Judaism is one of the monotheistic religions, remarkable for its common origin with the world's two most prolific religions, Christianity and Islam. It began in the Middle East over 3,500 years ago and is one of the oldest continually practised religions in the world.
Judaism is a monotheistic religion, worshipping and following the commandments of one God.
Unlike many religions, Judaism is inextricably linked to a particular people, the Jewish people, whose homeland is the area of Israel/Palestine. According to the Bible, God freed the Jews from slavery in Egypt, after which God gave the Torah to them at Mount Sinai. The Torah, meaning "teaching", is the set of laws and beliefs that Jews are expected to follow. According to the traditional interpretation, it consists of a "Written Torah" (the Bible, especially its first 5 books) as well as an "Oral Torah" (the body of traditions from which Jewish law is derived in practice). The Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the "Old Testament", also known by its Hebrew acronym Tanakh) is holy to Jews, and it consists of three sections: the first five books (called "Chumash" or simply "Torah", and traditionally said to have been dictated by God to Moses); the books of the "Prophets" (Nevi'im), and the holy "Writings" (Ketuvim). Traditionally, the Torah includes 613 mitzvot (commandments).
Jewish religious leaders are called "rabbis", and they are expected to be experts in the laws of the Torah, based on the oral tradition as well as the text of the Bible. However, there are some small groups that do not accept rabbis as leaders. Karaites are a sect that developed in the Middle Ages, rejecting rabbinic interpretations and following their own direct interpretation of the Bible. Also, the Ethiopian Jewish community was separated from other Jews for thousands of years, and did not have rabbis until their immigration to Israel beginning in 1984.
Traditional Jewish law defines as a Jew anyone who was born of a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism following the religion's laws on conversion. Jews are of many hues, nationalities and ethnicities. Even those who no longer believe in the Jewish religion recognize one another as belonging to a single people.
Religious Jews believe that Jews need to follow the Jewish religion, but non-Jews only need to be ethical monotheists (sometimes called "Noachides") in order to be rewarded by God. Many authorities on Torah Law go further, loosely interpreting theoretical prohibitions on idolatry for non-Jews as inessential for them.
In ancient times, Jewish worship was focused on the Temple in Jerusalem, where animal and grain sacrifices were offered along with prayers and song. But since the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, Jewish worship and ritual have centered around the synagogue and the home. The synagogue is primarily a place for prayer, and also for religious study. Synagogues are called "temples" by some modern Jews who do not expect the Jerusalem Temple worship to ever be reestablished.
The synagogue does not have a fixed architecture, though it usually faces towards Jerusalem; Jews generally face Jerusalem when they pray. At the front is an "ark" (ahron) in which Torah scrolls are kept. There is also a platform (bimah) where the Torah scroll is placed while being read. In Orthodox and some Conservative congregations, men and women sit separately.
Rabbis do not have a formal role in the synagogue. Any male Jew aged 13 or older (and in the more liberal denominations, any female over 12, too) can lead prayers, but sometimes a trained cantor chants the prayers in a highly decorative melodic style. Prayers can be recited in unison, harmony, or responsively with the congregation. That said, there are some specific prayers that can only be led by a direct patrilineal descendant of the kohanim (Temple priests). There is also a minimum congregation size of 10 male Jews aged 13 or over, known as the minyan, which has to be fulfilled before prayers can commence.
Relics of the Temple in Jerusalem, such as the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, are holy to Jews. The Western Wall functions essentially as an outdoor synagogue with a special feature: a tradition of writing prayers on paper and inserting them into cracks in the wall. The Temple Mount is said to be the spot where Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and where the Temple of Jerusalem would later be built during the reign of King Solomon. Jewish worship on the Temple Mount is controversial among both Jews and Muslims and has been a flashpoint of conflict, so it is prohibited.
Graves, especially of tzaddikim (righteous leaders), are holy to Jews and can also be places of pilgrimage. In particular, members of the Chasidic movement make pilgrimages to the graves of past leaders, such as those of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov in Uman and Rabbi Menachem Schneerson in Queens. According to Jewish tradition, small stones are often placed on a tombstone as a sign of grief, reverence and the permanence of memory. Do not remove them.
