Documents for "Judaism":

• Adonai see God.

• aggada see halakah.

• Amoraim [Heb. amar =to interpret], in Judaism, term referring to those scholars, predominantly at Caesarea and Tiberias in Palestine (c.AD 220-c.AD 375) and in Babylonia (c.AD 200-c.AD 500), who interpreted the Mishna and other Tannaitic collections (see Talmud ). Serving as judges, communal administrators, teachers, and collectors of charity, they were responsive to contemporary problems. Working to supersede the Temple cult, they helped establish the...

• Ananites see Anan ben David ; Karaites.

• anti-Semitism form of prejudice against Jews , ranging from antipathy to violent hatred. Before the 19th cent., anti-Semitism was largely religious and was expressed in the later Middle Ages by sporadic persecutions and expulsions—notably the...

• Assideans see Hasidim.

• Atonement, Day of see Yom Kippur.

• Bar Mitzvah [Aramaic,=son of the Commandment], Jewish ceremony in which the young male is initiated into the religious community, according to tradition at the age of 13 years and a day. The celebrant performs...

• Bene Israel or Beni Israel [Heb.,=sons of Israel], Jewish community of India, living mostly in and near Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Many thousands of others have settled in Israel since 1948. According to their own legend,...

• Beni Israel see Bene Israel.

• B'nai B'rith [Heb.,= Sons of the Covenant], oldest and largest Jewish service organization in the world, founded (1843) in New York by American Jews "to provide service to their own people and to humanity at large." The organization has branches throughout the world. Its divisions include the Hillel Foundation (for Jewish college students), the Anti-Defamation League (a civil-rights organization), and B'nai...

• cabala see kabbalah.

• Cairo geniza archive of ancient Jewish manuscripts found in the synagogue of Fostat-Cairo, Egypt (built 882). In the 1890s western scholars visited the synagogue and removed the materials to the Bodleian...

• Caraites see Karaites.

• Chanukah see Hanukkah.

• Chassidim see Hasidim.

• Diaspora [Gr.,=dispersion], term used today to denote the Jewish communities living outside the Holy Land. It was originally used to designate the dispersal of the Jews at the time of the destruction of the...

• Essenes members of a small Jewish religious order, originating in the 2d cent. BC The chief sources of information about the Essenes are Pliny the Elder, Philo's Quod omnius probus liber, Josephus' Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, and (possibly) the Dead Sea Scrolls. The sect consisted of adult males and celibacy was encouraged. The Essenes lived as a highly organized community that held possessions in common. Ceremonial purity entailed scrupulous cleanliness,...

• Exile see Babylonian captivity.

• Falashas [Amharic,=exiles], Jews of Ethiopia who refer to themselves as Beta Israel (House of Israel). Long isolated from mainstream Judaism, they practice a form of the religion based on the Jewish Scriptures and certain apocryphal books; they also adhere to certain traditions...

• Festival of Lights see Hanukkah.

• Gaonim [Heb.,=excellencies], title given to the heads of the Jewish academies at Sura and Pumbedita in Babylonia immediately following the period of the Saboraim until the middle of the 11th cent. Thereafter the title was adopted by the heads of the Palestinian academies; later it was used as an honorific title to indicate a great scholar. The Gaonim...

• Gemara see Talmud.

• golem [Heb.,=an undeveloped lump], in medieval Jewish legend, an automatonlike servant made of clay and given life by means of a charm, or shem [Heb.,=name, or the name of God]. Golems were attributed in Jewish legend to several rabbis in different European countries. The most famous legend centered around Rabbi Löw, of 16th-century...

• Hadassah women's Zionist organization of the United States founded (1912) by Henrietta Szold. It has done important work in Israel in medical service, child welfare, and aid to refugees. Hadassah provides major support for the medical school of Hebrew Univ. and most of the budget for Youth...

• halacha see halakah.

• halakah or halacha [Heb.,=law], in Judaism, the body of law regulating all aspects of life, including religious ritual, familial and personal status, civil relations, criminal law, and relations with non-Jews...

