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137-489: The term Kaddish is often used to refer specifically to "The Mourner's Kaddish," which is chanted as part of the mourning rituals in Judaism in all prayer services, as well as at funerals (other than at the gravesite; see Kaddish acher kevurah, "Qaddish After Burial") and memorials; for 11 Hebrew months after the death of a parent; and in some communities for 30 days after the death of a spouse, sibling, or child. When mention

274-484: A Jewish diaspora population that emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium CE . They traditionally speak Yiddish , a language that originated in the 9th century, and largely migrated towards northern and eastern Europe during the late Middle Ages due to persecution . Hebrew was primarily used as a literary and sacred language until its 20th-century revival as

411-581: A minyan of ten Jews (a minimum quorum of ten adult Jews). The various versions of the Kaddish are: All versions of the Kaddish begin with the Hatzi Kaddish (there are some extra passages in the Kaddish after a burial or a siyum). The longer versions contain additional paragraphs, and are often named after distinctive words in those paragraphs. Historically there existed another type of Kaddish, called Qaddish Yahid ("Individual's Kaddish"). This

548-541: A 19-year cycle, known as the Metonic cycle (See Leap months , below). The beginning of each Jewish lunar month is based on the appearance of the new moon . Although originally the new lunar crescent had to be observed and certified by witnesses (as is still done in Karaite Judaism and Islam ), nowadays Jewish months have generally fixed lengths which approximate the period between new moons. For these reasons,

685-794: A brief period of stability and unity in Francia . This created opportunities for Jewish merchants to settle again north of the Alps. Charlemagne granted the Jews freedoms similar to those once enjoyed under the Roman Empire . In addition, Jews from southern Italy, fleeing religious persecution, began to move into Central Europe. Returning to Frankish lands, many Jewish merchants took up occupations in finance and commerce, including money lending, or usury . (Church legislation banned Christians from lending money in exchange for interest.) From Charlemagne's time to

822-670: A common language in Israel. Ashkenazim adapted their traditions to Europe and underwent a transformation in their interpretation of Judaism. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, Jews who remained in or returned to historical German lands experienced a cultural reorientation. Under the influence of the Haskalah and the struggle for emancipation, as well as the intellectual and cultural ferment in urban centres, some gradually abandoned Yiddish in favor of German and developed new forms of Jewish religious life and cultural identity . Throughout

959-649: A figure of one million Jews living in Egypt. Brian McGing rejects Baron's figures entirely, arguing that we have no clue as to the size of the Jewish demographic in the ancient world. Sometimes the scholars who accepted the high number of Jews in Rome had explained it by Jews having been active in proselytising . The idea of ancient Jews trying to convert Gentiles to Judaism is nowadays rejected by several scholars. The Romans did not distinguish between Jews inside and outside of

1096-482: A given month does not always begin on the same day as its astronomical conjunction. The mean period of the lunar month (precisely, the synodic month ) is very close to 29.5 days. Accordingly, the basic Hebrew calendar year is one of twelve lunar months alternating between 29 and 30 days: Thus, the year normally contains twelve months with a total of 354 days. In such a year, the month of Marcheshvan has 29 days and Kislev has 30 days. However, due to

1233-651: A number of push and pull factors . More Jews moved into these communities as a result of wars, persecution, unrest, and for opportunities in trade and commerce. Jews migrated to southern Europe from the Middle East voluntarily for opportunities in trade and commerce. Following Alexander the Great 's conquests, Jews migrated to Greek settlements in the Eastern Mediterranean, spurred on by economic opportunities. Jewish economic migration to southern Europe

1370-476: A period known as an iggul , or the Iggul of Rabbi Nahshon . This period is notable in that the precise details of the calendar almost always (but not always) repeat over this period. This occurs because the molad interval (the average length of a Hebrew month) is 29.530594 days, which over 247 years results in a total of 90215.965 days. This is almost exactly 90216 days – a whole number and multiple of 7 (equalling

1507-552: A public declaration of God's greatness and eternality. This response is similar to the wording of Daniel 2:20. It is also parallel to the Hebrew " ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד ‎" (commonly recited after the first verse of the Shema ); Aramaic versions of both יה שמה רבה and ברוך שם כבוד appear in the various versions of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Genesis 49:2 and Deuteronomy 6:4. The Mourners, Rabbis and Complete Kaddish end with

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1644-586: A remainder of 0 signifies Saturday. In Hebrew, these names may be abbreviated using the numerical value of the Hebrew letters, for example יום א׳ ( Day 1 , or Yom Rishon ( יום ראשון )): The names of the days of the week are modeled on the seven days mentioned in the Genesis creation account . For example, Genesis 1:8 "... And there was evening and there was morning, a second day" corresponds to Yom Sheni meaning "second day". (However, for days 1, 6, and 7

1781-459: A result of Judeo-Latin language contact with various High German vernaculars in the medieval period. It is a Germanic language written in Hebrew letters, and heavily influenced by Hebrew and Aramaic , with some elements of Romance and later Slavic languages . Historical records show evidence of Jewish communities north of the Alps and Pyrenees as early as the 8th and 9th centuries. By

1918-746: A supplication for peace ("Oseh Shalom..."), which is in Hebrew, and is somewhat similar to the Tanakh Job 25:2. Kaddish does not contain God's name. It is said that this is because Kaddish has 26 words, equalling the gematria of the Tetragrammaton , and the Kaddish text proves that from the very beginning with words "May His great name be exalted and sanctified" . Kaddish may be spoken or chanted. In services on certain special occasions, it may be sung to special melodies. There are different melodies in different Jewish traditions, and within each tradition

2055-546: A very different lifestyle to that of their neighbours; all of these tendencies increased with every outbreak of antisemitism . In parts of Eastern Europe, before the arrival of the Ashkenazi Jews from Central Europe, some non-Ashkenazi Jews were present who spoke Leshon Knaan and held various other Non-Ashkenazi traditions and customs. In 1966, the historian Cecil Roth questioned the inclusion of all Yiddish speaking Jews as Ashkenazim in descent, suggesting that upon

2192-546: A very high toll of life and enslavement. The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple . Two generations later, the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE) erupted. Judea's countryside was devastated, and many were killed, displaced or sold into slavery. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman colony under the name of Aelia Capitolina , and the province of Judea

2329-465: Is where N is the number of lunar months since the beginning. (N equals 71440 for the beginning of the 305th Machzor Katan on 1 October 2016.) Adding 0.25 to this converts it to the Jewish system in which the day begins at 6 PM. Ashkenazi Jews#Customs.2C laws and traditions Ashkenazi Jews ( / ˌ ɑː ʃ k ə ˈ n ɑː z i , ˌ æ ʃ -/ A(H)SH -kə- NAH -zee ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim ) constitute

