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140-854: The history of the Jews in Brazil begins during the settlement of Europeans in the new world. Although only baptized Christians were subject to the Inquisition , Jews started settling in Brazil when the Inquisition reached Portugal , in the 16th century. They arrived in Brazil during the period of Dutch rule , setting up in Recife the first synagogue in the Americas , the Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue , as early as 1636. Most of those Jews were Sephardic Jews who had fled

280-434: A New Christian included restrictions of civil and political rights , abuses of those already-limited civil rights, social and sometimes legal restrictions on whom one could marry ( anti-miscegenation laws ), social restrictions on where one could live, legal restrictions of entry into the professions and the clergy, legal restrictions and prohibition of immigration to and settlement in the newly colonized Spanish territories in

420-569: A genocide known as the Holocaust . Since then, the population has slowly risen again, and as of 2021 , was estimated to be at 15.2 million by the demographer Sergio Della Pergola or less than 0.2% of the total world population in 2012. Today, over 85% of Jews live in Israel or the United States . Israel, whose population is 73.9% Jewish, is the only country where Jews comprise more than 2.5% of

560-653: A medical and nursing school. It is considered one of the best medical centers in Latin America. The first recorded auto-da-fé was held in Paris in 1242. Auto-da-fés took place in France , Spain , Portugal , Brazil, Peru , Ukraine , in the Portuguese colony of Goa , India and in Mexico where the last in the world was held in 1850. Nearly five hundred auto-da-fés were "celebrated" by

700-501: A multilingual group to a monolingual one (or nearly so), speaking French in Algeria , Morocco , and the city of Tunis , while most North Africans continue to use Arabic or Berber as their mother tongue. There is no single governing body for the Jewish community, nor a single authority with responsibility for religious doctrine. Instead, a variety of secular and religious institutions at

840-702: A people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele , which dates to around 1200 BCE. The majority of scholars agree that this text refers to the Israelites , a group that inhabited the central highlands of Canaan , where archaeological evidence shows that hundreds of small settlements were constructed between the 12th and 10th centuries BCE. The Israelites differentiated themselves from neighboring peoples through various distinct characteristics including religious practices , prohibition on intermarriage , and an emphasis on genealogy and family history. In

980-721: A place of refuge for the Jews of Syria Palaestina . A number of significant Talmudic academies , such as the Nehardea , Pumbedita , and Sura academies, were established in Mesopotamia, and many important Amoraim were active there. The Babylonian Talmud , a centerpiece of Jewish religious law, was compiled in Babylonia in the 3rd to 6th centuries. Jewish diaspora communities are generally described to have coalesced into three major ethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled:

1120-580: A religious component in national memories and culture is common even in the modern era. This view is echoed by political scientist Tom Garvin , who writes that "something strangely like modern nationalism is documented for many peoples in medieval times and in classical times as well," citing the ancient Jews as one of several "obvious examples", alongside the classical Greeks and the Gaulish and British Celts . New Christians Because these conversions were achieved in part through coercion and also with

1260-534: A religious interpretation of the traditions and early history of the Jews, established the first of the Abrahamic religions , which are now practiced by 54 percent of the world. 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

1400-482: 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

1540-652: A result of pogroms in 1391 . Those remaining practicing Jews were expelled by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in the Alhambra Decree in 1492, following the Catholic Reconquest of Spain. As a result of the Alhambra Decree and persecution in prior years, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled. Following the Catholic Reconquest of Spain, 200,000 of

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1680-588: A result, Ashkenazi Jews were gradually pushed eastwards to Poland , Lithuania and Russia . During the same period, Jewish communities in the Middle East thrived under Islamic rule, especially in cities like Baghdad , Cairo , and Damascus . In Babylonia, from the 7th to 11th centuries the Pumbedita and Sura academies led the Arab and to an extant the entire Jewish world. The deans and students of said academies defined

1820-618: A result, around 200,000 Jews were expelled from Spain , seeking refuge in places such as the Ottoman Empire , North Africa , Italy , the Netherlands and India . A similar fate awaited the Jews of Portugal a few years later. Some Jews chose to remain, and pretended to practice Catholicism . These Jews would form the members of Crypto-Judaism . In the 19th century, when Jews in Western Europe were increasingly granted equality before

1960-671: A significant population growth. This prosperity continued until the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib devastated the region of Judah in response to a rebellion in the area, ultimately halting at Jerusalem . Later in the same century, the Assyrians were defeated by the rising Neo-Babylonian Empire , and Judah became its vassal. In 587 BCE, following a revolt in Judah , the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and

2100-553: A significant role in the development of Western culture . The term "Jew" is derived from the Hebrew word יְהוּדִי Yehudi , with the plural יְהוּדִים Yehudim . Endonyms in other Jewish languages include the Ladino ג׳ודיו Djudio (plural ג׳ודיוס , Djudios ) and the Yiddish ייִד Yid (plural ייִדן Yidn ). Originally, in ancient times, Yehudi (Jew)

2240-653: A similar Portuguese decree in 1497, the remaining Jewish population in Iberia became officially Christian by default. The New Christians, especially those of Jewish origin, were always under suspicion of being judaizantes ("judaizers"); that is, apostatizing from the Christian religion and being active crypto-Jews . Despite the discrimination and legal restrictions, many Jewish-origin New Christians found ways of circumventing these restrictions for emigration and settlement in

2380-496: A variety of fields, making an impact on their communities' economy and societies. In Francia , for example, figures like Isaac Judaeus and Armentarius occupied prominent social and economic positions. However, Jews were frequently the subjects of discriminatory laws, segregation , blood libels and pogroms , which culminated in events like the Rhineland Massacres (1066) and the expulsion of Jews from England (1290). As

2520-625: A victim. Her husband and children accompanied her to Portugal when António was 7 years old, where she figured among the "reconciled" in the auto-da-fé of July 9, 1713, after undergoing the torment only. António produced his first play or opera in 1733, and the next year he married his cousin, D. Leonor Maria de Carvalho, whose parents had been burnt by the Inquisition, while she herself had gone through an auto-da-fé in Spain and been exiled on account of her religion. They had their first daughter in 1734, but

2660-405: A warning against intermarriage between Jews and gentiles. 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 is complemented by Ezra 10:2–3 , where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children. A popular theory is that the rape of Jewish women in captivity brought about

