Recipes

Mother's Chicken Soup
Chopped Chicken Liver
Noodle Kugel (Noodle Casserole)
Potato Latkes (Potato Pancakes)
Charoset (Passover Dish)
Apple and Carrot Tsimmes
Matzo Balls
Matzo Brie
New York Cheesecake
Herring Dip

1 GEOGRAPHIC SETTING AND ENVIRONMENT

Although the nearly 6 million Jewish Americans live in every state of the nation, the largest populations are found in New York, California, and Florida, especially in urban areas.

2 HISTORY AND FOOD

Food has played an important role in Jewish American lives since the first Jews arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654, most from Dutch colonies in Brazil. During the Colonial period (1620–1776), Jews adapted their cooking to the foods grown regionally in their new homeland. They learned to use corn, beans, and fish, such as salmon, herring, and cod. However, they continued to observe the Jewish dietary laws, or Kashrut (see section 4: Food For Religious and Holiday Celebrations). The second wave of Jewish immigrants (1830–1880) came mostly from Germany. Many settled in the Midwest, bringing with them their food traditions. They were known especially for their baked goods. Cincinnati, Ohio, the primary center of German Jewish culture, was also the home of Fleischmann's yeast and Crisco, a vegetable-based shortening that met Jewish dietary restrictions.

In the twentieth century, Jewish American cooking has been changed by the creation of ready-made food products, such as mixes and frozen foods. (A Jewish baker invented Sara Lee frozen cakes, which he named after his daughter.) The Orthodox Union symbol (an "O" with a "U" inside it) was devised to show that the contents of packaged food are kosher. Foods associated with Jewish Americans, like bagels, lox (smoked salmon), cheesecake, and corned-beef sandwiches, became popular among the general public. In the late twentieth century, the trend toward lowfat and easy-to-prepare recipes has influenced Jewish American cooking.

3 FOODS OF THE JEWISH AMERICANS

Many foods that Americans have come to regard as Jewish originated in Eastern Europe, where most Jewish immigrants came from during the first half of the 1900s. (Eastern European Jews were also called Ashkenazim.) The cooking of this region was generally simple and hearty. It contained plenty of fat but was not highly spiced. Main dishes were usually meat or poultry based. Because of the Jewish dietary restrictions (Kashruth), no pork was eaten. The restriction on serving meat and dairy products at the same meal gave rise to a set of traditional dairy dishes including blintzes, cheesecake, and noodle pudding. Both meat and vegetables were cooked until thoroughly done—vegetables were cooked until they were limp. Famous Jewish foods that came out of this tradition include chicken soup, matzo balls, latkes (potato pancakes), chopped liver, gefilte fish, cholent (beef and barley stew), kneidlach (dumplings), and borscht (beet soup). Certain spiced meats and fish, including corned beef, herring, and lox, are also associated with Ashkenazic Jewish cooking.

In the last decades of the twentieth century, Jewish American cooking branched out from its Ashkenazic roots. Jewish cooks adapted their recipes to make them lighter and lower in fat. The Middle Eastern food traditions popular in Israel began to influence Jewish American food as well. Foods such as felafel and hummus became more closely identified with Jewish cooking. In addition, there was a new level of interest in Sephardic Jewish traditions from Spain and North Africa, as well as other parts of the world.

Mother's Chicken Soup

Ingredients

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed (traditional chicken soup would use whole chicken with bones, cut up)
• 2 stalks of celery, cut into pieces about 2 inches long
• 1 large onion, halved
• 1 medium carrot, split in half lengthwise and cut into pieces about 2 inches long
• 1 parsley root (looks like a baby parsnip) scrubbed and cut into 2-inch pieces (cutup turnip or parsnip may be substituted)
• Handful parsley leaves, chopped (optional)
• 1 teaspoon salt

Procedure

1. In a large pot, add the chicken and enough water to cover. Bring the water to a boil.
2. Add the vegetables and reduce heat to medium. Simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally.
3. When the soup is done, remove the chicken and vegetables onto a plate with a slotted spoon.
4. Throw out the celery and onions; cover and refrigerate the rest.
5. Pour the soup through a strainer or colander into a large bowl or other container.
6. Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.
7. Skim the fat off the top before heating and serving.
8. Serve soup with noodles, rice, or matzo balls. Garnish with chopped parsley leaves if desired.

Serves 6.

The chicken can be eaten hot for dinner or cut up and used in chicken salad or other recipes.

Chopped Chicken Liver

Ingredients

• 4 hard boiled eggs, peeled and sliced
• 3 to 4 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3 medium onions, diced
• 1 pound fresh chicken livers
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Procedure

1. Heat the oil over high heat in a large skillet.
2. Sauté the onions until they start turning brown, about 5 minutes.
3. Add the chicken livers to the sautéed onions and cook, tossing the livers occasionally until cooked through and firm, about 5 minutes.
4. Combine the livers, onions, and sliced eggs in a food processor, or chop with a knife until the texture is even but not mushy.
5. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with crusty bread, matzo, or other crackers.

