Jewish Culture Cultural Analysis

“When I was a little girl my family moved to Tallahassee, Florida. We were the only Jewish family in the neighborhood. So as most kids do when they move to a new neighborhood, they tend to try and make new friends. I remember going over to one of my new friend’s house and her mother felt my scalp for horns” Julianne Jacques MCC-Penn Valley Counselor. Jewish Americans learn from a young age about the importance of knowing their history. Knowing the history is for the sake of the future of their past. Jewish Americans represent a group of people rather than a race or ethnicity, with strong family values and beliefs. They are simply claiming five thousand years of their history.

Over the course of history, the Jewish culture has endured many cultural hardships. When Nationalism began to rise in Europe, the treatment of Jews became harsh. Amos Elon describes this transition for Jews in his novel The Pity of it All. “For all their irony and skepticism, the Jews of Germany never ceased in their effort to merge German and Jewish identity...their overriding desire was to be complete Germans.” (Elon, 8). The major concerns in Jewish history throughout the ages have been assimilation and acculturation. Acculturation and assimilation are two very important concepts that describe the cultural effects on both minorities and majorities. While these concepts are very similar, there are slight differences between

The development and expression of the daily life of modern day Jews can be traced back to the teachings of Isaiah 58, where he focuses on ethical righteousness and promotion of social justice. It is these teachings of Isaiah that modern Jews live according to. The Jewish custom of ‘Tikkun Olam’, meaning ‘repair of the world’, is evidently expressed through Isaiah’s teachings (Isaiah 58:6-12), and the effects of this teaching has greatly contributed to the development and expression of modern day Judaism. The common need for marriage and of having at least two children, one boy and one girl, in order to ‘leave the world in a better state’, is a concept derived from Isaiah’s teachings in order to repair the world. More importantly, social acts such as Gemilut Chasadim (loving kindness) and Tzeddakah (almsgiving); “Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter…?” (Isaiah 58:7), are derived from Isaiah’s expressed concerns on social justice, and are enacted in order to bring about ‘repair of the world’. The lives of Jews express the charitable acts of righteousness and social justice, and as a result, it is evident that Isaiah’s teachings have contributed greatly to the development and expression of Judaism.

Regardless of the growing frequency of Jewish migrating to the United States, the community continues to confront the many issues as part of their assimilation. Through this process of assimilating,

Sitting in a comfortable leather chair on a cloudy January day, I sat in a house and interviewed Susan Gustavson, a life long Jew that is in her mid-fifties. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Columbia University, where she got an MBA in marketing. She told me about her opinions on the Judaism.

For my ethnographic fieldwork, I decided to do my research on the Jewish culture. I interviewed a friend of mine at her house, which is the field site I decided to work in. To protect her identity I changed her name to Rebecca. As soon as I got to her house I notice there was a small piece of metal on the side of her doorpost with hebrew text written on it. I enter the house and she greeted me and took me to her living room.In her living room I noticed she had a tray of bite size cookies for us and a Snapple drink. The cookies were sweet and they did not have strong odor. My friend wore black slacks a white blouse and a star necklace around her neck. After a while, her brother and father came in and I noticed they had a little cap on the top of their heads. I asked her questions about her religion and culture.

Judaism has great significance in our religions and history today. It’s interesting how each little thing can have such an important role in a whole religion. In conclusion, Jewish beliefs, customs, holidays, symbols, history, and the holocaust all play a crucial role in making Jews who they are

In New York, United States a new wave of Jewish refugees is going to create a new American identity among society. To the skepticism of the grand percent of the Jewish community, America was indeed the gateway from dictatorship, prejudice, persecution, and death to Jews. An impressive 85% of Jews have experienced or witnessed anti-Semitic remarks at some point in their lives, according to a poll by the World Zionist Organization’s International Center for Countering Anti-Semitism. During the early 20th century, Jews are going to experience hardships in their daily life that will force them to evacuate or adapt to new rules. Peter Knight expresses in his book that during the nineteenth century American Jews “rarely [experienced]

“Certainly, the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might have eventually stumbled upon all the Jewish insights. But we cannot be sure. All the great conceptual discoveries of the human intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they had been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person; of the individual conscience and so a personal redemption; of collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the

Throughout the history of the world, the Jewish people have been persecuted and oppressed because of their religious beliefs and faith. Many groups of people have made Jews their scapegoat. Jews have suffered from years of intolerance because people have not understood what the religion really means. They do not understand where and why the religion began, nor the customs of it's people. For one to understand the great hardships, triumphs, and history of the Jewish people one must open-mindedly peruse a greater knowledge of the Jewish people and faith.

The writings of Alicia Ramos-González in her work Daughters of Tradition discuss, in great detail, the cultural world of Jewish women in Eastern Europe during the 16th-19th century. I believe that culture takes root in ones’ identity not only as an individual, but also in ones’ identity with their people and nation. Based on this belief, I have chosen to focus my explorations on the patterns found in the bases of Jewish identity among the women in Yiddish culture during this time. Despite the negative impacts towards gender equality which arose though preventing women from obtaining skills such as learning Hebrew scripture, the Yiddish heritage has benefitted greatly in part of this gender gap and has become a cornerstone in the bases of the identity found throughout all Jewish Women.

Judaism is a religion that almost seems uncommon in today’s era. Currently, the United States is occupied with just two percent of individuals who believe in judaism; Globally, only .2 percent of the population is Jewish, which means this religion isn’t practiced heavily by many. The USHMM (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) indicates that World War II was responsible for the death of more than six million innocent jews; this still impacts the jewish community today. Jews

Throughout the history of Judaism, Jewish people have faced ongoing persecution and discrimination. Despite these conflicts, the faith remains alive, strong, and continuously growing. Like many religions faced with adversity, Judaism has had to assimilate its faith to survive in an ever-changing world. One significant moment of change in the Jewish history, the fall of the Second Temple, had the opportunity to destroy Judaism, but the Jewish people bonded together and reformulated their religion in order to save their faith. The falling of the Second Temple marks a distinct change in the Jewish faith through the modification of ritual practices to accommodate their new mobile lifestyle. This change would forever impact the Jewish

The purpose of this research paper will be to examine how Judaism rituals have helped the religion remained amongst the most prominent in the world. The use of tradition and rituals has been at the very core of its existence. Birth, adolescent, marriage and death rituals will be used to highlight how the Judaism way of life is not dependent on the written word but rather the actions of those who follow this historic Hebrew religion. The paper will begin with a brief outline of Judaism and its relationship with God and then continue with how the written word of the Torah has laid the basis for the many traditions still practiced in Judaism.

There are many different cultures that surround us everyday; each one with its own unique customs and lifestyles. The Jewish culture contains some of the oldest traditions and customs that date back thousands of years. This culture has survived everything from exile to almost being diminished during the Holocaust. The Jewish culture has a unique culture, that has much to share with the world around them.