Jewish people

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nationand an ethnoreligious group, originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity,nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation. Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX Battery Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia. In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX/B Battery The modern State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish state in its Basic Laws, and Israel's Law of Returnstates: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh."^[5] Israel is the only country where Jews are a majority of the population. Jews achieved political autonomy twice before in ancient history. Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX/G Battery The first of these periods lasted from 1350^[6] to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second was the period of theHasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX/L Battery Since the destruction of the First Temple, most Jews have lived indiaspora.^[7] A minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecutionthroughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries. Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX/P Battery As of 2010, the world Jewish population was estimated at 13.4 million by the North American Jewish Data Bank,^[1] or roughly 0.2% of the total world population. According to this report, about 42.5% of all Jews reside in Israel (5.7 million), and 39.3% in the United States (5.3 million), with most of the remainder living in Europe (1.5 million) andCanada (0.4 million).^[1] Sony VAIO VPCEB17FX/W Battery These numbers include all those who consider themselves Jews, whether or not they are affiliated with a Jewish organization. The total world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure. In addition to issues with census methodology, there are halakhic disputes regarding who is a Jew and secular, political, and ancestral identification factors that may affect the figure considerably. Sony VAIO VPCEB190X Battery The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, a loan from Old French giu, earlier juieu, ultimately from LatinIudaeum. The Latin Iudaeus simply means Judaean, "from the land of Judaea". The Latin term itself, like the corresponding Greek Ἰουδαῖος, is a loan from Aramaic Y'hūdāi, Sony VAIO VPCEB19FX Battery corresponding to Hebrew: יְהוּדִי‎‎, Yehudi (sg.); יְהוּדִים, Yehudim (pl.), in origin the term for a member of the tribe of Judah or the people of the kingdom of Judah. The name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob.^[9] The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced [jehuˈdi], with the stress on the final syllable, in Israeli Hebrew, in its basic form.^[10] Sony VAIO VPCEB19GX Battery The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio (sg.); ג׳ודיוס, Djudios (pl.); Yiddish: ייִד Yid (sg.); ייִדן, Yidn (pl.). The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., "Yahoud"/"Yahoudi" (Arabic: يهود/يهودي‎) in Arabic language, "Jude" in German, "judeu" in Portuguese, Sony VAIO VPCEB1AFX Battery "juif" in French, "jøde" in Danish, "judío" in Spanish, "joodse" inDutch, etc., but derivations of the word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., in Italian (Ebreo), in Persian("Ebri/Ebrani" (Persian: عبری/عبرانی‎)) and Russian (Еврей, Yevrey).^[11] Sony VAIO VPCEB1AFX/B Battery The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuːdə], the corresponding adjective "jüdisch" [ˈjyːdɪʃ] (Jewish) is the origin of the word "Yiddish".^[12] (See Jewish ethnonyms for a full overview.) According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (2000): Sony VAIO VPCEB1AGX Battery It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Sony VAIO VPCEB1AGX/BI Battery Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on the council, which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people orpersons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun. Sony VAIO VPCEB1BGX Battery According to their tradition, the Jewish people originated from the Israelites of the Southern Levant, who had several independent states before being overtaken first by the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and later the Roman Empire, with a large portion of the population being scattered throughout the world. Sony VAIO VPCEB1BGX/BI Battery According to the Hebrew Bible, all Israelites were descended from Abraham, who was born in the Sumerian city of Ur, and migrated to Canaan (commonly known as the Land of Israel) with his family. Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide do indeed bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East, Sony VAIO VPCEB1CGX Battery and that they bear their strongest resemblance to the peoples of the Fertile Crescent, with only minor contribution from their host populations^[14] (historically due to the taboo on intermarriage in Jewish tradition, the low number of converts to Judaism, as well as the general isolations and persecutions of Jews throughout history). Sony VAIO VPCEB1CGX/BI Battery According to some Biblical archaeologists, however, Israelite culture did not overtake the region, but rather grew out of Canaanite culture.

Judaism

Judaism guides its adherents in both practice and belief, and has been called not only a religion, but also a "way of life,"^[15] Sony VAIO VPCEB1DGX Battery which has made drawing a clear distinction between Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish identity rather difficult. Throughout history, in eras and places as diverse as the ancient Hellenicworld,^[16] in Europe before and after The Age of Enlightenment (see Haskalah),^[17] in Islamic Spain and Portugal,^[18] Sony VAIO VPCEB1DGX/BI Battery in North Africa and the Middle East,^[18]India,^[19] and China,^[20] or the contemporary United States^[21] and Israel,^[22] cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, Sony VAIO VPCEB1EGX Battery others from the interaction of Jews or specific communities of Jews with their surroundings, others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to from the religion itself. This phenomenon has led to considerably different Jewish cultures unique to their own communities, each as authentically Jewish as the next.^[23] Sony VAIO VPCEB1EGX/BI Battery

Who is a Jew?

Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation, an ethnicity, a religion, and a culture, making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether a religious or national approach to identity is used.^[24] Sony VAIO VPCEB1FGX Battery Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who were born to a Jewish family regardless of whether or not they follow the religion; those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent); Sony VAIO VPCEB1FGX/BI Battery and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and therefore are followers of the religion.^[25] Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. Sony VAIO VPCEB1GGX Battery Historical definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the oral tradition into the Babylonian Talmud. Interpretations of sections of the Tanakh, such asDeuteronomy 7:1–5, by learned Jewish sages, are used as a warning against intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews because "[the non-Jewish husband] Sony VAIO VPCEB1GGX/BI Battery will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This is complemented by Ezra 10:2–3, where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children. Sony VAIO VPCEB1HGX Battery Since the Haskalah, these halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged.^[28] At times, conversion has accounted for a substantial part of Jewish population growth. Sony VAIO VPCEB1HGX/BI Battery In the first century of the Christian era, for example, the population more than doubled, from four to 8–10 million within the confines of the Roman Empire, in good part as a result of a wave of conversion.^[29]

