Jew
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Generally, a Jew is someone who belongs to the religion called Judaism. Some people who come from a Jewish family or a partially-Jewish family often identify themselves as Jewish even when they do not practice Judaism. According to the Jewish Halakha, someone is Jewish if their mother was Jewish.
The word Jew originally referred to the people of the ancient Kingdom of Judea (what is today Israel). Later, the word started to refer to people of the Jewish religion, and not just those from Judah.
Israel is the only Jewish country, but there are Jewish minorities in many large cities in the U.S., Europe and Australia.
Jews were also the main victims of a genocide during World War II (known as the Holocaust).
Jewish Ethnic Groups
There are different ethnic Jewish groups. The two biggest are called Ashkenazi (European Jews) and Sephardic (Jews from the lands around the Mediterranean Sea). There are also African Jews (Beta Israel), Indian Jews (Bene Israel) and even some Chinese Jews (Kai-feng Jews).
