Judaism

Tu B’Shevat

Tu B’Shevat, or the Festival of the New Year of Trees, falls on the 15th of the month of Shevat. A minor holiday in the Jewish Ashkenazi tradition, it is celebrated in modern Israel as a tree-planting holiday. Sepharadim call the holiday the Feast of Fruit, have more liturgy associated with the festival, and hold a special “order” much like the Passover seder.

bat mitzvah

Bat mitzvah means, literally, daughter of the commandment: a Jewish girl who has achieved the age of 12 and is consequently obligated to observe the commandments. In non-Orthodox communities it is also the ceremony in which the girl marks this important rite of passage by reading from the Torah in the synagogue for the first time. The practice was first instituted in the 20th century.

Hasidic

Hasidic literally means the “pious one,” and Hasidim (pl.) are those who have developed extraordinary devotion to the spirituality of Jewish life. Originally, Hasidism referred to the movement founded in Poland in the mid-18th century by Israel Baal Shem Tov. Today, Hasidism has spread throughout the Jewish world.

musaf

The additional sacrifice or prayer instituted on the Sabbath and other Jewish holidays.

Talmud

The Talmud is a compendium of many texts, a comprehensive legal code, including rabbinic disputation and other, extra-legal material. It is the most significant compilation of Rabbinic Judaism, dating from the 4th and 5th centuries CE, consisting of the traditions of Jewish law (the Mishnah) and commentary.

Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism means literally “opposed to Semites” although it has always referred specifically to Jews. Modern anti-Semitism arose in Europe toward the end of the 19th century, coalescing social, racial, and religious theories that denigrated the Jews. The Nazi campaign to eliminate the Jews from society resulted in the murder of some six million Jews in Nazi death camps; this constituted two-thirds of the pre-war Jewish population of Europe.

halakhah

Halakhah means, literally, “the path that one walks” and refers to Jewish law. It is the complete body of rules and practices that Jews are bound to follow, including biblical commandments, commandments instituted by the rabbis, and binding customs.

mikveh

A mikveh is a ritual bath, used for purposes of purification and conversion in the Jewish tradition.

Star of David

The Star of David is the six-pointed star known as the “shield of David” which has become emblematic of the Jewish tradition and community.

Gemara

The Gemara refers to the second major layer of Jewish commentary on the Torah (Mihsna being the first). The Gemara is the written account of the legal deliberations of the generations known as the Amoraim, who lived approximately from the 3rd to 5th centuries CE. Stylistically, the Gemara is a commentary that dissects the Mishna line-by-line, elaborating on the terse prose of the Mishna to draw out contemporary concerns touching on almost any aspect of life imaginable.

Lubavitcher

Lubavitchers are members of a branch of Hasidism, a Jewish pietistic movement. They take their name from a Russian town called Lubavitch and follow a line of spiritual masters or rebbes, the last of whom was Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), whom many of his followers regard(ed) as the Messiah.

shtetl

Shtetl is the Yiddish diminutive meaning “small town”. Shtetl refers primarily to the Jewish villages which existed in Eastern Europe starting in the 16th century and continuing until World War II. Though they varied greatly in size, the shtetls had a unique socio-cultural communal pattern.

Deuteronomy, Book of

The fifth book of the Humash or Five Books of Moses, Deuteronomy (or Dvarim in Hebrew, meaning ‘Words’) is composed of the final speech of Moses’ life, followed by the narration of his death. Deuteronomy contains many retellings of events and laws that appear earlier in the Torah, most notably the Ten Commandments.

kehillah

Kehillah is a Hebrew term for community, and generally refers to the formal communal structure of European Jewish communities.

seder

The seder, literally “order” in Hebrew (with the same etymological root as siddur), is the traditional family service, held around the dinner table, that marks the opening of the celebration of Passover. The meal includes special foods, symbols, and narratives. The order of the service is found in the traditional narrative called the Passover Haggadah.

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