Jews

The word Jew ( Hebrew : יהודי ) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. This article discusses the term as describing an ethnic group ; for a consideration of the religion, please refer to Judaism . Most Jews regard themselves as a people, members of a nation , descended from the ancient Israelites and those who joined their religion at various times and places. The term Jew came into being when the Kingdom of Israel was split between the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah . Thus, the Israelites (who were later largely destroyed by the Assyrians ) were those of the northern kingdom and the Jews (who survived) were those of the southern kingdom. Over time, the word Jew has come to refer to those of the Jewish faith rather than those from Judah. In modern usage, Jews include both those Jews actively practicing Judaism, and those Jews who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jews by virtue of their family's Jewish heritage and their own cultural identification. Usage note: The word "Jew" is a noun. Its use as an adjective (e.g. "Jew lawyer") is widely considered offensive; "Jewish" is strongly preferred. Its use as a verb (e.g. "to jew someone") is also considered offensive. Some sources, such as the American Heritage Dictionary , suggest that phrases like "Jewish person" may be offensive if pointedly used to avoid the word "Jew".

The Jews ( ), also known as the Jewish people , are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East . The Jewish ethnicity , nationality , and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation . Converts to Judaism , whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia. In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham , Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The Jews have experienced three periods of political autonomy in their national homeland, the Land of Israel , twice during ancient history , and currently once again, since 1948 , with the establishment of the modern State of Israel . The first of the two ancient eras spanned from 1350 to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges , the United Monarchy , and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah , ending with the destruction of the First Temple . The second era was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, the diaspora has been the home of most of the world's Jews. Except in the modern State of Israel, Jews are a minority in every country in which they live, and they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries. According to the Jewish Agency for Israel , as of 2007, there were 13–14 million Jews worldwide, 5.4 million of whom lived in Israel , 5.3 million in the United States , and the remainder distributed in communities of varying sizes around the world; this represents 0.2% of the current estimated world population . Census Bureau estimates the American Jewish population to be as many as 6.4 million. ) These numbers include all those who consider themselves Jews whether or not affiliated with a Jewish organization. The total world Jewish population , however, is difficult to measure. In addition to halakhic considerations, there are secular, political, and ancestral identification factors in defining who is a Jew that increase the figure considerably. Brandeis , "Jews are a distinctive nationality of which every Jew, whatever his country, his station or shade of belief, is necessarily a member" (April 25, 1915), University of Louisville Louis D.

The Jews ( ISO 259-3 Yehudim , Israeli pronunciation ), also known as the Jewish people , are an ethnoreligious and ethno-cultural group descended from the Israelites of the Ancient Near East . According to the Hebrew Bible narrative, Jewish ancestry is traced back to the Biblical patriarchs such as Abraham , Isaac and Jacob , and the Biblical matriarchs Sarah , Rebecca , Leah , and Rachel , who lived in Canaan around the 18th century BCE. Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Joseph (who rose to the rank of Pharaoh 's Vizier) in the Land of Goshen region by Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs' descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses , which is commonly dated to the 13th century BCE. Historically, Jews have descended mostly from the tribes of Judah and Simeon , and partially from the tribes of Benjamin and Levi , who had all together formed the ancient Kingdom of Judah (alongside the remnants of the Northern Kingdom of Israel who migrated to their Southern counterpart and assimilated there). A closely related group is the Samaritans , who according to their tradition trace their ancestry back to the Israelite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, while according to the Bible their origin is in the people brought to Israel by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and some Kohanim (Jewish priests) who taught them how to worship the "native God". Jewish ethnicity , nationality and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation. Converts to Judaism typically have a status within the Jewish ethnos equal to those born into it. Conversion is not encouraged by mainstream Judaism, and is considered a tough task, mainly applicable for cases of mixed marriages. