Judaism

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Judaism
IconJudaism.png
Symbol
Organised Religion
Ideological doctrine: Rabbinism, Halakha, Monotheism
Operation
Region(s) of operation: Multi-system
Based in: Earth
Status & relations
Internal factions: Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Martian Judaism
Historical information
Founded: 500 BCE
Founded by: Jewish people
Notable splinter factions: Hellenistic Judaism, Karaite Judaism, Messainism, Reform Judaism
Successors: Christianity, Islam, Resurrectionism
[Source]
Whole branches of Judaism may wither and fall, but the trunk remains.

–Theodor Herzl

Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people, comprising their collective religious, cultural and legal tradition and civilization. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenant that God established with the Children of Israel. The oldest Abrahamic religion and among the oldest monotheistic religions, Judaism has persisted through numerous persecutions both by state and non-state authorities. Currently, Judaism remains a small but influential religion as its tenants and adherents have had great importance throughout history.

History[edit | edit source]

Background[edit | edit source]

At its core, the Tanakh is an account of the Israelites' relationship with God from their earliest history until the building of the Second Temple (c. 535 BCE). Abraham is hailed as the first Hebrew and the father of the Jewish people. As a reward for his act of faith in one God, he was promised that Isaac, his second son, would inherit the Land of Israel (then called Canaan). Later, the descendants of Isaac's son Jacob were enslaved in Egypt, and God commanded Moses to lead the Exodus from Egypt. At Mount Sinai, they received the Torah — the five books of Moses. These books, together with Nevi'im and Ketuvim are known as Torah Shebikhtav as opposed to the Oral Torah, which refers to the Mishnah and the Talmud. Eventually, God led them to the land of Israel where the tabernacle was planted in the city of Shiloh for over 300 years to rally the nation against attacking enemies. As time went on, the spiritual level of the nation declined to the point that God allowed the Philistines to capture the tabernacle. The people of Israel then told Samuel the prophet that they needed to be governed by a permanent king, and Samuel appointed Saul to be their King. When the people pressured Saul into going against a command conveyed to him by Samuel, God told Samuel to appoint David in his stead. Once King David was established, he told the prophet Nathan that he would like to build a permanent temple, and as a reward for his actions, God promised David that he would allow his son, Solomon, to build the First Temple and the throne would never depart from his children.

Rabbinic tradition holds that the details and interpretation of the law, which are called the Oral Torah or oral law, were originally an unwritten tradition based upon what God told Moses on Mount Sinai. However, as the persecutions of the Jews increased and the details were in danger of being forgotten, these oral laws were recorded by Rabbi Judah HaNasi in the Mishnah, redacted circa 200 CE. The Talmud was a compilation of both the Mishnah and the Gemara, rabbinic commentaries redacted over the next three centuries. The Gemara originated in two major centers of Jewish scholarship, Palestine and Babylonia. Correspondingly, two bodies of analysis developed, and two works of Talmud were created. The older compilation is called the Jerusalem Talmud. It was compiled sometime during the 4th century in Palestine. The Babylonian Talmud was compiled from discussions in the houses of study by the scholars Ravina I, Ravina II, and Rav Ashi by 500 CE, although it continued to be edited later.

The origins of Judaism's monotheism are unclear, with some scholars suggesting that during the First Temple period the people of Israel believed that each nation had its own god, but that their god was superior to other gods while other attest that strict monotheism developed during the Babylonian Exile, perhaps in reaction to Zoroastrian dualism. Whatever the case, Judaism's monotheism was seen as rather strange by many other ancient peoples, who were broadly pantheistic.

According to the Hebrew Bible, the United Monarchy was established under Saul and continued under King David and Solomon with its capital in Jerusalem. After Solomon's reign, the nation split into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel (in the north) and the Kingdom of Judah (in the south). The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrian ruler Sargon II in the late 8th century BCE with many people from the capital Samaria being taken captive to Media and the Khabur River valley. The Kingdom of Judah continued as an independent state until it was conquered by a Babylonian army in the early 6th century BCE, destroying the First Temple that was at the center of ancient Jewish worship. The Judean elite was exiled to Babylonia and this is regarded as the first Jewish Diaspora. Later many of them returned to their homeland after the subsequent conquest of Babylonia by the Persians seventy years later, a period known as the Babylonian Captivity. A new Second Temple was constructed, and old religious practices were resumed.

