171-581: Religion in Israel (2016) Religion in Israel is manifested primarily in Judaism , the ethnic religion of the Jewish people . The State of Israel declares itself as a " Jewish and democratic state " and is the only country in the world with a Jewish-majority population (see Jewish state ). Other faiths in the country include Islam (predominantly Sunni ), Christianity (mostly Melkite and Orthodox ) and
342-404: A Berakah is said also at evil tidings. Hence, although the experience of God is like none other, the occasions for experiencing Him, for having a consciousness of Him, are manifold, even if we consider only those that call for Berakot. Whereas Jewish philosophers often debate whether God is immanent or transcendent , and whether people have free will or their lives are determined, halakha
513-532: A Jewish identity and their descendants, including ethnic Jews and religious Jews alike. Approximately 99% of the global Israeli Jewish population resides in Israel; yerida is uncommon and is offset exponentially by aliyah , but those who do emigrate from the country typically relocate to the Western world . As such, the Israeli diaspora is closely tied to the broader Jewish diaspora . The country
684-476: A subsistence economy and were ill-prepared to work in an industrialized society. Over the years there has been significant progress in the integration of this population group in the Israeli society, primarily due to the fact that most of the young Ethiopian population is conscripted into the military service (mandatory for all Israelis at 18), where most Ethiopian Jews have been able to increase their chances for better opportunities. The 2013 Miss Israel title
855-615: A centralized authority that would dictate an exact religious dogma. Because of this, many different variations on the basic beliefs are considered within the scope of Judaism. Even so, all Jewish religious movements are, to a greater or lesser extent, based on the principles of the Hebrew Bible or various commentaries such as the Talmud and Midrash . Judaism also universally recognizes the Biblical Covenant between God and
1026-458: A compromise would reduce the tensions between the secular and religious communities. Because the terms " secular " ( hiloni ) and "traditional" ( masorti ) are not strictly defined, published estimates of the percentage of Israeli Jews who are considered "traditional" range from 32% to 55%. A Gallup survey in 2015 determined that 65% of Israelis say they are either "not religious" or "convinced atheists", while 30% say they are "religious". Israel
1197-619: A general term that refers to any Jewish text that expands or elaborates on the original Five Books of Moses . Representing the core of the Jewish spiritual and religious tradition, the Torah is a term and a set of teachings that are explicitly self-positioned as encompassing at least seventy, and potentially infinite, facets and interpretations. Judaism's texts, traditions, and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity and Islam . Hebraism , like Hellenism , played
1368-586: A group of Israelite inhabitants from the tribes of Joseph (divided between the two "half tribes" of Ephraim and Manasseh ), and the priestly tribe of Levi . Despite being counted separately in the census, for the purposes of citizenship, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has classified them as Jews according to law. Most Christians living permanently in Israel are Arabs , or have come from other countries to live and work mainly in churches or monasteries , which have long and enduring histories in
1539-576: A major denomination in Israel, associated with a large social sector. The Chief Rabbinate strongly opposes the Reform and Conservative movements, saying they are "uprooting Judaism", that they cause assimilation and that they have “no connection” to authentic Judaism. The chief rabbinate's view does not reflect the majority viewpoint of Israeli Jews, however. A survey of Israeli Jews published in May 2016 showed that 72 percent of respondents said they disagreed with
1710-464: A means of experiencing God". Reflecting on the contribution of the Amoraim and Tanaim to contemporary Judaism, Professor Jacob Neusner observed: The rabbi's logical and rational inquiry is not mere logic-chopping. It is a most serious and substantive effort to locate in trivialities the fundamental principles of the revealed will of God to guide and sanctify the most specific and concrete actions in
1881-528: A means to learn the contents of God's revelation, but an end in itself. According to the Talmud: These are the things for which a person enjoys the dividends in this world while the principal remains for the person to enjoy in the world to come; they are: honoring parents, loving deeds of kindness, and making peace between one person and another. But the study of the Torah is equal to them all. (Talmud Shabbat 127a). In Judaism, "the study of Torah can be
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#17327932949962052-441: A much smaller extent in present-day Israeli society, stem from the many cultural differences between the various Jewish communities, despite the government's encouragement of the "melting pot". That is to say, all Jewish immigrants in Israel were strongly encouraged to "melt down" their own particular exile identities within the general social "pot" in order to become Israeli. The current most prominent European countries of origin of
2223-527: A nationalist (i. e., pro-Zionist) ideology. Haredi applies to a populace that can be roughly divided into three separate groups, except mentioned Hardal , along both ethnic and ideological lines: (1) " Lithuanian/Lita'im " Haredim of Ashkenazic (i. e., "Germanic" — European) origin, predominantly, adherents of non-Hasidic traditional Orthodoxy, a.k.a. Misnagdim ; (2) Hasidic Haredim of Ashkenazic (mostly of Eastern European ) origin; and (3) Sephardi Haredim (including mizrahi ). Ultra-Orthodox sector
2394-525: A network of "Religious Councils" that are part of each municipality, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate retains exclusive control and has the final say in the state about virtually all matters pertaining to conversion to Judaism , the Kosher certification of foods , the status of Jewish marriages and divorces , and monitoring and acting when called upon to supervise the observance of some laws relating to Shabbat observance, Passover (particularly when issues concerning
2565-521: A new national identity. The former term has since fallen out of use in common speech. Jews have long considered the Land of Israel to be their homeland, even while living in the diaspora. According to the Hebrew Bible the connection to the Land of Israel began in the covenant of the pieces when the region, which is called the land of Canaan , was promised to Abraham by God . Abraham settled in
2736-690: A number of countries, and the immigration of accompanying non-Jewish spouses in mixed marriages . Numerous churches have opened in Tel Aviv . Most Christians in Israel belong primarily to branches of the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches that oversee a variety of church buildings, monasteries, seminaries, and religious institutions all over the land, particularly in Jerusalem . Protestant Christians account for less than one percent of Israeli citizens, but foreign evangelical Protestants are
2907-523: A parallel oral tradition, illustrating the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the details from other, i.e., oral, sources. Halakha , the rabbinic Jewish way of life, then, is based on a combined reading of the Torah, and the oral tradition—the Mishnah, the halakhic Midrash, the Talmud and its commentaries. The halakha has developed slowly, through a precedent-based system. The literature of questions to rabbis, and their considered answers,
3078-523: A permanent king, and Samuel appointed Saul the king. When the people pressured Saul into going against a command conveyed to him by Samuel, God told Samuel to appoint David in his stead. Rabbinic tradition holds that the details and interpretation of the Law, called the Oral Torah or "Oral Law," were originally unwritten traditions based on the Law given to Moses at Sinai. However, as the persecutions of
3249-555: A positive commandment is to be fulfilled: The ordinary, familiar, everyday things and occurrences we have, constitute occasions for the experience of God. Such things as one's daily sustenance, the very day itself, are felt as manifestations of God's loving-kindness, calling for the Berakhot . Kedushah , holiness, which is nothing else than the imitation of God, is concerned with daily conduct, with being gracious and merciful, with keeping oneself from defilement by idolatry, adultery, and
3420-655: A prominent source of political support for the State of Israel (see Christian Zionism ). Each year hundreds of thousands of Protestant Christians come as tourists to see Israel. Messianic Judaism is a religious movement that arose within Evangelical Protestantism and incorporates elements of Judaism with the tenets of Christianity . They worship God the Father as one with Trinity . They worship Jesus, whom they call "Yeshua". Messianic Jews believe that Jesus
3591-651: A reward for his act of faith in one God, he was promised that Isaac , his second son, would inherit the Land of Israel (then called Canaan ). Later, the descendants of Isaac's son Jacob were enslaved in Egypt , and God commanded Moses to lead the Exodus from Egypt. The Law was given at Sinai —the Torah , or five books of Moses. These books, together with the Nevi'im and Ketuvim , are known as Torah Shebikhtav , as opposed to
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#17327932949963762-530: A seminal role in the formation of Western civilization through its impact as a core background element of Early Christianity . Within Judaism, there are a variety of religious movements , most of which emerged from Rabbinic Judaism , which holds that God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of both the Written and Oral Torah. Historically, all or part of this assertion
