-5
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112. ISBN 978-0-19-997846-5
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113. ^
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114. ^
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115. ^ ^{a b} Wright, Jacob L. (July 2014). "David, King of Judah (Not Israel)". The Bible and Interpretation.
116. ISBN 978-0-567-63671-3
     . For Israel, the description of the battle of Qarqar in the Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser III (mid-ninth century) and for Judah, a Tiglath-pileser III text mentioning (Jeho-) Ahaz of Judah (IIR67 = K. 3751), dated 734–733, are the earliest published to date.
117. ^ Baker, Luke (3 February 2017). "Ancient tablets reveal life of Jews in Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon". Reuters.
118. ^ Jared Diamond (1993). "Who are the Jews?" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 8 November 2010. Natural History 102:11 (November 1993): 12–19.
119. PMID 10801975
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120. ^ Wade, Nicholas (9 May 2000). "Y Chromosome Bears Witness to Story of the Jewish Diaspora". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 October 2012.
121. ^ Balter, Michael (3 June 2010). "Tracing the Roots of Jewishness". Science. Retrieved 4 October 2018.
122. ISBN 978-0-309-10196-7
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123. ^ Stager 1998, p. 91.
124. ISBN 978-0-8028-2126-3
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125. ^ McNutt 1999, p. 35.
126. ^ ^{a b} Dever 2003, p. 206.
127. ^ Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, pp. 146–7Put simply, while Judah was still economically marginal and backward, Israel was booming. [...] In the next chapter we will see how the northern kingdom suddenly appeared on the ancient Near Eastern stage as a major regional power
128. OCLC 1017604304
     .
129. ^ Tobolowsky 2022, pp. 69–70, 73–75.
130. ISBN 978-0674397316
     . Retrieved 12 October 2018. Sargon's heir, Sennacherib (705–681), could not deal with Hezekiah's revolt until he gained control of Babylon in 702 BCE.
131. ^ Lipiński 2020, p. 94.
132. JSTOR 10.5325/j.ctv1bxh5fd
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133. ^ ^{a b} "Second Temple Period (538 BCE. to 70 CE) Persian Rule". Biu.ac.il. Retrieved 15 March 2014.
134. ^ Harper's Bible Dictionary, ed. by Achtemeier, etc., Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1985, p. 103
135. ^ Yehud being the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew Yehuda, or "Judah", and "medinata" the word for province
136. ISBN 978-0-567-08998-4
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137. ISBN 978-0-19-518831-8. Archived
     from the original on 9 April 2023. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
138. ISSN 2077-1444
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139. ISBN 9789004218512
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140. ^ Strabo, Geography Bk.16.2.34
141. ISBN 978-0-19-518831-8
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142. ISBN 978-0-674-39731-6
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143. OCLC 988856967
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144. ISBN 978-0-8028-2416-5. Archived
     from the original on 9 April 2023. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
145. ^
     ISBN 978-0-691-18127-1
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146. ^ Mor, M. The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kokhba War, 132–136 CE. Brill, 2016. P471/
147. S2CID 236389017
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148. ^ Powell, The Bar Kokhba War AD 132-136, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, ç2017, p.80
149. ISBN 978-90-04-21744-7
     .
150. OCLC 1162305378
     . Until the modern period, the destruction of the Temple was the most cataclysmic moment in the history of the Jewish people. Without the Temple, the Sadducees no longer had any claim to authority, and they faded away. The sage Yochanan ben Zakkai, with permission from Rome, set up the outpost of Yavneh to continue develop of Pharisaic, or rabbinic, Judaism.
151. ^ Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans Harvard University Press, 2009 pp. 3–4, 233–34: 'Compulsory dislocation, .…cannot have accounted for more than a fraction of the diaspora. … The vast bulk of Jews who dwelled abroad in the Second Temple Period did so voluntarily.' (2)' .Diaspora did not await the fall of Jerusalem to Roman power and destructiveness. The scattering of Jews had begun long before-occasionally through forced expulsion, much more frequently through voluntary migration.'
152. ISBN 978-0521243773
     .