Serves about 4.

Noodle Kugel (Noodle Casserole)

Ingredients

• 12 ounces flat, wide egg noodles
• ½ cup (1 stick) margarine
• 2 apples, peeled, cored, and diced
• ½ cup raisins
• 4 eggs, beaten
• Salt, to taste
• Cinnamon sugar

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
3. Bring a large saucepan of lightly salted water to a boil, add the noodles, and boil until al dente (done but still chewy), about 5 to 10 minutes.
4. Drain and place in a large bowl.
5. Add the margarine, apples, and raisins and mix well.
6. Add the eggs, season with salt, and mix well.
7. Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking dish.
8. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
9. Bake until the top is brown and crisp, about 35 to 45 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven and serve hot or cold, cut into squares.

Serves about 6.

4 FOOD FOR RELIGIOUS AND HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS

Jews throughout the world have a detailed set of dietary restrictions called the laws of Kashrut. They are based on passages found in the Old Testament of the Bible. Food that follows these restrictions is called kosher food. While many Jewish Americans observe these laws (or "keep kosher"), many others do not.

Jews who keep kosher may not eat pork, pork products, or shellfish. The meat they eat ("kosher meat") must be slaughtered and packaged according to special guidelines. Meat and dairy products may not be eaten or cooked together. Foods such as vegetables, fruits, grains, and eggs are considered parve, meaning they can be eaten with either meat or dairy products. Jews who keep kosher also have separate sets of dishes and cooking utensils, one for meat and another for dairy products.

The Jewish religion also specifies several days of fasting throughout the year. This means Jews do not consume any food (or sometimes beverages) on these days. The most important is Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, in the fall. Many Jewish Americans fast on this day. Passover is an eight-day holiday during which Jews do not eat bread, baked goods, and certain other foods. Instead of bread, Jews eat a flat (unleavened), cracker-like food called matzo. Crushed matzo, or matzo meal, is substituted for flour in many foods cooked during this holiday.

The most important meal of this commemoration is held on the first night of Passover, and is called the seder. During the meal, which includes special foods specific to this holy day, a liturgy is read that recounts the Biblical exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. The Hebrew word Pesach means "passover."

Food plays an important role in many Jewish holidays. On the Jewish New Year, honey cake and apples dipped in honey are eaten for a "sweet year." During the eight-day festival of Succoth in the fall, religious Jews eat their meals in a specially built outdoor booth in their backyards called a "sukkah." Potato pancakes called latkes are eaten during Hanukkah, the eight–day Festival of Lights, in December. The festival of Purim, in late winter or spring, is celebrated with triangular filled pastries called hamantaschen.

Marking the formal entry into adulthood of boys at age thirteen (bar mitzvah) and girls at age twelve (bat mitzvah), Jewish Americans celebrate with a lavish party following a religious ceremony. The child who has attained this status, is considered ready to participate fully in the ritual days of fasting of the Jewish calendar.

Potato Latkes (Potato Pancakes)

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, grated
• 3 potatoes, grated
• 3 Tablespoon flour
• 2 eggs, beaten
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• Pepper, to taste
• ½ to 1 cup vegetable oil for frying

Procedure

1. Combine the potato and onion in a large mixing bowl.
2. Stir in the flour, eggs, salt, and pepper.
3. Heat about ⅓ cup oil in a large skillet over medium to high heat until very hot.
4. Drop heaping tablespoons of the mixture into the oil and flatten with the back of the spoon.
5. Fry, flipping once or twice, until crisp and brown on both sides.
6. Drain on paper towels.

Serves 4.

Charoset

Charoset is a traditional Passover food that has a symbolic role in the ceremonial Seder meal.

Ingredients

• 2 red apples, unpeeled, cored, and finely chopped
• 1 cup finely chopped walnuts
• 2 Tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ cup sweet Passover wine or water

Procedure

1. Combine all the ingredients, using only as much wine or water as needed to hold the mixture together.
2. Serve in a bowl or roll into 1-inch balls and arrange on a serving plate.

Serves 4.

Apple and Carrot Tsimmes

Ingredients

• 6 carrots, peeled and sliced
• 1 cup hot water
• 3 tart apples (such as Granny Smith) peeled, cored, and cut into wedges
• ½ cup raisins
• ¼ cup brown sugar or honey
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup orange juice
• 2 Tablespoons potato starch
• 1 to 2 Tablespoons margarine

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Place the carrots in a saucepan, add the water, and cook, covered, until tender, about 10 minutes.
3. Add the apple wedges during the last 5 minutes of cooking time.
4. Drain and pour the mixture into a lightly greased 2 ½-quart casserole dish.
5. Add the raisins, brown sugar, salt, and pepper.
6. In a small bowl mix the orange juice and potato starch until smooth.
7. Pour over the carrot-apple mixture in the casserole dish. Place small pieces of margarine on top.
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

Serves about 6.