Much of early Jewish history takes place in modern-day Israel and Palestine, but according to the story in the Bible, the origins of the Jewish people came from further east, in modern-day Iraq. According to the Book of Genesis, the first Jew was Abraham, who was born in Ur, Iraq, around 1800 BCE, and obeyed a divine command to move to the land of Canaan (now Israel/Palestine). Abraham's son Isaac and grandson Jacob lived mostly in Israel, especially Beer Sheva and Hebron. But the family's travels also brought them to Haran (in Southeastern Anatolia south of Urfa). Near the end of Jacob's life, a famine forced him and his family to move to Egypt. Jacob had a second name - Israel - so Jacob's descendants, who are the Jewish people, are also known as the "people of Israel" (or in the Bible's language, the "children of Israel").
According to the book of Exodus (see also Exodus of Moses), the family grew in Egypt into a large people, but an Egyptian monarch (Pharaoh) decided to enslave them. According to Exodus, God inflicted a series of miraculous plagues on the Egyptians in order to convince the Egyptians to let them go. The Israelites left Egypt as free people under the leadership of the prophet Moses. While in the Sinai desert, God revealed his name to Moses as YHWH (there is no agreement as to the correct vowels, but "Yehova" is based on a misunderstanding, mixing up YHWH and "Adonai", one of the often used replacements), and forbade the Israelites from worshiping any other god. Moses also received the Torah (the divine covenant and law for the Jewish people) from God, and transmitted it to the people. The desert journey ended up taking 40 years, after which Moses' successor Joshua led the people into the "Promised Land" of Canaan (so called because God had promised it to Abraham's descendants). Joshua conquered the land and killed or displaced many of its Canaanite inhabitants. From then on, the "people of Israel" lived in a territory similar to the modern State of Israel (including the West Bank, to some extent the Gaza Strip and parts of Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria).
Archaeological evidence of the aforementioned individuals, as well as the Egyptian slavery and desert wandering, has not been found. Therefore, some modern scholars believe that the above stories are not historically based, in which case the Jewish people's actual origins are as an offshoot of the Canaanite population. As such, the Israelite religion would have originated in the polytheistic Canaanite religion before later becoming monotheistic.
According to the Bible, the people of Israel lived several hundred years as a loose tribal confederation, after which they established a monarchy in about 1000 BCE under King Saul. The second king described in the Bible is King David, and the third is King Solomon, both of whom are well known to this day for their leadership and literary/spiritual works. It was David who established Jerusalem as the national capital and holy site, a status it retains to this day. Solomon then built the first Temple in Jerusalem, which was the focus of worship for the entire nation.
After Solomon's death, the kingdom split in two. (However, some scholars believe that it was always split, and the Biblical stories of a unified national kingdom under David and Solomon are incorrect.) The northern kingdom was called Israel, as it contained 10 of the 12 tribes of the people of Israel. The southern kingdom was called Judah, since it was dominated by the powerful tribe of Judah. The southern kingdom had its capital in Jerusalem. The first capital of the northern kingdom was Shechem (modern-day Nablus), but it was moved several times before settling in Samaria (in the northern West Bank, now called Sebastia).
In the 8th century BCE, the Assyrian Empire (with its capital in Nineveh, modern-day Mosul) arrived on the scene, conquering the kingdom of Israel and exiling its inhabitants. The population of this kingdom was dispersed and eventually lost its Jewish identity. But to this day, there are scattered groups around the world who claim ancestry from the "ten lost tribes of Israel" and membership in the Jewish people.
After the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, only the kingdom of Judah remained to carry on Jewish life and religion. In fact, the terms "Judaism" and "Jew" (or rather their Hebrew equivalents) date to this period, and they have come to refer to the entire people of Israel.
Later the Babylonian Empire (with its capital in Babylon, by modern-day Hillah) rose to power and conquered the Assyrians. Babylonia captured the southern kingdom of Judah in 597 BCE. After a Jewish rebellion, in 586 BCE the Babylonians returned and reconquered the kingdom of Judah, destroying its cities as well as the Temple in Jerusalem, and exiling its inhabitants to Babylonia (and elsewhere). These exiles maintained cohesion in exile. Their longing to return home is expressed in the famous line from the Biblical Book of Lamentations "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither."
After Babylonia was conquered by the Persian Emperor Cyrus in 539 BCE, he encouraged those Jews who wanted to do so to return to the Land of Israel and rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem. The re-established community was initially very small, but gradually grew into a significant province within the Persian Empire, known as Judah or Judaea, centered around Jerusalem and the southern West Bank.
The Biblical Book of Esther takes place primarily in the Persian capital of Shushan, in Khuzestan, Iran.
The history described in the Bible ends at this point. The Bible contains many books that were authored by different people at different times, and which were formed into a single collection during the Persian period.
