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The Jews
were an ancient people who had resided in Europe for more
than two thousand years as part of their world-wide dispersion,
after being forcibly exiled from their homeland (the land
of Israel) following the destruction of the Second Temple
in AD 70 by the Romans. They had a strong sense of vocation,
of being covenanted by God to be a holy people with a special
moral mission for mankind. They had given Monotheism- the
belief in a single, all-powerful God- to the world, as well
as the ten commandments; the Hebrew Bible had provided the
foundations for Christianity - Jesus, Mary and the Apostles
were all Jews and the origin of many Christian festivals,
psalms and beliefs lay in Judaism. But Jews had generally
refused to convert to the new faith of Christianity which
would come to dominate Europe in the Middle Ages. They stubbornly
maintained their separate religious beliefs and their distinct
customs and laws, convinced as they were that they were living
in exile: patiently they waited in the hope of Divine Redemption
and a return to Zion. Most European Jews were Ashkenazim (Ashkenaz
in Hebrew means Germany) - a term used originally to designate
the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. Before the 20th century
they lived mainly in Shtetlach (or small Jewish cities, towns
and villages) in the Russian Empire, in Poland, Lithuania,
the Ukraine, Rumania, Hungary, Bessarabia etc. They observed
the traditional Jewish values, liturgy, ceremonials and way
of life. They mainly spoke the Yiddish language (a medieval
Germanic dialect mixed with Hebrew and some Slavic words)
and in modern times developed a rich literature in this folk
tongue.
The Jews
of Eastern Europe began to emigrate in large numbers from
their homelands, beginning in the1880s. Between 1881 and 1914
about 2,370,000Jews fled from poverty and oppression, especially
from backward Tsarist Russia, notorious for its mob violence
(pogroms) against the Jews. About 80% reached the United States
and a small minority would establish the first modern Jewish
settlements in Palestine. But by 1924 the United States had
place strict limits on immigration and the number of Jews
admitted was drastically reduced. Other countries soon followed
suit and Jews desiring too emigrate or fleeing from the Nazis
found themselves faced with sealed borders throughout most
of the world in the 1930s.
Text
by Robert Wistrich in "Lessons of the Holocaust",
produced by London Jewish Cultural Centreand HET, Second Edition
2000. The text is copyrighted to Robert S. Wistrich (1997).
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