1. Understanding World Religions
Chapter Sixteen
Rabbinic and other Judaisms
© 2011 Irving Hexham
1 A traditional Jewish betrothal scrikk. Source: Singer, Isidore, The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company, In the public domain. . © Irving Hexham 2011

2. Rabbinic and other Judaisms
Eighteenth century Seraphadic Jews. Source: Singer, Isidore, The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company, In the public domain. . © Irving Hexham 2011
Eighteenth century Seraphadic Jews – one of the two main branches of modern Judaism.

3. Rabbinic and other Judaisms
Jew arrested and burnt at the stake. Source: Singer, Isidore, The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company, In the public domain. © Irving Hexham 2011
For centuries Jews suffered persecution. The above woodcuts tell a grim story.

4. Rabbinic and other Judaisms
Cliford’s Tower. . Source: Singer, Isidore, The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company, In the public domain. . © Irving Hexham 2011
The notorious Clifford’s Tower in York, England. Here in March 1190 around 150 Jews were burnt to death by an angry mob.

5. Rabbinic and other Judaisms
Source: Singer, Isidore, The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company, In the public domain. © 2011 Irving Hexham
The above picture shows imprisonment in Turkey of the false Jewish Messiah Sabbatai Zevi ( ). His activities increased Jewish suffering.

6. Rabbinic and other Judaisms
Menasseh ben Israel . Source: Singer, Isidore, The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company, Photo of Cromwell by Irving Hexham © 2011 Irving Hexham
In the Seventeenth century the lot of the Jews in England dramatically improved as a result of the work of Menasseh ben Israel ( ), on the left, and Oliver Cromwell ( ), on the right.

7. Rabbinic and other Judaisms
Source: Photo by Jeremy Hexham, print from Singer, Isidore, The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company, , which is In the public domain. © 2011 Irving Hexham
The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw a Jewish renaissance with figures like the great Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn ( ). The picture on the right shows his grave in Berlin.

8. Rabbinic and other Judaisms
Source: Singer, Isidore, The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company, , which is in the public domain. © 2011 Irving Hexham
An often forgotten aspect of Jewish history is the degree of assimilation, see Spinoza ( ) on the left, and conversion to Christianity ( ), as in the case of Felix Mendelsshon-Bartholdy on the right, before the twentieth century.

9. Rabbinic and other Judaisms
Source: Singer, Isidore, The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company, , which is in the public domain. © 2011 Irving Hexham
Towards the end of the nineteenth century both assimilation and conversion came to a lingering end with the rise of anti-Semitism. The above statue shows the Captain Dreyfus who was an early victim of anti-Semitism in France.

10. Rabbinic and other Judaisms
Photo by Jeremy Hexham. © 2011 Irving Hexham
As the twentieth century progressed anti-Semitism intensified. The above photo shows the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

11. Rabbinic and other Judaisms
Photo by Irving Hexham © 2011 Irving Hexham
The haunting Holocaust memorial in Budapest, Hungary which commemorates the six million Jews who died as a result of Nazi persecution.

12. Rabbinic and other Judaisms
Source: Singer, Isidore, The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company, , which is in the public domain. © 2011 Irving Hexham
Even before the Holocaust many Jews had started to buy land in Palestine in the hope of creating a Jewish homeland. The above photo shows a nineteenth century agricultural community.