2800-496: A wide religious spectrum, including Orthodox , Conservative , Reform , and secular Jews . Most Brazilian Jews are non-Orthodox and the majority of Brazilian synagogues are affiliated with the Conservative and Reform movements. Historically, until the 1930s, Orthodox Judaism was the main form of Judaism due to immigration of Eastern European Jews, but Central European Jewish immigrants later introduced Reform Judaism. The majority of

2940-512: Is Judaism . Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is an ethnic religion , but not all ethnic Jews practice Judaism. Despite this, religious Jews regard individuals who have formally converted to Judaism as Jews. The Israelites emerged from within the Canaanite population to establish the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Judaism emerged from

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3080-517: Is considered the father of political Zionism, offered his vision of a future Jewish state in his 1896 book Der Judenstaat ( The Jewish State ); a year later, he presided over the First Zionist Congress . The antisemitism that inflicted Jewish communities in Europe also triggered a mass exodus of more than two million Jews to the United States between 1881 and 1924. The Jews of Europe and

3220-804: Is far less used today following the Holocaust and the adoption of Modern Hebrew by the Zionist movement and the State of Israel . In some places, the mother language of the Jewish community differs from that of the general population or the dominant group. For example, in Quebec , the Ashkenazic majority has adopted English, while the Sephardic minority uses French as its primary language. Similarly, South African Jews adopted English rather than Afrikaans . Due to both Czarist and Soviet policies, Russian has superseded Yiddish as

3360-631: Is further disagreement about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power. Historians agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by c.  900 BCE , there is a consensus that a Kingdom of Judah existed by c. 700 BCE at least, and recent excavations in Khirbet Qeiyafa have provided strong evidence for dating the Kingdom of Judah to the 10th century BCE. In 587 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II , King of

3500-528: Is now Brazil since the first Portuguese arrived in the country in 1500, notably Mestre João and Gaspar da Gama who arrived in the first ships. A number of Sephardic Jews immigrated to Brazil during its early settlements. They were known as " New Christians " - Conversos (pt.) or Marranos (sp.) — Jews obliged to convert to Roman Catholicism by the Portuguese crown . The Jews from Portugal avoided immigrating to Brazil, because they would also be persecuted by

3640-705: Is the Judaeo-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 and Muslim countries , and widespread emigration from other Jewish communities around the world, ancient and distinct Jewish languages of several communities, including Judaeo-Georgian , Judaeo-Arabic , Judaeo-Berber , Krymchak , Judaeo-Malayalam and many others, have largely fallen out of use. For over sixteen centuries Hebrew

3780-619: Is unclear which group is more numerous. Both groups exist in the largest cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro , where they have mixed to some extent. In the North Region most Jews are Sephardic, and in the South Region most Jews are Ashkenazi. Brazilian Jews play an active role in politics, sports, academia, trade and industry, and are overall well integrated in all spheres of Brazilian life. Jews lead an open religious life in Brazil and there are rarely any reported cases of antisemitism in

3920-436: Is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew , in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics , is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on

4060-782: The Ashkenazim (initially in the Rhineland and France), the Sephardim (initially in the Iberian Peninsula ), and the Mizrahim ( Middle East and North Africa ). Romaniote Jews , Tunisian Jews , Yemenite Jews , Egyptian Jews , Ethiopian Jews , Bukharan Jews , Mountain Jews , and other groups also predated the arrival of the Sephardic diaspora. Despite experiencing repeated waves of persecution, Ashkenazi Jews in Western Europe worked in

4200-526: The Sephardim ( Iberian Peninsula ), and the Mizrahim ( Middle East and North Africa ). While these three major divisions account for most of the world's Jews, there are other smaller Jewish groups outside of the three. Prior to World War II , the global Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million, representing around 0.7% of the world's population at that time. During World War II, approximately 6 million Jews throughout Europe were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany in

4340-505: The Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatristic —and later monotheistic —religion of Yahwism centered on Yahweh , one of the gods of the Canaanite pantheon. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of cultic practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group , setting them apart from other Canaanites. According to Dever , modern archaeologists have largely discarded

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4480-693: The Caribbean . Sometimes "New Christians" travelled to territories controlled by Protestant enemies of Spain , such as the Dutch Empire , the early English Empire , or Huguenot -influenced areas of the Kingdom of France such as Bordeaux , and openly practiced Judaism, which furthered suspicion of Jewish crypsis. Nevertheless, a significant number of those "New Christians" of converso ancestry were deemed by Spanish society as sincerely Catholic and they still managed to attain prominence, whether religious (St. John of

4620-706: The First Temple , putting an end to the kingdom. The majority of Jerusalem's residents, including the kingdom's elite, were exiled to Babylon . According to the Book of Ezra , the Persian Cyrus the Great ended the Babylonian exile in 538 BCE, the year after he captured Babylon. The exile ended with the return under Zerubbabel the Prince (so called because he was a descendant of

4760-679: The Geonic period in Jewish history. Following this period were the Rishonim who lived from the 11th to 15th centuries. Like their European counterparts, Jews in the Middle East and North Africa also faced periods of persecution and discriminatory policies, with the Almohad Caliphate in North Africa and Iberia issuing forced conversion decrees, causing Jews such as Maimonides to seek safety in other regions. Initially, under Visigoth rule , Jews in

4900-541: The Herodian dynasty as vassal kings . However, Judea eventually came directly under Roman control and was incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province of Judaea . The Jewish–Roman wars , a series of unsuccessful revolts against Roman rule during the first and second centuries CE, had significant and disastrous consequences for the Jewish population of Judaea . The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) culminated in

5040-523: The Iberian colonies of the New World by falsifying or buying limpieza de sangre ("cleanliness of blood") documentation or attaining perjured affidavit attesting to untainted Old Christian pedigrees. The descendants of these, who could not return to Judaism, became the modern-day Christian-professing Sephardic Bnei Anusim of Latin America . Also as a result of the unceasing trials and persecutions by

5180-481: The Jewish–Roman wars , gave rise to the Jewish diaspora . The Jewish diaspora is a wide dispersion of Jewish communities across the world that have maintained their sense of Jewish history , identity and culture . In the following millennia, Jewish diaspora communities coalesced into three major ethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled: the Ashkenazim ( Central and Eastern Europe ),