During the early years of the Second Temple, the highest religious authority was a council known as the Great Assembly, led by Ezra of the Book of Ezra. Among other accomplishments of the Great Assembly, the last books of the Bible were written at this time and the canon sealed.

Hellenistic Judaism spread to Ptolemaic Egypt from the 3rd century BCE. After the Great Revolt, the Romans destroyed the Temple. Hadrian built a pagan idol on the Temple grounds and prohibited circumcision; these acts of ethnocide provoked the Bar Kokhba revolt after which the Romans banned the study of the Torah and the celebration of Jewish holidays, and forcibly removed virtually all Jews from Judea. In 200 CE, however, Jews were granted Roman citizenship and Judaism was recognized as a religio licita ("legitimate religion") until the rise of Gnosticism and Early Christianity in the fourth century.

Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews, Jewish worship stopped being centrally organized around the Temple, prayer took the place of sacrifice, and worship was rebuilt around the community (represented by a minimum of ten adult men) and the establishment of the authority of rabbis who acted as teachers and leaders of individual communities.

Around the 1st century CE, there were several small Jewish sects: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, and Christians. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, these sects vanished. Christianity survived, but by breaking with Judaism and becoming a separate religion; the Pharisees survived but in the form of Rabbinic Judaism (today, known simply as "Judaism"). The Sadducees rejected the divine inspiration of the Prophets and the Writings, relying only on the Torah as divinely inspired. Consequently, a number of other core tenets of the Pharisees' belief system (which became the basis for modern Judaism), were also dismissed by the Sadducees. (The Samaritans practiced a similar religion, which is traditionally considered separate from Judaism.)

Like the Sadducees who relied only on the Torah, some Jews in the 8th and 9th centuries rejected the authority and divine inspiration of the oral law as recorded in the Mishnah (and developed by later rabbis in the two Talmuds), relying instead only upon the Tanakh. These included the Isunians, the Yudganites, the Malikites, and others. They soon developed oral traditions of their own, which differed from the rabbinic traditions, and eventually formed the Karaite sect. Karaites exist in small numbers today, mostly living in Zion. Rabbinical and Karaite Jews each hold that the others are Jews, but that the other faith is erroneous.

Over a long time, Jews formed distinct ethnic groups in several different geographic areas — amongst others, the Ashkenazi Jews (of central and Eastern Europe), the Sephardi Jews (of Spain, Portugal, and North Africa), the Beta Israel of Ethiopia, and the Yemenite Jews from the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Many of these groups have developed differences in their prayers, traditions and accepted canons; however, these distinctions are mainly the result of their being formed at some cultural distance from normative (rabbinic) Judaism, rather than based on any doctrinal dispute. The more recent development of Martian Jews, particularly in Mariner Valley, is similar to these earlier ethnic distinctions, though Martian Jews are typically more united by culture and tradition than strictly by blood.

Antisemitism arose during the Middle Ages, in the form of persecutions, pogroms, forced conversions, expulsions, social restrictions and ghettoization. This was different in quality from the repressions of Jews which had occurred in ancient times. Ancient repressions were politically motivated and Jews were treated the same as members of other ethnic groups. With the rise of Christianity, the main motive for attacks on Jews changed from politics to religion and the religious motive for such attacks was specifically derived from Christian views about Jews and Judaism. During the Middle Ages, Jewish people who lived under Muslim rule generally experienced tolerance and integration, but there were occasional outbreaks of violence like Almohad's persecutions.

After 1300, Jews suffered more discrimination and persecution in Christian Europe. Europe's Jewry was mainly urban and literate. The Christians were inclined to regard Jews as obstinate deniers of the truth because in their view the Jews were expected to know of the truth of the Christian doctrines from their knowledge of the Jewish scriptures. Jews were aware of the pressure to accept Christianity. As Catholics were forbidden by the church to loan money for interest, some Jews became prominent moneylenders. Christian rulers gradually saw the advantage of having such a class of people who could supply capital for their use without being liable to excommunication. As a result, the money trade of western Europe became a specialty of the Jews. But, in almost every instance when Jews acquired large amounts through banking transactions, during their lives or upon their deaths, the king would take it over. Jews became imperial servi cameræ, the property of the King, who might present them and their possessions to princes or cities.