2466-624: Is 9:38 AM"). The Hebrew week ( שבוע , shavua ) is a cycle of seven days, mirroring the seven-day period of the Book of Genesis in which the world is created. The names for the days of the week are simply the day number within the week. The week begins with Day 1 ( Sunday ) and ends with Shabbat ( Saturday ). (More precisely, since days begin in the evening, weeks begin and end on Saturday evening. Day 1 lasts from Saturday evening to Sunday evening, while Shabbat lasts from Friday evening to Saturday evening.) Since some calculations use division,

2603-585: Is a common (but not universal) practice in Modern Orthodox circles. In 2013, the Israeli Orthodox rabbinical organization Beit Hillel issued a halachic ruling that women may say the Kaddish in memory of their deceased parents (in presence of a male minyan). In Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Judaism, the Mourner's Kaddish is traditionally said by women who are there also counted in

2740-474: Is a leap year, find the remainder on dividing [(7 ×  n ) + 1] by 19. If the remainder is 6 or less it is a leap year; if it is 7 or more it is not. For example, the remainder on dividing [(7 × 5785) + 1] by 19 is 7, so the year 5785 is not a leap year. The remainder on dividing [(7 × 5786) + 1] by 19 is 14, so the year 5786 is not a leap year. This works because as there are seven leap years in nineteen years

2877-554: Is a seven-year release cycle. The placement of these cycles is debated. Historically, there is enough evidence to fix the sabbatical years in the Second Temple Period . But it may not match with the sabbatical cycle derived from the biblical period; and there is no consensus on whether or not the Jubilee year is the fiftieth year or the latter half of the forty ninth year. Every 247 years, or 13 cycles of 19 years, form

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3014-594: Is also believed to have occurred during the Roman period. In 63 BCE, the Siege of Jerusalem saw the Roman Republic conquer Judea, and thousands of Jewish prisoners of war were brought to Rome as slaves. After gaining their freedom, they settled permanently in Rome as traders. It is likely that there was an additional influx of Jewish slaves taken to southern Europe by Roman forces after the capture of Jerusalem by

3151-419: Is equal to 3 + 1 ⁄ 3 seconds). The very first molad, the molad tohu , fell on Sunday evening at 11:11:20 pm in the local time of Jerusalem , 6 October 3761 BCE ( Proleptic Julian calendar ) 20:50:23.1 UTC , or in Jewish terms Day 2, 5 hours, and 204 parts. The exact time of a molad in terms of days after midnight between 29 and 30 December 1899 (the form used by many spreadsheets for date and time)

3288-428: Is for calculating and announcing the molad . In another system, the daytime period is divided into 12 relative hours ( sha'ah z'manit , also sometimes called "halachic hours"). A relative hour is defined as 1 ⁄ 12 of the time from sunrise to sunset, or dawn to dusk, as per the two opinions in this regard. Therefore, an hour can be less than 60 minutes in winter, and more than 60 minutes in summer; similarly,

3425-590: Is included in the Siddur of Amram Gaon , but is a meditation taking the place of Kaddish rather than a Kaddish in the normal sense. It had not been recited in modern times until the COVID-19 pandemic, which made coming together to form a minyan difficult. Some communities began reciting the Qaddish Yahid , or a portion thereof, in lieu of Qaddish Yatom . The Half Kaddish is used to punctuate divisions within

3562-574: Is made of "saying Kaddish", this often refers to the rituals of mourning. Mourners recite Kaddish to show that despite the loss they still praise God. Along with the Shema Yisrael and the Amidah , the Kaddish is one of the most important and central elements in the Jewish liturgy . Kaddish is not, traditionally, recited alone. Along with some other prayers, it traditionally can only be recited with

3699-668: Is of uncertain status. Thus (for example) observance of Shabbat begins before sundown on Friday and ends after nightfall on Saturday, to be sure that Shabbat is not violated no matter when the transition between days occurs. Instead of the International Date Line convention, there are varying opinions as to where the day changes. One opinion uses the antimeridian of Jerusalem (located at 144°47' W, passing through eastern Alaska ). Other opinions exist as well. (See International date line in Judaism .) Judaism uses multiple systems for dividing hours. In one system ,

3836-471: Is performed. To calculate the day on which Rosh Hashanah of a given year will fall, the expected molad (moment of lunar conjunction or new moon ) of Tishrei in that year is calculated. The molad is calculated by multiplying the number of months that will have elapsed since some (preceding) molad (whose weekday is known) by the mean length of a (synodic) lunar month, which is 29 days, 12 hours, and 793 parts (there are 1080 "parts" in an hour, so that one part

3973-704: Is said to have been started by the British Liberal Jewish movement in 1967, with the introduction of v'al kol bnei Adam ("and upon all humans"); these words continue to be used by some in the UK. The opening words of the Kaddish are inspired by Ezekiel 38:23's vision of God becoming great in the eyes of all the nations. The central line of the Kaddish is the congregation's response: יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא ‎ (Yǝhē šmēh rabbā mǝvārakh lǝʿālam u-lʿalmē ʿālmayyā, "May His great name be blessed for ever, and to all eternity"),

4110-588: Is sometimes said to be for those victims of the Holocaust who have no one left to recite the Mourner's Kaddish on their behalf and in support of the mourners. In some congregations (especially Reform and Conservative ones), the Rabbi reads a list of the deceased who have a Yahrzeit on that day (or who have died within the past month), and then ask the congregants to name any people they are mourning for. Some synagogues, especially Orthodox and Conservative ones, multiply

4247-432: Is the "real" Adar, and which is the added leap month. The Bible does not directly mention the addition of leap months (also known as "embolismic" or " intercalary " months). The insertion of the leap month is based on the requirement that Passover occur at the same time of year as the spring barley harvest ( aviv ). (Since 12 lunar months make up less than a solar year, the date of Passover would gradually move throughout

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4384-462: Is the new year for kings and festivals. The 1st of Elul is the new year for the cattle tithe  ... The 1st of Tishri is the new year for years, of the Shmita and Jubilee years, for planting and for vegetables. The 1st of Shevat is the new year for trees—so the school of Shammai, but the school of Hillel say: On the 15th thereof . Two of these dates are especially prominent: For the dates of

4521-667: The Saquliba or Slavic territories , and such usage covered also the lands of tribes neighboring the Slavs, and Eastern and Central Europe. In modern times, Samuel Krauss identified the Biblical "Ashkenaz" with Khazaria . Sometime in the Early Medieval period, the Jews of central and eastern Europe came to be called by this term. Conforming to the custom of designating areas of Jewish settlement with biblical names, Spain