After Alexander the Great of Macedonia conquered the Persians, the Jewish community had to contend with Hellenistic influence. Many Jews were deeply influenced by Greek culture, while others resisted. For a time, a group of anti-Hellenistic Jews called the Maccabees ruled Judea. The holiday of Chanukah celebrates their victory over the Syrian-Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes in 165 BCE, in a revolt beginning in Modiin.
Judaea later fell under Roman influence and was eventually made a Roman province. In 66 CE the Jews rebelled against Roman rule. The revolt was put down in 70 CE with the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple, with the last few rebels holding out in the Masada fortress until 73 CE. In about 132 CE a second rebellion broke out, under the leadership of the self-proclaimed Messiah, Simon Bar Kochba. This revolt too was put down (in 136 CE) and the Judean Jewish community was dispersed for centuries to come; the Romans renamed what used to be called IUDAEA Syria Palæstina after the Philistines, an ancient people who were the Jews' Biblical arch-enemies to erase the Jewish connection to the land. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Hellenistic/Roman city named Aelia Capitolina with a temple to Zeus/Jupiter in its center and Jews barred from entering. The word for dispersion in Hebrew is Galut, and in Latin and English, it is called the Diaspora. A tiny minority of Jews (later called the "Old Yishuv") continued to live in their ancestral homeland, often under attack from various conquerors (the Crusades were a particularly bad time for the Old Yishuv but also European Jews). There were a few individual movements (mostly religiously motivated) of Jews into the Holy Land, mostly to Jerusalem, and some synagogues collected money to support the Old Yishuv.
The Diaspora was accompanied by significant changes in Jewish thought and practice. Most notably, since the Temple was destroyed and animal and vegetable sacrifices could not be offered there, the synagogue became the main site of Jewish worship. There were also changes in leadership: in the late Second Temple period Jews had been divided among sects with different theologies, but after the destruction a group called the rabbis was recognized as the Jewish religious leadership. "Rabbinic Judaism", as the approach of the rabbis is known, focuses on the "oral law" (a body of traditions alongside the written text of the Bible). The debates of ancient rabbis are preserved in works such as the Talmud (mostly composed in ancient Iraqi cities such as Pumbeditha [now Fallujah]), which form the basis for modern Jewish law. Meanwhile the role of kohanim (Temple priests) lost most of its significance after the destruction. A yearning for the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) continued to be an important part of Jewish worship and theology with the phrase "next year in Jerusalem" often uttered at Passover seders. Some individual Jews also arranged to be buried in the Holy Land or at least with earth from the region, but overall the belief was that a reversal of Galut if it was to come at all would be ushered in by the Messiah, not through "worldly" means.
The biggest issue in the Diaspora was communal survival. Jews were sometimes physically threatened, and sometimes pressured to convert to other religions. While the pagan Romans did not really mind how the Jews worshiped, as long as they didn't rebel, when the Roman Empire became Christian, things got much worse for the Jews. Christians believed that their New Testament made them the true replacement of the Jews, which would make the Jews willful sinners rejected by God. Similarly, Muslims saw Jews as believing in a distorted, incorrect version of the original monotheistic revelation. Treatment of Jews had its ups and downs under both Christianity and Islam. But generally, the worst persecutions were among Christians, for example the First Crusade (1096–1099, in which many Jews in the Rhineland were massacred), the expulsions of all Jews from Spain and Portugal (1492 and 1496), the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, and the massacre of Ukrainian Jews in the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648). Many Spanish and Portuguese Jews converted only outwardly and one of the main tasks of the inquisitions was to expose those "crypto-Jews". Whether or not they or their descendants count as "real" Jews continues to be an issue of theological debate, but both the Spanish and Portuguese states have since apologized for the wrongs done to their Jews and officially invited their descendants back. There were a few major persecutions under Muslim rule, like those of the Almohads in 12th-century Spain, but generally those were much rarer.
At times, though, Jews had more or less good lives under Christian protection. One of those times was during the empire of Charlemagne (740s-814), who invited Jews to settle in the Rhineland. This area was called Ashkenaz in Hebrew, and therefore, the descendants of this community, who through later expulsions and migrations eventually made their homes throughout most of Europe, are known as Ashkenazim.
