RMPS - Int2/Higher - World Religions - Judaism - Education Scotland

SECTION 1
JUDAISM – AN OVERVIEW
The following support notes aim to explain and inform students about
Judaism as a religion. It should be understood that the terms Judaism
and the Jewish religion are not always exactly the same. Judaism is a
broader term that can be used to refer to the totality of Jewish life and
thought. Although the Jewish religion is the most important single
component in Judaism, the importance of Jewish literature, culture and
history as a mirror of the effect of the Jewish religion on Jewish people
should be recognised.
The word Jew is derived from the Hebrew Jehudi (or Yehudi), meaning a
member of the tribe of Judah, which was the name of one of Jacob’s
twelve sons. Most Jews are born into Judaism. According to Jewish law,
a Jew is a person whose mother was Jewish or who has gone through a
formal process of conversion to Judaism. This applies to Orthodox and
Reform Judaism but Liberal Judaism additionally recognises as Jewish a
person whose father was Jewish.
Jewish people can be found throughout the world and this is why
Judaism is a world faith. This means that Jews speak different languages
and belong to different races and nations. The two main Jewish cultural
groups are Ashkenazi, who are Western Jews, i.e. Jews from France,
Germany and eastern Europe; and Sephardi, who are from Spain,
Portugal, North Africa and the Middle and Far East. Most American Jews
today are Ashkenazi as they are descended from Jews who emigrated
from Germany and Eastern Europe from the mid-1800s to the early
1900s. British Jewry is also mainly Ashkenazi and descended from Jews
who emigrated from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Russia in the early
1900s. A further group came from Germany in the 1930s following the
rise to power of Adolf Hitler.
Judaism covers a broad spectrum of Jewish belief, and can be perceived
as ‘a tree of life which has one trunk but several branches’ (Romain,
1991, p25).
‘Orthodox’ is the term used to describe an umbrella group covering a
wide variety of traditions from the fully observant (such as members of
the Lubavitch and other Hassidic movements) to quite unobservant
people who nevertheless acknowledge the authority of a fully observant
minister or rabbi. Official orthodoxy, therefore, includes a wide range of
beliefs, practices and attitudes.
RMPS: WORLD RELIGIONS – JUDAISM (INT 2, H) 3
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