Ethnic divisions

Within the world's Jewish population there are distinct ethnic divisions, Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX Battery most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating Israelite population, and subsequent independent evolutions. An array of Jewish communities were established by Jewish settlers in various places around the Old World, Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX/B Battery often at great distances from one another resulting in effective and often long-term isolation from each other. During the millennia of the Jewish diaspora the communities would develop under the influence of their local environments; political, cultural, natural, and populational. Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX/G Battery Today, manifestation of these differences among the Jews can be observed in Jewish cultural expressions of each community, including Jewish linguistic diversity, culinary preferences, liturgical practices, religious interpretations, as well as degrees and sources of genetic admixture.^[30] Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX/L Battery Jews are often identified as belonging to one of two major groups: the Ashkenazim, or "Germanics" (Ashkenaz meaning "Germany" inMedieval Hebrew, denoting their Central European base), and the Sephardim, or "Hispanics" (Sefarad meaning "Spain/Hispania" or "Iberia" in Hebrew, denoting their Spanish, and Portuguese, base). Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX/P Battery The Mizrahim, or "Easterners" (Mizrach being "East" in Hebrew), that is, the diverse collection of Middle Eastern and North African Jews, constitute a third major group, although they are sometimes termed Sephardi for liturgical reasons.^[31] Smaller groups include, but are not restricted to, Indian Jews such as the Bene Israel, Sony VAIO VPCEB1JFX/W Battery Bnei Menashe, Cochin Jews, and Bene Ephraim; the Romaniotes of Greece; the Italian Jews ("Italkim" or "Bené Roma"); the Teimanim from Yemen and Oman; various African Jews, including most numerously the Beta Israel of Ethiopia; and Chinese Jews, most notably the Kaifeng Jews, as well as various other distinct but now almost extinct communities.^[32] Sony VAIO VPCEB1KGX Battery The divisions between all these groups are approximate and their boundaries are not always clear. The Mizrahim for example, are a heterogeneous collection of North African, Central Asian, Caucasian, and Middle Eastern Jewish communities that are often as unrelated to each other as they are to any of the earlier mentioned Jewish groups. Sony VAIO VPCEB1KGX/B Battery In modern usage, however, the Mizrahim are sometimes termed Sephardi due to similar styles of liturgy, despite independent development from Sephardim proper. Thus, among Mizrahim there are Egyptian Jews, Iraqi Jews, Lebanese Jews,Kurdish Jews, Libyan Jews, Syrian Jews, Bukharian Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, Iranian Jews and various others. Sony VAIO VPCEB1KGX/W Battery The Teimanim from Yemen and Oman are sometimes included, although their style of liturgy is unique and they differ in respect to the admixture found among them to that found in Mizrahim. In addition, there is a differentiation made between Sephardi migrants who established themselves in the Sony VAIO VPCEB1LFX Battery Middle East and North Africa after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s and the pre-existing Jewish communities in those regions.^[32] Despite this diversity, Ashkenazi Jews represent the bulk of modern JewrySony VAIO VPCEB1LFX/BI Battery , with at least 70% of Jews worldwide (and up to 90% prior to World War II and theHolocaust). As a result of their emigration from Europe, Ashkenazim also represent the overwhelming majority of Jews in the New World continents, in countries such as the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, and Brazil. Sony VAIO VPCEB1LFX/WI Battery In France, emigration of Jews from North Africa has led them to outnumber the Ashkenazim .^[33] Only in Israel is the Jewish population representative of all groups, a melting pot independent of each group's proportion within the overall world Jewish population.^[34] Sony VAIO VPCEB1MFX Battery

Languages

Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed l'shon ha-kodesh, "the holy tongue"), the language in which the Hebrew scriptures (Tanakh) were composed, and the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries. Sony VAIO VPCEB1MFX/BI Battery By the 5th century BCE, Aramaic, a closely related tongue, joined Hebrew as the spoken language inJudea.^[35] By the third century BCE, Jews of the diaspora were speaking Greek.^[36] For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, Sony VAIO VPCEB1NFX Battery often developing distinctive dialectal forms or branches that became independent languages. Yiddish is the Judæo-German language developed by Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Central Europe. Ladino is the Judæo-Spanish language developed by Sephardic Jews who migrated to the Iberian peninsula. Sony VAIO VPCEB1NFX/B Battery Due to many factors, including the impact of the Holocaust on European Jewry, the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, and widespread emigration from other Jewish communities around the world, ancient and distinct Jewish languages of several communities, Sony VAIO VPCEB1NFX/L Battery including Gruzinic, Judæo-Arabic, Judæo-Berber, Krymchak, Judæo-Malayalam and many others, have largely fallen out of use.^[37] For over sixteen centuries Hebrew was used almost exclusively as a liturgical language, and as the language in which most books had been written on Judaism, Sony VAIO VPCEB1NFX/P Battery with a few speaking only Hebrew on the Sabbath.^[38] Hebrew was revived as a spoken language by Eliezer ben Yehuda, who arrived in Palestine in 1881. It had not been used as a mother tongue since Tannaic times.^[35] Modern Hebrew is now one of the two official languages of the State of Israel along with Arabic.^[39] Sony VAIO VPCEB1NFX/W Battery The three most commonly spoken languages among Jews today are Hebrew, English and Russian. Some Romance languages, such as French and Spanish, are also widely used.^[37] Yiddish has been spoken by more Jews in history than any other language,^[40] Sony VAIO VPCEB1PFX Battery but it is far less used today, after the Holocaust and the adoption of Hebrew by the Zionist movement, then Israel.

Genetic studies

Genetic studies indicate various lineages found in modern Jewish populations; however, Sony VAIO VPCEB1PFX/B Battery most of these populations share a lineage in common, traceable to an ancient population that underwent geographic branching and subsequent independent evolutions.^[41] While DNA tests have demonstrated inter-marriage in all of the various Jewish ethnic divisions over the last 3,000 years, Sony VAIO VPCEB1QGX Battery it was substantially less than in other populations.^[42] The findings lend support to traditional Jewish accounts accrediting their founding to exiled Israelite populations, and counters theories that many or most of the world's Jewish populations were founded entirely by local populations that adopted the Jewish religion, devoid of any actual Israelite genetic input.^[42] Sony VAIO VPCEB1QGX/BI Battery DNA analysis further determined that modern Jews of the priesthood tribe—"Kohanim"—share an ancestor dating back about 3,000 years.^[43] This result is consistent for all Jewish populations around the world.^[43] Sony VAIO VPCEB1RGX Battery The researchers estimated that the most recent common ancestor of modern Kohanim lived between 1000 BCE (roughly the time of the Biblical Exodus) and 586 BCE, when the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple.^[44] They found similar results analyzing DNA from Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews.^[44] TSony VAIO VPCEB1RGX/BI Battery he scientists estimated the date of the original priest based on genetic mutations, which indicated that the priest lived roughly 106 generations ago, between 2,650 and 3,180 years ago depending whether one counts a generation as 25 or 30 years.^[44] These Jews belong to the haplotypes J1e and J2a. Sony VAIO VPCEB20 Battery However, more recent research has shown that many ethnic groups in the Middle East and Mediterranean area also share this genetic profile.^[45] Although individual and groups of converts to Judaism have historically been absorbed into contemporary Jewish populations, Sony VAIO VPCEC20 Battery it is unlikely that they formed a large percentage of the ancestors of modern Jewish groups, and much less that they represented their genesis as Jewish communities.^[41][46] Biologist Robert Pollack stated in 2003 that one cannot determine the biological "Jewishness" of an individual because "Sony VAIO VPCEE20 Battery there are no DNA sequences common to all Jews and absent from all non-Jews".^[47] A 2009 study was able to genetically identify individuals with full or partial Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.^[48]

