Tag Archives: Jews

Ancestry, Culture, History, Jewish Community, Judaism

The History of Ethiopian Jewry

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The Jewish community in Ethiopia — the Beta Israel (House of Israel) — has existed for about 15 centuries.

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Due to low literacy levels, a tendency to rely on oral traditions, and nomadic lifestyles among most Ethiopians before the 20th century, historical material about this community is scant and unreliable. However, a tentative story can be put together from written records of Ethiopian rulers along with testimony from Beta Israel themselves.

Origins of the Community
Most likely, Beta Israel made their way to Ethiopia between the first and sixth centuries, coming as merchants or artisans from various countries within the region.

An Ethiopian Jewish family shortly after arriving in Israel in 2009. (Jewish Agency for Israel/Flickr)An Ethiopian Jewish family shortly after arriving in Israel in 09.

Scholars once believed that during the Middle Ages, Beta Israel was a homogeneous group living under unified, autonomous Jewish rule. Yet discoveries have shown the reality is much more complicated. It seems the Ethiopian Jewish community was, for the most part, fragmented both physically and religiously, with each Beta Israel village appointing its own spiritual and secular leaders. There was little contact between Beta Israel communities, and usually no overarching leadership uniting them.

Sometimes Beta Israel was treated well from the Ethiopian monarchy, but at other times they suffered persecution. Many fellow Ethiopians refer to Beta Israel as Falasha (a derogatory term meaning outsider), In 1624, the ruling king’s army captured many Ethiopian Jews, forced them to be able to be baptized, and denied them the right to own land. Based on local legend, some participants in Beta Israel chose suicide over conversion.

Religious Life
Because the Beta Israel community existed as an isolated condition from other Jewish communities around the world, they formed a unique set of ethical practices — in specific ways, quite different from what is usually considered “Jewish.” For instance, the online order of Ethiopian Jewish monks was founded in the 15th century to strengthen the community’s religious identity and resist Christian influence. This monastic movement introduced a systematic strategy to spiritual practice, creating new religious literature and prayers, and adopting laws of formality purity. Historians found out about the community’s religious life within the 19th century from the writings of Joseph Halevy, a French Jew who visited the world in 1867. He provided the first eyewitness account of Beta Israel’s life coming from a European Jewish perspective. However, Halevy described a residential area that followed legal sections in the Hebrew Bible and observed laws of purity surrounding menstruation, birth, and death. They observed Shabbat and believed in values, for instance, respecting elders, receiving guests, and visiting mourners. They referred to the Torah as Orit (possibly beginning with the Aramaic term for the Torah, Oraita), and kept their Torah scrolls contain colorful cloths in houses of prayer or the properties of 1 of the kessim (priests).

Ethiopian rabbis (Kessim) with the ceremony associated with a new spiritual leader in Ashkelon, Israel, in 2012. (Wikimedia Commons)Ethiopian rabbis (Kessim) at the tradition of a new spiritual leader in Ashkelon, Israel, in 2012. Like today in Israel, Ethiopian Jews celebrated Sigd, a festival that commemorates the giving of the Torah. On this holiday, community members would quick, climb the highest mountain within the area, and listen to the kessim chant passages of the Hebrew Bible, particularly the Book of Nehemiah. At the later part of the day, they might descend, break their fast, and rejoice in their renewed acceptance of the Orit.

Missionaries and Trying Times
At the time of Halevy’s report, perhaps one of the biggest challenges facing the Ethiopian Jewish community was European missionary activity. Although the community had frequently been provoked to convert by Ethiopian authorities, missionaries from abroad — with large-scale, organized missions — presented an even stronger threat.

European missionaries, well-versed in the Hebrew Bible, were educated and skilled in debate. Beta Israel’s clergy could not compete. By providing schools and Bibles written in the local language, Amharic, the missionaries challenged the community’s practice and faith.

On any range of occasions, Beta Israel’s monastic clergy tried to escape the missionaries’ influence by leading their communities to the Promised Land (Israel). More often than not, these journeys were disastrous. One particular attempt in 1862 ended in large-scale starvation and death.

Between 1882 and 1892, the regions of Ethiopia where Beta Israel lived experienced a famine that killed approximately one third to one half of Beta Israel.

This world Jewish Community
Halevy’s student, Jaques Faitlovitch, was the very first Jewish foreigner to operate in earnest on improving conditions regarding the Ethiopian Jewish community. Arriving for his first visit in 1904 and returning many times in subsequent years, Faitlovitch created tiny schools in Addis Ababa for Beta Israel members, hand-picked 25 young leaders for education abroad, and acted as an emissary concerning this world Jewish community.

