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{{Infobox Jew}}
:''For the Jewish religion, see ]. For other uses, see ].''
A '''Jew''' (]: יְהוּדִי, ''Yehudi'' (]); {{lang|he|יְהוּדִים}}, ''Yehudim'' (]); ]: ג׳ודיוס, ''Djudios''; ]: ייִד, ''Yid'' (sl.); {{lang|yi|ייִדן}}, ''Yidn'' (pl.))<ref>] of the term "Jew" are tainted by historical ]. The correct adjectival form is "Jewish"; the use of "Jew" as an adjective (as in "Jew lawyer" rather than "Jewish lawyer") is associated with bigotry. The use of "jew" as a verb (as in "to jew someone down": to bargain for a lower price) is generally seen as an extremely offensive expression based on stereotypes. However, when used as a noun, the term "Jew" is preferred, except situations where it is used to ] and separate Jews from the remainder of the population, often by referring to the majority population by the name of the country ("Countrymen") but referring to Jewish citizens as "Jews."</ref> is a member of the Jewish people who are an ] originating in the ]s of the ]. The Jewish people or the Jewish nation also consists of others who ] throughout the millennia. The ethnicity and the religion of ] are strongly interrelated, and converts are both ] the Jewish people.

The Jews have suffered a long history of persecution in many different lands, and their population and distribution per region has fluctuated throughout the centuries. Today, most authorities place the number of Jews between 12 and 14 million,<ref name="jppistudy" /> the largest number of whom live in the ] (40.5% in 2002) and ] (34.4% in 2002), with the remainder distributed in communities of varying sizes in almost every country. The total world ], however, is difficult to measure and is subject to the controversy of ], '']'' or other parameters of defining ].

==Jews and Judaism==
{{Jews and Judaism}}
{{main|Jewish history}}

The origin of the Jews is traditionally dated to around ] {{Fact|date=February 2007}} with the biblical account of the birth of Judaism.

The ], dated to 1200 BCE, is one of the earliest archaeological records of the Jewish people in the ], where ], a ] religion developed. According to ] accounts, the Jews enjoyed periods of ] first under the ] from ] through ], then in (c.&nbsp;]), ] established ] as the capital of the ] (the ''United Monarchy'') and from there ruled the ].

In ], his son ] became ].<ref name="wwbible">{{cite book|title=The Complete Book of When and Where: In The Bible And Throughout History |last=Michael |first=E. |coauthors=Sharon O. Rusten, Philip Comfort, and Walter A. Elwell |publisher= Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. |isbn=0842355081 |date=] |accessdate=2007-01-22 |pages=20-1, 67}}</ref> Within a decade, Solomon began to build the ] known as the ''First Temple''. Upon Solomon's death (c. 930 BCE), the ] split off to form the ]. In 722 BCE the ]ns conquered the Kingdom of Israel and exiled its Jews starting a ].

The First Temple period ended around 586 BCE as the Babylonians conquered the Land of Israel and destroyed the ]. In ], after fifty years of ], ] ] ] permitted the Jews to return to rebuild Jerusalem and the holy temple. Construction of the ], was completed in ] during the reign of ] seventy years after the destruction of the First Temple.<ref>{{cite book|title=Between Rome and Jerusalem: 300 Years of Roman-Judaean Relations |last=Sicker |first=Martin |isbn=0275971406 |publisher=Praeger Publishers |date=] |pages=2 |accessdate=2007-01-22}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bu.edu/mzank/Jerusalem/p/period2-3.htm |publisher=Boston University |title=Center of the Persian Satrapy of Judah (539-323) |last=Zank |first=Michael |accessdate=2007-01-22}}</ref> When ] conquered the ], the Land of Israel fell under ] control, eventually falling to the ] who lost it to the ]. The Seleucid attempt to recast Jerusalem as a ] ] came to a head in 168 BCE with the successful ] of ] the ] and his five sons against ], and their establishment of the ] in 152 BCE with Jerusalem again as its capital.<ref>{{cite book|last=Schiffman|first=Lawrence H.|title=From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism|publisher=Ktav Publishing House|year=1991|isbn=0-88125-371-5|pages=60-79}}</ref> The Hasmonean Kingdom lasted over one hundred years then as ] became stronger it installed ] as a Jewish ]. The Herodian Kingdom also lasted over a hundred years. Defeats by the Jews in the ] in 70 ], the first of the ] and the ] in 135 CE notably contributed to the numbers and ] of the diaspora, as significant numbers of the Jewish population of the Land of Israel were expelled and sold into ] throughout the ]. Since then, Jews have lived in almost every country of the world, primarily in ] and the greater ], surviving discrimination, oppression, poverty, and even ] (see: ], ]), with occasional periods of cultural, economic, and individual prosperity in various locations (such as ], ], ], ] and the ]).

Until the late 18th century, the terms ''Jews'' and ''adherents of Judaism'' were practically synonymous, and Judaism was the prime binding factor of the Jewish people regardless of the degree of adherence. Following the ] and its Jewish counterpart ], a gradual transformation occurred during which many Jews came to view being a member of the Jewish nation as separate from adhering to the Jewish faith.