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Basic Laws . Its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. Israel is the only country where Jews are a majority of the population. According to the Bible, Israelites enjoyed political independence twice in ancient history , first during the periods of the biblical judges followed by the United Monarchy . After the fall of the United Monarchy the land was divided into Israel and Judah . The term Jew originated from the Roman Judean and denoted someone from the southern kingdom of Judah. The shift of ethnonym from "Israelites" to "Jews" (inhabitant of Judah), although not contained in the Torah , is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE), a book in the Ketuvim , the third section of the Jewish Tanakh . In 587 BC Nebuchadnezzar II , King of the Chaldeans , besieged Jerusalem , destroyed the First Temple , and deported the most prominent citizens of Judah. In 586 BC, Judah itself ceased to be an independent kingdom, and its remaining Jews were left stateless. The Babylonian exile ended in 539 BCE when the Persians conquered Babylon and Cyrus the Great allowed the exiled Jews to return to Yehud and rebuild their Temple, which was completed in 515 BCE. Yehud province was a peaceful part of the Persian Empire until the fall of the Empire in c. 333 BCE to Alexander the Great . Jews were also politically independent during the Hasmonean dynasty spanning from 140 to 37 BCE and to some degree under Herodians from 37 BCE to 6 CE. Since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, most Jews have lived in diaspora . As an ethnic minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries. The world Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II , but approximately 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust . Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2014 was estimated at 13.90 million by the North American Jewish Data Bank, or less than 0.2% of the total world population (roughly one in every 514 people). According to this report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel (6 million), and 40% in the United States (5.3–6.8 million), with most of the remainder living in Europe (1.41 million) and Canada (0.39 million). These numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as so by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure. In addition to issues with census methodology, there are halakhic disputes regarding who is a Jew and secular, political, and ancestral identification factors that may affect the figure considerably. The Jews ( Israelites ) wrote the Hebrew Bible which covers their national and religious history, and created the first of the Abrahamic Religions , which are now practiced by 54% of the world. Jews have greatly influenced and contributed to human thought in many fields, including ethics, medicine , science , music , philosophy and business, both historically and contemporarily. This figure does not include 300,000 Israeli ethnic Jews not considered to be Jewish under halakha DellaPergola, Sergio (2 November 2012). "World Jewish Population, 2012" ( PDF ) . Storrs, Connecticut : North American Jewish Data Bank . "Após cristãos e mulçumanos, sem-religião são 3º maior grupo no mundo" (in Portuguese). (Archaeology and Biblical Studies) , Society of Biblical Literature , 2005 Simon Schama . The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD . : External link in |title= ( help ) "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 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)." Jew at Encyclopedia Britannica "Israelite, in the broadest sense, a Jew, or a descendant of the Jewish patriarch Jacob" Israelite at Encyclopedia Britannica "Hebrew, any member of an ancient northern Semitic people that were the ancestors of the Jews." Hebrew (People) at Encyclopedia Britannica Michael Brenner. A Short History of the Jews . : External link in |title= ( help ) Raymond P. Jews and Samaritans: The origins and history of their early relations . Both groups could be found both in the land and outside of the land in diasporic communities. Each groups developed its own synagogues which were so similar architecturally that it can be challenging to tell them apart. Members of both groups professed a pedigree in the same eponymous ancestor (Jacob/Israel). Samaritans claimed to be descendants from the northern tribes of Joseph, representing Jacob's progeny of Ephraim and Menasseh ('eprayim and menasseh), while Judeans (yehudim) claimed to be descendants of the southern tribes of Judah (yehuda)." [1] Schreiber, Monika. On the one hand, they confirm its historicity, proving the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel actually took place. The kingdom was indeed transformed into an Assyrian province and was renamed Samerina. University of Louisville School of Law . Jews are a distinctive nationality of which every Jew, whatever his country, his station or shade of belief, is necessarily a member Palmer, Edward Henry (14 October 2002) [First published 1874]. The Jewish nation is a living fact "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." " . A 1970 amendment to Israel's Law of Return defines "Jew" as "a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion." "Law of Return" . "Jews make up only 0.2% of mankind" . ynetnews . The concept of core Jewish population includes all persons who, when asked in a socio-demographic survey, identify themselves as Jews; or who are identified as Jews by a respondent in the same household, and do not have another monotheistic religion." [3] Pfeffer, Anshel (12 September 2007). Exhibition Traces the emergence of Jews as medical innovators Shatzmiller, Joseph.