Faitlovich secured two letters from rabbis abroad, acknowledging Beta Israel as fellow Jews. The very first letter, written in 1906, called Beta Israel, “our brethren, sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who live in Abyssinia” and “our flesh and blood.” The letter, which promised to help the community within its religious education, was signed by 44 world Jewish leaders, including the chief rabbis of London and Vienna and of course, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem.

The next letter, from 1921, was written by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the revered Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Palestine. He called on the Jewish people worldwide to avoid wasting Beta Israel — “50,000 holy souls considering the house of Israel” — from “extinction and contamination.”

Faitlovich’s work towards behalf of the Beta Israel community arrived in a dramatic halt with the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935-6. Under fascist rule, it became forbidden to experience Judaism in Ethiopia.

Some of Faitlovitch’s work was undeniably controversial — he made a schism dividing the young, westernized leaders he chose beginning with the elders of the rural communities. But, till the 1960s, no person but Faitlovitch took such a dedicated interest in the community, invested in it financially and educationally, and visited with such regularity. Moreover, it was the letters that Faitlovitch delivered to Ethiopia from Kook along with other contemporary Jewish leaders that allowed Beta Israel to cling to their dreams of returning to the Promised Land, and, decades later, for world Jewry to readily accept them.

Author Resource Box:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-history-of-ethiopian-jewry/

Culture, History, Jewish Community, Judaism, Philosophy and Religion

What Do Jews Believe About Jesus?

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Jesus is the central figure of Christianity, believed by Christians to be the messiah, the son of God and the second person in the Trinity.

Photo by Luis Quintero on Pexels.com

What do Jews believe about Jesus?
For some Jews, the name alone is nearly synonymous with pogroms and Christian anti-Semitism.Other Jews, recently, have come to regard him as a Jewish teacher. This does not mean, however, that they believe, as Christians do, that he was raised from the dead or was the messiah.While many people now regard Jesus as the founder of Christianity, it is important to note that he did not intend to establish a new religion, at least according to the earliest sources, and he never used the term “Christian.” He was born and lived as a Jew, and his earliest followers were Jews as well. Christianity emerged as a separate religion only in the centuries after Jesus’ death.

Who Was Jesus?

Virtually all of what is known about the historical Jesus comes from the four New Testament Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — which scholars believe were written several decades after Jesus’ death.
While there is no archaeological or other physical evidence for his existence, most scholars agree that Jesus did exist and that he was born sometime in the decade before the Common Era and crucified sometime between 26-36 CE (the years when the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, ruled Judea).

He lived at a time when the Roman Empire ruled what is now Israel and sectarianism was rife, with major tensions among Jews not only over how much to cooperate with the Romans but also how to interpret Torah . It was also, for some, a restive time when displeasure with Roman policies, as well as with the Temple high priests, bred hopes for a messianic redeemer who would throw off the foreign occupiers and restore Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.

Illustration depicting Jesus fishing in the Sea of Galilee with some of his followers. (From “At Home’ by Grace Stebbing, published by John F Shaw & Co)


Was Jesus the Messiah?

The question “was Jesus the messiah?” requires a prior question: “What is the definition of messiah?” The Prophets (Nevi’im), who wrote hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, envisioned a messianic age as as a period of universal peace, in which war and hunger are eradicated, and humanity accepts God’s sovereignty. By the first century, the view developed that the messianic age would witness a general resurrection of the dead, the in-gathering of all the Jews, including the 10 lost tribes, to the land of Israel, a final judgment and universal peace.

Some Jews expected the messiah to be a descendant ofKing David (based on an interpretation of God’s promise to David in of an eternal kingdom). The Dead Sea Scrolls speak of two messiahs: one a military leader and the other a priest. Still other Jews expected the prophet Elijah, or the angel Michael, or Enoch, or any number of other figures to usher in the messianic age.
Stories in the Gospels about Jesus healing the sick, raising the dead, and proclaiming the imminence of the kingdom of heaven suggest that his followers regarded him as appointed by God to bring about the messianic age.