The Hebrew name "Yehudi" (plural ''Yehudim'') originally referred to the tribe of Judah. Later, when the Northern ] split from the Southern Kingdom of Israel, the Southern Kingdom of Israel began to refer to itself by the name of its predominant tribe, or as the ] . The term originally referred to the people of the southern kingdom, although the term ''B'nei Yisrael'' (Israelites) was still used for both groups. After the ] conquered the northern kingdom leaving the southern kingdom as the only Israelite state, the word ''Yehudim'' gradually came to refer to people of the Jewish faith as a whole, rather than those specifically from the tribe or Kingdom of Judah. The English word ''Jew'' is ultimately derived from ''Yehudi'' (see ]). Its first use in the ] to refer to the Jewish people as a whole is in the ].

==Etymology==
{{main|Etymology of the word Jew}}

There are many different views as to the origin of the ] word ''Jew''. The most common view is that the ] word ''Jew'' is from the ] ''giu'', earlier ''juieu'', from the ] ''iudeus'' from the ] ''Ioudaios'' (''{{polytonic|Ἰουδαῖος}}''). The Latin simply means ''Judaean'', from the land of '']''. The Hebrew for Jew, יהודי , is pronounced ye-hoo-DEE. The Hebrew letter ] (or Yud), י, used as a 'y' in the Hebrew language (as in the word ye-hoo-DEE), becomes a 'j' in languages using the Latin-based alphabet when the Yodh is used as a consonant rather than as a vowel. Therefore, a rough transliteration of יהודי in English would be ''Jew''.

The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., "Jude" in ], "juif" in ], "jøde," in ], etc., but derivations of the word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jewish person, e.g., in ] (hebreo), in ] (Ebreo), and {{lang-ru|Еврей}}, (''Yevrey''). The German word "Jude" is pronounced ''yidah'' and is the origin of the word Yiddish. (See ]s for a full overview.)

==Who is a Jew?==
{{main|Who is a Jew?}}
] of late 19th-century Eastern Europe are portrayed in ''Jews Praying in the ] on ]'' (1878), by ].]]
] was a Jew. Her ] tells the story of her life in hiding during the persecution of Jews in ] in ]; she died in the ].]]
] shares some of the characteristics of a ], an ], a ], and a ], making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether a religious or national approach to identity is used. Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who practice Judaism and have a Jewish ethnic background (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent), people without Jewish parents who have ]; and those Jews who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jewish by virtue of their family's Jewish descent and their own cultural and historical identification with the Jewish people.

Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on ] definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. Historical definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the oral tradition into the ]. Interpretations of sections of the ], such as ] 7:1-5, by learned Jewish sages, are used as a warning against intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews because " will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." ] 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This contrasts with ] 10:2-3, where Israelites returning from Babylon, vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children. Since the ], these halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged.

==Jewish culture==
{{main|Secular Jewish culture|Judaism}}

] guides its adherents in both practice and belief, and has been called not only a religion, but also a "way of life,"{{Fact|date=April 2007}} which has made drawing a clear distinction between Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish nationality rather difficult. In many times and places, such as in the ancient ] world, in ] before and after the ] (see ]), and in contemporary United States and Israel, cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews with their surroundings, others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to from the religion itself.

==Ethnic divisions==
{{main|Jewish ethnic divisions}}

The most commonly used terms to describe ethnic divisions among Jews currently are: '']'' (meaning "]" in Hebrew, denoting their Central European base); and '']'' (meaning "]" or "]" in Hebrew, denoting their Spanish and ] base). They refer to both religious and ethnic divisions.

Other Jewish ethnic groups include ]s (a term referring to a heterogeneous collection of ]n and ]ern Jewish communities, which in modern usage overlaps ''Sephardi'' due to similar styles of liturgy); ] (]ite and ]i Jews); and such smaller groups as the ] and ] from the ]; ] including the ], ], ] and ]; the ] of ]; the ] (Bené Roma) of ]; various ], including most numerously the ] (]n Jews); the ] of Central Asia; and ], most notably the ].

==Population==
{{main|Jewish population}}

===Significant geographic populations===
{{main|Jews by country}}

There are an estimated 13 million Jews worldwide.<ref name="jppistudy">Data based on a by ''Jewish People Policy Institute'' (JPPI): "World Jewry was estimated at 13,085,000 at the
beginning of 2006, an overall increase of 0.4% over 2005." See '''' by Tovah Lazaroff, ], June 24, 2004.</ref> The table below lists countries with significant populations. Please note that these populations represent low-end estimates of the worldwide Jewish population, accounting for around 0.2% of the ].

