Monday, October 16, 2023

犹太人 Yóu tài rén ● Jewish

 ⁰ 请记住帮助新加坡建立国防军的人们:犹太人 

 Qǐng jì zhù bāng zhù xīn jiā pō jiàn lì guó fáng jūn de rén men: Yóu tài rén

 • And remember the people who helped Singapore 🇸🇬 to build up the defense force : Jewish ✡️ 


看了这张图才知道 美国为什么支持以色列

 Kàn le zhè zhāng tú cái zhī dào měi guó wèi shé me zhī chí yǐ sè liè • Only after looking at this picture do you understand why the United States of America 🇺🇸 supports Israel 🇮🇱 


¹ 美国总统夫人吉尔:是犹太人 měi guó zǒng tǒng fū rén jí' ěr: Shì yóutàirén 

• Mrs. Jill, the First Lady of the United States: She is Jewish

https://forward.com/news/453023/joe-bidens-jewish-relatives-everything-to-know/


 ² 美国国务卿布林肯:犹太人 měi guó guó wù qīng bù lín kěn: Yóutàirén •US Secretary of State Blinken: Jewish


  ³美国财政部长耶伦:犹太人 měi guó cái zhèng bù zhǎng yé lún: Yóutàirén •U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen: Jewish


  ⁴美国总检察长加兰:犹太人 měi guó zǒng jiǎn chá zhǎng jiā lán: Yóutàirén •U.S. Attorney General Garland: Jewish


  ⁵美国国家情报总监:犹太人 měiguó guójiā qíngbào zǒngjiān: Yóutàirén • Director of National Intelligence: Jewish (Avril Danica Haines (born August 27, 1969, the daughter of a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father, is the first Jewish director of national intelligence, a position that was established in 2005.)


  ⁶美国国土安全部长:犹太人 měiguó guótǔ ānquán bùzhǎng: Yóutàirén •U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security: Jewish (Alejandro Mayorkas, 60, a Cuban-born son of a Holocaust survivor, as US Homeland Security secretary. He was born in Cuba to a Cuban Jewish father and Romanian Jewish mother.)


  ⁷美国亿万巨富翁盖茨:犹太人 měiguó yì wàn jù fùwēng gài cí: Yóutàirén •American Billionaire Gates: Jewish


 ⁸ 美国超级股神巴菲特:犹太人 měiguó chāojí gǔshén bāfēitè: Yóutàirén •American super stock god Buffett: Jewish


 ⁹ 美国副国务卿希尔曼:犹太人 měiguó fù guówùqīng xī ěr màn: Yóutàirén •U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Hillman: Jewish


 ¹⁰ 美国白宫办公厅主任:犹太人 měiguó báigōng bàngōng tīng zhǔrèn: Yóutàirén •White House chief of staff: Jewish

(Jeff Zients, the sixth Jewish American , served as White House chief of staff, https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-announces-appointment-of-jeff-zients-to-replace-ron-klain-as-chief-of-staff/ 


 ¹¹ 美国脸书总裁扎克伯格:犹太人 měiguó liǎn shū zǒngcái zhā kè bó gé: Yóutàirén • Zuckerberg, President of Facebook in the United States: Jewish 

( https://forward.com/fast-forward/553227/mark-zuckerberg-jewish-bar-mitzvah-yom-kippur/ )


¹² 美国科技办公厅主任兰德:犹太人 měiguó kējì bàngōng tīng zhǔrèn lán dé: Yóutàirén • U.S. Science and Technology Office Director Rand: Jewish ( Marjory S. Blumenthal joined RAND as director of the experimental Science, Technology, and Policy program in spring 2016 ; https://www.rand.org/about/people/b/blumenthal_marjory_s.html )


 ¹³ 美国政治事务副国务卿纽兰 :犹太人 měiguó zhèngzhì shìwù fù guówùqīng niǔ lán : Yóutàirén

• U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nuland: Jewish (Victoria Jane Nuland also known as Toria Nuland ,62, Ambassador Victoria Nuland was designated Acting Deputy Secretary by President Biden effective July 29, 2023. She also serves as Under Secretary for Political Affairs.

https://www.state.gov/biographies/victoria-nuland/ )




https://www.npr.org/2023/10/11/1205123459/biden-steps-up-security-for-jewish-communities-in-the-u-s-after-the-attack-in-is


Singapore's Chief Rabbi, Mufti reaffirm solidarity between communities amid 'senseless' Israel-Hamas war .


https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/chief-rabbi-mufti-singapore-solidarity-jewish-muslim-communities-israel-hamas-war-3847391 


The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎, : Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation: [jehuˈdim]) or the Jewish people, are an ethno¹religious group originating from the ancient Hebrews or Israelites, and whose traditional religion is Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is an ethnic religion, although not all Jews follow it. Despite this, practising Jews regard individuals who formally converted to Judaism as part of the community. [¹ ethno-prefix meaning race (in the sense of classification of human beings).]

