Who Are The Jews?

Some refer to us Jews as "sons of apes and pigs."

Others see things differently. The great seventeenth-century French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, "It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people.... This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singular long time... For where as the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold...My encounter with this people amazes me..."

So, just who are the Jews?

We are the descendents of the people who first taught the world about a single G-d and His expectations of Man. Exiled from our homeland for thousands of years, we were for the most part a tiny minority in the many lands we settled in. Because of our religious beliefs and practices- and because we often represented the voice of a conscience that some did not wish to acknowledge - we were the perfect scapegoats for those found scapegoating convenient. When rulers found it useful, they oppressed us with discriminatory policies.

On the other hand, every country in which we lived was enhanced by our presence.

We are the people whose holy books spoke of the importance of every man, the equality of all before the law and before G-d, and which promised eternal life for all good people. Both Islam and Christianity (whose founder was Jewish) drew much from Judaism, and sought to spread Judaism's key ideas to the non-Jewish world.

We grew up in the Middle East and never left. There was never a time in history - from the period of the earliest biblical narratives on - that Jews did not have a presence in the Holy Land. Even when that physical presence was small, the rest of the Jewish people, having been exiled to the four corners of the earth, continued to turn to Jerusalem in prayer and hope of return for the last two thousand years. The Prophet, at least initially, did the same. When he first arrived in Medina in 622 , he chose for the qibla the city of Jerusalem, linking himself with the books of the Jewish Bible. In 624, however, he changed, shifting the qibla to Mecca.

Here is a brief outline of the Jewish people's long journey. The first Jew was Abraham, father of Isaac and Ishmael, well-known to all Peoples of the Book. We see ourselves as the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac, and through his son Jacob. Jacob's (also called Yisrael in the Bible, which became Israel in English) twelve sons became the first Jewish family. Their offspring left the land that would later become the Holy Land, and settled in Egypt, where they eventually were enslaved. After their miraculous deliverance from Egyptian captivity, they were brought to Mount Sinai to receive G-d's teaching, the Torah. This encounter between Man and G-d became a cornerstone belief of both Islam and Christianity.

After forty years and the birth of a new generation, we entered the Land of Israel. We would build two political Commonwealths, each with a Temple in Jerusalem that was ultimately destroyed by enemies. Each time, we were exiled; each time, some numbers would stay behind, dwindling in the worst of times to a few score families, but there was always a Jewish presence in our land. Their coreligionists, while physically distanced from the land, would turn their hearts and prayers to it three times a day for two thousand years.

The First Temple, built by King Solomon about three thousand years ago, was destroyed by the Babylonians in the year 586 before the common era. Much of the community was exiled to Babylonia, in what is today called Iraq. Even when the exile eased up some seventy years later, many Jews did not return to Israel (where a Second Temple was built, and later destroyed by the Romans in about the year 70), but remained in Babylonia. Some began to travel to points close (Syria) and well beyond, where they established communities.

In the course of two thousand years of forced separation from their homeland, Jews settled around the globe. We never, until modern times, knew full political, social or religious equality or security. In good times, we were tolerated (at the whim of changeable forces); in bad times, we were slaughtered, forcibly converted, or expelled. Christian Crusaders, on the way to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims, were encouraged to help themselves to supplies in Jewish communities along the way by massacring the inhabitants. (When they got to Jerusalem, they were resisted by Muslims and Jews fighting alongside each other, until the Jews were burnt within their synagogues, or houses of prayer.)

As a vulnerable minority denied political rights, we were frequently targeted and scapegoated. We were the convenient people to blame for the Black Death in medieval Europe. When Bogdan Chmielnicki's Cossack hordes in the Ukraine fought their nationalist struggle, they wiped out a third of the Jews in the region. The Russian Czars dealt with popular discontent by encouraging mass looting and bloodshed called pogroms. We were expelled- sometimes multiple times - from, Portugal, Germany, England, France and other lands. The most famous expulsion - from Spain in 1492 - sent 200,000 Jews desperately seeking any place that would take them. Many did not make it, killed along the way. Survivors found safe haven in Muslim Turkey, Amsterdam, and in following generations, in North and South America.

According to non-Jewish historian James Carroll, "Jews accounted for 10% of the total population of the Roman Empire. By that ratio, if other factors had not intervened, there would be 200 million Jews in the world today, instead of something like 13 million (Constantine's Sword, page 26)." In a history drenched with blood, we lost countless numbers but, almost inexplicably, people from all countries joined us as converts, prepared to identify with our message and share our destiny. These converts were accepted, and continue to be accepted, with open arms, and their genetic contribution helps explain some of the diversity of racial features that Jews exhibit.