{| class="toccolours sortable" border="1" cellpadding="3" style="border-collapse:collapse"
|+
|- bgcolor=#6495ED
!Country or Region
!Jewish population
!Total Population
!% Jewish
!Notes
|-
|]
|style="text-align: right"|5,391,800
|style="text-align: right"|7,114,400
|style="text-align: right"|76%
|
|-
|]
|style="text-align: right"|5,300,000 to 5,671,000
|style="text-align: right"|301,469,000
|style="text-align: right"|1.8%-1.9
| (est.)<ref>For the 5.3 million figure, data based on official 2001 survey as told in the Jerusalem Post. See '''' (Updated to May 2, 2006 ).</ref><ref name="jppistudy" />
|-
|]
|style="text-align: right"|2,000,000
|style="text-align: right"|710,000,000
|style="text-align: right"|0.3%
|(less than)
|-
|style="text-indent: 2em"|]
|style="text-align: right"|30,000
|style="text-align: right"|10,419,000
|style="text-align: right"|0.3%
| (est.)
|-
|style="text-indent: 2em"|]
|style="text-align: right"|494,000
|style="text-align: right"|64,102,140
|style="text-align: right"|0.8%
| (est.)<ref name="jppistudy" />
|-
|style="text-indent: 2em"|]
|style="text-align: right"|228,000
|style="text-align: right"|142,400,000
|style="text-align: right"|0.15%
|(Territory of the former ]. (est.)<ref name="jppistudy" /> Some estimates are much higher.)<ref>The US State Department Religious Freedom Report estimates the number of Jews in Russia alone at 600,000 to 1 million.</ref>
|-
|style="text-indent: 2em"|]
|style="text-align: right"|267,000
|style="text-align: right"|60,609,153
|style="text-align: right"|0.4%
|(2001 census)
|-
|style="text-indent: 2em"|]
|style="text-align: right"|220,000
|style="text-align: right"|82,310,000
|style="text-align: right"|0.3%
|(2004 est.), over 100,000 who are members of a synagogue
|-
|style="text-indent: 2em"|]
|style="text-align: right"|103,591
|style="text-align: right"|46,481,000
|style="text-align: right"|0.2%
|(2001 Census)<ref name=jta>{{cite news| last =MacIsaac| first =Daniel| title =Ukraine’s Jews say fear led to low numbers in recent census| work =ACROSS THE FORMER SOVIET UNION| language =English| publisher =JTA| date =2003-02-06| url =http://www.jta.org/story.asp?id=030206-cens| accessdate =2007-01-10}}</ref><br>250,000 to 500,000 (Local Jewish agency estimate)<ref name=jta/>
|-
|style="text-indent: 2em"|]
|style="text-align: right"|30,000
|style="text-align: right"|58,883,958
|style="text-align: right"|0.05%
|(Jewish communities est.)
|-
|]
|style="text-align: right"|371,000
|style="text-align: right"|32,874,400
|style="text-align: right"|1.1%
|(est.)<ref name="jppistudy" />
|-
|]
|style="text-align: right"|30,000
|style="text-align: right"|72,600,000
|style="text-align: right"|0.04%
|(2001 census)
|-
|]
|style="text-align: right"|250,000
|style="text-align: right"|39,921,833
|style="text-align: right"|0.6%
|(est.)<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrary">, </ref>
|-
|]
|style="text-align: right"|130,000
|style="text-align: right"|188,078,261
|style="text-align: right"|0.07%
|(est.)<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrary" />
|-
|]
|style="text-align: right"|106,000
|style="text-align: right"|47,432,000
|style="text-align: right"|0.2%
|(est.)<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrary" />
|-
|]
|style="text-align: right"|126,000
|style="text-align: right"|20,788,357
|style="text-align: right"|0.6%
|(est.)<ref>Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIMA), 1996 Census</ref>
|-
|] (excl. Israel)
|style="text-align: right"|50,000
|style="text-align: right"|3,900,000,000
|style="text-align: right"|0.001%
|(est.)
|-
|style="text-indent: 2em"|]
|style="text-align: right"|20,405
|style="text-align: right"|68,467,413
|style="text-align: right"|0.03%
|(est.)<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrary" />
|-
|]
|style="text-align: right"|40,000&ndash;50,000
|style="text-align: right"|108,700,000
|style="text-align: right"|0.04%
|(est.)<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrary" />
|-
|'''Total'''
|style="text-align: right"|'''15,871,000'''
|style="text-align: right"|'''6,453,628,000'''
|style="text-align: right"|'''0.25%'''
|style="text-align: right"|'''(est.)'''
|}

===State of Israel===
{{main|Israel}}
] (First Prime Minister of Israel) publicly pronouncing the ] ]]

], the Jewish nation-state, is the only country in which Jews make up a majority of the citizens. Israel was established as an independent ] state on ], ]. Of the 120 members in its parliament, the ], 9 members are Israeli ] and 2 are Israeli ]. At the time of its independence, approximately 600,000 Jews lived in Israel{{Fact|date=March 2007}}. Since then, the country's Jewish population has increased by about one million over each decade as more immigrants arrived and more Israelis were born, resulting in one of the most significant global Jewish population shifts in over 2,000 years.

Jews in Israel have immigrated from a variety of countries over its almost sixty years of existence. These include ] survivors from Western and Central Europe, ] from the Mediterranean basin, the Balkans and descendants in Latin America, ] from North Africa and the Middle East, ] from Iran, ] from Yemen, and other Jewish groups from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Israel also has a large population of ], many of whom were airlifted to Israel in the late ] and early 1990s. <ref>{{cite web | title= airlifted tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews | url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/ejhist.html#operation1/ | accessdate= July 7 | accessyear= 2005 }}</ref>. In the ] nearly a million immigrants arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union. A trickle of immigrants from other communities has also arrived, including ] and others, as well as some descendants of ] Holocaust survivors who had settled in countries such as the United States, Argentina and South Africa. Some Jews have emigrated from Israel elsewhere, due to economic problems or disillusionment with political conditions and the continuing ]. Jewish Israeli emigrants are known as ].

===Diaspora (outside Israel) ===
{{main|Jewish diaspora}}
The waves of immigration to the United States at the turn of the 19th century due to the ] in Russia, the massacre of European Jewry during ], and the foundation of the ] (and subsequent ]) all resulted in substantial shifts in the population centers of world Jewry during the 20th century.
] greeting card from the early 1900s, Russian Jews, packs in hand, gaze at the American relatives beckoning them to the United States. Over two million Jews would flee the ] of the ] to the safety of the US from 1881-1924.]]

