Wandering JewThe Wandering Jew is a mythical immortal man whose legend began to spread in Europe in the 13th century. In the original legend, a Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion was then cursed to walk the Earth until the Second Coming. The exact nature of the wanderer's indiscretion varies in different versions of the tale, as do aspects of his character; sometimes he is said to be a shoemaker or other tradesman, while sometimes he is the doorman at the estate of Pontius Pilate.
History of the Jews in VenezuelaThe history of the Jews in Venezuela dates to the middle of the 17th century, when records suggest that groups of marranos (Spanish and Portuguese descendants of baptized Jews suspected of secret adherence to Judaism) lived in Tucacas, Caracas and Maracaibo. The Jewish community, however, did not become established in Venezuela until the middle of the 19th century. Since Hugo Chávez took power in 1999, tension has existed between the government and Jewish population, which has seen large numbers emigrating.
FrankismFrankism was a heretical Sabbatean Jewish religious movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, centered on the leadership of the Jewish Messiah claimant Jacob Frank, who lived from 1726 to 1791. Frank rejected religious norms and said that his followers were obligated to transgress as many moral boundaries as possible. At its height it claimed perhaps 50,000 followers, primarily Jews living in Poland, as well as in Central and Eastern Europe.
Lemba peopleThe Sena, Lemba, Remba, or Mwenye are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group which is native to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi. According to Tudor Parfitt, when he first worked in the field among the Lemba in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi in the 1980s, they numbered an estimated 50,000. Some of their religious practices and beliefs are similar to Jewish and Islamic practices and beliefs. According to Parfitt, the Lemba claim that they once had a book which described their traditions but it was lost.
Dhimmi(ذمي , ˈðimmiː, collectively أهل الذمة / "the people of the covenant") or (معاهد) is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. The word literally means "protected person", referring to the state's obligation under sharia to protect the individual's life, property, as well as freedom of religion, in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax, in contrast to the zakat, or obligatory alms, paid by the Muslim subjects.
Patriarchs (Bible)The patriarchs ( אבות Avot, singular אב Av) of the Bible, when narrowly defined, are Abraham, his son Isaac, and Isaac's son Jacob, also named Israel, the ancestor of the Israelites. These three figures are referred to collectively as the patriarchs, and the period in which they lived is known as the patriarchal age. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam hold that the patriarchs, along with their primary wives, known as the matriarchs (Sarah, Rebekah and Leah), are entombed at the Cave of the Patriarchs, a site held holy by the three religions.
CantonistCantonists (Russian language: кантонисты; more properly: военные кантонисты, "military cantonists") were underage sons of conscripts in the Russian Empire. From 1721 on they were educated in special "cantonist schools" (Кантонистские школы) for future military service (the schools were called garrison schools in the 18th century). The cantonist schools and the cantonist system were eventually abolished in 1857, following public and international criticism and the Russian defeat in the Crimean War.
GhettoA ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other areas of the city. Versions of the ghetto appear across the world, each with their own names, classifications, and groupings of people.The term was originally used for the Venetian Ghetto in Venice, Italy, as early as 1516, to describe the part of the city where Jewish people were restricted to live and thus segregated from other people.
AllahdadThe Allahdad (الله داد, ) was an 1839 pogrom perpetrated by Muslims against the Mashhadi Jewish community in the city of Mashhad, Qajar Iran. It was characterized by the mass-killing and forced conversion of the Jews in the area to Islam. Following this event, many of the Mashhadi Jews began to actively practice crypto-Judaism while superficially adhering to Islamic beliefs. The Allahdad incident was a prominent event in the ambivalent history of Jewish–Muslim relations due to the fact that an entire community of Jews were forced to convert, and it was one of the first times European Jewry intervened on behalf of Iranian Jews.
XuetaThe Xuetes (ʃuˈətə; singular Xueta, also known as Xuetons and spelled as Chuetas) are a social group on the Spanish island of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea, who are descendants of Majorcan Jews that either were conversos (forcible converts to Christianity) or were Crypto-Jews, forced to keep their religion hidden. They practiced strict endogamy by marrying only within their own group. Many of their descendants observe a syncretist form of Christian worship known as Xueta Christianity.