Matzo Balls

Matzo balls can be kept 2 days in their cooking liquid in a covered container in the refrigerator; reheat gently in cooking liquid or soup.

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs
• 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• ½ cup matzo meal
• ½ teaspoon salt (for boiling water)
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 to 2 Tablespoons water or chicken soup

Procedure

1. In a medium bowl, lightly beat the eggs with oil.
2. Add the matzo meal, salt, and baking powder and stir until smooth.
3. Stir in water. Let mixture stand for 20 minutes so that matzo meal absorbs liquid.
4. Once matzo ball mixture is done, bring 2 quarts of salted water to a boil.
5. With wet hands, roll about 1 teaspoon of matzo ball mixture between your palms into a ball; mixture will be very soft.
6. Set balls on a plate.
7. With a rubber spatula, carefully slide balls into boiling water.
8. Cover and simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes, or until firm.
9. Cover and keep warm until ready to serve.

Serves 2 to 4.

Matzo Brie

Ingredients

• 1 Passover matzo (can be found in most supermarkets)
• 1 egg, beaten
• Butter
• Salt, to taste

Procedure

1. Break the matzo into medium-sized pieces.
2. Put them in a small bowl, cover with boiling water, and let them soak until soft.
3. Add the pieces of matzo to the beaten egg, stirring once or twice to coat. Season with salt.
4. Melt a pat of butter in a small or medium skillet and pour in the egg mixture.
5. Cook both sides over medium heat until the bottom is golden brown (lift and check periodically).
6. Another pat of butter can be placed underneath the matzo brie.
7. Turn off the heat when the bottom starts to brown.
8. Serve with jam, syrup, or a topping of your choice.

5 MEALTIME CUSTOMS

Most Jewish Americans observe the same mealtime customs as other Americans in the regions where they live. They generally eat three meals a day, and dinner is usually the main meal. The most special night of the week for observant (religious) Jews is Friday, when the Sabbath is welcomed. In many Jewish households, two candles are placed on the dinner table and lit at sundown as a special prayer is said. A glass of wine and a loaf of challah (a special type of bread) are also placed on the table and blessed. A traditional Friday dinner often consists of chicken soup, an appetizer, a chicken or beef main dish, a variety of vegetables, coffee or tea, and dessert.

In Orthodox households, family members pray before and after meals. No cooking is done on the Sabbath (Saturday). Foods eaten on Saturday must be prepared the day before. At festive gatherings, such as weddings, Orthodox men and women are seated at separate tables.

New York Cheesecake

Ingredients for crust

• 1¼ cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1 Tablespoon sugar (optional)
• ¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter or margarine, melted

Ingredients for filling

• 2 cups (1 pint) sour cream
• 1 cup plus 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 2½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 packages (24 ounces) cream cheese, at room temperature
• 4 eggs

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. To make the crust, in a large bowl, thoroughly blend the crumbs, sugar (if using), and melted better.
3. Spoon the mixture evenly into a 9-inch springform pan until halfway up the sides and press down firmly.
4. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes and then bake until set, 10 minutes. Set aside to cool completely.
5. To make the filling, beat the sour cream and 1 Tablespoon of the sugar in a bowl.
6. Add 1 teaspoon of the vanilla extract and beat until well blended. Set aside.
7. In another bowl, beat the cream cheese with the remaining 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy.
8. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well.
9. Beat in the remaining vanilla extract.
10. Pour filling into the prepared crust.
11. Bake until the center is set and the top is golden brown, about 50 minutes. Remove from the oven.
12. Spread the prepared sour cream mixture on top and return to the oven for 5 minutes to become firm.
13. Let cool, cover, and refrigerate for 24 hours.
14. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Serves 10 to 15.

Herring Dip

Ingredients

• 1 large jar herring cut up
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 1 bunch green onions, sliced
• 2 cups sour cream
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 Tablespoon sugar

Procedure

1. Remove herring from jar and chop coarsely.
2. Combine all ingredients together in a mixing bowl, adding herring last.
3. Serve with bread, crackers, bread sticks, or cut-up raw vegetables.

Serves about 12.

6 POLITICS, ECONOMICS, AND NUTRITION

Jewish Americans, like Americans of every cultural and ethnic background, have become increasingly concerned about developing healthier lifestyles. Many Jewish Americans seek out ways to lower the fat and cholesterol in their diets.

For Jewish Americans who observe the Kashrut, eating in restaurants and while traveling may require advance planning. Airlines offer kosher meals, although they must be ordered in advance. Likewise, many hotels will prepare kosher meals for guests who request them.

7 FURTHER STUDY

Books

Ashkanazi-Hankin, Gail. Festivals of Lite Kosher Cookbook. Gretna, LA: Pelican 1999.

Brown, Michael P. The Jewish Gardening Cookbook: Growing Plants and Cooking for Jewish Holidays and Festivals. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 1998.

Brownstein, Rita Milos. Jewish Holiday Style. New York: Simon Schuster, 1999.