3933-518: A study by Pew Research Center showed 5% did, while a Midgam survey showed that one third "especially identified with Progressive Judaism", almost as many as those who especially identify with Orthodox Judaism. Only a few authors, like Elliot Nelson Dorff, consider the Israeli social group masortim (traditionalists) to be one and the same with the Western Conservative (masorti) movement, it produces understanding Conservative Judaism as
4104-742: A study conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute revealed that a plurality of Israeli Jews (47%) identify as Jews first and as Israelis second, and that 39% consider themselves to be Israelis first and foremost. Upon the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, the Palestinian Jews of the Yishuv in the British Mandate for Palestine became known as Israeli Jews due to their adoption of
4275-615: A survey that attempted to be representative, 44.9% percent of the Israeli Jewish sample identified as either Mizrahi or Sephardi , 44.2% as Ashkenazi or Russian Jews , about 3% as Beta Israel and 7.9% as mixed or other. Jews from North Africa and Asia have come to be called "Mizrahi Jews". Most African and Asian Jewish communities use the Sephardic prayer ritual and abide by the rulings of Sephardic rabbinic authorities, and therefore consider themselves to be "Sephardim" in
4446-532: A very high rate for years, fed by waves of Jewish immigration from round the world, most notably the massive immigration wave of Soviet Jews, which arrived in Israel in the early 1990s following the dissolution of the USSR , who, according to the Law of Return , were entitled to become Israeli citizens upon arrival. About 380,000 arrived in 1990–1991 alone. Some 80,000–100,000 Ethiopian Jews have immigrated to Israel since
4617-483: Is Maimonides ' thirteen principles of faith , developed in the 12th century. According to Maimonides, any Jew who rejects even one of these principles would be considered an apostate and a heretic. Jewish scholars have held points of view diverging in various ways from Maimonides' principles. Thus, within Reform Judaism only the first five principles are endorsed. In Maimonides' time, his list of tenets
4788-588: Is a city of major religious significance for Muslims worldwide. After capturing the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, Israel found itself in control of Mount Moriah, which was the site of both Jewish temples and Islam's third holiest site, after those in Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia : The Haram al Sharif ( Temple Mount ) from which Muslims believe that Mohammad ascended to Heaven. This mountain, which has
4959-487: Is a system through which any Jew acts to bring God into the world. Ethical monotheism is central in all sacred or normative texts of Judaism. However, monotheism has not always been followed in practice. The Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh ) records and repeatedly condemns the widespread worship of other gods in ancient Israel . In the Greco-Roman era, many different interpretations of monotheism existed in Judaism, including
5130-714: Is also a small community of Hebrew Catholics , or Hebrew-speaking converts from Judaism to Catholicism. In 2003, a Patriarchal Vicar was appointed for the first time by the Vatican to oversee the Hebrew Catholic community in Israel. According to historical and traditional sources, Jesus lived in the Land of Israel , and died and was buried on the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, making
5301-597: Is also the source of the Hebrew term for Judaism, יַהֲדוּת Yahaḏuṯ . The term Ἰουδαϊσμός first appears in the Koine Greek book of 2 Maccabees in the 2nd century BCE (i.e. 2 Maccabees 2:21, 8:1 and 14:38) . In the context of the age and period it meant "seeking or forming part of a cultural entity". It resembled its antonym hellenismos , a word signifying people's submission to Hellenistic cultural norms. The conflict between iudaismos and hellenismos lay behind
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5472-550: Is an esoteric tradition in Judaism in Kabbalah , Rabbinic scholar Max Kadushin has characterized normative Judaism as "normal mysticism", because it involves everyday personal experiences of God through ways or modes that are common to all Jews. This is played out through the observance of the halakha , or Jewish law, and given verbal expression in the Birkat Ha-Mizvot , the short blessings that are spoken every time
5643-616: Is as follows. In Israel there are approximately 300,000 citizens with Jewish ancestry who are not Jewish according to Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law . Of this number approximately 10% are Christian and 89% are either Jewish or non-religious. The total number of conversions under the Nativ program of IDF was 640 in 2005 and 450 in 2006. From 2002 to 1 October 2007, a total of 2,213 soldiers have converted under Nativ. In 2003, 437 Christians converted to Judaism; in 2004, 884; and in 2005, 733. Recently several thousand conversions conducted by
5814-684: Is called the Jerusalem Talmud . It was compiled sometime during the 4th century in Palestine. According to critical scholars , the Torah consists of inconsistent texts edited together in a way that calls attention to divergent accounts. Several of these scholars, such as Professor Martin Rose and John Bright , suggest that during the First Temple period the people of Israel believed that each nation had its own god, but that their god
5985-525: Is currently the largest Jewish population center in the world. It has been argued that Jerusalem , Israel's proclaimed capital and largest city with a population of 732,100, and an urban area with a population of over 1,000,000 (including 280,000 Palestinian East Jerusalemites who are not Israeli citizens), with over 700,000 Israeli Jews and Nazareth with a population of 65,500, and an urban area of nearly 200,000 people of which over 110,000 are Israeli Jews should also be classified as metropolitan areas. By
6156-463: Is heavily associated with and most often thought of as Orthodox Judaism . 13 Principles of Faith: — Maimonides In the strict sense, in Judaism, unlike Christianity and Islam, there are no fixed universally binding articles of faith, due to their incorporation into the liturgy. Scholars throughout Jewish history have proposed numerous formulations of Judaism's core tenets, all of which have met with criticism. The most popular formulation
6327-766: Is in the middle of the international religiosity scale, between Thailand, the world's most religious country, and China, the least religious. As of 1999, 65% of Israeli Jews believed in God , and 85% participated in a Passover seder . A survey conducted in 2009 showed that 80% of Israeli Jews believed in God, with 46% of them self-reporting as secular. Israelis' majority (2/3) tend not to align themselves with Jewish religious movements (such as Reform Judaism or Conservative Judaism ), but instead tend to define their religious affiliation by degree of their religious practice. As of 2009, 42% of Israeli Jews defined themselves as " secular "; on
6498-604: Is in the middle of the international religiosity scale, between Thailand, the world's most religious country, and China, the least religious. The Israeli Democracy Index commissioned in 2013 by the Israel Democracy Institute regarding religious affiliation with religious movements of Israeli Jews found that 3.9 percent of respondents felt attached to Reform (Progressive) Judaism, 3.2 percent to Conservative Judaism, and 26.5 percent to Orthodox Judaism. The other two thirds of respondents said they felt no connection to any denomination, or declined to respond. However, it does not mean, that
6669-726: Is premundane and has no peer or associate; (3) the whole universe is created; (4) God called Moses and the other Prophets of the Biblical canon; (5) the Law of Moses alone is true; (6) to know the language of the Bible is a religious duty; (7) the Temple at Jerusalem is the palace of the world's Ruler; (8) belief in Resurrection contemporaneous with the advent of the Messiah; (9) final judgment; (10) retribution. In modern times, Judaism lacks
6840-606: Is referred to as responsa (Hebrew Sheelot U-Teshuvot ). Over time, as practices develop, codes of halakha are written that are based on the responsa; the most important code, the Shulchan Aruch , largely determines Orthodox religious practice today. Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between serious study of philosophy and Jewish theology. Major Jewish philosophers include Philo of Alexandria , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Saadia Gaon , Judah Halevi , Maimonides , and Gersonides . Major changes occurred in response to
7011-600: Is regarded as the first Jewish diaspora . Later, many of them returned to their homeland after the subsequent conquest of Babylon by the Persian Achaemenid Empire seventy years later, an event known as the Return to Zion . A Second Temple was constructed and old religious practices were resumed. During the early years of the Second Temple, the highest religious authority was a council known as
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7182-683: Is relatively young and numbered in 2020 more than 1,1 million (14 percent of total population). Conservative , Reform (the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism ), Reconstructionist , Humanistic Judaism (the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism ) and other new non-Orthodox Jewish religious movements are represented among Israeli Jews. According to The Israel Democracy Institute , as of 2013, approximately 7 percent of Israel's Jewish population "identified" with Reform and Conservative Judaism,
