Jews

Jewish (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים, Yëhûdîm ; Yiddish: ייִדן, yiden ; Ladino ג׳ודיוס, djudios ) is the members with the Judaïsme. It is also, with a capital letter ( Juifs ), the members of the people of Israel ( amndt yisrael ), also called Enfants of Israel ( Benei Yisrael ). There exists indeed a distinction between the two definitions, the Halakha (orthodoxe religious law) indicating that one remains Juif (member of the people) even if one is not Jewish any more (member of the Judaïsme).

They form a group whose definition recuts partially usual categorizations of cultural group, ethnic, national or religious. They are composed of the descendants of old the Israélite S of Judaea as well as people converted with the Judaism during the Siècle S.

The definition that the Israélites then the Jews gave themselves varied in time. The idea that the Jews are a Peuple, the “people of Israel”, appears as of the first books of the Bible, and continued to be marked during the centuries. The religious definition on the other hand evolved/moved, the Bible and the Archéologie describing even Jews polytheists at the oldest periods. The idea of “kingdom of Israel”, which dates from the Bible, also varied with time, having been largely put on side by the religious authorities as from the 2nd century, before being reintroduced by laymen and some monks in the form of the Sionisme at the 19th century. Lastly, of the Jewish cultures very diversified in space and time still complexed the approach of the Jewish identity.

The full number of Jews is difficult to estimate with precision, and is the subject of controversies. According to a census carried out in 2002, it would be approximately 13 million, the majority living in North America, Europe and Israel.

Etymology

In French, the “Jewish” word would come from old French giu or juieu since the Latin iudeus and the Greek Ioudaios (Ἰουδαῖος), transcription of the Araméen Yehoudaïé , itself resulting from Hebrew He dir=rtl texte= '' יהודי '' trans= '' Yêhûdi '', “judéen”, this last term indicating a Jew living the Judaea. Others ethnonymes designating the Jews are based on this etymology, for example Yahûdi (rear dir=rtl texte= '' يهودي '') in Arab, German Jude in , Jew in English, or jøde in Danish. However, others derive from the word “Hebrew”, for example Italian Ebreo in and еврей ( yevrey ) in Russian, others still of Moïse, like Turkish Musevi in .

The Jews are thus the Jews of the Judaea, in opposition to the Jews of the Samarie.

The Judaea term is derived from the Tribu of Juda, the tribe which according to and following generated the King David. Always according to the Bible, the unified kingdom of David and his son Solomon, gathering the 12 Tribes of Israel, would have burst in two kingdoms Jews rivals towards 930 before the common era (and following). That of the South would have remained under the control of the davidic dynasty, resulting from the tribe of Juda, and would thus have taken the name of “Royaume of Juda” ().

The inhabitants of the kingdom of Juda, or Judéens, or Jews, are not all Judaïtes, members of the tribe of Juda, but gather all the Jews living in the kingdom. Besides the first occurrence of yəhūdī in the Hebraic Bible designates a member of the Tribu of Benjamin.

This same Hebraic Bible strictly speaking does not develop the concept of Jew like a religious concept: on the one hand, she affirms that other populations practice the worship of YHWH, on the other hand, Judéens and Israélites of North is regularly depicted like polytheists practitioner of other worships. The authors of the revealed Bible suggest that there would have been a religious judéenne/Jewish specificity well compared to the kingdom of North, but that the writers of the Hebraic Bible attenuated it, in order to affirm the religious unit of the “people of Israel”. The concept of Jew is thus for the Bible especially a political and geographical concept, indicating the subjects of the Royaume of Juda.

In accordance with French typographical conventions which impose a capital letter on the names of people and tiny with the names of beliefs, “Jew” is written with a capital letter when it designates the Jews as people, and with tiny when it designates the Jewish believers.

Formation and evolution of the Jewish identity

The concept of Jew was structured through the history. During three millenia passed since the King David, she knew evolutions or inflectings.

At the time oldest, the Jews seem a population in the very diversified religious practices, their language, their territory and their two States.

After the disappearance of the polytheism and the exile with Babylon, towards -600, the Jews replace the Jews. The religious definition becomes clearer, but is still expressed through the plentiful diversity of the sects of the second Temple. The ideas of people and kingdom are reaffirmed.

After the destruction of the temple by the Romans (in 70), with the final destruction of the kingdom of Juda (1st century), then with the drafting of the Talmuds (2nd century - 5th century), the religion unifies. The re-establishment of the Jewish State abandoned, is returned to Messianic times.

Lastly, as from the 19th century, under the influence of the laic ideas and nationalist Western, a political redefinition and national of the Jewish identity is proposed by part of the communities.

The kingdoms Jews

The oldest extra-biblical documentary source on the Jews is the Stèle of Mérenptah, gone back to -1207 and found in 1896 in the south of current the Israel. In this stele, the Pharaon Mérenptah proclaims: “Israel is destroyed, its seed even is not more”. Determinative of the hiéroglyphes meaning Israel (a man, a woman and three features marking plural) the, precise one that the word indicates a population. One is unaware of the exact localization of this population, his perimeter ethnic or religious, its political statute, but the stele confirms the rather old existence of a human group of this name in the landscape cananéen of the time.

One is unaware of the exact date of drafting of the books of the Bible. According to the whole of the nonliteralistic biblists, to the VII E for the Deutéronome, and with - for the following books. The Bible is thus not inevitably a reliable historical testimony, in particular for the oldest periods. However, it expresses the vision of the community which its writers had.

It is interesting to note that as of the first books of the Bible, the “children of Israel” are at the same time introduced like a religious group (practitioner the worship of YHWH) and like people, the “people of Israel”, that YHWH calls “My people besides”.

At this stage, however, the “people of Israel” are not introduced like a nation to the official direction of the term. This concept appears in the Bible only starting from the account of the royalty of Saül, whose advent is supposed to be itself produced about the year -1000: “Samuel called to all the people: Do you see that which the Eternal chose? And all the people pushed cries, and known as: Live the king! ”.
As from the book of Samuel, the Bible affirms in a permanent way which it is will of God that the Jews are its people, but also that they are a kingdom, under a single Directorate of Political Affairs, the davidic dynasty, from which one day future the Messie will come.

