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Jewish Timeline: The Unbroken Evolving Chain of Judaism: A Tradition of Change
Just how old is Judaism as we practice it? When was the first
Bat Mitzvah? Which of today’s major branches of Judaism began earliest? Who is
credited with changing the way Judaism regards miracles? When did Hasidism
begin? When did polygamy end? How did Orthodoxy come to have power in Israel?
The answers in this Judaism
timeline may astound you.
Judaism is thousands of years old, yet its concepts and practices change in
response to the needs and understandings of Jews. So, while we trace our
history back, it is a history of evolution. Many of the practices, which we
associate with being fundamental to Judaism, may only be a few generations old.
The nature of marriage, the role of women, the role of God and the concept of
miracle, the practices of Bar and Bat Mitzvah, and so on, have all gone through
transformations.
The claim of any branch of Judaism to be the one original unchanged construct is
not credible. The claim that Jewish descent is through the mother, for example,
is belied by the Torah, in which descent is through the father. (Moses and King
Solomon both married non-Jews.) Many Jews, as well as the Reform and Humanistic
movements, accept that a Jew is a child of a Jewish parent, or a person who
chooses to become Jewish.
Judaism is first and foremost a strong belief in ethics, and ethical behavior.
It is the belief that the world is the important focus, and not the possibility
of an afterlife. It is the belief that actions count, not internal feelings of
being holy. It is recognition that we may on occasion have feelings like envy
and anger, yet our task is to overcome negative feelings and to act with
kindness, mercy, and justice.
Jews value learning and charity. They have a long history of study,
questioning, and learning. Jews have a passion for charitable giving, and are
in the forefront of philanthropy.
Here, then, from Jewish history,
is a timeline of concepts and practices:
Time Event
-- Moses leads Jewish people out of Egypt.
-- The Torah specifies a priestly class of Levites and Cohenim, centered around
a single Mishkan (arc of the Lord).
-- The Torah describes the life of the early Jews. Unlike other cultures, human
sacrifice is not allowed. Animal sacrifice is required. The Torah goes into
great detail about the kinds of animal sacrifice and the construction of the
sacrificial altar. Polygamy is part of the social fabric.
? In response to Babylonian exile, and then the destruction of the second Temple
by the Romans, rabbinic Judaism develops, with decentralized Rabbis (teachers)
and home services replacing the Cohenim (priestly class) and a centralized
single Temple. The destruction of the second temple also marked the end of
animal sacrifice.
30 BCE Rabbi Hillel, a prominent spiritual leader of the Jews, becomes
president of the Sanhedrin, the highest court in the Jewish state. He is
challenged to define Judaism while standing on one foot. “What is hateful unto
you, do not do unto your fellowman; this is the whole Law; the rest is mere
commentary. Go and study.” He says. Hillel organizes the extensive body of
Jewish law, and fixes the calendar.
.
200 BCE to 200: Hard times under Roman rule lead people to hope for a
messiah, i.e. savior. Jesus of Nazareth, and Simon ben Cozeba, are two of the
many people who are claimed to be the messiah.
The teaching of the Hebrew Bible “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”
(Leviticus 19:18) is repeated by Jesus “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”
(Mark 12:31). (E., p. 82)
70 Destruction of the Second Temple
270 Rabbi Yochanan writing in the Gemora makes an interpretation that
“Your son who comes from a Jewess is called your son, but your son who comes
from a heathen woman is not called your son”. Of course, a woman who converts
to Judaism is a Jewess. (According to K. (p.111), Rabbi Yochanan was a
Talmudic authority from 254 to 290.)
361 “Hillel II calls a session of the Talmud scholars and establishes the
continuous calendar system that no longer required monthly moon sightings. This
system is still used today.” (K. p. 117)
612 Mohammed founds Islam, claiming to be the successor to Moses and
Jesus.
900’s Rabbenu Gershom (?960-1028) makes the Gezayrah (rule) that a man
may have only one wife. (Ben-S p. 433) This applies to Ashkenazic Jews. There
are some Sephardic Jews who today have more than one wife. (Polygamy is not
banned anywhere in the Torah.)
Middle Ages: Orthodox Ashkenasic Jews, living in Eastern Europe, adopt black
garb which imitate the dress of Eastern European nobility.
Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki ( -1105) known by his initials Rashi, (D. p. 176),
specified clearly and firmly the functions of the community and its authority
over its individual members. With the same firmness he declared that the
communities were entitled to cancel ‘decisions made by the ancients according to
the needs of the time’. (Ben-S p. 434)
Late middle ages: Bar Mitzvah, which is never mentioned in the ancient
scriptures, begins with the calling of young men to the bima (platform).
1178, 1190 Moses Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon, known also as the Rambam)
codifies a new world view for Judaism, replacing the concept of frequent divine
intervention in the form of miracles, with the concept of natural law as being
god's creation. Any belief in miracles would diminish the beauty and wonder of
natural law. Maimonides completes the Mishneh Torah in 1178 and The Guide for
the Perplexed in 1190. He maintains that philosophy, as taught by the ancient
Greeks, is compatible with the Jewish tradition. He says “Start with intellect
and doubt.”