More than 1,000 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, the medieval sage Maimonides (also known as Rambam) laid out in his Mishneh Torah specific things Jews believe the messiah must accomplish in order to confirm his identity — among them restoring the kingdom of David to its former glory, achieving victory in battle against Israel’s enemies, rebuilding the temple (which the Romans destroyed in 70 CE) and ingathering the exiles to the land of Israel. “And if he’s not successful with this, or if he is killed, it’s known that he is not the one that was promised by the Torah,” Maimonides wrote.


What About Jews for Jesus? Jews for Jesus is one branch of a wider movement called Messianic Jews. Members of this movement are not accepted as Jewish by the broader Jewish community, even though some adherents may have been born Jewish and their ritual life includes Jewish practices. While an individual Jew could accept Jesus as the messiah and technically remain Jewish — rejection of any core Jewish belief or practice does not negate one’s Jewishness — the beliefs of messianic Jews are theologically incompatible with Judaism.


Did the Jews Kill Jesus?

No. Jesus was executed by the Romans. Crucifixion was a Roman form of execution, not a Jewish one.

For most of Christian history, Jews were held responsible for the death of Jesus. This is because the New Testament tends to place the blame specifically on the Temple leadership and more generally on Jewish people. According to the Gospels, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate was reluctant to execute Jesus but was egged on by bloodthirsty Jews — a scene famously captured in Mel Gibson’s controversial 2004 film “The Passion of the Christ” According to the Gospel of Matthew, after Pilate washes his hands and declares himself innocent of Jesus’ death, “all the people” (i.e., all the Jews in Jerusalem) respond, “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25).

This “blood cry” and other verses were used to justify centuries of Christian prejudice against Jews. In 1965, the Vatican promulgated a document called “Nostra Aetate” (Latin for “In Our Time”) which stated that Jews in general should not be held responsible for the death of Jesus. This text paved the way for a historic rapprochement between Jews and Catholics. Several Protestant denominations across the globe subsequently adopted similar statements.

A mosaic in Jerusalem’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ascension depicting Jesus’ crucifixion. (iStock)
Why Was Jesus Killed?Some have suggested that Jesus was a political rebel who sought the restoration of Jewish sovereignty and was executed by the Romans for sedition — an argument put forth in two recent works: Reza Aslan’s Zealot and Shmuley Boteach’s Kosher Jesus. However, this thesis is not widely accepted by New Testament scholars. Had Rome regarded Jesus as the leader of a band of revolutionaries, it would have rounded up his followers as well. Nor is there any evidence in the New Testament to suggest that Jesus and his followers were zealots interested in an armed rebellion against Rome. More likely is the hypothesis that Romans viewed Jesus as a threat to the peace and killed him because he was gaining adherents who saw him as a messianic figure.

Did Jesus Reject Judaism?Some have interpreted certain verses in the Gospels as rejections of Jewish belief and practice. In the Gospel of Mark, for example, Jesus is said to have declared forbidden foods “clean” — a verse commonly understood as a rejection of kosher dietary laws — but this is Mark’s extrapolation and not necessarily Jesus’ intention. Jesus and his earliest Jewish followers continued to follow Jewish law.

The New Testament also include numerous verses testifying to Jesus as equal to God and as divine — a belief hard to reconcile with Judaism’s insistence on God’s oneness. However, some Jews at the time found the idea that the divine could take on human form compatible with their tradition. Others might have regarded Jesus as an angel, such as the “Angel of the Lord” who appears in Genesis 16,Genesis 22(in the burning bush) and elsewhere.

Are There Jewish Texts that Reference Jesus?Yes. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus mentions Jesus, although the major reference in his Antiquities of the Jews appears to have been edited and augmented by Christian scribes. There are a few references in the Talmud to “Yeshu,” which many authorities understand as referring to Jesus.

The Talmud tractate Sanhedrin originally recorded that Yeshu the Nazarene was hung on the eve of Passover for the crime of leading Jews astray. This reference was excised from later versions of the Talmud, most likely because of its use by Christians as a pretext for persecution.

In the medieval period, a work called Toledot Yeshu presented an alternative history of Jesus that rejects cardinal Christian beliefs. The work, which is not part of the canon of rabbinic literature, is not widely known.

Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah, describes Jesus as the failed messiah foreseen by the prophet Daniel. Rather than redeeming Israel, Maimonides writes, Jesus caused Jews to be killed and exiled, changed the Torah and led the world to worship a false God.

