Judaism is frequently characterized as a text-centered tradition, anchored by the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible.³² Comprising 24 books written primarily in biblical Hebrew with portions in Aramaic, the Tanakh is an acronym formed from its three traditional divisions: Torah (Instruction or Law), Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings).³³ The Torah, also known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), is the holiest object and foundational legal source in Judaism.³⁴ For liturgical reading in the synagogue, the Torah is handwritten in Hebrew calligraphy on parchment scrolls by a trained scribe (sofer). The Nevi'im contain historical narratives of ancient Israel alongside the ethical and theological exhortations of the Hebrew prophets, while the Ketuvim encompass liturgical poetry, wisdom literature, and historical scrolls, including Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles.

Alongside the Written Torah, traditional Rabbinic Judaism maintains that God revealed an Oral Torah at Mount Sinai, transmitted across generations to explicate and apply the written commandments.³⁵ Following the destruction of the Second Temple and subsequent Roman persecutions, rabbinic sages codified this oral heritage to prevent its loss. Around 200 CE, Rabbi Judah the Prince compiled the Mishnah, a systematic legal compendium organized into six orders that records the debates and rulings of the early rabbinic sages. Over the next three centuries, rabbinic academies in the Land of Israel and in Babylonia produced extensive analytical commentaries, legal debates, and folkloric narratives surrounding the Mishnah, known as the Gemara. Together, the Mishnah and the Gemara constitute the Talmud. Two versions exist: the Jerusalem Talmud and the larger, more authoritative Babylonian Talmud, compiled around 500 CE, which serves as the primary basis of Jewish religious law and education.

Supplementing the Talmud is a vast body of rabbinic literature developed over two millennia.³⁶ Midrash consists of homiletical and legal interpretations that fill narrative gaps and draw moral lessons from the biblical text. To make the sprawling debates of the Talmud accessible for practical observance, medieval and early modern scholars produced systematic legal codes, most notably Maimonides' Mishneh Torah and Karo's four-part Shulchan Aruch, which organizes law into daily and festival observance (Orach Chayim), dietary and ritual laws (Yoreh De'ah), family and marriage law (Even HaEzer), and civil jurisprudence (Choshen Mishpat).³⁷ Jewish legal literature is continuously updated through responsa—written rulings issued by rabbinic authorities addressing new technological and social questions. In the realm of Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah, the preeminent text is the Zohar ("Book of Splendor"), an esoteric commentary on the Torah that investigates the inner nature of the divine.

Unlike Christianity, Judaism has no single, universally binding creed or central ecclesiastical authority capable of enforcing uniform dogma.³⁸ Because a person enters the Jewish community through birth or covenantal inclusion rather than a profession of faith, traditional Judaism has historically emphasized orthopraxy—correct ethical and ritual action—over rigid doctrinal formulations.³⁹ Nevertheless, distinct theological principles permeate Jewish scripture, liturgy, and philosophy. Foremost among these is strict ethical monotheism: the belief in one eternal, omniscient, and incorporeal God who created the universe, remains actively involved in human history, and demands moral righteousness and exclusive devotion.⁴⁰ This conviction is proclaimed twice daily in traditional liturgy through the recitation of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4), which affirms the absolute unity of God.

The most influential medieval synthesis of Jewish theology is the Thirteen Principles of Faith formulated by Maimonides in his twelfth-century Arabic commentary on the Mishnah (Tractate Sanhedrin, Chapter 10).⁴¹ Maimonides' articles affirm the existence, absolute unity, incorporeality, and eternity of God; the obligation to worship God alone; the reality of prophecy and the unmatched primacy of Moses' prophetic authority; the divine origin and immutability of the Torah; divine omniscience regarding human deeds alongsiderighteous reward and punishment; the eventual arrival of the Messiah (Mashiach); and the resurrection of the dead. Although debated by subsequent philosophers, these thirteen principles achieved widespread acceptance and were incorporated into standard Jewish prayer books in two liturgical forms: the prose Credo beginning Ani Ma'amin ("I believe") and the poetic hymn Yigdal.⁴²

Central to Jewish theology is the doctrine of the covenant (brit), an enduring reciprocal agreement in which God chose the people of Israel to serve as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation tasked with fulfilling divine commandments.⁴³ Rather than conferring innate superiority, chosenness in Jewish thought entails heightened responsibility and moral obligation. Humanity is understood as created in the divine image, endowed with free will and the capacity to choose between good and evil. While traditional Judaism affirms an afterlife (the "World to Come" or Olam Ha-Ba) and anticipates a human messianic descendant of King David who will usher in an age of universal peace, Jewish theology focuses primarily on sanctifying earthly life and repairing the physical world (tikkun olam) through justice, charity, and ethical conduct.