Another community of Diaspora Jews settled in Iberia, and as Spain is called Sefarad in Hebrew, the descendants of these Jews are known as Sephardim. Sephardic Jews were extremely successful and contributed greatly to the advanced civilization of the Islamic Golden Age (8th-13th centuries). Probably the most famous Jewish thinker during that period was Maimonides (c. 1135-1204), who in addition to being a great rabbi and leader of the Jewish community in Egypt, was also a famous philosopher and medical authority, serving as the personal physician of the Egyptian ruler. After expulsions in 1492 and 1496 from Spain and Portugal, Sephardic Jews took refuge in other parts of Europe and the Mediterranean region. Nowadays, many Middle Eastern Jewish communities are somewhat-mistakenly called "Sephardic" due to the prominent role Sephardic exiles played in them.
Many Jews, now called Mizrachim, never left the Middle East. Jews in Muslim lands generally had the status of ahl al-dhimmah (singular: dhimmi), which was lower than Muslims but still protected. In the 20th century, as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict, most of these communities were wiped out from their historical homelands, though offshoots of these communities now continue in Israel, France and elsewhere.
Besides the three main communities, there were other smaller pockets of Jewish settlement. A community of Jews settled in Ethiopia, becoming the Beta Israel. Some settled in the Caucasus, becoming the Mountain Jews in what is today Azerbaijan, and the Georgian Jews in what is today Georgia. Farther afield, two distinct communities put down roots in India, with the community in rural Konkan becoming the Bene Israel, and the community in Kerala becoming the Cochin Jews, also known as the Malabar Jews. In China, a small community arrived in the city of Kaifeng by the 10th century (when it was the capital of the Song Dynasty), and are today known as the Kaifeng Jews. Unlike the communities in Muslim and Christian lands, the Jewish communities in India and China got along well with their non-Jewish neighbours and never experienced any history of anti-Semitism, though the Chinese community is today somewhat affected by the ruling Communist Party's mistrust of religions and occasional crackdowns on religious observances.
Kabbalah is a mystical form of study which became popular around the 13th century among Spanish Jews. After the Spanish expulsion of Jews, the center of kabbalah study moved to Safed.
Chasidism (or Hasidism) is a Jewish movement that was founded in the first half of the 18th century by Baal Shem Tov, a Ukrainian rabbi. He was inspired to create a new style of Jewish practice, emphasizing a joyful connection with God in the forms (for example) of communal singing and dancing. The Baal Shem Tov's followers became known as the Chasidim, and they eventually divided into different sects, named after the village or town where their first rebbe (rabbi and spiritual leader) came from. So, for example, the Satmarers originated from Satu Mare, Romania, the Lubavitchers from Lyubavichi, Russia, and the Breslovers from Bratslav, Ukraine. Nowadays, the largest concentrations of Chasidim are in Jerusalem and New York City (particularly Borough Park, Williamsburg and the northern part of Crown Heights in Brooklyn). Other concentrations are found in various cities in Israel, the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia. One Chasidic movement - Chabad - does not limit itself to enclaves, but sends individual families to establish a Jewish presence in communities throughout the world. They are a good address for people looking for a Jewish experience while traveling anywhere, and particularly in areas with very small Jewish populations, can sometimes be the only place where kosher food is available. Chasidic men can be recognized by their dressing in suits and black hats at all times. They are often referred to as ultra-Orthodox Jews, though the Chasidim themselves reject this label and are offended when referred to as such.
The Haskalah or "Jewish Enlightenment" was the Jewish response to the Enlightenment in Christian countries, beginning in the late 18th century. It strove for rational thought and integration within non-Jewish society. "Maskilim" (followers of the Haskalah) had a broad spectrum of goals - from conservative rabbis who wanted a rationalist approach to study to radicals who wanted massive social and theological change. One offshoot of the Haskalah was the Reform movement, which reformed Jewish ritual and theology to be more in line with the sensibilities of secular culture. The Zionist movement (see below) was another offshoot.
Reform Judaism emphasizes social concerns over ritual practices (declaring the rituals to be optional, and abandoning many of them altogether). The Conservative movement is an offshoot of the Reform movement by Jews who thought Reform had gone too far; Conservative Judaism preserves nearly all rituals as well as the system of halacha (Jewish law), while introducing a few changes such as equal roles for men and women. Orthodox Jews believe that neither Jewish practice nor theology needed any updating, and they still practice the same way as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. You may think you can recognise Orthodox Jewish men by them wearing their skullcap (kippah in Hebrew, yarmulke in Yiddish) all the time and not just during prayers, but some non-Orthodox Jews also do this. Some smaller denominations have developed, such as Reconstructionism, and many Jews describe themselves as not belonging to any denomination.