Reference

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-do-jews-believe-about-jesus/?utm_source=mjl_maropost&utm_campaign=MJL&utm_medium=email&mpweb=1161-12142-209215

What Do Jews Believe About Jesus?
What Do Jews Believe About Jesus?
What Do Jews Believe About Jesus?
What Do Jews Believe About Jesus?
Culture, Jewish Community, Judaism

Jew of Color under counted in census

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What demographic selection of the American Jewish community has more members: Jews of color or even the Orthodox?

Jews of color are actually round the same size — 12-15% of American Jews, or about 1 million people — according to new research published last week. The research focused on fixing the prevalent false impression that American Jews are almost entirely white-skinned.

The analysis demonstrates so just how mediocre a task most demographers of American Jews have done in researching non-white Jews, tossing something of a wrench into the field of Jewish population research studies while the corporations that mentor them. Its generating estimation of how many American Jews of color have far-reaching effects for Jewish organizations organizing their funding, their programming, and just how they educate Jewish leaders.

Until this study, estimates for the number of Jews of color when you look at the U.S. varied widely. By the Pew Research Center’s 2013 “Portrait of American Jews,” 7% of Jews described themselves as black, Hispanic or of an unusual racial background. Be’ chol Lashon, a group that promotes racial and ethnic diversity in Judaism, place the number at a fifth regarding the broader population in 2002. Researcher defined “racially and ethnically diverse” Jews as to any or all Jews not of Western or Eastern European heritage, including Sephardic and Mazrahi Jews with roots in Southern Europe, North Africa or even the Middle East.

The new report — funded with a $35,000 grant from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation — lays out how others try to measure Jews of color both nationally and also by the town were flawed. Its double-entendre would title “Counting Inconsistencies.” You can browse the executive summary here.

Some surveys, like Boston’s 2015 community study, did not ask about race after all. Others (e.g., Philadelphia 2009, Seattle 2014) found their sampling population by contacting people with Jewish-sounding names — something a Jew of color may not have — or limited respondents to people already from the donor and membership lists of established synagogues and Jewish community centers.

Even though they did inquire about race, the surveys did so in ways that suggest they did not have current definitions by what constituted a racial identity, an ethnic identity or only a category of Jewish heritage. For example, some surveys asked about “ethnicity,” while others asked about “Jewish ethnicity.” For a concern about personal identity, Miami’s 2015 study limited respondents to “a) Sephardic Jew, b) A Hispanic Jew or c) What country can be your family from?”

“Ultimately the takeaway regarding the report is the fact that we have been asking these questions very poorly and extremely inconsistently,” said Ari Kelman, a professor of religion at Stanford University, therefore, the study’s lead author. There is way more consistency, Kelman noted, in questions regarding denominational identity: Are you Conservative? Will you be Orthodox?

The first intention regarding the report, Kelman said, would be to take data from 25 Jewish population studies and produce a complete database of demographic information about Jews of color. However, considering that the studies were so inconsistent, their results could never be combined into a single source of information.

“When we set about analyzing that Ilana [Kaufman] wished to do, it became clear that it was impossible,” Kelman said.

The resulting numbers that came out of this study, then, are a rough approximation — not the gold standard for accurate demographic studies. However, Kelman stands by the report’s full results, such as that roughly one out of five Jewish homes has a non-white or multiracial member, and that the proportion of non-white Jews will continue to increase into the 21st century.

For many people who work in organizations that support Jews of color, this type of study was long overdue.

“Most, or even all, of these surveys that float around, they’re by people who aren’t us, and don’t necessarily have the lenses, the set of skills that some people have as Jewish diversity professionals to see in the middle the lines,” said Jared Jackson, the executive director of Jews in most Hues, a non-for-profit in Philadelphia that promotes diversity consciousness within the Jewish world.

Jackson noted this one particularly favorable outcome using this report could be so it would lend credence to calls from Jews of color for racial sensitivity and training as synagogues around the country beef up their security. Synagogue members and security personnel have profiled many Jews of color — Jackson said he hopes that, if people understand that 1 million Jews are not white, they might be less likely to want to pull aside a non-white person in the shul lobby on Shabbat.

The report also shows that, into the 21st century, the American Jewish community should come closer to mirroring the racial and ethnic diversity of the country at large, Kaufman said.

That is a lovely thing that our community has all of this diversity, and certainly will continue steadily to grow.

Prepared, in this case, Kaufman said, means updating curricula in Jewish schools and seminaries, increasing diversity training at synagogues and directing funding to programs that help Jews of color feel visible and respected in the broader Jewish community — something which is certainly not always a given.

