יְהוּדִים (Yehudim) | |
---|---|
![]() The Star of David is a common symbol of the Jewish people. | |
Total population | |
14.6–17.8 million Enlarged population (includes full or partial Jewish ancestry): ![]() | |
Regions with significant populations | |
![]() | 6,558,000–6,958,000[1] |
![]() | 5,700,000–10,000,000[1] |
![]() | 453,000–600,000[1] |
![]() | 391,000–550,000[1] |
![]() | 290,000–370,000[1] |
![]() | 180,000–330,000[1] |
![]() | 172,000–440,000[1] |
![]() | 116,000–225,000[1] |
![]() | 113,000–140,000[1] |
![]() | 93,000–150,000[1] |
![]() | 69,000–80,000[1] |
![]() | 50,000–140,000[1] |
![]() | 47,000–100,000[1] |
![]() | 40,000–50,000[1] |
![]() | 30,000–52,000[1] |
![]() | 29,000–40,000[1] |
![]() | 28,000–41,000[1] |
![]() | 19,000–25,000[1] |
![]() | 18,000–26,000[1] |
![]() | 17,000–25,000[1] |
![]() | 15,000–21,000[1] |
![]() | 15,000–25,000[1] |
Languages | |
| |
Religion | |
Judaism |
The Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group who follow the religion of Judaism. Jewish is someone who is of Jewish heritage or who has converted to the Jewish religion. Jewish people typically consider themselves not only as adherents of a religion, therefore a Jew is not only one that practices the religion of Judaism, but it is also one who is of Jewish ethnic heritage. Jews originated as an ethnoreligious group in the Middle East. According to traditional Jewish law, called Halakha, someone is Jewish if their mother was a Jew or if they have converted to Judaism.[3] Judaism has been described as a religion, a race, an ethnic group, a culture, a nation, and an extended family.[4]
Israel is the only modern country with a Jewish majority, but there are Jewish minorities in many places in the world. Most of them live in large cities in the United States, Argentina, Europe and Australia. Both Israel and the U.S. have over five million Jews.[5] In the Soviet Union there were more than two million Jews, but many of them moved to Israel, the U.S. and other Western countries since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Jews have been victims of various persecutions. The most well known happened during the Second World War, when almost six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. The event is known as the Holocaust.
• Judaism has been described as a religion, a race, a culture, and a nation • All of these descriptions have some validity • The Jewish people are best described as an extended family