Editing Jewish diaspora (section)

===Modern era===

====Israeli Jews====
Jews of Israel comprise an increasingly mixed wide range of Jewish communities making [[aliyah]] from Europe, North Africa, and elsewhere in the Middle East. While a significant portion of [[Israeli Jews]] still retain memories of their Sephardic, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi origins, mixed Jewish marriages among the communities are very common. There are also smaller groups of Yemenite Jews, Indian Jews and others, who still retain a semi-separate communal life. There are also approximately 50,000 adherents of [[Karaite Judaism]], most of whom live in Israel, but their exact numbers are not known, because most Karaites have not participated in any religious censuses. The [[Beta Israel]], though somewhat disputed as the descendants of the ancient Israelites, are widely recognized in Israel as Ethiopian Jews.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

====American Jews====
{{See also|List of American Jews}}
[[File:Welcome to the land of freedom.png|thumb|250px|European Jewish immigrants arriving in New York]]
The ancestry of most [[American Jews]] goes back to [[Ashkenazi Jewish]] communities that immigrated to the US in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as more recent influxes of Persian and other Mizrahi Jewish immigrants. The American Jewish community is considered to contain the highest percentage of mixed marriages between Jews and non-Jews, resulting in both increased assimilation and a significant influx of non-Jews becoming identified as Jews. The most widespread practice in the U.S. is [[Reform Judaism]], which does not require members to prove, or consider the Jews to possess direct descent from the ethnic Jews or Biblical Israelites.<ref>{{Cite web |title=How does Reform Judaism define who is a Jew? |url=https://reformjudaism.org/learning/answers-jewish-questions/how-does-reform-judaism-define-who-jew |website=Reform Judaism.org}}</ref> These attitudes had been present in Reform Judaism for many years but were codified in a 1983 decree by the [[Central Conference of American Rabbis]], ''On Patrilineal Descent''. Among other assertions, the 1983 decree holds that [[Matrilineality in Judaism|matrilineal descent]] is not necessary for a person to be considered Jewish.<ref>{{Cite web |title=On Patrilineal Descent Archives |url=https://www.ccarnet.org/responsa-topics/on-patrilineal-descent/ |access-date=2024-12-29 |website=Central Conference of American Rabbis |language=en-US}}</ref> This is in marked contrast to [[Orthodox Judaism]], whose adherents represent around 30% of the Jews in Israel. Orthodox Judaism considers the Jewish people to be a closed ethnoreligious community and consequently possesses very strict procedures for conversion, a practice that it does not generally encourage.<ref>{{Cite web |last=adubin |title=Home |url=https://judaismconversion.org/ |access-date=2024-12-29 |website=Judaism Conversion |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Conversions - RabbiDov.com |url=https://rabbidov.com/conversions#:~:text=Orthodox%20Jewish%20practice%20does%20not%20encourage%20conversions%20to%20Judaism |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240125095658/https://rabbidov.com/conversions#:~:text=Orthodox%20Jewish%20practice%20does%20not%20encourage%20conversions%20to%20Judaism |archive-date=2024-01-25 |access-date=2024-12-29 |work=RabbiDov.com |language=en-US |url-status=live }}</ref>

====French Jews====
[[File:1182 french expulsion of jews.jpg|thumb|Expulsion of French Jews, 1182]]
The Jews of modern France number around 400,000 persons, largely descendants of North African communities, some of which were Sephardic communities that had come from Spain and Portugal—others were Arab and [[Berber Jews]] from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, who were already living in North Africa before the Jewish exodus from the Iberian Peninsula—and to a smaller degree members of the Ashkenazi Jewish communities, who survived WWII and the [[Holocaust]].

====Mountain Jews====
{{Main|Mountain Jews}}
Mountain Jews are [[Jew]]s from the eastern and northern slopes of the [[Caucasus]], mainly [[Azerbaijan]], [[Chechnya]] and [[Dagestan]]. They are the descendants of [[Persian Jews]] from [[Iran]].<ref>{{Cite web|title = Mountain Jews - Tablet Magazine – Jewish News and Politics, Jewish Arts and Culture, Jewish Life and Religion|url = http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/42649/mountain-jews|website = Tablet Magazine|date = 26 August 2010|access-date = 2015-12-27}}</ref>

====Bukharan Jews====
{{Main|Bukharan Jews}}
Bukharan Jews are an ethnic group from Central Asia who historically practised Judaism and spoke Bukhori, a dialect of the Tajik-Persian language.