Jews

יְהוּדִים‬‎ (Yehudim)

✡️ 

The Star of David, 

a common symbol of the Jewish people.


Total population :

15.2–19.9 million.


Enlarged population (includes full or partial Jewish ancestry):

22.6 million.


Regions with significant Jewish populations:-


Israel 🇮🇱 (including occupied territories)

6,905,000–7,401,000


United States 🇺🇸 

6,000,000–11,500,000


France 🇫🇷 

440,000–600,000


Canada 🇨🇦 

398,000–550,000


United Kingdom 🇬🇧 

312,000–370,000


Argentina 🇦🇷 

175,000–310,000


Russia 🇷🇺 

150,000–460,000


Germany 🇩🇪 

118,000–225,000


Australia 🇦🇺 

118,000–145,000


Brazil 🇧🇷 

92,000–150,000


South Africa 🇿🇦 

52,000–75,000


Ukraine 🇺🇦 

43,000–140,000


Hungary 🇭🇺 

47,000–100,000


Mexico 🇲🇽 

40,000–50,000


Netherlands 🇳🇱 

30,000–53,000


Belgium 🇧🇪 

29,000–40,000


Italy 🇮🇹 

27,000–41,000


Switzerland 🇨🇭 

18,000–25,000


Chile 🇨🇱 

16,000–24,000


Uruguay 🇺🇾 

16,000–24,000


Turkey 🇹🇷 

15,000–21,000


Sweden 🇸🇪 

15,000–25,000


 Jews in  Singapore 🇸🇬 

Recent history

From the late 1980s, the Jewish community started growing due to increased economic development and a large Ashkenazi immigration rate to Singapore and as of 2015, the community had grown to a historic high of 10,456.

Demographics

As of 2015, there are 10,456 Jews in Singapore, many of whom are recent Ashkenazi migrants. Approximately 180 descendants of the "first wave" Jews, who are mostly orthodox, still exist, which the Rabbi of Singapore, Rabbi Mordechai Abergel, described as the only remaining indigenous Jews of Asia.


Notable Jewish in Singapore history


David Marshall

One of the most well-known Jews in the history of Singapore was David Marshall (1908–1995). He was the first chief minister of Singapore in 1955, serving for 14 months while being leader of the Labour Front. He also led the first Merdeka Talks to London in hopes of gaining independence from the British but resigned after failing. Following his resignation, in 1957, he founded the Workers Party of Singapore, which is currently Singapore's second largest (opposition) political party.


In his later life, he served as Singapore's ambassador to France, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal. He died in 1995 of lung cancer.


Sir Manasseh Meyer

Sir Manasseh Meyer (1843–1930) was a British businessman and philanthropist who was a benefactor to the Jewish community in Singapore. He was the Jewish community's most generous benefactor, being responsible for the setting up of its two synagogues — Maghain Aboth Synagogue and Chesed-El Synagogue. Chesed-El was built for the use of his family and others.

Together with three other wealthy Jews, Meyer bought a large piece of land in Moulmein Road for $5,407.12 for the Jewish Cemetery. Meyer also bought the adjoining piece of land for $8,681.40 and, after reserving a plot for himself and his second wife, Rebecca, presented it to the community. His wife Rebecca died in 1915.

In 1928, he donated $150,000 to the University of Malaya in Singapore (now the National University of Singapore), to build its science building, which has become a Singaporean national monument. Britain's King George V knighted him in 1929 after he donated $20,000 to the British military effort in World War I. Meyer Road in Singapore is named after him. See map here.


Frank Benjamin

Frank Benjamin is a merchant who founded retailing company F J Benjamin in 1959. In 1975, he opened Singapore's first single-brand store, Lanvin, in the Grand Hyatt hotel.