Currently, the largest Jewish community in the world is located in the United States, with almost 5.7 million Jews. Elsewhere in the Americas, there are also large Jewish populations in Canada, Argentina and ], and smaller populations in ](45,000<ref name="tabulados"></ref>), ], ], ], and several other countries (see ]).

Western Europe's largest Jewish community can be found in ], home to 600,000 Jews, the majority of whom are immigrants or refugees from North African Arab countries such as ], ], and ] (or their descendants). There are over 265,000 Jews in the ]. In ], there are anywhere from 500,000 to over two million Jews living in the former ], but exact figures are difficult to establish. The fastest-growing Jewish community in the world, outside Israel, is the one in ], especially in ], its capital. Tens of thousands of Jews from the former ] have settled in Germany since the fall of the ].

The ] of ] and the ] were home to around 900,000 Jews in 1945. Fueled by ]<ref>{{cite web|title=The Ingathering of the Exiles|publisher=Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs|url=http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern%20History/Israel%20at%2050/The%20Ingathering%20of%20the%20Exiles}}</ref> after the founding of Israel, systematic persecution caused almost all of these Jews to flee to Israel, North America, and Europe in the 1950s (see ]). Today, around 8,000 Jews remain in Arab nations. ] is home to around 25,000 Jews, down from a population of 100,000 Jews before the 1979 revolution. After the revolution some of the Iranian Jews emigrated to Israel or Europe but most of them emigrated (with their non-Jewish Iranian compatriots) to the ] (especially ]).

Outside Europe, Asia and the Americas, significant Jewish populations exist in ] and ].

===Population changes: Assimilation===
Since at least the time of the ancient Greeks, a proportion of Jews have assimilated into the wider non-Jewish society around them, by either choice or force, ceasing to practice Judaism and losing their ]. Some ], for example the ] of ], have disappeared entirely, but assimilation has remained relatively low over much of the past millennium, as Jews were often not allowed to integrate with the wider communities in which they lived. The advent of the Jewish Enlightenment (see ]) of the 1700s and the subsequent emancipation of the Jewish populations of Europe and America in the 1800s, changed the situation, allowing Jews to increasingly participate in, and become part of, secular society. The result has been a growing trend of assimilation, as Jews marry non-Jewish spouses and stop participating in the Jewish community. Rates of ] vary widely: In the United States, they are just under 50%,<ref>{{cite web | title=NJPS: Intermarriage: Defining and Calculating Intermarriage | url=http://www.ujc.org/content_display.html?ArticleID=83910 | accessdate= July 7 | accessyear= 2005 }}</ref> in the United Kingdom, around 50%, and in Australia and Mexico, as low as 10%,<ref>{{cite web | title=World Jewish Congress Online | url=http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/communities/world/asia-oceania/australia.cfm | accessdate= July 7 | accessyear= 2005 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Mexico | url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Mexico.html | accessdate= July 7 | accessyear= 2005 }}</ref> and in France, they may be as high as 75%. In the United States, only about a third of children from intermarriages affiliate themselves with Jewish religious practice. Additionally, since non-religious Jews generally tend to marry later and have fewer children than the general population, the Jewish religious community in many countries is aging. The result is that most countries in the ] have steady or slightly declining religiously Jewish populations as Jews continue to assimilate into the countries in which they live.

===Population changes: Wars against the Jews===
] that they were required to wear) being killed by Christian knights. French Bible illustration from 1255.]]
Throughout history, many rulers, empires and nations have oppressed their Jewish populations or sought to eliminate them entirely. Methods employed ranged from expulsion to outright genocide; within nations, often the threat of these extreme methods was sufficient to silence dissent. Some examples in the ] are: the ] against the ]; the ] which resulted in the massacre of Jews; the ] led by ] and the '']'' against the ] Jews; the ] ] massacres in ]; the ]s backed by the Russian ]s; as well as expulsions from Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, and other countries in which the Jews had settled. The persecution reached a peak in ]'s ], which led to ] and the slaughter of approximately 6 million Jews from 1942 to 1945.

According to ], "Jews accounted for 10% of the total population of the Roman Empire. By that ratio, if other factors had not intervened, there would be 200 million Jews in the world today, instead of something like 13 million."<ref>Carroll, James. '']'' (Houghton Mifflin, 2001) ISBN 0-395-77927-8 p.26</ref>

===Population changes: Growth===
Israel is the only country with a consistently growing Jewish population due to natural population increase, though the Jewish populations of other countries in Europe and North America have recently increased due to immigration. In the Diaspora, in almost every country the Jewish population in general is either declining or steady, but ] and ] Jewish communities, whose members often shun ] for religious reasons, have experienced rapid population growth, with rates near 4% per year for Haredi Jews in Israel, and similar rates in other countries{{Fact|date=March 2007}}.

Orthodox and Conservative Judaism discourage proselytization to non-Jews, but many Jewish groups have tried to reach out to the assimilated Jewish communities of the Diaspora in order to increase the number of Jews. Additionally, while in principle Reform Judaism favors seeking new members for the faith, this position has not translated into active proselytism, instead taking the form of an effort to reach out to non-Jewish spouses of intermarried couples. There is also a trend of Orthodox movements pursuing secular Jews in order to give them a stronger ] so there is less chance of intermarriage. As a result of the efforts by these and other Jewish groups over the past twenty-five years, there has been a trend of secular Jews becoming more religiously observant, known as the '']'' movement, though the demographic implications of the trend are unknown. Additionally, there is also a growing movement of ] by ] who make the decision to head in the direction of becoming Jews.

