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Judaism: Difference between revisions
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The major religious groups or denominations are (in order of strictness):
* ''Orthodox'': Orthodox (''"frum"'') Judaism is somewhat of an umbrella term. In general, Orthodoxy strictly interprets Jewish religious texts such as the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament for all you goyim out there), the [[
** ''Haredim'': Haredim are the most theologically conservative practitioners. If you see a Jewish man wearing a black suit with a black hat, a beard, side curls (payot), and fringes hanging from his shirt (a tallit worn under the clothing), he's probably (but not necessarily) Haredi. The term is generally used in Israel, but can apply to elsewhere as well. Haredim tend to be much more insular than others; they generally keep very tight-knit communities, refuse to consume non-Jewish media of any sort, and will usually work for each other as well.
** ''Hasidim'': Literally "pious", the term is used to describe a set of Orthodoxy which puts higher value on emotion, joy, and mysticism. There are dozens of Hasidic sects (such as Chabad Lubavitch, Ger, Satmar, etc.), most based out of Eastern Europe and named after the city they originated in. Most Hasidim fall under the Haredi banner, though some (especially Lubavitch) attract more modern adherents, and have large outreach organizations. Hasidim usually have one "Rebbe" which they hold in the highest regard, almost like an angel, and some sects (such as Breslev) become so attached to their Rebbe they refuse to appoint a successor after his death. They're the closest thing Judaism has to born-again Christianity, which might be why [[Bob Dylan]] gravitated to Chabad Lubavitch after he became disenchanted with born-again Christianity.
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'''People of the Book''': Although you'll always find Jewish leaders and rabbis who shun questions, Jews are unusually questioning of their own religion. Talmud study, a fixture of Orthodox life, revolves around logic, debate, and the attacking of each side of an argument until it falls apart or reveals itself to be worthy. Jews are called the "People of the Book" by others, and even the simplest Jewish library will often have dozens of "must-have" books that form the basis of religious study. Synagogues will generally have full libraries with hundreds or thousands of books, and new ones are coming out all the time! This has become something of a Jewish cultural value as well; even non-religious Jews tend to place a high value on study and intellectual pursuits.
'''Literalism''': It is very important to note that simply reading the Bible will not give you a good idea of Jewish laws. Almost nothing in the Bible is taken at face value; for example, the famous line "an eye for an eye" is actually interpreted as paying the ''monetary value'' of an eye after gouging someone's eye out <ref>to be specific, the rabbis said that this passage was talking about compensatory damages for personal injury, and took another segment to be talking about punitive damages, yet another for medical damages, and so on. I kid you not, in the [[The Talmud
* Very importantly, this "nothing taken literally" includes the book of Genesis and the creation story. Although many Jews do believe it occurred exactly as written, there are plenty of mainstream opinions who tinker with it in various ways or even consider it entirely metaphorical. As a result, many Jews, even among the Orthodox, have no problem with a universe billions of years old or with the theory of evolution.
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But the primary Jewish racial stereotype is mostly a function of...
'''Cultural Judaism'''. Here's the whopper. There are two or three major, and (naturally) many minor, cultural traditions in Judaism. Which culture you are can have a great effect on both of the above two categories (Sephardic Jews, for example, have different rules for Passover than Ashkenazic Jews). Graduate theses have been written on all of the different cultures, so let's zoom in on the most recognizable: ''Ashkenazim'', or Eastern European Jews, generally from Poland, Russia, and other countries in that region. Most tropes on this site which discuss Judaism--[[Yiddish
One reason for this, of course, is that most of the Jewish immigrants to America from the late 1800s and up were Ashkenazim. They settled in [[Big Applesauce|New York City]], most notably the Lower East Side, and as they got more affluent, the Upper West Side; by now the idea of New York without Jews is practically impossible. Bagels, corned beef, random Yiddish words, and much more are part of New York's DNA. So, it's not surprising that a lot of television writers have had more exposure to Jews than Americans in other parts of the country or viewers in other parts of the world, leading to the [[Big Applesauce]] trope that [[You Have to Have Jews]].
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''So, what's the stereotype?''
The physical aspects are the racial ones: curly dark hair, large noses and ears, dark complexion, occasionally a "swarthy" look, et cetera. Yiddish - basically a dialect of Middle German with huge numbers of words taken from Hebrew and Polish and written using the Hebrew alphabet - that was the main language among Ashkenazim (Ashkenaz refers to Germany), is often [[Yiddish
Traditionally held to be good with money, originally due to Middle Ages laws against charging interest (only applied between Christians or between Jews, but Jews could loan to Christians and so became Europe's bankers), and also holding scholarship and education in high esteem, Jews tend to make sure to give their children better lives than they had. This is where the stereotype of the [[Jewish Mother]] guilting her children into being doctors or lawyers comes from--"I worked, I sacrificed, so you could go to college and then medical school!" Jewish parents take great pride in their children's accomplishments (one-upmanship games between mothers really do happen). As an alternative, being a teacher, especially a college professor, is fantastic; it gives plenty for the mother to ''kvell'' (gloat) about.
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If you go by Jewish TV characters, it would seem that [[You Have to Have Jews|one in every three people is Jewish]]. On ''[[Friends]]'' this is literally true; two out of the six main characters are Jewish. Judaism is usually portrayed as one of three major world religions, along with Christianity and Islam. The truth is that out of some six-and-a-half-billion people in the world, only fourteen-and-a-half-million are Jewish, which works out to just 0.215% of the world's population, making Judaism the 11th most populous religion. In the UK, according to the 2001 census, Jews were outnumbered three to two by people who said their religion was "Jedi". There were, however, about 18 million Jews before the Holocaust, or almost 1% of the world population at the time. Also, Jews comprise about 2% of the population of the United States and have always been its second-most-populous religion. The reason Jewish characters are so common may be because of the absurdly high percentage of Jewish people in the entertainment industry. It may also be due to many shows being written in New York City, which has the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel.
'''The [[Arab
Israelis are a whole different creature from American Jews, resulting in the media either portraying the two as exactly the same or portray "Jewish" and "Israeli" as two very different things (usually a bit more serious, and closer to reality). Israelis consist of a mix of Ashkenazic Jews (who form the ethnic plurality) mixed with Sephardic (Iberian) Jews, Mizrachic (Middle-Eastern) Jews, Yemenite Jews, and Falashas (Ethiopian Jews) who each have their own cultures. People do tend to lump Sephardic and Middle-Eastern Jews together, which may or may not be accurate depending on where the specific population came from.
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