Judaism has always had a tradition of rational debate of even intricate and minor points of religious law and thus the stereotype "Two Jews, three opinions" in part originates with Talmudic discussions that are ongoing to this day. Unlike many other religions, there is no single authoritative voice to tell anybody what is or isn't a proper application of certain theological rules to the modern day, but individual rabbis are often much respected for their insight and their opinions have higher weight among the faithful. Even so, most Jews consider it acceptable for any learned person to debate with a rabbi on religious issues no matter how well-respected he may be. This tradition of debate and intellectual approach to "sacred" topics has influenced even secular or atheist people of Jewish descent like Sigmund Freud in his development of psychoanalysis or Karl Marx in his "dialectic" approach to economics and history. The traditional centrality of Torah study and discussions of Jewish law has meant that Jews have emphasized literacy and education for thousands of years, and therefore, Jews have also often excelled in other areas of life requiring education and discipline.
Beginning with the French Revolution, European governments began to "emancipate" Jews, that is grant them the same civil rights as other citizens. But hatred of Jews persisted, sometimes basing itself on "racial" (rather than religious) criteria, which its 19th-century proponents started calling anti-Semitism to sound more "scientific", and other times basing itself on much older reasons, such as jealousy over Jews' perceived wealth. (Jews can be found in all strata of society; the perceived association of Jews and the financial sector is mostly due to the historic Christian prohibition on money lending, which meant that only Jews could loan money to Christians, as well as the fact that Jews were banned from other jobs.)
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were numerous "pogroms" (violent riots against Jews) in Eastern Europe, particularly in Czarist Russia (see also Minority cultures in Russia). Okhrana, the Czarist secret police, even wrote the most well-known and vile antisemitic forgery, the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" to stoke antisemitism and distract revolutionary Russians from their gripes against the Russian government. To escape this brutality and to search for opportunity, there was a modern exodus of Ashkenazim from Eastern Europe to the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Latin America countries including Argentina, and Western Europe.
While Jews had always longed to return to Israel, since the Crusades very few had actually lived there. The number of Jews moving to Ottoman Palestine increased in the late 19th century, due to pogroms and also the growing Zionist movement, which called for establishing a Jewish state in Israel. Zionism gained many followers after the Dreyfus affair (in which a French army officer was convicted of trumped up espionage charges which revealed rampant antisemitism in French society), which led many Jews to conclude that even "civilized" progressive countries would not protect Jews from anti-Semitism, and a specifically Jewish country was needed. Zionism started out as a minority movement (as late as the 1930s, the most popular Jewish party was the anti-Zionist Yiddishist Socialist Bund), but by the 1930s there were hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Mandatory Palestine, and international governments were seriously considering splitting the territory into a Jewish and an Arab state.
With the advent of European colonialism in the 18th century, Baghdadi Jews migrated to the cities of Calcutta and Bombay in the then British colony of India, where they settled and founded many successful businesses. With the expansion of the British Empire, many of these Jews migrated from India to Britain's other Asian possessions, establishing the first Jewish communities in Rangoon, Penang, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. Most of these Jews later emigrated to Western countries, resulting in many of these communities being moribund or extinct, but the Mumbai community is still significant, and the Hong Kong and Singapore communities have been supplemented by expatriate Jews from Western countries.
In 1933, the Nazi party rose to power in Germany, with the goal of exterminating all Jews everywhere. During World War II they murdered about 6 million Jews before being defeated, in what is known as the Nazi Holocaust, also called the Shoah. (See Holocaust remembrance for a guide to some of the Nazi extermination, transit and slave labor camps and memorials on their sites.) The large Jewish communities of Europe were essentially eliminated by the Holocaust, except for Russian and British Jews living outside German control, and most of the survivors would migrate to Israel or the United States following their liberation.
The modern state of Israel declared independence in 1948. It was immediately invaded by Arab armies attempting to destroy it. But it survived this attack, and over the next few decades it steadily grew in population and strength, repelling other attacks in the process and acquiring large territories in the Six-Day War in 1967, some of which it returned for peace treaties. As of 2017, approximately 45% of the world's Jews live in Israel.
While the state of Israel has thrived, the Arab-Israeli conflict increased animosity toward Jews living in Muslim countries. Between 1948 and 1970, the vast majority of these Jews fled or were forced out of Muslim countries, with most of them going to Israel, France or the United States. By the 1960s, few Jews remained in Muslim lands where their ancestors had lived for centuries. For example, Baghdad went from being almost a quarter Jewish to almost completely non-Jewish in a few years. Vestiges of Jewish communities continue to survive in Iran, Turkey, Morocco and Tunisia, but they have been virtually wiped out in the rest of the Middle Eastern and North African Muslim lands.
