Jews

Jews (Mediaeval French Juis, from Lat. Judcei), properly the descendants of rrrcrr Yehudah, Judah, fourth son of Jacob, but applied generally to the Hebrew people, who since the dispersion of the ten northern tribes have been mainly represented by the tribe of Judah, a remnant of Benjamin and a few Levites - that is, the section of the nation which to the number of some 50,000 returned to South Palestine (Judaea) after the Babylonian captivity. These were doubtless, later, joined by some of the dispersed northern tribes, from remote times distinguished as the "ten tribes of Israel" from Jacob's alternative name; but all such Israelites had lost their separate nationality, and were consequently absorbed in the royal tribe of Judah. Since the -destruction of Jerus'alem by Titus (A.D. 70), and the suppression of the two last revolts - that of the Cyrenaica Jews by Trajan (115-17), and that of the Palestine Jews under Barcokeba by Adrian (132-35) - the Judaei themselves have been a dispersed nationality, though numerous migrations and settlements had been made in various parts of the Greek and Roman worlds, in Arabia and Abyssinia, centuries before those events. The flourishing Jewish community of Alexandria was established under the first Ptolemy, and from that great centre large colonies had moved westwards to Cyrenaica and Tripolitana, some of whose descendants (the Troglodyte Jews of the limestone cliffs south of Tripoli) survive to the present day. But the great bulk of the scattered people descend from those of the great dispersion after the fall of Jerusalem, increased by numerous accessions from converted "Gentiles," for the assumption that they have made few or no converts is based on ignorance. In exile they have been far more a religious sect than a broken nation, and as such they could not fail under favourable conditions to spread their teachings, not only amongst their Christian slaves, but also amongst peoples of lower culture than themselves.

Apart from the Abyssinian Falashas [Falashas], in pie-Mohammedan times many Arab tribes of Yemen and other districts had conformed, and some of their Jewish kings (Asad Abu-Karib, Dhu Nowas, etc.) are still remembered. About the 7th century all the Khazars, a renowned Tatar people of the Volga, the Crimea, and the Caspian, accepted Judaism, though these were afterwards absorbed by the Russian Christians. The terrible persecution of the Spanish Jews under the Visigoth kings (5th and 6th centuries) appears to have been largely due to their proselytising zeal, against which, as well as against Jewish and Christian mixed marriages, numerous decrees of popes and councils were issued during mediaeval times. To this process of miscegenation is attributed the great variety of physical features observed amongst the Jews of different countries, while the distinctly red type cropping up almost everywhere has been traced by Sayce and others to primordial interminglings with the Amorites (" Red People"). Dr. Dally, a distinguished French anthropologist, declares that there are all kinds of Jews - brown, white, dark; Jews with black and with blue eyes; tall, short; concluding that, therefore, there is no longer any question of a Jewish race at all. Nevertheless, certain marked characteristics, such as large hooked nose, prominent watery eyes, thick and almost everted under lip, rough, frizzly, lustreless hair, flat feet, are sufficiently general to be regarded as racial traits. According toreturns made in various countries between the years 1880-92, the Jewish race, or at least the Jewish sect, numbers at present about 6,500,000, of whom 5,500,000 are in Europe, 250,000 in Asia, 420,000 in Africa, 300,000 in America, and 10,000 in Australasia. In 1891 they were estimated at 93,000 in the British Isles, of whom over 67,000are in London alone. The race is richly endowed with the most varied qualities, as shown by the whole tenour of their history. Originally pure nomads, they became excellent agriculturists after the settlement of the Promised Land, and since then they have given abundant proof of the highest capacity for poetry, literature, science, erudition of all kinds, music, and diplomacy. The reputation of the mediaeval Arabs as restorers of learning is largely due to their wise tolerance of the enlightened Jewish communities in their midst, and on the other hand Spain and Portugal have never recovered from the national loss sustained by the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula in the 14th and 15th centuries.