Religious practice in traditional Judaism is governed by halakha (literally "the way of walking"), the collective body of Jewish religious and civil law derived from the Written and Oral Torah.⁴⁴ Rabbinic tradition enumerates 613 commandments (mitzvot) in the Torah, divided into positive injunctions and negative prohibitions, which regulate both ritual duties toward God and ethical interpersonal obligations toward fellow human beings. Among the most prominent daily rules are the dietary laws of kashrut, which classify permissible ("kosher") and forbidden foods, prohibit the consumption of pork, shellfish, and blood, require the humane ritual slaughter of permitted mammals and fowl, and mandate the complete separation of meat and dairy products.

Time in Jewish life is structured by a lunisolar calendar of twelve (or periodically thirteen) lunar months aligned with the solar agricultural cycle.⁴⁵ The cornerstone of the calendar is Shabbat (the Sabbath), observed weekly from sundown on Friday until nightfall on Saturday as a day of rest, communal prayer, festive meals, and abstention from creative work. The annual holiday cycle begins in the autumn month of Tishrei with the High Holy Days: Rosh Hashanah, the two-day Jewish New Year marked by introspection and the sounding of the shofar (ram's horn), followed ten days later by Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the holiest day of the year, observed with a 25-hour fast and intensive synagogue prayer.⁴⁶ Three biblical pilgrimage festivals link historical memory with agricultural seasons: Pesach (Passover) in the spring, commemorating the Exodus from Egypt with a ritual Seder meal and unleavened bread; Shavuot (Weeks) in early summer, celebrating the giving of the Torah at Sinai; and Sukkot (Tabernacles) in autumn, when families dwell or dine in temporary outdoor booths, concluding with Simchat Torah, which celebrates the completion and restarting of the annual Torah-reading cycle. Minor festivals instituted in post-biblical times include Hanukkah, the eight-day winter festival of lights commemorating the Maccabean rededication of the Temple, and Purim, which marks the deliverance of Persian Jewry recounted in the Book of Esther. Somber fast days such as Tisha B'Av mourn the destruction of the Jerusalem Temples, while modern observances include Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day).

Individual existence is similarly sanctified through lifecycle rituals.⁴⁷ On the eighth day after birth, a Jewish boy undergoes brit milah (ritual circumcision), performed by a trained mohel as a physical sign of the Abrahamic covenant, accompanied by his formal naming.⁴⁸⁴⁹ Baby girls are welcomed into the covenant and given their Hebrew names during a synagogue or home ceremony known as zeved habat, brit bat, or simchat bat.⁵⁰ Religious majority is reached at age thirteen for boys (bar mitzvah, "son of the commandment") and age twelve or thirteen for girls (bat mitzvah, "daughter of the commandment"), marked by being called to read from the Torah and assuming adult religious responsibilities. Jewish marriage (kiddushin) takes place beneath a wedding canopy (chuppah) symbolizing the couple's new home, featuring the signing of an Aramaic marriage contract (ketubah) and the shattering of a glass to recall the destruction of Jerusalem. Upon death, Jewish law prescribes rapid, simple burial within one to three days, followed by a structured sequence of bereavement: a seven-day period of intensive home mourning (shiva), a thirty-day period of lesser mourning (shloshim), and, for the loss of a parent, eleven months of reciting the Mourner's Kaddish, an Aramaic prayer praising God in the presence of a communal quorum.

Contemporary Rabbinic Judaism is divided into several major religious movements, or denominations, which emerged primarily in Europe and North America in response to modern secularization and differing philosophies of halakha.⁵¹ Orthodox Judaism maintains that both the Written and Oral Torah are the exact, immutable word of God revealed at Sinai and that traditional halakha remains strictly binding.⁵² Orthodoxy itself encompasses two main streams: Modern Orthodoxy, which seeks to synthesize full halakhic observance with secular university education, modern careers, and civic engagement; and Haredi Judaism (often termed ultra-Orthodox), which favors social insulation, distinctive modest dress, and intensive lifelong study. The Haredi world is further divided between Hasidic dynasties—numbering approximately 400,000 adherents worldwide, centered in Israel and New York—and non-Hasidic "Yeshivish" or Lithuanian communities focused on rigorous Talmudic scholarship.