5320-598: The Neo-Babylonian Empire , besieged Jerusalem , destroyed the First Temple and deported parts of the Judahite population. Scholars disagree regarding the extent to which the Bible should be accepted as a historical source for early Israelite history. Rendsburg states that there are two approximately equal groups of scholars who debate the historicity of the biblical narrative , the minimalists who largely reject it, and

5460-518: The Roman Catholic Church over the course of three centuries, and thousands of Jews met their deaths this way usually after months of suffering in the Inquisition's prisons and torture chambers. This brutal and public ritual consisted of a Catholic Mass , a procession of heretics and apostates , many of them Marranos , or "secret Jews ", and their torture and execution by burning at the stake . Last-minute penitents were garroted to spare

5600-566: The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition , other Jewish-origin New Christians opted to migrate out of the Iberian Peninsula in a continuous flow between the 1600s to 1800s towards Amsterdam , and also London , whereupon in their new tolerant environment of refuge outside the Iberian cultural sphere they eventually returned to Judaism . The descendants of these became the Spanish and Portuguese Jews . Although Iberian Muslims were protected in

5740-499: The Tanakh . Some modern scholars disagree with the conflation, based on the works of Josephus , Philo and Apostle Paul . The English word "Jew" is a derivation of Middle English Gyw, Iewe . The latter was loaned from the Old French giu , which itself evolved from the earlier juieu , which in turn derived from judieu/iudieu which through elision had dropped

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5880-406: The Tannaim may have been influenced by Roman law , which dictated that when a parent could not contract a legal marriage, offspring would follow the mother . Rabbi Rivon Krygier follows a similar reasoning, arguing that Jewish descent had formerly passed through the patrilineal descent and the law of matrilineal descent had its roots in the Roman legal system. The prehistory and ethnogenesis of

6020-485: The destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple . The severely reduced Jewish population of Judaea was denied any kind of political self-government. A few generations later, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) erupted, and its brutal suppression by the Romans led to the depopulation of Judea . Following the revolt, Jews were forbidden from residing in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and the Jewish demographic center in Judaea shifted to Galilee . Similar upheavals impacted

6160-533: The religion of Judaism are strongly interrelated. Converts to Judaism typically have a status within the Jewish ethnos equal to those born into it. However, several converts to Judaism, as well as ex-Jews, have claimed that converts are treated as second-class Jews by many born Jews. Conversion is not encouraged by mainstream Judaism, and it is considered a difficult task. A significant portion of conversions are undertaken by children of mixed marriages, or would-be or current spouses of Jews. The Hebrew Bible ,

6300-450: The southernmost state in Brazil . The main intention of the JCA in creating those colonies was to resettle Russian Jews during the mass immigration from the hostile Russian empire . The first colonies were Philippson (1904) and Quatro Irmãos (1912). However, these colonization attempts all failed because of "inexperience, insufficient funds and poor planning" and also because of "administrative problems, lack of agricultural facilities and

6440-436: The 10th century BCE, two neighboring Israelite kingdoms—the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah —emerged. Since their inception, they shared ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious characteristics despite a complicated relationship. Israel, with its capital mostly in Samaria , was larger and wealthier, and soon developed into a regional power. In contrast, Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem ,

6580-435: The 19th century, principally because of the rubber boom , settling in the Amazon basin , where many of their descendants continue to live. Waves of Jewish immigration occurred first by Russian and Polish Jews escaping pogroms and the Russian Revolution , and then German Jews in the 1930s during the rise of the Nazis in Europe. In the late 1950s, another wave of immigration brought thousands of North African Jews . By

6720-442: The 20th century." By the First World War , about 7,000 Jews were inhabiting Brazil. In 1910 in Porto Alegre , capital of Rio Grande do Sul , a Jewish school was opened and a Yiddish newspaper, Di Menshhayt ("Humanity") was established in 1915. One year later, the Jewish community of Rio de Janeiro formed an aid committee for World War I victims . Congregação Israelita Paulista ("CIP," or "Israeli Congregation of São Paulo),

6860-483: The 21st Century the Jewish communities were thriving in Brazil. Some anti-Semitic events and acts have occurred, mainly during the 2006 Lebanon War such as vandalism of Jewish cemeteries. But in the main, Brazil's Jewish population is highly educated, with 68% of the community holding university degrees, employed mainly in business, law, medicine, engineering, and the arts. Most own businesses or are self-employed. The IBGE Census shows that 70% of Brazil's Jews belong to

7000-430: The 500,000 Muslims had been converted to Christianity . There is no universally agreed figure of Morisco population, but Christiane Stallaert put the number at around one million Moriscos (New Christians and their descendants) at the beginning of the 16th century. The governments of Spain and Portugal created the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 and the Portuguese Inquisition , including the Goa Inquisition , in 1536 as

7140-417: The Americas , deportation from the colonies. In addition to the above restrictions and discrimination endured by New Christians, the Spanish Crown and Church authorities also subjected New Christians to persecution , prosecution , and capital punishment for actual or alleged practice of the family's former religion. After the Alhambra Decree of the expulsion of the Jewish population from Spain in 1492 and

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7280-612: The Babylonians. Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East , and that they share certain genetic traits with other Gentile peoples of the Fertile Crescent . The genetic composition of different Jewish groups shows that Jews share a common gene pool dating back four millennia, as a marker of their common ancestral origin. Despite their long-term separation, Jewish communities maintained their unique commonalities, propensities, and sensibilities in culture, tradition, and language. The earliest recorded evidence of

7420-420: The Brazilian Congress passed a law prohibiting the manufacture, trade and distribution of swastikas for the purpose of disseminating Nazism . Anyone who violates this law is liable to serve a prison term from between two and five years. (Law no. 7716 of 5 January 1989) In 2022, a Pentecostal pastor who prayed in front of his congregation for a second Holocaust was sentenced to 18 years and 6 months in prison,

7560-515: The Brazilian Jewish community identifies as secular and Zionist . Chabad has a growing influence in Brazil. The majority of Brazilian Jews are Ashkenazi , often of Polish or German descent, while there is a significant Sephardic and Mizrahi minority of mostly Lebanese, Syrian, Moroccan, and Egyptian descent. There has been a steady stream of aliyah (immigration to Israel ) since the nation's foundation in 1948. Between 1948 and 2021, more than 16,000 Brazilians immigrated to Israel. All states,