Male lineages: Y chromosomal DNA

A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that Sony VAIO VPCEF20 Battery "the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population", and suggested that "most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora".^[41] Sony VAIO VPCF112FX/B Battery Researchers expressed surprise at the remarkable genetic uniformity they found among modern Jews, no matter where the diaspora has become dispersed around the world.^[41] Other Y-chromosome findings show that the world's Jewish communities are closely related to Kurds, Syrians and Palestinians.^[ Sony VAIO VPCF115FG/B Battery Skorecki and colleague wrote that "the extremely close affinity of Jewish and non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations observed ... supports the hypothesis of a common Middle Eastern origin".^[43] According to another study of the same year, more than 70% of Jewish men and half of the Arab men Sony VAIO VPCF116FGBI Battery (inhabitants of Israel and the territories only) whose DNA was studied inherited their Y-chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years. The results are consistent with the Biblical account of Jews and Arabs having a common ancestor. Sony VAIO VPCF117FJ/W Battery About two-thirds of Israeli Arabs and Arabs in the territories and a similar proportion of Israeli Jews are the descendants of at least three common ancestors who lived in the Middle East in the Neolithic period. Sony VAIO VPCF117HG/BI Battery However, the Palestinian Arab clade includes two Arab modal haplotypes which are found at only very low frequency among Jews, reflecting divergence and/or large scale admixture from non-local populations to the Palestinians.^[50] A study of haplotypes of the Y-chromosome, published in 2000, addressed the paternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews. Hammer et al.^[41] Sony VAIO VPCF118FJ/W Battery found that the Y chromosome of some Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews contained mutations that are also common among Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon in the general European population. This suggested that the male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews could be traced mostly to the Middle East. Sony VAIO VPCF119FC Battery The proportion of male genetic admixture in Ashkenazi Jews amounts to less than 0.5% per generation over an estimated 80 generations, with "relatively minor contribution of European Y chromosomes to the Ashkenazim," and a total admixture estimate "very similar to Motulsky's average estimate of 12.5%."Sony VAIO VPCF119FC/BI Battery This supported the finding that "Diaspora Jews from Europe, Northwest Africa, and the Near East resemble each other more closely than they resemble their non-Jewish neighbors." However, when all haplotypes were included in the analysis, m (the admixture percentage) increased to 23% ± 7%. Sony VAIO VPCF119FJ/BI Battery In addition, of the Jewish populations in this cluster, the Ashkenazim were closest to South European populations, specifically the Greeks.^[41] In Jewish populations, Haplogroup J1 (defined by the 267 marker) constitutes 30% of the Yemenite Jews^[51] Sony VAIO VPCF11AFJ Battery 20.0% of the Ashkenazim results and 12% of the Sephardic results.However, J1 is most frequent in Yemen (76%),^[55][56] Saudi (64%),^[57] Qatar (58%).^[56] J1 is generally frequent amongst NegevBedouins (62%^[58]). It is also very common among other Arabs such as those of the Levant, i.e. Palestinian (38.4%),^[52] Syria (30%), Lebanon (25%).In Europe, higher frequencies have been reported in the central Adriatic regions of Italy: Gargano (17.2%),^[61] Sony VAIO VPCF11AGJ Battery Pescara (15%),^[61] in the Mediterranean Paola(11.1%)^[61] and in South Sicilian Ragusa (10.7%).^[62] Fairly high frequencies have also been reported in other nearby Mediterranean areas: Crete (8.3%),^[63] Malta(7.8%), Cyprus (6.2%),^[64] Greece (5.3%).^[63] Sony VAIO VPCF11AHJ Battery Haplogroup J2 which is found in the Sephardic Jews (29%)^[65] and Ashkenazi Jews (23%),^[65] or 19%.^[66] is found mainly in the Fertile Crescent, the Caucasus,^[67]Anatolia, the Balkans, Italy, the Mediterranean littoral, the Iranian plateau, Central Asia, and South Asia.^[65] Sony VAIO VPCF11JFX/B Battery More specifically, it is found in Iraq,^[68]Syria, Lebanon,^[69] Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Greece, Italy and the eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula,^[61] and more frequently in Iraqis 29.7%,^[70]Lebanese 25%,^[71] Palestinians 16.8%,^[65] Syrians 22.5%,^[72] Kurds 28.4%, Saudi Sony VAIO VPCF11M1E Battery Arabia 15.92%,^[73] Jordan 14.3%, Oman 10–15%,^[74] UAE 10.4%, Yemen 9.7%,^[56] inIsrael,^[65] in Palestine,^[65] and in Turkey.^[75]

Female lineages: Mitochondrial DNA

Before 2006, geneticists largely attributed the genesis of most of the world's Jewish Sony VAIO VPCF11M1E/H Battery populations to founding acts by males who migrated from the Middle East and "by the women from each local population whom they took as wives and converted to Judaism", though no genetic relation was found between Jewish and non Jewish female lineages. Sony VAIO VPCF11MFX/B Battery However, more recent findings of studies of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, at least in Ashkenazi Jews, has led to a review of this archetype.^[76] This research has suggested that, in addition to Israelite male, Sony VAIO VPCF11S1E Battery significant female founder ancestry might also derive from the Middle East-with 40% of Ashkenazim descended from four women lived about 1000–1500 years ago in the Middle East.^[76] In addition, Behar (2006) suggested that the rest of Ashkenazi mtDNA is originated from about 150 women, Sony VAIO VPCF11S1E/B Battery most of those were probably of Middle Eastern origin.^[77] Approximately 32% of people with Ashkenazi Jewishancestry belong to the mtDNA haplogroup K. This high percentage points to a genetic bottleneck occurring some 100 generations ago.^[78] Sony VAIO VPCF11Z1E Battery Research in 2008 found significant founder effects in many non-Asheknazi Jewish populations. In Belmonte, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Bene Israel and Libyan Jewish communities "a single mother was sufficient to explain at least 40% of their present-day mtDNA variation". Sony VAIO VPCF11Z1E/BI Battery In addition, "the Cochin and Tunisian Jewish communities show an attenuated pattern with two founding mothers explaining >30% of the variation." In contrast, Bulgarian, Turkish, Moroccan and Ethiopian Jews were heterogeneous with no evidence "for a narrow founder effect or depletion of mtDNA variation attributable to drift". Sony VAIO VPCF11ZHJ Battery The authors noted that "the first three of these communities were established following the Spanish expulsion and/or received large influxes of individuals from the Iberian Peninsula and high variation presently observed, probably reflects high overall mtDNA diversity among Jews of Spanish descent. Sony VAIO VPCF127HGBI Battery Likewise, the mtDNA pool of Ethiopian Jews reflects the rich maternal lineage variety of East Africa." Jewish communities from Iraq, Iran, and Yemen showed a "third and intermediate pattern... consistent with a founding event, but not a narrow one".^[79] In this and other studies Yemenite Jews differ from other Mizrahim, Sony VAIO VPCF137HG/BI Battery as well as from Ashkenazim, in the proportion of sub-Saharan African gene types which have entered their gene pools.^[80] African-specific Hg L(xM,N) lineages were found only in Yemenite and Ethiopian Jewish populations.^[79] Among Yemenites, the average stands at 35% lineages within the past 3,000 years.^[80] Sony VAIO VPC-P111KX/B Battery