In practice, these principles only are partially implemented.

On the one hand, the unified kingdom of Israel bursts according to the Bible towards -930 in two States Jews rivals. The Kingdom of Israel, or Samarie (of the name of its capital) dominates the North of Canaan. The Royaume of Juda (of the name of the royal tribe) dominates the South. The two kingdoms were defined in an ambiguous way one compared to the other. They belonged to the same community Jew, but they were also in territorial, political competition and with final the nun. The Bible (written seems it in the Royaume of Juda) “depicts us inevitably the hopelessly inclined tribes of North to the sin”.

In addition, the polytheism is very present within the company Jew. In north, “the children of Israel made in secrecy against the Eternal their God, of the things which are not well. They manufactured idols of Astarté, they were prosternèrent in front of all the army of the skies, and they served Baal”. In the south, the King Josias, towards -630 “ordered to withdraw sanctuary of Yahvé all the objects of worship which had been made for Baal, for Ashera and all the army of the sky. It removed the false priests whom kings de Juda had installed and who sacrificed to Baal, with the sun, the moon, the constellations and all the army of the sky. It demolishes the residence of the crowned prostitutes, which was in the temple of Yahvé”.

Archeology confirms this polytheism, showing YHWH adored with other gods and goddesses, like Ashera (perhaps its wife). The Ostraca of Kuntillet 'Ajrud, in the desert of the the Sinai, dating from before the common era (AEC), thus carry the inscription “ bēraḫtī ʾetḫem lǝ-YHWH šomrōn '' šomrēnū u-l-Ašratō ” (“I blessed you by YHWH of Samarie and His Asherah” or “I blessed you by YHWH our guard and His Asherah”, according to whether one reads šomrōn : Samarie or šomrēnū : our guard). one finds also the mention “YHWH and his Ashera” on an inscription dating from late monarchy (towards -600) in the area of Shefelah (Royaume of Juda).
Presented in the Bible like a regression (compared to a original Monothéisme), this situation on the contrary is interpreted by certain historians like a subsistence of the old worships Jews fought by the reformers monotheists.

The Jews, at the end of an evolution going of the Genèse to the First book of Samuel are thus equipped with characteristic triple by the Bible: they are a religious group, people and a nation, or more exactly a kingdom (quickly divided).
Whatever their historical reality the accounts integrate two ideas:

first is that the destiny of the Jews is of living in only one kingdom, under the only legitimate dynasty, that of Juda. Into leaving this kingdom, the inhabitants of Samarie divide the people.

second is that one can be Jew all as a practitioner the Polythéisme, even if one is then a bad Jew. This religious pluralism does not call into question the membership common to the “people of Israel”, which seems thus first.

The first exile and appearance of the Jews

The kingdom of Samarie was invaded and destroyed by the Assyrie in 722 front J. - C., which did one of its provinces of them. The kingdom of Juda survived until its destruction by the Babylonian in -586 and with the deportation of part of its population Babylon (undoubtedly primarily the elite). “Sixth century BC was decisive in the history of the Jews. In fact, one can say that it constitutes the true beginning of it, because it sees to take place a fundamental change: end of the time of the Hebrew and the hébraïsme, birth of the time of the Jews and the Judaism”. The destiny of the Jews of the South, in particular of the elite off-set in Mésopotamie becomes completely distinct from that of the Jews of North.

The population installed in Babylon seems to have broken in a final way with the polytheism. The Bible indeed ceases its regular charges on this topic. The fundamental forms of the Jewish monotheism seem to be definitively imposed in the test of the exile.

The Jews will not be independent any more before the monarchy hasmonéenne, towards -140. They will not live exclusively any more in Judaea, but will be spread gradually through the Middle East starting from the Babylonia.

After the release of exiled the by Cyrus II in -537, those decide to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem destroys into -586. The populations of the old kingdom of Samarie propose their assistance then. This one is refused, and the Samaritains are shown not to be pure Israélites, but immigrants of Assyrian origin imitating the Jews: “King d' Assyrie made come from people and establishes them in the towns of Samarie in the place of the children of Israel. They feared also the Eternal and they served at the same time their gods according to the habit of the nations from where they had been transported”.

The exile indeed modified the identities ethno-nuns. For old exiled Babylon, the Ground of Israel is badly known. The old definitions are reinterpreted. The Captivité of Babylon created the Jews with the current direction of the term. The populations claiming old Jews are now divided into two practitioner groups of the close religions: Judéens and Samaritans, both pennies Persian domination, and later séleucide.

Two elements seem outstanding in the rupture:

the Samaritains placed their temple on the Mont Garizim, when the Jews placed theirs at Jerusalem.
the Samaritains are shown not to be not ascent Jew, but to be satisfied to behave like Jews.

Another Jewish charge exists, that to practice the polytheism. It does not seem however sufficient to justify the divergence. Indeed, the minor Traité Massekhet Koutim of the Talmud of Jerusalem admits that the Samaritains are not any more polytheists. But the charge not to be of ascent Jew remains. With the centrality of the Garizim mount, it thus seems power station in the rejection.

It is at the same time the religion, the policy and the concept of people which thus found the rejection of the Samaritains and the structuring of a distinct Jewish identity. It is not only that of monotheists who follow the Bible (like the Samaritans), but which affirms also at least three strong specificities: better religious practices (like the centrality of the temple of Jerusalem), a political and “national” fidelity with the Judéen kingdom and membership of people clearly differentiated by his supposed origin (“truths” Jews).

The time of Talmud

See also: Zealoies, Sadducéens, Pharisees, Talmud

Sixth century BC saw disappearing the Polythéisme. But the Jewish monotheism is not unified, and of many interpretations exist.

For this period, the definition of the Jewish fact is particularly complex. The Jews of Palestine become definitely minority in the total, largely widespread Judaism through the the Middle East and in particular in Egypt, where the hellenized Jewish communities thrive. The strictly national definition of the “Juif people” (a language, a territory, a Directorate of Political Affairs) thus grows blurred. In spite of some general principles (belief in the centrality of Jerusalem, in God One and Single, in the particular destiny of the Jewish people), the Judaism of the second temple is the Judaism more burst of the Jewish religious history: certain currents are recognized in the Rabbanim, others in the priests of the Temple, some accept the oral Torah, others not, certain currents accept books of the Bible that others reject, some profess the eternity of the world when others are creationnists, certain profess the immortality of the heart (Pharisiens) that others reject (Sadducéens), certain currents are open to the converts when others reject them, certain currents are open to the hellenistic culture (dominant in the Middle East of the time), that others review honor to refuse.

