the Tanakh

MSamaritan Mezuzah, Mount Gerizim

Samaritanism

Samaritanism The Samaritan religion, also known as Samaritanism, is the national religion of the Samaritans. The Samaritans adhere to the Samaritan Torah, which they believe is the original, unchanged Torah, as opposed to the Torah used by Jews. In addition to the Samaritan Torah, Samaritans also revere their version of the Book of Joshua and recognize some Biblical figures, such as Eli. Samaritanism...

A member of the American LGBTQ community praying next to an ultra-Orthodox man at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, May 2016. Credit: Eyal Warshavsky

Modern Orthodox Judaism

Modern Orthodox Judaism Modern Orthodox Judaism (also Modern Orthodox or Modern Orthodoxy) is a movement within Orthodox Judaism that attempts to synthesize Jewish values and the observance of Jewish law with the secular, modern world. Modern Orthodoxy draws on several teachings and philosophies, and thus assumes various forms. In the United States, and generally in the Western world, Centrist Orthodoxy underpinned by the philosophy of Torah Umadda (“Torah and...

A Jewish wedding (Jozef Israëls, 1903)

Jewish Views On Marriage

Jewish Views On Marriage This article covers Jewish Views On Marriage. In traditional Judaism, marriage is viewed as a contractual bond commanded by God in which a man and a woman come together to create a relationship in which God is directly involved. (Deut. 24:1) Though procreation is not the sole purpose,...

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Jews As The Chosen People

Jews As The Chosen People This article covers Jews as the Chosen People in detail. In Judaism, “chosenness” is the belief that the Jews, via descent from the ancient Israelites, are the chosen people, i.e. chosen to be in a covenant with God. The idea of the Israelites being chosen by God is found most directly in...

Finding of the baby Moses, by Konstantin Dmitriyevich Flavitsky

Moses In Rabbinic Literature

Moses In Rabbinic Literature Allusions in rabbinic literature to the biblical character Moses, who led the people of Israel out of Egypt and through their wanderings in the wilderness, contain various expansions, elaborations, and inferences beyond what is presented in the text of the Bible itself. Overview Of all Biblical personages Moses has been chosen most...

Styles of Haredi dress

Haredi Judaism

Haredi Judaism Haredi Judaism (חֲרֵדִי Ḥaredi, also spelled Charedi, plural Haredim or Charedim) consists of groups within Orthodox Judaism characterized by a strict adherence to their interpretation of Jewish law and values as opposed to modern values and practices. Its members are often referred to as strictly Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox in English, although the term “ultra-Orthodox” is...

Arab-Jewish Center in Haifa.

Jewish Views On Religious Pluralism

Jewish Views On Religious Pluralism This article covers Jewish Views On Religious Pluralism. Religious pluralism is a set of religious worldviews that hold that one’s religion is not the sole and exclusive source of truth, and thus recognizes that some level of truth and value exists in other religions. As...

The Jews in Central Europe (1881)

Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or simply Ashkenazim (אַשְׁכְּנַזִּים, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז Y’hudey Ashkenaz), are a Jewish diaspora population who coalesced in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium. The traditional diaspora language of Ashkenazi Jews is Yiddish (a Germanic language with elements of Hebrew and Aramaic), developed...

A pair of putti bearing a menorah, on a cast of a 2nd- or 3rd-century relief (original in the National Museum of Rome)

History Of The Jews In The Roman Empire

History Of The Jews In The Roman Empire The history of the Jews in the Roman Empire traces the interaction of Jews and Romans during the period of the Roman Empire (27 BC – AD 476). Their cultures began to overlap in the centuries just before the Christian Era. Jews,...

Joshua

Judaism And Violence

Judaism And Violence This article covers the relationship between Judaism and violence. Judaism’s doctrines and texts have sometimes been associated with violence. Laws requiring the eradication of “evil”, sometimes using violent means, exist in the Jewish tradition. Judaism also contains peaceful doctrines. This article deals with the juxtaposition of Judaic...

The teraphim (Baal Hammon and Tanit) was left to Yam's will before Dido's problem was resolved.

Origins Of Rabbinic Judaism

Origins Of Rabbinic Judaism Rabbinic Judaism or Rabbinism has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century, after the codification of the Talmud. Rabbinic Judaism gained predominance within the Jewish diaspora between the 2nd to 6th centuries, with the development of the Oral Law (Mishna and Talmud) to...

Peace

Judaism and Peace

Judaism And Peace Judaism has teachings and guidance for its adherents through the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature relating to the notion and concept of peace. Shalom Main article: Shalom The Hebrew word for peace is shalom which is derived from one of the names of God. Hebrew root word for “complete” or “whole”...

The hall of the Szeged Synagogue.

Neolog Judaism

Neolog Judaism This article covers Neolog Judaism. Neologs (neológ irányzat, “Neolog Faction”) are one of the two large communal organizations among Hungarian Jewry. Socially, the liberal and modernist Neologs had been more inclined toward integration into Hungarian society since the Era of Emancipation in the 19th century. This was their...

The Kaliver Rebbe, Holocaust survivor, inspiring his court on the festival of Sukkoth

Hasidic Judaism

Hasidic Judaism Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism (חסידות, hasidut, originally, “piety”), is a Jewish religious group. It arose as a spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine during the 18th century, and spread rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most affiliates reside in Israel and the United States. Israel Ben Eliezer, the...

Holy Bible

The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus

The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus This is the entire book of The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus. Enjoy reading …. A Prologue made by an uncertain Author This Jesus was the son of Sirach, and grandchild to Jesus of the same...

Torah Bible Studying Learning Reading Books Book

Development Of The Hebrew Bible Canon

Development Of The Hebrew Bible Canon This article covers the Development Of The Hebrew Bible Canon. Rabbinic Judaism recognizes the 24 books of the Masoretic Text, commonly called the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible, as authoritative. Modern scholarship suggests that the most recently written are the books of Jonah, Lamentations, and Daniel,...

kabbalah engraving

Primary Texts Of Kabbalah

Primary Texts Of Kabbalah The primary texts of Kabbalah were allegedly once part of an ongoing oral tradition. The written texts are obscure and difficult for readers who are unfamiliar with Jewish spirituality which assumes extensive knowledge of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), Midrash (Jewish hermeneutic tradition) and Halakha (practical Jewish law). The Torah For kabbalists, ten utterances in Genesis with which...

Apocrypha

Jewish Apocrypha

What Is Jewish Apocrypha? Jewish apocrypha includes texts written in the Jewish religious tradition either in the Intertestamental period or in the early Christian era, but outside the Christian tradition. It does not include books in the canonical Hebrew Bible, nor those accepted into the canon of some or all...

A Torah scroll and silver pointer (yad) used in reading.

Weekly Torah Portion

Weekly Torah Portion It is a custom among religious Jewish communities for a weekly Torah portion, popularly referred to as a parashah, to be read during Jewish prayer services. The parashah (Hebrew: פָּרָשַׁת הַשָּׁבוּעַ Parashat ha-Shavua), popularly just parashah (or parshah /pɑːrʃə/ or parsha) and also known as a Sidra (or Sedra /sɛdrə/) is a section of the Torah (Five...

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Book Of Genesis

Book Of Genesis The Book of Genesis (“Origin”, בְּרֵאשִׁית, “Bərēšīṯ“, “In [the] beginning”) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) and the Old Testament. It is divisible into two parts, the Primeval history (chapters 1–11) and the Ancestral history (chapters 12–50). The primeval history sets out the...