Jacob Ballas

Jacob Ballas (1921–2000) was a Jewish stockbroker and philanthropist born in Iraq. He was the inaugural chairman of the Malayan Stock Exchange, from 1962 to 1964, and later the Malaysia and Singapore Stock Exchange from 1964 to 1967, growing the paid-up capital of the bourses from about $870 million to $2 billion. Unmarried, his estate was said to be worth more than S$100 million and was divided between charities in Singapore and Israel. His philanthropy in Singapore is marked by the Jacob Ballas Centre.


Harry Elias

Harry Elias (4 May 1937 – 26 August 2020) was the founder of the law firm Harry Elias Partnership LLP and one of Singapore's top lawyers. In 1985, he set up the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme, in which lawyers defend for free those poor and accused of non-capital crimes. As of 2015, the scheme has grown to serve up to 6,000 people annually.

Jewish community institutions in Singapore  🇸🇬 

Maghain Aboth Synagogue

Maghain Aboth Synagogue is a synagogue located at Waterloo Street in the Rochor Planning Area, within the Central Area in Singapore's central business district. The synagogue was constructed by 1878 and is the oldest Jewish synagogue in Southeast Asia.


The synagogue is open throughout the year and is the primary synagogue of the Jewish community in Singapore, and is where many Jewish events and celebrations like Yom Kippur take place.

On 27 February 1998, the synagogue was gazetted as a national monument of Singapore.


Chesed-el Synagogue

Chesed-El Synagogue is a synagogue at Oxley Rise in the River Valley Planning Area, within the Central Area of Singapore. Named Chesed-El, which means "Grace of God", the synagogue was completed in 1905 and is the second synagogue in Singapore.

The Chesed-El Synagogue was gazetted as a national monument on 18 December 1998.


United Hebrew Congregation

The United Hebrew Congregation (UHC Singapore) was formed in 1993. It is Singapore's only Reform Jewish community and the latest addition to Jewish life in Singapore's modern history. In 2016 it boasted a membership of over 400 Jews and their families, served by its resident Rabbi Nathan Alfred. Despite its membership size, the UHC operates as a synagogue without walls – services and events are held at various sites around the city. As of 2014, the UHC supports a weekly Jewish Religious School. The UHC and its members are dedicated to the Reform Jewish notion of Tikkun Olam, and have been engaged in various local and global fundraising and community service efforts. 


Sir Manasseh Meyer International School (SMMIS)

The Sir Manasseh Meyer International School (SMMIS) is Singapore's only Jewish international school, for students aged 18 months to 16 years. Admitting students of all nationalities and faiths, students choose to follow Jewish Education in Hebrew or World Religions in English.

The school was founded in 1996 by Mrs Simcha Abergel as a nursery for young children, named "Ganenu Learning Centre". The school was later renamed to its current name in 2008, while on its 170 student capacity campus in Belvedere Close, off Tanglin Road.

In 2016, the school's new SGD$40 million campus in Jalan Ulu Sembawang opened, with a student capacity of 500 and facilities like a rooftop swimming pool, football field and 450 seater auditorium. Click here for more details. School website here .


Languages

Predominantly spoken: Modern Hebrew • English • Russian• French • Spanish

Historical: Yiddish • Ladino •Judeo Arabic • others

Sacred: Biblical Hebrew• Biblical Aramaic • Talmudic Aramaic

Religion : Judaism

Related ethnic groups: Semitic-speaking peoples such as Samaritans, Arabs, Assyrians, and Levantines.

The Jewish people trace their origins to the Israelites, a people that emerged from within the Canaanite population to establish the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Judaism emerged from Yahwism, the religion of the Israelites, by the late 6th century BCE, with a theology considered by religious Jews to be the expression of a covenant with God established with the Israelites, their ancestors. The Babylonian captivity of Judahites following their kingdom's destruction, the movement of Jewish groups around the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period, and subsequent periods of conflict and violent dispersion, such as the Jewish–Roman wars, gave rise to the Jewish diaspora. The Jewish diaspora is a wide dispersion of Jewish communities across the world that have maintained their sense of Jewish history, identity and culture.