After the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem in the year 70, this Judaism burst loses its central authority. The Jewish people lose also gradually his State, initially reduced with the statute of vassal kingdom by the Romains, then finally removed to become a simple province. Lastly, a new religion appears, Christianity. Resulting from the Judaism, the primitive Christianisme puts universalism ahead. The references to the “Jewish people” and the “Royaume of Juda” (whose re-establishment was hoped by the Jews) disappear from it as of the end from the 1st century.

Deprived from religious and political centrality, threatened by the Christian Proselytism, the Judaïsme will be restructured in-depth.

In front of the threat of dilution and lapse of memory of the tradition, the Sages pharisees decide to put the oral Torah in writing, thus breaking with an old taboo. The Michnah is then written, at the 2nd century, by the Tannaïtes . It “is presented in the form of a code of law, to some extent the decrees on enforcement of a law of the biblical legislation. It is divided into six parts 1. the agricultural laws; 2. festivals; 3. the family legislation; 4. civil law and penal; 5. the worship of the temple; 6. laws of purity”. Between and the 5th century, each article of the Michnah is commented on in detail in the Guemara . “It is with the unit Michnah (laws) and Guemara (comment of the laws) that one gave the name of Talmud”, of which there exist two versions: the Talmud of Jerusalem and that of Babylon, resulting from the academies religious of these two great centers of study, and completed with.

At the conclusion of this work, the face of the Judaism changed, the divergences of interpretations between sects seeming to belong to the past, for the benefit of a solid corpus of unified religious rules.

The Judaism pharisee, which one can from now on describe as orthodoxe (the term will be used only at the 19th century), act in parallel fine practice of the national dimension of the Jewish fact: it becomes prohibited, after the end of the Zélotes (in 67 - 73 EC.) then the crushing of the Révolte of Bar Kokhba (in 132 - 135 EC.), to fight for the re-establishment of a Jewish State. These defeats are interpreted like demonstrator the divine refusal to restore Jewish sovereignty on the Holy Land. In theory the national idea is however preserved, since the creation of a new kingdom of Israel remains waited for the advent of the Messianic Temps.

Undoubtedly by compensation, the orthodoxe Judaïsme on the other hand preserved and even reinforced the definition of the Jews as people, strongly slowing down the conversions with the Judaism, perceived like a factor of dilution. Enough many in antiquity, those become marginal, reinforcing ethnic particularism.

Extremely of its adaptations vis-a-vis the destruction of the Jewish State, it is the orthodoxe Judaism which will be two thousand years the principal ideological structuring of post-exilic Jewish existence.

From England in China

See also: Ashkénaze, Sépharade, Falashas, Jewish in China, Jewish in India

The Jews very largely spread themselves on planet, of England or the Morocco to the China, of the Poland to the Ethiopia.

One can however note that the essence of this dispersion is posterior with the religious triumph of the pharisees, between. On this date, the Jews were still primarily widespread in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean basin.

When the expansion towards Europe, India or China starts, different the sects Jewish already disappeared with the profit from the Judaïsme pharisee, new orthodoxe Judaïsme. So strongly structured by the Talmud S, the increasingly dispersed communities did not burst in religious group rivals, the practices remaining rather homogeneous in space and time. One can quote the exception of the Falashas , of which no one does not know the origin clearly, or that of the groups in the course of assimilation at the time of their redécouverte by the Judaism (like the Bene Israel of the Indies), from which the “deviation” came more lapse of memory than of a will of religious innovation.

The only true internal dispute with the Judaism unified by the Pharisiens will be that of the Karaïsme, an especially influential religious movement between, challenging the validity of the oral Torah.

If the religious characteristics of the dispersed populations remained rather stable, their ethnic characteristics (physical appearances) however changed, by conversion, rape or mixed marriages, but without significantly modifying the traditional definition of the Judaism.

The Haskala , and its consequences

See also: Haskala, liberal Judaism, preserving Judaism

Before the Haskala

The culture of the Jews was a long time that of the ghetto and the dhimmitude (statute of Dhimmi). The material reference marks of the policy and the worship having been destroyed, those had moved towards the fields of the study and the religion. Persecutions, expulsions and massacres which alternated with periods of relative calm were lived as the achievement of the words of Deutéronome “the Eternal will disperse you among all the people, of an end of the ground to the other the Eternal will return your heart agitated, your eyes languid, your suffering heart”. The failure of the revolts carried out by the Zélotes then Bar Kokhba had consolidated the people in this perception of an exile wanted by God, and the Messie wire of David, of political figure that it was, had been transmuted into a character eschatologic. The Jews thus saw themselves like “people within the nations”, maintained by the Judaism (that one did not call yet orthodoxe), awaiting patiently its delivery of God.

The Haskala

Under the influence of the Philosophy of the lights, a Jewish intellectual current appears at the end of the 18th century. The fundamental idea of the Haskala is the exit of the Ghetto, the entry in Western modernity, through an education not exclusively religious, initiation with the modern economy, and thanks to the improvement of the relations between the Jews and the people in which they live. This current will cause several reactions within the Jews, sometimes leading them to profound changes of the perception of their identity.

The reform of the Judaism

The reformed movement appears in Germany in first half of the 19th century. Strongly influenced by the Haskala , it is in fact made up of various currents, regarding the Judaism as made of a moral core to preserve, and of a ritual bark to repeal or reform. The concept of “Jewish people” itself is limited, to see disputed, in the name of a better integration in the Western companies. The Jews must behave, express themselves, educate themselves and get dressed like their fellow-citizens, to give up their cultural particularism, their languages (like the Yiddish), with their traditional clothing, their specific districts, and the Judaïsme must become a private religion, in agreement with the company and its values.

