The Jewish religion is one of the oldest religions in the world dating back to more than 4000 years, this religion is known as Judaism, and it originated in the Middle East. There are over 14 million Jews now in the world; most of them were staying in Israel and the United States of America (Brett, 2014). The Jewish people-built synagogues as their place of worship with spiritual teachers known as Rabbis.it traces its origin to the covenant between God and Abraham. The Jewish religion has their book that is known as Tanakh. Other sacred books used by the Jews include Midrash, the Torah, The rabbinic and Talmud. The Jewish first built their Temple during the era of King Solomon which was in Jerusalem, and that was where the Jews used to gather to worship God. The Jewish have had a fair share of its past events, and that's what this article will be addressing. We will see how the Jewish religion has evolved with time.
The Jewish religion has grown as a result of their relationship with God: whereby, ethical teachings and laws have to be followed as taught by the great teachers, this was during a period known as Rabbinic Judaism (Frank & Segal, 2016). During this period, many temples had been built including in Palestine and other countries surrounding Israel ( Brett, 2014) . Throughout the Rabbinical Judaism period, there was the introduction of other texts such as the Midrash, Talmud, and different antique Jewish ideologies during this period there was a rise of teaching grounds where great scholars engaged each other in debating the teachings of God.
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Later on, there was a period whereby the temple of God was destroyed. This was during 70-200CE. It was a period of a series of changes that included religious conflicts, political turmoil, and cultural differences. The Romans during this period wanted to rule over the Jews something that they (Jews) could not allow. The Jews had two revolutions whereby the first one brought down the Temple and hence resulted to the end of temple worship, the second rebellion ended in a massacre of Jews, others were enslaved, and the Jews were cast out of Jerusalem this period was known as the Diaspora era. The Jews had to be assimilated into other languages and even adopted different cultures.
Then, later on, came the period of 20-700 CE, Judaism now started to grow vast, this was the period after the Jews were dispersed to Diaspora. This act made the Jews consider it important writing down teachings of Rabbis to protect their religion. During this period, great teachers of Judaism compiled writings that they referred to as Mishna. It had all the laws and interpretations as taught by the early Rabbi (Frank & Segal, 2016). Later on, as the teachers spread the religion new generation of rabbis mushroomed, they came up with another text known as the Talmud. This Talmud was divided into two parts; the first one was done in Palestine during the 3rd century and the other one compiled in Babylon ( Brett, 2014) . Jews were given to authority to be citizens of the Roman Empire, but they were not allowed to intermarry with Christians. After that, the Jews were restrained from building synagogues and were not allowed to have official jobs. For the Jews in Spain-this was the Golden age era whereby the Jews now had a peaceful coexistence with the Islamists and this when they came to master and develop Science, and also came up with literature and Hebrew, although there was an attempt to convert Jews into Islam later on forcefully, their relationship didn't change. Jews were now even free to relocate to Britain during this period
After the Golden era now, the crusades came up in the year 1090. The Christian crusades aimed at liberating the Holy Land. The Crusaders captured Jerusalem where they killed thousands of Jews and Muslims, and the rest were enslaved: once again the Jews were banned from their city Jerusalem. The authorities not only wanted to capture the Holy Land but also aimed at ensuring that Christians easily journeyed to the sacred ground to worship God, however, the Crusaders saw this as a chance to serve God and at the same time be rich by stealing and making ransoms (Weiss,2017). This crusade resulted in an increase of Jews in Britain which was to the advantage of king Henry 1
The Jews still had a difficult period following up in the 1100s when they were thrown out of Spain by a Berber invasion. Now across Europe, the Jews were marred with a lot of problems, for example, in England, there were killings of Jews who had gone to visit the King bearing gifts. Also, later on in the 1200s, the Catholic Church ordered the Jews to live in secluded places which is meant for the poor and that they had to wear specific clothes. In the year 1290, the Jews were expelled from England and later on France too ( Brett, 2014) . A century later, the Jews were again chased out of Spain, followed suit by Portugal and a few years later well-known German founder of Protestant Christianity, Martin Luther preached vehemently condemning them (Jews): this was the period of expulsions.
Although the Jews had gone through much, it wasn't entirely a rough time for Judaism their scholarly and literal work was highly flourishing; during this period there rose great figures such as Rambam and Eleanor ben Judah. Publications of great articles such as the Book of splendor in Spain were a great boost to the religion (Fraenkel,2016). As from the 1650s, the Jews now started returning to Britain. The British Empire allowed them to be citizens and it was during this period when an organization was formed to represent the British Jewry.
Hasidism was the next event to occur in Jewish history. It was a creation of a new Jewish movement that was set to fill the void in the ever-broadening Jewish circles (Frank & Segal, 2016). The movement was in central Europe, and they had a charismatic way of making holiness enjoyable, and hence they achieved a tremendous following. However, they ended up dividing up Judaism and later on Lithuania excommunicated it: Hassidic jaws were not allowed to interact with other Jews.
Persecutions-Judaism was faced with persecutions in Central Europe and Russia they were forced to stay in Pale which was a restricted area (Frank &Seagal, 2016). Although later on in the 19th century a new movement arose in Judaism, this was Reform Judaism, which was also referred to as Liberal Judaism (Husik, 2015). Through this, the wish people came up with more innovations and still managed to embrace their culture
There was also a period of Zionism, this was a movement that was meant to protect the Jewish nation and had, and they had a quest to return home, Israel ( Brett, 2014) . It had a great following since many Jews now believed that having their own home, their own country, was the only way they could be protected.
Holocaust-in the 20th century the Jewish were faced with a major tragedy that saw over 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazi government of German and their friends. That event has greatly impacted the Jews and even changed their way of thinking (Wandray, 2017). The event affected Judaism since most Jews felt abandoned by God then.
All these events in the history of Jewish religion have resulted in fragmentation and division of the faith today Judaism is divided into Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative Judaism. Most of its followers are now in USA and Israel.
References
Brett, G (2014). A History of Psychology: Mediaeval and early modern period - 2014 - books.google.com
Frank, DH. Segal, A. (2016). Jewish philosophy past and present: contemporary responses to classical sources - taylorfrancis.com
Fraenkel C. (2016). Medieval Textual Cultures: Agents of …, 2016 - Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Husik, Isaac. (2015). HISTORY OF MEDIAEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY . - FORGOTTEN Book
Wandrey, I (2017). Jewish Manuscript Cultures: New Perspectives - books.google.com
Weiss, D. (2017). Currents in Biblical Research, - journals.sagepub.com