Genome-wide association and linkage studies

In genetic epidemiology, a genome-wide association study (GWA study, or GWAS) is an examination of all or most of the genes (the genome) of different individuals of a particular species to see how much the genes vary from individual to individual. Sony VAIO VPC-P111KX/D Battery These techniques were originally designed for epidemiological uses, to identify genetic associations with observable traits.^[81] A 2006 study by Seldin, et al. used over five thousand autosomal SNPs to demonstrate European genetic substructure amongst the Ashkenazi. Sony VAIO VPC-P111KX/G Battery The results showed "a consistent and reproducible distinction between 'northern' and 'southern' European population groups". Most northern, central, and eastern Europeans (Finns, Swedes, English, Irish, Germans, and Ukrainians) showed >90% in the 'northern' population group, Sony VAIO VPC-P111KX/P Battery while most individual participants with southern European ancestry (Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Spaniards) showed >85% in the 'southern' group. Both Ashkenazi Jews as well as Sephardic Jews showed >85% membership in the "southern" group. Sony VAIO VPC-P111KX/W Battery Referring to the Jews clustering with southern Europeans, the authors state the results were "consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups".^[82] A 2007 study by Bauchet, et al. found that Ashkenazi Jews were most closely clustered with Arabic North African populations when compared to Global Sony VAIO VPC-P112KX/B Battery population, and in the European structure analysis, they share similarities only with Greeks and Southern Italians, reflecting their east Mediterranean origins.^[83][84] A 2010 study on Jewish ancestry by Atzmon-Ostrer et al. stated "Two major groups were identified by principal component, phylogenetic, Sony VAIO VPC-P112KX/D Battery and identity by descent (IBD) analysis: Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews. The IBD segment sharing and the proximity of European Jews to each other and to southern European populations suggested similar origins for European Jewry and refuted large-scale genetic contributions of  Sony VAIO VPC-P112KX/G Battery Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry.", as both groups—the Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews shared common ancestors in the Middle East about 2500 years ago. Sony VAIO VPC-P112KX/P Battery The study examines genetic markers spread across the entire genome and shows that the Jewish groups (Ashkenazi and non Ashkenazi) share large swaths of DNA, indicating close relationships and that each of the Jewish groups in the study (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Sony VAIO VPC-P112KX/W Battery Greek and Ashkenazi) has its own genetic signature but is more closely related to the other Jewish groups than to their non Jewish fellow countrymen.^[85] Atzmon's team found that the SNP markers in genetic segments of 3 million DNA letters or longer were 10 times more likely to be identical among Jews than non-Jews. Sony VAIO VPCP113KX/B Battery Results of the analysis also tally with biblical accounts of the fate of the Jews. Using their DNA analysis, the authors traced the ancestors of all Jews to Persia and Babylon, areas that now form part of Iran and Iraq.^[86] The study also found that with respect to non-Jewish European groups, Sony VAIO VPC-P113KX/B Battery the population most closely related to Ashkenazi Jews are modern-day Italians. The study speculated that the genetic-similarity between Ashkenazi Jews and Italians may be due to inter-marriage and conversions in the time of the Roman Empire. Sony VAIO VPCP113KX/D Battery It was also found that any two Ashkenazi Jewish participants in the study shared about as much DNA as fourth or fifth cousins^. A 2010 study by Bray et al, using SNP microarray techniques and linkage analysis, Sony VAIO VPC-P113KX/D Battery estimated that 35 to 55 percent of the modern Ashkenazi genome is specifically traceable to Europe, and that European "admixture is considerably higher than previous estimates by studies that used the Y chromosome". Sony VAIO VPCP113KX/G Battery The study assumed Druzeand Palestinian Arabs populations to represent the reference to world Jewry ancestor genome. With this reference point, the linkage disequilibrium in the Ashkenazi Jewish population was interpreted as "matches signs of interbreeding or 'admixture' between Middle Eastern and European populations". Sony VAIO VPC-P113KX/G Battery In their press release, Bray stated: "We were surprised to find evidence that Ashkenazi Jews have higher heterozygosity than Europeans, contradicting the widely-held presumption that they have been a largely isolated group". "Thus, the AJ population shows evidence of past founding events; Sony VAIO VPCP113KX/P Battery however, admixture and selection have also strongly influenced its current genetic makeup." The authors note that their results will require further investigation. There are an estimated 13–14 million Jews worldwide.^[1] The table lists countries with significant populations.^[1] Sony VAIO VPC-P113KX/P Battery Please note that these populations represent low-end estimates of the worldwide Jewish population, accounting for around 0.2% of the world's population.

State of Israel

Israel, the Jewish nation-state, is the only country in which Jews make up a majority of the citizens.^[92] Sony VAIO VPCP113KX/W Battery Israel was established as an independent democratic and Jewish state on May 14, 1948.^[93] Of the 120 members in its parliament, the Knesset,^[94] currently, 12 members of the Knesset are Arab citizens of Israel, most representing Arab political parties and one of Israel's Supreme Court judges is a Palestinian Arab.^[95] Sony VAIO VPC-P113KX/W Battery Between 1948 and 1958, the Jewish population rose from 800,000 to two million.^[96] Currently, Jews account for 75.8% of the Israeli population, or 5.4 million people.^[97] The early years of the state of Israel were marked by the mass immigration of Holocaust survivors and Jews fleeing Arab lands.^[98] Sony VAIO VPC-P114KX/B Battery Israel also has a large population ofEthiopian Jews, many of whom were airlifted to Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s.^[99] Between 1974 and 1979 nearly 227,258 immigrants arrived in Israel, about half being from the Soviet Union.^[100] This period also saw an increase in immigration to Israel from Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States^[101] Sony VAIO VPC-P114KX/D Battery A trickle of immigrants from other communities has also arrived, including Indian Jews and others, as well as some descendants of Ashkenazi Holocaust survivors who had settled in countries such as the United States, Argentina, Australia, Chile, and South Africa. Sony VAIO VPC-P114KX/G Battery Some Jews have emigrated from Israel elsewhere, due to economic problems or disillusionment with political conditions and the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict. Jewish Israeli emigrants are known as yordim.^[102]

Diaspora (outside Israel)

The waves of immigration to the United States and elsewhere at the turn of the 19th century, Sony VAIO VPC-P114KX/P Battery the founding of Zionism and later events, including pogroms in Russia, the massacre of European Jewry during the Holocaust, and the founding of the state of Israel, with the subsequent Jewish exodus from Arab lands, all resulted in substantial shifts in the population centers of world Jewry by the end of the 20th century. Sony VAIO VPC-P114KX/W Battery Currently, the largest Jewish community in the world is located in the United States, with 5.3 million to 6.4 million Jews by various estimates. Elsewhere in the Americas, there are also large Jewish populations in Canada, Argentina, and Brazil, and smaller populations in Mexico, Sony VAIO VPCP115JC Battery Uruguay,Venezuela, Chile, and several other countries (see History of the Jews in Latin America).^[97] Western Europe's largest Jewish community can be found in France, home to 490,000 Jews, the majority of whom are immigrants or refugees from North African Arab countries such as Algeria,Morocco, Sony VAIO VPCP115JC/B Battery and Tunisia (or their descendants).^[105] There are 295,000 Jews in the United Kingdom. InEastern Europe, there are anywhere from 350,000 to one million Jews living in the former Soviet Union, but exact figures are difficult to establish. The fastest-growing Jewish community in the world, outside Israel, Sony VAIO VPCP115JC/D Battery is the one in Germany, especially in Berlin, its capital. Tens of thousands of Jews from the former Eastern Bloc have settled in Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall.^[106] The Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East were home to around 900,000 Jews in 1945. Sony VAIO VPCP115JC/G Battery Fueled by anti-Zionism^[107] after the founding of Israel, systematic persecution caused almost all of these Jews to flee to Israel, North America, and Europe in the 1950s (see Jewish exodus from Arab lands). Today, around 8,000 Jews remain in all Arab nations combined.^[108] Sony VAIO VPCP115JC/P Battery Iran is home to around 10,800 Jews, down from a population of 100,000 Jews before the 1979 revolution. After the revolution some of the Iranian Jews emigrated to Israel or Europe but most of them emigrated (with their non-Jewish Iranian compatriots) to the United States (especially Los Angeles, where the principal community is called "Tehrangeles").Sony VAIO VPCP115JC/W Battery Outside Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and the rest of Asia, there are significant Jewish populations in Australia and South Africa. Since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks, a proportion of Jews have assimilated into the wider non-Jewish society around them, by either choice or force, ceasing to practice Judaism and losing their Jewish identity.^[110] Sony VAIO VPCP115KG Battery Assimilation took place in all areas, and during all time periods,^[110] with some Jewish communities, for example the Kaifeng Jews of China, disappearing entirely.^[111] The advent of the Jewish Enlightenment of the 18th century (see Haskalah) and the subsequent emancipation of the Jewish populations of Sony VAIO VPCP116KG Battery Europe and America in the 19th century, accelerated the situation, encouraging Jews to increasingly participate in, and become part of, secular society. The result has been a growing trend of assimilation, as Jews marry non-Jewish spouses and stop participating in the Jewish community.^[112] Sony VAIO VPC-P116KX/B Battery Rates of interreligious marriage vary widely: In the United States, they are just under 50%,^[113] in the United Kingdom, around 53%, in France, around 30%,^[114]and in Australia and Mexico, as low as 10%.Sony VAIO VPC-P116KX/D Battery In the United States, only about a third of children from intermarriages affiliate themselves with Jewish religious practice.^[117] The result is that most countries in the Diaspora have steady or slightly declining religiously Jewish populations as Jews continue to assimilate into the countries in which they live. Sony VAIO VPC-P116KX/G Battery

