Total population | |
---|---|
<10 (excluding half-Jews) [1] | |
Languages | |
English, Hebrew, Palauan | |
Religion | |
Judaism |
The history of the Jews in Palau is a relatively recent development, beginning with the arrival of the Israeli-born couple Tova and Navot Bornovski, and their children, who moved to Palau in 1993 to operate the Fish 'n Fins diving center and the Barracuda Restaurant. The family expanded and added two children, who were the first recorded Jewish children born on Palau. Both children have native middle names. [2]
The most prominent Jewish citizen was Stuart Beck, a Jewish-American lawyer that helped negotiate the Compact of Free Association which established Palau as an independent nation in 1994, held honorary citizenship, and was named Palau's first Permanent Representative to the United Nations in 2003. [3] Larry Miller was the Associate Justice of the Palau Supreme Court.
Two cyclists from Palau represented the country at the 2009 Maccabiah Games, marking the first time that Palau sent athletes to that international sporting event. [4]
The demographics of Israel, monitored by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, encompass various attributes that define the nation's populace. Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has witnessed significant changes in its demographics. Formed as a homeland for the Jewish people, Israel has attracted Jewish immigrants from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
Palau, officially the Republic of Palau, is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the western Pacific. The republic consists of approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the Caroline Islands with parts of the Federated States of Micronesia. It has a total area of 466 square kilometers (180 sq mi), making it the fourth smallest country in the world. The most populous island is Koror, home to the country's most populous city of the same name. The capital Ngerulmud is located on the largest island of Babeldaob, in Melekeok State. Palau shares maritime boundaries with international waters to the north, the Federated States of Micronesia to the east, Indonesia to the south, and the Philippines to the northwest.
Ashkelon or Ashqelon is a coastal city in the Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, 50 kilometres (30 mi) south of Tel Aviv, and 13 kilometres (8 mi) north of the border with the Gaza Strip.
Abba Solomon Meir Eban was a South African-born Israeli diplomat and politician, and a scholar of the Arabic and Hebrew languages.
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the survivors; honoring Jews who fought against their Nazi oppressors and gentiles who selflessly aided Jews in need; and researching the phenomenon of the Holocaust in particular and genocide in general, with the aim of avoiding such events in the future. Yad Vashem's vision, as stated on its website, is: "To lead the documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, and to convey the chronicles of this singular Jewish and human event to every person in Israel, to the Jewish people, and to every significant and relevant audience worldwide."
Major-General Chaim Herzog was an Israeli politician, general, lawyer and author who served as the sixth President of Israel between 1983 and 1993. Born in Belfast and raised primarily in Dublin, the son of Ireland's Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1935 and served in the Haganah Jewish paramilitary group during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt. He returned to Palestine after the war and, following the end of the British Mandate and Israel's Declaration of Independence in 1948, fought in the Battles of Latrun during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. He retired from the Israel Defence Forces in 1962 with the rank of major-general.
Righteous Among the Nations is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, including Jews, who were being exterminated by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The term originates from the concept of ger toshav, a legal term used to refer to non-Jewish observers of the Seven Laws of Noah.
"Who is a Jew?" is a basic question about Jewish identity and considerations of Jewish self-identification. The question pertains to ideas about Jewish personhood, which have cultural, ethnic, religious, political, genealogical, and personal dimensions. Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism follow Jewish law (halakha), deeming people to be Jewish if their mothers are Jewish or if they underwent a halakhic conversion. Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism accept both matrilineal and patrilineal descent as well as conversion. Karaite Judaism predominantly follows patrilineal descent as well as conversion.
A sabra or tzabar is a modern Hebrew term that defines any Jew born in Israel. The term came into widespread use in the 1930s to refer to a Jew who had been born in Israel, including the British Mandate of Palestine and Ottoman Syria; cf. New Yishuv & Old Yishuv, though it may have appeared earlier. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Israelis have used the word to refer to a Jew born anywhere in the Land of Israel.
Nokdim is an Israeli settlement organized as a community settlement in the West Bank. Located south of Bethlehem in the northern Judean Mountains, it falls under the jurisdiction of Gush Etzion Regional Council. In 2022 it had a population of 3,094.
Achinoam Nini, known professionally as Noa (נועה), is an Israeli singer-songwriter, percussionist, poet, composer, and human rights activist working internationally. She is accompanied by guitarist Gil Dor and often plays the conga drums and percussions as she sings. Noa represented Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 together with singer Mira Awad, with the song "There Must Be Another Way". Her music is known to fuse languages and styles. She has performed in 52 countries and was the first Israeli artist to perform in the Vatican.
The Tiberias massacre took place on 2 October 1938, during the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Tiberias, then located in the British Mandate of Palestine and today located in the State of Israel.
Stuart Jay Beck was an American law practitioner and a diplomat for Palau. As a lawyer he helped negotiate the Compact of Free Association, which established Palau as an independent nation in free association with the United States in 1994. For his contributions to Palau, he was granted honorary citizenship.
Joan Nathan is an American cookbook author and newspaper journalist. She has produced TV documentaries on the subject of Jewish cuisine. She was a co-founder of New York's Ninth Avenue Food Festival under then-Mayor Abraham Beame. The Jerusalem Post has called her the "matriarch of Jewish cooking".
A shark sanctuary is an area that forbids commercial fishing operations from targeting and retaining caught sharks, including their fins. The first shark sanctuary was created by Palau in 2009. It was followed by Maldives, Honduras, The Bahamas and Tokelau.
Israel – Micronesia relations are diplomatic and other relations between the State of Israel and the Federated States of Micronesia. Israel was among the first countries to establish formal diplomatic relations with Micronesia.
The Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites of the ancient Near East, and whose traditional religion is Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is an ethnic religion, although not all ethnic Jews practice it. Despite this, religious Jews regard individuals who have formally converted to Judaism as part of the community.
Israel–Palau relations are the bilateral relations between the State of Israel and the Republic of Palau.
The Land of Israel is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definitions of the limits of this territory vary between passages in the Hebrew Bible, with specific mentions in Genesis 15, Exodus 23, Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 47. Nine times elsewhere in the Bible, the settled land is referred as "from Dan to Beersheba", and three times it is referred as "from the entrance of Hamath unto the brook of Egypt".
Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, informally known as the Nation-State Bill or the Nationality Bill, is an Israeli Basic Law that specifies the country's significance to the Jewish people. It was passed by the Knesset—with 62 in favour, 55 against, and two abstentions—on 19 July 2018 and is largely symbolic and declarative in nature. The law outlines a number of roles and responsibilities by which Israel is bound in order to fulfill the purpose of serving as the Jews' nation-state. However, it was met with sharp backlash internationally and has been characterized as racist and undemocratic by some critics. After it was passed, several groups in the Jewish diaspora expressed concern that it was actively violating Israel's self-defined legal status as a "Jewish and democratic state" in exchange for adopting an exclusively Jewish identity. The European Union stated that the Nation-State Bill had complicated the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, while the Arab League, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the Muslim World League condemned it as a manifestation of apartheid.