Significant repression of Spain's numerous community occurred during the 14th century, notably a major pogrom in 1391 which resulted in the majority of Spain's 300,000 Jews converting to Catholicism. With the conquest of the Muslim Kingdom of Granada in 1492, the Catholic monarchs issued the Alhambra Decree whereby Spain's remaining 100,000 Jews were forced to choose between conversion and exile. As a result, an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Jews left Spain, the remainder joining Spain's already numerous Converso community. Perhaps a quarter of a million Conversos thus were gradually absorbed by the dominant Catholic culture, although those among them who secretly practiced Judaism were subject to 40 years of intense repression by the Spanish Inquisition. This was particularly the case up until 1530, after which the trials of Conversos by the Inquisition dropped to 3% of the total. Similar expulsions of Sephardic Jews occurred 1493 in Sicily and Portugal in 1496. The expelled Spanish Jews fled mainly to the Ottoman Empire and North Africa and Portugal. A small number also settled in Holland and England.

During the Classical Ottoman period, the Jews, together with most other communities of the empire, enjoyed a certain level of prosperity. Compared with other Ottoman subjects, they were the predominant power in commerce and trade as well in diplomacy and other high offices. In the 16th century especially, the Jews were the most prominent under the millets, the apogee of Jewish influence could arguably be the appointment of Joseph Nasi to Sanjak-bey (governor, a rank usually only bestowed upon Muslims) of the island of Naxos.

In the 17th century, there were many significant Jewish populations in Western Europe. The relatively tolerant Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe that dated back to 13th century and enjoyed relative prosperity and freedom for nearly four hundred years; however the calm situation there ended when Polish and Lithuanian Jews were slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands by cossacks during Chmielnicki uprising and by the Swedish Wars. Driven by these and other persecutions, Jews moved back to Western Europe in the 17th century. The last ban on Jews (by the English) was revoked in 1654, but periodic expulsions from individual cities still occurred, and Jews were often restricted from land ownership, or forced to live in ghettos.

During the period of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, significant changes occurred within the Jewish community. The Haskalah movement paralleled the wider Enlightenment, as Jews in the 18th century began to campaign for emancipation from restrictive laws and integration into the wider European society. Secular and scientific education was added to the traditional religious instruction received by students, and interest in a national Jewish identity, including a revival in the study of Jewish history and Hebrew, started to grow. Haskalah gave birth to the Reform and Conservative movements and planted the seeds of Zionism while at the same time encouraging cultural assimilation into the countries in which Jews resided. At around the same time another movement was born, one preaching almost the opposite of Haskalah, Hasidic Judaism. Hasidic Judaism began in the 18th century by Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, and quickly gained a following with its more exuberant, mystical approach to religion.

At the same time, the outside world was changing, and debates began over the potential emancipation of the Jews (granting them equal rights). The first country to do so was France, during the French Revolution in 1789. Even so, Jews were expected to assimilate, not continue their traditions.

Hasidic Judaism is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith. Hasidism comprises part of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, alongside the previous Talmudic Lithuanian-Yeshiva approach and the Oriental Sephardi tradition.

It was founded in 18th-century Eastern Europe by Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov as a reaction against overly legalistic Judaism. Opposite to this, Hasidic teachings cherished the sincerity and concealed holiness of the unlettered common folk, and their equality with the scholarly elite. The emphasis on the Immanent Divine presence in everything gave new value to prayer and deeds of kindness, alongside Rabbinic supremacy of study, and replaced historical mystical (kabbalistic) and ethical (musar) asceticism and admonishment with optimism, encouragement, and daily fervor. This populist emotional revival accompanied the elite ideal of nullification to paradoxical Divine Panentheism, through intellectual articulation of inner dimensions of mystical thought. The adjustment of Jewish values sought to add to required standards of ritual observance, while relaxing others where inspiration predominated. Its communal gatherings celebrate soulful song and storytelling as forms of mystical devotion.

Though persecution still existed, emancipation spread throughout Europe in the 19th century. Napoleon invited Jews to leave the Jewish ghettos in Europe and seek refuge in the newly created tolerant political regimes that offered equality under Napoleonic Law (see Napoleon and the Jews). By 1871, with Germany's emancipation of Jews, every European country except Russia had emancipated its Jews.