153. ^
     OCLC 1302180905
     . The Jewish community strove to recover from the catastrophic results of the Bar Kokhva revolt (132–135 CE). Although some of these attempts were relatively successful, the Jews never fully recovered. During the Late Roman and Byzantine periods, many Jews emigrated to thriving centres in the diaspora, especially Iraq, whereas some converted to Christianity and others continued to live in the Holy Land, especially in Galilee and the coastal plain. During the Byzantine period, the three provinces of Palestine included more than thirty cities, namely, settlements with a bishop see. After the Muslim conquest in the 630s, most of these cities declined and eventually disappeared. As a result, in many cases the local ecclesiastical administration weakened, while in others it simply ceased to exist. Consequently, many local Christians converted to Islam. Thus, almost twelve centuries later, when the army led by Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in the Holy Land, most of the local population was Muslim.
154. ^ Oppenheimer, A'haron and Oppenheimer, Nili. Between Rome and Babylon: Studies in Jewish Leadership and Society. Mohr Siebeck, 2005, p. 2.
155. ISBN 978-3-16-151460-9
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156. ^
     ISBN 978-0-521-70562-2
     . Jews probably remained in the majority in Palestine until some time after the conversion of Constantine in the fourth century. [...] In Babylonia, there had been for many centuries a Jewish community which would have been further strengthened by those fleeing the aftermath of the Roman revolts.
157. ^ "Talmud and Midrash (Judaism) :: The making of the Talmuds: 3rd–6th century". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
158. OCLC 581911264
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159. JSTOR 10.7312/simo10796
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160. ^ Harshav, Benjamin (1999). The Meaning of Yiddish. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 6. "From the fourteenth and certainly by the sixteenth century, the center of European Jewry had shifted to Poland, then ... comprising the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (including today's Byelorussia), Crown Poland, Galicia, the Ukraine and stretching, at times, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, from the approaches to Berlin to a short distance from Moscow."
161. ^ "GAON – JewishEncyclopedia.com". www.jewishencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
162. ISBN 978-1-58330-214-9
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163. ^ Kornberg 1993 "How did Theodor Herzl, an assimilated German nationalist in the 1880s, suddenly in the 1890s become the founder of Zionism?"
164. ^ "Chapter One". The Jewish Agency for Israel1. 21 July 2005. Archived from the original on 10 December 2018. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
165. ^ Lewin, Rhoda G. (1979). "Stereotype and reality in the Jewish immigrant experience in Minneapolis" (PDF). Minnesota History. 46 (7): 259. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 July 2020. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
166. ^ "Jewish Nobel Prize Winners". jinfo.org. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 7 October 2011.
167. ^ "BBC Religions/Converting to Judaism: "A person who converts to Judaism becomes a Jew in every sense of the word, and is just as Jewish as someone born into Judaism."". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
168. ^ "Are Converts Treated as Second Class?". InterfaithFamily. 2 May 2011.
169. ^ "Paul Golin: The Complicated Relationship Between Intermarriage and Jewish Conversion". Huffingtonpost.com. 31 March 2011. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
170. ^ Neusner (1991) p. 64
171. ISBN 0-8143-2651-X
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172. ISBN 0-19-510071-9
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173. ^ ^{a b} Sharot (1997), pp. 29–30.
174. ^ Sharot (1997), pp. 42–43.
175. ^ Sharot (1997), p. 42.
176. ISBN 0-7914-4546-1
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177. ISBN 0-88706-849-9
     .
178. ISBN 0-19-513425-7
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179. ^
     JSTOR 3264497
     .
180. ^ Feldman (2006), p. 54.
181. doi:10.1093/jss/17.2.237
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182. ^ "Basic Law: Israel – The Nation State Of The Jewish People" (PDF). The Knesset. Knesset of the State of Israel. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
183. ISBN 978-94-007-0354-4
     . In contrast to other peoples who are masters of their national languages, Hebrew is not the 'common possession' of all Jewish people, and it mainly—if not exclusively—lives and breathes in Israel.... Although there are oases of Hebrew in certain schools, it has not become the Jewish lingua franca and English is rapidly taking its place as the Jewish people's language of communication. Even Hebrew-speaking Israeli representatives tend to use English in their public appearances at international Jewish conventions.