Diane Tobin, the founder, and director of Be’ chol Lashon said that she welcomed the report, but added that readers should keep in your mind “the caveat that race is a social construct with ever-shifting boundaries.” Even 70 years back, she noted, white-skinned Jews were not yet considered white.

Counting Jews remains a complex and contentious issue, not only for Jews of color however for all Jews.

There is still much to be discovered about American Jews of color. How many have been profiled in a Jewish setting? Exactly how many have moved away from Jewish observance, and how many towards it? How many will say they “pass” as white? What several Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews consider themselves white, and just how many usually do not? Do they believe about Israel differently than white-skinned Jews? How many identify as “culturally” Jewish, and just how many have a belief in God?

Jews likewise require to focus on something Jews of color have now been saying for a long time: that their racial and ethnic identities are not any less important to them than their Jewish identities, and really should be treated as a result. She acknowledged that that might be an arduous pill to swallow for many white Jews since many were raised being defined solely by their religion.

Jews used to be isolated, and then we have successfully incorporated into a free of charge market society of choice around identity.

Reference
Cannes Lions: Lena Waithe Says Diversity Is About More …. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-lions-lena-waithe-says-diversity-is-more-just-screen-time-1122225

Jews Of Color Have Been Consistently – forward.com. https://forward.com/news/national/425129/jews-of-color-survey-jewish-population/

The University Of Kansas Health System – Sports Medicine …. https://www.kansashealthsystem.com/care/centers/sports-medicine-performance-center/resources

Culture, History, Philosophy and Religion, Religion

Jewish traditional teachings on being a good host and guest

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Rabbinic literature is abundant in claims praising the application of hospitality on behalf of visitors and indigents. One even refers to it as “greater than welcoming the Divine Presence [Sh’khinah].”

A Midrash exhibits the biblical patriarch Abraham since the paragon of hospitality, because of his reception of wayfarers in Genesis 18. His position in the entry of his tent in the midday heat is viewed as a proactive seeking out of passing visitors. Other components of the storyline, too, play a role in Abraham’s reputation: his eagerness, his largesse, and his insistence on seeing his visitors off as they departed.

The citizens of Jerusalem, too, are depicted in Midrashic literature as excelling in this virtue. If the Holy Temple still stood in Jerusalem, that city was the getaway of pilgrims from throughout the Land of Israel in the three harvest festivals. The rabbinic storytellers of late antiquity relate that Jerusalem’s citizens opened their residences for free to those visitors.

Not just our food and accommodation to be offered for passing visitors, but the travelers should be accommodated graciously. The statement of the first sage Shammai this one should “greet every person with a cheerful facial expression” (Mishnah Avot 1:15) is understood midrashically (in Avot De-Rabbi Natan 13) as an admonition to hosts to not provide for their guests amply but angrily. Better, teaches the Midrash, to offer a guest but a little in a gracious tone than large portions proffered grudgingly.

At the start of a traditional Passover seder, Jews recite a formulaic declaration of an “open house” policy of hospitality: “Let all who will be hard-pressed come and eat. Let all that are in need come and share the Passover sacrifice.” This statement is an expansion of what the third-century Babylonian sage Rav Huna was proven to make each time he sat down to a meal: “Let all who will be in need come and eat!” (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 20b).

Some Jewish communities of the past institutionalized the practice of providing cordial reception to wayfarers by developing a furnished home for such temporary visitors. Others offered them lodging when you look at the communal synagogue. The Diaspora tradition of reciting into the synagogue the kiddush prayer at the beginning of a Shabbat or holiday evening — a prayer usually offered where the festive meal is eaten — has its origins for the reason that use of the community’s gathering space.

To this day, it is a hallmark of many Jewish communities that unfamiliar participants in synagogue worship, specifically on Shabbat or holidays, are invited to local people’s homes for a meal — and, if arrangements are created in advance, frequently for lodging as well.

Traditional mandates extend into the guest as well. Guests should stay away from causing hosts extra work. They ought to accede with their host’s or hostess’s requests. A guest should not bring along another, unasked guest. If the guest and host are going into the home together, the visitor should defer to the host. Leaving together, a guest should leave ahead of the host.

Reference

Jewish Hospitality | My Jewish Learning. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-hospitality/

Culture, Jewish Community, Judaism, Politics, Social Justice, terrorism

Why is it dangerous to wear a kippah in public?

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It is dangerous to determine publicly as Jewish in Germany, including wearing a kippah or yalmulka, Germany’s commissioner warned.

