Editing Jewish identity (section)

== History ==

=== Second Temple period ===
{{See also|Second Temple period#Identity}}In [[classical antiquity]], the Jewish people were constantly identified by [[Ancient Greece|Greek]], [[Ancient Rome|Roman]], and Jewish authors as an ''ethnos'', one of the several ''ethne'' living in the [[Greco-Roman world]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Citation |last=Goldenberg |first=Robert |title=The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple: its meaning and its consequences |date=2006 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-judaism/destruction-of-the-jerusalem-temple-its-meaning-and-its-consequences/A3D597AAE094CCFDCCE188FFD48CD16C |work=The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period |volume=4 |pages=202–203 |editor-last=Katz |editor-first=Steven T. |access-date=2023-03-31 |series=The Cambridge History of Judaism |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/chol9780521772488.009 |isbn=978-0-521-77248-8|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Van Maaren utilizes the six attributes that co-ethnics share, as identified by Hutchinson and Smith, to show why ancient Jews may be considered an [[ethnic group]] in modern terminology.<ref name=":0">{{Citation |last=Van Maaren |first=John |title=The Ethnic Boundary Making Model: Preliminary Marks |date=2022-05-23 |url= |work=The Boundaries of Jewishness in the Southern Levant 200 BCE–132 CE |pages=5 |publisher=De Gruyter |access-date=}}</ref> Those include:

# A [[Ethnonym|common proper name]] that identifies and conveys the "essence" of its community. In antiquity, three proper names were used to refer to the Jewish ethnos, namely: "Hebrew", "Israel", and "Jews".<ref name=":0" />
# A myth of [[Common descent|common ancestry]]. In the Jewish case, of descent from eponymous ancestor [[Jacob|Jacob/Israel]]; additionally, the putative descent from [[Abraham]] was used to expand definitions of Jewishness by the [[Hasmonean dynasty|Hasmoneans]] and contested by others.<ref name=":0" />
# Shared memories of the past, including historical events and heroes. Jewish sacred books' accounts of historical events serve as a basic collection of those. Stories and figures narrated in the [[Hebrew Bible]] and other writings were further ingrained in the collective Jewish identity by the community reading of these books in synagogues. That includes figures such as the [[Patriarchs (Bible)|Patriarchs]], [[Moses]] and [[David]], and events including [[the Exodus]], the [[Mount Sinai (Bible)|covenant at Mount Sinai]], the heyday of the [[Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy)|united monarchy]], the [[Babylonian captivity]], the [[Antiochus IV Epiphanes|Antiochene]] persecutions, and the [[Maccabean Revolt|Maccabean revolt]].<ref name=":0" />
# One or more aspects of common culture, which are not necessitated to be specified, but typically include [[religion]], [[language]], and [[Tradition|customs]]. There were significant overlaps between the religion, languages, customs, and other cultural aspects shared by ancient Jews; moreover, religion cannot be separated from other cultural aspects, especially in ancient times. The worship of the [[God in Judaism|God of Israel]], the work of the [[Temple in Jerusalem|cult at Jerusalem]] and other cultic sites, and the following of particular [[Minhag|Jewish customs]] ([[Kashrut|dietary laws]], [[Shabbat|Sabbath observance]], etc.) were major aspects of Jewishness at the period. Despite the fact that not all Jews spoke the same language, because many of the sacred writings were written in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], it also served as a symbol for Jews who did not speak the language.<ref name=":0" />
# A connection to a [[homeland]], which need not be physically occupied by the ethnic group in order for it to have symbolic attachment to the place of origin, as is the case for diaspora populations. In the Jewish case, this is the [[Land of Israel]], or [[Judea|Judaea]]/[[Palestine (region)|Palaestina]]. For both the local Jews and those residing abroad, the land held symbolic value. It endures, despite the Land's borders frequently shifting and occasionally disappearing throughout time.<ref name=":0" />
# A sense of solidary on the part of at least some sections of the ethnic population. The strength of this sentiment varies. [[Josephus]] reports that when the [[First Jewish–Roman War|First Jewish-Roman War]] broke out, the Jews of [[Beit She'an|Scythopolis]] joined the city in defending it from Jewish rebels, possibly indicating they had a weaker sense of solidarity for the Jewish ethnos.<ref name=":0"/> However, they were later betrayed and killed by their fellow townsmen, a situation Josephus appears to present as a lesson against trusting non-Jews over Jews during times of conflict.<ref>{{Citation |last=Ritter |first=Bradley |title=9 The Crisis of Judean Civic Life in the Cities of Syria and Coele-Syria before and after the Jewish Revolt |date=2015-01-01 |work=Judeans in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire |page=261 |url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789004292352/B9789004292352_010.xml |access-date=2025-01-02 |publisher=Brill |language=en |doi=10.1163/9789004292352_010 |isbn=978-90-04-29235-2|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
[[Anthony D. Smith]], an historical sociologist considered one of the founders of the [[Interdisciplinarity|interdisciplinary field]] of [[nationalism studies]], however, wrote that the Jews of the late Second Temple period provide "a closer approximation to the ideal type of the [[nation]] [...] than perhaps anywhere else in the ancient world." He adds that this observation "must make us wary of pronouncing too readily against the possibility of the nation, and even a form of [[religious nationalism]], before the onset of modernity."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Anthony D. |title=National Identity |date=1993 |publisher=University of Nevada Press |isbn=978-0-87417-204-1 |edition=Reprint |series=Ethnonationalism in comparative perspective |location=Reno Las Vegas |pages=48–50}}</ref> Historian David Goodblatt writes that there is a "distinct possibility of finding premodern groups that meet the criteria for a nation (not just for ethnicity), with the Jews providing perhaps the clearest example".<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Goodblatt |first=David |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/elements-of-ancient-jewish-nationalism/68B5269393825257297A43E197C94A12 |title=Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-86202-8 |location=Cambridge |pages=11–12 |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511499067}}</ref> Agreeing with Smith, Goodblatt proposes dropping the qualifier "religious" in the definition of Jewish nationalism by Smith, noting that according to Smith himself, a religious component in national memories and culture is common even in the modern era.<ref name=":2" /> This view is echoed by political scientist [[Tom Garvin]], who writes that "something strangely like modern nationalism is documented for many peoples in medieval times and in classical times as well," citing the ancient Jews as one of several "obvious examples", alongside the [[Classical Greece|classical Greeks]], the [[Gauls]] and the [[British Iron Age|British Celts]].<ref>Tom Garvin, “Ethnic Markers, Modern Nationalisms, and the Nightmare of History,” in Kruger, ed., ¨ Ethnicity and Nationalism, p. 67.</ref>

