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The Book of Genesis offers some answers to the questions which the nascent Hebrew nation had to contend with at the time: How was the world created? Why does a woman bear children in pain? What is the significance of the rainbow? And first and foremost: Where did we come from? How did the Hebrew nation come into being?
- Ashkenazim Originate In the Rhine Region. The Ashkenazi Jewish population developed in the Rhineland—a region straddling France and Germany—more than 1,000 years ago, and spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe.
- The Name Refers to Germanic People. Ashkenaz is the Biblical name of a grandson of Japhet, the ancestor of the Romans. Perhaps because the area had been part of the Roman Empire, the region, its language, and its (non-Jewish) inhabitants were associated with that name.
- It Is One of Two Major Jewish Cultures Today. There are many sub-cultures and ethnicities within the Jewish people, including Yemenite, Italian, Greek, and Persian Jews.
- Early Greats Include Rabbenu Gershom and Rashi. Ashkenaz emerged as a center of Jewish scholarship just as the venerable academies of Babylonia—the traditional center of Jewish learning—were crumbling.
The history of the Jews in Europe spans a period of over two thousand years. Jews, an Israelite tribe from Judea in the Levant, began migrating to Europe just before the rise of the Roman Empire (27 BCE).
Nov 18, 2008 · When did Judaism as we know it today—devoted to one God and the teachings of the Torah—really take root? How did the religious practices of the earliest Israelites differ from monotheistic ...
The Hebrews are peoples descended from Abraham. The origin of the word Hebrew is thought to come from the proper name “Eber,” listed in Genesis 10:24 as the great-grandson of Shem and an ancestor of Abraham.
Some elements of Jewish culture come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews with host populations, and others still from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community. Before the 18th century, religion dominated virtually all aspects of Jewish life, and infused culture.
The Jews are a people, and their story tells how, from equally modest beginnings in the Middle East, the people grew, mainly through natural increase, and became spread throughout the world by voluntary or imposed migration.
