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The Judaism Portal

Collection of Judaica (clockwise from top):
Candlesticks for Shabbat, a cup for ritual handwashing, a Chumash and a Tanakh, a Torah pointer, a shofar, and an etrog box.

Judaism (Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת‎ Yahăḏūṯ) is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion. It comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people, having originated as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Contemporary Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the cultic religious movement of ancient Israel and Judah, around the 6th/5th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.^{[improper synthesis?]}

Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant, which was established between God and the Israelites, their ancestors. Along with Samaritanism, to which it is closely related, Judaism is one of the two oldest Abrahamic religions. (Full article...)

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Beth Hamedrash Hagadol is an Orthodox congregation that was, for over 120 years, located in a historic synagogue building at 60–64 Norfolk Street in Manhattan, New York, on the Lower East Side. It was the first Eastern European congregation founded in New York City and the oldest Orthodox Russian Jewish congregation in the United States. Founded in 1852 by Rabbi Abraham Ash as Beth Hamedrash, it split in 1859, with the rabbi and the bulk of the members renaming their congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagadol. Rabbi Jacob Joseph, the first and only Chief Rabbi of New York City, led the congregation from 1888 to 1902 . The congregation's building, a Gothic Revival structure built in 1850 and purchased in 1885, was one of the largest synagogues on the Lower East Side, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. In the late twentieth century the congregation dwindled and was unable to maintain the building, which had been damaged by storms. Despite funding and grants, the structure was critically endangered. As of 2008^[update] the Lower East Side Conservancy was trying to raise an estimated $4.5 million for repairs, with the intent of converting it to an educational center. (Read more...)

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Did You Know?

Did you know...

... that the Château Pastré (pictured) in Marseille, designed by Jean-Charles Danjoy for Eugène Pastré, was a haven for Jewish artists in World War II?
... that the creator of the TV series Homeland, Gideon Raff, is the son of a former Accountant General in Israel's Ministry of Finance?
... that Dr. Moshe Wallach, founder and director of Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Hospital for 45 years, lived in the hospital and was buried beside it?
... that much like Anne Frank's diary, the letters of Philip Slier, discovered more than fifty years after his death, reveal the history of Nazi-controlled Netherlands through a personal perspective?
... that the Supreme Court of the United States decision in Zivotofsky v. Clinton concerned the status of Jerusalem in United States foreign policy?

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The History of the Jews in Puerto Rico began in the 15th century with the arrival of the anusim (conversos) who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage. The Jews did not flourish in Puerto Rico because of the Spanish Inquisition, although many migrated to mountainous parts of the island and continued to self-identify as Jews. It would be hundreds of years before an open Jewish community would be established on the island. Very few American Jews settled in Puerto Rico after the island was ceded by Spain to the United States in 1898.

The first large group of Jews to settle in Puerto Rico were European refugees fleeing German-occupied Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. The second influx of Jews to the island came in the 1950s, when thousands of Cuban Jews fled after Fidel Castro came to power, the majority immigrating to Miami, Florida, with a sizable portion choosing to establish themselves on the neighboring island because of the cultural and historic ties between the two islands.

Puerto Rican Jews have made many contributions in multiple fields, including business and commerce, education, and entertainment. Puerto Rico has the largest and richest Jewish community in the Caribbean, with over 3,000 Jewish inhabitants. It is also the only Caribbean island in which all three major Jewish denominations—Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform—are represented. (Read more...)

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