The worship is then reformed on the Protestant model, the Cacheroute (Jewish food laws) is mainly forgotten and the abandonment of the traditional practices goes to some until proposing the abandonment of the Chabbat and the Circoncision. The Liturgie is simplified, the prayer books ( Siddour ) are written in German and not in Hebrew, the shortened services, enriched by a sermon and a musical accompaniment. From this redefinition of the Jewish religious fact centered on adhesion with an interiorized religion, it comes out that the dimension of “separate people” must disappear or be attenuated.

The impact of the reform then causes the formation of new religious currents, favorable or opposed to this one.

It generates initially the Jewish Ultra-orthodoxy, which preaches the exact one reverses values of the reform, by adopting a rather strict separatism, and by reinforcing the practice of the Judaïsme at the price of a rupture with modernity.
It is also rejected by “the orthodoxe modern ones”, which is let nevertheless penetrate by certain ideas of the Haskala , reconciling a modern life with the tradition, and which is as a whole definitely less refractory with the Zionism than the precedents.
In reaction to the reform, but also to the hardening of the orthodoxy, is born the critic positive-history from the rabbi Zecharias Frankel who tries in second half of the 19th century to reconcile tradition and modernity. This current, in favor of a greater ritual flexibility than the orthodoxe ones, has a vision of the rather similar Judaism however, in particular in its political dimension. This “center” opinion separates with the the United States in 1902 under the name of Conservative Judaism .

Nationalism

The Haskala expressed in the beginning a will to make Jews of the citizens like the others. But one of its interpretations will be in second half of the 19th century to make of it people like the others, i.e. equipped with a State.

Historically, the prophets of the Exil in Babylon (in particular Ezéchiel) were the first to express the nostalgia of Sion. Under their religious influence, a modest core of Jews always remained in Ground of Israel, and of the small groups of religious Jews “regularly assembled Ground” of Israel since antiquity, often after accesses of anti-Jewish persecutions, especially towards the Holy Cities of Safed, Tibériade, Hebron and Jerusalem. However, the hope was generally summarized with a pronounced prayer with Pessa' H , “the next year in Jerusalem”.

These displacements did not imply any political project. The Jewish Eschatologie hopes for the rebirth of the kingdom of Israel, but this one is returned to the arrival of a Messie, at the end of times.

The Sionisme of the beginnings is of another nature. Under the influence of the French revolution, the modern Nationalisme is spread in all Europe during the 19th century, attracting particularly the populations working by another State (Poland, Ireland or Hungary), or divided into several States (Germany, Italy). The nationalist idea ends up touching the Jews, private State, and even of territory. It becomes particularly popular in Europe of the East, where the Jews at the beginning of the 20th century are not émancipés yet, subjected moreover to the pressure of the Antisémitisme and of the Pogrom S. One thus transforms at the end of the 19th century the old religious sets of themes of “return to Sion” into a political project. The first organizations (Lovers of Sion) appear in 1881.

The Affaire Dreyfus sees the anti-semitism strongly touching France of the Années 1890, the first Western country to have however émancipé the Jews, in 1791. Disappointment and the shock at the occidentalized Jews are important, and strongly catalyze the development of the news Idéologie. The world Organization Zionist is then created in 1897, by Theodore Herzl.

This laic and political messianism, without personified Messiah, irritates the orthodoxe Jews as much as the partisans of the assimilation. In return, the Zionism seems relatively indifferent to the monks, unquestionable current of left (Anarchist-Zionism, Poale Sion, Hachomer Hatzaïr) there being even vigorously hostile. The small current ultra-nationalist cananéen will go even further, while claiming Paganisme, and from a nonJewish Hebraic identity.

By being based on the colonial ambitions British with the the Middle East, the movement Zionist obtains by the declaration Balfour (1917), the Conférence of San Rémo (1920) and the mandate of the Société of the Nations (1922) a “Jewish national Hearth” in Palestine, against the opinion of the Palestinian Arabs who fear to be in the long term dispossessed. Palestine is then placed under British mandate: one speaks for this period about “Palestine agent”.

From 1918 to 1948, the immigration Zionist is important, and the Jewish population passes from: 83000 people with: 650000. The growth is less due to a strong birthrate than with a strong immigration, due to the Antisémitisme and the political disturbances in Europe.
This immigration Zionist is condemned by the religious authorities, sometimes violently. Rav Elchonon Wasserman thus compares the Zionists to descendants of Amalek, which wanted to destroy the Jewish people, and makes them responsible for any misfortune overpowering the Jews in Ground of Israel, by divine punishment. Boruch Kaplan, a survivor of the massacre of Hebron of 1929, then studying orthodoxe Yeshiva of the city, and later Rabbi, always held the Zionists for persons in charge of the massacre. The Jews of the old communities of Palestine, very monk, do not mix to the immigrants Zionists.

However, the Shoah, massive destruction of the European Diaspora Judaism, strongly modifies the course of the things. During this one, the Jew is defined by racial criteria more than religious. One can read in this tendency of the modern Antisémitisme, in opposition to the Antijudaïsme religious traditional, the influence of European nationalisms born at the end of the 18th century, readily laymen. With its way, the Antisémitisme is the radical and hostile slope of the national and ethnic redefinition of the Judaism, redefinition common to European nationalisms, of the Sionisme to the ultranationalism anti-Jew.

Following Shoah, the Jewish ultra-orthodoxy is divided into Agoudat Israel , accepting the Zionism without joining there officially, and the Edah Haredit , radically rejecting the Zionism and the State of Israel.

The creation of the State of Israel

See also: Plane of division of Palestine, War of Palestine of 1948, History of Israel, Law of the return

May 15th, 1948 is proclaimed the State of Israel. The declaration of independence of May 14th indicates “ Eretz Israel is the place where was born the Jewish people. It is there that its spiritual character was formed, religious and national. Constrained with the exile, the Jewish people remained faithful to the country of Israel through all dispersions, requesting unceasingly to return there, always with the hope to restore his national freedom there. It is moreover, the right natural of the Jewish people to be a nation like the other nations and to become Master of its destiny in his own Sovereign state. The State of Israel will be opened with the immigration of the Jews of all the countries it will guarantee the full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture. Entrusting in the Eternal the Almighty, we sign this declaration on the ground of the fatherland”.

It is noted that the references to the “Jewish people” (term used eight times in the text) are primarily made under the national angle: the terms “nation”, “national”, “countries” or “State” applied to the “Jewish people” or the “ground of Israel” are used 39 times.

