Portal:Judaism

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The Judaism Portal

Collection of Judaica (clockwise from top):
Candlesticks for Shabbat, a cup for ritual handwashing, a Chumash and a Tanakh, a Torah pointer, a shofar, and an etrog box.

Judaism (Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת‎ Yahăḏūṯ) is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people. Judaism evolved from Yahwism, an ancient Semitic religion of the Iron Age, likely around the 6th/5th century BCE, with its characteristic practices and prohibitions widely practiced first in the second century BCE. Along with Samaritanism, to which it is closely related, Judaism is one of the two oldest Abrahamic religions.

Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant, which was established between God and the Israelites, their ancestors. Jewish religious doctrine encompasses a wide body of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Among Judaism's core texts is the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, a collection of ancient Hebrew scriptures. The Tanakh, known in English as the Hebrew Bible, is also referred to as the "Old Testament" in Christianity. In addition to the original written scripture, the supplemental Oral Torah is represented by later texts, such as the Midrash and the Talmud. The Hebrew-language word torah can mean "teaching", "law", or "instruction", although "Torah" can also be used as a general term that refers to any Jewish text that expands or elaborates on the original Five Books of Moses. Representing the core of the Jewish spiritual and religious tradition, the Torah is a term and a set of teachings that are explicitly self-positioned as encompassing at least seventy, and potentially infinite, facets and interpretations. Judaism's texts, traditions, and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity and Islam. Hebraism, like Hellenism, played a seminal role in the formation of Western civilization through its impact as a core background element of Early Christianity. (Full article...)

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Jewish holidays include both Biblical and Rabbinic observances. Biblical days include the weekly Shabbat, considered the most important such day. There are the Three Pilgrimage Festivals of Passover, Shavuot, and Shemini Atzeret. The High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are times of repentance and prayer. Rosh Chodesh, the first day of each month, has some significance as well. Rabbinic enactments include Hanukkah and Purim, both celebrating religious and military victories. (Read more...)

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Did You Know?

Did you know...

... that the Château Pastré (pictured) in Marseille, designed by Jean-Charles Danjoy for Eugène Pastré, was a haven for Jewish artists in World War II?
... that the creator of the TV series Homeland, Gideon Raff, is the son of a former Accountant General in Israel's Ministry of Finance?
... that Dr. Moshe Wallach, founder and director of Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Hospital for 45 years, lived in the hospital and was buried beside it?
... that much like Anne Frank's diary, the letters of Philip Slier, discovered more than fifty years after his death, reveal the history of Nazi-controlled Netherlands through a personal perspective?
... that the Supreme Court of the United States decision in Zivotofsky v. Clinton concerned the status of Jerusalem in United States foreign policy?

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Rudolf Vrba was Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia in Canada. In April 1944, Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler became the second and third of only five Jews to escape successfully from the German death camp at Auschwitz and pass information to the Allies about the mass murder that was taking place there. The 32 pages of information that the men dictated to horrified Jewish officials in Slovakia became known as the Vrba–Wetzler report. It is regarded as one of the most important documents of the 20th century, because it was the first detailed information about the death camp to reach the Allies that they accepted as credible. Although the report's release to the public was controversially delayed until after the mass transport of 437,000 Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz had begun on May 15, 1944, it is nevertheless credited with having saved many lives. Yehuda Bauer, Professor of Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has called Vrba "one of the Heroes of the Holocaust". (Read more...)