page_title: Judaism
section_title: Spectrum of observance
hierarchical_section_title: Judaism / History / Spectrum of observance
caption_attribution_description: This file of Jewish Prayer Book (Siddur) in Hebrew and Marathi was donated to Wikimedia Commons by the National Library of Israel as part of a collaboration project with Wikimedia Israel. To view all images donated as part of the collaboration project עברית: סידור בעברית ובמראטהי בתרגום יוסף יחזקל רג'פורקר, יצא לאור בשנת 1889 English: Jewish Prayer Book (Siddur) in Hebrew and Marathi , translated from Hebrew to Marathi in 1889 by Rajpurkar, Joseph Ezekiel
context_page_description: Judaism is an ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenant that God established with the Children of Israel. It encompasses a wide body of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. The Torah is part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth largest religion in the world.
  Within Judaism there are a variety of movements, most of which emerged from Rabbinic Judaism, which holds that God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of both the Written and Oral Torah. Historically, all or part of this assertion was challenged by various groups such as the Sadducees and Hellenistic Judaism during the Second Temple period; the Karaites during the early and later medieval period; and among segments of the modern non-Orthodox denominations.
context_section_description: Countries such as the United States, Israel, Canada, United Kingdom, Argentina and South Africa contain large Jewish populations. Jewish religious practice varies widely through all levels of observance. According to the 2001 edition of the National Jewish Population Survey, in the United States' Jewish community—the world's second largest—4.3 million Jews out of 5.1 million had some sort of connection to the religion. Of that population of connected Jews, 80% participated in some sort of Jewish religious observance, but only 48% belonged to a congregation, and fewer than 16% attend regularly.
  Birth rates for American Jews have dropped from 2.0 to 1.7. (Replacement rate is 2.1.) Intermarriage rates range from 40–50% in the US, and only about a third of children of intermarried couples are raised as Jews. Due to intermarriage and low birth rates, the Jewish population in the US shrank from 5.5 million in 1990 to 5.1 million in 2001. This is indicative of the general population trends among the Jewish community in the Diaspora, but a focus on total population obscures growth trends in some denominations and communities, such as Haredi Judaism. The Baal teshuva movement is a movement of Jews who have "returned" to religion or become more observant.
caption: Judaism is practiced around the world. This is an 1889 siddur published in Hebrew and Marathi for use by the Bene Israel community
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