In the following millennia, Jewish diaspora communities coalesced into three major ethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled: the Ashkenazim (Central and Eastern Europe), the Sephardim (initially in the Iberian Peninsula), and the Mizrahim (Middle East and North Africa). Prior to World War II, the global Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million, representing around 0.7 percent of the world population at that time. During World War II, approximately 6 million Jews throughout Europe were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. Since then, the population has slowly risen again, and as of 2021, was estimated to be at 15.2–19.9 million by the Berman Jewish Data Bank, comprising less than 0.2 percent of the total world population. The modern State of Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population.


Jews have significantly influenced and contributed to the development and growth of human progress in many fields, both historically and in modern times, including in science and technology, philosophy, ethics, literature, governance, business, art, music, comedy, theatre, cinema, architecture, food, medicine, and religion. Jews wrote the Bible, founded Christianity, and had an indirect but profound influence on Islam.[50] In these ways, Jews have also played a significant role in the development of Western culture.

Name and etymology

The term Jew is derived from Hebrew יְהוּדִי Yehudi, originally the term for the people of the Israelite kingdom of Judah. According to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe of Judah and the kingdom of Judah derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. Genesis 29:35 and 49:8 connect the name "Judah" with the verb yada, meaning "praise", but scholars generally agree that the name of both the patriarch and the kingdom instead have a geographic origin—possibly referring to the gorges and ravines of the region. The shift of ethnonym from "Israelites" to "Jews" (inhabitant of Judah), although not contained in the Torah, is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE), a book in the Ketuvim, the third section of the Jewish Tanakh.


The Hebrew word for "Jew" is יְהוּדִי Yehudi, with the plural יְהוּדִים Yehudim. Endonyms in other Jewish languages include the Ladino ג׳ודיו Djudio (plural ג׳ודיוס, Djudios) and the Yiddish ייִד Yid (plural ייִדן Yidn).


The English word "Jew" continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe. These terms were loaned via the Old French giu, which itself evolved from the earlier juieu, which in turn derived from judieu/iudieu which through elision had dropped the letter "d" from the Medieval Latin Iudaeus, which, like the New Testament Greek term Ioudaios, meant both "Jew" and "Judean" / "of Judea". The Greek term was a loan from Aramaic *yahūdāy, corresponding to Hebrew יְהוּדִי Yehudi.


The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., يَهُودِيّ yahūdī (sg.), al-yahūd (pl.), in Arabic, "Jude" in German, "judeu" in Portuguese, "Juif" (m.)/"Juive" (f.) in French, "jøde" in Danish and Norwegian, "judío/a" in Spanish, "jood" in Dutch, "żyd" in Polish etc., but derivations of the word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., in Italian (Ebreo), in Persian ("Ebri/Ebrani" (Persian: عبری/عبرانی)) and Russian (Еврей, Yevrey). The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuːdə], the corresponding adjective "jüdisch" [ˈjyːdɪʃ] (Jewish) is the origin of the word "Yiddish".


According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition (2000),


It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on the council, which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun.


Identity

Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation, an ethnicity, a religion, and a culture, making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether a religious or national approach to identity is used. Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who were born to a Jewish family regardless of whether or not they follow the religion, those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent), and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and therefore are followers of the religion.


Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. These definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the Oral Torah into the Babylonian Talmud, around 200 CE. Interpretations by Jewish sages of sections of the Tanakh – such as Deuteronomy 7:1–5, which forbade intermarriage between Jews' Israelite ancestors and seven non-Israelite nations: "for that [i.e. giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,] would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods"  – are used as a warning against intermarriage between Jews and gentiles. Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This is complemented by Ezra 10:2–3, where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children. A popular theory is that the rape of Jewish women in captivity brought about the law of Jewish identity being inherited through the maternal line, although scholars challenge this theory citing the Talmudic establishment of the law from the pre-exile period. Another argument is that the rabbis changed the law of patrilineal descent to matrilineal descent due to the widespread rape of Jewish women by Roman soldiers. Since the anti-religious Haskalah movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries, halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged.


According to historian Shaye J. D. Cohen, the status of the offspring of mixed marriages was determined patrilineally in the Bible. He brings two likely explanations for the change in Mishnaic times: first, the Mishnah may have been applying the same logic to mixed marriages as it had applied to other mixtures (Kil'ayim). Thus, a mixed marriage is forbidden as is the union of a horse and a donkey, and in both unions the offspring are judged matrilineally. Second, the Tannaim may have been influenced by Roman law, which dictated that when a parent could not contract a legal marriage, offspring would follow the mother. Rabbi Rivon Krygier follows a similar reasoning, arguing that Jewish descent had formerly passed through the patrilineal descent and the law of matrilineal descent had its roots in the Roman legal system.