Despite increasing integration of the Jews with secular society, a new form of anti-Semitism emerged, based on the ideas of race and nationhood rather than the religious hatred of the Middle Ages. This form of anti-Semitism held that Jews were a separate and inferior race from the Aryan people of Western Europe, and led to the emergence of political parties in France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary that campaigned on a platform of rolling back emancipation. This form of anti-Semitism emerged frequently in European culture, most famously in the Dreyfus Trial in France. These persecutions, along with state-sponsored pogroms in Russia in the late 19th century, led a number of Jews to believe that they would only be safe in their own nation.

During this period, Jewish migration to the United States created a large new community mostly freed of the restrictions of Europe. Over 2 million Jews arrived in the United States between 1890 and 1924, most from Russia and Eastern Europe. A similar case occurred in the southern tip of the continent, specifically in the countries of Argentina and Uruguay.

During the 1870s and 1880s the Jewish population in Europe began to more actively discuss immigration back to Israel and the re-establishment of the Jewish Nation in its national homeland, fulfilling the biblical prophecies relating to Shivat Tzion. In 1882 the first Zionist settlement—Rishon LeZion—was founded by immigrants who belonged to the "Hovevei Zion" movement. Later on, the "Bilu" movement established many other settlements in the land of Israel. In 1920 the British Mandate of Palestine began and several big Jewish immigration waves to Palestine occurred. The Arab co-inhabitants of Palestine were hostile to increasing Jewish immigration however, and began to oppose Jewish settlement and the pro-Jewish policy of the British government by violent means. Due to the increasing violence the United Kingdom gradually started to backtrack from the original idea of a Jewish state and to speculate on a binational solution or an Arab state that would have a Jewish minority.

Meanwhile, the Jews of Europe and the United States gained success in the fields of the science, culture and the economy. Among those generally considered the most famous were scientist Albert Einstein and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. A disproportionate number of Nobel Prize winners at this time were Jewish. In Russia, many Jews were involved in the October Revolution and belonged to the Communist Party including Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev, and Grigory Zinoviev. The alleged Jewish involvement in the Bolsheviks' October Revolution in Russia and the 1919 November Revolution in Germany by Spartacists led to an association of Jews with communism and increased persecutions across the globe.

In 1933, with the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany, the Jewish situation became more severe. Economic crises, racial Anti-Jewish laws, and a fear of an upcoming war led many Jews to flee from Europe to Palestine, to the United States and to the Soviet Union.

In 1939, World War II began, and until 1941, Hitler occupied almost all of Europe, including Poland — where millions of Jews were living at that time—and France. In 1941, following the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Final Solution began, an extensive organized operation on an unprecedented scale, aimed at the annihilation of the Jewish people, and resulting in the persecution and murder of Jews in political Europe, inclusive of European North Africa. This genocide, in which approximately six million Jews were murdered methodically and with horrifying cruelty, is known as the Holocaust or Shoah. In Poland, one million Jews were murdered in gas chambers at the Auschwitz camp complex alone.

The massive scale of the Holocaust, and the horrors that happened during it, heavily affected the Jewish nation and world public opinion, which only understood the dimensions of the Holocaust after the war. Efforts were then increased to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The Jewish population of Europe and the Middle East would decline greatly in this period as most Jews migrated to Palestine, later Israel, over the next century.

In 1945 the Jewish resistance organizations in Palestine unified and established the Jewish Resistance Movement. The movement began attacking the British authority. Following the King David Hotel bombing, Chaim Weizmann, president of the WZO appealed to the movement to cease all further military activity until a decision would be reached by the Jewish Agency. The Jewish Agency backed Weizmann's recommendation to cease activities, a decision reluctantly accepted by the Haganah, but not by the Irgun and the Lehi. The JRM was dismantled and each of the founding groups continued operating according to their own policy.

The Jewish leadership decided to center the struggle in the illegal immigration to Palestine and began organizing a massive number of Jewish war refugees from Europe, without the approval of the British authorities. This immigration contributed a great deal to the Jewish settlements in Israel in the world public opinion and the British authorities decided to let the United Nations decide upon the fate of Palestine.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II) recommending partitioning Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state, and the City of Jerusalem. The Jewish leadership accepted the decision but the Arab League and the leadership of Palestinian Arabs opposed it. Following a period of civil war, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War started.