184. ISBN 978-0-7969-2114-7
     . It is English rather than Hebrew that emerged as the lingua franca of the Jews towards the late 20th century.... This phenomenon occurred despite efforts to make Hebrew a language of communication, and despite the fact that the teaching of Hebrew was considered the raison d'être of the Jewish day schools and the 'nerve center' of Jewish learning.
185. ISBN 978-1-135-14621-4
     . This priority given to English is related to the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and the current status of English as a lingua franca for Jews worldwide.
186. ISBN 978-0-85745-258-0
     . As Stephen P. Cohen observes: 'English is the language of Jewish universal discourse.'
187. Jewish Agency. Archived from the original
     on 7 March 2014. Retrieved 5 April 2014. Only a minority of the Jewish people today can actually speak Hebrew. In order for a Jew from one country to talk to another who speaks a different language, it is more common to use English than Hebrew.
188. ^ Hebrew, Aramaic and the rise of Yiddish. D. Katz. (1985) Readings in the sociology of Jewish languages
189. ^ "Quebec Sephardim Make Breakthroughs". forward.com. 2 April 2004. Retrieved 12 March 2015.
190. ISBN 978-0-8156-5165-9
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191. ISBN 978-0-8020-9386-8
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192. ISBN 978-0-230-62382-8
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193. ^ Andrew Noble Koss (dissertation) (2010). World War I and the Remaking of Jewish Vilna, 1914–1918. Stanford University. pp. 30–31.
194. ISBN 978-3-447-05404-1
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195. ^ Anna Verschik (25 May 2007). "Jewish Russian". Jewish Languages Research Website. Archived from the original on 16 October 2014. Retrieved 1 April 2014.
196. ISBN 978-1-85109-873-6
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197. ISBN 978-1-4426-9728-7
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198. ISBN 978-0-8261-3146-1
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199. ^ Anshel Pfeffer (14 March 2014). "The Jews who said 'no' to Putin". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 26 March 2014.
200. ^ "Bukharan Jews | Jewish Virtual Library". jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 12 March 2015.
201. ^
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202. ^ "Azerbaijan". Like many immigrant communities of the Czarist and Soviet eras in Azerbaijan, Ashkenazi Jews appear to be linguistically Russified. Most Ashkenazi Jews speak Russian as their first language with Azeri being spoken as the second.
203. ISBN 978-1-930143-89-0
     . The community is divided between 'native' Georgian Jews and Russian-speaking Ashkenazim who began migrating there at the beginning of the 19th century, and especially during World War II.
204. Tadzhikistan have adopted Tadzhik
     as their first language. The number of Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazic Jews in that region is comparatively low (cf. 2,905 in 1979). Both Ashkenazic and Oriental Jews have assimilated to Russian, the number of Jews speaking Russian as their first language amounting to a total of 6,564. It is reasonable to assume that the percentage of assimilated Ashkenazim is much higher than the portion of Oriental Jews.
205. ISBN 978-3-11-086280-5
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206. ISBN 978-0-8032-2465-0
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207. ISBN 978-0-253-00146-7
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208. ^ "Tunisia". jdc.org. Archived from the original on 16 October 2013. Retrieved 12 March 2015.
209. ISBN 90-04-13693-2
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210. ISBN 0-7425-5229-2
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211. ^ "Messiah – Key beliefs in Judaism – GCSE Religious Studies Revision – Eduqas". BBC Bitesize. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
212. ^ "David Goodblatt". history.ucsd.edu.
213. ^ "Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism". Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
214. ^ Adam L. Porter, Illinois College, review of Goodblatt, David M., Elements of ancient Jewish nationalism, 2006 Archived 9 February 2020 at the Wayback Machine, in Journal of Hebrew Scriptures – Volume 9 (2009)
215. JSTOR 40207028
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216. ^ Dosick (2007), p. 60.
217. ^ Dosick (2007), p. 59.
218. ^
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219. ^ Dosick (2007), p. 61.
220. PMID 10801975
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221. ^
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222. ISBN 978-0-08-055137-1
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224. ^ Lewontin, Richard (6 December 2012). "Is There a Jewish Gene?". New York Review of Books. 59 (19).
