Second Temple Judaism is the Jewish religion as it developed during the Second Temple period , which began with the construction of the Second Temple around 516 BCE and ended with the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.
230-583: The Second Temple period was marked by the emergence of multiple religious currents as well as extensive cultural, religious, and political developments among Jews . It saw the progression of the Hebrew Bible canon , the synagogue , and Jewish eschatology . Additionally, the rise of Christianity began in the final years of the Second Temple period. According to Jewish tradition, authentic prophecy ( נְבוּאָה , Nevu’ah ) ceased during
460-469: A Messiah of (meaning descended from) David. Wisdom, or hokmah , implied the learning acquired by study and formal education: "those who can read and write, those who have engaged in study, and who know literature, are the wise par excellence ". The literature associated with this tradition includes the books of Job , Psalms , Proverbs , Ecclesiastes , Song of Songs , Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon ,
690-611: A Roman colonia and foreign cults. It is commonly held that this was done as an insult to the Jews and as a means of erasing the land's Jewish identity, Others argued that this project was expressive of an intention of establishing administratively and culturally a firm Roman imperial presence, and thus incorporating the province, now called Syro-Palaestina, into the Roman world system. These political measures were, according to Menachem Mor, devoid of any intention to eliminate Judaism, indeed,
920-604: A clear paternal link between the Bene Israel and the Levant." "The most parsimonious explanation for these observations is a common genetic origin, which is consistent with an historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant." In conclusion the authors are stating that the genetic results are concordant "with the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout
1150-452: A denigrated minority, stripped of such rights, in the host society. Sometimes diaspora and galut are defined as 'voluntary' as opposed to 'involuntary' exile. Diaspora, it has been argued, has a political edge, referring to geopolitical dispersion, which may be involuntary, but which can assume, under different conditions, a positive nuance. Galut is more teleological , and connotes a sense of uprootedness. Daniel Boyarin defines diaspora as
1380-694: A disputed province of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria. In the early part of the 2nd century BCE, a revolt against the Seleucids led to the establishment of an independent Jewish kingdom under the Hasmonean dynasty. The Hasmoneans adopted a deliberate policy of imitating and reconstituting the Davidic kingdom, and as part of this forcibly converted to Judaism their neighbours in the Land of Israel. The conversions included Nabateans ( Zabadeans ) and Itureans ,
1610-572: 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 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
1840-527: A figure similar to a Messiah, as a descendant of the House of David who seemed, briefly, to be about to re-establish the ancient royal line. Zechariah writes of two messiahs, one royal and the other priestly. These early hopes were dashed (Zerubabbel disappears from the historical record, although the High Priests continued to be descended from Joshua ), and thereafter there are merely general references to
2070-533: A firm Christian majority. Judaism was the only non-Christian religion tolerated, but the Jews were discriminated against in various ways. They were prohibited from building new houses of worship, holding public office, or owning slaves. The 7th century saw the Jewish revolt against Heraclius , which broke out in 614 during the Byzantine–Sasanian War . It was the last serious attempt by Jews to gain autonomy in
2300-411: A full one-tenth (10%) of the population of the ancient city of Rome itself. Finally, if the sums confiscated by the governor Lucius Valerius Flaccus in the year 62/61 BCE represented the tax of a didrachma per head for a single year, it would imply that the Jewish population of Asia Minor numbered 45,000 adult males, for a total of at least 180,000 persons. The 13th-century author Bar Hebraeus gave
2530-523: A goddess called the Queen of Heaven , probably a fusion of Astarte and the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar , was possibly also worshiped, though this is often viewed as another title for Asherah. Baal and Yahweh coexisted in the early period but were considered irreconcilable after the 9th century. The worship of Yahweh alone, the concern of a small party in the monarchic period, gained ascendancy only in
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#17327659466532760-589: A majority of the population until some time after Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century. The ban on Jewish settlement in Jerusalem was maintained. There was a minor Jewish rebellion against a corrupt governor from 351 to 352 which was put down. In the 5th century, the collapse of the Western Roman Empire resulted in Christian migration into Palestine and the development of
2990-741: A military class that successively served the Persian , the Ptolemaic and Roman governments down to the early decades of the second century CE, when the revolt against Trajan destroyed them. Their presence was buttressed by numerous Jewish administrators who joined them in Egypt's military and urban centres. According to Josephus , when Ptolemy I took Judea, he led 120,000 Jewish captives to Egypt, and many other Jews, attracted by Ptolemy's liberal and tolerant policies and Egypt's fertile soil, emigrated from Judea to Egypt of their own free will. Ptolemy settled
3220-474: A minority adopted views from Jubilees and 4QMMT , which promoted the idea that Jews were "radically discontinuous with the rest of humanity". Those works were of Essene, Hasidean or Sadducee origin. Other Jews were dissatisfied with the Pentateuch 's national-geographic definition of Jewishness, which did not sufficiently distinguish the multi-ethnic inhabitants of Judea from Jewish diasporas. For example,
3450-457: A multilingual group to a monolingual one (or nearly so), speaking French in Algeria , Morocco , and the city of Tunis , while most North Africans continue to use Arabic or Berber as their mother tongue. There is no single governing body for the Jewish community, nor a single authority with responsibility for religious doctrine. Instead, a variety of secular and religious institutions at
3680-495: A particular interest in the history of Israel: the written Torah (the books of Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy ), for example, likely existed in various forms during the Monarchy (the period of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah ), but according to the documentary hypothesis (disputed by some Christians) it was in the Second Temple that it was edited and revised into something like its current form, and
3910-715: A people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele , which dates to around 1200 BCE. The majority of scholars agree that this text refers to the Israelites , a group that inhabited the central highlands of Canaan , where archaeological evidence shows that hundreds of small settlements were constructed between the 12th and 10th centuries BCE. The Israelites differentiated themselves from neighboring peoples through various distinct characteristics including religious practices , prohibition on intermarriage , and an emphasis on genealogy and family history. In
4140-690: A place of refuge for the Jews of Syria Palaestina . A number of significant Talmudic academies , such as the Nehardea , Pumbedita , and Sura academies, were established in Mesopotamia, and many important Amoraim were active there. The Babylonian Talmud , a centerpiece of Jewish religious law, was compiled in Babylonia in the 3rd to 6th centuries. Jewish diaspora communities are generally described to have coalesced into three major ethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled:
4370-666: A province under Rome's direct rule. Heavy taxes under the Romans and insensitivity towards the Jewish religion led to a revolt , and in 70 CE the Roman general (and later emperor) Titus captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, bringing an end to the Second Temple period. The Jewish exiles in Babylon were not slaves or prisoners, nor were they badly treated, and when the Persians gave permission for them to return to Jerusalem
4600-723: A religious component in national memories and culture is common even in the modern era. This view is echoed by political scientist Tom Garvin , who writes that "something strangely like modern nationalism is documented for many peoples in medieval times and in classical times as well," citing the ancient Jews as one of several "obvious examples", alongside the classical Greeks and the Gaulish and British Celts . Jewish diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( Hebrew : גוֹלָה , romanized : gōlā ), dispersion ( Hebrew : תְּפוּצָה , romanized : təfūṣā ) or exile (Hebrew: גָּלוּת gālūṯ ; Yiddish : golus )
4830-539: A religious interpretation of the traditions and early history of the Jews, established the first of the Abrahamic religions , which are now practiced by 54 percent of the world. Judaism guides its adherents in both practice and belief, and has been called not only a religion, but also a "way of life," which has made drawing a clear distinction between Judaism, Jewish culture , and Jewish identity rather difficult. Throughout history, in eras and places as diverse as
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#17327659466535060-482: A religious or national approach to identity is used. Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who were born to a Jewish family regardless of whether or not they follow the religion, those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent ), and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and therefore are followers of
5290-541: A reminder of the hallowed past, and, through most of the era, a Jewish regime existed in Palestine. Yet the Jews of the diaspora, from Italy to Iran, far outnumbered those in the homeland. Although Jerusalem loomed large in their self-perception as a nation, few of them had seen it, and few were likely to. Israel Yuval contends the Babylonian captivity created a promise of return in the Jewish consciousness which had
5520-603: A result, Ashkenazi Jews were gradually pushed eastwards to Poland , Lithuania and Russia . During the same period, Jewish communities in the Middle East thrived under Islamic rule, especially in cities like Baghdad , Cairo , and Damascus . In Babylonia, from the 7th to 11th centuries the Pumbedita and Sura academies led the Arab and to an extant the entire Jewish world. The deans and students of said academies defined
5750-638: A result, around 200,000 Jews were expelled from Spain , seeking refuge in places such as the Ottoman Empire , North Africa , Italy , the Netherlands and India . A similar fate awaited the Jews of Portugal a few years later. Some Jews chose to remain, and pretended to practice Catholicism . These Jews would form the members of Crypto-Judaism . In the 19th century, when Jews in Western Europe were increasingly granted equality before
5980-494: A result, many Jews emigrated to Babylon under the more tolerant Sassanid Empire , where autonomous Jewish communities continued to flourish, lured by the promise of economic prosperity and the ability to lead a full Jewish life there. Between the 3rd and 7th centuries, estimates indicate that the Babylonian Jewish community numbered approximately one million, which may have been the largest Jewish diaspora population of
6210-565: A rich literature of their own covering epic poetry, philosophy, tragedy and other forms. Less is known of the Babylonian diaspora , but the Seleucid period produced works such as the court tales of the Book of Daniel (chapters 1-6 of Daniel - chapters 7-12 were a later addition), and the books of Tobit and Esther . The eastern Jews were also responsible for the adoption and transmission of
6440-633: A significant population growth. This prosperity continued until the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib devastated the region of Judah in response to a rebellion in the area, ultimately halting at Jerusalem . Later in the same century, the Assyrians were defeated by the rising Neo-Babylonian Empire , and Judah became its vassal. In 587 BCE, following a revolt in Judah , the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and