Cohen, Jayne. The Gefilte Variations: 200 Inspired Re-creations of Classics from the Jewish Kitchen, with Menus, Stories, and Traditions for the Holidays and Year-round. New York: Scribner, 2000.

Fiedler, Seymour. The Beginner's Kosher Cookbook. New York: Feldheim Publishers, 1997.

Levy, Faye. International Jewish Cookbook. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1991.

Nathan, Joan. Jewish Cooking in America. New York: Knopf, 1998.

Zoloth, Joan. Jewish Holiday Treats. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000.

Web Sites

The Best of Jewish Cooking. [Online] Available http://www.foodbooks.com/jewish.htm (accessed April 2001).

Judaism 101: Jewish Cooking. [Online] Available http://www.jewfaq.org/food.htm (accessed April 2001).

A Jew (Hebrew: יְהוּדִי, Yehudi (sl.); יְהוּדִים, Yehudim (pl.); Ladino: ג׳ודיו, Djudio (sl.); ג׳ודיוס, Djudios (pl.); Yiddish: ייִד, Yid (sl.); ייִדן, Yidn (pl.)) is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites or Hebrews of the ancient Middle East. The ethnicity and the religion of Judaism, the traditional faith of the Jewish nation, are strongly interrelated, and converts to Judaism are both included and have been absorbed within the Jewish people throughout the millennia.

By traditional accounts, Jewish history began with the Biblical patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, during the second millennium BCE. The Jews enjoyed two periods of political autonomy in their national homeland, the Land of Israel, during ancient history. The first era, which encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy (the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah), ended with the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. The second era was the period of the Hasmonean Kindgom (140–37 BCE). Since the destruction of the First Temple, the diaspora has been the home of most of the world's Jews. Except in the modern State of Israel, established in 1948, the Jews have been a minority in every country in which they have lived and they frequently experienced persecution, resulting in a population that fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

According to the Jewish Agency, as of 2007 there were 13.2 million Jews worldwide; 5.3 million in Israel, 5.3 million in the United States, and the remainder distributed in communities of varying sizes around the world; this represents 0.2% of the current estimated world population. These numbers include all those who consider themselves Jews whether or not affiliated, and, with the exception of Israel's Jewish population, do not include those who do not consider themselves Jews or who are not Jewish by halakha. The total world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure. In addition to halakhic considerations, there are secular, political, and ancestral identification factors in defining who is a Jew that increase the figure considerably.

Jews and Judaism

The origin of the Jews is traditionally dated to around the second millennium BCE to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Merneptah Stele, dated to 1200 BCE, is one of the earliest archaeological records of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, where Judaism, possibly the first monotheistic religion, developed over a period of thousands of years. According to Biblical accounts, the Jews enjoyed periods of self-determination first under the Biblical judges from Othniel Ben Kenaz through Samson, then circa 1000 BCE King David established Jerusalem as the capital of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah, also known as the United Monarchy, and from there ruled the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

In 970 BCE, David's son Solomon became king of Israel. Within a decade, Solomon began to build the Holy Temple known as the First Temple. Upon Solomon's death (c. 930 BCE), the ten northern tribes split off to form the Kingdom of Israel. In 722 BCE the Assyrians conquered the Kingdom of Israel and exiled its Jews, starting a Jewish diaspora. At a time of limited mobility and travel, Jews became some of the first and most visible immigrants.

The First Temple period ended around 586 BCE as the Babylonians conquered the Kingdom of Judah and destroyed the Jewish Temple. In 538 BCE, after fifty years of Babylonian captivity, Persian King Cyrus the Great permitted the Jews to return to rebuild Jerusalem and the holy temple. Construction of the Second Temple, was completed in 516 BCE during the reign of Darius the Great seventy years after the destruction of the First Temple. When Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, the Land of Israel fell under Hellenistic Greek control, eventually falling to the Ptolemaic dynasty who lost it to the Seleucids. The Seleucid attempt to recast Jerusalem as a Hellenized polis came to a head in 168 BCE with the successful Maccabean revolt of Mattathias the High Priest and his five sons against Antiochus Epiphanes, and their establishment of the Hasmonean Kingdom in 152 BCE with Jerusalem again as its capital. The Hasmonean Kingdom lasted over one hundred years, but then as Rome became stronger it installed Herod as a Jewish client king. The Herodian Kingdom also lasted over a hundred years. Defeats by the Jews in the First revolt in 70 CE, the first of the Jewish-Roman Wars and the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE notably contributed to the numbers and geography of the diaspora, as significant numbers of the Jewish population of the Land of Israel were expelled and sold into slavery throughout the Roman Empire. Since then, Jews have lived in almost every country of the world, primarily in Europe, the greater Middle East, and North America. In the various countries in which they have lived, the Jews have survived discrimination, oppression, poverty, and even genocide (see: Antisemitism, The Holocaust). There have also been periods of cultural, economic, and individual prosperity in various locations (such as Islamic Spain and Portugal, Emancipating Germany and Poland, or the contemporary Liberal Democracies of the United States, Australia or United Kingdom).