13th century: Kaddish comes to be used as a “mourners” prayer, after the
slaughters during the Crusades. Nothing in the prayer refers to the deceased.
Over the centuries it becomes a form of solace of the bereaved, perhaps for its
soulful rhythmic pattern and mournful sound.
1534-1572 Isaac Luria invents the idea of “tikkun olam” (repair of the
world) as a means for redemption. Jews always believed in making the world a
better place, but some, instead, had hoped for a messiah to come and rescue Jews
from awful times. Isaac Luria says that if you believe in the Messiah, the way
to hasten his coming is to do your share to make the world a better place.
1632-1677 Baruch Spinoza, a prize-winning Orthodox scholar, enunciates
the value of "good deeds" as the essential characteristic of an ethical people.
Spinoza asserted that all religious texts are human creations, and championed
the idea of universal morality. In 1656 he was excommunicated by a rabbinic
Tribunal. “Three hundred years after the banishing of Spinoza, Israel’s first
prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, called for the reversal of that ruling.”
(Hertzberg, p. 138). Albert Einstein said “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who
reveals himself in the harmony of all being.” (Dimont, p. 336)
1665 Prophets hail Shabbetai Zvi as the Messaiah. A separate Shabbetean
sect begins. (H p.120)
1740s Israel ben Eliezer founds Hasidism, the last religious movement to
be born within the older world of Jewish piety, that is, before the Jews entered
the world of modernity. Called the Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name) by
his followers. (H p. 155)
1750s? Tune for Sh'ma written in Germany
1762-1839 Rabbi Moses Sofer forbids any encroachment of Western style in
clothing or manners. His heirs today are the haredim, or ultra Orthodox. (H p.
186)
1783 Moses Mendelssohn writes “Jerusalem”, proposing that the organized
Jewish community be abolished, ending its power to excommunicate heretics and to
exercise physical punishment against transgressors. Jews should live according
to a strict regimen of religious laws to become a “beacon of righteousness’’.
Mendelssohn’s movement is called the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment). His
ideological heirs include Reform, Conservative, and modern orthodoxy. (H p.174)
1791 All the Jews in France are given equality by law, as the result of
the French Revolution.
1807 “Grand Sanhedrin” meeting of Jews convoked by Napoleon to negotiate
terms by which Jews would be accepted as equal citizens. The Grand Sanhedrin
upholds civil law on marriages. Napoleonic conquests extend freedom and equality
for Jews throughout Europe (H p.195-96)
1809 Israel Jacobson delivers sermons in the local language (German)
instead of Yiddish)
1790-1840 Reform Judaism originates in Germany.
1837 Reform rabbis convene.
“In the centuries before the confinement of the Jews in the ghettos, Talmudism
had been flexible, and great rabbis had constantly tailored it for survival in
changing times. But three hundred years of ghetto life had hardened the
Talmudic arteries, because ghetto rabbis permitted no change. When, therefore,
ghetto rabbis refused to accommodate the Western Enlightenment , a large segment
of Jews broke away to join the Jewish Reform Movement. By 1850 it had become
the dominant Jewish religion in Germany, and old, ghetto Judaism was in danger
of dying out.” (D. p. 369)
1850 American Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise sermonizes that he believes neither
in the coming of the Messiah nor the resurrection of the dead. He goes on to
found the American Reform movement. (H p.199)
1854 Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, “the first Orthodox Jew to break the
accepted mold of the rabbi founds ‘modern Orthodoxy’. He believes in obeying
the ritual laws of the Bible and Talmud and yet enjoying the amenities, style,
and attire of a modern bourgeois. He insists that secular literature and arts
are “uplifting works”. (H p. 187-190)
1876 Rabbi Felix Adler of Temple Emanu-El in New York City founds
Ethical Culture. (H p. 201, D. p. 370)
1895 Theodor Herzel writes a short book, “The Jewish State” (Der
Judenstaat), immediately a best seller in five languages, proposing that the
only cure for anti-Semitism is to re-establish the Jews as a “normal nation” in
a state of their own. Citizens would be free from cultural constraints and from
religious coercion. (H p.213)
1899? First Zionist Congress convenes.
1901 on: At least 140 of the 663 Nobel Prize winners from 1901 to 1995
are Jews. Humanistic secular Jews predominate. (See sources below)
1911 - 1948 Secular Jews work to create a Jewish national state of
Israel.
1913 Dr. Solomon Schechter in the United States founds Conservative
Judaism. (per Conservative Judaism website).
1920 Dr. Mordecai Kaplan founds Reconstructionist Judaism with his
published article entitled “A Program for the Reconstruction of Judaism”. He
advocates a shift in the “center of spiritual interest from the realm of
abstract dogmas and traditional codes of law to the pulsating life of Israel”.
He places equal value on all periods of Jewish history and and on all forms of
Jewish creativity, rather than focusing primarily on rabbinic texts. Reconstructionist
Judaism achieves full denominational status in the late 1960s. (source:
Reconstructionist website).
1922 Judith Kaplan becomes the first Bat Mitzvah. Her father, Rabbi
Mordecai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, officiates.