4658-770: The Cimmerians . The Biblical Ashkenaz is usually derived from Assyrian Aškūza ( cuneiform Aškuzai/Iškuzai ), a people who expelled the Cimmerians from the Armenian area of the Upper Euphrates ; the name Aškūza is identified with the Scythians . The intrusive n in the Biblical name is likely due to a scribal error confusing a vav ו ‎ with a nun נ ‎ . In Jeremiah 51:27, Ashkenaz figures as one of three kingdoms in

4795-733: The Crusaders as Ashkenazim. Given the close links between the Jewish communities of France and Germany following the Carolingian unification , the term Ashkenazi came to refer to the Jews of both medieval Germany and France. Like other Jewish ethnic groups , the Ashkenazi originate from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah . Ashkenazi Jews share a significant amount of ancestry with other Jewish populations and derive their ancestry mostly from populations in

4932-456: The Gregorian calendar . Like other lunisolar calendars, the Hebrew calendar consists of months of 29 or 30 days which begin and end at approximately the time of the new moon. As 12 such months comprise a total of just 354 days, an extra lunar month is added every 2 or 3 years so that the long-term average year length closely approximates the actual length of the solar year . Originally,

5069-448: The Gregorian years (365.2425 days/year) make (0.0003 days/year, or one day in 3333 years). Besides the adding of leap months, the year length is sometimes adjusted by adding one day to the month of Marcheshvan, or removing one day from the month of Kislev. Because each calendar year begins with Rosh Hashanah , adjusting the year length is equivalent to moving the day of the next Rosh Hashanah. Several rules are used to determine when this

5206-478: The Holocaust . The answer to why there was so little assimilation of Jews in central and eastern Europe for so long would seem to lie in part in the probability that the alien surroundings in central and eastern Europe were not conducive, though there was some assimilation. Furthermore, Jews lived almost exclusively in shtetls , maintained a strong system of education for males, heeded rabbinic leadership, and had

5343-631: The Isthmus of Corinth in Greece. Jewish slaves and their children eventually gained their freedom and joined local free Jewish communities. Many Jews were denied full Roman citizenship until Emperor Caracalla granted all free peoples this privilege in 212 CE. Jews were required to pay a poll tax until the reign of Emperor Julian in 363 CE. In the late Roman Empire, Jews were free to form networks of cultural and religious ties and enter into various local occupations. However, after Christianity became

5480-407: The Jewish calendar , is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance and as an official calendar of Israel . It determines the dates of Jewish holidays and other rituals, such as yahrzeits and the schedule of public Torah readings . In Israel, it is used for religious purposes, provides a time frame for agriculture, and is an official calendar for civil holidays alongside

5617-675: The Minhag of Ashkenaz and Poland. According to 16th-century mystic Rabbi Elijah of Chelm , Ashkenazi Jews lived in Jerusalem during the 11th century. The story is told that a German-speaking Jew saved the life of a young German man surnamed Dolberger. So when the knights of the First Crusade came to siege Jerusalem, one of Dolberger's family members who was among them rescued Jews in Palestine and carried them back to Worms to repay

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5754-561: The Republican Party , while Conservative, Reform, and non denominational ones tend to support the Democratic Party. Religious Jews have minhagim , customs, in addition to halakha , or religious law, and different interpretations of the law. Different groups of religious Jews in different geographic areas historically adopted different customs and interpretations. On certain issues, Orthodox Jews are required to follow

5891-461: The Rosh Hashanah postponement rules , in some years Kislev may lose a day to have 29 days, or Marcheshvan may acquire an additional day to have 30 days. Normally the 12th month is named Adar . During leap years , the 12th and 13th months are named Adar I and Adar II (Hebrew: Adar Aleph and Adar Bet —"first Adar" and "second adar"). Sources disagree as to which of these months

6028-865: The SHuM cities of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. The cluster of cities contain the earliest Jewish settlements north of the Alps, and played a major role in the formation of Ashkenazi Jewish religious tradition, along with Troyes and Sens in France. Nonetheless, Jewish life in Germany persisted, while some Ashkenazi Jews joined Sephardic Jewry in Spain. Expulsions from England (1290), France (1394), and parts of Germany (15th century), gradually pushed Ashkenazi Jewry eastward, to Poland (10th century), Lithuania (10th century), and Russia (12th century). Over this period of several hundred years, some have suggested, Jewish economic activity

6165-505: The Seder Olam Rabbah . Thus, adding 3760 before Rosh Hashanah or 3761 after to a Julian calendar year number starting from 1 CE will yield the Hebrew year. For earlier years there may be a discrepancy; see Missing years (Jewish calendar) . In Hebrew there are two common ways of writing the year number: with the thousands, called לפרט גדול ("major era"), and without the thousands, called לפרט קטן ("minor era"). Thus,

6302-701: The Statute of Kalisz of 1264. By the 15th century, the Ashkenazi Jewish communities in Poland were the largest Jewish communities of the Diaspora. This area, which eventually fell under the domination of Russia, Austria , and Prussia (Germany) following the Partitions of Poland , and was later largely regained by reborn Poland in the interbellum , would remain the main center of Ashkenazi Jewry until

6439-448: The molad interval (a mathematical approximation of the mean time between new moons) and several other rules , while leap months are now added in 7 out of every 19 years according to the Metonic cycle . Nowadays, Hebrew years are generally counted according to the system of Anno Mundi ( Latin : "in the year of the world"; Hebrew : לבריאת העולם , "from the creation of the world", abbreviated AM). This system attempts to calculate

6576-550: The remainder . (Since there is no year 0, a remainder of 0 indicates that the year is year 19 of the cycle.) For example, the Jewish year 5785 divided by 19 results in a remainder of 9, indicating that it is year 9 of the Metonic cycle. The Jewish year used is the anno mundi year, in which the year of creation according to the Rabbinical Chronology (3761 BCE) is taken as year 1. Years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19 of

6713-471: The 11th century, Hai Gaon refers to questions that had been addressed to him from Ashkenaz, by which he undoubtedly means Germany. Rashi in the latter half of the 11th century refers to both the language of Ashkenaz and the country of Ashkenaz. During the 12th century, the word appears quite frequently. In the Mahzor Vitry , the kingdom of Ashkenaz is referred to chiefly in regard to the ritual of

6850-477: The 11th century, Jewish settlers moving from southern European and Middle Eastern centers (such as Babylonian Jews and Persian Jews ) and Maghrebi Jewish traders from North Africa who had contacts with their Ashkenazi brethren and had visited each other from time to time in each's domain appear to have begun to settle in the north, especially along the Rhine, often in response to new economic opportunities and at