7353-582: Is split along four categories: the secularists (33%), the traditionalists (24%), the Orthodox (9%), and the Ultra-Orthodox (7%). In addition to religious influences, both Jewish history and Jewish culture serve as important aspects defining Israel's Jewish society, thereby contributing significantly to Israel's identity as the world's only Jewish-majority country . In 2018, Israel's Knesset narrowly voted in favour of Basic Law: Israel as
7524-418: Is that halakha should be viewed as a set of general guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced halakha ; today, these courts still exist but the practice of Judaism is mostly voluntary. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, but in the sacred texts and
7695-496: Is the Messiah . They emphasise that Jesus was a Jew, as were his early followers. Most adherents in Israel reject traditional Christianity and its symbols, in favour of celebrating Jewish festivals . Although followers of Messianic Judaism are not considered Jews under Israel's Law of Return, there are an estimated 10,000–20,000 adherents in the State of Israel, both Jews and other non-Arab Israelis, many of them recent immigrants from
7866-764: Is the Torah , the first five books of the Hebrew Bible , a collection of ancient Hebrew scriptures. The Tanakh, known in English as the Hebrew Bible, has the same contents as the Old Testament in Christianity . In addition to the original written scripture, the supplemental Oral Torah is represented by later texts, such as the Midrash and the Talmud . The Hebrew-language word torah can mean "teaching", "law", or "instruction", although "Torah" can also be used as
8037-911: Is widely described as a melting pot for the various Jewish ethnic divisions , primarily consisting of Ashkenazi Jews , Sephardic Jews , and Mizrahi Jews , as well as many smaller Jewish communities, such as the Beta Israel , the Cochin Jews , the Bene Israel , and the Karaite Jews , among others. Likewise, over 25% of Jewish children and 35% of Jewish newborns in Israel are of mixed Ashkenazi and Sephardic or Mizrahi descent, and these figures have been increasing by approximately 0.5% annually: over 50% of Israel's entire Jewish population identifies as having Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi admixture. The integration of Judaism in Israeli Jewish life
8208-515: The Americas , and 10% from Asia and Africa , including the Arab countries . Nearly half of all Israeli Jews are descended from Jews who made aliyah from Europe, while around the same number are descended from Jews who made aliyah from Arab countries, Iran, Turkey, and Central Asia. Over two hundred thousand are, or are descended from, Ethiopian and Indian Jews . Israel is the only country in
8379-601: The Arab Israelis , as of 2008, 82.7% were Muslims, 8.4% were Druze, and 8.3% were Christians. Just over 80% of Christians are Arabs, and the majority of the remaining are immigrants from the former Soviet Union who immigrated with a Jewish relative. About 81% of Christian births are to Arab women. Among the Arab population, a 2010 research showed that 8% defined themselves as very religious, 47% as religious, 27% as not very religious, and 18% as not religious. Most citizens in
8550-479: The Byzantine Empire and established a Muslim Caliphate in the 7th century during the rise of Islam. Throughout the centuries the size of the Jewish population in the land fluctuated. Before the birth of modern Zionism in the 1880s, by the early 19th century, more than 10,000 Jews were still living in the area that is today modern Israel. Following centuries of Jewish diaspora , the 19th century saw
8721-602: The Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy ), 2 Macc. ii. 21: "Those that behaved themselves manfully to their honour for Iudaisme." At its core, the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh is an account of the Israelites ' relationship with God from their earliest history until the building of the Second Temple ( c. 535 BCE ). Abraham is hailed as the first Hebrew and the father of the Jewish people. As
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#17327932949968892-665: The Dome of the Rock and the adjacent Jami Al-Aqsa on it, is the third-holiest site in Islam (and the holiest in Judaism). Since 1967, the Israeli government has granted authority to a Waqf to administer the area. Rumors that the Israeli government are seeking to demolish the Muslim sites have angered Muslims. These beliefs are possibly related to excavations that have been taking place close to
9063-602: The Enlightenment (late 18th to early 19th century) leading to the post-Enlightenment Jewish philosophers. Modern Jewish philosophy consists of both Orthodox and non-Orthodox oriented philosophy. Notable among Orthodox Jewish philosophers are Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler , Joseph B. Soloveitchik , and Yitzchok Hutner . Well-known non-Orthodox Jewish philosophers include Martin Buber , Franz Rosenzweig , Mordecai Kaplan , Abraham Joshua Heschel , Will Herberg , and Emmanuel Lévinas . 13 Principles of Hermeneutics: — R. Ishmael Orthodox and many other Jews do not believe that
9234-487: The Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple. Later, Roman emperor Hadrian built a pagan idol on the Temple Mount and prohibited circumcision; these acts of ethnocide provoked the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE), after which the Romans banned the study of the Torah and the celebration of Jewish holidays, and forcibly removed virtually all Jews from Judea. In 200 CE, however, Jews were granted Roman citizenship and Judaism
9405-578: The Greek Orthodox Church ), the Syriac Orthodox Church , and Anglicans . Christian Arabs are one of the most educated groups in Israel. Maariv has described the Christian-Arab sector as "the most successful in the education system", since Christian Arabs fared the best in terms of education in comparison to any other group receiving an education in Israel. Arab Christians were also the vanguard in terms of eligibility for higher education , and they have attained bachelor's and academic degrees at higher rates than Jews, Druze or Muslims in Israel. There
9576-402: The Hashemites based in Jordan , and not to the House of Saud . The Hashemites thus became the official guardians of the Islamic holy places of Jerusalem and the areas around it, particularly strong when Jordan controlled the West Bank (1948–1967). In 1922 the British had created the Supreme Muslim Council in the British Mandate of Palestine and appointed Amin al-Husayni (1895–1974) as
9747-402: The Hesder program of combined alternating military service and yeshiva studies over several years. A poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute in April and May 2014 of which institutions were most and least trusted by Israeli citizens showed that Israelis have little trust in the religious establishment. When asked which public institutions they most trusted, the Chief Rabbinate at 29%
9918-745: The Israeli Black Panthers movement with the mission of working for social justice. The effects of this early discrimination still linger a half-century later, as documented by the studies of the Adva Center , a think tank on social equality, and by other Israeli academic research (cf., for example, Tel Aviv University Professor Yehuda Shenhav's article in Hebrew documenting the gross under-representation of Sephardic Jewry in Israeli high school history textbooks.) All Israeli Prime Ministers have been Ashkenazi, although Sephardim and Mizrahim have attained high positions including ministerial positions, chief of staffs and presidency. The student bodies of Israel's universities remain overwhelmingly Ashkenazi in origin, despite
10089-410: The Jordan River . The remainder of the Mandate consisted of Jordan, the area that came to be called the West Bank (controlled by Jordan), and the Gaza Strip (controlled by Egypt). Prior to and during this conflict, 711,000 Palestinians Arabs fled their original lands to become Palestinian refugees . The reasons for this are disputed, and range from claims that the major cause of Palestinian flight
10260-406: The Kingdom of Israel was established, which constructed the first temple . This kingdom was soon split into two—the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel . After the destruction of these kingdoms and the destruction of the First Temple , the Israelites were exiled to Babylon . After about 70 years parts of the Israelites were permitted to return to the region and soon thereafter they built
10431-413: The Kohanim and Leviyim (members of the tribe of Levi ), some only to farmers within the Land of Israel. Many laws were only applicable when the Temple in Jerusalem existed, and only 369 of these commandments are still applicable today. While there have been Jewish groups whose beliefs were based on the written text of the Torah alone (e.g., the Sadducees , and the Karaites ), most Jews believe in
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#173279329499610602-622: The Maccabean Revolt and hence the invention of the term iudaismos . Shaye J. D. Cohen writes in his book The Beginnings of Jewishness : We are tempted, of course, to translate [ Ioudaïsmós ] as "Judaism," but this translation is too narrow, because in this first occurrence of the term, Ioudaïsmós has not yet been reduced to the designation of a religion. It means rather "the aggregate of all those characteristics that makes Judaeans Judaean (or Jews Jewish)." Among these characteristics, to be sure, are practices and beliefs that we would today call "religious," but these practices and beliefs are not
10773-433: The Oxford English Dictionary the earliest citation in English where the term was used to mean "the profession or practice of the Jewish religion; the religious system or polity of the Jews" is Robert Fabyan's The newe cronycles of Englande and of Fraunce (1516). "Judaism" as a direct translation of the Latin Iudaismus first occurred in a 1611 English translation of the Biblical apocrypha (the Deuterocanonical books in
