Texts
This text is called the Old Testament by Christians, who believe it to have been superseded by the New Testament.
What is the Tanakh?
Together, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are referred to by this name, on account of their common ancestor.
What are the Abrahamic religions?
Since the days of Abraham, this ritual has been performed on the bodies of all male Israelites/Jews at the age of eight days.
What is circumcision?
This person received the Torah on Mount Sinai, according to the Book of Exodus, which he is also supposed to have transcribed.
Who is Moses?
In 70 CE, this building in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, after which the Jews lived in a state of diaspora.
What is the Second Temple?
This is the older of the two Talmuds.
What is the Yerushalmi?
These religious leaders helped to invent and institutionalize classical Judaism in the diaspora after 70 CE, orienting Jewish life around Oral Torah as well as Written Torah.
Who are the rabbis?
According to biblical prophecy, this figure is a descendant of King David who is supposed to arrive and inaugurate a new, ultimate phase in history.
Who is the Messiah?
A disciple of the founder of Hasidism, this tsaddik became its first systematic exponent.
Who is the Maggid of Mezeritch?
This period in Israelite history began in 586 BCE and ended in 539 BCE when the Israelites were liberated by the Persian army.
What is the Babylonian Exile?
This book was printed in the late 19th century based on the version printed by Daniel Bomberg in the 16th century.
What is the Vilna Edition?
This branch of Judaism emerged in the 19th century among Jews seeking a middle ground between the extremes of reform and orthodoxy.
What is Conservative Judaism?
This type of canon is one which provides a community with a common language and set of ideas, but it does not possess legal authority.
What is a formative canon?
This rabbi compiled the views of the tannaim into the Mishnah in the third century CE.
Who is Yehudah Ha-Nasi?
On the Jewish calendar the year is 5784, but it's 2023 on the Gregorian calendar, on which the year 1 is also the first year in the life of this important figure.
Who is Jesus?
The oldest biblical manuscripts we have were found in caves at this location in present-day Israel in 1946.
What is Qumran?
The Hasidic movement faced its strongest opposition from this branch of Judaism.
What is Orthodox Judaism?
This Greek word means "revelation" and refers to a radical interruption or end to ordinary historical time.
What is apocalypse?
Who is Moses de León?
The Alhambra decree was issued in this year, making it illegal to be a Jew in Spain.
What is 1492?
The Tsenah Urenah, a Yiddish-language religious book for Jewish women readers printed in the 16th century, takes its name from a verse from this book of the Tanakh.
What is the Song of Songs?
What is the Haskalah?
According to kabbalistic theology, this event occured when the Ein Sof contracted, opening a void and making possible the creation of the world described in Genesis 1.
What is the tsimtsum?
These generations of rabbis edited the Bavli over many years, from about 500 to about 800 CE.
Who are the Stammaim?
The "discovery" of this place by Europeans in the 18th century led to a revolution in our understanding of medieval Jewish life in the Islamicate world.
What is the Cairo Genizah?