6987-481: The 24-hour day is divided into fixed hours equal to 1 ⁄ 24 of a day, while each hour is divided into 1080 halakim (parts, singular: helek ). A part is 3 + 1 ⁄ 3 seconds ( 1 ⁄ 18 minute). The ultimate ancestor of the helek was a Babylonian time period called a barleycorn , equal to 1 ⁄ 72 of a Babylonian time degree (1° of celestial rotation). These measures are not generally used for everyday purposes; their best-known use

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7124-405: The 6th hour ends at solar noon , which generally differs from 12:00. Relative hours are used for the calculation of prayer times ( zmanim ); for example, the Shema must be recited in the first three relative hours of the day. Neither system is commonly used in ordinary life; rather, the local civil clock is used. This is even the case for ritual times (e.g. "The latest time to recite Shema today

7261-529: The Hellenized parts of the Roman Empire. The excavations suggest they first lived in isolated enclaves attached to Roman legion camps and intermarried with other similar oriental families within the military orders of the region. Raphael Patai states that later Roman writers remarked that they differed little in either customs, manner of writing, or names from the people among whom they dwelt; and it

7398-567: The Holocaust. These included 3 million of 3.3 million Polish Jews (91%); 900,000 of 1.5 million in Ukraine (60%); and 50–90% of the Jews of other Slavic nations, Germany, Hungary, and the Baltic states, and over 25% of the Jews in France. Sephardi communities suffered similar devastation in a few countries, including Greece, the Netherlands and the former Yugoslavia. As the large majority of

7535-489: The Jewish New Year see Jewish and Israeli holidays 2000–2050 . The Jewish year number is generally given by Anno Mundi (from Latin "in the year of the world", often abbreviated AM or A.M. ). In this calendar era , the year number equals the number of years that have passed since the creation of the world , according to an interpretation of Biblical accounts of the creation and subsequent history. From

7672-520: The Julian years are 365 and 1/4 days long, every 28 years the weekday pattern repeats. This is called the sun cycle, or the Machzor Gadol ("great cycle") in Hebrew. The beginning of this cycle is arbitrary. Its main use is for determining the time of Birkat Hachama . Because every 50 years is a Jubilee year, there is a jubilee ( yovel ) cycle. Because every seven years is a sabbatical year, there

7809-400: The Metonic cycle are leap years. The Hebrew mnemonic GUCHADZaT גוחאדז״ט refers to these years, while another memory aid refers to musical notation. Whether a year is a leap year can also be determined by a simple calculation (which also gives the fraction of a month by which the calendar is behind the seasons, useful for agricultural purposes). To determine whether year n of the calendar

7946-482: The Middle East, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe. Other than their origins in ancient Israel, the question of how Ashkenazi Jews came to exist as a distinct community is unknown, and has given rise to several theories. Beginning in the fourth century BCE, Jewish colonies sprang up in southern Europe, including the Aegean Islands, Greece, and Italy. Jews left ancient Israel for a number of causes, including

8083-501: The Moon (Molad 1) is considered to be at 5 hours and 204 halakim, or 11:11:20 p.m., on the evening of Sunday, 6 October 3761 BCE. According to rabbinic reckoning, this moment was not Creation , but about one year "before" Creation, with the new moon of its first month (Tishrei) called molad tohu (the mean new moon of chaos or nothing). It is about one year before the traditional Jewish date of Creation on 25 Elul AM 1, based upon

8220-464: The Mourner's Kaddish does not mention death at all, but instead praises God. Though the Kaddish is often popularly referred to as the "Jewish Prayer for the Dead," that designation more accurately belongs to the prayer called " El Malei Rachamim ", which specifically prays for the soul of the deceased. The Mourner's Kaddish can be more accurately represented as an expression of "justification for judgment" by

8357-461: The Responsa of Isaac ben Sheshet (numbers 193, 268, 270). In the Midrash compilation, Genesis Rabbah , Rabbi Berechiah mentions Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah as German tribes or as German lands. It may correspond to a Greek word that may have existed in the Greek dialect of the Jews in Syria Palaestina , or the text is corrupted from "Germanica". This view of Berechiah is based on the Talmud (Yoma 10a; Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 71b), where Gomer,

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8494-422: The Sabbath) Ani'im Zemirot. In most communities, Kaddish is recited during the eleven months after the death of a parent, and then at every anniversary of the death (the Yahrzeit ). Technically, there is no obligation to recite Kaddish for other relatives, even though there is an obligation to mourn for them. Customs for reciting the Mourner's Kaddish vary markedly among various communities. In Sephardi synagogues,

8631-683: The United States after the war. Following the Holocaust, some sources place Ashkenazim today as making up approximately 83%–85% of Jews worldwide, while Sergio DellaPergola in a rough calculation of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews , implies that Ashkenazi make up a notably lower figure, less than 74%. Other estimates place Ashkenazi Jews as making up about 75% of Jews worldwide. Jews of mixed background are increasingly common, partly because of intermarriage between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi, and partly because many do not see such historic markers as relevant to their life experiences as Jews. Religious Ashkenazi Jews living in Israel are obliged to follow

8768-424: The arrival of Ashkenazi Jews from central Europe to Eastern Europe, from the Middle Ages to the 16th century, there were a substantial number of non-Ashkenazim Jews already there who later abandoned their original Eastern European Jewish culture in favor of the Ashkenazi one. However, according to more recent research, mass migrations of Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews occurred to Eastern Europe, from Central Europe in

8905-475: The authority of the chief Ashkenazi rabbi in halakhic matters. In this respect, a religiously Ashkenazi Jew is an Israeli who is more likely to support certain religious interests in Israel, including certain political parties. These political parties result from the fact that a portion of the Israeli electorate votes for Jewish religious parties; although the electoral map changes from one election to another, there are generally several small parties associated with

9042-407: The beginning of each month was determined based on physical observation of a new moon, while the decision of whether to add the leap month was based on observation of natural agriculture-related events in ancient Israel . Between the years 70 and 1178, these empirical criteria were gradually replaced with a set of mathematical rules. Month length now follows a fixed schedule which is adjusted based on

9179-545: The centuries, Ashkenazim made significant contributions to Europe's philosophy , scholarship, literature , art , music , and science . As a proportion of the world Jewish population , Ashkenazim were estimated to be 3% in the 11th century, rising to 92% in 1930 near the population's peak. The Ashkenazi population was significantly diminished by the Holocaust carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II which killed some six million Jews, affecting almost every European Jewish family. In 1933, prior to World War II,

9316-409: The congregants sit. Sometimes, a distinction is made between the different forms of Kaddish, or each congregant stands or sits according to his or her own custom. The Mourner's Kaddish is often treated differently from the other variations of Kaddish in the service, as is the Half Kaddish before the maftir . Those standing to recite Kaddish bow, by widespread tradition, at various places. Generally: At