7700-455: The Catholic faith, he was first strangled and after had his body burnt in an auto-da-fé . His wife, who witnessed his death, did not long survive him. Another notable person is Isaac de Castro Tartas (1623-1647) who emigrated to Brazil from France and Holland. In 1641 he arrived in Paraíba , Brazil , where he lived for several years. Against the wishes of his relatives there, he went later to Bahia de Todos os Santos (present day, Salvador),

7840-402: The Cross , St. Teresa of Ávila , St. John of Ávila , St. Joseph of Anchieta , Tomás de Torquemada , Diego Laynez , Francisco de Vitoria , Francisco Suárez , and others) or political ( Juan de Oñate , Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva , Hernán Pérez de Quesada , Luis de Santángel , and others). According to António José Saraiva, a Portuguese literature teacher and historian, "The reality of

7980-444: The Federal District, and municipalities with more than 100 Jews are listed below. The numbers are from the 2010 census. Jews The Jews ( Hebrew : יְהוּדִים ‎ , ISO 259-2 : Yehudim , Israeli pronunciation : [jehuˈdim] ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites of the historical kingdoms of Israel and Judah , and whose traditional religion

8120-403: The Iberian Peninsula faced persecutions, but their circumstances changed dramatically under Islamic rule . During this period, they thrived in a golden age , marked by significant intellectual and cultural contributions in fields such as philosophy, medicine, and literature by figures such as Samuel ibn Naghrillah , Judah Halevi and Solomon ibn Gabirol . However, in the 12th to 15th centuries,

8260-423: The Iberian Peninsula witnessed a rise in antisemitism, leading to persecutions, anti-Jewish laws, massacres and forced conversions ( peaking in 1391 ), and the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition that same year. After the completion of the Reconquista and the issuance of the Alhambra Decree by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, the Jews of Spain were forced to choose: convert to Christianity or be expelled. As

8400-402: The Inquisition in Spain and Portugal to the religious freedom of the Netherlands . The Portuguese Inquisition expanded its scope of operations from Portugal to Portugal's colonial possessions, including Brazil , Cape Verde , and Goa , where it continued investigating and trying cases based on supposed breaches of orthodox Roman Catholicism until 1821. As a colony of Portugal, Brazil

8540-413: The Inquisition. Most of the Portuguese Conversos took refuge in Mediterranean countries such as in North Africa, Italy , Greece and the Middle East , and others emigrated to countries that tolerated Judaism, such as the Netherlands, England and Germany . Many Sephardic Jews from Holland and England worked with the maritime trade of the Dutch West India Company , especially with the sugar production in

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8680-444: The Israelite religion of Yahwism by the late 6th century BCE, with a theology considered by religious Jews to be the expression of a covenant with God established with the Israelites, their ancestors. The Babylonian captivity of Judahites following their kingdom's destruction, the movement of Jewish groups around the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period , and subsequent periods of conflict and violent dispersion, such as

8820-598: The Jewish communities in the empire's eastern provinces during the Diaspora Revolt (115–117 CE), leading to the near-total destruction of Jewish diaspora communities in Libya , Cyprus and Egypt , including the highly influential community in Alexandria . The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE brought profound changes to Judaism. With the Temple's central place in Jewish worship gone, religious practices shifted towards prayer , Torah study (including Oral Torah ), and communal gatherings in synagogues . Judaism also lost much of its sectarian nature. Two of

8960-401: The Jewish identity of Biblical characters such as Jesus . Daniel R. Schwartz distinguishes "Judean" and "Jew". Here, "Judean" refers to the inhabitants of Judea, which encompassed southern Palestine . Meanwhile, "Jew" refers to the descendants of Israelites that adhere to Judaism . Converts are included in the definition. But Shaye J.D. Cohen argues that "Judean" should include believers of

9100-401: The Jews are closely intertwined with archaeology, biology, historical textual records, mythology, and religious literature. The ethnic stock to which Jews originally trace their ancestry was a confederation of Iron Age Semitic -speaking tribes known as the Israelites that inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods . Modern Jews are named after and also descended from

9240-549: The Judean God and allies of the Judean state. Troy W. Martin similarly argues that biblical Jewishness is not dependent on ancestry but instead, is based on adherence to 'covenantal circumcision' ( Genesis 17:9–14 ). The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., يَهُودِيّ yahūdī (sg.), al-yahūd (pl.), in Arabic , "Jude" in German , "judeu" in Portuguese , "Juif" (m.)/"Juive" (f.) in French , "jøde" in Danish and Norwegian , "judío/a" in Spanish , "jood" in Dutch , "żyd" in Polish etc., but derivations of

9380-583: The Nazis were denied by the governments of presidents Getúlio Vargas and Eurico Gaspar Dutra . Brazil strictly condemns antisemitism, and such an act is an explicit violation of the law. According to the Brazilian penal code, it is illegal to write, edit, publish, or sell literature that promotes anti-Semitism or racism. The law provides penalties of up to five years in prison for crimes of racism or religious intolerance and enables courts to fine or imprison for two to five years anyone who displays, distributes, or broadcasts antisemitic or racist material. In 1989,

9520-430: The New World, many professions—regardless of their sincerity as converts. Other derogatory terms applied to each of the converting groups included marranos (i.e. "pigs") for New Christians of Jewish origin, and moriscos (a term which carried pejorative connotations) for New Christians of Andalusian origin . Aside from social stigma and ostracism , the consequences of legal or social categorization as

9660-429: The United States gained success in the fields of science, culture and the economy. Among those generally considered the most famous were Albert Einstein and Ludwig Wittgenstein . Many Nobel Prize winners at this time were Jewish, as is still the case. When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the situation for Jews deteriorated rapidly. Many Jews fled from Europe to Mandatory Palestine ,

9800-432: The United States, and the Soviet Union as a result of racial anti-Semitic laws, economic difficulties, and the fear of an impending war. World War II started in 1939, and by 1941, Hitler occupied almost all of Europe. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Final Solution —an extensive, organized effort with an unprecedented scope intended to annihilate the Jewish people—began, and resulted in