In time, two great branches issued from the original trunk. One moved north and west, to the German-French Rhineland, to Central Europe, Russia, Eastern Europe and Western Europe. They would be known as Ashkenazic Jews, after the Hebrew word for Germany. A different route took Jews to the Iberian Peninsula, to the rim of Africa, to Iran, and to the Arabian Peninsula. Colloquially (if not somewhat inaccurately), these Jews are often referred to as Sephardic Jews, for the Hebrew word for Spain.

There are approximately 13 million Jews today, living in over 102 countries. We speak 8 main languages: English, Hebrew, Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Farsi and Arabic, but many others as well, including Romanian, Hungarian, Italian, German, Turkish, and Amharic. The largest Jewish population centers today are in Israel, the United States, Russia, France, Canada, the UK, Argentina and Germany. Much of today's Jewish map was shaped by events in the middle of the last century.

The Nazi Holocaust during World War II was the only governmental campaign in history planned and executed by the German Third Reich to systematically eradicate an entire people, using all available technology and mechanized processes. That hatred of Jews is often irrational and often counterproductive is reflected in the fact that Nazi Germany was so intent on wiping out the Jews, that it diverted crucial resources from the battlefield, hampering their war effort. Even after it was clear that they would lose the war, the Nazis kept the gas chambers and crematoria going. By the end of World War II, they had murdered six million Jews, including a million children.

By the 20th Century, Arab lands hosted about 900,000 Jews. The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 led to almost all Jews to either leave or being forcibly driven out of those countries. (Prior to that, Jews often but certainly not always fared better in Muslim countries as protected dhimmi than as a persecuted minority in Christian Europe.)

Although Russia still has a sizeable Jewish population today, the fall of the old Soviet Union enabled an exodus of hundreds of thousands of Jews after seventy years of persecution under the Communists.

Somehow we Jews survived. Oftentimes, when denied all opportunities, we were poverty-stricken, but still valued literacy, education (we were the first to structure a system of compulsory education for children) and acts of charity. When given the chance, as in Europe after the Enlightenment, we blossomed. We have won a hugely disproportionate number of Nobel Prizes and Field Medals in mathematics. Wherever allowed to flourish, we bettered the society around us through our contributions in government, the arts and sciences, and by building communal institutions like schools and hospitals. In every country we lived, we served our hosts well and loyally in government roles and in the military.

(In some areas, we are disproportionately small. We have our sinners as well as our saints, yet we produce fewer serious criminals than other groups. The prison population of the United States is about 1.5 million, of which about 1700 are Jewish, approximately one in a thousand.)

Jewish contribution to the universe of ideas is even more impressive than their academic honors. Here are summaries from two contemporary non-Jewish historians:

"Most of our best words, in fact - new, adventure surprise, unique, individual, person, vocation, time, history, future, freedom, progress, spirit, faith hope, justice - are the gifts of the Jews." (Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews, pg. 240-241)

"The Jews gave the world ethical monotheism, which might be described as the application of reason to divinity. In a more secular age, they applied the principles of rationality to the whole range of human activities, often in advance of the rest of mankind….The Jews have been great truth-tellers and that is one reason they have been so much hated…To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person; of the individual conscience and so of personal redemption; of the collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice… (Paul Johnson, History of the Jews, pg. 582-585)

Though Jews were gradually granted equal rights in many Western countries, this did not solve the problem of antisemitism. France, one of the first countries to gradually offer equality to its Jews, was home to the creation of the French National Antisemitic League, as well as the notorious Dreyfuss Affair, when the first Jewish officer to join the general staff of the Army was accused of - and ultimately vindicated regarding- a charge of treason. Germany, in some ways the most refined culture in the 19th and early twentieth century transformed itself into a veritable culture of genocide during the Holocaust, with the educated segment of Society participating in an anti-Jewish campaign. Meanwhile, many Jews who saw the looming threat from Hitler's Germany found the doors closed to them by other nations.

Antisemitism - as most of the world uses the term, the hatred of Jews-did not die with the Holocaust, and has had a great resurgence within the last years. The hurtful claims that Jews are descendants of animals or the devil are not new; today's Internet-driven world delivers the drumbeat of hatred more potently than ever before. Depending on local fears and hatreds are, Jews are accused in a hopelessly contradictory manner of all kinds of evil. We were the communists in the eyes of capitalists, and capitalists in the view of the communists. We are variously described as being too religious, or as hostile to religion; too gregarious, too provincial or too cosmopolitan. Under the banner of anti-Zionism, the hatred of Jews has delivered its cruelest blow: denying us our very connection to our Holy land.