The Hebrew noun "Yehudi" (plural Yehudim) originally referred to the tribe of Judah. Later, when the Northern Kingdom of Israel 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 Kingdom of Judah. 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 Assyrians 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 Etymology). Its first use in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) to refer to the Jewish people as a whole is in the Book of Esther.

Etymology

There are many different views as to the origin of the English language word Jew. The most common view is that the Middle English word Jew is from the Old French giu, earlier juieu, from the Latin iudeus from the Greek Ioudaios (Ἰουδαῖος). The Latin simply means Judaean, from the land of Judaea. Judaea is in turn derived from Judah which was the name of the Kingdom of Judah, and one of the Tribes of Israel. The Hebrew word for Jew, יהודי , is pronounced [jə·hu·ˈdiː].

The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., "Jude" in German, "juif" in French, "jøde," in Danish, in Spanish (judío), etc., but derivations of the word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jewish person, e.g., in Italian (Ebreo), and Еврей, (Yevrey). The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuː·də] and is the origin of the word Yiddish. (See Jewish ethnonyms for a full overview.)

Who is a Jew?

Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation, an ethnicity, a religion, and a culture, 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 were born to a Jewish family regardless of whether or not they follow the religion, those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent), and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and therefore are followers of the religion. At times conversion has accounted for a substantial part of Jewish population growth. In the first century of the Christian era, for example, the population more than doubled, from 4 to 8–10 million within the confines of the Roman Empire, in good part as a result of a wave of conversion.

Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic 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 Babylonian Talmud. Interpretations of sections of the Tanach, such as Deuteronomy 7:1-5, by learned Jewish sages, are used as a warning against intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews because "[the non-Jewish male spouse] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." Leviticus 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 Ezra 10:2-3, where Israelites returning from Babylon, vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children. Since the Haskalah, these halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged.

Ethnic divisions

Within the world's Jewish population, which is considered a single self-identifying ethnicity, there are distinct ethnic divisions, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating Israelite population, and subsequent independent evolutions. An array of Jewish communities were established by Jewish settlers in various places around the Old World, often at great distances from one another resulting in effective and often long-term isolation from each other. During the millennia of the Jewish diaspora the communities would develop under the influence of their local environments; political, cultural, natural, and populational. Today, manifestation of these differences among the Jews can be observed in Jewish cultural expressions of each community, including Jewish linguistic diversity, culinary preferences, liturgical practices, religious interpretations, as well as degrees and sources of genetic admixture.

Jews are often identified as belonging to one of two major groups: the Ashkenazim, or "Germans" (Ashkenaz meaning "Germany" in Medieval Hebrew, denoting their Central European base), and the Sephardim, or "Spaniards" (Sefarad meaning "Spain" or "Iberia" in Hebrew, denoting their Spanish and Portuguese base). The Mizrahim, or "Easterners" (Mizrach being "East" in Hebrew), that is, the diverse collection of Middle Eastern and North African Jews, constitute a third major group, although European Jews sometimes refer to them as Sephardim.

Smaller Jewish cultural groups include the Indian Jews including the Bene Israel, Bnei Menashe, Cochin Jews, and Bene Ephraim; the Romaniotes of Greece; the Italkim or Bené Roma of Italy; the Teimanim from Yemen and Oman; various African Jews, including most numerously the Beta Israel of Ethiopia; and Chinese Jews, most notably the Kaifeng Jews, as well as various other distinct but now extinct communities.

The divisions between all these groups are approximate and their boundaries are not always clear. The Mizrahim for example, are a heterogeneous collection of North African, Central Asian, Caucasian, and Middle Eastern Jewish communities which are often as unrelated to each other as they are to any of the earlier mentioned Jewish groups. In modern usage. However, the Mizrahim are also termed Sephardi due to similar styles of liturgy, despite independent development from Sephardim proper. Thus, among Mizrahim there are Iraqi Jews, Egyptian Jews, Berber Jews, Lebanese Jews, Kurdish Jews, Libyan Jews, Syrian Jews, Bukharian Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, and various others. The Teimanim from Yemen and Oman are sometimes included, although their style of liturgy is unique and they differ in respect to the admixture found among them to that found in Mizrahim. In addition, there is a differentiation made between Sephardi migrants who established themselves in the Middle East and North Africa after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s and the pre-existing Jewish communities in those regions.

Despite this diversity, Ashkenazi Jews represent the bulk of modern Jewry, with at least 70% of Jews worldwide (and up to 90% prior to World War II and the Holocaust). As a result of their emigration from Europe during the wartime periods, Ashkenazim also represent the overwhelming majority of Jews in the New World continents and in countries previously without native Jewish communities, such as the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, and South Africa. In France, emigration of Mizrahim from North Africa has led them to outnumber pre-existing European Jews. Only in Israel is the Jewish population representative of all groups, a melting pot independent of each group's proportion within the overall world Jewish population.

