Jew

Jew

יְהוּדִים‬ (Yehudim)
The Star of David is a common symbol of the Jewish people.
Total population
14.6–17.8 million Enlarged population (includes full or partial Jewish ancestry): 20.7 million[1] (2018, est.)
Regions with significant populations
Israel (incl. occupied territories)	6,558,000–6,958,000[1]
United States	5,700,000–10,000,000[1]
France	453,000–600,000[1]
Canada	391,000–550,000[1]
United Kingdom	290,000–370,000[1]
Argentina	180,000–330,000[1]
Russia	172,000–440,000[1]
Germany	116,000–225,000[1]
Australia	113,000–140,000[1]
Brazil	93,000–150,000[1]
South Africa	69,000–80,000[1]
Ukraine	50,000–140,000[1]
Hungary	47,000–100,000[1]
Mexico	40,000–50,000[1]
Netherlands	30,000–52,000[1]
Belgium	29,000–40,000[1]
Italy	28,000–41,000[1]
Switzerland	19,000–25,000[1]
Chile	18,000–26,000[1]
Uruguay	17,000–25,000[1]
Turkey	15,000–21,000[1]
Sweden	15,000–25,000[1]
Languages
Predominantly spoken:[2] Modern Hebrew English Russian French Spanish Historical: Yiddish Ladino Judeo-Arabic others Sacred: Biblical Hebrew Biblical Aramaic Talmudic Aramaic
Religion
Judaism

The Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group who follow the religion of Judaism. Jewish is someone who is of Jewish heritage or who has converted to the Jewish religion. Jewish people typically consider themselves not only as adherents of a religion, therefore a Jew is not only one that practices the religion of Judaism, but it is also one who is of Jewish ethnic heritage. Jews originated as an ethnoreligious group in the Middle East. According to traditional Jewish law, called Halakha, someone is Jewish if their mother was a Jew or if they have converted to Judaism.^[3] Judaism has been described as a religion, a race, an ethnic group, a culture, a nation, and an extended family.^[4]

Israel is the only modern country with a Jewish majority, but there are Jewish minorities in many places in the world. Most of them live in large cities in the United States, Argentina, Europe and Australia. Both Israel and the U.S. have over five million Jews.^[5] In the Soviet Union there were more than two million Jews, but many of them moved to Israel, the U.S. and other Western countries since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Jews have been victims of various persecutions. The most well known happened during the Second World War, when almost six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. The event is known as the Holocaust.

1. ↑ ^{1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22} Dashefsky, Arnold; Della Pergola, Sergio; Sheskin, Ira, eds. (2018). World Jewish Population (PDF) (Report). Berman Jewish DataBank. Retrieved 22 June 2019.
2. ↑ "Links". Beth Hatefutsoth. Archived from the original on 26 March 2009. Retrieved 2 April 2012.
3. ↑ Dosick, Wayne (2007). Living Judaism. New York: HarperCollins. p. 56-57. ISBN 978-0-06-062179-7.
4. ↑ "Judaism 101: What is Judaism?". JewFAQ.org. Judaism 101. Retrieved 18 December 2014. • Judaism has been described as a religion, a race, a culture, and a nation • All of these descriptions have some validity • The Jewish people are best described as an extended family
5. ↑ Annual Assessment, Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (Jewish Agency for Israel), 2007, p. 15, archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-11-07, retrieved 2010-05-03, based on American Jewish Year Book. Vol. 106. American Jewish Committee. 2006. Archived from the original on 2019-05-05. Retrieved 2010-05-03.