JUDAISM –I
history, basic terms
Basic terms
• Hebrew means “From across”- name given to Abraham and his followers
• Israelites: Abraham’s grandson Jacob renamed Israel which means “he who has wrestled with God”. His descendants were called “Israelites”
• Jews: named after Jacob’s son Judah (Yahuda), ancient father of tribe of King David’s dynasty
• Population of J.
• That's a difficult question to answer, because not every country keeps track of such things, and not every Jew chooses to admit such things, particularly in countries where Jews are persecuted.
• Most estimates I have seen suggest that there are about 14 million Jews in the world. The vast majority of these Jews live in either the United States and Israel;
Israel with over 6 million Jews and America with about 5.5 million. There are about 2.5 million Jews in Europe (a third of them in France), 400,000 in Latin
America and 400,000 in Canada. In Africa, there are less than 75,000 Jews, about
90% of whom live in the country of South Africa. There are about 125,000 Jews in
Australia and New Zealand combined. There are about 40,000 Jews in Asia (not
including Israel), half of them in former Soviet Union countries.
• 13 Principles of Faith- Essence of J.
• The closest that anyone has ever come to creating a widely-accepted list of Jewish beliefs is Rambam’s thirteen principles of faith. These principles, which Rambam thought were the minimum requirements of Jewish belief, are:
• God exists
• God is one and unique
• God is incorporeal
• God is eternal
• Prayer is to be directed to G-d alone and to no other
• The words of the prophets are true
• Moses’ prophecies are true, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets
• The Written Torah (first 5 books of the Bible) and Oral Torah (teachings now contained in the Talmud and other writings) were given to Moses
• There will be no other Torah
• God knows the thoughts and deeds of men
• God will reward the good and punish the wicked
• The Messiah will come
• The dead will be resurrected