Ethnoreligious group and cultural community "Jew" redirects here. Ethnic group This article contains Hebrew text . Without proper rendering support , you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hebrew letters. The Jews ( , ISO 259-2 : Yehudim , Israeli pronunciation : ) are an ethnoreligious group originating from the ancient Hebrews or Israelites , and whose traditional religion is Judaism . Jewish ethnicity, religion and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is an ethnic religion , although not all Jews follow it. Despite this, individuals who formally convert to Judaism are regarded by practising Jews as an integral part of the community. Jews trace their origins to the Israelites , a people that emerged from within the Canaanite population to establish the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah . Judaism emerged from Yahwism , the religion of the Israelites, by the late 6th century BCE, with a theology considered by religious Jews to be the expression of a covenant with God established with the Israelites, their ancestors. The Babylonian captivity of Judahites following their kingdom's destruction, the movement of Jewish groups around the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period , and subsequent periods of conflict and violent dispersion, such as the Jewish–Roman wars , gave rise to the Jewish diaspora . The Jewish diaspora is a wide dispersion of Jewish communities across the world that have maintained their sense of Jewish history , identity and culture . In the following millennia, Jewish diaspora communities coalesced into three major ethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled: the Ashkenazim ( Central and Eastern Europe ), the Sephardim (initially in the Iberian Peninsula ), and the Mizrahim ( Middle East and North Africa). Prior to World War II , the global Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million, representing around 0.7 percent of the world population at that time. During World War II, approximately 6 million Jews throughout Europe were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust . Since then, the population has slowly risen again, and as of 2021 , was estimated to be at 15.2–19.9 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank , comprising less than 0.2 percent of the total world population. The modern State of Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. Jews have significantly influenced and contributed to the development and growth of human progress in many fields, both historically and in modern times, including in science and technology , philosophy , ethics , literature , governance , business , art , music , comedy , theatre , cinema , architecture , food , medicine , and religion . Jews wrote the Bible , founded Christianity , and had an indirect but profound influence on Islam . In these ways, Jews have also played a significant role in the development of Western culture . "Global Jewish population hits 15.7 million ahead of new year, 46% of them in Israel | the Times of Israel" . The Times of Israel . "Global Jewish population hits 15.7 million ahead of new year, 46% of them in Israel | the Times of Israel" . The Times of Israel . "Global Jewish population hits 15.7 million ahead of new year, 46% of them in Israel | the Times of Israel" . The Times of Israel . "Reconstruction of patrilineages and matrilineages of Samaritans and other Israeli populations from Y-Chromosome and mitochondrial DNA sequence Variation". The New York Times . "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews". 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 Old Testament. Few would seriously challenge the belief that most modern Jews are descended from the ancient Hebrews Raymond P. Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites" Facts On File, Incorporated (2009). Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East . "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" Harry Ostrer MD (2012). Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People . Cambridge Dictionary. a member of a people whose traditional religion is Judaism Jew . Oxford Dictionary. 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. 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 Eli Lederhendler (2001). 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" Tet-Lim N. "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." M. International Relations: A Concise Introduction . "The Jews are a nation and were so before there was a Jewish state of Israel" Alan Dowty (1998). "Jews are a people, a nation (in the original sense of the word), an ethnos" Ernest Krausz; Gitta Tulea (1997). The Identity Problem at the Close of the Twentieth Century; [... International Workshop at Bar-Ilan University on the 18th and 19th of March, 1997] . "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" "A Portrait of Jewish Americans" . 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. The Identity Problem at the Close of the Twentieth Century; [... International Workshop at Bar-Ilan University on the 18th and 19th of March, 1997] . 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. 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. 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). 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. 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. 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... 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. 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). 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. "...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. 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) Eban, Abba Solomon (1984). Heritage: Civilization and the Jews . Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project . "Jews make up only 0.2% of mankind" . ynetnews . The New York Times . "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" Julie Galambush (2011). "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" John M. "Early Christianity began as a Jewish movement in first-century Palestine" Dr. 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. 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 There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a template (see the help page ).