Contrary, the references to the Jewish religion are limited to three passages. It is with the departure mentioned “spiritual, religious character and national” of the Jewish people, who made “gift of the Bible to the whole world”. It is further indicated than “the Jewish people remained faithful to the country of Israel through all dispersions, requesting unceasingly to return there”, but the concept of prayer can be interpreted in a religious or laic way here. Last allusion to the monk also is supported, since it indicates that the signatories of the declaration of independence are “trustful in the Eternal the Almighty”.

The declaration of independence takes again the step which was mainly that of the Sionisme since its origin: to strongly reinforce the national dimension of the Jewish fact (concept of people leading for the Zionists in a narrow way to the concept of nation), and to attenuate its religious dimension, but without denying it.

The first version of the Law of the return (1950), specifies that any Jew is entitled to the emigration towards Israel, but does not specify what is a Jew. The first ministerial directives given stated besides that any person asserting itself in good faith as Jewish was to be accepted. The Jewish State refused to return thus in a religious definition of judaïté, and insisted rather on a more nationalist vision: the common feeling of appartenance.
This vision is also for a good portion at the origin of the evolution of the law following the business of the “brother Daniel”, born Oswald Rufeisen, former militant Zionist converted with the Catholicisme. According to the Halakha , there remains Juif independently of its religion. But the State of Israel did not want to be found with “Christian Jews” or officially recognized “Moslem Jews”. The strict application of the Halakha would have led paradoxically to a total rupture of the bond between the concepts of Jews as people and Jews as a religion, the Jews becoming purely people. It is to this end that the amendment of 1970 was voted which specifies “" Juif" nominate a person born of a Jewish or converted mother with the Judaism and which does not practice another religion”.

Since 1970, the State is in larval conflict with the orthodoxe ones in connection with this amendment, those claiming, without success, that it is specified in the law that only the conversions made according to the Halakha of orthodoxe are accepted. What would represent a rupture with the powerful American Judaism, mainly reformed. In addition to this refusal, the State also agreed to recognize like Juifs the Samaritains and the Karaïtes, small communities rejected by the orthodoxe ones.

In the old tension between definition of the Jews as a People/Nation, and that of the Jews as a religion, the State of Israel thus supports clearly a national vision of the Jewish fact, refusing for this reason the strict application of the religious laws, but taking also well care not to break with the Jewish religion. This one keeps an official statute besides: orthodoxe rabbinate is an institution of State, and the orthodoxe Rabbin S have the monopoly of the marriage of the Jews living in Israel, even unbelievers.

Who is Juif: Jewish religion and Jewish membership

Until second half of the 18th century, Jewish” and “adherent terms the “with the Judaism” were practically synonymous.

This religious identity was not absolute. Thus, according to Daniel Boyarin, an interrogation on the distinction between the concept of Jew and Judaism existed in Antiquity after Plato at the hellenized Jews of Alexandria. In the same way, the Halakha (orthodoxe Jewish religious law) does not impose the religious practice to belong to the Jewish people, since for it, even a Jew converted with another religion remains Juif.

However, these ideas remained marginal or theoretical. The “people of Israel” being supposed to be wanted by God to receive His precepts, to separate the two concepts hardly had direction in traditional companies very marked by the religion. The forms taken by this religion through the history and space were however diversified (orthodoxe Judaïsme, Karaïsme, Falashas ).

As from the 18th century, appears in Occident the movement of the Lights. This one, under the influence of the French philosophers, claims to found a political and social thought released of the monk (but not inevitably anti-nun). As of the end of the 18th century the Jewish slope of this movement appears, the Haskala . Preaching profane values, it causes new interrogations, at the Jews and the not-Jews, on the possible not-nuns definitions of the Jewish fact.

Jews as a religion

See also: Current of the Judaism, Conversion with the Judaism

Although it was a long time the feature considered as determinant for the Jews, the Judaïsme is not a monolithic entity, nor even unit.

Before the AEC, the Bible speaks about Israélite S polytheists, syncretistic, idolâtres, requesting only Baal or of another “foreign” gods, which is confirmed at least partly by archeology (cf supra). There thus does not exist at the time of unified religion, and the fact Jew seems more “national” than like strictly religious.

After the return of the exiled of Babylon, the mosaic religion bursts between Judéens (Jews) and Samaritains, the latter challenging the interpretation of the prophets and the centrality of Jerusalem.
The Judaism of the Second Temple itself one of is more diversified Jewish history: in addition to the sects the best known ones (Esséniens, Zealoies, Pharisees, Sadducéens…), it is necessary to add those which one hardly knows but the name: nazaréens, gnostic, Minim (probably first Christians). The Second Temple of Jerusalem and the high priests, theoretically central authority in the Judaism, are rejected by the Juifs Elephantine and the Esséniens.

After the religious unification carried out through the Talmud S by the pharisees (who lay down the oral law in writing melting their specificity), between, the Judaism seems more unified. This unified Judaism however will know, as from the 8th century, the dispute of the Karaïtes, refusing the oral law completely pharisienne. In parallel, of the isolated communities, forgetting or being unaware of the Talmud S and the Rabbi S, like the Jewish of the Indies or the Beta Israel ( Falashas , pejorative term) of Ethiopia develop a strong specificity.

As from the 19th century, the Haskala involves on the one hand the reform of the Judaism, which calls in question of the oral law, even of the written law itself, other the claim of the Jewish nationalism which strongly minimizes the religious dimension of the Jewish fact, many asserted Jews, even nationalist, thus refusing any religion. The Judaism bursts once again: the “orthodoxe” term appears to define what was until there dominant form of the Judaism. Within this orthodoxe Judaism even, various tendencies take shape (but without official rupture), since the absolute fideism of the Haredim to the opening of “orthodoxe modern”, often considered with suspicion by the first. Between the radicalism of the ultra-orthodoxe and reformed first, Jews, seeking to modernize their traditions without giving up them, forms the liberal Judaïsme and the preserving Judaïsme, as well as other less important currents, like the Judaïsme reconstructionnist.