6670-513: A similar semantic range, bear some distinct differences in connotation. The former has no traditional equivalent in Hebrew usage. Steven Bowman argues that diaspora in antiquity connoted emigration from an ancestral mother city, with the emigrant community maintaining its cultural ties with the place of origin. Just as the Greek city exported its surplus population, so did Jerusalem, while remaining
6900-679: A single event. There is no sudden expansion of the population base of 30,000 and no credible indication of any special interest in Yehud . Although most of the Jewish people during this period, especially the wealthy families, were to be found in Babylonia, the existence they led there, under the successive rulers of the Achaemenids , the Seleucids , the Parthians , and the Sassanians ,
7130-411: A state where people have a dual cultural allegiance, productive of a double consciousness , and in this sense a cultural condition not premised on any particular history, as opposed to galut, which is more descriptive of an existential situation, that properly of exile, conveying a particular psychological outlook. The Greek word διασπορά (dispersion) first appears as a neologism in the translation of
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7360-568: A state's function would be to 'sustain Jewish nationhood' in the diaspora. In 722 BCE, the Assyrians , under Sargon II , successor to Shalmaneser V , conquered the Kingdom of Israel , and many Israelites were deported to Mesopotamia . The Jewish proper diaspora began with the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE. After the overthrow of the Kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (see Babylonian captivity ) and
7590-554: A study by Doron Behar and Karl Skorecki of the Technion and Ramban Medical Center in Haifa, Israel demonstrated that the vast majority of Ashkenazi Jews, both men and women, have Middle Eastern ancestry. According to Nicholas Wades' 2010 Autosomal study Ashkenazi Jews share a common ancestry with other Jewish groups and Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews have roughly 30% European ancestry with the rest being Middle Eastern. According to Hammer,
7820-505: A variety of fields, making an impact on their communities' economy and societies. In Francia , for example, figures like Isaac Judaeus and Armentarius occupied prominent social and economic positions. However, Jews were frequently the subjects of discriminatory laws, segregation , blood libels and pogroms , which culminated in events like the Rhineland Massacres (1066) and the expulsion of Jews from England (1290). As
8050-405: A warning against intermarriage between Jews and gentiles. Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This is complemented by Ezra 10:2–3 , where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children. A popular theory is that the rape of Jewish women in captivity brought about
8280-590: Is an artificial date chosen so that 70 years could be said to have passed between the destruction and the rebuilding, fulfilling a prophecy of Jeremiah . The Persian period ended after Alexander the Great 's conquest of the Mediterranean coast in 333-332 BCE. His empire disintegrated after his death, and Judea fell to the Ptolemies , who ruled Egypt. In 200 BCE, Israel and Judea were conquered by
8510-593: Is considered the father of political Zionism, offered his vision of a future Jewish state in his 1896 book Der Judenstaat ( The Jewish State ); a year later, he presided over the First Zionist Congress . The antisemitism that inflicted Jewish communities in Europe also triggered a mass exodus of more than two million Jews to the United States between 1881 and 1924. The Jews of Europe and
8740-885: Is far less used today following the Holocaust and the adoption of Modern Hebrew by the Zionist movement and the State of Israel . In some places, the mother language of the Jewish community differs from that of the general population or the dominant group. For example, in Quebec , the Ashkenazic majority has adopted English, while the Sephardic minority uses French as its primary language. Similarly, South African Jews adopted English rather than Afrikaans . Due to both Czarist and Soviet policies, Russian has superseded Yiddish as
8970-648: Is further disagreement about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power. Historians agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by c. 900 BCE , there is a consensus that a Kingdom of Judah existed by c. 700 BCE at least, and recent excavations in Khirbet Qeiyafa have provided strong evidence for dating the Kingdom of Judah to the 10th century BCE. In 587 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II , King of
9200-540: Is no doubt of a Middle Eastern origin. In June 2010, Behar et al. "shows that most Jewish samples form a remarkably tight subcluster with common genetic origin, that overlies Druze and Cypriot samples but not samples from other Levantine populations or paired diaspora host populations. In contrast, Ethiopian Jews ( Beta Israel ) and Indian Jews (Bene Israel and Cochini ) cluster with neighboring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and western India, respectively, despite
9430-609: Is not possible to determine what their share was in the total Jewish population. Some scholars suggest that Jesus ' quote in the Gospel of Matthew , "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are", is evidence of Jewish proselytism during the time period. However, scholars such as Martin Goodman , for instance, argue that phrase relates to
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9660-468: Is only after the destruction of Jerusalem that Jews are found in northern Europe and along the western Mediterranean coast. Howard Adelman and Elazar Barkan challenge the "widespread notion" the Jews in Judea were only expelled after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Jewish defeat during Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE. They also contend it is "misleading" that the expulsion from Judea created
9890-669: Is the Judaeo-Spanish language developed by Sephardic Jews who migrated to the Iberian peninsula . Due to many factors, including the impact of the Holocaust on European Jewry, the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries , and widespread emigration from other Jewish communities around the world, ancient and distinct Jewish languages of several communities, including Judaeo-Georgian , Judaeo-Arabic , Judaeo-Berber , Krymchak , Judaeo-Malayalam and many others, have largely fallen out of use. For over sixteen centuries Hebrew
10120-587: Is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel ) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of the globe. In terms of the Hebrew Bible , the term "Exile" denotes the fate of the Israelites who were taken into exile from the Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BCE, and the Judahites from the Kingdom of Judah who were taken into exile during
10350-436: Is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew , in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics , is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on
10580-578: 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
10810-652: The Ashkenazim (initially in the Rhineland and France), the Sephardim (initially in the Iberian Peninsula ), and the Mizrahim ( Middle East and North Africa ). Romaniote Jews , Tunisian Jews , Yemenite Jews , Egyptian Jews , Ethiopian Jews , Bukharan Jews , Mountain Jews , and other groups also predated the arrival of the Sephardic diaspora. Despite experiencing repeated waves of persecution, Ashkenazi Jews in Western Europe worked in
11040-662: The Zugot headed the Jews' spiritual affairs; it was during this period that several factions, such as the Pharisees , Sadducees , Essenes , Zealots , and early Christians were formed. The " people of the land ", that is the uneducated people of the Holy Land , may be seen as another faction of Second Temple Judaism. (Note: dates and periods are in many cases approximate and/or conventional) In 586 BCE, Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II captured Jerusalem , destroyed
11270-595: The "Crisis under Caligula" (37–41) was the "first open break between Rome and the Jews". Meanwhile, the Kitos War , a rebellion by Jewish diaspora communities in Roman territories in the Eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, led to the destruction of Jewish communities in Crete, Cyprus, and North Africa in 117 CE, and consequently the dispersal of Jews already living outside of Judea to further reaches of
11500-434: The 2 Kings 17:23 's reference to the deportation of the Judean elite to Babylonia. Stéphane Dufoix, in surveying the textual evidence, draws the following conclusion: galuth and diaspora are drawn from two completely different lexicons. The first refers to episodes, precise and datable, in the history of the people of Israel, when the latter was subjected to a foreign occupation, such as that of Babylon, in which most of
11730-424: The Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe, and the Sephardic Jews of Iberia (Spain and Portugal), North Africa and the Middle East . These groups have parallel histories sharing many cultural similarities as well as a series of massacres, persecutions and expulsions, such as the expulsion from England in 1290 , the expulsion from Spain in 1492 , and the expulsion from Arab countries in 1948–1973 . Although
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#173276594665311960-424: The Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe, and the Sephardic Jews of Iberia (Spain and Portugal), North Africa and the Middle East . These groups have parallel histories sharing many cultural similarities as well as a series of massacres, persecutions and expulsions, such as the expulsion from England in 1290 , the expulsion from Spain in 1492 , and the expulsion from Arab countries in 1948–1973 . Although
12190-453: The Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatristic —and later monotheistic —religion of Yahwism centered on Yahweh , one of the gods of the Canaanite pantheon. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of cultic practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group , setting them apart from other Canaanites. According to Dever , modern archaeologists have largely discarded
12420-399: The Canaanite population to establish the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Judaism emerged from the Israelite religion of Yahwism 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,
12650-459: The Chronicles , a history written at this time, reflects the concerns of the Persian Yehud in its almost exclusive focus on Judah and the Temple. Prophetic works were also of particular interest to the Persian-era authors, with some works being composed at this time (the last ten chapters of Isaiah and the books of Haggai , Zechariah , Malachi and perhaps Joel ) and the older prophets edited and reinterpreted. The corpus of Wisdom books saw
12880-401: The First Temple , putting an end to the kingdom. The majority of Jerusalem's residents, including the kingdom's elite, were exiled to Babylon . According to the Book of Ezra , the Persian Cyrus the Great ended the Babylonian exile in 538 BCE, the year after he captured Babylon. The exile ended with the return under Zerubbabel the Prince (so called because he was a descendant of
13110-468: The Geonic period in Jewish history. Following this period were the Rishonim who lived from the 11th to 15th centuries. Like their European counterparts, Jews in the Middle East and North Africa also faced periods of persecution and discriminatory policies, with the Almohad Caliphate in North Africa and Iberia issuing forced conversion decrees, causing Jews such as Maimonides to seek safety in other regions. Initially, under Visigoth rule , Jews in
13340-437: The Herodian dynasty as vassal kings . However, Judea eventually came directly under Roman control and was incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province of Judaea . The Jewish–Roman wars , a series of unsuccessful revolts against Roman rule during the first and second centuries CE, had significant and disastrous consequences for the Jewish population of Judaea . The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) culminated in
13570-403: The Israelites of the historical kingdoms of Israel and Judah , and whose traditional religion is Judaism . Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is an ethnic religion , but not all ethnic Jews practice Judaism. Despite this, religious Jews regard individuals who have formally converted to Judaism as Jews. The Israelites emerged from within