War and persecution

The Jewish people and Judaism have experienced various persecutions throughout Jewish history. During late Antiquity and the earlyMiddle Ages the Roman Empire (in its later phases known as the Byzantine Empire) Sony VAIO VPC-P116KX/P Battery repeatedly repressed the Jewish population, first by ejecting them from their homelands during the pagan Roman era and later by officially establishing them as second-class citizensduring the Christian Roman era. According to James Carroll, "Jews accounted for 10% of the total population of the Roman Empire. Sony VAIO VPC-P116KX/W Battery 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."^[120] Later in medieval Western Europe, further persecutions of Jews in the name of Christianity occurred, Sony VAIO VPCP118JC Battery notably during the Crusades—when Jews all over Germany were massacred—and a series of expulsions from England, Germany, France, and, in the largest expulsion of all, Spain and Portugal after the Reconquista (the Catholic Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula), where both unbaptized Sephardic Jews and the ruling Muslim Moors were expelled. Sony VAIO VPCP118JC/B Battery In the Papal States, which existed until 1870, Jews were required to live only in specified neighborhoods called ghettos.^[123] In the 19th and (before the end of World War II) 20th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church adhered to a distinction between "good antisemitism" and "bad antisemitism". Sony VAIO VPCP118JC/P Battery The "bad" kind promoted hatred of Jews because of their descent. This was considered un-Christian because the Christian message was intended for all of humanity regardless of ethnicity; anyone could become a Christian. Sony VAIO VPCP118JC/W Battery The "good" kind criticized alleged Jewish conspiracies to control newspapers, banks, and other institutions, to care only about accumulation of wealth, etc.^[124] Islam and Judaism have a complex relationship. Traditionally Jews and Christians living in Muslim lands, Sony VAIO VPC-P118KX/B Battery known as dhimmis, were allowed to practice their religions and to administer their internal affairs, but subject to certain conditions.^[125] They had to pay the jizya (a per capita tax imposed on free adult non-Muslim males) to the Islamic state.^[125] Dhimmis had an inferior status under Islamic rule. Sony VAIO VPC-P118KX/D Battery They had several social and legal disabilities such as prohibitions against bearing arms or giving testimony in courts in cases involving Muslims.^[126] Many of the disabilities were highly symbolic. The one described by Bernard Lewis as "most degrading"^[127] Sony VAIO VPC-P118KX/G Battery was the requirement of distinctive clothing, not found in the Qur'an or hadith but invented in early medievalBaghdad; its enforcement was highly erratic.^[127] On the other hand, Jews rarely faced martyrdom or exile, or forced compulsion to change their religion, and they were mostly free in their choice of residence and profession.^[128] Sony VAIO VPC-P118KX/P Battery Notable exceptions include the massacre of Jews and/or forcible conversion of some Jews by the rulers of the Almohad dynasty in Al-Andalus in the 12th century,^[129] as well as in Islamic Persia,^[130] and the forced confinement of Moroccan Jews to walled quarters known as mellahs beginning from the 15th century and especially in the early 19th century.^[131] Sony VAIO VPC-P118KX/W Battery In modern times, it has become commonplace for standard antisemitic themes to be conflated with anti-Zionist publications and pronouncements of Islamic movements such as Hezbollah and Hamas, in the pronouncements of various agencies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and even in the newspapers and other publications of Turkish Refah Partisi." Sony VAIO VPCP119JC Battery Throughout history, many rulers, empires and nations have oppressed their Jewish populations or sought to eliminate them entirely. Methods employed ranged from expulsion to outright genocide; within nations, often the threat of these extreme methods was sufficient to silence dissent. Sony VAIO VPCP119JC/BI Battery Thehistory of antisemitism includes the First Crusade which resulted in the massacre of Jews;^[121]the Spanish Inquisition (led by Torquemada) and the Portuguese Inquisition, with their persecution and autos-da-fé against the New Christians and Marrano Jews;^[133] Sony VAIO VPCP11S1E/B Battery the Bohdan Chmielnicki Cossack massacres in Ukraine;^[134] the Pogroms backed by the Russian Tsars;^[135] as well as expulsions from Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, and other countries in which the Jews had settled.^[122] According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics 19.8% of the modern Iberian population has Sephardic Jewish ancestry,^[136] Sony VAIO VPC-P11S1E/B Battery indicating that the number of conversos may have been much higher than originally thought.^[137][138] The persecution reached a peak in Nazi Germany's Final Solution, which led to the Holocaust and the slaughter of approximately 6 million Jews.^[139] Sony VAIO VPCP11S1E/D Battery The Holocaust — the state-led systematic persecution and genocide of European Jews (and certain communities of North African Jews in European controlled North Africa) and other minority groups of Europe duringWorld War II by Germany and its collaborators remains the most notable modern day persecution of Jews.^[140] Sony VAIO VPC-P11S1E/D Battery The persecution and genocide were accomplished in stages. Legislation to remove the Jews from civil society was enacted years before the outbreak of World War II.^[141]Concentration camps were established in which inmates were used as slave labour until they died of exhaustion or disease.^[142] Sony VAIO VPCP11S1E/G Battery Where the Third Reich conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings.^[143] Jews and Roma were crammed into ghettos before being transported hundreds of miles by freight train to extermination camps where, Sony VAIO VPC-P11S1E/G Battery if they survived the journey, the majority of them were killed in gas chambers.^[144] Virtually every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics of the mass murder, turning the country into what one Holocaust scholar has called "a genocidal nation."^[145] Sony VAIO VPCP11S1E/P Battery

Migrations

Throughout Jewish history, Jews have repeatedly been directly or indirectly expelled from both their original homeland and the areas in which they have resided. This experience as refugees has shaped Jewish identity and religious practice in many ways, and is thus a major element of Jewish history.^[146] Sony VAIO VPCP11S1E/W Battery The incomplete list of major and other noteworthy migrations that follows includes numerous instances of expulsion or departure under duress: The patriarch Abraham was a migrant to the land of Canaan from Ur of the Chaldees^[147] after an attempt on his life by KingNimrod.^[148] Sony VAIO VPC-P11S1E/W Battery