9940-442: The Visitations of 1591–93 in Bahia ; 1593–95 in Pernambuco ; 1618 in Bahia; around 1627 in the Southeast; and in 1763 and 1769 in Grão-Pará , in the north of the country. In the 18th century, the Inquisition was also active in Paraíba , Rio de Janeiro , and Minas Gerais . Approximately 400 "judaizers" were prosecuted, most of them being condemned to imprisonment, and 18 New Christians were condemned to death in Lisbon . One of

10080-596: 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 , 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

10220-736: The best-known Portuguese playwrights, António José da Silva (1705-1739), "the Jew," who lived part of his life in Portugal and part in Brazil was condemned to death by the Inquisition in 1739. His parents, João Mendes da Silva and Lourença Coutinho, were descended from Jews who had emigrated to the colony of Brazil to escape the Inquisition , but in 1702 that tribunal began to persecute the Marranos or anyone of Jewish descent in Rio, and in October 1712 Lourença Coutinho became

10360-553: The capital of Grão-Pará had by 1842 an established necropolis . Because of unfavorable conditions in Europe , European Jews began debating in the 1890s about establishing agricultural settlements in Brazil. At first, the plan did not work because of Brazilian political quarrels. In 1904, the Jewish agricultural colonization, supported by the Jewish Colonization Association , began in the state of Rio Grande do Sul ,

10500-506: The city in the 4th century BCE by Alexander the Great . By 200 BCE, there were well established Jewish communities both in Egypt and Mesopotamia (" Babylonia " in Jewish sources) and in the two centuries that followed, Jewish populations were also present in Asia Minor , Greece , Macedonia , Cyrene , and, beginning in the middle of the first century BCE, in the city of Rome . Later, in

10640-685: The colony's capital, where he was recognized as a Jew , arrested by the Portuguese Inquisition , and sent to Lisbon where he died as a Jewish martyr . Heightened antisemitism in Brazil in the 1900s reached its peak during 1933–1945 with the ascent of Nazism in Germany. Brazil blocked its doors to an influx of Jewish refugees from Europe during the Holocaust . Research by Brazil's Virtual Archives on Holocaust and Antisemitism Institute (Arqshoah) has uncovered that between 1937 and 1950 more than 16,000 visas were issued to European Jews attempting to escape

10780-565: The community escaped to the Dutch North American colony of New Amsterdam , that in 1664 would become New York City. In the final decades of the 18th century, some Conversos came to southeastern Brazil to work in the gold mines . Many were arrested, accused of Judaism. Brazilian families that descend from the Conversos are mainly concentrated in the states of Minas Gerais , Rio de Janeiro , Pará and Bahia . Most sources state that

10920-602: The concept of New Christian was a legal mechanism and manifestation of racial antisemitism rather than Judaism as a religion. For those of Moorish origin, it was a manifestation of racial anti-Berberism and/or anti-Arabism . Portuguese New Christians were alleged to have been partners with an English factor in Italy in a notable 17th century marine insurance swindle. The related Spanish development of an ideology of limpieza de sangre ("cleanliness of blood") also excluded New Christians from society—universities, emigration to

11060-612: The confines of the Roman Empire, became an important center of Jewish study as Judea's Jewish population declined. Estimates often place the Babylonian Jewish community of the 3rd to 7th centuries at around one million, making it the largest Jewish diaspora community of that period. Under the political leadership of the exilarch , who was regarded as a royal heir of the House of David, this community had an autonomous status and served as

11200-429: The council , which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun. 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

11340-487: The country. In the main urban centers there are schools, associations and synagogues where Brazilian Jews can practice and pass on Jewish culture and traditions. Some Jewish scholars say that the only threat facing Judaism in Brazil is the relatively high frequency of intermarriage , which in 2002 was estimated at 60%. Intermarriage is especially high among the country's Jews and Arabs . As of 2006, no more than 20% of Brazilian Jews kept kosher . Brazilian Jews exist across

11480-479: The desert and settled on the central mountain range of the land of Canaan, in simple semi-nomadic settlements in which pig bones are notably absent. This population gradually shifted from a tribal lifestyle to a monarchy. While the archaeological record of the ninth century BCE provides evidence for two monarchies, one in the south under a dynasty founded by a figure named David with its capital in Jerusalem , and one in

11620-460: The destruction of the First Temple , though there is ample evidence for the presence of Jews in Babylonia even from 626 BCE. In Egypt, the documents from Elephantine reveal the trials of a community founded by a Persian Jewish garrison at two fortresses on the frontier during the 5th–4th centuries BCE, and according to Josephus the Jewish community in Alexandria existed since the founding of

11760-584: The dichotomy between Old and New Christian only existed in the Inquisitorial taxonomy. The religious or ethnic definition of the New Christians was, in the last analysis, merely formal and bureaucratic. Also, the label of the New Christian can be based on rumors originating from dubious genealogies, slander and intrigue." By law, the category of New Christians included recent converts and their known baptized descendants with any fraction New Christian blood up to

11900-523: The dispersal driven by both forced expulsions and voluntary migrations. In Mesopotamia, a testimony to the beginnings of the Jewish community can be found in Joachin's ration tablets , listing provisions allotted to the exiled Judean king and his family by Nebuchadnezzar II , and further evidence are the Al-Yahudu tablets , dated to the 6th–5th centuries BCE and related to the exiles from Judea arriving after

12040-478: The entire world. A number of modern scholars of nationalism support the existence of Jewish national identity in antiquity. One of them is David Goodblatt, who generally believes in the existence of nationalism before the modern period. In his view, the Bible, the parabiblical literature and the Jewish national history provide the base for a Jewish collective identity. Although many of the ancient Jews were illiterate (as were their neighbors), their national narrative

12180-559: The extra-biblical record, the Israelites become visible as a people between 1200 and 1000 BCE. There is well accepted archeological evidence referring to "Israel" in the Merneptah Stele , which dates to about 1200 BCE, and in the Mesha stele from 840 BCE. It is debated whether a period like that of the Biblical judges occurred and if there ever was a United Monarchy . There

12320-541: The fall of their empire in c. 333 BCE to Alexander the Great . After several centuries under foreign imperial rule, the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire resulted in an independent Hasmonean kingdom , under which the Jews once again enjoyed political independence for a period spanning from 110 to 63 BCE. Under Hasmonean rule the boundaries of their kingdom were expanded to include not only