Islam's attitude towards the Jews is complex (and subject to separate treatments elsewhere on AskMusa). The Qur'an says much that is complimentary about Jews; it says other things that are negative and hateful. We know that the Qur'an's organization is not chronological with one small exception, the larger Suras precede the smaller ones, disregarding the order in which events occurred. Scholars who have pieced the order together believe that the Prophet was initially favorably disposed towards the Jews, and appreciated their spiritual gifts. Much of his anger towards them was directed at the small number of Jews whom he saw violating the laws of the Torah, particularly Shabbat, the weekly day of rest marking G-d's creation of the world. He also became disappointed and frustrated with them when they did not respond to his offers for them to join with him in spreading the new faith. It is likely that Muslims who enjoyed warm relationships with their Jewish neighbors for hundreds of years understood this, similar to the way most Christians gradually came to understand that the hatred expressed by some of the Gospels and early Church Fathers simply reflected the tension between the emerging Church and the Jewish community of its times.

We are a people of enormous diversity of languages, dress, and customs. We have lived in many lands in our long exile, and absorbed much of their influence. This is confusing to many people. Shouldn't all Jews look alike, and act in the same way? Some have even tried denying that many of today's Jews are descendants of the Jews of antiquity and the Bible, and claim that they are recent imposters, with the exception of some Jews who lived in Arab lands. The claim is itself ludicrous, but for those who have not studied history, a wealth of DNA evidence shows the close relationship between Jews worldwide.

Others have tried to deny our history in different ways, eliminating or minimizing the Jewish connection to the land of Israel, a land the Romans renamed Palestina. Archeology, however, has unearthed a wealth of physical evidence of the Jewish presence. Only those who are prepared to stay away from the museums around the world that display these artifacts can hold on to such revisionist beliefs.

Some assume that we are one of the larger population groups on the planet. In fact amount to only about ¼ of one percent of the world population.

Misinformation about us is plentiful. When all the conflicting claims about Jews are assembled, the result would be comical, if not for the tragic consequences to Jews who suffer because of them. The renowned pilosopher, Voltaire accused Jews of being devoid of accomplishment in the arts or sciences; others assume that we are all bankers, lawyers and doctors. We have been mocked for our poverty, while others insist we are all rich. At any given time, there are people claiming that Jews care too much about morality, or care for it not at all; that we are hopelessly stupid, or much smarter than average. People see Jewish designs on taking over the world, while others deride us for being too passive in the face of adversaries.

Have Jews taken certain lessons from history? Tentatively, we can point to some common themes. We have a long history, and a profound sense of the past. We remember persecution and thus inordinately tend to align ourselves with causes that champion the underdog, the stranger, and the newcomer. (Only one country on the face of the earth ever actively sought to import poor black people. In two dramatic airlifts, Israel brought over 36,000 penniless Jews from Ethiopia to escape famine and political upheaval.) We understand vulnerability, and react against it. As a survivor people, we applaud those who make it against the odds. We continue to embrace the values of education, and of taking care of each other, as well as of the general community.

Jews often had a way of ending their suffering by simply opting-out of Judaism. The majority who did not held on to a dream for the future. What does that dream mean today? Certainly not a world of Jews! We have traditionally shunned proselytizing to others. We see no need to make the world Jewish. The classic Jewish dream - one that appears in the Bible, and is used to end Jewish prayer services three times a day, every day of the year is that the world will one day recognize a single G-d conduct their lives with a firm consciousness of standing in His presence. In such a world all inhabitants, Jewish and non-Jewish, would live in peace and harmony with each other. (The chief reason that Jews do not proselytize is that we see no absolute advantage in becoming Jewish. We warmly accept converts but we do not seek them. Judaism teaches that non-Jews who obey seven principles of proper societal conduct enter Heaven, without any need to follow Jewish practice. The expectations from Jews are far more demanding and complex.)

Rather, Jews believe that there is value to their continued existence as a distinct group for the same reason there has been till now: we have served as both the conscience of the world, and the transmitters of unpopular new ideas. The first novel idea that got us in trouble with others was a pure, undiluted monotheism. (Maimonides, one of the greatest Jewish legal thinkers and philosophers of all times, and personal physician to Sultan Saladin of Egypt in the 12th century, ruled that Islam as well taught a pure monotheism.) Part of the message of the Jewish G-d is that there will come a time of universal peace, happiness and enlightenment known as the Age of the Messiah. The certainty that it will come led observant Jews to pray, and to continue to pray, for the arrival of that time. It led Jews, observant and not, to constantly work for the improvement of world society, materially and spiritually, as part of the preparation for that great Day. This remains a part of our core identity and constant quest.

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