• The Children of Israel experienced the Exodus (meaning "departure" or "exit" in Greek) from ancient Egypt, as recorded in theBook of Exodus.^[149]

The Kingdom of Israel was sent into permanent exile by Assyria, initially to the Upper Mesopotamian provinces of the Assyrian Empire,^[150] from whence they scattered all over the world (or at least to unknown locations).^[151] Sony VAIO VPCP11Z9E/B Battery

• The Kingdom of Judah was exiled by Babylonia,^[152] then returned to Judea by Cyrus the Great of the Persian Achaemenid Empire,^[153]and then many were exiled again by the Roman Empire.^[154]

The 2,000 year dispersion of the Jewish diaspora beginning under the Roman Empire, Sony VAIO VPCS111FM/S Battery as Jews were spread throughout the Roman world and, driven from land to land, and settled wherever they could live freely enough to practice their religion. Over the course of the diaspora the center of Jewish life moved from Babylonia^[155] to the Iberian Peninsula^[156] to Poland^[157] to the United States^[158] and, as a result of Zionism, back to Israel.^[159] Sony VAIO VPCS115EC Battery Many expulsions during the Middle Ages and Enlightenment in Europe, including: 1290, 16,000 Jews were expelled from England, see the (Statute of Jewry); in 1396, 100,000 from France; in 1421 thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of these Jews settled inEastern Europe, especially Poland.^[160] Sony VAIO VPCS115FG Battery Following the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, the Spanish population of around 200,000 Sephardic Jews were expelled by the Spanish crown and Catholic church, followed by expulsions in 1493 in Sicily (37,000 Jews) and Portugal in 1496. Sony VAIO VPCS117GG Battery

• The expelled Jews fled mainly to the Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands, and North Africa, others migrating to Southern Europe and the Middle East.^[161]

During the 19th century, France's policies of equal citizenship regardless of religion led to the immigration of Jews (especially from Eastern and Central Europe).^[162] Sony VAIO VPCS117GGB Battery,Sony VAIO VPCS118EC Battery The arrival of millions of Jews in the New World, including immigration of over two million Eastern European Jews to the United States from 1880–1925, see History of the Jews in the United States and History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union.^[163] Sony VAIO VPCS119FJ/B Battery The Pogroms in Eastern Europe,^[135] the rise of modern antisemitism,^[164] the Holocaust,^[165] and the rise of Arab nationalism^[166] all served to fuel the movements and migrations of huge segments of Jewry from land to land and continent to continent, until they arrived back in large numbers at their original historical homeland in Israel.^[159] Sony VAIO VPCS119GC Battery The Islamic Revolution of Iran caused many Iranian Jews to flee Iran. Most found refuge in the US (particularly Los Angeles, CA) and Israel. Smaller communities of Persian Jews exist in Canada and Western Europe.^[167] Sony VAIO VPCS11AFJ Battery

• When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of the Jews in the affected territory (who had been refuseniks) were suddenly allowed to leave. This produced a wave of migration to Israel in the early 1990s.^[102]

Growth

Israel is the only country with a consistently growing Jewish population due to natural population increase, Sony VAIO VPCS11AGJ Battery though the Jewish populations of other countries in Europe and North America have recently increased due to immigration. In the Diaspora, in almost every country the Jewish population in general is either declining or steady, but Orthodox and Haredi Jewish communities, Sony VAIO VPCS11AHJ Battery whose members often shun birth control for religious reasons, have experienced rapid population growth.^[168] Orthodox and Conservative Judaism discourage proselytism to non-Jews, Sony VAIO VPCS11AVJ Battery but many Jewish groups have tried to reach out to the assimilated Jewish communities of the Diaspora in order for them to reconnect to their Jewish roots. Additionally, while in principle Reform Judaism favors seeking new members for the faith, Sony VAIO VPCS11J7E/B Battery this position has not translated into active proselytism, instead taking the form of an effort to reach out to non-Jewish spouses of intermarried couples.^[169] There is also a trend of Orthodox movements pursuing secular Jews in order to give them a stronger Jewish identity so there is less chance of intermarriage. As a result of the efforts by these and other Jewish groups over the past 25 years, there has been a trend of secular Jews becoming more religiously observant, known as the Baal Teshuva movement, though the demographic implications of the trend are unknown.^[170] Sony VAIO VPCS11M1E/W Battery Additionally, there is also a growing movement of Jews by Choice by gentiles who make the decision to head in the direction of becoming Jews.^[171]

Leadership

There is no single governing body for the Jewish community, nor a single authority with responsibility for religious doctrine. Sony VAIO VPCS11V9E Battery Instead, a variety of secular and religious institutions at the local, national, and international levels lead various parts of the Jewish community on a variety of issues. Jews have made contributions in a broad range of human endeavors, including the sciences, arts, politics, and business. Sony VAIO VPCS11V9E/B Battery Although Jews comprise only 0.2% of the world's population, over 20% of Nobel Prize laureates have been Jewish, with multiple winners in each field. The Basic Laws of Israel (Hebrew: חוקי היסוד‎, ḥŭḳḳēi ha-yyǝsōd) are a key component of Israel's constitutional law. Sony VAIO VPCS11X9E/B Battery These laws deal with the formation and role of the principal state's institutions, and the relations between the state's authorities. Some of them also protect civil rights. While these laws were originally meant to be draft chapters of a future Israeli constitution, Sony VAIO VPCS123FGB Battery they are already used on a daily basis by the courts as a formal constitution. Israel currently functions according to an uncodified constitution consisting of both material constitutional law, based upon cases and precedents, and the provisions of these formal statutes. Sony VAIO VPCS125EC Battery As of today, the Basic Laws do not cover all constitutional issues, and there is no deadline set to the completion of the process of merging them into one comprehensive constitution. There is no clear rule determining the precedence of Basic Rules over regular legislation, Sony VAIO VPCS128EC Battery and in many cases this issue is left to the interpretation of the judicial system. The State of Israel was supposed to adopt a formal written constitution a few months after its declaration of independence on 14 May 1948. The declaration itself states that a constitution should be formulated and adopted no later than 1 October 1948. Sony VAIO VPCS129GC Battery Adoption of a democratic constitution was also a demand of the General Assembly Resolution 181, which proposed the establishment of a "Jewish state". The State of Israel failed to adopt a formal constitution. While the deadline stated in the declaration of independence proved unrealistic in light of the war which went on between the new state and its neighboring countries, Sony VAIO VPCS12C7E/B Battery general elections were arranged on 25 January 1949, in order to elect the Constituent Assembly which would approve the new state's constitution. The Constituent Assembly convened on February 1949. It held several discussions about the constitution which soon reached a dead end. Sony VAIO VPCS12L9E/B Battery Several arguments were proposed against the adoption of a formal constitution. The Religious Jews at the time opposed the idea of their nation having a document which the government would regard as nominally "higher" in authority than religious texts such as the Tanakh, Talmud, and Shulkhan Arukh. Sony VAIO VPCS12V9E/B Battery Therefore, after only four meetings, the Constituent Assembly adopted on 16 February 1949 the Transition Law, by means of which it became the "First Knesset"^[1] The Knesset is, therefore, a Sovereign Parliament, like the Parliament of the United Kingdom, that is not bound by a formal Constitution. Sony VAIO VPCW111XX/P Battery Because the Constituent Assembly did not prepare a Constitution for Israel, the Knesset is the heir of the Assembly for the purpose of fulfilling this function.^[1]

