The Jewish Community

By the year 1000 B.C.E the Jews had founded Israel as their national state (“Jews”). They actively practiced a very distinctive religion, Judaism. Israel was conquered several times and eventually came under the rule of the Roman Empire (“Jews”). During this time, Jews were legal citizens of the Empire. However, the Jews and Christians diverged quickly; the Jews were marginalized for being different and strange. They rejected the belief that Jesus is the Messiah and other christian laws. Eventually the Jewish revolt in 135 C.E. drove the Jews out of Jerusalem (“Jews”). They then lived throughout the Roman Empire and the materializing medieval states. They lived in their own communities called ghettos because they were not allowed to own land

The history of Jews in host cities often depict a story of success or of failure when it comes to relations between the Jews and the Christians in Europe. Historian Jonathan Elukin, author of Living Together, Living Apart, presents the integration as a success process with rare, and special cases, of failure. On the other side of the spectrum is historian Raymond P. Scheindlin. Scheindlin’s novel, A Short History of the Jewish People, presents many cases of integration between the Christians and Jews that led to massacres and brutal endings for the Jewish community. There are many monumental events that take place during the long span of time that oversees European Jewish history, and both historians study and evaluate the events, however, they do so through different lenses.

Throughout the 1800’s to the mid-1900’s one problem restricted and threatened the Jewish race. Through trials, battles, immigration, and more the jews couldn’t catch a break. They were a despised people suffering due to an inability of the Jewish people to fully assimilate into other societies. This issue highlighted the political and cultural atmosphere and events throughout the time periods we studied. From beneath all the destruction and chaos occurring during this time period lies an important message.

In medieval Spain, Christians, Jews, and Muslims coexisted with little to no problems. During power swings from Muslims to Christians, Jews often served as a middle man between the two. They ended up in their own communities under their own rule free to do whatever they like. In these communities, there was the normal distribution of wealthy and poor, with most being commoners, but some Jews acquiring jobs from Lords such as tax and tithing collection. During this period, the

In the early years of medieval Spain; Christians, Muslims and Jews practiced a relatively peaceful coexistence. While they did not agree with one another’s religious practices and traditions, there was a certain level of tolerance for the other. Many Jews maintained upper class lifestyles, holding positions in such professions as medicine, law, and even royal and

The history of the Jewish people in Spain is certainly a pivotal time period that changed the future of the Jews and specifically, the Sephardic Jews. At the time of the issuing and signing of the Edict of Expulsion on March 31, 1492, Spanish Jews were experiencing the most persecution that had been felt in the many centuries of which the Jews had been in Spain. Spanish Jewry came to a dramatic end after almost a millennium of Jewish presence in the country. Spanish Jewry’s golden age, however, the Jews experienced almost no persecution, resulting in a new centre of Talmudic study, before suffering from a relapse of anti-Semitism that eventually led to the Inquisition and the Edict of Expulsion. (SOURCE 1) This essay will discuss and analyze

All throughout time, the Jewish people went through a lot. Judaism has fought through many challenges that have threatened its existence. One of the most iconic events for Judaism in history was the Holocaust. Although most of the events of the Holocaust are known to the world, there are still questions about the topic and much to learn. Some questions about the Judaism during the Holocaust are ‘In what ways were the Jewish people discriminated against during the Holocaust?’, ‘How did the Jewish people react to the Nazi force invasions?’, and ‘What happened to the Jewish people and religion after the Holocaust?’.

In the Luis de Carvajal reading, the idea of what it means to be a Jew is explored. To provide some background, Luis de Carvajal (the Younger) was a crypto-Jew, or a secret Jew, who lived in New Spain during the time of the Inquisition. He was burned at the stake in December 1596, after being convicted of observing Jewish religious practices. The reading as a whole fundamentally delineates Luis’ desire to embrace his religion during a time in which people of the Jewish faith either had to either convert to Christianity or suffer persecution. Ultimately, Luis de Carvajal’s memoirs entail the concept that being a Jew involves the following: being loyal and devoted to the religion; carrying on Jewish traditions; feeling or developing a community with fellow Jews; and believing in one God and having a personal connection with Him.