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227. ^ "Sign In" (PDF). Family Tree DNA. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
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229. doi:10.1038/news.2010.277
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230. ^
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231. PMID 20925954
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232. PMID 23468648
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233. ^ "Jews Are a 'Race,' Genes Reveal". Forward.com. 4 May 2012. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
234. ^ Begley, Sharon (6 August 2012). "Genetic study offers clues to history of North Africa's Jews". Reuters. Archived from the original on 18 November 2015. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
235. PMID 8900243
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237. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 529, 560–62.
238. ^ "Jews". 18 December 2012.
239. ^ "Jewish population in the world and in Israel" (PDF). Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 October 2011. Retrieved 18 July 2012.
240. ^ Pfeffer, Anshel (6 January 2008). "Percent of world Jewry living in Israel climbed to 41% in 2007". Haaretz. Retrieved 10 October 2012.
241. ^ "Iran must attack Israel by 2014". The Jerusalem Post. 9 February 2012. Retrieved 3 April 2012.
242. ^ "Israel". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 19 June 2007. Retrieved 20 July 2007.
243. ^ "The Electoral System in Israel". The Knesset. Retrieved 8 August 2007.
244. ^ "Israel". Freedom in the World. Freedom House. 2009. Archived from the original on 19 August 2012. Retrieved 5 April 2012.
245. ^ "Population, by Religion and Population Group". Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. 2006. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 7 August 2007.
246. ^ Drukman, Yaron (20 June 1995). "Jewish New Year: Israel's population nears 8M mark". Ynetnews. Ynetnews.com. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
247. ^ Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem (1 January 2013). "Israel's Jewish population passes 6 million mark". Guardian. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
248. ^ Dekmejian 1975, p. 247. "And most [Oriental-Sephardic Jews] came... because of Arab persecution resulting from the very attempt to establish a Jewish state in Palestine."
249. ^ "airlifted tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews". Retrieved 7 July 2005.
250. ^ Goldenberg, Tia (10 March 2018). "Ethiopian-Israelis decry separation from relatives as discriminatory". Times of Israel. Retrieved 20 February 2024.
251. ^ Alexeyeva, Lyudmila (1983). История инакомыслия в СССР [History of Dissident Movement in the USSR] (in Russian). Vilnius. Archived from the original on 9 March 2017. Retrieved 5 April 2012.
252. ^ Goldstein (1995) p. 24
253. ^ ^{a b} Dosick (2007), p. 340.
254. ISBN 0-415-91924-X
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255. ^ "Planting Jewish roots in Siberia". Fjc.ru. 24 May 2004. Archived from the original on 27 August 2009.
256. ^ Gartner (2001), p. 213.
257. ^ "Annual Assessment" (PDF). Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (Jewish Agency for Israel). 2007. p. 15., based on Annual Assessment 2007. Vol. 106. American Jewish Committee. 2006.
258. ^ "Jews – Pew Research Center". Pew Research Center. 2 April 2015. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
259. ^ "Israel May Be Main Topic In Next National Jewish Population Survey of the U.S." Jewish Journal. 14 March 2013. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
260. ^ Gartner (2001), pp. 410–10.
261. ^ "Исследование: Около 1,5 млн людей с еврейскими корнями проживают в России" [Study: About 1.5 Million People with Jewish Roots Live in Russia]. Moscow Urban News Agency. 20 October 2017. Retrieved 28 October 2017.
262. ^ "В России проживает около миллиона иудеев" [In Russia, There Are About a Million Jews]. Interfax. 26 February 2015. Retrieved 28 October 2017.
263. ^ "Mitgliederstatistik der jüdischen Gemeinden und Landesverbände: Zu und Abgänge 2012" (PDF). 4 December 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 December 2013. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
264. ^ Waxman, Chaim I. (2007). "Annual Assessment 2007" (PDF). Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (Jewish Agency for Israel). pp. 40–42. Retrieved 3 July 2008.
265. ^ "Israelis in Berlin". Jewish Community of Berlin. Retrieved 11 October 2012.
266. ISBN 978-0-7618-4846-2
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267. ISBN 978-0-231-50759-2
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268. ^ Congress, World Jewish. "World Jewish Congress". World Jewish Congress. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
269. ^ ^{a b} Johnson (1987), p. 171.