9453-426: The cradle of Germanic tribes, as early as a 6th-century gloss to the Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius . In the 10th-century History of Armenia of Yovhannes Drasxanakertc'i (1.15), Ashkenaz was associated with Armenia, as it was occasionally in Jewish usage, where its denotation extended at times to Adiabene , Khazaria , Crimea and areas to the east. His contemporary Saadia Gaon identified Ashkenaz with

9590-409: The culture of the Babylonian Talmud that underlies it became established in southern Italy and then spread north to Ashkenaz. Numerous massacres of Jews occurred throughout Europe during the Christian Crusades . Inspired by the preaching of a First Crusade, crusader mobs in France and Germany perpetrated the Rhineland massacres of 1096, devastating Jewish communities along the Rhine River, including

9727-429: The current year is written as ה'תשפ"ה ‎(5785) using the "major era" and תשפ"ה ‎(785) using the "minor era". Since the Jewish calendar has been fixed, leap months have been added according to the Metonic cycle of 19 years, of which 12 are common (non-leap) years of 12 months, and 7 are leap years of 13 months. This 19-year cycle is known in Hebrew as the Machzor Katan ("small cycle"). Because

9864-459: The custom is that all the mourners stand and chant the Kaddish together. In Ashkenazi synagogues before the 19th century, one mourner was chosen to lead the prayer on behalf of the rest, but gradually over the last two centuries, most (but certainly not all) communities have adopted the Sephardi custom. In many Reform synagogues, the entire congregation recites the Mourner's Kaddish together. This

10001-459: The customs of their ancestors and do not believe they have the option of picking and choosing. For this reason, observant Jews at times find it important for religious reasons to ascertain who their household's religious ancestors are in order to know what customs their household should follow. These times include, for example, when two Jews of different ethnic background marry, when a non-Jew converts to Judaism and determines what customs to follow for

10138-402: The days of the week). So over 247 years, not only does the 19-year leap year cycle repeat itself, but the days of the week (and thus the days of Rosh Hashanah and the year length) typically repeat themselves. To determine whether a Jewish year is a leap year, one must find its position in the 19-year Metonic cycle. This position is calculated by dividing the Jewish year number by 19 and finding

10275-573: The degree and sources of European admixture , with some focusing on the European genetic origin in Ashkenazi maternal lineages, contrasting with the predominantly Middle Eastern genetic origin in paternal lineages. The name Ashkenazi derives from the biblical figure of Ashkenaz , the first son of Gomer , son of Japhet , son of Noah , and a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations ( Genesis 10 ). The name of Gomer has often been linked to

10412-408: The difference between the solar and lunar years increases by 7/19-month per year. When the difference goes above 18/19-month this signifies a leap year, and the difference is reduced by one month. The Hebrew calendar assumes that a month is uniformly of the length of an average synodic month , taken as exactly 29 13753 ⁄ 25920 days (about 29.530594 days, which is less than half a second from

10549-548: The early Middle Ages, some Jews assimilated into the dominant Greek and Latin cultures, mostly through conversion to Christianity. King Dagobert I of the Franks expelled the Jews from his Merovingian kingdom in 629. Jews in former Roman territories faced new challenges as harsher anti-Jewish Church rulings were enforced. Charlemagne 's expansion of the Frankish empire around 800, including northern Italy and Rome, brought on

10686-462: The early modern period. During the 16th century, as conditions for Italian Jews worsened, many Jews from Venice and the surrounding area migrated to Poland and Lithuania. During the 16th and 17th centuries, some Sephardi Jews and Romaniote Jews from throughout the Ottoman Empire migrated to Eastern Europe, as did Arabic-speaking Mizrahi Jews and Persian Jews . In the first half of

10823-529: The economy, media, and politics of Israel since its founding. During the first decades of Israel as a state, strong cultural conflict occurred between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews (mainly east European Ashkenazim). The roots of this conflict, which still exists to a much smaller extent in present-day Israeli society, are chiefly attributed to the concept of the " melting pot ". That is to say, all Jewish immigrants who arrived in Israel were strongly encouraged to "meltdown" their own particular exilic identities within

10960-508: The eleventh century, anno mundi dating became the dominant method of counting years throughout most of the world's Jewish communities, replacing earlier systems such as the Seleucid era . As with Anno Domini (A.D. or AD), the words or abbreviation for Anno Mundi (A.M. or AM) for the era should properly precede the date rather than follow it. The reference junction of the Sun and

11097-655: The emancipation, Zionism developed in central Europe. Other Jews, particularly those in the Pale of Settlement , turned to socialism . These tendencies would be united in Labor Zionism , the founding ideology of the State of Israel. Of the estimated 8.8 million Jews living in Europe at the beginning of World War II , the majority of whom were Ashkenazi, about 6 million – more than two-thirds – were systematically murdered in

11234-423: The end of the service became designated as Kaddish Yatom or Mourner's Kaddish (literally, "Orphan's Kaddish")." The Kaddish was not always recited by mourners and instead became a prayer for mourners sometime between the 12th and 13th centuries when it started to be associated with a medieval legend about Rabbi Akiva who meets a dead man seeking redemption in the afterlife. Elitzur made an attempt at reconstructing

11371-488: The estimated worldwide Jewish population was 15.3 million. Israeli demographer and statistician Sergio D. Pergola implied that Ashkenazim comprised 65–70% of Jews worldwide in 2000, while other estimates suggest more than 75%. As of 2013 , the population was estimated to be between 10 million and 11.2 million. Genetic studies indicate that Ashkenazim have both Levantine and European (mainly southern European) ancestry. These studies draw diverging conclusions about

11508-519: The far north, the others being Minni and Ararat (corresponding to Urartu ), called on by God to resist Babylon. In the Yoma tractate of the Babylonian Talmud the name Gomer is rendered as Germania , which elsewhere in rabbinical literature was identified with Germanikia in northwestern Syria, but later became associated with Germania . Ashkenaz is linked to Scandza/Scanzia , viewed as

11645-411: The father of Ashkenaz, is translated by Germamia , which evidently stands for Germany, and which was suggested by the similarity of the sound. In later times, the word Ashkenaz is used to designate southern and western Germany, the ritual of which sections differs somewhat from that of eastern Germany and Poland. Thus the prayer-book of Isaiah Horowitz , and many others, give the piyyutim according to

11782-512: The favor. Further evidence of German communities in the holy city comes in the form of halakhic questions sent from Germany to Jerusalem during the second half of the 11th century. Material relating to the history of German Jews has been preserved in the communal accounts of certain communities on the Rhine, a Memorbuch , and a Liebesbrief , documents that are now part of the Sassoon Collection. Heinrich Graetz also added to