Today, the largest Jewish communities are in Israel, the United States, France, Canada, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Russia, Germany, Brazil, Australia, and by some measures, Ukraine. The French Jewish community was enlarged greatly with the migration of Sephardic and Mizrachi refugees from France's former North African colonies of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, whereas a new German Jewish community is largely composed of Jews from the former Soviet Union. The largely secular (ex-)Soviet Jews started emigrating in large numbers in the 1970s, with the pace increasing after the fall of communism in the 1990s. The Soviet government repressed religion, so these Jews tend to be very secular but proud of their Jewish nationality.
There is also some emigration from Israel to countries in North America and Europe, where Israelis constitute a recognizable ethnic group. While Israel has always had a net positive migration rate, the number of Israeli expats abroad is nevertheless debated by Israeli politicians as a potential problem, especially given the demographic and economic profile of many emigrants.
The most frequent Jewish occasion is Shabbat, the Sabbath, which occurs every week from 18 minutes before sunset Friday to whenever three stars are visible in the Saturday night sky. During this period, any form of work (very broadly defined) is strictly forbidden. Observant Jews visit the synagogue on Shabbat, particularly on Shabbat morning, but also on Friday evening when Shabbat begins. Trips to the synagogue by Orthodox Jews must be made on foot, as the operation of machinery or harnessing of horses is considered to be work under Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law, and hence prohibited during the Sabbath. Like Shabbat, major Jewish holidays also have prohibitions on work, though some are more lenient than on Shabbat. If a holiday leads into Shabbat or happens after, these restrictions apply to consecutive days.
The Jewish calendar is lunar, so the dates of all yearly holidays shift fairly widely in relation to the standard (Gregorian) calendar. The number of the calendar year is calculated from the time that the Jewish cosmology says the Earth was created. For example, 1 April 2015 is 12 Nisan 5775 in the Jewish calendar, meaning that in Jewish cosmology the world had existed for only 5775 years. The first day of the Jewish year is called Rosh ha-Shanah. In order to prevent the lunar calendar losing touch with the standard one, instead of a leap day, they insert a leap month. These leap months ensure that events that are to be at a certain time of the standard calendar stay there.
The most widely celebrated holidays are:
Some other major holidays include:
There are also several important religious ceremonies that Jews are required to go through on reaching certain important milestones in life. Some of these are observed even by many otherwise non-religious Jews.
See also: Holy Land
Morocco has long history of providing refuge to Jews fleeing persecution — from the Almohad Caliphate (12th century), the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions (15th century), and from Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II.
See also: Places of worship in Singapore#Judaism
Most synagogues welcome visitors of all faiths as long as they behave respectfully, though in areas where anti-Jewish violence is a more immediate threat, a member of the congregation might have to vouch for you and you might even be barred entry.
When entering any Jewish place of worship, all males (except small children) are normally expected to wear a hat, such as a skullcap (called a kippah in Hebrew and a yarmulke in Yiddish). If you have not brought a hat with you, there is normally a supply available for borrowing, for example outside the sanctuary in a synagogue. Both men and women can show respect by dressing conservatively when visiting synagogues or Jewish cemeteries, for example by wearing garments that cover the legs down to at least the knees, and the shoulders and upper arms. Orthodox Jewish women wear loose-fitting clothing that does not display their figure, and many cover their hair with a kerchief or wig.
Traditionally, only men are required to go to synagogue; since women's main religious role is to keep the home kosher, their attendance at services in the synagogue is optional. Some Orthodox synagogues at least in former times used to have only men's sections. In modern times, Orthodox synagogues generally admit women for prayers, though they have dividers (mechitzot) to keep men and women separate during services. The dividers can range from simply slightly higher banisters between aisles with equal view of the bimah from men's and women's sections in some Modern Orthodox synagogues to women being relegated to a balcony behind a curtain and not able to see the bimah at all. Egalitarian synagogues, such as Reconstructionist, Reform or egalitarian Conservative synagogues, have no dividers, and men and women can pray sitting next to each other.
There are some terms that can be controversial among Jews. Use "Western Wall" to refer to the Jerusalem holy site, not the somewhat archaic-sounding "Wailing Wall", which in some Jews' minds gives rise to Christian caricatures of miserable wailing Jews, rather than dignified, praying Jews. When speaking about the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis, the terms "Holocaust" and "Shoah" are both acceptable. (The word "holocaust" originally referred to a burnt offering for God, so the term could imply that the mass killing of Jews was a gift to God. Nevertheless, "Holocaust" is still the most common English name for the tragedy, and should not cause offense.) The phrase "Jew down", meaning to bargain, is offensive, due to its implication of Jews as cheap and perhaps dishonest. In general, it is fine to use "Jew" as a noun, but as an adjective, use "Jewish" (not phrases like "Jew lawyer"), and never use "Jew" in any form as a verb.