270. ^ Edinger, Bernard (15 December 2005). "Chinese Jews: Reverence for Ancestors". Shavei Israel. Archived from the original on 3 October 2012. Retrieved 2 April 2012.
271. ^ Elazar (2003), p. 434.
272. ^ "NJPS: Defining and Calculating Intermarriage". The Jewish Federations of North America. Archived from the original on 12 August 2011. Retrieved 2 April 2012.
273. ^ Cohen, Erik H. (November 2002). "Les juifs de France: La lente progression des mariages mixtes" [The Jews of France: The slow progression of mixed marriages] (PDF) (in French). Akadem. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
274. ^ "Australia". World Jewish Congress. Archived from the original on 21 May 2012. Retrieved 2 April 2012.
275. ^ Waxman, Chaim I. (2007). "Annual Assessment 2007" (PDF). Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (Jewish Agency for Israel). p. 61. Retrieved 3 July 2008.
276. ^ Goldenberg (2007), pp. 131, 135–36.
277. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 164–65.
278. ISBN 0-395-77927-8
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279. ^ ^{a b} Johnson (1987), pp. 207–08.
280. ^ ^{a b} Johnson (1987), pp. 213, 229–31.
281. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 243–44.
282. ^ ^{a b} Lewis (1984), pp. 10, 20
283. ^ Lewis (1987), pp. 9, 27
284. ^ ^{a b} Lewis (1999), p.131
285. ^ Lewis (1999), p. 131; (1984), pp. 8, 62
286. ^ Lewis (1984), p. 52; Stillman (1979), p. 77
287. ^ Lewis (1984), pp. 17–18, 94–95; Stillman (1979), p. 27
288. ^ Lewis (1984), p. 28.
289. ^ Lewis, Bernard (June 1998). "Muslim Anti-Semitism". Middle East Quarterly. Middle East Forum.
290. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 226–29.
291. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 259–60.
292. ^ ^{a b} Johnson (1987), pp. 364–65.
293. PMID 19061982
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294. ^ "DNA study shows 20 percent of Iberian population has Jewish ancestry". The New York Times. 4 December 2008.
295. PMID 19061982
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296. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 512.
297. ^ "The continuing decline of Europe's Jewish population". 9 February 2015. Archived from the original on 1 April 2020.
298. ^ Donald L Niewyk, The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, Columbia University Press, 2000, p. 45: "The Holocaust is commonly defined as the murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans in World War II." However, the Holocaust usually includes all of the different victims who were systematically murdered.
299. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 484–88.
300. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 490–92.
301. ^ "Ukrainian mass Jewish grave found". BBC News Online. 5 June 2007. Retrieved 10 October 2012.
302. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 493–98.
303. ^ Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know," United States Holocaust Museum, 2006, p. 103.
304. ^ de Lange (2002), pp. 41–43.
305. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 10.
306. ^  Hirsch, Emil G.; Seligsohn, Max; Bacher, Wilhelm (1901–1906). "NIMROD". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
307. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 30.
308. ^
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310. ISBN 9780802862600
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311. ISBN 9780826469694
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312. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 85–86.
313. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 147.
314. ^ "The Post-Second Temple Period". The Jewish Agency. 31 May 2005. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
315. S2CID 263234025
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316. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 163.
317. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 177.
318. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 231.
319. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 460.
320. ^ ^{a b} Gartner (2001), p. 431.
321. ^ Gartner (2001), pp. 11–12.
322. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 229–31.
323. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 306.
324. ^ Johnson (1987), p. 370.
325. ^ Gartner (2001), pp. 213–15.
326. ^ Gartner (2001), pp. 357–70.
327. ^ Johnson (1987), pp. 529–30.
328. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4
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329. ^ Gartner (2001), pp. 400–01.
330. ^ Kaplan (2003), p. 301.
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332. ^ de Lange (2002), p. 220.
333. ^ "Judaism – The Judaic tradition | Britannica". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 20 August 2022. Judaism has played a significant role in the development of Western culture because of its unique relationship with Christianity, the dominant religious force in the West
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335. ISBN 978-1-4616-7459-7.^{[page needed}
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336. ISSN 0362-4331
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337. ^ Shatzmiller, Joseph. Doctors to Princes and Paupers: Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society. Berkeley: U of California, 1995. Print.