12460-660: The first centuries CE, as a result of the Jewish-Roman Wars , a large number of Jews were taken as captives, sold into slavery, or compelled to flee from the regions affected by the wars, contributing to the formation and expansion of Jewish communities across the Roman Empire as well as in Arabia and Mesopotamia. After the Bar Kokhba revolt , the Jewish population in Judaea , now significantly reduced in size, made efforts to recover from

12600-456: The first synagogue of Belém, Sha'ar haShamaim ("Gate of Heaven"), was founded in 1824. There are, however, controversies; Samuel Benchimol , author of Eretz Amazônia: Os Judeus na Amazônia , affirms that the first synagogue in Belém was Eshel Avraham ("Abraham's Tamarisk ") and that it was established in 1823 or 1824, while Sha'ar haShamaim was founded in 1826 or 1828. The Jewish population in

12740-478: The former residents of the Kingdom of Judah) were the only Israelites that had kept their distinct identity as the ten tribes from the northern Kingdom of Israel had been scattered and assimilated into other populations. The gradual ethnonymic shift from " Israelites " to "Jews", regardless of their descent from Judah, although not contained in the Torah , is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE) of

12880-441: The ideal type of the nation [...] than perhaps anywhere else in the ancient world." He adds that this observation "must make us wary of pronouncing too readily against the possibility of the nation, and even a form of religious nationalism , before the onset of modernity." Agreeing with Smith, Goodblatt suggests omitting the qualifier "religious" from Smith's definition of ancient Jewish nationalism, noting that, according to Smith,

13020-560: The inquisition, stript of their fortunes, and banished to Brazil, introduced, by their example, some sort of order and industry among the transported felons and strumpets by whom that colony was originally peopled, and taught them the culture of the sugar-cane. Upon all these different occasions, it was not the wisdom and policy, but the disorder and injustice of the European governments, which peopled and cultivated America. —Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776) There have been Jews in what

13160-400: The interaction of Jews or specific communities of Jews with their surroundings, and still 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. Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed lashon ha-kodesh , "the holy tongue"),

13300-557: The land of the historical kingdom of Judah , but also the Galilee and Transjordan . In the beginning of this process the Idumeans , who had infiltrated southern Judea after the destruction of the First Temple , were converted en masse. In 63 BCE, Judea was conquered by the Romans. From 37 BCE to 6 CE, the Romans allowed the Jews to maintain some degree of independence by installing

13440-537: The language in which most of the Hebrew scriptures ( Tanakh ) were composed, and the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries. By the 5th century BCE, Aramaic , a closely related tongue, joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea . By the 3rd century BCE, some Jews of the diaspora were speaking Greek . Others, such as in the Jewish communities of Asoristan , known to Jews as Babylonia, were speaking Hebrew and Aramaic ,

13580-469: The language of Russian Jews , but these policies have also affected neighboring communities. Today, Russian is the first language for many Jewish communities in a number of Post-Soviet states , such as Ukraine and Uzbekistan , as well as for Ashkenazic Jews in Azerbaijan , Georgia, and Tajikistan . Although communities in North Africa today are small and dwindling, Jews there had shifted from

13720-568: The languages of the Babylonian Talmud . Dialects of these same languages were also used by the Jews of Syria Palaestina at that time. For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, often developing distinctive dialectal forms or branches that became independent languages. Yiddish is the Judaeo-German language developed by Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Central Europe . Ladino

13860-649: The largest synagogue in Brazil, was founded in by Dr. Fritz Pinkus, who was born in Egeln , Germany. Associação Religiosa Israelita (the "Israeli Religious Association"), now a member of the World Union for Progressive Judaism , was founded by Dr. Heinrich Lemle , who emigrated from Frankfurt to Rio de Janeiro in 1941. The Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital in São Paulo was founded in 1955 and inaugurated in 1971. It has

14000-673: The law , Jews in the Pale of Settlement faced growing persecution, legal restrictions and widespread pogroms . Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, aiming to re-establish a Jewish polity in the Land of Israel, an endeavor to restore the Jewish people back to their ancestral homeland in order to stop the exoduses and persecutions that have plagued their history. This led to waves of Jewish migration to Ottoman-controlled Palestine . Theodor Herzl , who

14140-593: The law of Jewish identity being inherited through the maternal line, although scholars challenge this theory citing the Talmudic establishment of the law from the pre-exile period. Another argument is that the rabbis changed the law of patrilineal descent to matrilineal descent due to the widespread rape of Jewish women by Roman soldiers. Since the anti-religious Haskalah movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries, halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged. According to historian Shaye J. D. Cohen ,

14280-627: The letter "d" from the Medieval Latin Iudaeus , which, like the New Testament Greek term Ioudaios , meant both "Jew" and " Judean " / "of Judea ". The Greek term was a loan from Aramaic *yahūdāy , corresponding to Hebrew יְהוּדִי Yehudi . Some scholars prefer translating Ioudaios as "Judean" in the Bible since it is more precise, denotes the community's origins and prevents readers from engaging in antisemitic eisegesis . Others disagree, believing that it erases

14420-476: The local, national, and international levels lead various parts of the Jewish community on a variety of issues. Today, many countries have a Chief Rabbi who serves as a representative of that country's Jewry. Although many Hasidic Jews follow a certain hereditary Hasidic dynasty , there is no one commonly accepted leader of all Hasidic Jews. Many Jews believe that the Messiah will act a unifying leader for Jews and

14560-574: The longest sentence for antisemitism to date. According to a U.S. Department of State report, antisemitism in Brazil remains rare. The results of a global survey on anti-Semitic sentiments, released by the Anti-Defamation League , ranked Brazil among the least anti-Semitic countries in the world. According to this global survey conducted between July 2013 and February 2014, Brazil has the lowest "Anti-Semitic Index" (16%) in Latin America and

14700-451: The lure of city jobs." In 1920, the JCA began selling some of the land to non-Jewish settlers. Despite the failure, "The colonies aided Brazil and helped change the stereotypical image of the non-productive Jew, capable of working only in commerce and finance . The main benefit from these agricultural experiments was the removal of restrictions in Brazil on Jewish immigration from Europe during