==Jewish languages==
{{main|Jewish languages}}

] is the ] of Judaism (termed ''lashon ha-kodesh'', "the holy tongue"), the language in which the Hebrew scriptures (]) were composed, and the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries. By the fifth century BCE, ], a closely related tongue, joined Hebrew as the spoken language in ].<ref name=Grintz>Grintz, Jehoshua M. ''Journal of Biblical Literature''. March, 1960.</ref> By the third century BCE, Jews of the diaspora were speaking ]. Modern Hebrew is now one of the two official languages of the State of Israel along with ].

Hebrew was revived as a spoken language by ], who arrived in Palestine in 1881. It hadn't been used as a ] since ] times.<ref name=Grintz/>
For over sixteen centuries Hebrew was used almost exclusively as a liturgical language, and as the language in which most books had been written on Judaism, with a few speaking only Hebrew on the ].<ref>Parfitt, T. V. "The Use of Hebrew in Palestine 1800–1822." ''Journal of Semitic Studies '', 1972.</ref> For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, oftentimes developing distinctive ]al forms or branching off as independent languages. ] is the Judæo-German language developed by ] who migrated to ], and ] is the Judæo-Spanish language developed by ] Jews who migrated to the ]. Due to many factors, including the impact of ] on European Jewry, the ], and widespread emigration from other Jewish communities around the world, ancient and distinct ] of several communities, including ], ], ], ], ] and many others, have largely fallen out of use.

==History of the Jews==
{{main|Jewish history}}
{{main|Timeline of Jewish history}}
:''See also: ]''

===Jews and migrations===
]
] in ], ] during ]. Shanghai offered unconditional asylum for tens of thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe escaping the ].]]
Throughout Jewish history, Jews have repeatedly been directly or indirectly expelled from both their original homeland, and the areas in which they have resided. This experience as both ] and ] (see: ]) have shaped ] and religious practice in many ways. An incomplete list of such migrations includes:

*The patriarch ] was a migrant to the land of ] from ] of the ].
*The ] experienced ] (meaning "departure" or "exit" in Greek) from ], as recorded in the ].
*The ] was sent into permanent exile and scattered all over the world (or at least to unknown locations) by ].
*The ] was exiled by ]ia, then returned to ], and then many were exiled again by the ].
*The 2,000 year dispersion of the ] beginning under the ], as Jews were spread throughout the Roman world and, driven from land to land, and settled wherever they could live freely enough to practice their religion. Over the course of the diaspora the center of Jewish life moved from ] to the ] to ] to the ] and to ].
*Many expulsions during the Middle Ages and Enlightenment in Europe, including: 1290, 16,000 Jews were expelled from ], see the ''(])''; in 1396, 100,000 from ]; in 1421 thousands were expelled from ]. Many of these Jews settled in ], especially ].
*Following the ] in 1492, the Spanish population of around 200,000 ]c Jews were expelled by the Spanish crown and Catholic church, followed by expulsions in 1493 in Sicily (37,000 Jews) and Portugal in 1496. The expelled Jews fled mainly to the ], the ], and ], others migrating to ] and the ].
*During the 19th century, ]'s policies of equal citizenship regardless of religion led to the immigration of Jews (especially from Eastern and Central Europe), which was encouraged by ].
*The arrival of millions of Jews in the ], including immigration of over two million Eastern European Jews to the United States from 1880-1925, see ] and ].
*The ] in Eastern Europe, the rise of modern ], ] and the rise of ] all served to fuel the movements and migrations of huge segments of Jewry from land to land and continent to continent, until they arrived back in large numbers at their original historical homeland in Israel.
*The ], forced many ] to flee Iran. Most found refuge in the US (particularly Los Angeles, CA) and Israel. Smaller communities of ] exist in Canada and Western Europe.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}

===Kingdoms of Israel and Judah===
]. (1695 Amsterdam ])]]
{{main|History of ancient Israel and Judah}}
Jews descend mostly from the ancient ] (also known as ]), who settled in the ]. The Israelites traced their common lineage to the ] patriarch ] through ] and ]. A ] was established under ] and continued under ] and ]. King David conquered ] (first a ]ite, then a ] town) and made it his capital. After Solomon's reign, the nation split into two kingdoms, the ] (in the north) and the ] (in the south). The ] was conquered by the ]n ruler ] in the ]E and spread all over the Assyrian empire, where they were assimilated into other cultures and came to be known as the ]. The ] continued as an independent state until it was conquered by a Babylonian army in the early ]E, destroying the ] that was at the centre of Jewish worship. The Judean elite was exiled to Babylonia, but later at least a part of them returned to their homeland after the subsequent conquest of Babylonia by the Persians seventy years later, a period known as the ]. A new ] was constructed funded by Persian Kings, and old religious practices were resumed.

===Persian, Greek, and Roman rule===
:''See related article ]''.

