Jews in Socio-Religious Seclusion and Persecution - Essay Example

Jews in Socio-Religious Seclusion and PersecutionJudaism is the world’s oldest religion, connected with the history of the Jewish people and founded on the original agreement made between God and Abraham in 1900 B.C (Solomon, 2009). Abraham was told to leave his home in Ur of the Chaldeans and go to Canaan, a land that God promised He would give to the descendants of Abraham, a land that encompasses todays Israel and Palestine. The next important part of the covenant was made after 450 years when Moses led the Jews who had been in captivity in Egypt back to the Promised Land, Canaan (Solomon, 2009).

God gave the 10 commandments and other rules to the Jewish people by which they were to live and, this commandments and rules are contained in the first five books of the Old Testament and are referred to as the Torah. These commandments and rules contain the structures of the Judaism religion.Key religious beliefs as a religion include, the belief in one God who is Supreme, all powerful, just and he who reveals himself to people and they refer to Him as JHWH or Yahweh. They have a profession of faith called the Shema, which is recited in their morning and evening services that says, hear oh Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is one.

Their central is the Torah or Pentateuch as it was revealed to Moses and it is included in the first five books of the Old Testament (Solomon, 2009). They have the Talmud, which is a interpretation and explanation of Hebrew laws, and it is done in Palestinian and Babylonian interpretations (Solomon, 2009). They follow strict laws in the area of diet and they refer to religiously prepared food as Kosher which implies that it suitable from a religious perspective. They do not believe in instinctive evil or that man has sinned or that he has impurity, because they believe that man was made in Gods image.

The Jews were persecuted and secluded by the diaspora socially and religiously due to the fact that their religious beliefs were different, being referred to as atheist for their failure to believe in pagan gods of some of the countries concerned. They were known to love learning, and had skill in the art of medicine, and seemed also to be a threat to other people in the Diaspora due to their economic wellbeing. The hatred for the Jews had been taught for centuries and seems to have taken root in Britain, Germany, Poland, and France, Lithuania , Austria ,Russia, Norway other countries.

The Jews were persecuted in Italy by being forced to embrace Christianity at the risk of being exiled if they refused and this resulted to their fleeing to the countries mentioned above. In the 1stWorld War where Germany was defeated, the defeat was blamed on the influence of the Jews and when Adolf Hitler rose to become Emperor, he instigated the cleansing of Germany of Jewish influence by racial laws that forced them out of schools and professions and the passing of laws that made Jews stateless (Goldschmidt and Davidson, 2006).

In 1939, the Holocaust which was the systematic killing of Jews in Europe and Germany began and ended in 1945 with the death of six million Jews (Sloyan, 2001).ReferencesGoldschmidt, Jr. and Davidson, L. (2006). A Concise history of the Middle East. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.Solomon, N. (2009). Judaism. New York: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.Sloyan, G. S. (2001). Christian Persecution of Jews over the Centuries. Emeritus of Religion, Temple University.