Ethnoreligious group and nation from the Levant "Jew" redirects here. Ethnic group This article contains Hebrew text . Without proper rendering support , you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hebrew letters. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism . Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is their ethnic religion , though it is not practiced by many ethnic Jews. Despite this, religious Jews regard converts to Judaism as members of the Jewish nation, pursuant to the long-standing conversion process . The Israelites emerged from the pre-existing Canaanite peoples to establish Israel and Judah in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age . Originally, Jews referred to the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah and were distinguished from the gentiles and the Samaritans . According to the Hebrew Bible , these inhabitants predominately originate from the tribe of Judah , who were descendants of Judah , the fourth son of Jacob . The tribe of Benjamin were another significant demographic in Judah and were considered Jews too. By the late 6th century BCE, Judaism had evolved from the Israelite religion, dubbed Yahwism (for Yahweh ) by modern scholars, having a theology that religious Jews believe to be the expression of the Mosaic covenant between God and the Jewish people. After the Babylonian exile , Jews referred to followers of Judaism , descendants of the Israelites, citizens of Judea , or allies of the Judean state. Jewish migration within the Mediterranean region during the Hellenistic period , followed by population transfers , caused by events like the Jewish–Roman wars , gave rise to the Jewish diaspora , consisting of diverse Jewish communities that maintained their sense of Jewish history , identity , and culture . In the following millennia, Jewish diaspora communities coalesced into three major ethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled: the Ashkenazim ( Central and Eastern Europe ), the Sephardim ( Iberian Peninsula ), and the Mizrahim ( Middle East and North Africa ). While these three major divisions account for most of the world's Jews, there are other smaller Jewish groups outside of the three. Prior to World War II , the global Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million, representing around 0.7% of the world's population at that time. During World War II, approximately six million Jews throughout Europe were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany in a genocide known as the Holocaust . Since then, the population has slowly risen again, and as of 2021 , was estimated to be at 15.2 million by the demographer Sergio Della Pergola or less than 0.2% of the total world population in 2012. Today, over 85% of Jews live in Israel or the United States . Israel, whose population is 73.9% Jewish, is the only country where Jews comprise more than 2.5% of the population. Jews have significantly influenced and contributed to the development and growth of human progress in many fields, both historically and in modern times, including in science and technology , philosophy , ethics , literature , governance , business , art , music , comedy , theatre , cinema , architecture , food , medicine , and religion . Jews founded Christianity and had an indirect but profound influence on Islam . In these ways and others, Jews have played a significant role in the development of Western culture . The Times of Israel . The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties . "Reconstruction of patrilineages and matrilineages of Samaritans and other Israeli populations from Y-Chromosome and mitochondrial DNA sequence Variation". The New York Times . "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews". International Relations: A Concise Introduction . An Introduction to Judaism: A Textbook and Reader . Jews are a people, a nation (in the original sense of the word), an ethnos Brandeis, Louis (25 April 1915). University of Louisville School of Law . Jews are a distinctive nationality of which every Jew, whatever his country, his station or shade of belief, is necessarily a member Palmer, Edward Henry (2002) [First published 1874]. Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East . 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 Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western Civilization: Volume A: To 1500 . The people of Judah survived, eventually becoming known as the Jews and giving their name to Judaism, the religion of Yahweh, the Israelite God. Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites Cline, Eric H. Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People . 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). 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 Tet-Lim N. 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. International Relations: A Concise Introduction . Jews are a people, a nation (in the original sense of the word), an ethnos Ernest Krausz; Gitta Tulea (1997). The Identity Problem at the Close of the Twentieth Century; [... International Workshop at Bar-Ilan University on the 18th and 19th of March, 1997] . 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 "Belonging without believing: British Jewish identity and God" . Only a third of Jews living in the UK have faith in God, as described in the Bible, yet 'non-believers' make up more than half of paid-up synagogue memberships, according to data from the JPR National Jewish Identity Survey "Jews in U.S. are far less religious than Christians and Americans overall, at least by traditional measures" . Marcus Jastrow 's Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature , and the source he used: Megilla 13a:2 (Talmud). Judaism in the Roman World . 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. 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). 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. 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. 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... 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. 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). 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. "...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. 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) Eban, Abba Solomon (1984). Heritage: Civilization and the Jews . Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project . "Jews make up only 0.2% of mankind" . ynetnews . The New York Times . "Early Christianity began as a Jewish movement in first-century Palestine" Dr. 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. 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 There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or templates on this page, but the references will not show without a template or template (see the help page ).