The ] Kingdom, which arose after the Persians were defeated by ], sought to introduce Greek culture into the Persian world. When the ] under ], supported by ] Jews (those who had adopted Greek culture), attempted to convert the Jewish Temple to a temple of ], the Jews revolted under the leadership of the ] and rededicated the Temple to the Jewish God (hence the origins of '']'') and created an independent Jewish kingdom known as the ] which lasted from 165 BCE to 63 BCE, when the kingdom came under influence of the ]. During the early part of Roman rule, the Hasmonaeans remained in power, until the family was annihilated by ]. Herod came from a wealthy ] family and became a very successful ] under the Romans. He significantly expanded the Temple in Jerusalem.

] depicts enslaved Judeans and objects from the Temple being brought to Rome.]]

Upon his death in 4 BCE the Romans directly ruled Judea and there were frequent changes of policies by conflicting and empire-building ], generals, governors, and consuls who often acted cruelly or to maximize their own wealth and power. Rome's attitudes swung from tolerance to hostility against its Jewish subjects, who had since moved throughout the Empire. The Romans, worshiping a ], could not readily accommodate the exclusive ] of Judaism, and the religious Jews could not accept Roman ]. (It was in this tumultuous climate that ] first emerged, among a small group of Jews.) After a famine and riots in 66 CE, the Jews in ] began a ] against Rome. The revolt was smashed by ], the son and successor of the ] ]. In Rome the ] still stands, showing enslaved Judeans and a '']'' being brought to Rome. It is customary for Jews to walk around, rather than through, this arch.

The Romans all but destroyed ]; only a single "]" of the ] remained. After the end of this first revolt, the Jews continued to live in their land in significant numbers, and were allowed to practice their religion. In the second century the Roman Emperor ] began to rebuild Jerusalem as a pagan city while restricting some Jewish practices. Angry at this affront, the Jews again revolted led by ]. ] responded with overwhelming force, putting down the revolt and killing as many as half a million Jews. After the Roman Legions prevailed in 135, Jews were not allowed to enter the city of Jerusalem and most Jewish worship was forbidden by Rome. Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews, Jewish worship stopped being centrally organized around the Temple, and instead the rabbis took on a more prominent position as teachers and leaders of individual communities. No new books were added to the Jewish Bible after the Roman period, instead major efforts went into interpreting and developing the ], or oral law, and writing down these traditions in the ], the key work on the interpretation of Jewish law, written during the first to fifth centuries CE.

===Beginning of the Diaspora===
{{main|Jewish diaspora}}

Though Jews had settled outside Israel since the time of the Babylonians, the results of the Roman response to the Jewish revolt shifted the center of Jewish life from its ancient home to the diaspora. While some Jews remained in Judea, renamed Palestine by the Romans, some Jews were sold into ], while others became citizens of other parts of the ]. This is the traditional explanation to the ], almost universally accepted by past and present rabbinical or Talmudical scholars, who believe that Jews are almost exclusively biological descendants of the Judean exiles, a belief backed up at least partially by DNA evidence. Some secular historians speculate that a majority of the Jews in Antiquity were most likely descendants of converts in the cities of the ], especially in Alexandria and Asia Minor. They were only affected by the diaspora in its spiritual sense and by the sense of loss and homelessness which became a cornerstone of the Jewish creed, much supported by persecutions in various parts of the world. Any such policy of conversion, which spread the Jewish religion throughout Hellenistic civilization, seems to have ended with the wars against the Romans and the following reconstruction of Jewish values for the post-Temple era. DNA evidence of this theory has been spotty, however, some historians believe based on some historical records that at the dawn of ] as many as 10% of the population of the Roman Empire were Jewish, a figure that could only be explained by local conversion. This theory could also solve the paradox of DNA studies noted above that show ] to be related to the peoples of the nations surrounding ] and being relatively far from their ] neighbours, despite physical features that sometimes are more closely resembles that of the peoples of southern and central ]; as one explanation would be a large ] millennia ago followed by almost no outside genetic contact thereafter. These types of assumptions are not supported by any historical account, and the extent of similarities in physical features between ] Jews and non-] ] is disputed.
], the synagogue of the ] community]]

During the first few hundred years of the Diaspora, the most important Jewish communities were in ], where the ] was written, and where relatively tolerant regimes allowed the Jews freedom. The situation was worse in the Byzantine Empire which treated the Jews much more harshly, refusing to allow them to hold office or build places of worship. In the belief of restoration to come, the Jews made an alliance with the Persians who invaded Palestine in 614, fought at their side, overwhelmed the Byzantine garrison in ], and for three years governed the city. But the Persians made their peace with the Emperor ]. Christian rule was re-established, and those Jews who survived the consequent slaughter were once more banished from Jerusalem.<ref> Katz, Shmuel , Battleground (1974) </ref>

The conquest of much of the Byzantine Empire and Babylonia by Islamic armies generally improved the life of the Jews, though they were still considered second-class citizens. In response to these Islamic conquests, the ] of 1096 attempted to reconquer Jerusalem, resulting in the destruction of many of the remaining Jewish communities in the area. The Jews were among the most vigorous defenders of Jerusalem against the Crusaders. When the city fell, the Crusaders gathered the Jews in a synagogue and burned them. The Jews almost single-handedly defended ] against the Crusaders, holding out in the besieged town for a whole month (June-July 1099). At this time, a full thousand years after the fall of the Jewish state, there were Jewish communities all over the country. Fifty of them are known to us; they include Jerusalem, ], ], ], ], and ].<ref> Katz, Shmuel , Battleground (1974) </ref>

] reading the ] story in ], from a 14th century Iberian ].]]