[[Adrian Hastings]] argued that Jews are the "true proto-nation", that through the model of ancient Israel found in the Hebrew Bible, provided the world with the original concept of nationhood which later influenced Christian nations. However, following [[Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)|Jerusalem's destruction]] in the first century CE, Jews ceased to be a political entity and did not resemble a traditional nation-state for almost two millennia. Despite this, they maintained their national identity through collective memory, religion and sacred texts, even without land or political power, and remained a nation rather than just an ethnic group, eventually leading to the rise of [[Zionism]] and the establishment of Israel.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hastings |first=Adrian |title=The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1997 |isbn=0-521-59391-3 |location=Cambridge |pages=186–187}}</ref>

The writings of [[Philo]], a Jewish philosopher from [[Alexandria]] who flourished in the first half of the first century CE, reflect on Jewish identity in the diaspora during the late Second Temple period. At the time Philo lived, Jews had been present in the Diaspora, particularly in Alexandria, for a very long time. Because his fellow nationals had lived there for many generations, Philo appears to have regarded Alexandria as his city. To explain the status of the Jews in terms Greek readers would understand, Philo depicted them as immigrants who established "colonies" (Greek: ''[[apoikiai]]''), with Jerusalem serving as their "mother-city" (''metropolis''). According to Kasher, Alexandria could only be regarded as a homeland in a political sense because it was the site of a Jewish "colony," structured as a distinct ethnic union with a recognized political and legal status (''politeuma''), with Jerusalem being the colony's mother-city.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Seland |first=Torrey |date=2010-01-01 |title='Colony' and 'metropolis' in Philo. Examples of Mimicry and Hybridity in Philo's writing back from the Empire? |url=https://journals.openedition.org/etudesplatoniciennes/621 |journal=Études platoniciennes |language=en |issue=7 |pages=11–33 |doi=10.4000/etudesplatoniciennes.621 |issn=2275-1785 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

=== Late antiquity ===
Jewish identity underwent a significant shift in the centuries that followed the [[Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)|destruction of the Temple]] in 70 CE. The initial conception of the Jews as an ''ethnos'', albeit one with a distinctive religious culture, gradually shifted to that of a religious community that also identified as a nation.<ref name=":1" />

In the aftermath of the [[First Jewish–Roman War]], the [[Fiscus Judaicus]] was imposed on all Jews in the Roman Empire, replacing the annual [[Half shekel|half-shekel tribute]] that Jews paid to the Temple in Jerusalem. It appears that the Romans chose to use Jewish religious behavior rather than Jewish ancestry to determine tax liability, and this Roman interference in Jewish tax-collection may have prompted this transformation in Jewish identity.<ref name=":1" /> The process was accelerated by the Christianization of the Roman Empire. In [[Christian theology]], ethnic identity held little significance, and Jews were primarily valued for their religious heritage, seen as foundational to the development of [[New Covenant theology|the new covenant]]. This ideological framework further influenced perceptions of Jewish identity, emphasizing religious rather than ethnic or national aspects.<ref name=":1" />