13800-451: The Jewish-American Zionist academic Simon Rawidowicz , who to some degree argued for the acceptance of the Jewish presence outside the Land of Israel as a modern reality and an inevitability. The Greek term for diaspora (διασπορά) also appears three times in the New Testament , where it refers to the scattering of Israel, i.e., the Ten Northern Tribes of Israel as opposed to the Southern Kingdom of Judah, although James (1:1) refers to
14030-503: The Kingdom of God and the resurrection of the dead was at hand, that with few exceptions when they saw him shortly after his execution, they had no doubt that he had been resurrected, and that the arrival of the kingdom and resurrection of the dead was at hand. These specific beliefs were compatible with Second Temple Judaism. In the following years the restoration of the kingdom, as Jews expected it, failed to occur. Some Christians began to believe instead that Christ, rather than simply being
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#173276594665314260-433: The Land of Israel prior to modern times. Jewish rebels aided the Persians in capturing Jerusalem , where the Jews were permitted autonomous rule until 617, when the Persians reneged on their alliance. After Byzantine Emperor Heraclius promised to restore Jewish rights, the Jews aided him in ousting the Persians. Heraclius subsequently went back on his word and ordered a general massacre of the Jewish population, devastating
14490-436: The Neo-Babylonian Empire , besieged Jerusalem , destroyed the First Temple and deported parts of the Judahite population. Scholars disagree regarding the extent to which the Bible should be accepted as a historical source for early Israelite history. Rendsburg states that there are two approximately equal groups of scholars who debate the historicity of the biblical narrative , the minimalists who largely reject it, and
14720-563: The Old Testament known as the Septuagint , where it occurs 14 times, starting with a passage reading: ἔση διασπορὰ ἐν πάσαις βασιλείαις τῆς γῆς (‘thou shalt be a diaspora (or dispersion) in all kingdoms of the earth’, Deuteronomy 28:25 ), translating 'ləza‘ăwāh', whose root suggests 'trouble, terror'. In these contexts it never translated any term in the original Tanakh drawn from the Hebrew root glt ( גלה ), which lies behind galah, and golah , nor even galuth. Golah appears 42 times, and galuth in 15 passages, and first occurs in
14950-450: The Roman province of Judaea . The Judean population revolted against the Roman Empire in 66 CE in the First Jewish–Roman War , which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. During the siege, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and most of Jerusalem . This watershed moment, the elimination of the symbolic centre of Judaism and Jewish identity motivated many Jews to formulate a new self-definition and adjust their existence to
15180-433: The Seleucids , who ruled Syria. Around 167 BCE, for reasons that remain obscure, the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to suppress Jewish worship; this provoked a Jewish revolt that resulted in the end of Greek occupation. Hasmonean Judea was a client kingdom of the Romans, and in the 1st century BCE , the Romans replaced them with their protégé Herod the Great . After Herod’s death, Judea became
15410-406: The Tannaim may have been influenced by Roman law , which dictated that when a parent could not contract a legal marriage, offspring would follow the mother . Rabbi Rivon Krygier follows a similar reasoning, arguing that Jewish descent had formerly passed through the patrilineal descent and the law of matrilineal descent had its roots in the Roman legal system. The prehistory and ethnogenesis of
15640-408: The Temple of Solomon , and deported the elite of the population to Babylon (the " Babylonian exile "). In 539 BCE, Babylon fell to the Persian conqueror Cyrus , and in 538 BCE, the exiles were permitted to return to Yehud Medinata , a Judean province of the Persian Empire . The Temple is commonly said to have been rebuilt in the period 520–515 BCE, but it seems probable that this
15870-474: The Torah , is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE) of the Tanakh . Some modern scholars disagree with the conflation, based on the works of Josephus , Philo and Apostle Paul . The English word "Jew" is a derivation of Middle English Gyw, Iewe . The latter was loaned from the Old French giu , which itself evolved from the earlier juieu , which in turn derived from judieu/iudieu which through elision had dropped
16100-519: 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 wrote
16330-422: The Yiddish ייִד Yid (plural ייִדן Yidn ). Originally, in ancient times, Yehudi (Jew) was used to describe the inhabitants of the Israelite kingdom of Judah . It is also used to distinguish their descendants from the gentiles and the Samaritans . According to the Hebrew Bible , these inhabitants predominately descend from the tribe of Judah from Judah , the fourth son of Jacob . Together
16560-595: The destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple . The severely reduced Jewish population of Judaea was denied any kind of political self-government. A few generations later, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) erupted, and its brutal suppression by the Romans led to the depopulation of Judea . Following the revolt, Jews were forbidden from residing in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and the Jewish demographic center in Judaea shifted to Galilee . Similar upheavals impacted
16790-680: The diaspora uprisings of 116–117 CE resulted in the near-total destruction of Jewish communities in Cyrenaica and Egypt. By the third century, Jewish communities began to re-establish themselves in Egypt and Cyrenaica, primarily through immigration from the Land of Israel. Roman rule in Judea began in 63 BCE with the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey . After the city fell to Pompey's forces, thousands of Jewish prisoners of war were brought from Judea to Rome and sold into slavery. After these Jewish slaves were manumitted, they settled permanently in Rome on
17020-533: The religion of Judaism are strongly interrelated. Converts to Judaism typically have a status within the Jewish ethnos equal to those born into it. However, several converts to Judaism, as well as ex-Jews, have claimed that converts are treated as second-class Jews by many born Jews. Conversion is not encouraged by mainstream Judaism, and it is considered a difficult task. A significant portion of conversions are undertaken by children of mixed marriages, or would-be or current spouses of Jews. The Hebrew Bible ,
17250-546: The 10th century BCE, two neighboring Israelite kingdoms—the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah —emerged. Since their inception, they shared ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious characteristics despite a complicated relationship. Israel, with its capital mostly in Samaria , was larger and wealthier, and soon developed into a regional power. In contrast, Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem ,
17480-518: The 19th century to the present day. Research has not yet yielded a consensus among scholars: some believe that Judaism was a missionary religion, and others reject their conclusions. Some assess that the conversion of Gentiles to Judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman periods was a wide-ranging phenomenon of great demographic importance, while others doubt this. Modern research does not have the possibility to determine how many Gentiles converted, and it
17710-536: The 20th and early 21st centuries have accepted that widespread Torah observance began sometime around the middle of the 5th century BCE. However, scholars such as David Zvi Hoffmann and Umberto Cassuto devote lengthy treatises to refuting Wellhausen's theories. More recently, Yonatan Adler has argued that in fact there is no surviving evidence to support the notion that the Torah was widely known, regarded as authoritative, and put into practice, any time prior to
17940-492: The 6th century BCE. While in exile, the Judahites became known as "Jews" ( יְהוּדִים , or Yehudim ). The first exile was the Assyrian exile , the expulsion from the Kingdom of Israel begun by Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria in 733 BCE. This process was completed by Sargon II with the destruction of the kingdom in 722 BCE, concluding a three-year siege of Samaria begun by Shalmaneser V . The next experience of exile
18170-587: The Ashkenazi population expanded through a series of bottlenecks—events that squeeze a population down to small numbers—perhaps as it migrated from the Middle East after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, to Italy, reaching the Rhine Valley in the 10th century. David Goldstein, a Duke University geneticist and director of the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation, has said that the work of
18400-691: The Babylonian and Persian apocalyptic tradition seen in Daniel. The Hebrew Bible represents the beliefs of a small sector within the Israelite community who were exiled by the Babylonians and emphasized on orthodox worship, genealogical purity and adherence to the codified law. In the earliest stages of the Persian period, the returnees insisted on a strict separation between themselves ("Israel") and those who had never gone into exile ("Canaanites"), to
18630-497: The Babylonian destruction of Judah, the Roman destruction of Judea, and the subsequent rule of Christians and Muslims. After the revolt, the Jewish religious and cultural center shifted to the Babylonian Jewish community and its scholars. For the generations that followed, the destruction of the Second Temple event came to represent a fundamental insight about the Jews who had become a dispossessed and persecuted people for much of their history. Erich S. Gruen contends that focusing on
18860-737: The Babylonians. Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East , and that they share certain genetic traits with other Gentile peoples of the Fertile Crescent . The genetic composition of different Jewish groups shows that Jews share a common gene pool dating back four millennia, as a marker of their common ancestral origin. Despite their long-term separation, Jewish communities maintained their unique commonalities, propensities, and sensibilities in culture, tradition, and language. The earliest recorded evidence of
19090-591: 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 . The term "Jew" is derived from the Hebrew word יְהוּדִי Yehudi , with the plural יְהוּדִים Yehudim . Endonyms in other Jewish languages include the Ladino ג׳ודיו Djudio (plural ג׳ודיוס , Djudios ) and
19320-588: The Crusaders. The majority of Jerusalem's Jewish population was killed during the Crusader Siege of Jerusalem and the few thousand survivors were sold into slavery. Some of the Jews sold into slavery later had their freedom bought by Jewish communities in Italy and Egypt, and the redeemed slaves were taken to Egypt. Some Jewish prisoners of war were also deported to Apulia in southern Italy. Relief for
19550-477: The Empire. Jerusalem had been left in ruins from the time of Vespasian . Sixty years later, Hadrian, who had been instrumental in the expulsion from Palestine of Marcius Turbo after his bloody repression of Jews in the diaspora in 117 CE, on visiting the area of Iudaea , decided to rebuild the city in 130 CE, and settle it, circumstantial evidence suggesting it was he who renamed it Ælia Capitolina , with
19780-532: The Euphrates and in Adiabene (Kurdistan). In Josephus' own words, he had informed "the remotest Arabians" about the destruction. Jewish communities also existed in southern Europe, Anatolia, Syria, and North Africa. Jewish pilgrims from the diaspora, undeterred by the rebellion, had actually come to Jerusalem for Passover prior to the arrival of the Roman army, and many became trapped in the city and died during
20010-526: The Exile, the term Yehudi (Jew) was used for all followers of Judaism because the survivors of the Exile (who were the former residents of the Kingdom of Judah) were the only Israelites that had kept their distinct identity as the ten tribes from the northern Kingdom of Israel had been scattered and assimilated into other populations. The gradual ethnonymic shift from " Israelites " to "Jews", regardless of their descent from Judah, although not contained in