Jews believe that the personal name of God, YHWH, cannot be pronounced outside the Temple of Jerusalem. Since the Temple has been destroyed and yet to be rebuilt, that means that the name should never ever be pronounced in modern times. In its place, Jews use the term HaShem when referring to God in third person, and Adonai when addressing God directly during prayers.
Jews' opinions on all aspects of politics, including Israeli politics, run the gamut, but reducing a Jewish person to their opinion on Israel - or worse, taking offense at whatever their opinion may be - is likely to be as counter-productive as reducing an African-American to their opinion on race relations and civil rights.
Hebrew and Aramaic are the ancient holy languages of Judaism, and are used for worship in synagogues throughout the world. The two languages are closely related and used the same alphabet, so anyone who can read Hebrew will have little trouble with Aramaic.
Modern Hebrew, revived as part of the Zionist movement starting in the late 19th century, is the official and most spoken language in Israel. Other languages often spoken by Jews are the languages of the country they reside in or used to live in before moving to Israel (particularly English, Russian, Spanish, French, Arabic, German and Amharic) as well as Yiddish, the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews, which developed from Middle High German with borrowed words from Hebrew, Slavic languages and French, but is written in Hebrew letters rather than the Latin alphabet. (Many languages used by Jews have been written in Hebrew letters at some point, including English.) Before the Nazi Holocaust, Yiddish was the first language of over 10 million people of a wide range of degrees of Jewish religious practice; now, it is spoken by a smaller (but once again growing, thanks to their propensity for large families) population of a million and a half Chasidim. As Chasidic Jews consider Hebrew to be a holy language that is reserved for praying to God, Yiddish is the primary language used in daily life even among Chasidic Jews who live in Israel.
Ladino, similarly, was Judeo-Spanish, and used to be widely spoken among Sephardic Jews living in Turkey and other Muslim countries that had given them refuge, and also in the Greek city of Thessaloniki. While Yiddish is still very much alive in both Israel and parts of the US and quite a number of Yiddish loanwords have entered languages such as (American) English and German, Ladino is moribund and only spoken by a few elderly people and hardly any children or adolescents. There are some musicians (both Jewish and non-Jewish) that make music in Ladino, often using old songs, and Jewish languages are studied academically to varying degrees.
Unlike the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, there is no historical unifying language among the Mizrahi Jews, who primarily spoke languages such as Persian or Arabic, whichever was dominant in the area they lived in, in addition to using Hebrew for liturgy.
Many synagogues, especially those built in the 19th century in Europe when Jews obtained civil rights for the first time, are architecturally spectacular and most of them are willing and able to give tours. Sadly many synagogues (especially in Germany) were destroyed by the Nazis, and if they were rebuilt at all, some of them show a somber reflection about the destruction of Jewish life in the past. Others, however were rebuilt very much in the original style and are truly a sight to behold.
Museums of Judaism and/or Jewish history exist in many places, and are often full of beautifully decorated Jewish religious books and ritual objects, as well as historical information.
Attend a service — If you are interested in experiencing the practice of Judaism, not only Jews but non-Jews are welcome at many synagogues. Many synagogues have services every day, but particularly on Friday nights and Saturday mornings for Shabbat, the Sabbath, whose observance is one of the Ten Commandments. If you would like to listen to brilliant cantillation (chanting), ask around to find out which local synagogues have the most musical cantors. If there's no synagogue, Chabad, also called the Lubavitcher Chasidim, has many far-flung outposts around the world, and if you are Jewish or travelling with a Jew, they are happy to invite you to a service at their house or a meeting room.
Visit a tisch - various chassidic groups hold communal celebrations, with lots of singing and with the rebbe presiding. Often outsiders can visit. A good place to find a tisch is Jerusalem.
Go to an event at a Jewish center — There are Jewish centers in many places where there are classes, lectures, performances, film showings and art exhibitions. Most of them have online calendars.