In the middle of the war, after the last soldiers of the British mandate left Palestine, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed on May 14, 1948, the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel to be known as the State of Israel. In 1949 the war ended and the state of Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world.

After 1948, Israel was involved in a series of major military conflicts, including the 1956 Suez Crisis, 1967 Six-Day War, 1973 Yom Kippur War, 1982 Lebanon War, 2006 Lebanon War, 2024 Golan Heights War, and 2030 Lebanon War as well as a nearly constant series of ongoing minor conflicts with its neighbors and Palestinians.

After 1977, an unsuccessful series of diplomatic efforts were initiated by Israel, Palestinian organisations, their neighbours, and other parties, including the United States and the European Union, to bring about a peace process to resolve conflicts between Israel and its neighbors, mostly over the fate of the Palestinian people. This negotiations persisted into the late 21st century before being broken off and never resolved due the refusal of both sides to agree on a solution. With the attention of Earth largely turning to the stars and to rapid climate change, the political plight of the Palestinian people fell to the wayside, and by 2110, Israel had incorporated all former Palestinian territories into its borders, most notably the West Bank and Gaza.

In the 21st century, Judaism saw a sharp divide form between Orthodox Judaism and more secular strains of the religion such as Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. This divide was magnified by the demographic decline of more liberal forms of Judaism in the face of the rise of Orthodox Judaism, whose numbers rose across the world though most notably in the United States and Israel. Orthodox Judaism would eventually triumph to become the dominant form of Judaism, though secular Zionism would remain the norm in Israel at least for another century. The climate crisis would lead to the State of Israel locking down its borders until the establishment of the Zion arcology, funded by Liberty Central in a move criticized by many as construction of the New Manhattan arcology had not even begun. Still, the creation of Zion ensured the continued survival of the Jewish state on a rapidly changing Earth, a move that would have repercussions far into the future.

As humanity left earth for the stars, Judaism followed with its adherents. Many Jews, from Zion and other places (most commonly the United States), shared the drive of many other humans to explore space and investigate the final frontier. Haredi Jews in particular would leave Zion as many never quite agreed with the concept of a Jewish state preceding the messiah. Human settlement began on Luna and Mars, and the Jewish communities in both locations are almost as old as the colonies themselves. Particularly, the Jewish community in Mariner Valley developing into a large and influential segment of their colony by the early 23rd century and would become a constant fixture of the city until the Martian Civil War with significant Jewish influence on Valley culture over the years. Jews would also have prominent communities in Olympus Mons and Utopia Coast. Jewish communities would also be established on Saturn (Rhea, Tethys, and Titan) and Jupiter (Europa and Ganymede). There would also be a few Jewish communities on the early exosolar colonies, with the first being on Ross 128 b in 3046.

However, Judaism would face further persecution as it left Earth with many of its adherents outnumbered and vulnerable. This was most evident on Saturn where Haredi Jews and urban Jewish populations alike faced alienation from the general Saturnian population. This was most evident on Tethys, where Haredi Jews were intensely disliked by the local population for a variety of reasons. This attitude would boil over during the Tethys Crisis, where a lack of any state authority led to the destruction of Tethys' Haredi community. This was mostly due to the actions of the Bound Apocalypse triad, who specifically targeted Haredi Jews along with Buddhists due to their vulnerability, though other triads participated in these massacres. Although some members of Bound Apocalypse and other triads could be construed as anti-Semitic, the massacres on Tethys were more to do with opportunism. Nonetheless, many Jews on Earth, Jupiter, and Mars would be alarmed by the plight of their brethren on Saturn, and there were efforts to evacuate the remaining Jews on Tethys to Titan. Violence against Jews continued on a lower level on Titan until the wars on Saturn abated, and efforts to reduce anti-Semitism on Saturn would be met with little success even to this day.

