Home›Rabbis, Kabbalists & Jewish Scholars›TraditionBrowse ByTraditionThis page groups historical figures by the religious tradition they belonged to or helped shape, connecting a person to the belief system that claims them. Wikipedia describes a tradition as "a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past." Browsing this way lets a visitor read every founder, reformer or teacher from one tradition together, rather than finding them scattered by century.FactsTraditionConnectionsSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsDirectoryCategoryWell-attestedHistorical Figures 1TraditionFilter Results1 entryAdherents TodayAllPew Research Center's Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020 report estimates the global Jewish population at about 14.8 million as of 2020, the smallest of the major world religions measured, concentrated primarily in Israel and the United States. (1)Adherents Today MaximumAll14,800,000 (1)Adherents Today MinimumAll14,800,000 (1)Basis of the Membership FigureAllIndependent Survey (1)Establishment StatusAllDeclared Not Established (1)FounderAllNone in the historical sense (1)Tradition traces the covenant to Abraham and the Torah to Moses (1)How the Expectation Is EnforcedAllCustomary Norm (1)Membership Figure As OfAll2013-01-01 (1)2020-01-01 (1)Membership Over TimeAllBy Pew's 2020 "Jewish Americans in 2020" survey, that share had grown to 2.4 percent of US adults, an estimated 7.5 million people, a national self-identification measure rather than any single body's own membership rolls. (1)In Pew Research Center's 2013 "A Portrait of Jewish Americans" survey, 2.2 percent of US adults, an estimated 6.7 million people, identified as Jewish, according to Pew's 2020 follow-up report summarizing both waves. (1)Origin AccountAllJewish tradition traces its origin to God's covenant with Abraham and, most definitively, to the covenant given to Moses and the people of Israel at Sinai after the exodus from Egypt. (1)Origin PeriodAllJudaism proper takes shape after the Babylonian exile (1)Origin Period End YearAll400 BCE (1)Origin Period Start YearAll586 BCE (1)Place of OriginAllThe southern Levant: the highlands of Israel and Judah (1)Position on SexualityAllThe body holds no single settled position; the question is actively and openly contested within it (1)Position on UsuryAllInterest is permitted but bound by ethical constraints against exploiting the poor (1)Practice StatusAllPartly restricted: some elements are closed to outsiders (1)Sexuality Position DetailAllJudaism is governed by no single worldwide teaching authority, and its recognized movements read at every point on this question today. The Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis authorized rabbis to officiate at same-sex ceremonies in 2000 and, in a 2014 responsum, held that a same-sex union may constitute Jewish marriage, kiddushin, in the full sense. The Reconstructionist and Humanistic movements likewise affirm same-sex marriage and ordain LGBTQ clergy. The Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards issued a combined responsum in 2006 that itself left the question unsettled, approving some liberalizing opinions on ordination and commitment ceremonies alongside others that retained the traditional prohibition, so both readings stand as valid within the movement. Orthodox Judaism, including its Modern Orthodox and Haredi streams, holds that the Torah forbids homosexual acts and sanctions only the marriage of a man and a woman, generally without denying a gay Jew ordinary synagogue membership. No statement speaks for Judaism as a whole. (1)Standard Rate ExpectedAllTen percent. (1)Standing Giving ExpectationAllMa'aser kesafim, giving one tenth of income to charitable causes (tzedakah), is a widely practiced Jewish norm modeled on the Torah's agricultural tithes. Most halachic authorities today hold that it is not itself a biblical or rabbinic commandment but a minhag, a custom, though a small number of authorities have argued it carries binding force; the debate itself is long standing and unsettled rather than resolved in either direction. (1)Status TodayAllLiving tradition, practised today (1)Supreme BeingAllThe God of Israel, understood as one, without partner or physical form, referred to in the Hebrew Bible by the name written as the tetragrammaton. (1)TheologyAllMonotheistic: one God (1)Transgression CategoryAllAvon: iniquity, a sin arising from desire or moral failure, held more culpable than chet. (1)Chet: an unintentional sin, literally a missing of the mark, wrongdoing through error rather than intent. (1)Pesha: transgression, a willful rebellion against God, the most severe of the three, an intentional defiance rather than a lapse. (1)Usury Position DetailAllThe heter iska, literally a permit for a joint venture, restructures what would otherwise be an interest bearing loan between Jews into a shared business investment: the party supplying the capital and the party using it become partners sharing profit and loss rather than creditor and debtor, so any return the capital earns is a business profit, not loan interest, and the Torah's prohibition on taking interest from a fellow Jew (Exodus 22:24, Leviticus 25:36-37, Deuteronomy 23:19) is honestly not triggered rather than evaded on paper. The mechanism's formalization is credited to named medieval authorities, Rabbi Baruch ben Isaac's Sefer Ha-Terumah and Rabbi Yisrael Isserlin's Terumat Ha-Deshen among them, developed across the medieval period rather than at a single settled date. It remains in common use today, including for interest bearing accounts at banks under rabbinical supervision. (1)JudaismTradition25 entriesConnectionsAssociated WithEurope, Continents Well-attested This source names Europe directly: "East, the Hasidic masters of Eastern Europe, and the modern founders of Reform, Positive-Historical and Humanistic Judaism."Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Spain, Countries Well-attested This source names Spain directly: "medieval halakhists and kabbalists of Spain and the Near East, the Hasidic masters of Eastern Europe, and the modern founders of Reform, Positive-Historical and Humanistic Judaism."Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Sources1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Treetier 1Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Comments (0)No comments yet. 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