10944-417: The Patriarch Abraham as well as the additional aspects of the Covenant revealed to Moses , who is considered Judaism's greatest prophet . In the Mishnah , a core text of Rabbinic Judaism , acceptance of the Divine origins of this covenant is considered an essential aspect of Judaism and those who reject the Covenant forfeit their share in the World to Come . Establishing the core tenets of Judaism in
11115-442: The Peel Commission was rejected by both the Palestinian Arab leadership and the Zionist Congress . As a result, believing that their position in the Middle East in the event of a war depended on the support of the Arab states, Britain abandoned the idea of a Jewish state in 1939 in favour of a unitary state with a Jewish minority. The White Paper of 1939 capped Jewish immigration for five years, with further immigration dependent on
11286-400: The Second Temple . Later on they established the Hasmonean Kingdom . The region was conquered by the Roman Empire in 63 BCE. During the first couple of centuries in the common era during a series of rebellions against the Roman Empire the second temple was destroyed and there was a general expulsion of Jews from their homeland. The area was later conquered by migrant Arabs who invaded
11457-482: The State of Israel are Jewish. As of 2022, Jews made up 73.6% percent of the population. In 2007, a poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute found that 27% of Israeli Jews say that they keep the Sabbath , while 53% said they do not keep it at all. The poll also found that 50% of the respondents would give up shopping on the Sabbath as long as public transportation were kept running and leisure activities continued to be permitted; however, only 38% believed that such
11628-439: The State of Israel though without any reference to defined borders. The armies of Egypt , Lebanon , Syria , Jordan , and Iraq invaded the former mandate, thus starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War . The nascent Israeli Defense Force repulsed the Arab nations from much of the former mandate, thus extending its borders beyond the original UNSCOP partition. By December 1948, Israel controlled much of Mandate Palestine west of
11799-426: The halakha whereas its ultimate goal is to bring the holiness down to the world. Mordecai Kaplan , the founder of the Reconstructionist Judaism , abandons the idea of religion for the sake of identifying Judaism with civilization and by means of the latter term and secular translation of the core ideas, he tries to embrace as many Jewish denominations as possible. In turn, Solomon Schechter 's Conservative Judaism
11970-420: The oral law . These oral traditions were transmitted by the Pharisee school of thought of ancient Judaism and were later recorded in written form and expanded upon by the rabbis. According to Rabbinical Jewish tradition, God gave both the Written Law (the Torah ) and the Oral Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai . The Oral law is the oral tradition as relayed by God to Moses and from him, transmitted and taught to
12141-412: The rabbis and scholars who interpret them. Jews are an ethnoreligious group including those born Jewish, in addition to converts to Judaism . In 2021, the world Jewish population was estimated at 15.2 million, or roughly 0.195% of the total world population, although religious observance varies from strict to none. In 2021, about 45.6% of all Jews resided in Israel and another 42.1% resided in
12312-424: The status quo among the secular population has strengthened parties such as Shinui , which advocate separation of religion and state, without much success so far. Today the secular Israeli Jews claim that they aren't religious and don't observe Jewish law, and that Israel as a democratic modern country should not force the observance thereof upon its citizens against their will. The Orthodox Israeli Jews claim that
12483-524: The "status quo" have been challenged by secular Israelis regarding the Chief Rabbinate's strict control over Jewish weddings, Jewish divorce proceedings, conversions, and the question of who is a Jew for the purposes of immigration. The Ministry of Education manages the secular and Orthodox school networks of various faiths in parallel, with a limited degree of independence and a common core curriculum. In recent years, perceived frustration with
12654-665: The "status quo"; the Orthodox used their newfound political force to attempt to extend religious control, and the non-Orthodox sought to reduce or even eliminate it. It was during the British Mandate of Palestine that the British administration established an official dual Ashkenazi-Sephardi "Chief Rabbinate" ( rabbanut harashit ) that was exclusively Orthodox, as part of an effort to consolidate and organize Jewish life based on its own model in Britain, which encouraged strict loyalty to
12825-428: The 2011 population. The Bureau also forecasts that the ultra-Orthodox population will number 1.1 million people by 2019, compared with 750,000 in 2009. By 2059, the projected Haredi Jewish population is estimated to be between 2.73 million and 5.84 million, marking a 264%–686% increase. Thus the total projected Israeli Jewish population by 2059 is estimated to be between 8.82 million and 15.790 million. In January 2014, it
12996-526: The Americas, on their paternal line, constitute the largest single group among Israeli Jews and consist of about 3,000,000 people living in Israel. About 1,200,000 of them are descended from or are immigrants from the former Soviet Union who returned from the diaspora after the fall of the Former Soviet Union 1991 (about 300,000 of them are not considered to be Jewish under Jewish law). Most of
13167-498: The British crown, and in order to attempt to influence the religious life of the Jews in Palestine in a similar fashion. In 1921, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1864–1935) was chosen as the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi and Rabbi Jacob Meir as the first Sephardi Chief Rabbi ( Rishon LeTzion ). Rabbi Kook was a leading light of the religious Zionist movement, and was acknowledged by all as a great rabbi of his generation. He believed that
13338-491: The Chief Rabbinate under the leadership of Rabbi Chaim Drukman have been annulled, and the official Jewish status over several thousand people who converted through the conversion court of the Chief Rabbinate since 1999 hangs in limbo as the proceedings continue regarding these individuals Jewish status. The vast majority of these individuals are former Soviet Union immigrants. In his book from 2001 "The Invention and Decline of Israeliness: State, Culture and Military in Israel" ,
13509-593: The Conservative movement. The following is a basic, structured list of the central works of Jewish practice and thought: The basis of halakha and tradition is the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses). According to rabbinic tradition, there are 613 commandments in the Torah. Some of these laws are directed only to men or to women, some only to the ancient priestly groups,
13680-786: The Druze faith, the Catholic Church (including the Latin Church , Armenian Catholic Church , Maronite Church , Melkite Greek Catholic Church , Syriac Catholic Church , and Chaldean Catholic Church ), Greek Orthodox Church, Syriac Orthodox Church , Armenian Apostolic Church , Anglicanism , and the Baháʼí Faith . The religious affiliation of the Israeli population as of 2022 was 73.6% Jewish, 18.1% Muslim , 1.9% Christian , and 1.6% Druze. The remaining 4.8% included faiths such as Samaritanism and Baháʼí, as well as "religiously unclassified". While Jewish Israelis are all technically under
13851-459: The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The council was disbanded by Jordan in 1951. Israeli Muslims are free to teach Islam to their children in their own schools, and there are a number of Islamic universities and colleges in Israel and the territories. Islamic law remains the law for concerns relating to, for example, marriage, divorce, inheritance and other family matters relating to Muslims, without
14022-550: The Great Assembly, led by Ezra the Scribe . Among other accomplishments of the Great Assembly, the last books of the Bible were written at this time and the canon sealed . Hellenistic Judaism spread to Ptolemaic Egypt from the 3rd century BCE, and its creation sparked widespread controversy in Jewish communities, starting "conflicts within Jewish communities about accommodating the cultures of occupying powers." During
14193-524: The Haredi assertions that Reform Jews are not really Jewish. The survey also showed that a third of Israeli Jews "identify" with progressive (Reform or Conservative) Judaism and almost two thirds agree that Reform Judaism should have equal rights in Israel with Orthodox Judaism. The report was organized by the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism ahead of its 52nd biennial conference. The religious status quo , agreed to by David Ben-Gurion with
14364-737: The Holocaust . In the late 19th century large numbers of Jews began moving to the Ottoman and later British-controlled region . In 1917, the British endorsed a National Home for Jews in Mandate Palestine by issuing the Balfour Declaration . The Jewish population in the region increased from 11% of the population in 1922 to 30% by 1940. In 1937, following the Great Arab Revolt , the partition plan proposed by
14535-755: The Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling identified and divided the modern Israeli society into seven population groups (seven subcultures): The secular upper-middle class group, the national religious group, the traditionalist Mizrahim group, the Orthodox religious group, the Arab citizens of Israel , the Russian immigrants group and the Ethiopian immigrants group. According to Kimmerling, each of these population groups have distinctive characteristics, such as place of resident, consumption patterns, education systems, communications media and more. Today, Jews whose family immigrated from European countries and