In an interview, Felix Klein told the Berliner Morgenpost on May 24 that he could not endorse that Jews wear a kippah everywhere and any time in Germany. Klein said servants that are public should be more educated on how to combat anti-Semitism in Germany.

Recent government statistics showed a 20 percent rise in the number of anti-Semitic crimes reported within the past year, with an overall total of about 1,800 in the year of 2018. The vast majority of crimes for which a perpetrator or motive is well known were related to the far-right wing.

When looking at the controversial interview published in newspapers of the Funke Media Group, Klein – appointed to his position into the Interior Ministry just last year – was inquired about the security of wearing the traditional Jewish head covering.
Reference
Dangerous to wear a kippah in public, Germany’s anti …. https://www.jta.org/2019/05/26/global/dangerous-to-wear-a-kippah-in-public-germanys-anti-semitism-czar-says

Culture, equal rights, Ethics, human rights, Jewish Community, Judaism, Social Justice

Jews in Dayton cautioned to keep away from the KKK rally

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The representative of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Dayton called on the Jewish public to avoid a Ku Klux Klan rally arranged for Saturday in the Ohio metropolis.

Rabbi Ari Ballaban mentioned in a statement issued previously this week that a counter gathering planned to take place right next to the Honorable Sacred Knights, an Indiana-based white supremacist group, would just give the crowd the conflict it is looking for.

Ballaban called on the Jewish community to either remain home or attend the “positive alternative programming” sponsored by the localized NAACP chapter and a coalition of some forty city organizations. Titled “An Afternoon of Love, Unity, Peace and Diversity,” the program is being presented about a mile from the KKK gathering in the downtown area Courthouse Square.

About twenty participants of the KKK cluster are anticipated to march on Saturday. They reportedly will be permitted to carry legal sidearm weapons but not rifles, bats or shields, Newsweek reported. About one thousand demonstrators are also anticipated.

The city authorized the rally in February after the application to use the general public space was filled out correctly and submitted.

Mayor Nan Whaley also called on citizens to steer away of the KKK gathering.

“This hate group that is coming in from outside the community wants to instigate troubles in the community and people need to end that from happening,” she advised Ohio’s Fox45. The people actually do not need people to go downtown because that is what this hate group wants, and we don’t want to render this hate group exactly what they want.

Whaley in her comments additionally stated that Judaism standards the preservation of life on top almost anything else.

Culture, human rights, Jewish Community, Judaism

Cartoon misrepresenting Ann Frank

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Frank died at 15 in the Nazi concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen in 1945 United Kingdom military liberated it. The posthumous syndication of the young Jewish girl’s diary, which in turn shed light on life under Nazi occupation, presented her as a significant figure through the Holocaust.

Frank’s face was in fact then positioned above the picture of a bikini-clad female’s body.

The cartoon received instant repercussion, together with the regional Anti-Defamation League stating this surpassed the line from humor to anti-Semitism.

Note from the author:

I normally don’t get in discuss about this but, as a multi-ethnic person who has Jewish roots. I believe people should be accountable for their words. Words do matter. The sole focus is to become the best person you can be in this universe. Misrepresenting or slandering one’s culture is offensive and the person doing it should no better. There are many sensitive issue. Many Jewish people died in Nazi concentration camps. Some of those people were my relatives. There are times, I shake my head and think, what is the matter with our culture and country? I leave my reader with this quote from Ann Frank, ” In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. “

Culture, History, Jewish Community, Judaism, Philosophy and Religion, Religion, Uncategorized

How could a person be an ethnic Jew?

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Description of an ethnic Jew

Ethnic Jew is phrase fundamentally used to identify a individual of Jewish parentage and background who does not fundamentally try to practice Judaism, but with that being stated identifies along with Judaism or any other Jews culturally or fraternally, or simultaneously. The idea regarding “ethnic Jew” may not really specifically omit practicing Jews, but these individuals referred to as “Jews” without possessing the determining adjective “ethnic”.

Concepts of philosophy
The idea of can relate to men and women of different beliefs and qualification because genealogy basically denotes who’s “Jewish”. “Ethnic Jew” is sometimes utilized distinguish non-practicing from practicing(religious) Jews. Other terms include”non-observant Jew”, “non-religious Jew”, “non-practicing Jew”, and “secular Jew”.