• Hanukkah in Judaism, the Festival of Lights, the Feast of Consecration, or the Feast of the Maccabees ; also transliterated Chanukah. According to tradition, it was instituted by Judas Maccabeus and his brothers in 165 BC to celebrate the dedication of the new altar in the Temple at Jerusalem. The...

• Hasidim or Chassidim [Heb.,=the pious], term used by the rabbis to describe those Jews who maintained the highest standard of religious observance and moral action. The term has been applied to movements at three...

• Hasidism or Chassidism [Heb.,=the pious], Jewish religious movement founded in Poland in the 18th cent. by Baal-Shem-Tov. Its name derives from Hasidim. Hasidism, which stressed the mercy of God and encouraged joyous religious expression through music and dance, spread rapidly. Baal-shem-tov taught that purity of heart is more pleasing to God than...

• Haskalah [Heb.,=enlightenment] Jewish movement in Europe active from the 1770s to the 1880s. Beginning in Germany in the circle of the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and spreading to Galicia...

• Hebrews For history, see Jews ; for religion, see Judaism.

• Herodians Jewish political party of the early 1st cent. AD, related to the dynasty of Herod. Some have supposed that they were largely Sadducees. In the New Testament the Herodians are referred to, with the...

• Holocaust name given to the period of persecution and extermination of European Jews by Nazi Germany. Although anti-Semitism in Europe has a long history, persecution of German Jews began with Hitler's rise to power in 1933. Jews were disenfranchised, then terrorized in anti-Jewish riots (such as Kristallnacht), forced...

• Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States in Washington, D.C., memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. Designed by architect James Ingo Freed and intended to ensure that the era's horrors are not forgotten, it opened in 1993. Using a stark, harsh architectural vocabulary of industrial forms and...

• Jah generally considered an archaic form of the Hebrew ineffable name of God ( Yahweh , Jahweh). It occurs in the Book of Exodus.

• Jahve   Jahveh, or Jahweh , modern reconstructions of the ancient Hebrew name of God ( Yahweh ), which is traditionally not pronounced.

• Jehovah modern reconstruction of the ancient Hebrew ineffable name of God ( Yahweh ).

• Jews [from Judah ], traditionally, descendants of Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, whose tribe, with that of his half brother Benjamin, made up the kingdom of Judah; historically, members of the worldwide community...

• Joseph and Asenath an early Jewish work, highly regarded in Eastern and Western Christian traditions, most likely emanating from Alexandrian Egypt between 200 BC and AD 200, probably composed in Greek. Based on...

• Judaism the religious beliefs and practices and the way of life of the Jews. The term itself was first used by Hellenized Jews to describe their religious practice, but it is of predominantly modern usage; it is not used in the Bible or in Rabbinic literature and only...

• kabbalah or cabala [Heb.,=reception], esoteric system of interpretation of the Scriptures based upon a tradition claimed to have been handed down orally from Abraham. Despite that claimed antiquity, the system...

• Karaites or Caraites , Jewish schismatic sect, reputedly founded (8th cent.) in Persia by Anan ben David and originally known as Ananites. Its adherents were called Karaites after the 9th cent. The Karaites attacked the Talmudic interpretation of the Bible, rejecting the oral law and interpreting the...

• Kiddush [Heb.,=sanctification], Jewish ceremonial blessing indicating the beginning of the Sabbath or any other Hebrew festival. Kiddush is also said at mealtime and consists of a prayer of benediction...

• Kol Nidre see Yom Kippur.

• kosher [Heb.,=proper, i.e., fit for use], in Judaism, term used in rabbinic literature to mean what is ritually correct, but most widely applied to food that is in accordance with dietary laws based on...

• Law, the in Judaism: see Torah.

• Lilith female demon of Jewish mythology, originally probably the Assyrian storm demon Lilitu. In Talmudic tradition many evil attributes were given to this supposedly nocturnal creature. In Jewish...

• liturgy, Jewish rites, observances, and procedures of Judaism. Communal prayer, with a quorum of ten men (or in some modern communities, ten people), replaced the priests of the Temple cult. There are three daily...