Meanwhile, Judaism on Mars flourished with the community there outstripping the Jewish population on Earth by 3000. Martian Jews would come to become their own distinct sect of Judaism over time with unique traditions and clothing, particularly in Mariner Valley. Jews would become influential faction members within the second "Faction System" after the Commonwealth Wars with Jews in positions of power in both Homelander and Equity factions of the Martian Federation. However with time, Jews would become more associated with socialism and automation with the Martian Workers League being founded by a Jew, Danil Hillman. The Martian Civil War, beginning in 3666, would bring Jews back into focus as Bureaucrat President Hannah Weinstein headed the human element of the Elysiums Mons government under ALIAS. This and the presence of Saturnian mercenaries would fuel a sort of anti-Semitism within anti-ALIAS forces, particularly the Crimson Order, for much of the war, though there were many Jews fighting for Mariner Valley. It is theorized that the initial shots of the Chryse Space Elevator Massacre were fired after an anti-Semitic remark by a member of the Crimson Order, but there is little material evidence to back up that claim.

As the war neared Mariner Valley, many Martian Jews would flee along with other Martian war refugees while others in state armies and general anti-ALIAS forces fought ALIAS to the bitter end. In particular, Arie Franklin is remembered by many in the Martian diaspora for his role in maintaining ARES on Mars against the advance of ALIAS, rejecting numerous offers to defect and eventually being liquidated along with many other figures within the Mariner Valley government in 3690. Jews remaining on Mars were shown no preferential treatment and were treated with the same negativity as other religious groups by ALIAS. Within two generations, Judaism had wholly disappeared from Mars with empty synagogues and the wider Martian diaspora being the only evidence it was ever there. Unlike Martian folk religion, Judaism has never returned to Mars except through small numbers of Earther immigrants.

After the exodus from Mars, many Martian Jews resettled on places such the Gliese 832 System and the Trappist System far away from the influence of ALIAS. The status of the Jewish community within the larger Martian diaspora has been an uncertain one since the Martian Civil War as their religious differences set them apart from many others and some Martians still distrust them for the Jewish role in the forces of ALIAS. Nevertheless, Martian Jews have managed to remain a distinct community for the last three hundred years even as they were scattered across known space.

Current Era[edit | edit source]

Currently, Judaism is experiencing a bit of an upheaval between Martian and non-Martian Jews, especially those from Zion on Earth. Martian Jews numerically outnumber all other communities across known space combined, and their differing traditions and culture have caused upheaval with preexisting Jewish communities in places such as Nova, Saturn, and Tranquility. Also, the anti-ALIAS element of Martian Jews has also driven a wedge between them and other Jews, who typically support progressive technocratic movements similar in spirit to the ALIAS regime. This divide is especially stark on Tranquility, where politically Martian Jews support the anti-Mars Old Concord while Tranquilan Jews typically support the pro-Mars Techo Autarky. This true to a lesser extent on Nova and other places such as Earth and Jupiter. Meanwhile, Saturn's Martian Jewish population is largely in line with the local Martian community, who also despise ALIAS.

In recent years, the Anti-Hate Alliance (AHA) was formed in Zion to combat the supposed rising tide of anti-Semitism on Saturn, Earth, and in other parts of known space. The organization, dedicated to "stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all", is known for its fatuous lawsuits and often fractious relationship with the Jewish community outside Earth, particularly Martian Jews. Its efforts to reclaim lost Jewish property on Mars have been unsuccessful, so far.

Structure[edit | edit source]

The role of the priesthood in Judaism has significantly diminished since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE when priests attended to the Temple and sacrifices. From the time of the Mishnah and Talmud to the present, Judaism has required only specialists or authorities for the practice of very few rituals or ceremonies. The most common clergy of a synagogue is a rabbi, who is charged with answering the legal questions of a congregation and often leading Jewish prayer services. Jewish prayer is held within a synagogue, which also serves as a place for reading of the Tanakh (the entire Hebrew Bible, including the Torah), study, and assembly though a synagogue is not necessary for worship.

Membership[edit | edit source]

Judaism is the majority religion in the Zion arcology on Earth but is the minority religion in many other places. Historically, Mars had a thriving Jewish community, especially in Mariner Valley, but much of the Martian Jewish community fled after the Martian Civil War with other parts of the Martian diaspora across known space or were absorbed into the larger Martian whole. Aside from Earth, Judaism is a minority within the Solar System on Luna, Saturn, and Jupiter and outside the Solar System in the Gliese 832 System, Trappist System, and the Wolf 1061 System. Martian Jews currently make up the majority of Jews outside of Earth, and there are significant cultural differences between Martians Jews and Jews originally from Earth. However, their religious beliefs and rituals have remained largely unchanged with no split within the religion.