DNA evidence

A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that "the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population", and suggested that "most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora". Researchers expressed surprise at the remarkable genetic uniformity they found among modern Jews, no matter where the diaspora has become dispersed around the world. The DNA tests demonstrated substantially less inter-marriage among Jews over the last 3,000 years than found in other populations. The tests support traditional Jewish history and counter theories that the Jewish people are descended mostly from converts from other religions, such as the Khazars.

Another of the study's findings is that by the yardstick of the Y chromosome, the world's Jewish communities are closely related to Syrians and Palestinians. The study's authors wrote that "the extremely close affinity of Jewish and non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations observed ... supports the hypothesis of a common Middle Eastern origin", as does the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of at least 40% of the current Ashkenazi population. So although Khazars could have been absorbed into the modern Jewish population, it is unlikely that they formed a large percentage of the ancestors of modern Ashkenazi Jews.

DNA analysis further determined that modern Jews of the priesthood tribe — "Cohanim" — share a common ancestor in Israel dating back about 3,000 years. This result is consistent for all Jewish populations around the world. The researchers estimated that the most recent common ancestor of modern Cohanim lived between 1000 BCE (roughly the time of the Biblical Exodus) and 586 BCE, when the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple. They found similar results analyzing DNA from Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. The scientists estimated the date of the original priest based on genetic mutations, which indicated that the priest lived roughly 106 generations ago, between 2,650 and 3,180 years ago depending whether one counts a generation as 25 or 30 years.

Population

Significant geographic populations

There are an estimated 13 million Jews worldwide. 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 world's population.

Country or Region	Jewish population	Total Population	% Jewish	Notes
United States	5,300,000 to 6,155,000	301,469,000	1.8%-2.0	(est.)
Israel	5,393,400	7,116,700	75.8%
Europe	2,000,000	710,000,000	0.3%	(less than)
France	494,000	64,102,140	0.8%	(est.)
United Kingdom	267,000	60,609,153	0.4%	(2001 census)
Republic of Ireland	1,930	4,234,925	0.046%	(2006 census)
Russia	228,000	142,400,000	0.15%	(Territory of the former Soviet Union. (est.) Some estimates are much higher.)
Germany	220,000	82,310,000	0.3%	(2004 est.), over 100,000 who are members of a synagogue
Ukraine	103,591	46,481,000	0.2%	(2001 Census) 250,000 to 500,000 (Local Jewish agency estimate)
Hungary	80,000 to 100,000	10,053,000	0.8-1%	Mainly Hungarians of Jewish religion (Hungarian speaking, assimilated Jews)
Belgium	30,000	10,419,000	0.3%	(est.)
Italy	30,000	58,883,958	0.05%	(Jewish communities est.)
Canada	371,000	32,874,400	1.1%	(est.)
Guatemala	1,200	12,728,111	.01%	(est.)
Turkey	30,000	72,600,000	0.04%	(2001 census)
Argentina	250,000	39,921,833	0.6%	(est.)
Brazil	130,000	188,078,261	0.07%	(est.)
South Africa	106,000	47,432,000	0.2%	(est.)
Australia	126,000	20,788,357	0.6%	(est.)
Asia (excl. Israel)	50,000	3,900,000,000	0.001%	(est.)
Iran	20,405	68,467,413	0.03%	(est.)
Mexico	40,000–50,000	108,700,000	0.04%	(est.)
Total	15,871,000	6,453,628,000	0.25%	(est.)

State of Israel

Israel, the Jewish nation-state, is the only country in which Jews make up a majority of the citizens. Israel was established as an independent democratic state on May 14, 1948. Of the 120 members in its parliament, the Knesset, currently, 12 members of the Knesset are Arab citizens of Israel, most representing Arab political parties and one of Israel's Supreme Court judges is a Palestinian Arab. Between 1948 and 1958, the Jewish population rose from 800,000 to two million. Currently, Jews account for 76.4% of the Israeli population, or 5,600,000 of the citizens. The early years of the state of Israel, were marked by the mass immigration of Holocaust survivors and Jews fleeing Arab lands. Israel also has a large population of Ethiopian Jews, many of whom were airlifted to Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Between 1974 and 1979 nearly 227,258 immigrants arrived in Israel, about half being from the Soviet Union. This period also saw an increase in immigration to Israel from Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States A trickle of immigrants from other communities has also arrived, including Indian Jews and others, as well as some descendants of Ashkenazi 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 Arab-Israeli conflict. Jewish Israeli emigrants are known as yordim.

Diaspora (outside Israel)

The waves of immigration to the United States and elsewhere at the turn of the nineteenth century and later due to various causes, including the pogroms in Russia, the massacre of European Jewry during the Holocaust, and the foundation of the state of Israel (and subsequent Jewish exodus from Arab lands), all resulted in substantial shifts in the population centers of world Jewry by the end of the twentieth century.

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 Brazil, and smaller populations in Mexico (45,000), Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, and several other countries (see History of the Jews in Latin America).