20240-619: The Great Revolt, a Jewish uprising to fight for independence, which began in 66 CE and was eventually crushed in 73 CE, culminating in the Siege of Jerusalem and the burning and destruction of the Temple, the centre of the national and religious life of the Jews throughout the world. The Jewish diaspora at the time of the Temple's destruction, according to Josephus , was in Parthia (Persia), Babylonia (Iraq), Arabia, as well as some Jews beyond
20470-498: The Greco-Roman world. Overall, Second Temple Judaism and Samaritanism were two religions that gradually split from the common religion of Yahwism . For most of the Second Temple period, Samaria was larger, richer, and more populous than Judea—down to about 164 BCE there were probably more Samaritans than Judeans living in Palestine. They had their own temple on Mount Gerizim near Shechem and regarded themselves as
20700-737: The Hasmoneans were criticized for blurring the line between gentile and Jew when they converted Idumeans but others, who held a strict interpretation of Deuteronomy 17:15 , feared the Idumean Herodians would usurp the Hasmoneans. But most Jews believed the Idumeans were acceptable converts since they lived in the Promised Land . C.L. Crouch states that pro-integrationist Jews were more likely to descend from Jews who were re-settled in Babylonian urban centers. Second Temple Judaism
20930-485: The High Priest, which was unheard of in earlier times, became the governing authority, making the province of Yehud a de facto theocracy , although it seems unlikely that they had significant autonomy. In the Hellenistic period, the High Priest continued to play a vital role with both cultic and civic obligations, and the office reached its height under the Hasmoneans who made themselves priest-kings. Both Herod and
21160-471: The Iberian Peninsula faced persecutions, but their circumstances changed dramatically under Islamic rule . During this period, they thrived in a golden age , marked by significant intellectual and cultural contributions in fields such as philosophy, medicine, and literature by figures such as Samuel ibn Naghrillah , Judah Halevi and Solomon ibn Gabirol . However, in the 12th to 15th centuries,
21390-683: The Iberian Peninsula witnessed a rise in antisemitism, leading to persecutions, anti-Jewish laws, massacres and forced conversions ( peaking in 1391 ), and the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition that same year. After the completion of the Reconquista and the issuance of the Alhambra Decree by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, the Jews of Spain were forced to choose: convert to Christianity or be expelled. As
21620-532: The Jewish academies of Palestine, and by the end of the third century they were reliant on donations from Babylon. The effect that the destruction of Jerusalem had on the Jewish diaspora has been a topic of considerable scholarly discussion. David Aberbach has argued that much of the European Jewish diaspora, by which he means exile or voluntary migration, originated with the Jewish wars which occurred between 66 and 135 CE. Martin Goodman states that it
21850-771: The Jewish communities in the empire's eastern provinces during the Diaspora Revolt (115–117 CE), leading to the near-total destruction of Jewish diaspora communities in Libya , Cyprus and Egypt , including the highly influential community in Alexandria . The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE brought profound changes to Judaism. With the Temple's central place in Jewish worship gone, religious practices shifted towards prayer , Torah study (including Oral Torah ), and communal gatherings in synagogues . Judaism also lost much of its sectarian nature. Two of
22080-549: The Jewish communities of Jerusalem and the Galilee. As a result, many Jews fled to Egypt. In 638, Palestine came under Muslim rule with the Muslim conquest of the Levant . One estimate placed the Jewish population of Palestine at between 300,000 and 400,000 at the time. However, this is contrary to other estimates which place it at 150,000 to 200,000 at the time of the revolt against Heraclius. According to historian Moshe Gil ,
22310-401: The Jewish identity of Biblical characters such as Jesus . Daniel R. Schwartz distinguishes "Judean" and "Jew". Here, "Judean" refers to the inhabitants of Judea, which encompassed southern Palestine . Meanwhile, "Jew" refers to the descendants of Israelites that adhere to Judaism . Converts are included in the definition. But Shaye J.D. Cohen argues that "Judean" should include believers of
22540-508: The Jewish messiah, was God made flesh , who died for the sins of humanity, marking the beginning of Christology . Scholars additionally note the role of Hellenistic Judaism in Christianity and believe that the doctrine of Jesus's death for the redemption of mankind was not possible without Hellenism. While on one hand Jesus and the very first Christians had all been ethnically Jewish, the Jews by and large continued to reject Jesus as
22770-510: The Jewish people to tribute. As early as the third century BCE Jewish communities sprang up in the Aegean islands, Greece, Asia Minor, Cyrenaica, Italy and Egypt. In Palestine, under the favourable auspices of the long period of peace—almost a whole century—which followed the advent of the Ptolemies, the new ways were to flourish. By means of all kinds of contacts, and particularly thanks to
23000-498: The Jewish population of Palestine came when the Ayyubid dynasty defeated the Crusaders and conquered Palestine (see 1187 Battle of Hattin ). Some Jewish immigration from the diaspora subsequently took place, but this came to an end when Mamluks took over Palestine (see 1291 Fall of Acre ). The Mamluks severely oppressed the Jews and greatly mismanaged the economy, resulting in a period of great social and economic decline. The result
23230-401: The Jews are closely intertwined with archaeology, biology, historical textual records, mythology, and religious literature. The ethnic stock to which Jews originally trace their ancestry was a confederation of Iron Age Semitic -speaking tribes known as the Israelites that inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods . Modern Jews are named after and also descended from
23460-617: The Jews in China for pre-Roman (and post-) diasporic populations. King Agrippa I , in a letter to Caligula , enumerated among the provinces of the Jewish diaspora almost all the Hellenized and non-Hellenized countries of the Orient. This enumeration was far from complete as Italy and Cyrene were not included. The epigraphic discoveries from year to year augment the number of known Jewish communities but must be viewed with caution due to
23690-480: The Jews in Egypt to employ them as mercenaries. Philadelphus subsequently emancipated the Jews taken to Egypt as captives and settled them in cleruchs , or specialized colonies, as Jewish military units. Jews began settling in Cyrenaica (modern-day eastern Libya) around the third century BCE, during the rule of Ptolemy I of Egypt, who sent them to secure the region for his kingdom. By the early first century BCE,
23920-495: The Jews in Judaea in 70 CE and again in 135 CE, with large numbers of Jewish captives from Judea sold into slavery and an increase in voluntary Jewish emigration from Judea as a result of the wars, meant a drop in Palestine's Jewish population was balanced by a rise in diaspora numbers. Jewish prisoners sold as slaves in the diaspora and their children were eventually manumitted and joined local free communities. It has been argued that
24150-557: The Jews. Heavy taxes on agricultural land forced many Jews to migrate from rural areas to towns. Social and economic discrimination caused significant Jewish emigration from Palestine, and Muslim civil wars in the 8th and 9th centuries pushed many Jews out of the country. By the end of the 11th century the Jewish population of Palestine had declined substantially. During the First Crusade , Jews in Palestine, along with Muslims, were indiscriminately massacred and sold into slavery by
24380-1084: The Judean God and allies of the Judean state. Troy W. Martin similarly argues that biblical Jewishness is not dependent on ancestry but instead, is based on adherence to 'covenantal circumcision' ( Genesis 17:9–14 ). The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., يَهُودِيّ yahūdī (sg.), al-yahūd (pl.), in Arabic , "Jude" in German , "judeu" in Portuguese , "Juif" (m.)/"Juive" (f.) in French , "jøde" in Danish and Norwegian , "judío/a" in Spanish , "jood" in Dutch , "żyd" in Polish etc., but derivations of
24610-471: The Messiah ben David. The idea of two messiahs—one suffering and the second fulfilling the traditional messianic role—was normal in ancient Judaism and possibly even predated Jesus. Alan Segal states "one can speak of a 'twin birth' of two new Judaisms, both markedly different from the religious systems that preceded them. Not only were rabbinic Judaism and Christianity religious twins, but, like Jacob and Esau,
24840-670: The Messiah. This affected early Christianity's relationship with Judaism and the surrounding pagan traditions. The anti-Christian polemicist Celsus criticises Jews for deserting their Jewish heritage while they had claimed to hold on to it. To the Emperor Julian , Christianity was simply an apostasy from Judaism. These factors hardened Christian attitudes towards Jewry. Jews The Jews ( Hebrew : יְהוּדִים , ISO 259-2 : Yehudim , Israeli pronunciation : [jehuˈdim] ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from
25070-730: The Middle Ages. The Ashkenazi Jews later migrated from Germany (and elsewhere in Central Europe) into Eastern Europe as a result of persecution. Some Ashkenazi Jews also have minor ancestry from Sephardi Jews exiled from Spain, first during Islamic persecutions (11th–12th centuries) and later during Christian reconquests (13th–15th centuries) and the Spanish Inquisition (15th–16th centuries). Ashkenazi Jews are of mixed Middle Eastern and European ancestry, as they derive part of their ancestry from non-Jewish Europeans who intermixed with Jews of migrant Middle Eastern origin. In 2006,
25300-487: The Old World". Regarding the samples he used Behar points out that "Our conclusion favoring common ancestry (of Jewish people) over recent admixture is further supported by the fact that our sample contains individuals that are known not to be admixed in the most recent one or two generations." A 2013 study of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA by Costa et al., reached the conclusion that the four major female founders and most of
25530-578: The Pharisees' attempt to persuade Jews to join their school of thought rather than their efforts to convert non-Jews. Early Christianity emerged within Second Temple Judaism during the 1st century , the key difference between Judaism and Jewish Christianity being the Christian belief that Jesus was the resurrected Jewish Messiah. Judaism is known to allow for multiple messianic figures, the two most relevant being Messiah ben Joseph and
25760-586: The Prophets were accepted as authoritative by the 1st century CE, but beyond this core the different Jewish groups continued to accept different groups of books as authoritative. The priesthood underwent profound changes with the Second Temple. Under the First Temple, the priesthood had been subordinate to the kings, but in the Second Temple, with the monarchy and even the state in the hands of foreign rulers, they became independent. The priesthood under
25990-577: The Roman Legions during their conquests. However, for the most part, modern Ashkenazi Jews originated with Jews who migrated or were forcibly taken from the Middle East to southern Europe in antiquity, where they established Jewish communities before moving into northern France and lower Germany during the High and Late Middle Ages . They also descend to a lesser degree from Jewish immigrants from Babylon, Persia, and North Africa who migrated to Europe in
26220-459: The Romans severely reduced the importance of the High Priest, appointing and deposing High Priests to suit their purposes. Since the Hasmonean era, the Idumeans were heavily integrated in Judean society. Idumean-majority populations existed in southern and western Judea, and they intermingled with Judeans. It is disputed whether this integration was forced or voluntary. Regardless, their presence
26450-472: The Samaritans seem to have regarded themselves as part of the wider Jewish community, but afterwards they denounced the Jerusalem temple as anathema to Yahweh. In recent decades it has become increasingly common among scholars to assume that much of the Hebrew Bible was assembled, revised and edited in the 5th century BCE to reflect the realities and challenges of the Persian era. The returnees had