11919-488: The festivals specified in the Bible ( Purim , Passover , Shavuot , Rosh Hashanah , Yom Kippur , Sukkot , and Shemini Atzeret ). The lengths of months in this period are fixed, meaning that the day of week of Passover dictates the day of week of the other Biblical holidays. However, the lengths of the months of Marcheshvan and Kislev can each vary by a day (due to the Rosh Hashanah postponement rules which are used to adjust

12056-459: The first word of the prayer, at each Amen , at Yitbarakh , at Brikh hu , and for the last verse ( Oseh shalom ). For Oseh shalom it is customary to take three steps back (if possible) then bow to one's left, then to one's right, and finally bow forward, as if taking leave of the presence of a king, in the same way as when the same words are used as the concluding line of the Amidah. According to

12193-438: The forces of Herod the Great with assistance from Roman forces in 37 BCE. It is known that Jewish war captives were sold into slavery after the suppression of a minor Jewish revolt in 53 BCE, and some were probably taken to southern Europe. Regarding Jewish settlements founded in southern Europe during the Roman era, E. Mary Smallwood wrote that "no date or origin can be assigned to the numerous settlements eventually known in

12330-502: The general social "pot" in order to become Israeli. As of 2020, 63% of American Jews are Ashkenazim. A disproportionate amount of Ashkenazi Americans are religious compared to American Jews of other racial groups. They live in large populations in the states of New York, California, Florida, and New Jersey. The majority of American Ashkenazi Jewish voters vote for the Democratic Party , although Orthodox ones tend to support

12467-529: The grave, during shiva , and in daily prayers since the 17th century. Rabbi Yair Bacharach concluded that technically a woman can recite the Mourner's Kaddish, but since this is not the common practice, it should be discouraged. As such, women reciting kaddish is controversial in some Orthodox communities, and it is almost unheard of in Haredi communities . Nevertheless, Rabbi Aharon Soloveichik ruled that in our time, we should permit women to say Kaddish, and this

12604-483: The half, complete, mourner's and rabbi's kaddish. The variant lines of the kaddish after a burial or a siyum are given below. In the burial kaddish, and that after a siyum according to Ashkenazim,, lines 2 - 3 are replaced by: In some recent non-Orthodox prayerbooks, for example, the American Reform Machzor , line 36 is replaced with: This effort to extend the reach of Oseh Shalom to non-Jews

12741-467: The history of German Jewry in modern times in the abstract of his seminal work, History of the Jews , which he entitled "Volksthümliche Geschichte der Juden." In an essay on Sephardi Jewry, Daniel Elazar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs summarized the demographic history of Ashkenazi Jews in the last thousand years. He noted that at the end of the 11th century, 97% of world Jewry

12878-409: The idea that Jews had the know-how and capacity to jump-start the economy, improve revenues, and enlarge trade seems to have played a prominent role. Typically, Jews relocated close to the markets and churches in town centres, where, though they came under the authority of both royal and ecclesiastical powers, they were accorded administrative autonomy. In the 11th century, both Rabbinic Judaism and

13015-463: The interests of religious Ashkenazi Jews. The role of religious parties, including small religious parties that play important roles as coalition members, results in turn from Israel's composition as a complex society in which competing social, economic, and religious interests stand for election to the Knesset , a unicameral legislature with 120 seats. Ashkenazi Jews have played a prominent role in

13152-514: The invitation of local Christian rulers. Thus Baldwin V, Count of Flanders , invited Jacob ben Yekutiel and his fellow Jews to settle in his lands; and soon after the Norman conquest of England , William the Conqueror likewise extended a welcome to continental Jews to take up residence there. Bishop Rüdiger Huzmann called on the Jews of Mainz to relocate to Speyer . In all of these decisions,

13289-767: The land of Israel/Judaea. They collected an annual temple tax from Jews both in and outside of Israel. The revolts in and suppression of diaspora communities in Egypt, Libya and Crete during the Kitos War of 115–117 CE had a severe impact on the Jewish diaspora. A substantial Jewish population emerged in northern Gaul by the Middle Ages, but Jewish communities existed in 465 CE in Brittany , in 524 CE in Valence , and in 533 CE in Orléans . Throughout this period and into

13426-576: The majority of the American Jewish community since 1750. In the context of the European Enlightenment , Jewish emancipation began in 18th century France and spread throughout Western and Central Europe. Disabilities that had limited the rights of Jews since the Middle Ages were abolished, including the requirements to wear distinctive clothing, pay special taxes, and live in ghettos isolated from non-Jewish communities and

13563-522: The masses. He notes that quotations from the Kaddish in the Talmud and Sifrei are in Hebrew, and that even today some of the words are Hebrew rather than Aramaic. The oldest version of the Kaddish is found in the Siddur of Rab Amram Gaon , c. 900. "The first mention of mourners reciting Kaddish at the end of the service is in a thirteenth century halakhic writing called the Or Zarua . The Kaddish at

13700-469: The melody can change according to the version, the day it is said and even the position in the service. Many mourners recite Kaddish slowly and contemplatively. In Sephardi synagogues the whole congregation sits for Kaddish, except: In Ashkenazi synagogues, the custom varies. Very commonly, in both Orthodox and Reform congregations, everyone stands for the mourner's kaddish; but in some (especially many Conservative and Sephardic ) synagogues, most of

13837-462: The mid-first century became widely accepted, including by Louis Feldman . However, contemporary scholars now accept that Bar Hebraeus based his figure on a census of total Roman citizens and thus included non-Jews, the figure of 6,944,000 being recorded in Eusebius' Chronicon . Louis Feldman, previously an active supporter of the figure, now states that he and Baron were mistaken. Philo gives

13974-482: The migration patterns of Jews from Southern and Western Europe to Central and Eastern Europe. In 1740, a family from Lithuania became the first Ashkenazi Jews to settle in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. In the generations after emigration from the west, Jewish communities in places like Poland, Russia, and Belarus enjoyed a comparatively stable socio-political environment. A thriving publishing industry and

14111-562: The minyan. The Kaddish has been a particularly common theme and reference point in the arts, including the following: (Alphabetical by author) (Alphabetical by creator) (Alphabetical by creator) (Alphabetical by creator) (Chronological) (Alphabetical by program title) Hebrew calendar#Months Hebrew Judeo-Aramaic Judeo-Arabic Other Jewish diaspora languages Jewish folklore Jewish poetry The Hebrew calendar ( Hebrew : הַלּוּחַ הָעִבְרִי , romanized :  halLūaḥ hāʿĪḇrī ), also called

14248-552: The modern name differs slightly from the version in Genesis.) The seventh day, Shabbat , as its Hebrew name indicates, is a day of rest in Judaism. In Talmudic Hebrew, the word Shabbat ( שַׁבָּת ) can also mean "week", so that in ritual liturgy a phrase like "Yom Reviʻi beShabbat" means "the fourth day in the week". Jewish holidays can only fall on the weekdays shown in the following table: The period from 1 Adar (or Adar II , in leap years) to 29 Marcheshvan contains all of

