Judaism

Judaism is one of the world’s oldest religions, a monotheistic faith founded nearly 4,000 years ago in the Mideast. The book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible recounts the relationship of Abraham and the Hebrew God, including a covenant made when Abraham was 99 years old. At that time God promised him that “you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.” (Genesis 17:1-5) This was not the first, nor would it be the last, of God’s covenants with the Jewish people. Arguably the most important one was made with the entire Jewish population through the person of Moses, who brought the Ten Commandants down from his meeting with God on Mt. Sinai. These are considered holy laws issued directly from the Divine. Other ancient prophets important to Judaism include Abraham’s son Isaac and his grandson Jacob, as well as Solomon and others.

Judaism regards its teachings as not just for Jews --- it provides guidance and a way to redemption for all of humanity. Jacob Neusner (1932-2016) was a well-known scholar of Judaism who apparently was not Jewish; his views are often controversial. Many people, however, agree with his assertion that the elements of Judaism “express a single & whole conception of the world, of the human being, of the character of humanity, and of the supernatural meaning of the Jewish people. … Judaism is a mode of creating and of interpreting the world … each and every element relates to all other elements.”

History

The history of the Jews is largely one of resilience in the face of oppression. One of the earliest stories is that of a Jewish population being enslaved in Egypt in the 13th century BCE. Eventually these people were freed by Moses and traveled with him to Mt. Sinai, where the great covenant of the Commandments was carried out. While this ancient tale is often considered mythical, some scholars believe there is both archeological and textual evidence for it.

Later events are better documented. The Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s for refusing to convert to Christianity. From 1894 to 1906, the Dreyfus Affair scandalized all of France: a Jewish captain in the French Army, Alfred Dreyfus, was wrongly convicted of spying for the Germans. In 1896 new evidence pointed to another French officer, but the immediate effect was prosecution of the whistle-blowers. Eventually the actual culprit, a man named Esterhazy, was court-martialed but found innocent. Amid the continuing outcry over Dreyfus’ wrongful arrest, Esterhazy fled the country. It was 1906 before Dreyfus was cleared of charges and reinstated in the Army. The events of these years fueled a great deal of anti-Semitism in France.

The Holocaust of World War II is, of course, the greatest disaster to have ever befallen the Jewish people. Six million Jews died in the Nazi camps, a genocide that has political reverberations to this day. The State of Israel, considered the Jewish homeland, was established three years after the Holocaust ended. As we all know, there has been contentious arguing among Jews and Muslims ever since. Whether these two peoples can live in peace together remains to be seen.

Online resources

Articles

• Reincarnation in Judaism and the Bible by W. Q. Judge