14706-684: The Israeli Black Panthers no longer exist, the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition and many other NGOs carry on the struggle for equal access and opportunity in housing , education , and employment for the country's underprivileged populace—still largely composed of Sephardim and Mizrahim, joined now by newer immigrants from Ethiopia and the Caucasus Mountains. Today over 2,500,000 Mizrahi Jews, and Sephardic Jews live in Israel with
14877-469: The Israeli Jews are as follows: The majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi. The exact proportion of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish populations in Israel is unknown (since it is not included in the census); some estimates place Jews of Mizrahi origin at up to 61% of the Israeli Jewish population, with hundreds of thousands more having mixed Ashkenazi heritage due to cross-cultural intermarriage. In
15048-474: The Israeli establishment. At the same time, there is also a significant movement in the opposite direction toward a secular lifestyle. There is some debate which trend is stronger at present. Recent polls show that ranks of secular Jewish minority in Israel continued to drop in 2009. Currently, the secular make up only 42%. The spectrum covered by "Orthodox" in the diaspora exists in Israel, again with some important variations. What would be called "Orthodox" in
15219-544: The Israeli government to mount these dramatic rescue operations. The rescues were within the context of Israel's national mission to gather Diaspora Jews and bring them to the Jewish homeland. Some immigration has continued up until the present day. Today 81,000 Ethiopian Israelis were born in Ethiopia, while 38,500 or 32% of the community are native born Israelis. Over time, the Ethiopian Jews in Israel moved out of
15390-537: The Jewish Sabbath (then the country's only day of rest), and questioned whether the burden of military service was being shared equitably, since the 400 scholars who originally benefited from the exemption, had grown to 50,000 . Finally, the Progressive and Conservative communities, though still small, began to exert themselves as an alternative to the Haredi control of religious issues. No one was happy with
15561-582: The Jewish population, they are now an extreme minority compared to Rabbinical Judaism. Nearly the entirety of their population, between 30,000 and 50,000, currently live in Israel, and reside mainly in Ramla , Ashdod and Beer-Sheva . There are an estimated 10,000 additional Karaites living elsewhere around the world, mainly in the United States, Turkey, Poland, and elsewhere in Europe. On 7 December 2016,
15732-497: The Jewish religious aspects of the secular state of Israel. Through a complex system of "advice and consent" from a variety of senior rabbis and influential politicians, each Israeli city and town also gets to elect its own local Orthodox Chief Rabbi who is looked up to by substantial regional and even national religious and even non-religious Israeli Jews. Through a national network of Batei Din ("religious courts"), each headed only by approved Orthodox Av Beit Din judges, as well as
15903-571: The Jews increased and the details were in danger of being forgotten, these oral laws were recorded by Judah ha-Nasi in the Mishnah , redacted c. 200 CE . The Talmud was a compilation of the Mishnah and Gemara , rabbinic commentaries redacted over the next three centuries. The Gemara originated in two major centers of Jewish scholarship, Palestine and Babylonia ( Lower Mesopotamia ). Correspondingly, two bodies of analysis developed, and two works of Talmud were created. The older compilation
16074-644: The Nation-State of the Jewish People . As the Israeli government considers a person's Jewish status to be a matter of nationality and citizenship , the definition of Jewishness in the Israeli Law of Return includes patrilineal Jewish descent ; this does not align with the stipulations of Judaism's halakha , which defines Jewishness through matrilineality . As of 1970 , all Jews by blood and their non-Jewish spouses automatically qualify for
16245-557: The Oral Torah, which refers to the Mishnah and the Talmud . Eventually, God led them to the land of Israel where the tabernacle was planted in the city of Shiloh for over 300 years to rally the nation against attacking enemies. As time passed, the nation's spiritual level declined to the point that God allowed the Philistines to capture the tabernacle. The people of Israel then told Samuel that they needed to be governed by
16416-452: The Orthodox parties at the time of Israel's formation in 1948, is an agreement on the role that Judaism would play in Israel's government and the judicial system. The agreement was based upon a letter sent by Ben-Gurion to Agudat Israel dated 19 June 1947. Under this agreement, which still operates in most respects today: Nevertheless, some breaches of the status quo have become prevalent, such as several suburban malls remaining open during
16587-464: The Sabbath. Though this is contrary to the law , the government largely turns a blind eye. While the state of Israel enables freedom of religion for all of its citizens, it does not enable civil marriage. The state forbids and disapproves of any civil marriages or non-religious divorces performed amongst within the country. Because of this, some Israelis choose to marry outside of Israel. Many parts of
16758-661: The Sephardim and the Ashkenazim. Jews from both communities made aliyah in relatively large numbers during the 20th century, especially after the Holocaust. Both came in relatively small numbers as compared to other Jewish groups. Despite their small numbers, the Italian have been prominent in the economy and academia. Most Italian and Romaniote Israelis and their descendants live in the Tel Aviv area. Argentines in Israel are
16929-590: The Six-Day War, despite the signing of the Oslo Accords on 13 September 1993, and the ongoing efforts of Israeli, Palestinian and global peacemakers. According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics , as of January 1, 2020, of Israel's 9.136 million people, 74.1% were Jews of any background. Among them, 68% were Sabras (Israeli-born), mostly second- or third-generation Israelis, and the rest are olim (Jewish immigrants to Israel)—22% from Europe and
17100-632: The Temple Mount, with the intention of gathering archeological remnants of the first and second temple period, as well as the stance of some rabbis and activists who call for its destruction to replace it with the Third Temple. Most Muslims in Israel are Sunni Arabs with a small minority of Ahmadi Arabs . From 1516 to 1917, the Sunni Ottoman Turks ruled the areas that now include Israel. Their rulership reinforced and ensured
17271-584: The United States and Canada, with most of the remainder living in Europe, and other groups spread throughout Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. The term Judaism derives from Iudaismus , a Latinized form of the Ancient Greek Ioudaismos ( Koinē Greek : Ἰουδαϊσμός , from the verb ἰουδαΐζειν , "to side with or imitate the [Judeans]"). Its ultimate source was Hebrew : יהודה , romanized : Yehudah Judah ", which
17442-628: The adoption of the Partition Plan by the United Nations General Assembly, the Palestinian Arab leadership rejected the plan to create the as-yet-unnamed Jewish State and launched a guerrilla war . On 14 May 1948, one day before the end of the British Mandate of Palestine , the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine led by prime minister David Ben-Gurion , made a declaration of independence , of
17613-472: The agreement of the Arabs. In the event, limited Jewish immigration was permitted until the end of the mandate. In 1947, following increasing levels of violence, the British government decided to withdraw from Mandatory Palestine. The 1947 UN Partition Plan split the mandate (apart from Jerusalem) into two states, Jewish and Arab, giving about 56% of Mandatory Palestine to the Jewish state. Immediately following
17784-504: The authority of the rabbinic tradition , and the significance of the State of Israel . Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and halakha are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, and that they should be strictly followed. Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditionalist interpretation of Judaism's requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position
17955-607: The average Israeli Jewish woman has over 3 children. When Israel was first established in 1948, it had the third-largest Jewish population in the world, after the United States and Soviet Union . In the 1970s, Israel surpassed the Soviet Union as having the second-largest Jewish population. In 2003, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reported that Israel had surpassed the United States as
18126-518: The barriers were lowered by state-sponsored assimilation of all the Jewish communities into a common Sabra (native-born Israeli) identity, which facilitated extensive "mixed marriages". The percentage of Jewish children born to mixed marriages between Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardi/Mizrahi Jews rose steadily. A 1995 survey found that 5.3% of Jews aged 40–43, 16.5% of Jews aged 20–21, and 25% of Jews aged 10–11 were of mixed ancestry. That same year, 25% of Jewish children born in Israel were mixed. Even though
