Judaism

Abstract

Judaism refers to the religion of the Jewish people or the children of Israel, which comprises all those descended from the 12 tribes of Israel, who were descended from the 12 sons of the patriarch Jacob, Abraham’s grandson. There are some 13.3 million Jews in the world, with over 8 million living in the Diaspora: 5.7 million in the United States, 519,000 in France, and 364,000 in Canada. A little more than 5 million Jews today live in Israel.1 A person can be identified as Jewish in three ways: ethnicity (being born to a Jewish mother) together with the practice of Judaism, the practice of Judaism without ethnicity (converts), and finally ethnicity alone. Some people, therefore, see themselves as belonging to Jewish culture without practicing religion on a regular basis. Thus, in Israel, 43 percent of the Jewish population is nonpractising, but 65 percent of Israelis say they observe the Seder ritual. The Seder is the ritual meal taken the first two nights of the festival of Pesach (Passover), and the service includes the reading of the Haggadah, the narrative of the exodus of the Jewish people and their liberation from slavery in Egypt. In the United States, 80 percent of Jews say they practice some form of religion, perhaps Pesach, Hanukkah (Festival of Lights), and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), but only 46 percent attend the synagogue.2 Also in the United States, observance of the Sabbath falls to 28 percent and the dietary laws (kashrut) to 21 percent.