1941-1945 The Holocaust causes many Jews to question the nature of a
supernatural power which allows six million Jews to be murdered, including a
million Jewish children under the age of 13.
1948 State of Israel declared.
1949 An orthodox minority negotiates control of Israel’s religious life. As the
result of Israel’s first election, there are two large groups (in Israel’s
parliament, the Knesset), neither with the needed absolute majority. One favors
a socialist approach, the other a capitalist one. Ben-Gurion’s Mapai (Labor)
party has the plurality. A small minority, Orthodox Jews, promise that they
will support his government regardless of economic policy, if Ben-Gurion will
give them special control of civil laws and regulations, including "Jewish"
birth, death, and marriages, and the determination of the status of Jews in the
"Jewish" state. At his wife’s urging (“Give them what they want. They are like
your elders.”), Ben-Gurion reluctantly accepts this demand in order to get his
majority, setting a tone for Israeli political life. He regrets it later.
(Sources: Kurzman, Strum, see below).
1962 Reb Zalman founds the B’nai Or Religious Fellowship, eventually
leading to the Jewish Renewal movement. Its emphasis is on direct spiritual
experience and mystical or Kabbalistic teachings.
1963 Rabbi Sherwin Wine founds Humanistic Judaism as a movement to
advance the cause of the majority of Jewish people, who are secular and
humanistic in belief. He proposes that theistic language be removed from
services.
1972 Hebrew Union College ordains first woman rabbi.
1999 Leaders of American Reform movement meet and decide that Reform
rabbis may adopt a wide range of practices previously rejected as antiquated,
including kosher laws, as adherents choose.
1999 United Jewish Communities forms as the umbrella organization for
all U.S. Jewish organizations. Conservative, Humanistic, Orthodox,
Reconstructionist, and Reform branches are represented in its General Assembly.
Sources:
(B: ) Barnavi, Eli, An Historical Atlas of the Jewish Peoploe from the Time of
the Patriarchs to the Present, U. of Michigan Press?, (A book on the history of
Jewish culture and thought.)
(D.) Dimont, Max I., Jews, God and History, Simon and Schuster, 1962. (Despite
its considerable length, it can be picked up and read with interest at almost
any page.)
(H.) Hertzberg, Arthur, Jews, The Essence and Character of a People,
HarperCollins, 1998. (Page references refer to this source,unless otherwise
noted.) (This is an excellent, readable history of Jewish thought written by a
Yeshiva scholar. Because it deals with Jewish thinking, rather than events
which happened to the Jews, it is the source most relied on for this timeline.)
(E.) Eban, Abba, Heritage: Civilization and the Jews, Summit Books, New York,
1984. (The Israeli Ambassador wrote this history of the impact of evolving
civilization on the Jews and vice versa, illustrated profusely with paintings,
photos and reproductions of artifacts. He also made a video set on Jewish
history.)
NY Times, article describing the Reform congress of 1999.
(Ben-S) H. H. Ben-Sasson, ed.; A History of the Jewish People, Harvard
University Press, 1976. (A tome chock full of facts.)
(K.) Kantor, Mattis, The Jewish Timeline Encyclopedia, Jason Aronson Inc.,
Northvale, NJ and London, 1989,1992. (A source for the timeline of the writers
of the Talmud. In modern times it concentrates on lubavitchers. Reform and
other movements are hardly mentioned except to label a few people as criminals
or deviants.)
(K.&K.) Kogel, Renee and Katz, Zev, Judaism In A Secular Age, Society for
Humanistic Judaism, Farmington Hills, MI.
(M.) Mack, Stan, The Story of the Jews, A 4,000 Year Adventure, Jewish Lights
Publishing, Woodstock, Vermont, (1998?) (Jewish history in cartoon form, with
typically Jewish optimism and humor, is a great quick read for adults, and an
accessible form of information for kids over 10.)
The World Book, and other encyclopedias, provide an overview of history and
culture.
A list of Jewish Nobel Prize Winners can be found at
jinfo.org/Nobel_Prizes.html.
Sources for the Orthodox negotiation in Israel (1949):
Dan Kurzman, Ben-Gurion: Prophet of Fire (Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 25;
S. Zalman Abramov, Perpetual Dilemma: Jewish Religion in the Jewish State
(Jerusalem and NY: World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1976), pp.130, 150-151;
Amnon Rubinstein, "Right to Marriage," Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 3 (1973),
p. 250 n. 40.
Philippa Strum, "Women and the Politics of Religion in Israel," 11 Human Rights
Quarterly 483-503 (1989).
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Websites of major branches of Judaism in the United States (in alphabetic
order):
Conservative Judaism: http://uscj.org/
Humanistic Judaism: http://www.shj.org/ and
http://www.ifshj.org/
Jewish Renewal: www.aleph.org
Orthodox Judaism: http://www.ou.org/
Reconstructionist Judaism: www.jrf.org/
Reform Judaism: http://rj.org/
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This timeline is originally posted in October 2001. This timeline has already
been reviewed extensively. If you have corrections or additions please send
them to
caryshaw@optonline.net. Noting
sources is important. We will not necessarily have the time to respond to
emails, but we may use it to update the timeline. Thank you in advance.
.
