Judaism, A monotheistic world religion that began as the faith of the ancient Hebrews. Its sacred texts are the Hebrew Bible, especially the Torah, the first five books of the Bible that are attributed to Moses, as well as the Oral Torah that was later compiled in the Talmud. Fundamental to Judaism is the belief in one transcendent God and the belief that the people of Israel are God’s chosen people, who must serve as a light for other nations. According to the Torah, God made a covenant with Abraham and then renewed it with Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. The worship of God was centered in Jerusalem from the time of David(c. 1000 bce) and the construction of the First Temple under Solomon, his successor. The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians (587/586 bce) and the subsequent Babylonian Exile of the Jews led to hopes for national restoration under the leadership of a messiah. The Jews were later allowed by the Persians to return, and the Temple was rebuilt in 515 bce. However, an unsuccessful rebellion against Roman rule over Judaea led to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ce and the Jews’ dispersal throughout the world in the Jewish Diaspora. Rabbinic Judaism emerged to replace the beliefs and practices associated with the Temple at Jerusalem, as the Jews carried on their culture and religion through a tradition of scholarship and strict observance, and the synagogue came to be the focus of ritual practice and community. The great body of oral law was committed to writing in the Mishna and combined with commentaries of the Gemara to form the Talmud. Jews observe a weekly day of rest, the Sabbath, from sundown on Friday through sundown on Saturday. Notable among the holidays during the Jewish ritual year are Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) in September or October and, in March or April, Passover, which commemorates the escape of the Hebrews from enslavement in Egypt as narrated in the Bible.
Two branches of Judaism emerged in the Middle Ages: Sephardic Jews, centered in Spain, and Ashkenazi Jews, centered in France and Germany. Elements of mysticism also appeared, notably the 12th- and 13th-century esoteric writings of Kabbala and, in the 18th century, the pietistic movement begun in Poland known as Hasidism. Conservative and Reform Judaism emerged in 19th-century Germany and the United States as an effort to modify the strictness of Orthodox Judaism. By the end of the 19th century, Zionism, a nationalist movement to establish a Jewish state in the ancient homeland of the Jews in Palestine, gained momentum in Europe amid persistent anti-Semitism and persecution. European Jews suffered terribly during the Holocaust, when six million Jews were put to death by the Nazis during World War II. The rising flow of Jewish emigrants to Palestine led to the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. In the early 21st century there were nearly 15 million Jews worldwide.
