Jews and Judaism

A covenant with God, religious laws, holidays, life-cycle rituals, religious objects, and text study are central to Jewish life. In major centers or remote communities, Jews established prayer houses (synagogues), and centers for Torah study. Hebrew remained their holy language, used in prayer and study, but Jews often spoke a vernacular. Faced with challenges of modernity, they responded by creating new religious and philosophical movements, expressing ancient traditions in more contemporary forms.