===Middle Ages: Europe===
{{main|Jews in the Middle Ages}}Jews settled in ] during the time of the Roman Empire, but the rise of the ] Church resulted in frequent expulsions and persecutions. The Crusades routinely attacked Jewish communities, and increasingly harsh laws restricted them from most economic activity and land ownership, leaving open only money-lending and a few other trades. Jews were subject to expulsions from England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire throughout the Middle Ages, with most of the population moving to Eastern Europe and especially Poland, ]. The final mass expulsion of the Jews, and the largest, occurred after the Christian conquest ('']'') of ] in ] (see ] and ]). Even after the end of the expulsions in the 17th century, individual conditions varied from country to country and time to time, but, as rule, Jews in Western Europe generally were forced, by decree or by informal pressure, to live in highly segregated ] and ]. By the beginning of the twentieth century, most European Jews lived in the so-called ], the Western frontier of the ] comprised generally of the modern day countries of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and neighboring regions.

===Middle Ages: Islamic Europe, North Africa and Asia===
{{main|Islam and Judaism}}

During the Middle Ages, Jews in Islamic lands generally had more rights than under Christian rule, with a ] from about 900 to 1200, when Iberia became the center of the richest, most populous, and most influential Jewish community of the time. The rise of more radical Muslim regimes, such as that of the ] ended this period by the thirteenth century, and Jews were soon ] after the Christian reconquest. Many of these Jews found refuge in the ], which remained tolerant of its Jewish population for much of its history.

===Enlightenment and emancipation===
{{main|Haskalah}}

] the Jews, represented by the woman with the ], an 1804 French print.]]

During the ], significant changes occurred within the Jewish community. The ] movement paralleled the wider Enlightenment, as Jews began in the 1700s to campaign for emancipation from restrictive laws and integration into the wider European society. Secular and scientific education was added to the traditional religious instruction received by students, and interest in a national Jewish identity, including a revival in the study of Jewish history and Hebrew, started to grow.

The Haskalah movement influenced the birth of all the modern Jewish denominations, and planted the seeds of ]. At the same time, it contributed to encouraging cultural assimilation into the countries in which Jews resided. At around the same time another movement was born, one preaching almost the opposite of Haskalah, ]. Hasidic Judaism began in the 1700s by Israel ben Eliezer, the ], and quickly gained a following with its exuberant, mystical approach to religion. These two movements, and the traditional orthodox approach to Judaism from which they spring, formed the basis for the modern divisions within Jewish observance.

At the same time, the outside world was changing. France was the first country to ] its Jewish population in 1796, granting them equal rights under the law. ] further spread emancipation, inviting Jews to leave the ] and seek refuge in the newly created tolerant political regimes (see ]). Other countries such as ], ], and ] also adopted liberal policies toward Jews during the period of Enlightenment, with some resulting immigration. By the mid-19th century, almost all Western European countries had ] their Jewish populations, with the notable exception of the ], but persecution continued in Eastern Europe including massive ] at the end of the 19th century and throughout the ]. The persistence of anti-semitism, both violently in the east and socially in the west, led to a number of ], culminating in ].

===Zionism and emigration from Europe===
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Many of the newly secular Jews who had embraced Haskalah found themselves deeply troubled by the continuing virulent anti-semitism of the late 1800s, especially the massive ] of the 1880s in Russia and the ], which occurred in ] in 1894, a country many Jews had previously thought of as particularly accepting. Many Jews in Eastern Europe embraced ] as a potential escape from persecution, but another group, the Zionists, led by ], viewed the only solution as the creation of a ]. The interplay between Jewish national and religious identities was evident in Zionism, which was initially an entirely secular movement, but drew inspiration and support from the religious connection between Jews and the Land of Israel. Zionism contributed to the growth of the Jewish population there, which at the time was the ] province of the ], and later the ]. Zionism, initially one out of a number of competing ], gained nearly universal support from the world Jewish population following the near-complete destruction of the Jews of Europe in ], and led to the foundation of the ].

In addition to responding politically, during the late 19th century, Jews began to flee the persecutions of Eastern Europe in large numbers, mostly by heading to the United States, but also to Canada and Western Europe. By 1924, almost two million Jews had emigrated to the US alone, creating a large community in a nation relatively free of the persecutions of rising European ] (see ]).

===The Holocaust===
{{Main|The Holocaust}}
] is about to shoot a man sitting by a mass grave in ], ], in 1942. Present in the background are members of the ], the German Labor Service, and the ].<ref name=Berenbaum93>]. ''The World Must Know''. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2nd edition, 2006, p. 93.</ref> The back of the photograph is inscribed "The last Jew in Vinnitsa".]]
This anti-Semitism reached its most destructive form in the policies of ], which made the destruction of the Jews a priority, culminating in the killing of approximately six million Jews during ] from 1941 to 1945. Originally, the Nazis used death squads, the ], to conduct massive open-air killings of Jews in territory they conquered. By 1942, the Nazi leadership decided to implement the ], the ] of the Jews of Europe, and to increase the pace of the Holocaust by establishing ] specifically to kill Jews. This was an industrial method of genocide. Millions of Jews who had been confined to diseased and massively overcrowded ] were transported (often by train) to ] where some were herded into a specific location (often a ]), then either gassed or shot. Afterwards, their remains were buried or burned. Others were interned in the camps where they were given little food and disease was common. Many Jews tried to escape Europe before or during the Holocaust, but were unable to find refuge, giving new urgency to the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish homeland. Other Jews, thinking of their own wellbeing, collaborated with the Nazis in helping to track down more of their own for arrest and death.