====Kaifeng Jews====
{{Main|Kaifeng Jews}}
The Kaifeng Jews are members of a small [[History of the Jews in China|Jewish]] community in [[Kaifeng]], in the [[Henan]] province of [[China]] who have assimilated into Chinese society while preserving some Jewish traditions and customs.

====Cochin Jews====
{{Main|Cochin Jews}}
Cochin Jews, also called Malabar Jews, are the oldest group of [[Indian Jews|Jews in India]], with possible roots that are claimed to date back to the time of [[King Solomon]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=qhKGPprbQaYC&q=two+millennia ''The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities''] by Orpa Slapak. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 2003. p. 27. {{ISBN|965-278-179-7}}.</ref><ref>Weil, Shalva. "Jews in India." in M. Avrum Erlich (ed.) ''Encyclopaedia of the Jewish Diaspora'', Santa Barbara, USA: ABC CLIO. 2008, 3: 1204-1212.</ref> The Cochin Jews settled in the [[Kingdom of Cochin]] in [[South India]],<ref>Weil, Shalva. ''India's Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life-Cycle,'' Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2009. [first published in 2002; 3rd edn] Katz 2000; Koder 1973; Menachery 1998</ref> now part of the state of [[Kerala]].<ref>Weil, Shalva. "Cochin Jews", in Carol R. Ember, Melvin Ember and Ian Skoggard (eds) ''Encyclopedia of World Cultures Supplement'', New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2002. pp. 78-80.</ref><ref>Weil, Shalva.  "Cochin Jews" in Judith Baskin (ed.)'' Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture'', New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. pp. 107.</ref> As early as the 12th century, mention is made of the Black Jews in southern India. The Jewish traveler, [[Benjamin of Tudela]], speaking of [[Kollam]] (Quilon) on the Malabar Coast, writes in his ''Itinerary'': "...throughout the island, including all the towns thereof, live several thousand Israelites. The inhabitants are all black, and the Jews also. The latter are good and benevolent. They know the [[law of Moses]] and the prophets, and to a small extent the [[Talmud]] and [[Halacha]]."<ref>''The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela'' (ed. Marcus Nathan Adler), Oxford University Press, London 1907, p. 65</ref> These people later became known as the Malabari Jews. They built synagogues in [[Kerala]] beginning in the 12th and 13th centuries.<ref name="isjm">Weil, Shalva. ''From Cochin to Israel''. Jerusalem: Kumu Berina, 1984. (Hebrew)</ref><ref>Weil, Shalva. "Kerala to restore 400-year-old Indian synagogue", ''The Jerusalem Post''. 2009.</ref> They are known to have developed [[Judeo-Malayalam]], a dialect of the [[Malayalam]] language.

====Paradesi Jews====
{{Main|Paradesi Jews}}
Paradesi Jews are mainly the descendants of [[Sephardic]] Jews who originally immigrated to India from Sepharad (Spain and Portugal) during the 15th and 16th centuries in order to flee forced conversion or persecution in the wake of the [[Alhambra Decree]] which expelled the Jews from Spain. They are sometimes referred to as White Jews, although that usage is generally considered pejorative or discriminatory and it is instead used to refer to relatively recent Jewish immigrants (end of the 15th century onwards), who are predominantly Sephardim.<ref name="Orpa Slapak"/>

The Paradesi Jews of Cochin are a community of Sephardic Jews whose ancestors settled among the larger [[Cochin Jews|Cochin Jewish]] community located in [[Kerala]], a coastal southern state of India.<ref name="Orpa Slapak">The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities by Orpa Slapak. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 2003. p. 28. {{ISBN|965-278-179-7}}.</ref>