The Harari Decision

In 1950, the first Knesset came to what was called the Harari Decision. Rather than draft a full constitution immediately, they would postpone the work, Sony VAIO VPCW111XX/PC Battery charging the Knesset's Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee with drafting the document piecemeal. Each chapter would be called a Basic Law, and when all had been written they would be compiled into a complete constitution. In 1998, Aharon Barak, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel declared a "constitutional revolution" Sony VAIO VPCW111XX/T Battery and attached constitutional ascendancy to the Basic Laws of Israel.^[2] The basic laws are various pieces of legislation from the Knesset that outline the nation's political structure. Between 1958 and 1988 the Knesset passed nine Basic Laws, all of which pertained to the institutions of state. Sony VAIO VPCW111XX/W Battery In 1992, it passed the first two Basic Laws which related to rights and basis of the Supreme Court's recently declared powers of judicial review. These are Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, and Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation. These were passed by votes of 32–21 and 23–0, respectively. Sony VAIO VPCW111XXP Battery The Law of Return  is Israeli legislation, passed on 5 July 1950, that gives Jews the right of return and settlement in Israel and gain citizenship.^[1] In 1970, the right of entry and settlement was extended to people of Jewish ancestry, and their spouses. Sony VAIO VPCW111XXT Battery The Law of Return 5710-1950 was enacted by the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, on July 5, 1950.^[2] The Law of Return declares the right of Jews to come to Israel, claimed to be their ancestral homeland, and to facilitate their immigration. The Law stated: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh. Sony VAIO VPCW111XXW Battery " Follow-up legislation on immigration matters was contained in theNationality Law of 1952. The Law of Return was modified in 1970 to include non-Jews with a Jewish grandparent, and their spouses. The law since 1970 applies to those born Jews (having a Jewish mother or maternal grandmother), Sony VAIO VPCW115XG Battery those with Jewish ancestry (having a Jewish father or grandfather) and converts to Judaism (Orthodox, Reform, or Conservative denominations—not secular—though Reform and Conservative conversions must take place outside the state, similar to civil marriages). Sony VAIO VPCW115XGP Battery

Purpose

In the Law of Return, the State of Israel put into practice the Zionist movement's "credo" as pledged in Israel's Declaration of Independence and recognized by the League of Nations in 1922, Sony VAIO VPCW115XW/P Battery when charging Britain with the duty of establishing a Jewish National Home, and by the United Nations within the Partition Plan of 1947 which provided for establishment of Israel as a Jewish state.

Eligibility requirements

Those who emigrate to Israel under the Law of Return are immediately entitled to citizenship. Sony VAIO VPCW115XW/T Battery However, differences of opinion have arisen as to whether a person who claims citizenship under the Law of Return should be automatically registered as "Jewish" for census purposes. According to the halakhic definition, a person is Jewish if his or her mother is Jewish, Sony VAIO VPCW115XW/W Battery or if he or she converts to Judaism. Orthodox Jews do not recognize conversions performed by Reform orConservative Judaism. However, the Law provides that any Jew regardless of affiliation may migrate to Israel and claim citizenship. Sony VAIO VPCW117XC/P Battery Originally, the Law of Return was restricted to Jews only. A 1970 amendment, however, stated that, "The rights of a Jew under this Law and the rights of an oleh under the Nationality Law... Sony VAIO VPCW117XC/T Battery are also vested in a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew." A Jew can be excluded from Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return if he or she is considered to be dangerous to the welfare of the State of Israel. Sony VAIO VPCW117XC/W Battery Jews who have a past that involves a serious crime, such as murder, or who are fugitives in another country for any felony (unless they are persecution victims) can be denied the right of return, (e.g. Meyer Lansky, Victor Vancier).^[3] The Law of Return also excludes any "person who has been a Jew and has voluntarily changed his religion." Sony VAIO VPCW119XJ Battery

The Jewish Ancestry Amendment

The 1970 amendment was induced by the debate on "Who is a Jew" (until then the law did not refer to the question). There are several explanations for the decision to be so inclusive. Sony VAIO VPCW119XJ/P Battery One is that the Law of Return attempts to provide sanctuary as a citizen in Israel to anyone who would be persecuted under the Nuremberg Laws. As the Nuremberg Laws did not use ahalakhic definition in its definition of "Who is a Jew", the Law of Return definition for citizenship eligibility is nothalakhic, either. Sony VAIO VPCW119XJ/W Battery The Law of Return provides sanctuary to anyone covered by the definition under the Nuremberg Laws, but does not automatically presume that the person is halakhicly Jewish for the purposes of laws governing personal status. Furthermore, the clause in Amendment number 2, 4a, states, Sony VAIO VPCW11AXJ Battery "The rights of a Jew under this Law and the rights of an oleh under the Nationality Law, 5712-1952***, as well as the rights of an oleh under any other enactment, are also vested in a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew, Sony VAIO VPCW11S1E/P Battery except for a person who has been a Jew and has voluntarily changed his religion."^[4] Therefore a Jew who has voluntarily changed his religion is not considered a Jew according to the law of return, but would have been persecuted as a Jew under the Nuremberg laws regardless of his change of religion, Sony VAIO VPCW11S1E/T Battery and is still a Jew according to halacha (see "Who is a Jew" - section 1.3 - Jews who have practiced another faith), but is nevertheless ineligible to immigrate under the law of return. Another explanation is the 1968 wave of immigration from Poland, following an antisemitic campaign by the government. Sony VAIO VPCW11S1E/W Battery These immigrants were very assimilated and had many non Jewish family members.^[5] The Israeli Rabbinate is a purely Orthodox body that is far more strict in defining 'who is a Jew'. Sony VAIO VPCW121AX Battery This creates a situation in which thousands of immigrants who are eligible for citizenship under the Law of Return's criteria, are ineligible for Jewish marriage by the Israeli Rabbinate .^[6] Sony VAIO VPCW126AG Battery

Demographic explanation

A second explanation is that in order to increase immigration levels so as to offset the "demographic threat" posed by the continuing presence and growth of the Arab population, the law expanded the base group of those eligible to immigrate to Israel. Sony VAIO VPCW127JC/P Battery

Secular explanation

A third explanation promoted by religious Jews is that the overwhelmingly secular leadership in Israel sought to undermine the influence of religious elements in Israeli politics and society by allowing more secular Jews and their non-Jewish spouses to immigrate.^[8] Sony VAIO VPCW127JC/T Battery

Followers of Messianic Judaism

The Supreme Court of Israel ruled in 1989 that Messianic Judaism constituted another religion (it is considered by most Christians and Jews to be a form of Christianity), and that people who had become Messianic Jews were not therefore eligible for Aliyah under the law.^[9] Sony VAIO VPCW127JC/W Battery On April 16, 2008, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled in a case brought by a number of people with Jewish fathers and grandfathers whose applications for citizenship had been rejected on the grounds that they were Messianic Jews. Sony VAIO VPCW127JC/WZ Battery The argument was made by the applicants that they had never been Jews according tohalakha, and were not therefore excluded by the conversion clause. This argument was upheld in the ruling,^[10][11] and the government agreed to reprocess their applications. Sony VAIO VPCW12AAJ Battery