Religion
The notion of sometimes can refer solely to Jews who, for no matter what reasons, do not practice the religious beliefs of Judaism, or that are so informal with their relationship to this religion as to be effectively not Jews in the religious sense of adherent to Judaism. For the most part, cultural Jews are cognizant of their Jewish background, and may even feel strong cultural (no matter if not religious) ties to Jewish traditions in order to the Jewish men and women or nation. Like men and women of virtually any other ethnic background, non-religious ethnic Jews frequently absorb into a encompassing non-Jewish society, but, particularly in parts if there has a improve local Jewish culture, many may stay mostly part of that tradition alternatively.

Different varieties of Jews

“Ethnic Jews” include atheists, agnostics, non-denominational deists, Jews with just informal associations to Jewish denominations or converts to other religions, that could include Christianity, Buddhism, or Islam. Religious Jews of each denominations sometimes keep up with outreach to non-religious ethnic Jews. In the case of some Hasidic denominations which can include Chabad-Lubavitch, this outreach extends to actively proselytizing more secular Jews.

The Pew Research study of American Jews realized that 62% thought that being Jewish was mainly due to ancestry and culture, while 15% thought that it was mainly a focus of religion. Of those people that stated themselves to be Jews by religion, 55% thought that being Jewish was mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, while two-thirds thought that it was actually not essential to believe in God to get Jewish.

Israeli citizenship

Israeli immigration laws will accept a treatment for Israeli citizenship if there is proven documentation that any grandparent—not just the maternal grandmother—is Jewish. This does not prove that patient an “ethnic Jew”, but Israeli immigration will accept that person because he or she’s got an ethnically Jewish connection, and due to the fact that this same level of connection was sufficient to get persecuted as a Jew via the Nazis.

Definition of Jewishness

The standard European definition of Jewishness (although it in fact was not uniform across Europe) differs markedly that are caused by the definition being used by the usa. In the former Soviet Union, “Jewish” was a nationality by law, just like other nationalities such as Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians and others. There have been certain restrictions on their civil liberties in the early many years of the Soviet Union.

The European definition is traditional in lots of respects, and reflects simply not only the way in which Europeans saw Jews, but also how Jews saw themselves. The Israeli law draws on external definitions of Jewishness (for example the Nazi and Soviet definitions), rather than traditional halakhic guidelines.

תיאור של יהודי אתני

יהודי אתני הוא ביטוי ביסודו לזיהוי אדם של הורות ורקע יהודי שאינו מנסה באופן יסודי לתרגל את היהדות, אך עם זאת הוא מזוהה עם יהדות או עם כל יהודי אחר מבחינה תרבותית או אחווה, או בעת ובעונה אחת. הרעיון בדבר “יהודי אתני” אינו יכול דווקא להשמיט יהודים מעשיים, אך אנשים אלה נקראים “יהודים” בלי להחזיק בתואר הקובע “אתני”.

מושגי הפילוסופיה
הרעיון יכול להתייחס לגברים ונשים בעלי אמונות שונות, משום שהגנאלוגיה בעצם מציינת מיהו “יהודי”. “יהודי אתני” מנוצל לפעמים להבדיל בין אימונים לבין יהודים מתרגלים (דתיים). מונחים אחרים כוללים “יהודי לא שומר מצוות”, “יהודי לא דתי”, “יהודי לא יהודי” ו”חילוני “.

דת
הרעיון של לפעמים יכול להתייחס רק ליהודים אשר, ללא קשר לאלו סיבות, אינם נוהגים באמונות הדתיות של היהדות, או שהם כה לא רשמיים עם יחסם לדת זו, כדי שיהיו למעשה לא יהודים במובן הדתי של דבקות יהדות. על פי רוב, יהודי התרבות מודעים לרקע היהודי שלהם, ואולי אף מרגישים קשרים תרבותיים חזקים (אם לא דתיים) למסורת היהודית, לגברים ולנשים או לאומה. בדומה לגברים ולנשים מכל רקע אתני אחר, יהודים אתניים לא דתיים סופגים לעתים קרובות את החברה הלא-יהודית המקיפה, אך בעיקר בחלקים מסוימים, אם יש שיפור בתרבות היהודית המקומית, רבים עשויים להישאר ברובם חלק ממסורת זו או לחילופין.

זנים שונים של יהודים

“יהודים אתניים” כוללים אתאיסטים, אגנוסטים, דייסטים לא דתיים, יהודים עם אסוציאציות לא פורמליות בלבד לעדות יהודיות או מתגיירים לדתות אחרות, שיכולים לכלול את הנצרות, הבודהיזם או האיסלאם. יהודים דתיים מכל אחת מן העדות נוהגים לשמור על קשר עם יהודים אתניים לא דתיים. במקרה של כמה זרמים חסידיים שיכולים לכלול את חב”ד-ליובאוויטש, ההישג הזה משתרע באופן פעיל על הגברת החילונים.