18297-483: The basis of the Talmud. According to Abraham ben David , the Mishnah was compiled by Rabbi Judah haNasi after the destruction of Jerusalem, in anno mundi 3949, which corresponds to 189 CE. Over the next four centuries, the Mishnah underwent discussion and debate in both of the world's major Jewish communities (in Israel and Babylonia ). The commentaries from each of these communities were eventually compiled into
18468-471: The belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of mankind. According to the Hebrew Bible, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation. Many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God; that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate God's concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to love one another; that is, Jews are to imitate God's love for people. Thus, although there
18639-575: The broader sense of "Jews of the Spanish rite", though not in the narrower sense of "Spanish Jews". Of late, the term Mizrahi has come to be associated with all Jews in Israel with backgrounds in Islamic lands. Cultural and/or racial biases against the newcomers were compounded by the fledgling state's lack of financial resources and inadequate housing to handle the massive population influx. Austerity
18810-402: The centrality and importance of Islam as the dominant religion in the region. The conquest of Palestine by the British in 1917 and the subsequent Balfour Declaration opened the gates for the arrival of large numbers of Jews in Palestine who began to tip the scales in favor of Judaism with the passing of each decade. However, the British transferred the symbolic Islamic governance of the land to
18981-431: The chief rabbis of Israel issued a new policy requiring that foreign Jewish converts be recognized in Israel, and vowed to release criteria required for recognizing rabbis who perform such conversions. Previously, such conversions were not required to be recognized. However, within one week the chief rabbis had retracted their earlier promise and instead appointed members to a joint committee of five rabbis who would formulate
19152-526: The collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people . Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant , which was established between God and the Israelites , their ancestors. The religion is considered one of the earliest monotheistic religions in the world. Jewish religious doctrine encompasses a wide body of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Among Judaism's core texts
19323-656: The conversion criteria. Israel is home to the only significant populations of Samaritans in the world. They are adherents of Samaritanism—an Abrahamic religion similar to Judaism. As of 1 November 2007, there were 712 Samaritans. The community lives almost exclusively in Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim and in Holon . Their traditional religious leader is the Samaritan High Priest , currently Aabed-El ben Asher ben Matzliach . Ancestrally, they claim descent from
19494-476: The diaspora includes what is commonly called dati ("religious") or Haredi ("ultra-Orthodox") in Israel. The former term includes what is called Religious Zionism or the "National Religious" community (and also Modern Orthodox in US terms), as well as what has become known over the past decade or so as Hardal ( Haredi-Leumi , i. e., "ultra-Orthodox nationalist"), which combines a largely Haredi lifestyle with
19665-567: The early 1980s. Since 1948, Israel has been involved in a series of major military conflicts, including the 1956 Suez War , 1967 Six-Day War , 1973 Yom Kippur War , 1982 Lebanon War , and 2006 Lebanon War , as well as a nearly constant series of ongoing minor conflicts. Israel has been also embroiled in an ongoing conflict with the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories , which have been under Israeli control since
19836-462: The establishment of the authority of rabbis who acted as teachers and leaders of individual communities. Unlike other ancient Near Eastern gods, the Hebrew God is portrayed as unitary and solitary; consequently, the Hebrew God's principal relationships are not with other gods, but with the world, and more specifically, with the people he created. Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism :
20007-577: The fact that roughly half the country's population is non-Ashkenazi. The tent cities of the 1950s morphed into so-called " development towns ". Scattered over border areas of the Negev Desert and the Galilee, far from the bright lights of Israel's major cities, most of these towns never had the critical mass or ingredients to succeed as places to live, and they continue to suffer from high unemployment, inferior schools, and chronic brain drain . While
20178-531: The figure at 70,000. Most Jewish Argentines are Ashkenazi Jews . Nearly all of the Ethiopian Beta Israel community today lives in Israel, comprising more than 121,000 people. Most of this population are the descendants and the immigrants who immigrated to Israel during two massive waves of immigration mounted by the Israeli government—" Operation Moses " (1984) and during " Operation Solomon " (1991). Civil war and famine in Ethiopia prompted
20349-503: The former Soviet Union. In Jerusalem, there are twelve Messianic congregations. This is growing religious group in Israel, according to both its proponents and critics. In Israel Jewish Christians themselves, go by the name Meshiykhiyyim (from Messiah , as found in the Franz Delitzsch Hebrew New Testament) rather than the traditional Talmudic name for Christians Notzrim (from Nazarene ). Jerusalem
20520-477: The foster care of Ashkenazim families, their families being told that their children had died. Some believe that even worse than the housing discrimination was the differential treatment accorded the children of these immigrants, many of whom were tracked by the largely European education establishment into dead-end "vocational" high schools, without any real assessment of their intellectual capacities. Mizrahi Jews protested their unfair treatment, and even established
20691-446: The government-owned mobile home camps that they initially lived in and settled mainly in the various cities and towns throughout Israel, mainly with the encouragement of the Israeli authorities who granted the new immigrants generous government loans or low-interest mortgages. Similarly to other groups of immigrant Jews who made aliyah to Israel, the Ethiopian Jews have faced obstacles in their integration to Israeli society. Initially
20862-427: The interpretations that gave rise to Christianity. Moreover, some have argued that Judaism is a non-creedal religion that does not require one to believe in God. For some, observance of halakha is more important than belief in God per se . The debate about whether one can speak of authentic or normative Judaism is not only a debate among religious Jews but also among historians. In continental Europe , Judaism
21033-584: The jurisdiction of the state Orthodox rabbinate, personal attitudes vary immensely, from extreme Orthodoxy to irreligion and atheism . Jews in Israel mainly classify themselves along a fourfold axis, from least to most observant, hiloni ( lit. ' secular ' ); masorti ( lit. ' traditional ' ); dati ( lit. ' religious ' or ' orthodox ', including religious zionist ); and haredi ( lit. ' ultra-religious ' or 'ultra-orthodox'). Israeli law guarantees considerable privileges and freedom to practice for
21204-541: The land a Holy Land for Christianity. However, few Christians now live in the area, compared to Muslims and Jews. This is because Islam displaced Christianity in almost all of the Middle East, and the rise of modern Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel has seen millions of Jews migrate to Israel. Recently, the Christian population in Israel has increased with the immigration of foreign workers from
21375-415: The land. Ten churches are officially recognized under Israel's confessional system , which provides for the self-regulation of status issues, such as marriage and divorce. These are the Catholic Church (including the Latin Church , Armenian Catholic Church , Maronite Church , Melkite Greek Catholic Church , Syriac Catholic Church , and Chaldean Catholic Church ), Eastern Orthodox Church (particularly
21546-433: The largest immigrant group from Latin America and one of the fastest growing groups. The vast majority of Argentines in Israel are Jewish Argentines who make Aliyah but there is also an important group of non-Jewish Argentines, having, or being married to somebody who has, at least one Jewish grandparent, who choose Israel as their new home. There are about 50,000 Argentines residing in Israel although some estimates put
21717-688: The leading rabbis of the Old Yishuv as the official leaders of the small Jewish community that for many centuries consisted mostly of the devoutly Orthodox Jews from Eastern Europe as well as those from the Levant who had made aliyah to the Holy Land, primarily for religious reasons. The European immigrants had unified themselves in an organization initially known as the Vaad Ha'ir , which later changed its name to Edah HaChareidis . The Turks viewed
21888-542: The local rabbis of Palestine as extensions of their own Orthodox Hakham Bashis ("[Turkish] Chief Rabbi/s") who were loyal to the Sultan. Thus the centrality of an Orthodox dominated Chief Rabbinate became part of the new state of Israel as well when it was established in 1948 . Based in its central offices at Heichal Shlomo in Jerusalem the Israeli Chief rabbinate has continued to wield exclusive control over all
22059-532: The main challenges of the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel were due in part to communication difficulties (most of the population could not read or write in Hebrew , and much of the veteran population could not hold a simple conversation in the Hebrew language), and discrimination in certain areas of the Israeli society. Unlike Russian immigrants, many of whom arrive with job skills, Ethiopians came from