Origins

A factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities and variety, written in at least ten Near Eastern languages. As archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. The prehistory and ethnogenesis of the Jews are closely intertwined with archaeology, biology, and historical textual records, as well as religious literature and mythology. The ethnic stock to which Jews originally trace their ancestry was a confederation of Iron Age Semitic-speaking tribes known as the Israelites that inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods. Modern Jews are named after and also descended from the southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah.

According to the Hebrew Bible narrative, Jewish ancestry is traced back to the Biblical patriarchs such as Abraham, his son Isaac, Isaac's son Jacob, and the Biblical matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel, who lived in Canaan. The Twelve Tribes are described as descending from the twelve sons of Jacob. Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacob's son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs' descendants were later enslaved  until the Exodus led by Moses, after which the Israelites conquered Canaan under Moses' successor Joshua,  through the period of the Biblical judges after the death of Joshua, then through the mediation of Samuel became subject to a king, Saul, who was succeeded by David and then Solomon, after whom the United Monarchy ended and was split into a separate Kingdom of Israel and a Kingdom of Judah. The Kingdom of Judah is described as comprising the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, partially Levi, and later adding remnants of other tribes who migrated there from the northern Kingdom of Israel.

Modern archaeology and the current historical view has largely discarded the historicity of this narrative. It has been reframed as constituting the Israelites' inspiring national myth narrative. The Israelites and their culture, according to the modern archaeological and historical account, did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion of Yahwism centered on Yahweh, one of the gods of the Canaanite pantheon. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of cultic practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group, setting them apart from other Canaanites.


The Israelites become visible in the historical record as a people between 1200 and 1000 BCE. There is well accepted archeological evidence referring to "Israel" in the Merneptah Stele, which dates to about 1200 BCE. It is not certain if a period like that of the Biblical judges occurred nor if there was ever a United Monarchy.

 There is debate about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power, but historians agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by c. 900 BCE: 169–95  and that a Kingdom of Judah existed by c. 700 BCE. In 587 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II, King of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, besieged Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple and deported the most prominent citizens of Judah.

Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East, and that they share certain genetic traits with other Gentile peoples of the Fertile Crescent. The genetic composition of different Jewish groups shows that Jews share a common gene pool dating back four millennia, as a marker of their common ancestral origin. Despite their long-term separation, Jewish communities maintained their unique commonalities, propensities, and sensibilities in culture, tradition, and language.


History

Israel and Judah

The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele, which dates to around 1200 BCE. The majority of scholars agree that this text refers to the Israelites, a group that inhabited the central highlands of Canaan, where archaeological evidence shows that hundreds of small settlements were constructed between the 12th and 10th centuries BCE. The Israelites differentiated themselves from neighboring peoples through various distinct characteristics including religious practices, prohibition on intermarriage, and an emphasis on genealogy and family history.


In the 10th century BCE, two neighbouring Israelite kingdoms—the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah—emerged. Since their inception, they shared ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious characteristics despite a complicated relationship. Israel, with its capital mostly in Samaria, was larger and wealthier, and soon developed into a regional power. In contrast, Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem, was less prosperous and covered a smaller, mostly mountainous territory. However, while in Israel the royal succession was often decided by a military coup d'état, resulting in several dynasty changes, political stability in Judah was much greater, as it was ruled by the House of David for the whole four centuries of its existence.

Around 720 BCE, Kingdom of Israel was destroyed when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which came to dominate the ancient Near East. Under the Assyrian resettlement policy, a significant portion of the northern Israelite population was exiled to Mesopotamia and replaced by immigrants from the same region. During the same period, and throughout the 7th century BCE, the Kingdom of Judah, now under Assyrian vassalage, experienced a period of prosperity and witnessed a significant population growth. Later in the same century, the Assyrians were defeated by the rising Neo-Babylonian Empire, and Judah became its vassal. In 587 BCE, following a revolt in Judah, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple, putting an end to the kingdom. The majority of Jerusalem's residents, including the kingdom's elite, were exiled to Babylon.


Second Temple Period

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