26680-439: The Technion and Ramban team served only to confirm that genetic drift played a major role in shaping Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited in a matrilineal manner. Goldstein argues that the Technion and Ramban mtDNA studies fail to actually establish a statistically significant maternal link between modern Jews and historic Middle Eastern populations. This differs from the patrilineal case, where Goldstein said there
26910-528: The Temple rebuilt. The differences in content and tone of the two decrees, one in Hebrew and one in Aramaic, have caused some scholars to question their authenticity. The Cyrus Cylinder , an ancient tablet on which is written a declaration in the name of Cyrus referring to restoration of temples and repatriation of exiled peoples, has often been taken as corroboration of the authenticity of the biblical decrees attributed to Cyrus, but other scholars point out that
27140-597: The United States gained success in the fields of science, culture and the economy. Among those generally considered the most famous were Albert Einstein and Ludwig Wittgenstein . Many Nobel Prize winners at this time were Jewish, as is still the case. When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the situation for Jews deteriorated rapidly. Many Jews fled from Europe to Mandatory Palestine ,
27370-616: The United States, and the Soviet Union as a result of racial anti-Semitic laws, economic difficulties, and the fear of an impending war. World War II started in 1939, and by 1941, Hitler occupied almost all of Europe. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Final Solution —an extensive, organized effort with an unprecedented scope intended to annihilate the Jewish people—began, and resulted in
27600-674: The Zealots shared beliefs with the Pharisees , the latter were more democratic, respected the status quo, and believed Jewishness was a matter of choice than birth. Some historians argue the Pharisees were more interested in converting non-Pharisaical Jews. As a Jewish sect, early Christians also saw themselves as "true Israel". Compared to other Jews, they believed gentiles could assimilate without adopting customs such as circumcision. These beliefs, among others, caused Judaism and Christianity to separate as distinct religions. Whilst most contemporary Jews had no problem with integrating gentiles,
27830-407: The accession of recruits from various quarters, it awoke to a consciousness of itself, and strove once again for national independence and political enfranchisement and sovereignty. The first Jewish diaspora in Egypt arose in the last century of pharaonic rule , apparently with the settlement there, either under Ashurbanipal or during the reign of Psammeticus of a colony of Jewish mercenaries,
28060-592: The addition of one extra belief—that Jesus is the Messiah. The doctrines of the apostles of Jesus brought the early church into conflict with some Jewish religious authorities (e.g., the Book of Acts records a dispute over the resurrection of the dead , which was rejected by the Sadducees) and possibly later led to Christians' expulsion from synagogues (see Council of Jamnia for other theories). While Marcionism rejected all Jewish influence on Christianity, proto-orthodox Christianity instead retained some of
28290-615: The ancient Hellenic world, in Europe before and after The Age of Enlightenment (see Haskalah ), in Islamic Spain and Portugal , in North Africa and the Middle East , India , China , or the contemporary United States and Israel , cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, others from
28520-674: The archaeological evidence is suggestive of a Roman genocide taking place during the Second revolt. A significant movement of gentiles and Samaritans into villages formerly with a Jewish majority appears to have taken place thereafter. During the Crisis of the Third Century , civil wars in the Roman Empire caused great economic disruption, and taxes imposed to finance these wars impacted the Jewish population of Palestine heavily. As
28750-481: The biblical account provided in the Book of Nehemiah (chapter 8), a priestly scribe named Ezra reads a copy of the Mosaic Torah before the populace of Judea assembled in a central Jerusalem square. Wellhausen believes that this narrative should be accepted as historical because it sounds plausible, noting "the credibility of the narrative appears on the face of it." Following Wellhausen, most scholars throughout
28980-516: The city in the 4th century BCE by Alexander the Great . By 200 BCE, there were well established Jewish communities both in Egypt and Mesopotamia (" Babylonia " in Jewish sources) and in the two centuries that followed, Jewish populations were also present in Asia Minor , Greece , Macedonia , Cyrene , and, beginning in the middle of the first century BCE, in the city of Rome . Later, in
29210-403: The commencement of the reign of Caesar Augustus , there were over 7,000 Jews in Rome (though this is only the number that is said to have escorted the envoys who came to demand the deposition of Archelaus ; compare: Bringmann: Klaus: Geschichte der Juden im Altertum, Stuttgart 2005, S. 202. Bringmann talks about 8,000 Jews who lived in the city of Rome.). Many sources say that the Jews constituted
29440-448: The composition of Job , parts of Proverbs , and possibly Ecclesiastes , while the book of Psalms was possibly given its modern shape and division into five parts at this time (although the collection continued to be revised and expanded well into Hellenistic and even Roman times). In the Hellenistic period, the scriptures were translated into Greek as the Septuagint by the Jews of the Alexandrian diaspora in Egypt, who also produced
29670-449: The confines of the Roman Empire, became an important center of Jewish study as Judea's Jewish population declined. Estimates often place the Babylonian Jewish community of the 3rd to 7th centuries at around one million, making it the largest Jewish diaspora community of that period. Under the political leadership of the exilarch , who was regarded as a royal heir of the House of David, this community had an autonomous status and served as
29900-429: The council , which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun. Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation , an ethnicity , a religion , and a culture , making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether
30130-411: The creation of political and war refugees, enslavement, deportation, overpopulation, indebtedness, military employment, and opportunities in business, commerce, and agriculture. Before the middle of the first century CE, in addition to Judea, Syria and Babylonia, large Jewish communities existed in the Roman provinces of Egypt, Crete and Cyrenaica , and in Rome itself. In 6 CE the region was organized as
30360-455: The cultural and religious centre or metropolis ( ir-va-em be-yisrael ) for the outlying communities. It could have two senses in Biblical terms, the idea of becoming a ' guiding light unto the nations ' by dwelling in the midst of gentiles, or of enduring the pain of exile from one's homeland. The conditions of diaspora in the former case were premised on the free exercise of citizenship or resident alien status. Galut implies by comparison living as
30590-432: The cylinder's text is specific to Babylon and Mesopotamia and makes no mention of Judah or Jerusalem. Lester L. Grabbe asserted that the "alleged decree of Cyrus" regarding Judah, "cannot be considered authentic", but that there was a "general policy of allowing deportees to return and to re-establish cult sites". He also stated that archaeology suggests that the return was a "trickle" taking place over decades, rather than
30820-420: The day of Tisha B'Av . There was a further shift of the center of religious authority from Yavne , as rabbis regrouped in Usha in the western Galilee, where the Mishnah was composed. This ban struck a blow at Jewish national identity within Palestine, while the Romans however continued to allow Jews in the diaspora their distinct national and religious identity throughout the Empire. The military defeats of
31050-425: The deportation of a considerable portion of its inhabitants to Mesopotamia , the Jews had two principal cultural centers: Babylonia and the land of Israel . Deportees returned to the Samaria after the Neo-Babylonian Empire was in turn conquered by Cyrus the Great . The biblical book of Ezra includes two texts said to be decrees allowing the deported Jews to return to their homeland after decades and ordering
31280-428: The desert and settled on the central mountain range of the land of Canaan, in simple semi-nomadic settlements in which pig bones are notably absent. This population gradually shifted from a tribal lifestyle to a monarchy. While the archaeological record of the ninth century BCE provides evidence for two monarchies, one in the south under a dynasty founded by a figure named David with its capital in Jerusalem , and one in
31510-407: The destruction of the First Temple , though there is ample evidence for the presence of Jews in Babylonia even from 626 BCE. In Egypt, the documents from Elephantine reveal the trials of a community founded by a Persian Jewish garrison at two fortresses on the frontier during the 5th–4th centuries BCE, and according to Josephus the Jewish community in Alexandria existed since the founding of
31740-455: The destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, more Jews lived in the Diaspora than in Israel. Jonathan Adelman estimated that around 60% of Jews lived in the diaspora during the Second Temple period. According to Gruen: Perhaps three to five million Jews dwelled outside Palestine in the roughly four centuries that stretched from Alexander to Titus . The era of the Second Temple brought the issue into sharp focus, inescapably so. The Temple still stood,
31970-600: The destruction of the Temple misses the point that already before this, the diaspora was well-established. Gruen argues compulsory dislocation of Jews during the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE) cannot explain more than a fraction of the eventual diaspora. Rather, the Jewish diaspora during this time period was created from various factors, including through the creation of political and war refugees, enslavement, deportation, overpopulation, indebtedness, military employment, and opportunities in business, commerce, and agriculture. Avrum Ehrlich also states that already well before
32200-399: The development of commerce, Hellenism infiltrated on all sides in varying degrees. The ports of the Mediterranean coast were indispensable to commerce and, from the very beginning of the Hellenistic period, underwent great development. In the Western diaspora Greek quickly became dominant in Jewish life and little sign remains of profound contact with Hebrew or Aramaic, the latter probably being
32430-415: The diaspora. Israel Bartal contends that Shlomo Sand is incorrect in his claim that the original Jews living in Israel were not exiled by the Romans, instead arguing that this view is negligible among serious Jewish study scholars. These scholars argue that the growth of diaspora Jewish communities was a gradual process that occurred over the centuries, starting with the Assyrian destruction of Israel,
32660-423: The dispersal driven by both forced expulsions and voluntary migrations. In Mesopotamia, a testimony to the beginnings of the Jewish community can be found in Joachin's ration tablets , listing provisions allotted to the exiled Judean king and his family by Nebuchadnezzar II , and further evidence are the Al-Yahudu tablets , dated to the 6th–5th centuries BCE and related to the exiles from Judea arriving after
32890-538: The doctrines and practices of 1st-century Judaism while rejecting others. They held the Tanakh to be authoritative and sacred, employing mostly the Septuagint or Targum translations and adding other texts as the New Testament canon developed . Christian baptism was another continuation of a Judaic practice. Recent work by historians paints a more complex portrait of late Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. Some historians have suggested that, before his death, Jesus created amongst his believers such certainty that
33120-406: The domain of history, but of theology.' In Talmudic and post-Talmudic Rabbinic literature, this phenomenon was referred to as galut (exile), a term with strongly negative connotations, often contrasted with geula (redemption). Eugene Borowitz describes Galut as "fundamentally a theological category The modern Hebrew concept of Tefutzot תפוצות, "scattered", was introduced in the 1930s by
