Anti-Semitism: Hatred of, or discrimination against, Jews.
Ashkenazim: Jews who settled in Central or Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages, along with their descendants.
Cabala: A Jewish mystical system for interpreting the Scriptures.
Diaspora: The settlement of the Jews outside their homeland in Palestine.
Ethnic group: People who share a common racial, cultural, national, linguistic, or tribal origin.
Holy Land: Palestine.
Judaism: The Jewish religion, whose sacred text is the Old Testament.
Ladino: A dialect spoken by Sephardic Jews, combining Hebrew and Spanish.
Messiah: The promised savior of Israel, foretold in the Old Testament.
Rabbi: A Jewish teacher or religious leader.
Ritual: A type of religious ceremony that is governed by very specific rules.
Scriptures: Holy texts.
Sephardim: Jews who settled in Spain during the early Middle Ages and later spread to other parts of the world, along with their descendants.
Synagogue: A Jewish temple.
Theology: The study of religious faith.
Usury: Loaning money for a high rate of interest; during the Middle Ages, however, it meant simply loaning money for interest.
Yiddish: A language spoken by Ashkenazim, combining German and Hebrew.
Tion on which both Christianity and Islam developed. The Old Testament, the principal Jewish scripture, contains a number of themes familiar to believers in all three religions: sin and redemption, faith, sacrifice, obedience, and charity. At the center of all these concepts is the idea of law, and Jewish rabbis were trained in the religious law that originated with the prophet Moses in about 1300 b. c.
In practice, "Jew" is often used—and certainly was used in the
Middle Ages—to describe an ethnic group whose ancestors belonged to the nation of Israel during ancient times. As a nation, the Jews believed that they had a special relationship with God; therefore the many misfortunes they faced as a people were a punishment from God for disobedience.
After they were taken into captivity by the Babylonians in 586 b. c., the Jews gradually came to believe that God would send them a Messiah, a savior who would liberate them. Many
A page from a Torah scroll. The Torah, which is written in the Hebrew language, comprises the five books of Moses, part of the Jewish scripture. Reproduced by permission of the Corbis Corporation.
People believed that Jesus Christ (c. 6 B. c.-c. A. D. 30) was the promised Messiah, and this was the foundation of Christianity. However, most Jews rejected the idea that Jesus was the Messiah, and a group of Jewish leaders called the Pharisees (FAIR-uh-seez) had even arranged for him to be put on trial by the Romans, who controlled the region at the time. As a result, Jesus was crucified, or nailed to a wooden cross and forced to hang on it until he died. Not all Jews called for his crucifixion, of course, but the fact that some did would later be used as an excuse for anti-Semitism during the
Middle Ages. This was more than a little ironic: not only was Jesus Christ a Jew, but the Bible makes clear that all of humanity—not just the Jews or even the Roman soldiers who actually nailed him to the cross—shares the blame for killing the man Christians believe was God in human form.
World History
