Jewish
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Jew" redirects here. For the word, see Jew (word). For other uses, see Jew (disambiguation). Jews יְהוּדִים (Yehudim) Star of David.svg The Star of David, a common symbol of the Jewish people Total population 14.6–17.8 million Enlarged population (includes full or partial Jewish ancestry): 20.7 million[1]
Map of the Jewish Diaspora in the World.svg (2022, est.) Regions with significant populations Israel (including occupied territories) 6,558,000–6,958,000[1] United States 5,700,000–10,000,000[1] France 453,000–600,000[1] Canada 391,000–550,000[1] United Kingdom 290,000–370,000[1] Argentina 180,000–330,000[1] Russia 172,000–440,000[1] Germany 116,000–225,000[1] Australia 113,000–140,000[1] Brazil 93,000–150,000[1] South Africa 69,000–80,000[1] Ukraine 50,000–140,000[1] Hungary 47,000–100,000[1] Mexico 40,000–50,000[1] Netherlands 30,000–52,000[1] Belgium 29,000–40,000[1] Italy 28,000–41,000[1] Switzerland 19,000–25,000[1] Chile 18,000–26,000[1] Uruguay 17,000–25,000[1] Turkey 15,000–21,000[1] Sweden 15,000–25,000[1] Languages Predominantly spoken:[2] Modern HebrewEnglishRussianFrenchSpanish Historical: YiddishLadinoJudeo-Arabicothers Sacred: Biblical HebrewBiblical AramaicTalmudic Aramaic Religion Judaism Related ethnic groups Jewish ethnic subdivisions (Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Mizrahim) Semitic-speaking peoples such as Samaritans,[3][4][5] Arabs,[4][6][7][8] Assyrians,[9] and Levantines[4][8][5] Others שָׁלוֹם This article contains Hebrew text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hebrew letters. Part of a series on Jews and Judaism EtymologyWho is a Jew? Religion Texts Communities Population Denominations Culture Languages History Politics CategoryPortal vte Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים, ISO 259-2: Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation: [jehuˈdim]) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group,[10] nation or ethnos[11][12] originating from the ancient Israelites[13][14][15] and Hebrews[16][17][18] of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated,[19][20] as Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people, although its observance varies from strict to none.[21][22]
Jews take their origins from a Southern Levantine national and religious group that arose towards the end of the second millennium BCE.[9] The Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt appears to confirm the existence of an Israelite people in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE (Late Bronze Age).[23][24] The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population,[25] consolidated their hold in the region with the emergence of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Some consider that these Canaan-sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as the "Hebrews".[26] The experience of life in the Jewish diaspora, from the Babylonian captivity and exile (though few sources mention this period in detail[27]) to the Roman occupation and exile, and the historical relations between Jews and their homeland in the Levant thereafter became a major feature of Jewish history, identity, culture, and memory.[28]
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), the Sephardim (initially in the Iberian Peninsula), and the Mizrahim (Middle East and North Africa).[29][30] Prior to World War II, the global Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million,[31] representing around 0.7 percent of the world population at that time. During World War II, approximately 6 million Jews throughout Europe were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.[32][33] Since then, the population has slowly risen again, and as of 2018, was estimated to be at 14.6–17.8 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank,[1] comprising less than 0.2 percent of the total world population.[34][note 1] The modern State of Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population.
Jews have significantly influenced and contributed to human progress in many fields, both historically and in modern times, including in science and technology,[36] philosophy,[37] ethics,[38] literature,[36] politics,[36] business,[36] art, music, comedy, theatre,[39] cinema, architecture,[36] food, medicine,[40][41] and religion. Jews wrote the Bible,[42][43] founded Christianity,[44] and had an indirect but profound influence on Islam.[45] In these ways, Jews have also played a significant role in the development of Western culture.[46][47]
Name and etymology Main article: Jew (word) For a more comprehensive list, see List of Jewish ethnonyms. The term Jew is derived from Hebrew יְהוּדִי Yehudi, originally the term for the people of the Israelite kingdom of Judah. According to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe of Judah and the kingdom of Judah derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob.[48] Genesis 29:35 and 49:8 connect the name "Judah" with the verb yada, meaning "praise", but scholars generally agree that the name of both the patriarch and the kingdom instead have a geographic origin—possibly referring to the gorges and ravines of the region.[49][50] The shift of ethnonym from "Israelites" to "Jews" (inhabitant of Judah), although not contained in the Torah, is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE),[51] a book in the Ketuvim, the third section of the Jewish Tanakh.
The Hebrew word for "Jew" is יְהוּדִי Yehudi, with the plural יְהוּדִים Yehudim.[52] Endonyms in other Jewish languages include the Ladino ג׳ודיו Djudio (plural ג׳ודיוס, Djudios) and the Yiddish ייִד Yid (plural ייִדן Yidn).
The English word "Jew" continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe. These terms were loaned via the Old French giu, which itself evolved from the earlier juieu, which in turn derived from judieu/iudieu which through elision had dropped the letter "d" from the Medieval Latin Iudaeus, which, like the New Testament Greek term Ioudaios, meant both "Jew" and "Judean" / "of Judea".[53] The Greek term was a loan from Aramaic *yahūdāy, corresponding to Hebrew יְהוּדִי Yehudi.[48]
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 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).[54] The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuːdə], the corresponding adjective "jüdisch" [ˈjyːdɪʃ] (Jewish) is the origin of the word "Yiddish".[55]
According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition (2000),
It 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 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.[56]
