The Romaniote Jews or the Romaniotes are a Greek-speaking ethnic Jewish community native to the Eastern Mediterranean. They are one of the oldest Jewish communities in existence and the oldest Jewish community in Europe. The Romaniotes have been, and remain, historically distinct from the Sephardim, some of whom settled in Ottoman Greece after the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal after 1492.
Mizrahi Jews, also known as Mizrahim (מִזְרָחִים) or Mizrachi (מִזְרָחִי) and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or Edot HaMizrach, are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained in the Land of Israel and those who existed in diaspora throughout and around the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from biblical times into the modern era.
The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is a Jewish seminary with three locations in the United States and one location in Jerusalem. It is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, Ohio, New York City, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem. The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary in Israel for training Reform Jewish clergy.
Shlomo Riskin is an Orthodox rabbi, and the founding rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue on the Upper West Side of New York City, which he led for 20 years; founding chief rabbi of the Israeli settlement of Efrat in the Israeli-occupied West Bank; former dean of Manhattan Day School in New York City; and founder and Chancellor of the Ohr Torah Stone Institutions, a network of high schools, colleges, and graduate Programs in the United States and Israel.
American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of American Jews identify as Ashkenazi, 3% identify as Sephardic, and 1% identify as Mizrahi. An additional 6% identify as some combination of the three categories.
Jewish identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as a Jew and as relating to being Jewish. Under a broader definition, Jewish identity does not depend on whether a person is regarded as a Jew by others, or by an external set of religious, or legal, or sociological norms. Jewish identity does not need to imply religious orthodoxy. Accordingly, Jewish identity can be cultural in nature. Jewish identity can involve ties to the Jewish community. Orthodox Judaism bases Jewishness on matrilineal descent. According to Jewish law (halacha), all those born of a Jewish mother are considered Jewish, regardless of personal beliefs or level of observance of Jewish law. Progressive Judaism and Haymanot Judaism in general base Jewishness on having at least one Jewish parent, while Karaite Judaism bases Jewishness only on paternal lineage. These differences between the major Jewish movements are the source of the disagreement and debate about who is a Jew.
Italian Jews or Roman Jews can be used in a broad sense to mean all Jews living in or with roots in Italy, or, in a narrower sense, to mean the Italkim, an ancient community living in Italy since the Ancient Roman era, who use the Italian liturgy as distinct from those Jewish communities in Italy dating from medieval or modern times who use the Sephardic liturgy or the Nusach Ashkenaz.
Syrian Jews are Jews who lived in the region of the modern state of Syria, and their descendants born outside Syria. Syrian Jews derive their origin from two groups: from the Jews who inhabited the region of today's Syria from ancient times, and sometimes classified as Mizrahi Jews. Mizrahi is a generic term for the Jews with an extended history in Western Asia or North Africa); and from the Sephardi Jews who fled to Syria after the Alhambra Decree forced the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.
The history of the Jews in Lebanon encompasses the presence of Jews in present-day Lebanon stretching back to biblical times. While Jews have been present in Lebanon since ancient times, their numbers had dwindled during the Muslim era. Through the medieval ages, Jewish people often faced persecution, but retained their religious and cultural identity.
Interfaith marriage in Judaism was historically looked upon with very strong disfavor by Jewish leaders, and it remains a controversial issue among them today. Many Jews followed the Talmud and all of resulting Jewish law Halakha until the advent of new Jewish movements following the Jewish Enlightenment resulted in the "Haskala"; in Halakha marriage between a Jew and a gentile is both prohibited, and also void under Jewish law.
Jewish assimilation refers either to the gradual cultural assimilation and social integration of Jews in their surrounding culture or to an ideological program in the age of emancipation promoting conformity as a potential solution to historic Jewish marginalization. In Israel, Hitbolelut is a derogatory term that mainly refers to the highly uncommon Jewish interfaith couples within it, which in turn gets local criticism for and marked as anti-Zionism ; especially when the coupling is done with the clashing nationalism of Arabs who are predominantly Muslims and of Palestinian ancestry – mainly because of the ongoing Arab–Israeli conflict, which began even prior to the declaration of independence by the State of Israel in 1948.
Samuel C. Heilman is a professor of Sociology at Queens College, City University of New York, who focuses on social ethnography of contemporary Jewish Orthodox movements.
Charles S. Liebman was a political scientist and prolific author on Jewish life and Israel. A professor at Bar-Ilan University, he previously served on university faculties in the United States.
Australian Jews, or Jewish Australians, are Jews who are Australian citizens or permanent residents of Australia. In the 2021 census there were 99,956 people whom identified Judaism as their religious affiliation and 29,113 Australians who identified as Jewish by ancestry, an increase from 97,355 and 25,716, respectively, from the 2016 census,. The actual number is almost certainly higher, because being a Jew is not just about being religious, but the census data is based on religious affiliation, so secular Jews often feel it would be inaccurate to answer with "Judaism". Also, since the question is optional, many practicing Holocaust survivors and Haredi Jews are believed to prefer not to disclose their religion in the census. By comparison, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz estimated a Jewish-Australian population of 120,000-150,000, while other estimates based on the death rate in the community estimate the size of the community as 250,000. Based on the census data, Jewish citizens make up about 0.4% of the Australian population. The Jewish community of Australia is composed mostly of Ashkenazi Jews, though there are Jews in Australia from many other traditions and levels of religious observance and participation in the Jewish community.
In Judaism, matrilineality or matrilineal descent is the tracing of Jewish descent through the maternal line. According to traditional halakha, Jewish descent is matrilineal: the child of a Jewish mother is automatically Jewish, while the child of a non-Jewish mother is non-Jewish unless they have converted to Judaism.
The Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (ASSJ) is a cross-disciplinary organization of individuals whose research concerns the Jewish people throughout the world founded in 1971.
Mervin Feldman Verbit is an American sociologist whose work focuses on sociology of religion, American Jews and the American Jewish community. He is currently the chair of the Sociology Department at Touro College.
Leonard Saxe is an American social psychologist whose work focuses on sociology of religion, American Jews and the American Jewish community. He is currently the director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University.
Oraynu Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, founded in 1969, is Canada's first Humanistic Jewish congregation. It is based in Toronto, Ontario and is affiliated with the Society for Humanistic Judaism.
Adam Rodgers Bronfman is an American philanthropist and scion of the Bronfman family. He currently serves as President of the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, named in honor of his grandfather, Samuel Bronfman. He is involved in Jewish outreach and advocates “a pluralistic and open Judaism.”