14385-472: The modern scientific estimate); it also assumes that a tropical year is exactly 12 7 ⁄ 19 times that, i.e., about 365.2468 days. Thus it overestimates the length of the tropical year (365.2422 days) by 0.0046 days (about 7 minutes) per year, or about one day in 216 years. This error is less than the Julian years (365.2500 days) make (0.0078 days/year, or one day in 128 years), but much more than what

14522-401: The mourners on their loved ones' behalf. It is believed that mourners adopted this version of the Kaddish around the 13th century during harsh persecution of Jews by crusaders in Germany because of the opening messianic line about God bringing the dead back to life (though this line is not in many modern versions). There is evidence of some women saying the Mourner's Kaddish for their parents at

14659-488: The movement was by no means a singular, centralized event, and a Jewish diaspora had already been established before. During both of these rebellions, many Jews were captured and sold into slavery by the Romans. According to the Jewish historian Josephus , 97,000 Jews were sold as slaves in the aftermath of the first revolt. In one occasion, Vespasian reportedly ordered 6,000 Jewish prisoners of war from Galilee to work on

14796-415: The next sunset. Similarly, Yom Kippur , Passover , and Shabbat are described in the Bible as lasting "from evening to evening". The days are therefore figured locally. Halachically , the exact time when days begin or end is uncertain: this time could be either sundown ( shekiah ) or else nightfall ( tzait ha'kochavim , "when the stars appear"). The time between sundown and nightfall ( bein hashmashot )

14933-450: The number of times that the Mourner's Kaddish is recited, for example by reciting a separate Mourner's Kaddish after both Aleinu and then each closing Psalm. Other synagogues limit themselves to one Mourner's Kaddish at the end of the service. And still in other communities where they preserve the original custom to only allow one person to recite each Kaddish, the number of Kaddishim recited depends on how many mourners are present. Notably,

15070-449: The number of years since the creation of the world according to the Genesis creation narrative and subsequent Biblical stories. The current Hebrew year, AM 5785, began at sunset on 2 October 2024 and will end at sunset on 22 September 2025. Based on the classic rabbinic interpretation of Genesis 1:5 ("There was evening and there was morning, one day"), a day in the rabbinic Hebrew calendar runs from sunset (the start of "the evening") to

15207-1109: The official religion of Rome and Constantinople in 380 CE, Jews were increasingly marginalized. The Synagogue in the Agora of Athens is dated to the period between 267 and 396 CE. The Stobi Synagogue in Macedonia was built on the ruins of a more ancient synagogue in the 4th century, while later in the 5th century, the synagogue was transformed into a Christian basilica. Hellenistic Judaism thrived in Antioch and Alexandria , and many of these Greek-speaking Jews would convert to Christianity. Sporadic epigraphic evidence in gravesite excavations, particularly in Brigetio ( Szőny ), Aquincum ( Óbuda ), Intercisa ( Dunaújváros ), Triccinae ( Sárvár ), Savaria ( Szombathely ), Sopianae ( Pécs ) in Hungary, and Mursa ( Osijek ) in Croatia, attest to

15344-587: The original Ashkenazic custom, as well as the Yemenite custom, one mourner recites each Kaddish, and the Halachic authorities set down extensive rules to determine who has priority for each kaddish. In most (but not all) Ashkenazic communities, they have adopted the Sephardic custom to allow multiple mourners to recite Kaddish together. Masekhet Soferim , an eighth-century compilation of Jewish laws regarding

15481-475: The possible exception of Trier and Cologne , the archeological evidence suggests at most a fleeting presence of very few Jews, primarily itinerant traders or artisans. Estimating the number of Jews in antiquity is a task fraught with peril due to the nature of and lack of accurate documentation. The number of Jews in the Roman Empire for a long time was based on the accounts of Syrian Orthodox bishop Bar Hebraeus who lived between 1226 and 1286 CE, who stated by

15618-680: The preparation of holy books and public reading, states (Chapter 10:7) that Kaddish may be recited only in the presence of a minyan (a quorum of at least 10 men in Orthodox Judaism or 10 adults in Reform and Conservative Judaism). While the traditional view is that "If kaddish is said in private, then by definition it is not kaddish ," some alternatives have been suggested, including the Kaddish L'yachid ("Kaddish for an individual"), attributed to ninth-century Gaon Amram bar Sheshna , and

15755-515: The presence of Jews after the 2nd and 3rd centuries where Roman garrisons were established. There was a sufficient number of Jews in Pannonia to form communities and build a synagogue. Jewish troops were among the Syrian soldiers transferred there, and replenished from the Middle East. After 175 CE Jews and especially Syrians came from Antioch , Tarsus , and Cappadocia . Others came from Italy and

15892-512: The present, Jewish life in northern Europe is well documented. By the 11th century, when Rashi of Troyes wrote his commentaries, Jews in what came to be known as "Ashkenaz" were known for their halakhic learning , and Talmudic studies . They were criticized by Sephardim and other Jewish scholars in Islamic lands for their lack of expertise in Jewish jurisprudence and general ignorance of Hebrew linguistics and literature. Yiddish emerged as

16029-467: The printing of hundreds of biblical commentaries precipitated the development of the Hasidic movement as well as major Jewish academic centers. After two centuries of comparative tolerance in the new nations, massive westward emigration occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries in response to pogroms in the east and the economic opportunities offered in other parts of the world. Ashkenazi Jews have made up

16166-485: The prohibitions on certain professions. Laws were passed to integrate Jews into their host countries, forcing Ashkenazi Jews to adopt family names (they had formerly used patronymics ). Newfound inclusion into public life led to cultural growth in the Haskalah , or Jewish Enlightenment, with its goal of integrating modern European values into Jewish life. As a reaction to increasing antisemitism and assimilation following

16303-610: The service: for example, before Barechu , after the Amidah , and following readings from the Torah. The Kaddish d'Rabbanan is used after any part of the service that includes extracts from the Mishnah or the Talmud , as its original purpose was to close a study session. Kaddish Titkabbal marks the end of the core of the prayer service, and it originally indeed marked the end of a service, although in later times extra passages and hymns were added to follow it. The following includes

16440-403: The solar year exceed the lunar year? By approximately 11 days. Therefore, whenever this excess accumulates to about 30 days, or a little more or less, one month is added and the particular year is made to consist of 13 months, and this is the so-called embolismic (intercalated) year. For the year could not consist of twelve months plus so-and-so many days, since it is said: "throughout the months of

