We explain what Jewish culture is, how it originated and what its characteristics are. In addition, we explain Jewish customs, prohibitions and more.
The Jewish people have their own moral code dictated by Judaism.
What is Jewish Culture?
Jewish culture is known as a set of cultural phenomena, both religious and secularwhich involves the Jewish people and their descendants, their spiritual leaders, and individuals who identify themselves as Jewish to varying degrees and proportions.
The Jewish people have an ethnoreligious identity, whose code of life and moral code is dictated by Judaism, one of the three great monotheistic religions on the planet. Jewish culture is a mix of cultural productions from the Jewish church and its community and the hybridizations that it has suffered over the centuries, given that until the 20th century it was a culture of emigrants.
See also: Medieval culture
Origin of Jewish culture
Secular Judaism allows Jewish descendants to recognize themselves as such.
Despite The Jewish people have been geographically dispersed for over 2000 yearsJewish culture has maintained its unity and has encouraged dialogue between its practitioners, often as a form of resistance or ghettoisation against the majority community (Muslim, Christian, etc.). Religious practices play a central role in this, especially in Orthodox populations.
However, at the beginning of the 20th century In Central and Eastern Europe a secular judaismwhich allowed descendants of Jewish families to recognize themselves as such, but not to govern their lives by Jewish religious laws.
Characteristics of Judaism
The oldest of the three monotheistic religions (along with Christianity and Islam) is Judaism, despite being the one with the fewest followers of all. Their practices are governed by the Torah or Pentateuchcollected in five different books and which is part of the Tanakh or Old Testament, so it has common roots with Christianity.
The central belief of Judaism has to do with One God, present everywhere, aware of everythingcreator of the universe, who would have chosen the Jewish people among all peoples as his favorite to reveal the ten commandments, govern himself in a divine way and live based on his law.
Those who choose to govern their lives by the ethical, moral and religious codes of Judaism They are usually called Jews orthodox.
It may help you: Bible
Customs of Jewish culture
Shabbat coincides with sunset on Friday.
Some of the best-known customs of Jewish culture are:
- Circumcision. Eight days after birth, every Jewish male child is circumcised in a rite known as Berit Mila (“covenant of circumcision”), as a symbol of the covenant between God and Abraham, as it appears in Genesis.
- The Shabbat. The seventh day of the week is the sacred day of Judaism and coincides with sunset on Friday and the appearance of three stars on Saturday night. During this period, the Jewish people abstain from work, just as in Genesis it is said that “God finished the work he had done and rested.”
- Breaking a glass at a wedding. At Jewish weddings, a cup wrapped in a white handkerchief is broken with the foot to commemorate the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, where the Ark of the Covenant and the seven-branched candelabrum with which the Hebrew cult was celebrated were located. antiquity.
Prohibitions of Jewish culture
The consumption of pork and any type of sausage is prohibited.
Jewish culture has a reputation for being one of the most restrictive in the world:
- Forbidden food. Eating pork is prohibited for Jews because it is considered an impure animal. The same goes for blood, the consumption of which is totally prohibited in the Torah, so no type of sausage (chorizo, blood sausage, etc.) that contains it in its preparation is consumed and in order to eat meat, it must be prepared in the correct way. kosher, that is, through prior and rigorous bleeding. Crustaceans and shellfish are also prohibited in the Torah. The wine that is not kosherin some cases, too.
- Food separation. Dairy intake should be given at specific times and never mixed with meat. If a Jew eats meat, he must wait at least 3 hours to be able to eat milk or some derivative. The same dishes should not be used for meat and dairy products.
- Prohibitions of dueling. Jewish mourning is extremely specific: it must last 30 days during which the relatives of the deceased cannot leave their house or listen to music until one year after the death. Corpses cannot be cremated, buried high, or partially buried: if a Jew dies in a terrorist attack, he must collect every last piece of his body.
- Other prohibitions of the body. Tattoos, piercings and other forms of body art are forbidden by Jewish law. Children are not allowed to cut their hair until they are three years old, when the Jewish wedding ceremony takes place. upsherin.
Clothing of Orthodox Jews
The kippah is a hat that reminds the Jew of the constant presence of God.
Some of the Jewish rules on dress are:
- Forbidden fabrics. Jewish clothing is usually very simple, but it cannot be made of wool or linen, according to the Torah. It is also not acceptable for a man to wear women’s clothing or vice versa.
- Men’s clothing. While Jewish priests must always dress in black, with their characteristic flat hat, the rest of the men wear locks of hair in ringlets on the sides of their faces.
- The kippah. The kippah or skullcap is a typical hat worn by Jewish men, round or oval in shape, often black or dark in color, which is placed on the back of the head and reminds the Jew of the constant presence of God. The use of the kippah is not mandatory.
Jewish customs around women
The place of women in Judaism has been much criticized, as they are subject to many controls:
- Jewish women cannot show their hair in public. That’s why she uses scarves and often wigs.
- Jewish women cannot have sexual relations after childbirth or menstruation until they have taken a bath by immersion in the water. micvé, a type of bathtub found in synagogues. For this, cold, running water is used, it must be done at night and the bathtub must be in a low place.
- Women should be at home and raise their children, especially during their early childhood. They are responsible for ensuring family order and preserving traditions, which is why they usually do not have a profession and sometimes not even an education.
- Jewish women cannot use contraceptives of any kind.
Jewish languages
The language of the Jewish people was Aramaic for a long time.
The language of the Jewish people is Hebrew, an Afroasiatic Semitic language which has more than six million speakers in the State of Israel and in more than 80 countries, a product of the Jewish diaspora. It is the sacred language of Judaism.
However, the history of migrations and exiles of the Jewish people led them from ancient times to learn other languages and mix their own with them, so Its majority language during different times has been AramaicJudeo-Arabic, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Greek, Judeo-Italian or Yiddish.
Christ for the Jews
Jesus, according to tradition, was Jewish. It was after his death that the separation between Christians and Jews occurred. The latter continued to follow the Old Testament and refused to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. The difference between these two religions is about the validity of the New Testament.
More in: Jesus
Persecution of the Jews
Nazi Germany was the cause of the Jewish Holocaust.
Jews have been received with distrust and often persecuted by different peoples at different timesfrom Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire and Christian Europe, to Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany. The reasons for this cruelty are unclear, but they ultimately led to the creation of a Jewish state: present-day Israel.
See also: Holocaust
What is Zionism?
Zionism is an international political movement that He advocated from the beginning for the creation of the Israeli State (Eretz Yisrael)that is, a safe homeland for the Jewish people. To a large extent, this international movement is responsible for the creation of this Middle Eastern country. There are different forms of Zionism, with different ideological orientations: socialist, revisionist, religious, etc.