Charity — Tzedakah is the Hebrew word for "charity", and it is a central mitzvah (commandment) of the Jewish religion. Jews tend to give generously to charity, and there are many Jewish charities, some of which specifically focus on helping other Jews in need, but many of which serve the poor of all creeds. If you would like to be charitable, seek out a Jewish or non-sectarian organization or one run by members of whichever religion you adhere to that focuses on a cause you believe in, or just take out the time to personally help someone who could use a hand.
If you are interested in buying Jewish ritual objects and other things Jewish, look for Judaica stores. Popular items to buy include Shabbat candlesticks; menorahs (9-branched candelabras for Chanukah); jewelry with traditional motifs including the Hebrew letters chet and yod for chai, the Hebrew word for "life", and a silver hand, representing the hand of God; Torahs, prayer books, and books of commentary; mezuzot (miniature scrolls of parchment inscribed with the words of the Shma Yisrael prayer, beginning with the words "Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God; the Lord is One!" in decorative cases, to be used as doorposts); and Jewish cookbooks.
Under traditional Jewish dietary laws, only kosher food may be eaten by Jews; see Kashrut. As Jewish law forbids starting a fire on the Sabbath, a special Sabbath cuisine has developed that deals with this issue and often produces "slow-cooked" meat and vegetables. Rules are stricter during the Passover, and products that are kosher for Passover are usually specifically certified as being so.
Although many eateries serving Jewish cuisine are no longer kosher, the Jewish diaspora has made significant contributions to the culinary cultures of many of their home cities. The cities of New York, London and Montreal in particular are well known for their Jewish delis and bagel shops in the Ashkenazi tradition. The quintessential British dish fish and chips is also believed to trace its origins to Sephardic Jewish refugees fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions who settled in England.
The kosher meal was one of the first special meals to be offered on commercial flights, and kosher food is usually available on most major airlines, but typically must be requested at least 48-72 hours in advance. Israeli flag carrier El Al serves only kosher meals on its flights.
Wine is used sacramentally on the Sabbath (Shabbat) and other Jewish holidays. Some of it is highly fortified with sugar, but nowadays, much excellent kosher wine is produced in Israel, the United States, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, and various other countries. Wine for Passover must be Kosher l'Pesach, so if you are invited to a seder (a festive Passover meal), look for that special designation when purchasing wine for your hosts.
Most Jews consider alcoholic drinks other than wine to be per se kosher, with only a few obvious exceptions (e.g., mezcal con gusano, as grubs are treif). However, drunkenness is at the very least strongly frowned on, except on two holidays: Passover, when according to some interpretations of law, every adult should drink 4 full cups of wine (though in practice, grape juice is commonly considered OK to substitute, as the difference between "wine" and "grape juice" dates to the modern era of pasteurization) and Purim, when there's a tradition that you should drink so much wine that you can't tell Mordecai (the hero of the holiday) from Haman (the villain).
Any Orthodox (or "Shomer Shabbat" — that is, guarding the Sabbath) Jew cannot violate the Jewish law against traveling on Friday nights and Saturdays, which also applies to most Jewish holidays. Therefore, s/he must arrange to sleep somewhere close enough to walk to a synagogue on those days, or in the case of communal holidays that take place in homes (for example, Kabbalat Shabbat to welcome in the Sabbath on Friday night, the Seder on Passover, or the reading of the Megillas Esther [Biblical Book of Esther] on Purim), to the place where the ceremony and festive meal are taking place. It is therefore traditional for Orthodox Jews to open their homes to other observant Jews visiting from far away. If you are a Sabbath-observant Jew and don't know anyone in a place where you are traveling during a Sabbath or holiday, you can usually contact the local Chabad office for advice, as long as you call them before the holiday starts, or you could also try calling a local synagogue.
Some hotels and apartment buildings cater to Orthodox Jews by making arrangements for the Sabbath, turning off automatic doors and/or providing special "Shabbat elevators" that operate automatically so guests don't have to push the buttons.
Unfortunately, the threat of possible anti-Semitic violence is a constant concern throughout the world, though the degree of danger varies with time and place. As a result, it is very common for there to be a police presence or/and armed guards at synagogues, yeshivot, Jewish community centers and other places where Jews congregate. However, the chances that you will happen to be at a place when someone attacks it are very low. In case you need to stand in line to have your bag searched or go through a metal detector, allow extra time just as you do when going to the airport. Being or looking visibly Jewish (e.g. wearing a kippah) can attract unwanted attention, verbal abuse or even violence even in some neighborhoods of major first world cities. Providing a safe place for all kinds of Jewish life was part of the reason for the foundation of Israel, but unfortunately, the geopolitical situation as well as violent individuals affect the safety and security of Jewish institutions there, too.