Reform Judaism, which originated in nineteenth-century Germany and represents the largest synagogue affiliation in the United States, emphasizes the primacy of Judaism's evolving ethical and prophetic traditions over ritual legalism. Reform theology affirms individual autonomy, encouraging adherents to adopt those practices that enhance their spiritual relationship with God while championing full gender egalitarianism and social justice. Occupying the theological center is Conservative Judaism (known outside North America as Masorti), which affirms the divine inspiration and binding nature of halakha while accepting modern historical-critical biblical scholarship. Conservative Judaism holds that Jewish law has always adapted to changing historical circumstances, entrusting legal evolution to rabbinic bodies such as its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. Smaller liberal streams include Reconstructionist Judaism, which developed in twentieth-century America and defines Judaism as the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people, having pioneered innovations such as the bat mitzvah ceremony.

Cross-cutting these ideological movements are historical geographic and ethnic divisions shaped by two millennia of diaspora dispersion. Ashkenazi Jews trace their lineage to medieval communities along the Rhine in Germany that migrated across Central and Eastern Europe, developing the Germanic-based Yiddish language along with distinct liturgical pronunciations and legal customs. Today, Ashkenazim constitute the vast majority of Jews in North America and Europe and approximately 32 percent of Israel's population. Sephardi Jews descend from the communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) who, following the 1492 expulsion, settled across North Africa, the Balkans, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, and the Americas, preserving the Romance-based Judeo-Spanish language known as Ladino. Mizrahi ("Eastern") Jews comprise those communities that remained continuously in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia from antiquity—including Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Egypt—and today form the largest ethnic group in Israel, accounting for roughly 40 to 45 percent of the country's total population. Additional historic communities with unique traditions include the Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel), the Bene Israel and Cochin Jews of India, the Kavkazi Jews of the Caucasus, and the Bukharan Jews of Uzbekistan.⁵³

As of 2026, demographers estimate the world's core Jewish population—defined as individuals who self-identify exclusively as Jewish—at between 15.74 million and 16.5 million, approaching but not yet surpassing the pre-Holocaust historical peak of 16.6 million in 1939. When broader demographic criteria are applied, such as counting individuals with at least one Jewish parent or non-Jewish household members, the "enlarged" global population reaches roughly 20 million.⁵⁴ World Jewry is heavily concentrated in two hubs: Israel, home to between 7.15 million and 7.83 million Jews (roughly 45 to 46 percent of the global total), and the United States, with a core population of about 6.3 million (or up to 7.5 million under broader Pew Research Center definitions).⁵⁵ Other nations with core populations exceeding 100,000 include France (438,500), Canada (398,000 to 400,000), the United Kingdom (312,000 to 313,000), Argentina (170,000 to 171,000), Russia (132,000), Germany (125,000), and Australia (117,200). Recent global demographic growth of roughly 0.5 to 0.6 percent annually has been driven almost entirely by high fertility rates in Israel and among Orthodox and Haredi populations, while non-Orthodox diaspora populations experience low birth rates and high rates of interfaith marriage.

A persistent source of internal controversy in modern Judaism is the legal and social question of "Who is a Jew?".⁵⁶⁵⁷ Under classic rabbinic halakha, codified in the Mishnah and upheld today by Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, Jewish status is transmitted exclusively through matrilineal descent: a child is Jewish by birth only if born to a Jewish mother, whereas the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother must undergo formal conversion (giyur) to be recognized as halakhically Jewish.⁵⁸ By contrast, in 1983 the Central Conference of American Rabbis (representing the Reform movement), alongside Reconstructionist Judaism, adopted a resolution recognizing patrilineal as well as matrilineal descent, accepting the child of any one Jewish parent as Jewish provided the child is raised exclusively as a Jew with public acts of identification. Furthermore, Orthodox authorities generally reject conversions performed by Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist rabbinical courts because those movements do not require prospective converts to commit to traditional halakhic observance.

These denominational disagreements intersect with civil law and politics in the State of Israel. Israel's secular Law of Return grants automatic citizenship rights (aliyah) to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent or to converts from any recognized movement, yet the state's Chief Rabbinate, which holds a legal monopoly over Jewish marriage, divorce, and burial in Israel, applies strict Orthodox halakhic standards. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and diaspora Jews recognized by liberal movements or civil authorities are not considered halakhically Jewish by the Israeli religious establishment. Inside Israel, societal fault lines also persist between secular and Haredi populations over military conscription, public Sabbath restrictions, and state funding for religious seminaries (yeshivot), while globally, Jewish communities continue to navigate debates over gender roles in leadership, assimilation, and rising antisemitism.