The idea of a single Jewish religion, founded on a single source, the Bible, is thus put at evil. There exist several versions of the Bible besides, some not very different: the Hebraic Bible (which comprises 24 books), the Bible samaritaine (which recognizes authority only in Pentateuque and the Book of Josué), the Seventy (which comprises deuterocanonic Livres), as well as “canonical” versions less like the Manuscrits of Qumrân, the Bible of the Esséniens. Complementary traditions (Talmud S and Midrash of the rabbinical Judaism, hēḳeš and sevel ha-yǝrūšāh of the Judaism karaïte, mēmar of the Samaritans) accentuate even more the divergences. The sources of the ones are rejected by the others, and the degree of their authority, absolute or relative, can also make debate among those which recognize them. To this diversity of texts or interpretation is added finally particularisms related to the dispersion of the populations regarding itself as downward old Jews during: 2500 years on an important part of planet.

Divergences of texts, divergences on the interpretation of the texts, absence of religious centralization, diversity of times and diversity of country thus produced considerable religious divergences. Judaism, though having justified the maintenance of a Jewish specificity during the Jewish Diasporas, is neither unit nor even the only form of judeity for the whole of the asserted Jews.

Jews as people

According to the encyclopedic Larousse of 1987, people is a “whole of men inhabitants or not the same territory and constituting a social or cultural community”.

Well before this modern definition, the Bible had defined the Jews as people. The occurrences of the term “populates of Israel”, making following that of “children of Israel”, insistent on a common origin, are particularly numerous there, and this as of the Deutéronome, delivers that the majority of holding of the critical biblist think of having been the first formatted, towards the end of the VII E. The references indicate a group endogame there (not mixing to the other people) “You will not contract a marriage with these people, you will not give your daughters to their sons, and you will not take their daughters for your sons”, having a direct relationship with God “Forgives, O Eternal! with your people of Israel, that you repurchased”, and occupying a territory, “the country whose Eternal, your God, gives you the possession”.

In the later books of the Bible appears a new concept, that of “Jewish people”. In a strict sense, the Jews, or Judéens, are the Jews of the south, living the Royaume of Juda. It thus is not about a religious concept, the religious rules being supposed to apply in an undifferentiated way to the Jews of north and South, but of a geographical and political concept. In practice, the Jews of north having disappeared (thesis of the Ten lost tribes) or being transformed into Samaritans (thesis of the Samaritans, rejected by the Jews), the Jews were regarded as last the Jews, the terms “populates Jewish” becoming for them (and with their continuation for the Christians) synonymous with “people of Israel”, synonymy refused by the Samaritains. Thus, although each group asserts “people of Israel”, the mutual rejection of the two communities involved in practice the creation of two quite distinct people, each one with its territory, its habits and its direction.

After the dispersion of the Jews through planet, the feeling to be people remained a religious obligation. Contrary to Christianity, itself resulting from the Judaism, this last refused any religious universalism, and in particular any conversion into mass of the “nations” ( Goyim ) to the biblical direction, i.e. not-Jews.

By a rather rare exception in the Jewish history, part of the reformed Jewish first of the 19th century supported a primarily religious approach of the Juif fact, wishing to support integration within the people of the home countries (this feeling also generated, but apart from the perimeter of reformed, a current of conversion to Christianity, relatively important at the 19th century and until the Second world war). For this current, which will end up disappearing even at reformed, the Jews are not people, but only one religious community.

Some Karaïtes of Eastern Europe were also redefined at the 19th century like part of the Turkish people, and either of the Jewish people, but while remaining faithful to their particular version of the Judaism (which they however cease thus calling). This evolution is not here related to a critic of the principle of “Jewish people”, but on a strong Turkish culture, a will to escape the anti-Jewish laws from the empire from the tsars, and undoubtedly also with the old hostility between Rabbanites and Karaïtes.

Although traditional, the definition of the Jews as people was thus disputed by certain groups resulting from the Judaism, that those seek a partial assimilation (reformed) or a total assimilation (converts). Groups claiming religion of the Hebraic Bible, without inevitably refusing that others are defined as Juifs as people, were defined themselves as being separate groups having a specific identity (Karaïmes European, Samaritains).

Beyond these debates the great majority of the religious Jews, like much of unbelievers, remained very attached to the idea of “Jewish people” (that he is seen or not as the people of Alliance and the Torah) because of central place of this notion in religious teaching of the judaïsme.
The Shoah strongly contributed to reinforce this dimension of people: that they are monks, socialist, Zionists, equivalents, converted, and whatever their nationality, the Jews were then regarded as a homogeneous unit to exterminate, which strongly reinforced the feeling to have a common destiny.

Jews as a nation

See also: Nationalism, Zionism, Antisionisme

Before the French revolution, the term of Nation was almost a synonym of that of people. One thus speaks often (Voltaire, in particular), of “Jewish nation”, within the meaning of Jewish people.

As from the French revolution, “Nation” takes a more political significance. A nation becomes on the one hand a State (as in the expression “United Nations”), and on the other hand people having the political objective to maintain or create a State. In this second significance, a nation is in practice people of which a part at least of the members has nationalist objectives .

The concept of Jewish nation (with the political direction) is at the time of the revolution foreigner to the Jews. Indeed, the worship reorganized since the end of the Royaume of Juda on Messianic waitings, more eschatologic that policies, and the exile is lived like the achievement of the predictions of the Deutéronome. The Jews always consider that their destiny is food in a specific State (the promise of the ground given by God), but they wait until this one brings back there, as It had done it at the time of the Babylonian exile, and this waiting results in the study and the prayers.

A current of thought emerges at the 19th century among certain philosophers. He intends to arrive to an “objective” definition of people (or a nation), while being based not on the feeling of membership, but on objective criteria: common language, common history, common territory. From the point of view of this school, two approaches are possible Jewish fact: The Jews can not be one nation more (since their dispersion) if one insists on the concept of common territory. They are it on the other hand if one privileges the concept of last commun.
For the “subjective” school, which insists on the feeling of membership, the majority of the Jews are a nation (at least those which wish it).
The “objective” school with dominant territorial refuses the definition of the Jews as a nation, even as people.
The “objective” school with dominant history, as well as the “subjective” school accept it more easily.