Claims of Discrimination

Critics claim that the Law of Return runs counter to the claims of a democratic state. Palestinians and advocates for Palestinian refugee rights criticize the Law of Return, which they compare with the Palestinian claim to a right of return.^[17] Sony VAIO VPCW12AKJ Battery These critics consider the Law, as contrasted against the denial of the right of return, as offensive and as institutionalized ethnic discrimination. In June 2011, the Law came under scrutiny when a gay couple of a Jewish man, and a non-Jewish man made Aliyah to Israel. Sony VAIO VPCW12AVJ Battery Although the Jewish man quickly received citizenship, the decision of citizenship for his husband was delayed by the Ministry of the Interior despite the clause in the law saying the spouse of the Jewish immigrant must also be granted citizenship.^[19] Sony VAIO VPCW12S1E/P Battery Within 2 months, the Ministry of the Interior granted citizenship to the non-Jewish husband as required by The Law of Return.^[20] Messianic Jews also claim to be discriminated against.

Arguments in support of the Law of Return

The Law of Return is not the only way of acquiring citizenship. Sony VAIO VPCW12S1E/T Battery For example, non-Jews can become citizens by naturalization, residence, or marrying an Israeli citizen. Naturalization, for instance, is available under certain circumstances for the non-Jewish parents of a citizen who has completed his or her army service.^[21] Sony VAIO VPCW12S1E/W Battery

1. The Law of Return was intended to deal with historic homelessness and persecution of Jews around the world.^[22][23]

The right granted to Jews along with their relatives under the Law does not necessarily or automatically discriminate against non-Jews, but is a form of "positive" discrimination. Sony VAIO VPCW213AG/L Battery Israel has residency and citizenship laws for non-Jews that are equivalent to those in other liberal democracies. CAMERA argues that the Law of Return is consistent with Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Article I(3), Sony VAIO VPCW213AG/P Battery which CAMERA says allows for preferential immigration treatment of some groups without discrimination against a particular group.^[24] Thus, CAMERA^[24] and others^[25] argue that other countries, including Germany, provide immigration privileges to individuals with ethnic ties to these countries (See Right of return and Repatriation laws). Sony VAIO VPCW213AG/T Battery While the purpose of the Law of Return is perhaps to keep Israel predominantly Jewish, an argument states that a world where Jews have been persecuted, the concept of maintaining a Jewish state is necessary for the survival of the Jewish people generally and to provide a safe haven for Jewish refugees in specific cases. Sony VAIO VPCW213AG/W Battery CAMERA argues the Law of Return is justified under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Article I(4), which CAMERA argues allows for affirmative action, because of the discrimination Jews faced during the Holocaust. Sony VAIO VPCW215AG/L Battery Benjamin Pogrund, director of Yakar's Center for Social Concern in Jerusalem and member of the Israeli delegation to the United Nations World Conference against Racism, calls the law "unfair" from the Palestinian refugees' point of view, but sees the unfairness as having happened in other places too. Sony VAIO VPCW217JC Battery

2. Pogrund compares the flight/expulsion of Palestinians (both in 1948 and 1967) to Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, India and Pakistan.

In Israel, a debate continues over the Law of Return. Some people wish to retain it as it stands, others want to modify it, and some to abolish the Law completely. Sony VAIO VPCW217JC/L Battery Those who would abolish the Law object to it because it grants Jews rights that members of other groups governed by the State of Israel do not have.^[27] Others argue that the law permits the entry of too many non-Jews, thereby undermining its purpose.^[28] Sony VAIO VPCW217JC/P Battery In September 2007, the discovery of a violent Neo-Nazi cell (Patrol 35) in Petah Tikva, made up of teenage immigrants from the former Soviet Union, led to renewed calls amongst politicians to amend the Law of Return.^[29] Effi Eitam of the National Religious Party and the National Union, Sony VAIO VPCW217JC/T Battery which represent the religious Zionist movement and have previously attempted to advance bills to amend the Law of Return, stated that Israel has become "a haven for people who hate Israel, hate Jews, and exploit the Law of Return to act on this hatred."^[30] On the other end of the political spectrum, Sony VAIO VPCW217JC/W Battery MK Ahmed Tibi of United Arab List and Ta'al criticized the system's double-standard, stating that, "people immigrated to Israel and received automatic citizenship under the Law of Return, while citizens of Nazareth and Tayibe are not allowed to visit their own relatives merely due to the fact that they areArabs."^[30] Sony VAIO VPCW218JC Battery Thirty-six percent of Israelis polled said that deeper background checks on new immigrants would amount to racism against Jews from Russian speaking countries.^[31]

Applicability

Amongst those who are in favor of retaining the Law, controversy exists over its wording. Sony VAIO VPCW218JC/L Battery The Law's definition of a "Jew" and "Jewish people" are subject to debate. Israeli and Diaspora Jews differ with each other as groups and among themselves as to what this definition should be for the purposes of the Law of Return. Additionally, there is a lively debate over the meaning of the terms "Jewish State" and "State of the Jews".Sony VAIO VPCW218JC/P Battery Discussion around the Law and its wording constantly reappears on private and public agendas in Israel and in the Diaspora. The Knesset has repeatedly debated proposals to amend the Law of Return, and it has indeed been amended a number of times over the years. Sony VAIO VPCW218JC/T Battery These modifications reflect the changes that have taken place in Israeli society, the shifts that have taken place in political dialogue both inside Israel itself, and the political discourse between Israel and the Diaspora. Sony VAIO VPCW218JC/W Battery The present law constitutes an expression of permanent trends as well as of the Israeli legislative system's ability to adapt itself to changing circumstances. It is not only the Knesset, however, which has been repeatedly obliged to directly or indirectly address these issues. Sony VAIO VPCW219AJ/L Battery Over the years, many of Israel's interior ministers have examined the issue of the Law of Return and wavered as to how to apply it. The judiciary has also been called upon to express an opinion on matters relating to the Law. Sony VAIO VPCW219AJ/P Battery This burning and recurrent question in the country's political dialogue not only reveals but also exacerbates differences of opinion between Israelis. One central issue is who has the authority over determining the validity of conversions to Judaism for purposes of immigration and citizenship. Sony VAIO VPCW219AJ/W Battery For historical reasons, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, under the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs, made this determination, but this arrangement is in question. This practice has met opposition among non-Orthodox religious leaders both within Israel and in the diaspora. Sony VAIO VPCW21AAJ Battery Several attempts have been made to resolve the issue, the most recent being the Ne'eman Commission, but an impasse persists. On March 31, 2005, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled 7-4 that all conversions performed outside of Sony VAIO VPCW21AKJ Battery Israel would be recognized by the authorities under the Law of Return, notwithstanding the Ne'eman Commission's view that a single body should determine eligibility for immigration. Sony VAIO VPCY115FGS Battery Orthodox religious leaders objected vehemently to this ruling, arguing that it would lead to fraudulent immigration applications. Sony VAIO VPCY115FX/BI Battery,Sony VAIO VPCY115FXBI Battery,Sony VAIO VPCY118EC Battery