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

The Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East were home to around 900,000 Jews in 1945. Fueled by anti-Zionism 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 Jewish exodus from Arab lands). Today, around 8,000 Jews remain in Arab nations. Iran is home to around 10,800 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 United States (especially Los Angeles).

Outside Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and the rest of Asia, there are significant Jewish populations in Australia and South Africa.

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 Jewish identity. Some Jewish communities, for example the Kaifeng Jews of China, 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 Haskalah) 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 interreligious marriage vary widely: In the United States, they are just under 50%, in the United Kingdom, around 50%, in Australia and Mexico, as low as 10%, 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. The result is that most countries in the Diaspora 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

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. The history of antisemitism includes the First Crusade which resulted in the massacre of Jews; the Spanish Inquisition (led by Torquemada) and the Portuguese Inquisition, with their persecution and Auto de fé against the New Christians and Marrano Jews; the Bohdan Chmielnicki Cossack massacres in Ukraine; the Pogroms backed by the Russian Tsars; 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 Adolf Hitler's Final Solution, which led to the Holocaust and the slaughter of approximately 6 million Jews from 1942 to 1945.

According to James Carroll, "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. Of course, there are many other complex demographic factors involved; the rate of population growth, epidemics, migration, assimilation, and conversion could all have played major roles in the current size of the global Jewish population.

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 Orthodox and Haredi Jewish communities, whose members often shun birth control for religious reasons, have experienced rapid population growth.

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 Jewish identity 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 Baal Teshuva movement, though the demographic implications of the trend are unknown. Additionally, there is also a growing movement of Jews by Choice by gentiles who make the decision to head in the direction of becoming Jews.

Jewish languages

Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed lashon ha-kodesh, "the holy tongue"), the language in which the Hebrew scriptures (Tanakh) were composed, and the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries. By the fifth century BCE, Aramaic, a closely related tongue, joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea. By the third century BCE, Jews of the diaspora were speaking Greek. Modern Hebrew is now one of the two official languages of the State of Israel along with Arabic.

Hebrew was revived as a spoken language by Eliezer ben Yehuda, who arrived in Palestine in 1881. It hadn't been used as a mother tongue since Tannaic times. 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 Sabbath. For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, often developing distinctive dialectal forms or branching off as independent languages. Yiddish is the Judæo-German language developed by Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Central Europe, and Ladino is the Judæo-Spanish language developed by Sephardic Jews who migrated to the Iberian peninsula. Due to many factors, including the impact of the Holocaust on European Jewry, the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, and widespread emigration from other Jewish communities around the world, ancient and distinct Jewish languages of several communities, including Gruzinic, Judæo-Arabic, Judæo-Berber, Krymchak, Judæo-Malayalam and many others, have largely fallen out of use.

The three most commonly spoken languages among Jews today are English, modern Hebrew, and Russian. Some Romance languages, such as French and Spanish, are also widely used.

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, which has made drawing a clear distinction between Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish identity rather difficult. Throughout history, in eras and places as diverse as the ancient Hellenic world, in Europe before and after The Age of Enlightenment (see Haskalah), in Islamic Spain and Portugal, in North Africa and the Middle East, India and China, or the 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 or specific communities of Jews with their surroundings, others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to from the religion itself. This phenomenon has led to considerably different Jewish cultures unique to their own communities, each as authentically Jewish as the next.

History of the Jews

See also: Timeline of Jewish history and Schisms among the Jews

Jews and migrations

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 immigrants and emigrants (see: Jewish refugees) have shaped Jewish identity and religious practice in many ways, and are thus a major element of Jewish history. An incomplete list of such migrations includes:

• The patriarch Abraham was a migrant to the land of Canaan from Ur of the Chaldees.
• The Children of Israel experienced the Exodus (meaning "departure" or "exit" in Greek) from ancient Egypt, as recorded in the Book of Exodus.
• The Kingdom of Israel was sent into permanent exile and scattered all over the world (or at least to unknown locations) by Assyria.
• The Kingdom of Judah was exiled by Babylonia, then returned to Judea, and then many were exiled again by the Roman Empire.
• The 2,000 year dispersion of the Jewish diaspora beginning under the Roman Empire, 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 Babylonia to the Iberian Peninsula to Poland to the United States and to Israel.
• Many expulsions during the Middle Ages and Enlightenment in Europe, including: 1290, 16,000 Jews were expelled from England, see the (Statute of Jewry); in 1396, 100,000 from France; in 1421 thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of these Jews settled in Eastern Europe, especially Poland.
• Following the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, the Spanish population of around 200,000 Sephardic 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 Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands, and North Africa, others migrating to Southern Europe and the Middle East.
• During the 19th century, France's policies of equal citizenship regardless of religion led to the immigration of Jews (especially from Eastern and Central Europe), which was encouraged by Napoleon Bonaparte.
• The arrival of millions of Jews in the New World, including immigration of over two million Eastern European Jews to the United States from 1880-1925, see History of the Jews in the United States and History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union.
• The Pogroms in Eastern Europe, the rise of modern Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and the rise of Arab nationalism 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 Islamic Revolution of Iran forced many Iranian Jews to flee Iran. Most found refuge in the US (particularly Los Angeles, CA) and Israel. Smaller communities of Persian Jews exist in Canada and Western Europe.
• When the Soviet Union died, many of the Jews in the affected territory (who had been refuseniks) were suddenly allowed to leave. This produced a wave of migration to Israel in the early 1990s.