14840-406: The maximalists who largely accept it, with the minimalists being the more vocal of the two. Some of the leading minimalists reframe the biblical account as constituting the Israelites ' inspiring national myth narrative, suggesting that according to the modern archaeological and historical account, the Israelites and their culture did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of

14980-487: The mediation of Samuel became subject to a king, Saul , who was succeeded by David and then Solomon , after whom the United Monarchy ended and was split into a separate Kingdom of Israel and a Kingdom of Judah . The Kingdom of Judah is described as comprising the tribes of Judah , Benjamin , partially Levi , and later adding remnants of other tribes who migrated there from the northern Kingdom of Israel. In

15120-634: The middle and upper classes. As a group, Jews in Brazil see themselves as a successful segment of society, and face relatively little antisemitism at the onset of the 21st century. Brazil has the tenth largest Jewish community in the world , about 107,329 by 2010, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) Census, and has the second largest Jewish population in Latin America, after Argentina . The Jewish Confederation of Brazil (CONIB) estimates that there are more than 120,000 Jews in Brazil. The Portuguese Jews, persecuted by

15260-754: The national language of the Jewish people, knowledge of the language is not commonly possessed by Jews worldwide and English has emerged as the lingua franca of the Jewish diaspora. Although many Jews once had sufficient knowledge of Hebrew to study the classic literature, and Jewish languages like Yiddish and Ladino were commonly used as recently as the early 20th century, most Jews lack such knowledge today and English has by and large superseded most Jewish vernaculars. The three most commonly spoken languages among Jews today are Hebrew, English, and Russian . Some Romance languages , particularly French and Spanish , are also widely used. Yiddish has been spoken by more Jews in history than any other language, but it

15400-509: The north under a dynasty founded by a figure named Omri with its capital in Samaria . It also points to an early monarchic period in which these regions shared material culture and religion, suggesting a common origin. Archaeological finds also provide evidence for the later cooperation of these two kingdoms in their coalition against Aram , and for their destructions by the Assyrians and later by

15540-512: The northeast of Brazil. The first Jews who arrived in South America were Sephardic Jews who, after being expelled from Brazil by the Portuguese, settled in the northeast Dutch colony. Kahal Zur Israel Synagogue was the first synagogue in the Americas, established in Recife in 1636 and a community of about 1450 Sephardic Jews lived there. When the Portuguese retook Recife in 1654, 23 Jews from

15680-480: The pain of death by burning . Auto-da-fé victims were most frequently apostate former Jews and former Muslims , then Alumbrados (followers of a condemned mystical movement) and Protestants , and occasionally those who had been accused of such crimes against the Roman Catholic Church as bigamy and sorcery Historians note that the best-known action of the Inquisition against Crypto-Jews in Brazil were

15820-489: The persecution and murder of Jews in Europe and North Africa . In Poland, three million were murdered in gas chambers in all concentration camps combined, with one million at the Auschwitz camp complex alone. The Holocaust is the name given to this genocide, in which six million Jews were systematically murdered. Before and during the Holocaust, enormous numbers of Jews immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, upon

15960-530: The population. Jews have significantly influenced and contributed to the development and growth of human progress in many fields, both historically and in modern times, including in science and technology , philosophy , ethics , literature , governance , business , art , music , comedy , theatre , cinema , architecture , food , medicine , and religion . Jews wrote the Bible , founded Christianity , and had an indirect but profound influence on Islam . In these ways, Jews have also played

16100-772: The religion. Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. These definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the Oral Torah into the Babylonian Talmud , around 200  CE . Interpretations by Jewish sages of sections of the Tanakh – such as Deuteronomy 7:1–5 , which forbade intermarriage between their Israelite ancestors and seven non-Israelite nations: "for that [i.e. giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,] would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods" – are used as

16240-569: The revolt's devastating effects, but never fully regained its previous strength. In the second to fourth centuries CE, the region of Galilee emerged as the new center of Jewish life in Syria Palaestina , experiencing a cultural and demographic flourishing. It was in this period that two central rabbinic texts, the Mishnah and the Jerusalem Talmud , were composed. However, as the Roman Empire

16380-665: The royal line of David ) and Joshua the Priest (a descendant of the line of the former High Priests of the Temple ) and their construction of the Second Temple circa 521–516 BCE. As part of the Persian Empire , the former Kingdom of Judah became the province of Judah ( Yehud Medinata ), with a smaller territory and a reduced population. Judea was under control of the Achaemenids until

16520-506: The search for evidence of the biblical narrative surrounding the patriarchs and the exodus. According to the maximalist position, the modern archaeological record independently points to a narrative which largely agrees with the biblical account. This narrative provides a testimony of the Israelites as a nomadic people known to the Egyptians as belonging to the Shasu . Over time these nomads left

16660-712: The southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah . Gary A. Rendsburg links the early Canaanite nomadic pastoralists confederation to the Shasu known to the Egyptians around the 15th century BCE. According to the Hebrew Bible narrative, Jewish ancestry is traced back to the Biblical patriarchs such as Abraham , his son Isaac , Isaac's son Jacob , and the Biblical matriarchs Sarah , Rebecca , Leah , and Rachel , who lived in Canaan . The Twelve Tribes are described as descending from

16800-416: The state of São Paulo , about a quarter in the state of Rio de Janeiro , and there are also sizeable communities in the states of Rio Grande do Sul , Paraná , Minas Gerais , Pernambuco , Bahia , Pará and Amazonas . The Brazilian Jewish community is composed of Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern European origin and Sephardic Jews of Iberian , North African and Middle Eastern origin. It

16940-538: The status of the offspring of mixed marriages was determined patrilineally in the Bible. He brings two likely explanations for the change in Mishnaic times: first, the Mishnah may have been applying the same logic to mixed marriages as it had applied to other mixtures ( Kil'ayim ). Thus, a mixed marriage is forbidden as is the union of a horse and a donkey , and in both unions the offspring are judged matrilineally. Second,

17080-403: The termination of the mandate, David Ben-Gurion declared the creation of the State of Israel , a Jewish and democratic state in the Land of Israel. Immediately afterwards, all neighboring Arab states invaded, yet the newly formed IDF resisted. In 1949, the war ended and Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of Aliyah from all over the world. The Jewish people and