338. ^ Shalev, Baruch (2005). 100 Years of Nobel Prizes. p. 57. A striking fact... is the high number of Laureates of the Jewish faith—over 20% of the total Nobel Prizes (138); including: 17% in Chemistry, 26% in Medicine and Physics, 40% in Economics and 11% in Peace and Literature each. These numbers are especially startling in light of the fact that only some 14 million people (0.2% of the world's population) are Jewish.
339. ^ Dobbs, Stephen Mark (12 October 2001). "As the Nobel Prize marks centennial, Jews constitute 1/5 of laureates". J. The Jewish News of Northern California. Retrieved 3 April 2012. Throughout the 20th century, Jews, more so than any other minority, ethnic or cultural group, have been recipients of the Nobel Prize—perhaps the most distinguished award for human endeavor in the six fields for which it is given. Remarkably, Jews constitute almost one-fifth of all Nobel laureates. This, in a world in which Jews number just a fraction of 1 percent of the population.
340. ^ "Jewish Nobel Prize Winners". Archived from the original on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
341. John Wiley & Sons
     . Similarly, because Jews make up less than a quarter of one percent of the world's population, it's surprising that over 20 percent of Nobel prizes have been awarded to Jews or people of Jewish descent.
342. ^ Lawrence E. Harrison (2008). The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save It. Oxford University Press. p. 102. That achievement is symbolized by the fact that 15 to 20 percent of Nobel Prizes have been won by Jews, who represent two tenths of one percent of the world's population.
343. ^ Jonathan B. Krasner; Jonathan D. Sarna (2006). The History of the Jewish People: Ancient Israel to 1880s America. Behrman House, Inc. p. 1. These accomplishments account for 20 percent of the Nobel Prizes awarded since 1901. What a feat for a people who make up only .2 percent of the world's population!
344. ^ "Jewish Nobel Prize Winners". Jinfo.org. Retrieved 16 March 2016. At least 194 Jews and people of half- or three-quarters-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize, accounting for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2015, and constituting 36% of all US recipients during the same period. In the scientific research fields of Chemistry, Economics, Physics, and Physiology/Medicine, the corresponding world and US percentages are 26% and 38%, respectively. Among women laureates in the four research fields, the Jewish percentages (world and US) are 33% and 50%, respectively. Of organizations awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 22% were founded principally by Jews or by people of half-Jewish descent. Since the turn of the century (i.e., since the year 2000), Jews have been awarded 25% of all Nobel Prizes and 28% of those in the scientific research fields.

Sources

• Coogan, Michael D., ed. (1998). The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-19-513937-2. Archived
  from the original on 15 November 2020. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
• Dekmejian, R. Hrair (1975). Patterns of Political Leadership: Egypt, Israel, Lebanon. State University of New York Press.
  ISBN 0-87395-291-X
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• Dever, William (2003). Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?. Eerdmans.
  ISBN 978-0-8028-0975-9. Archived
  from the original on 21 April 2020. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
• Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2002). The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts. Simon and Schuster.
  ISBN 978-0-7432-2338-6
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• Kornberg, Jacques (1993). Theodor Herzl: From Assimilation to Zionism. Indiana University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-253-33203-5
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• Lipiński, Edward (2020). A History of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Judah. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta. Vol. 287. Peeters.
  ISBN 978-90-429-4212-7
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• McNutt, Paula (1999). Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel. Westminster John Knox Press.
  ISBN 978-0-664-22265-9
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• Stager, Lawrence. "Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel". In Coogan (1998).
• Tobolowsky, Andrew (2022). "The Tribes That Were Not Lost: The Samaritans". The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel: New Identities Across Time and Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 69–70, 73–75.
  ISBN 978-1-316-51494-8
  .

External links

• Jews at
  Curlie
• Official website of the
  Berman Jewish DataBank
• Official website of the Jewish Agency for Israel
• Official website of The Jewish Encyclopedia
• Official website of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
• Maps related to Jewish history Archived 23 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine
• Official website of the World Jewish Congress