33350-423: The early Roman period, particularly in Alexandria. It was not least for this reason that the Jewish people became a major political factor, especially since the Jews in the diaspora, notwithstanding strong cultural, social and religious tensions, remained firmly united with their homeland. Smallwood writes that, 'It is reasonable to conjecture that many, such as the settlement in Puteoli attested in 4 BCE went back to
33580-411: The early years of the Second Temple period; this left Jews without their version of divine guidance at a time when they felt most in need of support and direction. Under Hellenistic rule , the growing Hellenization of Judaism became a source of resentment among Jewish traditionalists who clung to strict monotheistic beliefs . Opposition to Hellenistic influence on Jewish religious and cultural practices
33810-408: The effect of enhancing the Jewish self-perception of Exile after the destruction of the Second Temple, albeit their dispersion was due to an array of non-exilic factors. According to Hasia R. Diner , the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, followed by the dissolution, in 132 CE, of Jewish sovereignty over the territory renamed Syria Palaestina, had launched the second dispersion of the diaspora,
34040-478: The entire world. A number of modern scholars of nationalism support the existence of Jewish national identity in antiquity. One of them is David Goodblatt, who generally believes in the existence of nationalism before the modern period. In his view, the Bible, the parabiblical literature and the Jewish national history provide the base for a Jewish collective identity. Although many of the ancient Jews were illiterate (as were their neighbors), their national narrative
34270-436: The exilic and early post-exilic period, and it was only in the post-exilic period that the very existence of other gods was denied. The Persian period saw the development of expectation in a future human king who would rule a purified Israel as God's representative at the end of time – that is, a messiah . The first to mention this were Haggai and Zechariah , both prophets of the early Persian period. They saw Zerubbabel as
34500-433: The extent of prohibiting intermarriage; this was presented in terms of religious purity, but there may have been a practical concern for land ownership. Ethnic markers for Israelite (or later, Jewish) identity were radically reformed, with increased emphasis on genealogical descent and/or faith in Yahweh, compared to circumcision . Views on gentile integration varied across Jewish schools of thought. The Sadducees doubted
34730-408: The extra-biblical record, the Israelites become visible as a people between 1200 and 1000 BCE. There is well accepted archeological evidence referring to "Israel" in the Merneptah Stele , which dates to about 1200 BCE, and in the Mesha stele from 840 BCE. It is debated whether a period like that of the Biblical judges occurred and if there ever was a United Monarchy . There
34960-426: The fall of their empire in c. 333 BCE to Alexander the Great . After several centuries under foreign imperial rule, the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire resulted in an independent Hasmonean kingdom , under which the Jews once again enjoyed political independence for a period spanning from 110 to 63 BCE. Under Hasmonean rule the boundaries of their kingdom were expanded to include not only
35190-456: The figure, now states that he and Baron were mistaken. Philo gives a figure of one million Jews living in Egypt. John R. Bartlett rejects Baron's figures entirely, arguing that we have no clue as to the size of the Jewish demographic in the ancient world. The Romans did not distinguish between Jews inside and outside of the Land of Israel/Judaea. They collected an annual temple tax from Jews both in and outside of Israel. The suppression of
35420-419: The first being the Babylonian exile of 586 BCE. She writes that, "Although many Jews had lived outside Judea even before that [the destruction of Judea], the ending of home rule set in motion the world’s longest diaspora." In the 4th century, the Roman Empire split and Palestine came under the control of the Byzantine Empire . There was still a significant Jewish population there, and Jews probably constituted
35650-453: The first centuries CE, as a result of the Jewish-Roman Wars , a large number of Jews were taken as captives, sold into slavery, or compelled to flee from the regions affected by the wars, contributing to the formation and expansion of Jewish communities across the Roman Empire as well as in Arabia and Mesopotamia. After the Bar Kokhba revolt , the Jewish population in Judaea , now significantly reduced in size, made efforts to recover from
35880-425: The following period of Jewish–Roman Wars . Ashkenazi Jews is a general category of Jewish populations who immigrated to what is now Germany and northeastern France during the Middle Ages and until modern times used to adhere to the Yiddish culture and the Ashkenazi prayer style . There is evidence that groups of Jews had immigrated to Germania during the Roman Era ; they were probably merchants who followed
36110-404: The former, while consequential on the latter, was a psycho-spiritual framework that was not wholly dependent on the conditions of life in diasporic exile, since one could technically remain in galut even in Eretz Israel . Whereas Theodor Herzl and his follows thought that the establishment of a Jewish state would put an end to the diasporic exile, Ahad Ha-am thought to the contrary that such
36340-474: The geographer Strabo identified Jews as one of the four main groups residing in the city of Cyrene . While communities in Alexandria and Rome dated back to before the Maccabean Revolt , the population in the Jewish diaspora expanded after the Pompey's campaign in 62 BCE. Under the Hasmonean princes, who were at first high priests and then kings, the Jewish state displayed even a certain luster and annexed several territories. Soon, however, discord within
36570-481: The hands of Gentiles is divine judgment for Judean wickedness. Daniel R. Scwhartz considers 2 Maccabees to be implicitly anti-Hasmonean and pro-Pharisee. One reason for the covert criticism includes 2 Maccabees being written too early and their authors being diasporic. In his seminal Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels , Julius Wellhausen argues that Judaism as a religion based on widespread observance Torah law first emerged in 444 BCE when, according to
36800-441: The ideal type of the nation [...] than perhaps anywhere else in the ancient world." He adds that this observation "must make us wary of pronouncing too readily against the possibility of the nation, and even a form of religious nationalism , before the onset of modernity." Agreeing with Smith, Goodblatt suggests omitting the qualifier "religious" from Smith's definition of ancient Jewish nationalism, noting that, according to Smith,
37030-400: The interaction of Jews or specific communities of Jews with their surroundings, and still others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to from the religion itself. This phenomenon has led to considerably different Jewish cultures unique to their own communities. Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed lashon ha-kodesh , "the holy tongue"),
37260-427: The lack of precise evidence of their numbers. According to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, the next most dense Jewish population after the Land of Israel and Babylonia was in Syria , particularly in Antioch , and Damascus , where 10,000 to 18,000 Jews were massacred during the great insurrection. The ancient Jewish philosopher Philo gives the number of Jewish inhabitants in Egypt as one million, one-eighth of
37490-409: The land of the historical kingdom of Judah , but also the Galilee and Transjordan . In the beginning of this process the Idumeans , who had infiltrated southern Judea after the destruction of the First Temple , were converted en masse. In 63 BCE, Judea was conquered by the Romans. From 37 BCE to 6 CE, the Romans allowed the Jews to maintain some degree of independence by installing
37720-441: The language in which most of the Hebrew scriptures ( Tanakh ) were composed, and the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries. By the 5th century BCE, Aramaic , a closely related tongue, joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea . By the 3rd century BCE, some Jews of the diaspora were speaking Greek . Others, such as in the Jewish communities of Asoristan , known to Jews as Babylonia, were speaking Hebrew and Aramaic ,
37950-417: The language of Russian Jews , but these policies have also affected neighboring communities. Today, Russian is the first language for many Jewish communities in a number of Post-Soviet states , such as Ukraine and Uzbekistan , as well as for Ashkenazic Jews in Azerbaijan , Georgia, and Tajikistan . Although communities in North Africa today are small and dwindling, Jews there had shifted from
38180-453: The languages of the Babylonian Talmud . Dialects of these same languages were also used by the Jews of Syria Palaestina at that time. For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, often developing distinctive dialectal forms or branches that became independent languages. Yiddish is the Judaeo-German language developed by Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Central Europe . Ladino
38410-464: The late (pre-Roman Empire) Roman Republic or early Empire and originated in voluntary emigration and the lure of trade and commerce." Many Jews migrated to Rome from Alexandria due to flourishing trade relations between the cities. Dating the numerous settlements is difficult. Some settlements may have resulted from Jewish emigration following the defeat of Jewish revolts. Others, such as the Jewish community in Rome, were far older, dating back to at least
38640-441: The late Roman period to the present. By 1764 there were about 750,000 Jews in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . The worldwide Jewish population (comprising the Middle East and the rest of Europe) was estimated at 1.2 million. After the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE, Judah ( יְהוּדָה Yehuda ) became a province of the Persian empire . This status continued into the following Hellenistic period , when Yehud became
38870-438: The late Roman period to the present. Diaspora has been a common phenomenon for many peoples since antiquity, but what is particular about the Jewish instance is the pronounced negative, religious, indeed metaphysical connotations traditionally attached to dispersion and exile ( galut ), two conditions which were conflated. The English term diaspora , which entered usage as late as 1876, and the Hebrew word galut though covering
39100-531: The law , Jews in the Pale of Settlement faced growing persecution, legal restrictions and widespread pogroms . Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, aiming to re-establish a Jewish polity in the Land of Israel, an endeavor to restore the Jewish people back to their ancestral homeland in order to stop the exoduses and persecutions that have plagued their history. This led to waves of Jewish migration to Ottoman-controlled Palestine . Theodor Herzl , who
39330-542: The law of Jewish identity being inherited through the maternal line, although scholars challenge this theory citing the Talmudic establishment of the law from the pre-exile period. Another argument is that the rabbis changed the law of patrilineal descent to matrilineal descent due to the widespread rape of Jewish women by Roman soldiers. Since the anti-religious Haskalah movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries, halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged. According to historian Shaye J. D. Cohen ,
39560-501: The letter "d" from the Medieval Latin Iudaeus , which, like the New Testament Greek term Ioudaios , meant both "Jew" and " Judean " / "of Judea ". The Greek term was a loan from Aramaic *yahūdāy , corresponding to Hebrew יְהוּדִי Yehudi . Some scholars prefer translating Ioudaios as "Judean" in the Bible since it is more precise, denotes the community's origins and prevents readers from engaging in antisemitic eisegesis . Others disagree, believing that it erases
39790-427: The local, national, and international levels lead various parts of the Jewish community on a variety of issues. Today, many countries have a Chief Rabbi who serves as a representative of that country's Jewry. Although many Hasidic Jews follow a certain hereditary Hasidic dynasty , there is no one commonly accepted leader of all Hasidic Jews. Many Jews believe that the Messiah will act a unifying leader for Jews and