• lost tribes 10 Israelite tribes that, according to the Bible, were transported to Assyria by Tiglathpileser III or Shalmaneser after the conquest of Israel in 722 BC Numerous conjectures have been advanced as to the fate of these tribes: they have been identified with the people of Arabia, India, Ethiopia, and America (North, Central, South) and with...

• Maccabees, Feast of the see Hanukkah.

• Masora or Massorah [Heb.,=tradition], collection of critical annotations made by Hebrew scholars, called the Masoretes, to establish the text of the Old Testament. A principal problem was to fix the vowels, as the...

• Massorah see Masora.

• Messiah or Messias [Heb.,=anointed], in Judaism, a man who would be sent by God to restore Israel and reign righteously for all mankind. The idea developed among the Jews especially in their adversity, and such a...

• Midrash [Heb.,=to examine, to investigate], verse by verse interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures, consisting of homily and exegesis, by Jewish teachers since about 400 BC Distinction is made between Midrash halakah , dealing with the legal portions of Scripture, and Midrash haggada, dealing with biblical lore. Midrashic exposition of both kinds appears throughout the Talmud. Individual midrashic commentaries were composed by rabbis after the 2d cent. AD up to the Middle Ages, and they were mostly of an aggadic nature, following the order of the scriptural text...

• Mishna in Judaism, codified collection of Oral Law—legal interpretations of portions of the biblical books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy and other legal material. Together with the...

• Passover in Judaism, one of the most important and elaborate of religious festivals. Its celebration begins on the evening of the 14th of Nisan (first month of the religious calendar, corresponding to...

• Pharisees one of the two great Jewish religious and political parties of the second commonwealth. Their opponents were the Sadducees , and it appears that the Sadducees gave them their name, perushim, Hebrew for "separatists" or "deviants." The Pharisees began their activities during or after the Hasmonean revolt (c.166-142 BC). The Pharisees upheld an interpretation of Judaism that was in opposition to the priestly Temple cult. They...

• phylacteries [Gr.,=safeguard], two small leather boxes worn during morning prayers by Orthodox and Conservative Jews after the age of 13 years and one day. Each box contains strips of parchment inscribed with...

• Pirke Avot see Mishna.

• Protocols of the Elders of Zion a fraudulent document that reported the alleged proceedings of a conference of Jews in the late 19th cent., at which they discussed plans to overthrow Christianity through subversion and sabotage...

• Purim [Heb.,=lots], Jewish festival celebrated on the 14th of Adar, the twelfth month in the Jewish calendar (Feb.-March). During leap years it is celebrated in Adar II. According to the book of Esther (Esther 3.7; 9.24,26) it commemorates the deliverance of the Persian Jews from a general massacre; however, the festival may have arisen in the pagan celebration of the advent of spring. Preceded...

• rabbi [Heb.,=my master; my teacher], the title of a Jewish spiritual leader. The role of the rabbi has undergone a number of transformations. In the Talmudic period, rabbis were primarily teachers and...

• Rosh ha-Shanah [Heb.,=head of the year], the Jewish New Year, also known as the Feast of the Trumpets. It is observed on the first day of the seventh month, Tishri, occurring usually in September. Rosh ha-Shanah...

• Saboraim [Heb.,=expositors], in Judaism, title given to the Jewish scholars of the Babylonian academies in the period (6th-7th cent. AD) immediately following the Amoraim and preceding that of the Gaonim. Little is known about them. Gaonic sources indicate that the Saboraim did not make new additions to the law, but further explained the legal decisions of their predecessors and attempted to...

• Sadducees sect of Jews formed around the time of the Hasmonean revolt (c.200 BC). Little is known concerning their beliefs, but according to Josephus Flavius, they upheld only the authority of the written...

• Sanhedrin ancient Jewish legal and religious institution in Jerusalem that appears to have exercised the functions of a court between c.63 BC and c.AD 68. The accounts of it in the Mishna do not correspond...

• scribe Jewish scholar and teacher (called in Hebrew, Soferim ) of law as based upon the Old Testament and accumulated traditions. The work of the scribes laid the basis for the Oral Law, as distinct from the Written Law of the Torah. The period of their...

