Words: 303
Judaism is one of the oldest religions on earth, dating back almost 4000 years. It started as a very peaceful and family oriented religion. The Jews encountered some very hard times, such as being enslaved by the Egyptians and built the pyramids. But after being freed by Moses they traveled the earth for awhile. The town of Jerusalem is the center of Jewish religion for over 3000 years. The town has the largest Jewish population since 1840. Moses revealed the Torah to the Hebrew people. The first five books of the Bible is what makes up the Torah, which contains all the guidelines to the Jewish way of life.
But the Hebrew Bible doesn’t include the New Testament. Even though there are around 16 million Jews world wide they are very dispersed around the world. There are two branches of the religion: the Orthodox and the Conservative. But differences aside the Torah contains both the written law and the oral law to implement them into your everyday life. There are a few life cycle celebrations that are celebrated such as Bris, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, marriage, and death. Along with the life celebrations come the Holidays such as Yom Kippur and Chanukah.
There are a few holy days such as the Sabbath and Passover. Judaism predates Christianity and it’s even the foundation for Christianity. Even Jesus was Jewish and all of his followers were too. Even though they have some things in common the big difference is the Jewish believed Jesus was nothing more than a wise man who lived and died 2000 years ago. Jewish religion is very home and family oriented and doing good deeds is very important to them also. The Holocaust was a very dark time for the whole world, more than a third of the Jewish population was wiped out.