All Questions
Tagged with communities history
13 questions
9
votes
1
answer
167
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Were there divergent calendar practices after the calendar was made into a fixed calculation
There are some debates about the details of calendar calculations among earlier Poskim about how to calculate the calendar, especially around pushing Rosh Hashana off deliberately.
For example, ...
- 32.3k
5
votes
2
answers
261
views
How did Chazal attain its continued acceptance?
My question is: How did Chazal attain its authority? More specifically, how did the Pharisees who evolved into Chazal beat out the Sadducees who would later become practically extinct (some say that ...
- 51
5
votes
2
answers
360
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German and Ethiopian Jews in the time of the Mishna?
According to Negaim 3:1, the laws of negaim only apply to Jews (הכל מטּמאין בנגעים חוץ מגוים), but according to Negaim 2:1 they apply to people from Germany (גרמני) and Ethiopia (or Numibia, etc; ״כוש״...
- 19.1k
4
votes
1
answer
518
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What was the status of the Pharisees, and their relationship with the Temple authorities in the early first century?
One of the many mistakes made by the authors of the Christian gospels is attributing the state of affairs in their own time to the time they are trying to describe. An example of this error is the ...
- 2,110
7
votes
1
answer
421
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Who were the Therapeutae?
I recently found a Wikipedia page about a supposed sect of Jews in first century Alexandria called the Therapeutae. According to various pages, they lived as monks, isolating themselves and studying ...
- 20.2k
11
votes
1
answer
1k
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Precedent for Forbidding Conversion
The Syrian community has a Takkanah in place which bars conversion. In addition to forbidding conversion under their own auspices, they also "Never accept a convert or a child born of a convert", as ...
user5540
2
votes
1
answer
313
views
How did the different groups within Judaism develop?
How have the various groups and movements (like chassidism, Modern Orthodox, Conservative, etc) within Judaism evolved?
For example I'm looking for the following except starting with Judaism and with ...
- 315
9
votes
1
answer
1k
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Who are the Kutim, and what happened to them?
In the Yerushalmi Pesachim on daf Bet amud Bet, it talks about the "Kutim" and how whenever they keep a mitzvah, they are more exacting/cautious about it than the Jews. Who are these Kutim, why does ...
- 1,890
16
votes
2
answers
687
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Were there any sages who supported the Zealots during the siege of Jerusalem?
In Gittin 56a-b, we read how the sages warned the Zealots (a.k.a. the Biryonim) to not wage war with the Romans who were holding Jerusalem under siege, but that the Biryonim set fire to the store ...
- 16.3k
15
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Is there a Chief Rabbi of the United States?
Is there currently or has there ever been historically a Chief Rabbi of the United States? If not, why not?
user2110
13
votes
2
answers
2k
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Why was Chassidus controversial?
When Chassidus came about, it was very controversial. The Vilna Gaon even put Chassidim in cherem. What were the reasons for the controversy? And why is there peace and mutual respect today between ...
- 893
4
votes
1
answer
1k
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Hebrew Havarah?
Similar to this question
Different parts of Eastern Europe had different dialects.
For example, Ukrainian, Polish and Hungarian Jews pronounce a "Shuruk" as a EE, or a Komatz as an oo (so Boruch ...
- 40.8k
6
votes
1
answer
829
views
Who were the Magharians?
Title says it all. Who were the Magharians? It seems like they were some group of Pre-Christianity Jews or something like that that lived in caves?
- 6,033