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While Jews have remained a small faith, the impact of their teachings on the world has been profound. In particular, the Hebrew Bible has been of greater significance than any other religious book. Both Christianity and Islam sprang from this Jewish understanding and scripture. Over the last 200 years the location and size of the world’s Jewish population has been radically altered: by mass migration from Europe and Russia in the late 19th to mid-20th century, mainly to the U.S.; by the tragedy of the Nazi Holocaust, 1939-45 which destroyed the Jewish cultures of Germany and Eastern Europe; and finally, by the creation of the state of Israel. Whereas in 1800 the vast majority of Jews lived in Europe and Russia, most Jews today are to be found in either the United States or Israel. The state of Israel was created in 1948 as the first homeland for Jews since the Romans crushed a rebellion against Roman rule in Israel. For centuries before that, Jews had been living in scattered communities throughout the Middle East. After the Romans crushed them in 70CE, Jews spread throughout the Roman Empire. Despite terrible persecutions and restrictions, Jews established significant communities in Spain and North Africa, Russia, Persia (modern Iran) and even India and China. People of Jewish origin have varying degrees of personal commitment to Judaism or Israel. “Being a Jew” can have religious, ethnic or cultural meaning, so the numbers cited of Jews tend to vary. In religious terms, a Jew is someone whose mother was Jewish and who lives by the Law of Moses and of the Torah. While many Jews with a Jewish mother would describe themselves as Jewish, they may well not be adherents of the faith (religious Jews). Orthodox Jews assert the supreme authority of the Torah and believe that Jewish laws are not open to revision. Moves away from traditional or “orthodox observance” have given rise to Reform, Liberal, Conservative, Reconstructionist and other forms of Judaism. —Source Acknowledgement: Joanne O’Brien and Martin Palmer, The State of Religion Atlas, 1993 Demographics: Worldwide: fewer than twenty million —Source: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1994 United States: There are 2,831,000 (1.3% of the U.S. population) —Source: The ARIS 2001 study Table Demographic Map: Judaism
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