17220-494: The third generation, the fourth generation being exempted. In Phillip II 's reign, it included any person with any fraction of New Christian blood "from time immemorial". In Portugal, in 1772, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquess of Pombal decreed an end to the legal distinction between New Christians and Old Christians . Although the category of New Christian is meaningless in Christian theology and ecclesiology , it

17360-461: The third lowest in all Americas , only behind Canada (14%) and the United States (9%). Brazil has the 10th largest Jewish community in the world , about 107,329 according to the 2010 Brazilian Census . The Jewish Confederation of Brazil (CONIB) estimates that there are more than 120,000 Jews in Brazil, with the lower figure representing active practitioners. About half of Brazilian Jews live in

17500-777: The threat of expulsion, especially when it came to the Jews, the Catholic Inquisition and Iberian monarchs suspected a number of the "New Christians" of being crypto-Jews . Subsequently, the Spanish Inquisition and then the Portuguese Inquisition was created to enforce Catholic orthodoxy and to investigate allegations of heresy . This became a political issue in the kingdoms of the Portuguese-Spanish Union itself and their respective empires abroad, particularly in Spanish America , Portuguese America , and

17640-553: The three main sects that flourished during the late Second Temple period, namely the Sadducees and Essenes , eventually disappeared, while Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis of Rabbinic Judaism , which emerged as the prevailing form of Judaism since late antiquity. The Jewish diaspora existed well before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and had been ongoing for centuries, with

17780-486: The treaty signed at the fall of Granada , and the New Christian descendants of former Muslims weren't expelled until over a century later. Even so, in the meantime, different waves of Andalusian Muslims and New Christians of Moorish origin left the Iberian Peninsula and settled across North Africa and in the provinces of the Ottoman Empire . Over a hundred thousand of Iberian Jews converted to Catholicism in Spain as

17920-500: The twelve sons of Jacob. Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacob's son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs' descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses , after which the Israelites conquered Canaan under Moses' successor Joshua , went through the period of the Biblical judges after the death of Joshua, then through

18060-516: The verb yada , meaning "praise", scholars generally agree that "Judah" most likely derives from the name of a Levantine geographic region dominated by gorges and ravines. In ancient times, Jewish people as a whole were called Hebrews or Israelites until the Babylonian Exile . After the Exile, the term Yehudi (Jew) was used for all followers of Judaism because the survivors of the Exile (who were

18200-602: The word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., in Italian ( Ebreo ), in Persian ("Ebri/Ebrani" ( Persian : عبری/عبرانی )) and Russian ( Еврей, Yevrey ). The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuːdə] , the corresponding adjective "jüdisch" [ˈjyːdɪʃ] (Jewish) is the origin of the word "Yiddish". According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , fourth edition (2000), It

18340-457: The years of their marriage, and of Silva's dramatic career, were few, for on October 5, 1737 husband and wife were both imprisoned on the charge of "judaizing." A slave of theirs had denounced them to the Holy Office. Though the details of the accusation against them seemed trivial and contradictory, and some of his friends testified about his Catholic piety and observation, António was condemned to death. On October 18, like those who wanted to die in

18480-473: Was affected by the nearly 300 years of repression of the Portuguese Inquisition, which began in 1536. In The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith attributed much of the development of Brazil's sugar industry and cultivation to the arrival of Portuguese Jews who were forced out of Portugal during the Inquisition. After the first Brazilian Constitution in 1824 that granted freedom of religion, Jews began to arrive gradually in Brazil. Many Moroccan Jews arrived in

18620-432: Was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire , which came to dominate the ancient Near East. Under the Assyrian resettlement policy , a significant portion of the northern Israelite population was exiled to Mesopotamia and replaced by immigrants from the same region. During the same period, and throughout the 7th century BCE, the Kingdom of Judah, now under Assyrian vassalage , experienced a period of prosperity and witnessed

18760-595: Was introduced by the Old Christians who claimed that "pure unmixed" Christian bloodlines distinguish them as a unique group, separated from ethnic Jews and Iberian Muslims. The Old Christians wanted to legally and socially distinguish themselves from the conversos (converts to Christianity) whom they considered being tainted by their non-Spanish bloodlines-even though the overwhelming majority of Spain's Muslims were also indigenous Iberians, descendants of native Iberians who earlier converted to Islam under Muslim rule . In practice, for New Christians of Jewish origin,

18900-399: Was less prosperous and covered a smaller, mostly mountainous territory. However, while in Israel the royal succession was often decided by a military coup d'état, resulting in several dynasty changes, political stability in Judah was much greater, as it was ruled by the House of David for the whole four centuries of its existence. Around 720 BCE, Kingdom of Israel was destroyed when it

19040-425: Was reinforced through public readings. The Hebrew language also constructed and preserved national identity. Although it was not widely spoken after the 5th century BCE, Goodblatt states: the mere presence of the language in spoken or written form could invoke the concept of a Jewish national identity. Even if one knew no Hebrew or was illiterate, one could recognize that a group of signs was in Hebrew script. ... It

19180-429: Was replaced by the Christianized Byzantine Empire under Constantine , Jews came to be persecuted by the church and the authorities, and many immigrated to communities in the diaspora. In the fourth century CE, Jews are believed to have lost their position as the majority in Syria Palaestina . The long-established Jewish community of Mesopotamia, which had been living under Parthian and later Sasanian rule, beyond

19320-455: Was the language of the Israelite ancestors, the national literature, and the national religion. As such it was inseparable from the national identity. Indeed its mere presence in visual or aural medium could invoke that identity. Anthony D. Smith , an historical sociologist considered one of the founders of the interdisciplinary field of nationalism studies , wrote that the Jews of the late Second Temple period provide "a closer approximation to

19460-444: 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 . Hebrew was revived as a spoken language by Eliezer ben Yehuda , who arrived in Palestine in 1881. It had not been used as a mother tongue since Tannaic times. Modern Hebrew is designated as the "State language" of Israel. Despite efforts to revive Hebrew as

19600-447: Was used to describe the inhabitants of the Israelite kingdom of Judah . It is also used to distinguish their descendants from the gentiles and the Samaritans . According to the Hebrew Bible , these inhabitants predominately descend from the tribe of Judah from Judah , the fourth son of Jacob . Together the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin made up the Kingdom of Judah. Though Genesis 29:35 and 49:8 connect "Judah" with

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