Kingdoms of Israel and Judah

Jews descend mostly from the ancient Israelites (also known as Hebrews), who settled in the Land of Israel. The Israelites traced their common lineage to the biblical patriarch Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. A United Monarchy was established under Saul and continued under King David and Solomon. King David conquered Jerusalem (first a Canaanite, then a Jebusite town) and made it his capital. After Solomon's reign, the nation split into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel (in the north) and the Kingdom of Judah (in the south). The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrian ruler Shalmaneser V in the 8th century BCE and spread all over the Assyrian empire, where they were assimilated into other cultures and came to be known as the Ten Lost Tribes. The Kingdom of Judah continued as an independent state until it was conquered by a Babylonian army in the early 6th century BCE, destroying the First Temple 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 Babylonian Captivity. A new Second Temple was constructed funded by Persian Kings, and old religious practices were resumed.

Persian, Greek, and Roman rule

See related article Jewish-Roman wars.

The Seleucid Kingdom, which arose after the Persians were defeated by Alexander the Great, sought to introduce Greek culture into the Persian world. When the Greeks under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, supported by Hellenized Jews (those who had adopted Greek culture), attempted to convert the Jewish Temple to a temple of Zeus, the Jews revolted under the leadership of the Maccabees. After their victory, the Jews rededicated the Temple to God (hence the origins of Hanukkah) and created an independent Jewish state known as the Hasmonaean Kingdom, which lasted from 165 BCE to 63 BCE, when it came under influence of the Roman Empire. During the early part of Roman rule, the Hasmonaeans remained in power, until the family was annihilated by Herod the Great. Herod came from a wealthy Idumean family and became a very successful client king under the Romans. He significantly expanded the Temple in Jerusalem.

Upon his death in 4 BCE the Romans directly ruled Judea and there were frequent changes of policies by conflicting and empire-building Caesars, generals, governors, and consuls who often acted cruelly or attempted 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 large pantheon, could not readily accommodate the exclusive monotheism of Judaism, and the religious Jews could not accept Roman polytheism. (It was in this tumultuous climate that Christianity first emerged, among a small group of Jews.) After a famine and riots in 66 CE, the Jews in Judea began a revolt against Rome. The revolt was smashed by Titus Flavius, the son and successor of the Roman emperor Vespasian. In Rome the Arch of Titus still stands, showing enslaved Judeans and a menorah being brought to Rome. It is customary for Jews to walk around, rather than through, this arch.

The Romans destroyed most of Jerusalem but left the Western Wall, a retaining wall of the Temple Mount. 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 Hadrian began to rebuild Jerusalem as a pagan city while restricting some Jewish practices. Angry at this affront, the Jews again revolted led by Simon Bar Kokhba. Hadrian 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 Halakhah, or oral law, and writing down these traditions in the Talmud, the key work on the interpretation of Jewish law, written during the first to fifth centuries CE.

In 212, all Jews were made citizens of the Roman empire. Christianity became the sole state religion of the declining Roman empire, when Constantine I issued the Edict of Milan in 313. Jewish and Christian life evolved in "diametrically opposite directions" during the final centuries of Roman empire. Jewish life became autonomous, decentralized, and community-centered, in contrast to Christian life, which became a rigid hierarchical system under the supreme authority of the Pope and the Roman Emperor.

Jewish life after the fall of Israel was basically democratic. Rabbis in the Talmud interpreted Deuteronomy 29:9, “your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel” as “Although I have appointed for you heads, elders, and officers, you are all equal before me” (Tanhuma). The Talmud stressed that rights always entailed responsibilities: “you are all responsible for one another.”

Jewish survival in the face of external pressures from the now Catholic Roman empire and Persian Zoroastrian empire is seen as ‘enigmatic’ by many historians. For example, Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote “such an extraordinary phenomenon in world history and the history of religion that many a fine mind has doubted whether it can at all be explained in merely human terms”

According to the famous Jewish historian, Salo Wittmayer Baron, a number of mechanisms of Jewish survival evolved during these crucial centuries between the fall of Israel and the fall of Rome. He describes at least eight factors that strengthened Judaism and Jewish society. 1. Messianic faith. Belief in an ultimately positive outcome and restoration of Israel.

2. Doctrine of the Hereafter was increasingly elaborated. Belief in an afterlife had been largely ignored during Biblical times. Now it was discussed more by the sages. It reconciled Jews with suffering in this world and helped them resist outside temptations to convert.

3. Suffering was given meaning through interpretation of Jewish history and destiny.

4. Doctrine of martyrdom and inescapability of persecution transformed both into a source of communal solidarity.

5. Jewish daily lif