Who were the Jews?

God repays those who hate him by destroying them.

Who were the Jews?
Clothing that became popular in Eastern Europe in the 18th century.
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Learn the keywords, read the article, answer the questions, and then book a lesson with a language tutor.

Key words

  • Vassal state: a state that is subordinate to a more powerful state, often paying tribute and providing military support in exchange for protection and autonomy.

During the medieval period, many regions operated as vassal states under larger empires.

  • Hellenise: to adopt or adapt to Greek culture, language, or customs.

The conquests of Alexander the Great helped to hellenise many regions across the ancient world.

  • Lingua franca: a language that is used as a common means of communication between speakers of different native languages.

English has become the lingua franca of international business and diplomacy.

  • Anachronism: a person, thing, or idea that exists out of its time in history, especially one that happened or existed later than the period being shown, discussed, etc.

The film was full of anachronisms. Jamaicans didn't arrive in Britain until centuries later.

  • Ashkenazi: a group that originated in Central and Eastern Europe, known for its distinct cultural and religious practices.

The Ashkenazi have a rich history that includes unique traditions and languages, such as Yiddish.


Read the article to find the answers

  1. Where does the word Jew first appear in the Bible?
  2. When did the State of Israel change the definition of Jew?
  3. When did the Kingdom of Judah cease to exist?
  4. Where did the word Judaism first appear?

Jews

The word Jew first appears in the Bible in 2 Kings 16:6, where it is used to refer to people from the Kingdom of Judah. The kings of Judah at that time completely abandoned the worship of God. Instead, they set up altars and sacrificed children to Baal. The word Jew then appears in later books of the Hebrew Bible to describe people from the Kingdom of Judah, such as the devout Esther and Daniel.

The biblical definition of a Jew is someone from the Kingdom of Judah, whether they follow God's commandments or not. However, in the 9th century, the head of the Talmudic Academy in Babylon defined a Jew as only those who followed Judaism.

In 1935, the German government defined a Jew as anyone who had Jewish grandparents, whether or not they practised Judaism. The State of Israel used a similar definition in 1950 and amended it in 1970 to include anyone with a Jewish relative in order to maintain and increase the flow of illegal settlers into Palestine from the former Soviet Union.

The Kingdom of Judah

According to the Bible, Adam was the first man. Several generations passed before Noah was born, and several more generations before Eber was born. Eber's descendants became known as the Hebrews, and Abraham was the most important.

According to the Bible, Abraham was chosen by God to be the father of a great nation. He had a grandson named Jacob, who was later renamed Israel and became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. One of these was the tribe of Judah, which settled in the southern part of Canaan and was part of the Kingdom of Israel under the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon.

All of Jacob's descendants were called Israelites until the death of Solomon, when the kingdom split into two. The northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrian Empire and its people became known as the "Lost Tribes of Israel", and the southern Kingdom of Judah became a vassal state of Assyria, then Egypt and later Babylon. The king of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and the Jews were exiled to Babylon, but they retained their identity and traditions as described in the books of Daniel and Esther.

After Persia conquered Babylon, the Jews were allowed to return to Judah. The Temple was rebuilt and Jerusalem was re-established as the centre of Jewish life. Later, the Greeks and Romans ruled over Judah, which became known as Judea.

The Roman army destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 AD. Josephus, a Jewish historian of the time, estimated that over a million Jews died in the massacre. Thousands more were captured and sold into slavery. Despite the destruction, Jewish resistance continued, but was crushed by the Romans. Jews were banned from Jerusalem, which was renamed Aelia Capitolina and Judea forever ceased to exist as a country after the Roman province of Judea was renamed 'Syria Palaestina'.

Judaism

The word Judaism does not appear in the Bible - there was not even a word for it in the Hebrew language 2,000 years ago. The earliest known use of it is in Greek, at a time when the culture and religion of the Kingdom of Judah was being Hellenised, as described in the Book of Maccabees. After the destruction of the Temple and the end of Judea as a country, the religion of the Jews was dominated by the Pharisees, a sect obsessed with creating new laws based on their interpretations of the Bible. They later became what we know today as Rabbinic Jews.

Onkelos was one of the earliest influencers on Rabbinic Judaism. He was a Roman, related to the Roman emperor Hadrian, who converted to Judaism and translated the Torah into Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Jewish people in the 1st and 2nd centuries. His translation was widely accepted and, despite its obvious anachronisms, is still studied and referred to today.

In the 3rd century, the Mishnah, a collection of rules created by the Pharisees, was published. As time went on, more and more rules were added until the Talmud was published in the 6th century. It is in the Talmud that we find the rule that Jewish identity comes from the mother being Jewish.

The ever-evolving Jewish identity can be seen in the practice of Eastern European men covering their heads with a kippah after the Shulchan Aruch was written in Syria, published in Venice and adapted to Ashkenazi customs in Krakow in the 16th century.

Semantic Shift

Many words in the English language have undergone a semantic shift, gay has changed from meaning happy to meaning homosexual, Armageddon has changed from a place in Israel to the end of the world.

The meaning of the word Jew has also changed from its original meaning of someone from the Kingdom of Judah over 2,000 years ago to whatever the State of Israel chooses to define it as today.


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Discussion questions

  • Do you have any questions about any of the vocabulary or grammar in this article?
  • What words do you know that have undergone a semantic shift?
  • What do you know about the Book of Maccabees?
  • What do you know about immigration to the State of Israel?
  • What do you know about the Talmud and Shulchan Aruch?

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