40020-450: The majority elected to remain where they were. They and their descendants formed the diaspora , a large community of Jews living outside Judea, and the 1st century CE historian Josephus reports that there were more Jews in Syria (i.e., the Seleucid Empire) than in any other land. There was also a significant Egyptian diaspora, although the Jews of Egypt were immigrants, not deportees, "... attracted by Hellenistic culture, eager to win
40250-445: The majority of the population was Jewish or Samaritan . The land gradually came to have an Arab majority as Arab tribes migrated there. Jewish communities initially grew and flourished. Umar allowed and encouraged Jews to settle in Jerusalem. It was the first time in about 500 years that Jews were allowed to freely enter and worship in their holiest city. In 717, new restrictions were imposed against non-Muslims that negatively affected
40480-406: The maximalists who largely accept it, with the minimalists being the more vocal of the two. Some of the leading minimalists reframe the biblical account as constituting the Israelites ' inspiring national myth narrative, suggesting that according to the modern archaeological and historical account, the Israelites and their culture did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of
40710-430: The mediation of Samuel became subject to a king, Saul , who was succeeded by David and then Solomon , after whom the United Monarchy ended and was split into a separate Kingdom of Israel and a Kingdom of Judah . The Kingdom of Judah is described as comprising the tribes of Judah , Benjamin , partially Levi , and later adding remnants of other tribes who migrated there from the northern Kingdom of Israel. In
40940-416: The mid second century BCE, although it expanded greatly following Pompey’s campaign in 62 BCE. In 6 CE the Romans annexed Judaea. Only the Jews in Babylonia remained outside of Roman rule. Unlike the Greek speaking Hellenized Jews in the west the Jewish communities in Babylonian and Judea continued the use of Aramaic as a primary language. As early as the middle of the 2nd century BCE the Jewish author of
41170-443: The middle of the 2nd century BCE. Adler explores the likelihhood that Judaism, as the widespread practice of Torah law by Jewish society at large, first emerged in Judea during the reign of the Hasmonean dynasty, centuries after the putative time of Ezra. Nonetheless, this view conflicts with the scholarly consensus. The issue of conversion to Judaism and Jewish proselytism in Second Temple Judaism has occupied many scholars from
41400-428: The more prevalent. Jews migrated to new Greek settlements that arose in the Eastern Mediterranean and former subject areas of the Persian Empire on the heels of Alexander the Great 's conquests, spurred on by the opportunities they expected to find. The proportion of Jews in the diaspora in relation to the size of the nation as a whole increased steadily throughout the Hellenistic era and reached astonishing dimensions in
41630-525: 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:
41860-754: The national language of the Jewish people, knowledge of the language is not commonly possessed by Jews worldwide and English has emerged as the lingua franca of the Jewish diaspora. Although many Jews once had sufficient knowledge of Hebrew to study the classic literature, and Jewish languages like Yiddish and Ladino were commonly used as recently as the early 20th century, most Jews lack such knowledge today and English has by and large superseded most Jewish vernaculars. The three most commonly spoken languages among Jews today are Hebrew, English, and Russian . Some Romance languages , particularly French and Spanish , are also widely used. Yiddish has been spoken by more Jews in history than any other language, but it
42090-409: The north under a dynasty founded by a figure named Omri with its capital in Samaria . It also points to an early monarchic period in which these regions shared material culture and religion, suggesting a common origin. Archaeological finds also provide evidence for the later cooperation of these two kingdoms in their coalition against Aram , and for their destructions by the Assyrians and later by
42320-455: The occurrences are found. The second, perhaps with a single exception that remains debatable, is never used to speak of the past and does not concern Babylon; the instrument of dispersion is never the historical sovereign of another country. Diaspora is the word for chastisement, but the dispersion in question has not occurred yet: it is potential, conditional on the Jews not respecting the law of God. . . It follows that diaspora belongs, not to
42550-506: The pagan reframing of Jerusalem may have been a strategic move designed to challenge, rather, the growing threat, pretensions and influence of converts to Christianity, for whom Jerusalem was likewise a crucial symbol of their faith. Implementation of these plans led to violent opposition, and triggered a full-scale insurrection with the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), assisted, according to Dio Cassius , by some other peoples, perhaps Arabs who had recently been subjected by Trajan. The revolt
42780-440: The peoples of the former Philistine cities, the Moabites , Ammonites and Edomites . Attempts were also made to incorporate the Samaritans , following takeover of Samaria. The success of mass-conversions is however questionable, as most groups retained their tribal separations and mostly turned Hellenistic or Christian, with Edomites perhaps being the only exception to merge into the Jewish society under Herodian dynasty and in
43010-438: The persecution and murder of Jews in Europe and North Africa . In Poland, three million were murdered in gas chambers in all concentration camps combined, with one million at the Auschwitz camp complex alone. The Holocaust is the name given to this genocide, in which six million Jews were systematically murdered. Before and during the Holocaust, enormous numbers of Jews immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, upon
43240-493: The population. Alexandria was by far the most important of the Egyptian Jewish communities. The Jews in the Egyptian diaspora were on a par with their Ptolemaic counterparts and close ties existed for them with Jerusalem. As in other Hellenistic diasporas, the Egyptian diaspora was one of choice not of imposition. To judge by the later accounts of wholesale massacres in 115 CE , the number of Jewish residents in Cyrenaica , Cyprus , and Mesopotamia must also have been large. At
43470-426: The possibility of gentiles becoming Jews but were tolerant of cross-cultural interactions. The Essenes community believed gentiles, including proselytes, were ritually impure, but the Essenes were even stricter and regarded other Jews as impure until they completed a prolonged initiation ritual . Likewise, the Zealots and Sicarii held xenophobic views but were willing to ally with Idumeans (or Edomites ). Whilst
43700-399: The preexilic emigrants in Egypt. . . Galut is a religious–nationalist term, which implies exile from the homeland as a result of collective sins, an exile that will be redeemed at YHWH’s pleasure. Jewish messianism is closely connected with the concept of galut.’ In Zionist debates a distinction was made between galut and golus/gola . The latter denoted social and political exile, whereas
43930-506: The prospect of an indefinite period of displacement. In 132 CE, Bar Kokhba led a rebellion against Hadrian , a revolt connected with the renaming of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina . After four years of devastating warfare, the uprising was suppressed, and Jews were forbidden access to Jerusalem. During the Middle Ages , due to increasing migration and resettlement, Jews divided into distinct regional groups that today are generally addressed according to two primary geographical groupings:
44160-671: The religion. Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. These definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the Oral Torah into the Babylonian Talmud , around 200 CE . Interpretations by Jewish sages of sections of the Tanakh – such as Deuteronomy 7:1–5 , which forbade intermarriage between their Israelite ancestors and seven non-Israelite nations: "for that [i.e. giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,] would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods" – are used as
44390-422: The respect of the Greeks and to adapt to their ways." The Egyptian diaspora was slow to develop, but by the Hellenistic period it exceeded the Babylonian community in importance. In addition to these major centres there were Jewish communities throughout the Hellenistic and subsequently the Roman world, from North Africa to Asia Minor and Greece and in Rome. There is also evidence for Jewish missionary activities in
44620-404: The revolt's devastating effects, but never fully regained its previous strength. In the second to fourth centuries CE, the region of Galilee emerged as the new center of Jewish life in Syria Palaestina , experiencing a cultural and demographic flourishing. It was in this period that two central rabbinic texts, the Mishnah and the Jerusalem Talmud , were composed. However, as the Roman Empire
44850-418: The right bank of the Tiber as traders. In 37 BCE, the forces of the Jewish client king Herod the Great captured Jerusalem with Roman assistance, and there was likely an influx of Jewish slaves taken into the diaspora by Roman forces. In 53 BCE, a minor Jewish revolt was suppressed and the Romans subsequently sold Jewish war captives into slavery. Roman rule continued until the First Jewish-Roman War , or
45080-465: The rituals found in the First Temple era. For example, many Jews argued that only full-body immersion could achieve ritual purity. There was a sharp break between ancient Israelite religion and the Judaism of the Second Temple. Pre-exilic Israel was mostly polytheistic (see Yahwism ). Asherah was probably worshiped as Yahweh's consort, within his temples in Jerusalem, Bethel , and Samaria featuring what seem to be standing stones for another deity, and
45310-426: The royal family and the growing disaffection of the pious towards rulers who no longer evinced any appreciation of the real aspirations of their subjects made the Jewish nation easy prey for the ambitions of the now increasingly autocratic and imperial Romans, the successors of the Seleucids. In 63 BCE Pompey invaded Jerusalem, the Jewish people lost their political sovereignty and independence, and Gabinius subjected
45540-403: The royal line of David ) and Joshua the Priest (a descendant of the line of the former High Priests of the Temple ) and their construction of the Second Temple circa 521–516 BCE. As part of the Persian Empire , the former Kingdom of Judah became the province of Judah ( Yehud Medinata ), with a smaller territory and a reduced population. Judea was under control of the Achaemenids until
45770-432: The scattering of all twelve tribes. In modern times, the contrasting meanings of diaspora/galut have given rise to controversy among Jews. Bowman states this in the following terms, (Diaspora) follows the Greek usage and is considered a positive phenomenon that continues the prophetic call of Israel to be a 'light unto the nations' and establish homes and families among the gentiles. The prophet Jeremiah issues this call to
46000-408: The search for evidence of the biblical narrative surrounding the patriarchs and the exodus. According to the maximalist position, the modern archaeological record independently points to a narrative which largely agrees with the biblical account. This narrative provides a testimony of the Israelites as a nomadic people known to the Egyptians as belonging to the Shasu . Over time these nomads left
46230-430: The siege. According to Josephus, about 97,000 Jewish captives from Judea were sold into slavery by the Romans during the revolt. Many other Jews fled from Judea to other areas around the Mediterranean. Josephus wrote that 30,000 Jews were deported from Judea to Carthage by the Romans. Exactly when Roman Anti-Judaism began is a question of scholarly debate, however historian Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson has proposed that
