Judaism (from the Greek Ioudaïsmos, derived from the Hebrew יהודה, Yehudah, "Judah")
is thereligion of the Jewish people, based on the principles and ethics
embodied in the Hebrew Bible(Tanakh),
as further explored and explained in the Talmud. Judaism is among the oldest religious
traditions still practiced today and is considered one of the world's first monotheistic faiths. At the core of Judaism is the
belief in a single, omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent God, who created
the universe and
continues to govern it. In 2007, the world Jewish population was estimated to be 13.2 million people—41 percent in Israel and the
other 59 percent in the diaspora. The traditional criterion formembership in Judaism or the Jewish people has been being born to a Jewish mother or
taking the path ofconversion.
Jewish
tradition maintains that the history of Judaism begins with the Covenant between God and Abraham (c. 1800
BCE), the patriarch and progenitor of the Jewish people. According to the traditional
Jewish belief, God also created another covenant with the Israelites (the
ancestors of the Jewish people), and revealed his laws andcommandments (Mitzvot) to them on Mount Sinai in the form of the Written
Torah. Traditional Judaism also maintains that an Oral Torah was revealed at the same time and, after being passed down
verbally for generations, was later transcribed in the Talmud. Laws, traditions, and learned Rabbis who
interpret these texts and their numerous commentaries comprise the modern
authority on Jewish tradition. While each Jew's level of
observance varies greatly, the traditional practice of Judaism revolves around
the study and
observance of God's Mitzvot.
Selected Article
Joseph's
Tomb is a
funerary monument located at the eastern entrance to the valley that separates
Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, on the outskirts of the West Bank city ofNablus,
near the site of Shechem. Biblical tradition identifies the general
area of Shechem as the resting-place of Josephand his
two sons Ephraim and Manasseh.
Joseph's tomb has been venerated throughout the ages by Jews, Christians and
Muslims. Post-biblical records about the Tomb's location at this site date from
the 4th century. The present structure, a small rectangular room with a cenotaph, dates from 1868. Modern scholarship has yet
to determine if the cenotaph is the ancient biblical gravesite. No sources
prior to the 5th century mention the tomb, and the structure originally erected
over it appears to have been built by the Samaritans.
Joseph's
Tomb has witnessed intense sectarian conflict. Samaritans and Christians
disputing access and title to the site in the early Byzantine period often
clashed violently. After Israel captured the West Bank in 1967,
conflict from competing Jewish and Muslim claims over the tomb became frequent.
Though under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian
National Authority after the
signing of the Oslo Accords, it remained under IDF guard with Muslims prohibited. At the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, just after being handed over to the PNA, it was looted
and razed by a Palestinian mob. Following Israel's reoccupation of Nablus in
the 2002Operation Defensive Shield,
Jewish groups returned there intermittently. Recently the structure has been
refurbished, with a new cupola installed, and visits by Jewish worshipers have
resumed. (Read more...)
Did You Know?
Did you
know...
·
... that the Monument to
the Ghetto Heroes (pictured),
site of Willy Brandt'sWarschauer Kniefall in 1970, was made from labradorite intended
to be used in monuments in Nazi Germany?
·
... that the Chaim Potok novel The Book of Lights is based on Potok's exposure to
non-Jewish religions as amilitary chaplain in Korea and Japan?
·
... that Polish Jewish
resistance fighter Vladka Meed was a central source of the 2001
television movie Uprising?
·
... that 13th Avenue,
a commercially successful Orthodox Jewish shopping district in Brooklyn, New York, has 18 banks in the space of 10
blocks?
·
... that most Russian-speakers
in the United States areJewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union?
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History Article
Black Hebrew Israelites (also Black
Hebrews, African
Hebrew Israelites, andHebrew Israelites) are groups of people ofAfrican ancestry
situated mainly in the United States who believe they are descendants of the ancient Israelites. Black Hebrews adhere in varying degrees
to the religious beliefs and practices of mainstream Judaism. They are generally not accepted as Jews by the
greater Jewish community, and many Black Hebrews consider themselves—and not
mainstream Jews—to be the only authentic descendants of the ancient Israelites. Many
choose to self-identify as Hebrew Israelites or Black Hebrews rather than as
Jews. Dozens of Black Hebrew groups were founded during the late 19th and early
20th centuries. In the mid-1980s, the number of Black Hebrews in the United States
was between 25,000 and 40,000. In the 1990s, the Alliance of Black Jews estimated that there were 200,000 African-American
Jews; this estimate was based on a 1990 survey conducted by the
Council of Jewish Federations. The exact number of Black Hebrews within that
surveyed group remains unspecified. (Read more...)
Picture of the Week
A pair of Tefillin
Credit: Trapisondista (talk)
In the News
·
The Jewish General
Hospital announces it
will ignore the Quebec Charter of
Values if passed.
(14 November)
·
Three families sue the Pine Bush
Central School District for antisemitism. (8 November)
·
Michael Bloomberg is named the first recipient of the Genesis Prize. (21 October)
·
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef dies;
nearly one million attend his funeral. (7 October)
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Weekly Torah Portion
“The land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me."
(Leviticus 25:23.)
On Mount Sinai, God told Moses to tell the Israelites the law of the Sabbatical year for the land. The people
could work the fields for six years, but in the seventh year the land was to
have a Sabbath of complete rest during which the people were not to sow their
fields, prune their vineyards, or reap the aftergrowth. They could, however,
eat whatever the land produced on its own.
The people
were further to hallow the 50th year, the Jubilee year, and to proclaim
release for all with a blast on the horn. Each Israelite was to return to his
family and his ancestral land holding. In selling or buying property, the
people were to charge only for the remaining number of crop years until the
jubilee, when the land would be returned to its ancestral holder.
God
promised to bless the people in the sixth year, so that the land would yield a
crop sufficient for three years. God prohibited selling the land beyond
reclaim, for God owned the land, and the people were but strangers living with
God.
If one
fell into straits and had to sell land, his nearest relative was to redeem what
was sold. If one had no one to redeem, but prospered and acquired enough
wealth, he could refund the pro rata share of the sales price for the remaining
years until the jubilee, and return to his holding. If one sold a house in awalled city, one could redeem it
for a year, and thereafter the house would pass to the purchaser beyond reclaim
and not be released in the jubilee. But houses in villages without encircling
walls were treated as open country subject to redemption and release through
the jubilee. Levites were to have a permanent
right of redemption for houses and property in the cities of the Levites. The
unenclosed land about their cities could not be sold.
If a kinsman fell into straits and came under one’s authority by
virtue of his debts, one was to let him live by one’s side as a
kinsman and not exact from him interest. Israelites were not to lend money to
countrymen at interest. If the kinsman continued in straits and had to give
himself over to a creditor for debt, the creditor was not to subject him to the
treatment of a slave, but to treat him as a hired or bound laborer
until the jubilee year, at which time he was to be freed to go back to his
family and ancestral holding. Israelites were not to rule over such debtor
Israelites ruthlessly. Israelites could, however, buy and own as inheritable
property slaves from other nations. If an Israelite fell into straits and came
under a resident alien’s authority by virtue of his debts, the Israelite debtor
was to have the right of redemption. A relative was to redeem him or, if he
prospered, he could redeem himself by paying the pro rata share of the sales
price for the remaining years until the jubilee.
Commentary from the Ziegler
School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish
University (Conservative)