16577-482: The solar year if leap months were not occasionally added.) According to the rabbinic calculation, this requirement means that Passover (or at least most of Passover) should fall after the March equinox . Similarly, the holidays of Shavuot and Sukkot are presumed by the Torah to fall in specific agricultural seasons. Maimonides , discussing the calendrical rules in his Mishneh Torah (1178), notes: By how much does

16714-494: The synagogue there, but occasionally also with regard to certain other observances. In the literature of the 13th century, references to the land and the language of Ashkenaz often occur. Examples include Solomon ben Aderet 's Responsa (vol. i., No. 395); the Responsa of Asher ben Jehiel (pp. 4, 6); his Halakot (Berakot i. 12, ed. Wilna, p. 10); the work of his son Jacob ben Asher , Tur Orach Chayim (chapter 59);

16851-548: The theorized original Hebrew version of Kaddish: Rabbi David Bar-Hayim also attempted a reconstruction: Mourner's Kaddish is said in most communities at all prayer services and certain other occasions. It is written in Aramaic . It takes the form of Kaddish Yehe Shelama Rabba , and is traditionally recited several times, most prominently at or towards the end of the service, after the Aleinu and/or closing Psalms and/or (on

16988-473: The time of its original composition, was the lingua franca of the Jewish people. It is not composed in the vernacular Aramaic, however, but rather in a "literary, jargon Aramaic" that was used in the academies, and is identical to the dialect of the Targumim . Professor Yoel Elitzur , however, argues that the Kaddish was originally written in Hebrew, and later translated to Aramaic to be better understood by

17125-413: The time of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, as many as six million Jews were already living in the Roman Empire, a conclusion which has been contested as highly exaggerated. The 13th-century author Bar Hebraeus gave a figure of 6,944,000 Jews in the Roman world. Salo Wittmayer Baron considered the figure convincing. The figure of seven million within and one million outside the Roman world in

17262-480: The use of kavanah prayer, asking heavenly beings to join with the individual "to make a minyan of both Earth and heaven". In some Reform congregations, a minyan is not required for recitation of the Kaddish, but other Reform congregations disagree and believe that the Kaddish should be said publicly. "The Kaddish is in origin a closing doxology to an Aggadic discourse." Most of it is written in Aramaic, which, at

17399-531: The victims were Ashkenazi Jews, their percentage dropped from an estimate of 92% of world Jewry in 1930 to nearly 80% of world Jewry today. The Holocaust also effectively put an end to the dynamic development of the Yiddish language in the previous decades , as the vast majority of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, around 5 million, were Yiddish speakers. Many of the surviving Ashkenazi Jews emigrated to countries such as Israel, Canada, Argentina, Australia , and

17536-440: The week can be derived. The Hebrew calendar is a lunisolar calendar , meaning that months are based on lunar months , but years are based on solar years . The calendar year features twelve lunar months of 29 or 30 days, with an additional lunar month ("leap month") added periodically to synchronize the twelve lunar cycles with the longer solar year. These extra months are added in seven years (3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19) out of

17673-590: The west, and some may have been founded as a result of the dispersal of Palestinian Jews after the revolts of AD 66–70 and 132–135, but it is reasonable to conjecture that many, such as the settlement in Puteoli attested in 4 BC, went back to the late republic or early empire and originated in voluntary emigration and the lure of trade and commerce." The first and second centuries CE saw a series of unsuccessful large-scale Jewish revolts against Rome . The Roman suppression of these revolts led to wide-scale destruction,

17810-518: The west, who due to high birth rates absorbed and largely replaced the preceding non-Ashkenazi Jewish groups of Eastern Europe (whose numbers the demographer Sergio Della Pergola considers to have been small). Genetic evidence also indicates that Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews largely descend from Ashkenazi Jews who migrated from central to eastern Europe and subsequently experienced high birthrates and genetic isolation. Some Jewish immigration from southern Europe to Eastern Europe continued into

17947-536: The year length). As a result, the holidays falling after Marcheshvan (starting with Chanukah) can fall on multiple days for a given row of the table. A common mnemonic is " לא אד"ו ראש, ולא בד"ו פסח ", meaning: "Rosh HaShana cannot be on Sunday, Wednesday or Friday, and Passover cannot be on Monday, Wedesday or Friday" with each days' numerical equivalent, in gematria , is used, such that א' = 1 = Sunday, and so forth. From this rule, every other date can be calculated by adding weeks and days until that date's possible day of

18084-532: The year", which implies that we should count the year by months and not by days. The Hebrew calendar year conventionally begins on Rosh Hashanah , the first day of Tishrei . However, the Jewish calendar also defines several additional new years, used for different purposes. The use of multiple starting dates for a year is comparable to different starting dates for civil "calendar years", "tax or fiscal years ", " academic years ", and so on. The Mishnah (c. 200 CE) identifies four new-year dates: The 1st of Nisan

18221-558: Was Sephardic and 3% Ashkenazi; in the mid-17th century, "Sephardim still outnumbered Ashkenazim three to two"; by the end of the 18th century, "Ashkenazim outnumbered Sephardim three to two, the result of improved living conditions in Christian Europe versus the Ottoman Muslim world." By 1930, Arthur Ruppin estimated that Ashkenazi Jews accounted for nearly 92% of world Jewry. These factors are sheer demography showing

18358-654: Was denominated Sefarad ( Obadiah 20), France was called Tsarefat ( 1 Kings 17:9 ), and Bohemia was called the Land of Canaan . By the high medieval period, Talmudic commentators like Rashi began to use Ashkenaz/Eretz Ashkenaz to designate Germany , earlier known as Loter , where, especially in the Rhineland communities of Speyer , Worms and Mainz , the most important Jewish communities arose. Rashi uses leshon Ashkenaz (Ashkenazi language) to describe Yiddish, and Byzantium and Syrian Jewish letters referred to

18495-594: Was especially difficult to differentiate Jews from the Syrians. After Pannonia was ceded to the Huns in 433, the garrison populations were withdrawn to Italy, and only a few, enigmatic traces remain of a possible Jewish presence in the area some centuries later. No evidence has yet been found of a Jewish presence in antiquity in Germany beyond its Roman border, nor in Eastern Europe. In Gaul and Germany itself, with

18632-478: Was focused on trade, business management, and financial services, due to several presumed factors: Christian European prohibitions restricting certain activities by Jews, preventing certain financial activities (such as " usurious " loans) between Christians, high rates of literacy, near-universal male education, and ability of merchants to rely upon and trust family members living in different regions and countries. In Poland, Jews were granted special protection by

18769-556: Was renamed Syria Palaestina . Jews were prohibited from entering the city on pain of death. Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt. With their national aspirations crushed and widespread devastation in Judea, despondent Jews migrated out of Judea in the aftermath of both revolts, and many settled in southern Europe. In contrast to the earlier Assyrian and Babylonian captivities,

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