Jewish history is more than the history of a religion called Judaism. Although
Judaism is a central component, Jewish history also recounts the develop-
ment of a civilization with a complex social order and political culture, and
generations of social relations between Jews, and between Jews and non-Jews.
Jewish civilization has been around in one form or another for more than
three millennia, and has traversed five continents, from central Asia to the
New World. Jews have come within the perception of intellectuals and states-
men from Aristotle to Zola, and have lived in a wide variety of contexts,
including the ancient Near East, the Hellenistic world, Rome, Byzantium,
Islam, Christendom, Europe, Russia, and the New World.
Given this diverse array of situations and vast time span, it is essential to
begin by defining what is meant by Jew, Jewish, and Judaism. The term Jew
or Yehudiis derived from the ancient Israelite kingdom of Judah or Yehuda. It
was first used as a descriptor in reference to Mordechai ha-Yehudi, Mordechai
the Jew, the uncle of Queen Esther and one of the protagonists in the biblical
story of Esther. Mordechai the Jew is described as being among those “who
were exiled from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, in 597
B.C.E.” Strictly speaking, therefore, there were no Jews before the Babylonian
exile. Biblical figures such as Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and the
prophets are more aptly referred to as Hebrews or Israelites than as Jews.
The question remains, are the Jews best defined as a people, as the mem-
bers of a religious faith, as a nation, or as an ethnicity? All of these
designations have been tried in the past and all remain valid definitions of at
least some facets of Jewish life. At some point, Jews were most easily recog-
nizable and definable as one or more of these descriptions. Though ostensibly
a matter of taxonomy and semantics, the problem of defining the Jews as a
group points to the larger problem of encapsulating the diversity of the
Jewish experience within a single narrative. Yet is it possible to encompass
this diversity and multiplicity within a single historical narrative?
In answer to that question, historian Michael Meyer has suggested the
metaphor of a rope. A rope is made up of strands none of which extends from
one end to the other, yet the strands, still hold the rope together as a single
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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