46460-509: The so-called Sapiential books . During the Hasmoean dynasty, Jews were conflicted on whether to be religiously or politically oriented, which was represented by the thematic differences in 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees . 1 Maccabees, for instance, focuses on Judean affairs, generalizes all gentile rulers as being evil, believes Jewish martyrs were "pious fools", makes little mention of God and prayer, and attributes events to blind chance. 2 Maccabees argues that anti-Judean persecution by
46690-507: The southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah . Gary A. Rendsburg links the early Canaanite nomadic pastoralists confederation to the Shasu known to the Egyptians around the 15th century BCE. According to the Hebrew Bible narrative, Jewish ancestry is traced back to the Biblical patriarchs such as Abraham , his son Isaac , Isaac's son Jacob , and the Biblical matriarchs Sarah , Rebecca , Leah , and Rachel , who lived in Canaan . The Twelve Tribes are described as descending from
46920-438: The status of the offspring of mixed marriages was determined patrilineally in the Bible. He brings two likely explanations for the change in Mishnaic times: first, the Mishnah may have been applying the same logic to mixed marriages as it had applied to other mixtures ( Kil'ayim ). Thus, a mixed marriage is forbidden as is the union of a horse and a donkey , and in both unions the offspring are judged matrilineally. Second,
47150-403: The termination of the mandate, David Ben-Gurion declared the creation of the State of Israel , a Jewish and democratic state in the Land of Israel. Immediately afterwards, all neighboring Arab states invaded, yet the newly formed IDF resisted. In 1949, the war ended and Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of Aliyah from all over the world. The Jewish people and
47380-399: The third book of the Oracula Sibyllina addressed the "chosen people," saying: "Every land is full of thee and every sea." The most diverse witnesses, such as Strabo , Philo , Seneca , Luke (the author of the Acts of the Apostles ), Cicero , and Josephus , all mention Jewish populations in the cities of the Mediterranean basin . See also History of the Jews in India and History of
47610-446: The three main sects that flourished during the late Second Temple period, namely the Sadducees and Essenes , eventually disappeared, while Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis of Rabbinic Judaism , which emerged as the prevailing form of Judaism since late antiquity. The Jewish diaspora existed well before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and had been ongoing for centuries, with
47840-602: The time, possibly outnumbering those in the Land of Israel. Palestine and Babylon were both great centers of Jewish scholarship during this time, but tensions between scholars in these two communities grew as many Jewish scholars in Palestine feared that the centrality of the land to the Jewish religion would be lost with continuing Jewish emigration. Many Palestinian sages refused to consider Babylonian scholars their equals and would not ordain Babylonian students in their academies, fearing they would return to Babylon as rabbis. Significant Jewish emigration to Babylon adversely affected
48070-423: The tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin made up the Kingdom of Judah. Though Genesis 29:35 and 49:8 connect "Judah" with the verb yada , meaning "praise", scholars generally agree that "Judah" most likely derives from the name of a Levantine geographic region dominated by gorges and ravines. In ancient times, Jewish people as a whole were called Hebrews or Israelites until the Babylonian Exile . After
48300-409: The true Israel, who remained after Eli , a wicked high priest , convinced the other Israelites to abandon Gerizim and worship at Shiloh. Second Temple Judeans, however, derided them as foreign converts and the impure offspring of mixed marriages. By the late 2nd century BCE, the Jews and Samaritans permanently split after a Hasmonean king destroyed a Samaritan temple at Mount Gerizim; before that
48530-403: The twelve sons of Jacob. Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacob's son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs' descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses , after which the Israelites conquered Canaan under Moses' successor Joshua , went through the period of the Biblical judges after the death of Joshua, then through
48760-442: The twin sons of Isaac and Rebecca, they fought in the womb, setting the stage for life after the womb." The first Christians (the disciples or followers of Jesus) were essentially all ethnically Jewish or Jewish proselytes. In other words, Jesus was Jewish , preached to the Jewish people and called from them his first disciples. Jewish Christians regarded "Christianity" as an affirmation of every aspect of contemporary Judaism, with
48990-432: The two branches comprise many unique ethno-cultural practices and have links to their local host populations (such as Central Europeans for the Ashkenazim and Hispanics and Arabs for the Sephardim), their shared religion and ancestry, as well as their continuous communication and population transfers, has been responsible for a unified sense of cultural and religious Jewish identity between Sephardim and Ashkenazim from
49220-432: The two branches comprise many unique ethno-cultural practices and have links to their local host populations (such as Central Europeans for the Ashkenazim and Hispanics and Arabs for the Sephardim), their shared religion and ancestry, as well as their continuous communication and population transfers, has been responsible for a unified sense of cultural and religious Jewish identity between Sephardim and Ashkenazim from
49450-445: The word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., in Italian ( Ebreo ), in Persian ("Ebri/Ebrani" ( Persian : عبری/عبرانی )) and Russian ( Еврей, Yevrey ). The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuːdə] , the corresponding adjective "jüdisch" [ˈjyːdɪʃ] (Jewish) is the origin of the word "Yiddish". According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , fourth edition (2000), It
49680-460: The world's population at that time. During World War II, approximately 6 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
49910-439: Was a major catalyst for the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire . Following the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty , traditional Judaism was reasserted by the Maccabees across the Land of Israel as they expanded their independent territory. The later years of the Second Temple period saw the development of several Jewish messianic ideas . From c. 170 BCE to 30 CE, five successive generations of
50140-563: Was believed to influence Second Temple Judaism, particularly Pharisaical Judaism. They introduced religious innovations such as ritual immersion in baths, burial in caves with kokhim , and the perforation of pottery vessels so they could be purified. The Herodians continued this trend, with Judea, Jerusalem and the Temple being shaped by Idumean culture. Their contributions were obfuscated by religious Jews belonging to later variants of Second Temple Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism . Hayah Katz sees these ritual immersion rituals as being stricter than
50370-403: Was centered not on synagogues, which began to appear only in the 3rd century BCE, but on the Temple, and a cycle of continual animal sacrifice . Torah, or ritual law, was also important, and the Temple priests were responsible for teaching it, but the concept of scripture developed only slowly. Thus the reading and study of scripture was a late development. The written Torah and the books of
50600-432: Was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire , which came to dominate the ancient Near East. Under the Assyrian resettlement policy , a significant portion of the northern Israelite population was exiled to Mesopotamia and replaced by immigrants from the same region. During the same period, and throughout the 7th century BCE, the Kingdom of Judah, now under Assyrian vassalage , experienced a period of prosperity and witnessed
50830-433: Was crushed, with the Jewish population of Judea devastated. Jewish war captives were again captured and sold into slavery by the Romans. According to Jewish tradition, the Romans deported twelve boatloads of Jews to Cyrenaica . Voluntary Jewish emigration from Judea in the aftermath of the Bar-Kokhba revolt also expanded Jewish communities in the diaspora. Jews were forbidden entrance to Jerusalem on pain of death, except for
51060-471: Was large-scale migration from Palestine, and the population declined. The Jewish population shrunk especially heavily, as did the Christian population. Though some Jewish immigration from Europe, North Africa, and Syria also occurred in this period, which potentially saved the collapsing Jewish community of Palestine from disappearing altogether, Jews were reduced to an even smaller minority of the population. The result of these waves of emigration and expulsion
51290-399: Was less prosperous and covered a smaller, mostly mountainous territory. However, while in Israel the royal succession was often decided by a military coup d'état, resulting in several dynasty changes, political stability in Judah was much greater, as it was ruled by the House of David for the whole four centuries of its existence. Around 720 BCE, Kingdom of Israel was destroyed when it
51520-461: Was obscure and devoid of political influence. The poorest but most fervent of the exiles returned to Judah / the Land of Israel during the reign of the Achaemenids (c. 550–330 BCE). There, with the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem as their center, they organized themselves into a community, animated by a remarkable religious ardor and a tenacious attachment to the Torah as the focus of their identity. As this little nucleus increased in numbers with
51750-425: Was reinforced through public readings. The Hebrew language also constructed and preserved national identity. Although it was not widely spoken after the 5th century BCE, Goodblatt states: the mere presence of the language in spoken or written form could invoke the concept of a Jewish national identity. Even if one knew no Hebrew or was illiterate, one could recognize that a group of signs was in Hebrew script. ... It
51980-429: Was replaced by the Christianized Byzantine Empire under Constantine , Jews came to be persecuted by the church and the authorities, and many immigrated to communities in the diaspora. In the fourth century CE, Jews are believed to have lost their position as the majority in Syria Palaestina . The long-established Jewish community of Mesopotamia, which had been living under Parthian and later Sasanian rule, beyond
52210-590: Was that the Jewish population of Palestine was reduced to a few thousand by the time the Ottoman Empire conquered Palestine, after which the region entered a period of relative stability. At the start of Ottoman rule in 1517, the estimated Jewish population was 5,000, composed of both descendants of Jews who had never left the land and migrants from the diaspora. During the Middle Ages , due to increasing geographical dispersion and re-settlement, Jews divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two primary geographical groupings:
52440-426: Was the Babylonian captivity , in which portions of the population of the Kingdom of Judah were deported in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE by the Neo-Babylonian Empire under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II . A Jewish diaspora existed for several centuries before the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Jewish diaspora in the second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE) was created from various factors, including through
52670-455: Was the language of the Israelite ancestors, the national literature, and the national religion. As such it was inseparable from the national identity. Indeed its mere presence in visual or aural medium could invoke that identity. Anthony D. Smith , an historical sociologist considered one of the founders of the interdisciplinary field of nationalism studies , wrote that the Jews of the late Second Temple period provide "a closer approximation to
52900-444: Was used almost exclusively as a liturgical language, and as the language in which most books had been written on Judaism, with a few speaking only Hebrew on the Sabbath . Hebrew was revived as a spoken language by Eliezer ben Yehuda , who arrived in Palestine in 1881. It had not been used as a mother tongue since Tannaic times. Modern Hebrew is designated as the "State language" of Israel. Despite efforts to revive Hebrew as
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