The new national idea was essential only gradually within the Jewish masses, in particular in reaction to the political disturbances of Eastern Europe and the anti-semitism. Rise of this one, besides then its paroxysm during the Shoah, attenuates the strong oppositions between Juifs Zionists and antisionists. Created in other to fight the Zionists, the ultra-orthodoxe party Agoudat Israel ends even up collaborating with those under the pressure of the rise of the Antisémitisme of the Années 1930, then will accept the creation of Israel in 1947 in the traumatism according to the Génocide.

These debates are still not closed, certain religious Jews (the Edah Haredit ) continuing to firmly reject the idea of a political Jewish State, and much of political antisionists always refusing the claim Zionist on the Palestine. It will be noted however that in spite of the antisionism dominating of the Soviet mode, this one had recognized the Jews like a Soviet “nationality” with whole share, and had supported the creation of Israel to UNO in 1947.

To the center even of the Israeli company, the debate on the “Jewish nation” brought to develop approaches rather appreciably different from those of the monks. Thus the Samaritans or the Karaïtes, groups rejected by the orthodoxe ones of the perimeter of the Judaism, were accepted like belonging to the descent of the “people of Israel” of the origins, and for this reason like members of the “nation” (thus profiting from the Loi of the return). The converts by the reformed rabbis (especially American) are also accepted in spite of the refusal of orthodoxe, their conversion being regarded by the State as the assertion of a clear will of change of “nation”. The State privileges thus, to a certain extent, the national feeling of membership and not only the feeling of religious membership.

Independently of the Zionism, one can also note the existence of a nationalism not Zionist, especially incarnated by the Bund, Jewish working party created in 1897. Although being defined as Jew, the nationalism of Bund was especially centered on an identity Yiddish, and hardly addressed to the Jews other communities.

Jews as an ethnos group

Jews as a culture

Languages

The Hebrew is the liturgical language of the Judaism, the language of the people of Israel. Many words and expressions west-Semitic (cananéennes) close to Hebrew to the Bible already exist in the Lettres of Amarna, texts diplomatic of before the common era, written in Akkadien, which confirms the seniority of this language.

Its importance as a national language is attested in the book of the Judges: in order to differentiate people from Galaad of those of Ephraïm, it is asked “how is called this”. If the unfortunate one answers Sibolet , and not Sh' ibolet , it passed instantaneously to the wire of the sword. Hebrew was thus the language of the Jewish people as long as this one remained on its ground, i.e. until the destruction of the First Temple of Jerusalem. Moreover, the rabbinical tradition taught that Hebrew was the language of holiness ( lashon hakodesh ), with which the world had been created.

Those which are still Israélites disperse partly through the the Middle East (initially in Babylonia, then beyond), as from the destruction of the First Temple of Jerusalem, in -586.
Au contact of Babylon, crossbred Hebrew more and more of araméen, Lingua franca of the time, which takes an increasingly dominating place in the last Books of the Bible, Daniel and Ezra, where the proclamation of the restoration of the Temple is written in Araméen. The biblical Hebrew evolves/moves, and the mishnaïque Hebrew appears with the return of the Jews of Babylon. The question of the statute of Hebrew (spoken language or exclusively literary language?) fact the object of long debates. Abraham Geiger thought that the language of the street was the araméen, and that of Wise Hebrew. Hanoch Yalon professed that contrary, Hebrew was the language of the commun run and the children, while the scholars spoke araméen or Greek. The anecdote of the maidservant of Rabbi, girl of house in a place of scholarship indeed makes it possible to formulate this second assumption. And if Jesus de Nazareth taught in araméen, the letters of Bar Kokhba were written in Hebrew.

Hebrew is practiced during all Middle Ages only by the scholars. This Hebrew rabbinical had clean turnings, and often borrowed from the araméen.
Parallèlement with the extinction of Hebrew as a daily language, are born several “languages”, makes of it a mixture of the languages of the soil and a Hebraic lexicon; these dialects are written in Hebraic characters. Such is for example the case of Tsarphatique, the language of the gloses of Rachi, testimony living of the language of oil or the various forms of Judéo-Arabic used by the Jews of Eretz Islam , of Maïmonide to Juda Halevi.

Two of these dialects are dissociated like having been spoken by broad sides about the Jewish community: the Yiddish, practiced originally by Ashkénazes and the Judeo-Spanish by Séfarades (not to be confused with the Ladino).
the other dialects, dhzidi, Judéo-Arabic, Judéo-of Provence, Yévanique, etc did not exceed the regional sphere: judéo-Arabic Algerian was incomprehensible for Jew Tunisian, and conversely, whereas except for the local variations, the Yiddish could be used as lingua franca with all the Jews which spoke it, whatever their origins.

At the 19th century, the organizers of the Haskala wish to make disappear the Yiddish, language of the Ghetto, to learn to the Jews residing in Germany German and Hebrew. They develop the first modern laic Hebrew literature, and publish newspapers in this language. The attempt however makes failure, the masses preferring to learn German and the monks rejecting any profane use of the “language of holiness”. However, the first linguistic modernization of the liturgical language is done day, adding new words to describe non-existent concepts in the religious language.

The second attempt at reviviscence of Hebrew is carried out in 1881 by a teacher, Eliézer Ben Yehoudah, which devoted all its energy to it. Hundreds of words are created on the basis of Hebraic root. Largely resulting from its work, the modern Hebrew becomes the official language of the movement Zionist, then one of those of the State of Israel (with the Arab ). Because of massive immigration of the Jews towards Israel during the 20th century, modern Hebrew and the Israeli culture - quasi non-existent one century ago - which is bound to him, appear today as the crucible where are assimilated and in the long term disappear many antiques Jewish cultures from the Jewish Diaspora. It should be noted that if the orthodoxe ones ended up accepting modern Hebrew, certain marginal communities haredim living in Israel, as the Neturei Karta of Mea Shearim always refuse to speak it, privileging the Yiddish.

The whole of the Jewish dialects also tends to disappear with the profit from the languages where reside the Jews of Diaspora.
the Yiddish remains of use as language of the daily newspaper in certain orthodoxe communities, in particular in the United States, in Israel and with Antwerp. However, in the United States where the greatest communities yiddishisantes are, this Yiddish evolves/moves, mixing on the one hand with English to form the Yinglish , and on the other hand having given rise to a jargon employed quasi-exclusivement in the talmudic academies, from where its name of Yeshivish .