22230-818: The majority of them being descendants of the 680,000 Jews who fled Arab countries due to expulsions and antisemitism , with smaller numbers having immigrated from the Islamic Republics of the Former Soviet Union (c.250,000), India (70,000), Iran (200,000–250,000), and Turkey (80,000). Before the immigration of over 1,000,000 Russian, mainly Ashkenazi Jews to Israel after to collapse of the Soviet Union, 70% of Israeli Jews were Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews . The current most prominent countries of diaspora origin of these Jewish communities are as follows: Israel also has small populations of Italian (rite) Jews from Italy and Romaniote Jews from Greece , Cyprus and Turkey . Both groups are considered distinct from
22401-400: The metropolitan area with the largest Jewish population in the world, while a major demographic study found that Israel's Jewish population surpassed that of the United States in 2008. Due to the decline of Diaspora Jewry as a result of intermarriage and assimilation, along with the steady growth of the Israeli Jewish population, it has been speculated that within about 20 years, a majority of
22572-504: The modern era is even more difficult, given the number and diversity of the contemporary Jewish denominations . Even if to restrict the problem to the most influential intellectual trends of the nineteenth and twentieth century, the matter remains complicated. Thus, for instance, Joseph Soloveitchik's (associated with the Modern Orthodox movement ) answer to modernity is constituted upon the identification of Judaism with following
22743-599: The most affluent of Israeli Jews. Not all Jews immigrating to Israel from European countries are of Ashkenazi origin (the majority of French Jews are of Sephardic, and some Jews from the Asian Republics of the USSR are Mizrahi), and the Israeli government does not distinguish between Jewish communities in its census. During the first decades of Israel as a state, strong cultural conflict existed between Mizrahi, Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews (mainly east European Ashkenazim). The roots of this conflict, which still exists to
22914-481: The nation with the world's largest Jewish population. The report was contested by Professor Sergio Della Pergola of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . Considered the greatest demographic expert on Jews, Della Pergola said it would take another three years to close the gap. In January 2006, Della Pergola stated that Israel now had more Jews than the United States, and Tel Aviv had replaced New York as
23085-474: The need for formal recognition arrangements of the kind extended to the main Christian churches. Similarly Ottoman law, in the form of the Mecelle , for a long time remained the basis of large parts of Israeli law, for example concerning land ownership. Judaism Judaism ( Hebrew : יַהֲדוּת , romanized : Yahăḏūṯ ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic ethnic religion that comprises
23256-489: The next few centuries. Later, two poetic restatements of these principles (" Ani Ma'amin " and " Yigdal ") became integrated into many Jewish liturgies, leading to their eventual near-universal acceptance. The oldest non-Rabbinic instance of articles of faith were formulated, under Islamic influence, by the 12th century Karaite figure Judah ben Elijah Hadassi : (1) God is the Creator of all created beings; (2) He
23427-493: The other 1,800,000 are descended from the first Zionist settlers in the Land of Israel , as well as Holocaust survivors and their descendants, with an additional 200,000 having immigrated or descended from immigrants from English-speaking countries and South America . They have played a prominent role in various fields including the arts, entertainment, literature, sports, science and technology, business and economy, media, and politics of Israel since its founding, and tend to be
23598-430: The other hand, secular Israelis began questioning whether a "status quo" based on the conditions of the 1940s and 1950s was still relevant in the 1980s and 1990s, and reckoned that they had cultural and institutional support to enable them to change it regardless of its relevance. They challenged Orthodox control of personal affairs such as marriage and divorce, resented the lack of entertainment and transportation options on
23769-444: The other opposite, 8% defined themselves as haredi (ultra-orthodox); an additional 12% as "religious"; 13% as "traditional (religious)"; and 25% as "traditional (non-religious)". In 2022, 45% of Israel Jews self-identified as "secular"; 10% as haredi (ultra-orthodox); 33% as masorti ( lit. ' traditional ' ); and 12% as dati ( lit. ' religious ' or ' orthodox ', including religious zionist ). Of
23940-578: The recognized communities, but, in tandem, does not necessarily do so for other faiths. The Pew Research Center has identified Israel as one of the countries that place "high restrictions" on the free exercise of religion and there have been limits placed on non-Orthodox Jewish religious movements , which are unrecognized. Pew ranked Israel as fifth globally in terms of "inter-religious tension and violence". A Gallup survey in 2015 determined that 65% of Israelis say they are either "not religious" or "convinced atheists", while 30% say they are "religious". Israel
24111-528: The region, where his son Isaac and grandson Jacob grew up with their families. Later on, Jacob and his sons went to Egypt . Decades later their descendants were led out of Egypt by Moses and Aaron , given the Tablets of Stone , returned to the land of Canaan and conquered it under the leadership of Joshua . After the period of the judges , in which the Israelites did not have an organized leadership,
24282-521: The religion of the Druze people . Religion plays a central role in national and civil life, and almost all Israeli citizens are automatically registered as members of the state's 14 official religious communities , which exercise control over several matters of personal status, especially marriage . These recognized communities are Orthodox Judaism (administered by the Chief Rabbinate ), Islam,
24453-451: The rest are olim (Jewish immigrants to Israel)—19% from Europe , Americas and Oceania , and 9% from Asia and Africa , mostly the Muslim world . The Israeli government does not trace the diaspora origin of Israeli Jews. The CBS traces the paternal country of diaspora origin of Israeli Jews (including non– Halachically Jewish immigrants who arrived on the Law of Return ) as of 2010
24624-455: The revealed Torah consists solely of its written contents, but of its interpretations as well. The study of Torah (in its widest sense, to include both poetry, narrative, and law, and both the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud) is in Judaism itself a sacred act of central importance. For the sages of the Mishnah and Talmud, and for their successors today, the study of Torah was therefore not merely
24795-503: The right to immigrate to the country and acquire Israeli citizenship. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , the Israeli Jewish population stood at 7,208,000 people in 2023, comprising approximately 73% of the country's total population. The addition of any non-Jewish relatives (e.g., spouses) increased this figure to 7,762,000 people, comprising approximately 79% of the country's total population. In 2008,
24966-433: The rise of Zionism , a Jewish nationalist movement that had a desire to see the self-determination of the Jewish people through the creation of a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. Significant numbers of Jews have immigrated to Palestine since the 1880s. Zionism remained a minority movement until the rise of Nazism in 1933 and the subsequently attempted extermination of the Jewish people in Nazi-occupied areas of Europe in
25137-431: The sages ( rabbinic leaders) of each subsequent generation. For centuries, the Torah appeared only as a written text transmitted in parallel with the oral tradition. Fearing that the oral teachings might be forgotten, Rabbi Judah haNasi undertook the mission of consolidating the various opinions into one body of law which became known as the Mishnah . The Mishnah consists of 63 tractates codifying halakha , which are
25308-400: The sale or ownership of Chametz come up), the observance of the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee year in the agricultural sphere. The Israel Defense Forces also relies on the Chief Rabbinate's approval for its own Jewish chaplains who are exclusively Orthodox. The IDF has a number of units that cater to the unique religious requirements of the Religious Zionist yeshiva students through
25479-409: The same history of anti-religious rhetoric that marked socialist Zionism. Furthermore, Begin needed the Haredi members of the Knesset (Israel's unicameral parliament) to form his coalition, and offered more power and benefits to their community than what they had been accustomed to receiving, including a lifting of the numerical limit on military exemptions for those engaged in full-time Torah study. On
25650-437: The secular/hiloni Israelis are without other forms of spirituality . There is also a growing baal teshuva (Jewish returners) movement, involved with all Jewish denominations, of secular Israelis rejecting their previously secular lifestyles and choosing to become religiously observant, with many educational programs and yeshivas for them. An example is Aish HaTorah , which received open encouragement from some sectors within
25821-420: The separation between state and religion will contribute to the end of Israel's Jewish identity. Signs of the first challenge to the status quo came in 1977, with the fall of the Labor government that had been in power since independence, and the formation of a right-wing coalition under Menachem Begin . Right-wing Revisionist Zionism had always been more acceptable to the Orthodox parties, since it did not share