• Sebat or Shebat , the 11th month of the Jewish calendar, the fifth from New Year's. It is mentioned in the Book of Zechariah.

• Sephardim one of the two major geographic divisions of the Jewish people, consisting of those Jews whose forebears in the Middle Ages resided in the Iberian Peninsula, as distinguished from those who lived...

• Shavuot [Heb.,=weeks], Jewish feast celebrated on the 6th of the month of Sivan (usually some time in May) in Israel and on the sixth and seventh days in the Diaspora. Originally an agricultural festival...

• Shekinah [Heb.,=dwelling, presence], in Judaism, term used in the Targum (Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible) and elsewhere to indicate the manifestation of the presence of God among people. Whenever...

• Sivan in the Jewish calendar , the third month (or ninth month, depending upon the system of reckoning). Esther 8.9; Baruch 1.8.

• Sukkoth see Tabernacles, Feast of.

• synagogue [Gr.,=assembly], in Judaism, a place of assembly for worship, education, and communal affairs. The origins of the institution are unclear. One tradition dates it to the Babylonian exile of the 6th...

• Tabernacles, Feast of one of the oldest and most joyous of Jewish holidays, called in the Bible the Feast of Ingathering and today often called by its Hebrew name, Sukkoth [Heb.,=booth]. The holiday begins on the 15th...

• tallit in Judaism, four-cornered, fringed shawl worn by males during the morning prayers. It is donned before putting on the phylacteries , except on Yom Kippur when it is worn all through the day (phylacteries are not worn on this day). The tallit is usually made of white wool, cotton, or silk, and often has blue or black stripes on the ends and an ornamental strip worn near the neck. Woven into the white garment is a blue fringe ( tzitzit ), worn in fulfillment of the biblical commandment (Num. 15.37-41). To be distinguished from this tallit, known as the Tallit Gadol [large tallit], is the Tallit Katan [small tallit], which is worn...

• Talmud [Aramaic from Heb.,=learning], in Judaism, vast compilation of the Oral Law with rabbinical elucidations, elaborations, and commentaries, in contradistinction to the Scriptures or Written Laws. The...

• Tannaim [plural of Aramaic tanna, =one who studies or teaches], Jewish sages of the period from Hillel to the compilation of the Mishna. They functioned as both scholars and teachers, educating those in...

• ten tribes see lost tribes.

• tephillin see phylacteries.

• Testament of Moses an early Jewish apocalypse discovered in 1861 and extant only in an incomplete 6th cent. AD Latin manuscript. The original work was probably written in Hebrew in the early 1st cent. AD It contains reflections on Jewish...

• Therapeutae [Gr.,=worshipers], Jewish monastic order living on the shore of Lake Mareotis, Egypt, about the 1st cent. AD They led an ascetic life devoted to solitary prayer and study of the scriptures,...

• Torah [Heb.,=teachings or learning], Hebrew name for the five books of Moses—the Law of Moses or the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. The Torah is believed by Orthodox Jews to have been...

• Tosefta plural Toseftoth [Aramaic,=additional], collection of ancient Jewish teachings supplementing the Mishna or Oral Law and closely allied to it in organization. Like the Mishna, it was compiled by the Tannaim. Many of its teachings, called Baraitot, do not appear in the Mishna; others are merely elucidations or alternative versions of Mishnaic material. It contains a larger percentage of aggadic...

• Weeks, Feast of see Shavuot.

• Yahweh modern reconstruction of YHWH, the ancient Hebrew ineffable name for God. Other forms are Jah, Jahve, Jahveh, Jahweh, Jehovah, Yahve, Yahveh, and Yahwe.

• Yom Kippur [Heb.,=day of atonement], in Judaism, the most sacred holy day, falling on the 10th day of the Jewish month of Tishri (usually late September or early October). It is a day of fasting and prayer...

• Zealots Jewish faction traced back to the revolt of the Maccabees (2d cent. BC). The name was first recorded by the Jewish historian Josephus as a designation for the Jewish resistance fighters of the war...