On the other hand, because of several factors, of which Shoah, the Jewish exodus of the Arab countries, the emigration, assimilation and others, of many Jewish dialects, from which the Judeo-Spanish, fell in disuse, while others, like theof Provence one, disappeared.

Judaïté and Judaism: synthesis

The Judaïsme is with the direction the first “Israélites doctrines of Juda”, comprising rites and precepts based on beliefs. However, much of current Jews are not believers, or practice versions of the ritual rather far away from the orthodoxe Judaïsme. Some, like the Karaïtes or the people converted by the reformed rabbis , are not recognized like Jews by this one. Moreover, if the Judaïsme reformed regards as Juif an individual whose only father is Jewish, for little that it was high in the Judaism, it is absolutely not the case for the Judaism orthodoxe.
Des Jewish practitioner their form of the Judaism are thus regarded as not-Jews by the orthodoxe Jews, which accept in their center of perfect atheists in so far as their mother is Jewish.

This apparent contradiction comes from the definition non-exclusivement religious of the Jewish fact. A Jew is indeed according to the Bible a member of the “people of Israel”, by his birth (or more rarely by its conversion) and ultra-orthodoxe themselves superimpose this definition with their religious definition.

Lastly, the concept of people and the memory of the Jewish State of Antiquity generated, in contact with the European nationalism of the 19th century a Jewish Nationalisme, the Sionisme, asserting a nation for the Jews, a State. This claim is not accepted by all the Jews.

The superposition of these three concepts (religion, people and nation), with their borders which do not coincide, led to many problems of definition. There exists thus, in addition to what was mentioned higher, of the nationalist Jews and anti-monks, the religious Jews but not nationalists ( Edah Haredit ), of the Jews recognized by the State of Israel but not by the orthodoxe Jews (Karaïtes or people converted by reformed rabbis), groups wanting to be Jews and not Juifs, but legally recognized like Juifs by the State of Israel (Samaritains), of the orthodoxe Jews recognized by certain groups of orthodoxe but not by others ( Beta Israel ).

13 or 14 million currently listed Jews, but also those of the past, is thus with the crossing of the three concepts of people, religion and nation, without neither the Jews nor the not-Jews being completely of agreement on these concepts or their exact perimeter. These problems of perimeters and definitions, though well realities, relate to however only relatively limited groups, allowing the existence of a relatively stable “Jewish community”.

Demography and geography

In 1939, there was 17 million Jews in the world. Towards 1945, it remained nothing any more but 11 million about it. The Jews would be 13,3 million today.

Professor Sergio Della Pergola, demographer of the Hebraic Université of Jerusalem, indicated in 2002 that the Jewish population growth in the whole world turned around 0%. More exactly, of 2000 with 2001, it amounted to 0,3%, to compare with the world population growth of 1,4% for the same period. Except medical cases, the families have between 5 and 10 children (7 children per family on average in Israel in 2005). It acts for the haredim of an important religious command: “grow and multiply” (.

Contrary, the Jewish populations less practicing, often with a more important socio-economic level, have a demography more classically Western, of a rather low level, which does not compensate for the rather many mixed marriages out of Israel.

Same the differences can be noted between country: the Jewish population of the ex- Soviet Union is in fast reduction, by emigration, while, for same the reasons and because of a relatively strong birthrate, the Israeli Jewish population increases rather quickly.

Home countries

Historically, one distinguished three areas principal (but nonexclusive) in which created the three field crops juives.

the Central Europe and Eastern, of the Alsace to the Ukraine, cradle of the Judaism ashkénaze
the Iberian peninsula, where the Judaism sépharade was born before dispersing after 1492, in particular towards the countries of North Africa, the Balkans and certain countries of the the Middle East (also influencing the Judaism of the Yichouv)
the Middle East, where the Eastern Juifs lived non-sépharades

According to professor Sergio Beyond Pergola, 37% of the world Jewish community currently live in Israel. In 2001,8,3 million Jews lived as a Diaspora, and 5 million in Israel (5,1 million in 2003). On the other hand, in 2000,48% of 14 years the Jewish children and less lived in Israel and England approximately: 400000.

The temptation of the assimilation

The demographer Sergio Della Pergola indicated in 2003 that the mixed marriages exploded within the Jewish Diaspora. [[France],] the mixed marriages increase, though according to a course not strictly linear: the percentages of surveyed having of the nonJewish husbands pass from 22% among the 60 years and more to 37% among the 50-59 years, are reduced to 31% among the 40-49 years, and continue their slow rise with 37% among the 30-39 years, and 40% among less than 30 years. To note a frequency of the mixed marriages doubles in province compared to the Paris region. These figures today are largely exceeded with the the United States and in the remainder of the Europe. Finally, among those which live in couple without being married, 83% have nonJewish partners - what lets predict an increase in the mixed marriages in the future; ref. name=" arche" />.

If the members of the ultra-orthodoxe communities do not practice the mixed marriage, this one is developed much more at the Jews having a weaker religious practice. Into Europe, where the reformed rabbis are very few, very few joint not Jews are converted. The orthodoxe rabbis are indeed traditionally hostile with conversion for marriage, and this one thus is practiced little. With the the United States, the liberal (reformed and preserving) convert readily the nonJewish couple or their children. But even in the United States, only approximately 10% of joint convert.

Final, the demographers expect a strong reduction in the number of the Jews living out of Israel, primarily by assimilation.

From the point of view of the religious practice, the tendencies are contrasted. One notes at the same time an increase in the number of laic (Jews without notable religious practice) and an increase in the regular practitioners. These two growths are made with the detriment of the partial practitioners, known as traditionalists, of which the number falls. Thus, in France, in 2003, “more people affirm to attend a synagog regularly (22%, against 9% in 1975), but also more people never go there (49%, against 30% in 1975).
In spite of the swing partial of the traditionalists towards a more strict religious practice, and in spite of a phenomenon of “repentance” ( Techouva ) concerning unquestionable laic, the disappearance of the religious practices seems to become majority as a Diaspora, whereas the religious practice remains dominant in Israel thanks to the very strong demography of the practitioners.

See too

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