The Paradesi Jews of [[Madras]] traded in diamonds, precious stones and corals, they had very good relations with the rulers of Golkonda, they maintained trade connections with Europe, and their language skills were useful. Although the Sephardim spoke [[Judaeo-Spanish|Ladino]] (i.e. Spanish or Judeo-Spanish), in India they learned to speak [[Tamil language|Tamil]] and [[Judeo-Malayalam]] from the Malabar Jews.<ref name=Katz-Koder-Puthiakunnel>Katz 2000; Koder 1973; Thomas Puthiakunnel 1973</ref>{{full citation needed|date=May 2016}}

====Georgian Jews====
{{Main|Georgian Jews}}
The Georgian Jews are considered ethnically and culturally distinct from neighboring Mountain Jews. They were also traditionally a highly separate group from the Ashkenazi Jews in Georgia.

====Krymchaks====
{{Main|Krymchaks}}
The Krymchaks are Jewish ethno-religious communities of Crimea derived from Turkic-speaking adherents of Orthodox Judaism.

====Anusim====
{{Main|Anusim}}
During the history of the Jewish diaspora, Jews who lived in Christian Europe were often attacked by the local Christian population, and they were often [[forced to convert to Christianity]]. Many, known as "Anusim" ('forced-ones'), continued practicing Judaism in secret while living outwardly as ordinary Christians. The best known Anusim communities were the [[Jews of Spain]] and the [[Jews of Portugal]], although they existed throughout Europe. In the centuries since the rise of [[Islam]], many Jews living in the [[Muslim world]] were [[forced to convert to Islam]],{{Citation needed|date=October 2015}} such as the [[Mashhad]]i Jews of [[Persia]], who continued to practice Judaism in secret and eventually [[aliyah|moved to Israel]]. Many of the Anusim's descendants left Judaism over the years. The results of a genetic study of the population of the [[Iberian Peninsula]] released in December 2008 "attest to a high level of religious conversion (whether voluntary or enforced) driven by historical episodes of religious intolerance, which ultimately led to the integration of the Anusim's descendants.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Adams |first1=Susan M. |last2=Bosch |first2=Elena |last3=Balaresque |first3=Patricia L. |last4=Ballereau |first4=Stéphane J. |last5=Lee |first5=Andrew C. |last6=Arroyo |first6=Eduardo |last7=López-Parra |first7=Ana M. |last8=Aler |first8=Mercedes |last9=Grifo |first9=Marina S. Gisbert |last10=Brion |first10=Maria |last11=Carracedo |first11=Angel |last12=Lavinha |first12=João |last13=Martínez-Jarreta |first13=Begoña |last14=Quintana-Murci |first14=Lluis |last15=Picornell |first15=Antònia |last16=Ramon |first16=Misericordia |last17=Skorecki |first17=Karl |last18=Behar |first18=Doron M. |last19=Calafell |first19=Francesc |last20=Jobling |first20=Mark A. |title=The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula |journal=The American Journal of Human Genetics |date=12 December 2008 |volume=83 |issue=6 |pages=725–736 |doi=10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.11.007 |pmid=19061982 |pmc=2668061}}</ref>

====Modern Samaritans====
{{Main|Samaritans}}
The Samaritans, who comprised a comparatively large group in classical times, now number 745 people, and today they live in two communities in [[Israel]] and the [[West Bank]], and they still regard themselves as descendants of the tribes of Ephraim (named by them as ''Aphrime'') and Manasseh (named by them as ''Manatch''). Samaritans adhere to a version of the [[Torah]] known as the [[Samaritan Pentateuch]], which differs in some respects from the [[Masoretic text]], sometimes in important ways, and less so from the [[Septuagint]].

The Samaritans consider themselves ''Bnei Yisrael'' ("Children of Israel" or "Israelites"), but they do not regard themselves as ''Yehudim'' (Jews). They view the term "Jews" as a designation for followers of Judaism, which they assert is a related but an altered and amended religion which was brought back by the exiled Israelite returnees, and is therefore not the true religion of the ancient Israelites, which according to them is [[Samaritanism]].