The long-term impact on the life of European Jews after the war is in four major areas: state ownership, economics, migration and relations with other non-Jews . Geographically, prior to the war, they are with one state in one area, and after the war, they find themselves in a completely different political–cultural unit or state. Jews who formerly live in Russia, Austria, or Germany are no longer part of their normal geographical habitat can in another state . With these instabilities, their social mobility increases, and many Jews, move up into the bourgeois middle class. With the revision in character, in self-pride of culture, many develop a more secular Jewish identity, joining only Jewish organizations and socializing with only other Jews . These new demographics empty the policy of encouraging Jews to assume only agriculture roles and allow them to kept their World War I productive areas of labor, butchery, bakery, textile crafts, doctors, lawyers, and bankers. With this rapid upturn in crafts and education to make a living, it seems the new purpose for the Jews, are one of promise for them, and life is rewarding. Yet, in Europe’s degenerate Christian population, while many are still living in poverty they become unnatural, demon like evil spirits looking in any way to claw their way out of an

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]

As one would imagine there are differing opinions of whether we should be concentrating on Ethnic Israel or the Church. This paper will attempt to view the research as a unified

Throughout the decades and centuries in American history, the Jews have undergone various events and experiences that have affected them positively and negatively. In the article of “The Periodization of American Jewish History”, Jacob Marcus goes to the roots of Jewish foundation. He says that American Jewish history is divided into four periods. The four periods are the Spanish-Portuguese, the German, the East European, and the American periods. The Spanish-Portuguese Jews moved into America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During these times, the Jews did not have full religious and economic rights, and as a result, the Sephardic Jewish community failed to thrive. The situation was like this until 1776, the year that the Declaration of Independence was signed. The Jews received economic opportunities along with fair civil and religious rights. By this time, lots of German and Polish Jews immigrated to America, outnumbering the Sephardic Jews. The German and Polish Jews made their own communities and synagogues, and they became dominant between 1841 and 1920.

Ancestrally Jewish, Luis de la Ysla, born Abraham Abzaradiel in 1484, was forced to leave Spain at the age of eight. Just before his thirteenth birthday, Abraham was baptized, converted to Christianity, took on the alias “Luis de la Ysla”, and returned to his Spanish homeland before beginning his travels. As Ysla traveled through the Mediterranean, his connection to his homeland, his need to support himself and his desire for community drives him to change his religious identity as it suits him. His autobiographical account, although difficult to corroborate, provides an important portrait of how Jews responded to their expulsion from Spain.

Kamen notes the ambiguous pressure on Jews, as despite the anti-semitism of contemporary Europe, the ‘Aragonese crown protected the Jews and conversos firmly, rejecting all attacks on them‘ and how any existing anti-Semetic legislation went unenforced (Kamen 15). Even after Ferdinand and Isabella initiated their reign in 1474, the monarchs were ‘never personally anti-Semitic’ and their intervention in domestic politics demonstrated an ‘impressive picture of the monarchy protecting its jews’ (Kamen, 16). In actuality, the inception of the Inquisition and the subsequent expulsion of the Jewish population was prompted by the actions of ‘Judaizers’, who were made up of conversos who had attempted to persuade newly assimilated Christians to return to their original Jewish faith. The efforts of these Judaizers concerned the crown and as a result the Inquisition was officially founded on September 27, 1480 as a means of regulating the the disruptive and disobedient conversos.

The people in mid-19th century, up until the beginning of 20th century, before the British .helped to declare Israel a state; around Eastern Europe, the idea of “nationality” began to appear. Up until now, Jewish people hadn’t established a foundation that provided them with security; there was no real place they could call “home.” Because they didn’t have a place that was their own, other nations around the world didn’t view them as a nation, they were seen as individuals. Around this time, anti-Semitism began to emerge, it was time for the Jewish people to come together as one and let go of their past and that desire drove them to a pivotal point in Jewish history. By analyzing different pieces of Hebrew literature and songs that were written during this time in history, the evidence shows that the definition of “Jew” changed and Jewish people started to look at themselves differently and gained confidence to be a nation and not an individual.