25992-419: The shedding of blood. The Birkat Ha-Mitzwot evokes the consciousness of holiness at a rabbinic rite, but the objects employed in the majority of these rites are non-holy and of general character, while the several holy objects are non-theurgic. And not only do ordinary things and occurrences bring with them the experience of God. Everything that happens to a man evokes that experience, evil as well as good, for
26163-477: The sole content of the term. Thus Ioudaïsmós should be translated not as "Judaism" but as Judaeanness. Daniel R. Schwartz, however, argues that "Judaism", especially in the context of the Book of Maccabees, refers to the religion, as opposed to the culture and politics of the Judean state. He believes it reflected the ideological divide between the Pharisees and Sadducees and, implicitly, anti-Hasmonean and pro-Hasmonean factions in Judean society. According to
26334-917: The time the State of Israel was proclaimed, the majority of Jews in the state and the region were Ashkenazi . Following the declaration of the state, a flood of Jewish migrants and refugees entered Israel —both from Europe and America and also from Arab and Muslim countries . Most of the Jewish immigrants in the 1950s and 1960s were Jewish Holocaust survivors , as well as Sephardic Jews and Mizrahi Jews (mostly Moroccan Jews , Algerian Jews , Tunisian Jews , Yemenite Jews , Bukharan Jews , Iranian Jews , Iraqi Jews , Kurdish Jews , and smaller communities, principally from Lebanon , Syria , Libya , Egypt , India , Turkey and Afghanistan ). In recent decades other Jewish communities have also immigrated to Israel including Ethiopian Jews , Russian Jews and Bnei Menashe . Among Israeli Jews, 75% are Sabras (Israeli-born), mostly second- or third-generation Israelis , and
26505-443: The two Talmuds, the Jerusalem Talmud ( Talmud Yerushalmi ) and the Babylonian Talmud ( Talmud Bavli ). These have been further expounded by commentaries of various Torah scholars during the ages. In the text of the Torah, many words are left undefined, and many procedures are mentioned without explanation or instructions. Such phenomena are sometimes offered to validate the viewpoint that the Written Law has always been transmitted with
26676-409: The work of secular Jews toward creating an eventual Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael was part of a divine plan for the settlement of the land of Israel . The return to Israel was in Kook's view not merely a political phenomenon to save Jews from persecution, but an event of extraordinary historical and theological significance. Prior to the 1917 British conquest of Palestine, the Ottomans had recognized
26847-547: The workaday world. ... Here is the mystery of Talmudic Judaism: the alien and remote conviction that the intellect is an instrument not of unbelief and desacralization but of sanctification. To study the Written Torah and the Oral Torah in light of each other is thus also to study how to study the word of God. Israeli Jews Israeli Jews or Jewish Israelis ( Hebrew : יהודים ישראלים Yêhūdīm Yīśrāʾēlīm ) comprise Israel 's largest ethnic and religious community. The core of their demographic consists of those with
27018-548: The world with a consistently growing Jewish population due to natural population increase. Jewish communities in the Diaspora feature a population declining or steady, with the exception of the Orthodox and Haredi Jewish communities around the world, whose members often shun birth control for religious reasons, who have experienced rapid population growth. The growth of the Orthodox and Haredi sector has partly balanced out negative population growth amongst other Jewish denominations. Haredi women have 7.7 children on average while
27189-405: The world's Jews will live in Israel. In March 2012, the Israeli Census Bureau of Statistics reported on behalf of Ynet has forecast that in 2019, Israel will be home to 6,940,000 Jews, 5.84 million which are non-Haredi Jews living in Israel, compared with 5.27 million in 2009. The number is expected to grow to anywhere between 6.09 million and 9.95 million by 2059, marking a 16%–89% increase with
27360-432: Was centered on a pantheon of gods much like in Greek mythology . According to the Hebrew Bible , a United Monarchy was established under Saul and continued under King David and Solomon with its capital in Jerusalem . After Solomon's reign, the nation split into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel (in the north) and the Kingdom of Judah (in the south). The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed around 720 BCE, when it
27531-602: Was challenged by various groups such as the Sadducees and Hellenistic Judaism during the Second Temple period ; the Karaites during the early and later medieval period; and among segments of the modern non-Orthodox denominations. Some modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be considered secular or nontheistic . Today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism ( Haredi and Modern Orthodox ), Conservative Judaism , and Reform Judaism . Major sources of difference between these groups are their approaches to halakha (Jewish law),
27702-454: Was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire ; many people were taken captive from the capital Samaria to Media and the Khabur River valley. The Kingdom of Judah continued as an independent state until it was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE. The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple , which was at the center of ancient Jewish worship. The Judeans were exiled to Babylon , in what
27873-546: Was criticized by Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo . Albo and the Raavad argued that Maimonides' principles contained too many items that, while true, were not fundamentals of the faith Along these lines, the ancient historian Josephus emphasized practices and observances rather than religious beliefs, associating apostasy with a failure to observe halakha and maintaining that the requirements for conversion to Judaism included circumcision and adherence to traditional customs. Maimonides' principles were largely ignored over
28044-407: Was given to Yityish Titi Aynaw , the first Ethiopian-born contestant to win the pageant. Aynaw, moved to Israel from Ethiopia with her family when she was 12. Intermarriage between Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardi/Mizrahi Jews in Israel was initially uncommon, due in part to distances of each group's settlement in Israel, economic gaps, and cultural and/or racial biases. In recent generations, however,
28215-402: Was identical with the tradition understood as the interpretation of Torah, in itself being the history of the constant updates and adjustment of the Law performed by means of the creative interpretation. Finally, David Philipson draws the outlines of the Reform movement in Judaism by opposing it to the strict and traditional rabbinical approach and thus comes to the conclusions similar to that of
28386-665: Was military actions by the Israel Defense Forces and fear of events such as the Deir Yassin massacre to an encouragement to leave by Arab leaders so that they could return when the war was won. Immigration of Holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees from Arab lands doubled Israel's population within one year of its independence. Over the following years approximately 850,000 Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews fled or were expelled from surrounding mostly due persecution in Arab countries, and in smaller numbers from Turkey , India , Afghanistan , and Iran . Of these, about 680,000 settled in Israel. Israel's Jewish population continued to grow at
28557-412: Was one of the least trusted. The Karaites are an ancient Jewish community that practices a form of Judaism distinct from Rabbinical Judaism , dating ostensibly to between the 7th and 9th centuries based on textual evidence, though they claim a tradition at least as old as other forms of Judaism with some tracing their origins to the Masoretes and the Sadducees. Once making up a significant proportion of
28728-410: Was recognized as a religio licita ("legitimate religion") until the rise of Gnosticism and Early Christianity in the fourth century. Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews, Jewish worship stopped being centrally organized around the Temple, prayer took the place of sacrifice, and worship was rebuilt around the community (represented by a minimum of ten adult men) and
28899-422: Was reported by demographer Joseph Chamie that the projected population of Israeli Jews is expected to reach between 9.84 million by the year 2025 and 11.40 million by 2035. For statistical purposes, there are three main metropolitan areas in Israel. The majority of the Jewish population in Israel is located in the central area of Israel within the Metropolitan area of Tel Aviv . The Metropolitan area of Tel Aviv
29070-501: Was superior to other gods. Some suggest that strict monotheism developed during the Babylonian Exile, perhaps in reaction to Zoroastrian dualism. In this view, it was only by the Hellenistic period that most Jews came to believe that their god was the only god and that the notion of a bounded Jewish nation identical with the Jewish religion formed. John Day argues that the origins of biblical Yahweh , El , Asherah , and Ba'al , may be rooted in earlier Canaanite religion , which
29241-450: Was the law of the land during the country's first decade of existence. Thus, hundreds of thousands of new Sephardic immigrants were sent to live in tent cities in outlying areas. Sephardim (in its wider meaning) were often victims of discrimination, and were sometimes called schwartze (meaning "black" in Yiddish ). The most egregious effects of racism were documented in the Yemenite children affair , in which Yemenite children were placed in
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