===Israel===
{{main|Israel}}
In 1948, the Jewish state of ] was founded, creating the first Jewish nation since the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. After a series of wars with neighboring Arab countries, the majority of the 900,000 Jews previously living in North Africa and the Middle East fled to the Jewish state, joining an increasing number of immigrants from post-War Europe (see ]. By the end of the 20th century, Jewish population centers had shifted dramatically, with the United States and Israel being the centers of Jewish secular and religious life.

]]]

==Persecution==
{{main|Persecution of Jews}}
:''Related articles: ], ], ]''

The Jewish people and ] have experienced various ]s throughout ]. In ], many persecutions of Jews in the name of Christianity occurred, notably during the ]&mdash;when Jews all over Germany were massacred&mdash;and a series of expulsions from England, Germany, France, and, in the largest expulsion of all, Spain and Portugal after the ] of the ] from ] ]. In the ], which existed until 1870, Jews were required to live only in specified neighborhoods called ]s. In the 19th and (before the end of the second World War) 20th centuries, the Roman Catholic church adhered to a distinction between "good anti-Semitism" and "bad anti-Semitism". The "bad" kind promoted hatred of Jews because of their descent. This was considered un-Christian because the Christian message was intended for all of humanity regardless of ethnicity; anyone could become a Christian. The "good" kind criticized alleged Jewish conspiracies to control newspapers, banks, and other institutions, to care only about accumulation of wealth, etc.<ref></ref>

] have a complex relationship. Jews are considered ] in Islam, and a certain degree of tolerance and autonomy is accorded to Jews in Islamic societies. The political conflict between ] and the ] of ] in the 7th century, however, left ample ideological fuel for ] through the centuries. During the ], however, Jews typically had a better status in the Muslim world than in ], where at many times they were welcomed and provided ] during times of persecution of Jews by Christians. Nevertheless, as the Muslim empire expanded during the centuries, particularly in what today is the ], the status of non-Muslim communities was at times precarious, and they were generally subject to '']'' laws. These laws freed them from military service and paying ], but placed additional ] and land taxes on them.

The most notable modern day persecution of Jews remains the ] &mdash; the state-led systematic ] and ] of the Jews (and other ]s) of Europe and ] during ] by ] and its ]<ref>Donald L Niewyk, ''The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust,'' Columbia University Press, 2000, p.45: "The Holocaust is commonly defined as the murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans in World War II." However, the Holocaust usually includes all off the different victims who were systematically murdered.</ref> During the Holocaust, the ] was in turmoil, and most of it, along with North Africa, was divided into many different European ] and ]. Britain limited with restrictive quotas European Jewish immigration to the ]. While the ] and the ] were fighting for the oil-rich region, the Mufti of Jerusalem ] staged a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq and organized the ] pogrom which marked the turning point for about 150,000 Iraqi Jews who, following this event and the hostilities generated by the ], were targeted for violence, persecution, boycotts, confiscations, and near complete expulsion in 1951. In the French ] territories of ] and ] plans were drawn up for the liquidation of their Jewish populations were the ] powers to triumph.

==Jewish leadership==
{{main|Jewish leadership}}

There is no single governing body for the Jewish community, nor a single authority with responsibility for religious doctrine. Instead, a variety of secular and religious institutions at the local, national, and international levels lead various parts of the Jewish community on a variety of issues.

==Achievement==
Jews have a noted history of achievement in western societies. They have won a disproportionate share of major academic prizes such as the Nobel awards and the Fields Medal in mathematics. In those societies where they have been free to enter any profession, they have a record of high occupational achievement, entering professions and fields of commerce where higher education is required. Discussion about the source or cause of high Jewish achievement is ongoing.

==Famous Jews==
{{main|List of Jews|List of Jews by country|List of Jewish inventors|List of Jewish Inductees of Hall of Fame}}

Jews have made contributions in a broad range of human endeavors, including the sciences, arts, politics, business, etc. The Jewish people have the largest percentage of ] winners (]) compared to any other ethnic or religious group.<ref>"Throughout the 20th century, Jews, more so than any other minority, ethnic or cultural group, have been recipients of the Nobel Prize -- perhaps the most distinguished award for human endeavor in the six fields for which it is given. Remarkably, Jews constitute almost one-fifth of all Nobel laureates. This, in a world in which Jews number just a fraction of 1 percent of the population." Stephen Mark Dobbs. , '']'', ], 2001.</ref>

==See also==
{{commonscat|Jews}}
A full guide to topics related to the Jews is available from the ]. Additional topics of interest include:
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==Notes==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links==
{{external links|October 2006}}
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===General===
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* - collection of many articles on many topics, including Jewish history
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* - news bureau reporting on contemporary Jewish news and issues
* - online text of classic work by Louis Ginzberg
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* Omedia
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===Maps===
* related to Jewish history and culture from Routledge Publishing
===Photos===
* - photos of many Jewish communities worldwide (requires ] player)
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===Zionist institutions===
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* - Union of Progressive Zionists
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===Religious links===
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Revision as of 00:14, 3 August 2007