המחקר של פיו על יהודי אמריקה הבין ש -62% סברו כי היותם יהודיים נובעים בעיקר ממוצא ומן תרבות, ואילו 15% סברו כי הוא מתמקד בעיקר בדת. מבין אלה שהציגו עצמם כיהודים לפי דת, 55% סברו כי היותם יהודים הם בעיקר עניין של מוצא ותרבות, ואילו שני שלישים סברו כי אין זה הכרחי להאמין באלוהים לקבל יהודים.

אזרחות ישראלית

חוקי ההגירה הישראליים יקבלו טיפול באזרחות ישראלית אם יש תיעוד מוכח שכל סבתא – לא רק סבתא מצד האם – היא יהודית. זה לא מוכיח כי החולה “יהודי אתני”, אלא הגירה ישראלית יקבל את האדם כי הוא או היא יש קשר יהודי אתני, ובגלל זה באותה רמה של חיבור היה מספיק כדי לקבל נרדף כיהודי דרך נאצים.

הגדרת יהדות

ההגדרה האירופית הסטנדרטית של היהדות (אם כי למעשה לא היתה אחידה בכל אירופה) שונה במידה ניכרת הנגרמת על ידי ההגדרה בשימוש על ידי ארה”ב. בברית המועצות לשעבר, “יהודי” היה אזרחות על פי חוק, בדיוק כמו לאומים אחרים כגון רוסים, אוקראינים, גרוזינים ואחרים. היו מגבלות מסוימות על חירויות האזרח שלהם בשנים הראשונות של ברית המועצות.

ההגדרה האירופית היא מסורתית במובנים רבים, ומשקפת בפשטות לא רק את האופן שבו ראו האירופים את היהודים, אלא גם את האופן שבו היהודים ראו את עצמם. המשפט הישראלי מתבסס על הגדרות חיצוניות של יהודיות (לדוגמה,

Culture, Jewish Community, Judaism, Philosophy and Religion

Praying as meditation

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Prayer is a form of art, yet it can be learned. It takes the mechanical skill of reading, although the terms may possibly not be understood, and the spiritual mindset of the prepared heart, a sympathetic mind, and a genuine aspire to be successful. If pursued with diligence, the result will soon be definitely worth the effort spent. In the same way a individual must practice a learned language to gain and retain fluency; in the same way an athlete and musician must rehearse daily, rigorously to do efficiently, so must a Jew pray regularly to do so efficiently.

The daily food diet of prayer is comprised of early morning and evening prayers, Shacharit in the morning, Minchah and Maariv, in belated afternoon and evening. On their Sabbath, there clearly was one more service, Mussaf, added about the early morning. One prayer is main to each and every worship service, morning and evening, weekday, Shabbat, and getaway: the Amidah the “Standing” Prayer, which will be also called the Shmoneh Esrai, the “Eighteen” blessings, or the Silent Devotion.

Truth be told, prayer is not easy. Real prayer can be as demanding – at the least as demanding – once the carrying on of a small business conversation or perhaps the writing of the letter. It purports to become an interaction having a Listener. The child and the newcomer struggle due to their unfamiliarity. Devout worshipers have trouble with their over-familiarity. All individuals of any training or any faith are to do their best when conversing with G‑d.

Culture, Ethics, Social Justice, terrorism

Wounded rabbi pleads for individuals to stand up to anti-Semitism by filling temples

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Rabbi Goldstein
Huffaker/AFP/Getty Images

Executive Director Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was shot in the hands, walks towards a press conference

Responding to the rabbi wounded in the shooting at a Southern California synagogue, scores of an individual have been filling temples coast to coastline to protest anti-Semitism.

Following the rampage Saturday during the Chabad of Poway synagogue near north park, Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who had been simply shot in both hands on the attack, delivered a plea for Jewish people to pack houses of worship this Friday and Saturday.

On Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) stated that the Jewish community in the Unitest States experienced a near-historic levels of anti-Semitism in 2018, with attacks against Jews and Jewish organizations doubling in number. The ADL recorded 1,879 anti-Semitic incidents in the united states in 2018, the third-highest year on record since the organization began monitoring such information within the 1970s.