Unit 2 World Religion

Abraham

Hebrew Bible patriarch and father of the so called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Adam and Eve

First biblical characters, exiled from the Garden of Eden after they defied God’s commandment by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge

Bar Mitzvah

Coming of age ritual for Jewish boys

Bat Mitzvah

Coming of age ritual for Jewish girls

Circumcision

Ritual cutting of the male foreskin; sign of the covenant between God and Abraham

David

King who united Israel’s northern and southern kingdoms

Ethical Monotheism

Form of single-god belief that describes God as lawgiver and judge and emphasizes religion’s ethical dimensions

Exodus

Influential biblical story narrating the escape of Moses and the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land

God

The one true divinity, referred to by Jews as Adonai or Elohim

Halacha

Jewish law

Hanukkah

Jewish festival of lights, which last for eight days

Haredim

Strictly Orthodox Jews, sometimes referred to as the ultra Orthodox

Hasidism

Orthodox school of the “pious,” which emphasizes prayer over study and the heart over the head

Hillel

Early rabbi whose debates with Shammai play a central role in the Talmud

Holocaust (Shoah)

Systematic persecution and mass murder of Jews in concentration camps by Nazi Germany and its collaborators before and during World War II

Israel

“People of God”; nation-state founded in 1948

Israelite Religion

Proto-Jewish religious tradition focused on priestly sacrifices on the Jerusalem Temple