Jewish, Parsi, Christian, Muslim and Hinduism: ( part-2) By Lokanath Mishra, Katy, USA ————-/————————- American Jewish Committee has stressed the importance of freedom of worship and maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as “Har HaBayit,” located in the Old City of Jerusalem, is considered one of the holiest sites in Judaism and Islam, and is central to the Christian Gospels. It is also known as Haram al-Sharif in Islam, which means "The Noble Sanctuary." For decades it has been one of the most politically sensitive areas globally. Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and others like the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade have abused the spiritual significance of the holy site as a means to incite violence against Israel.The Temple Mount has a long and complex history, with significant religious and historical importance for each of the Abrahamic faiths. For Jews, the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism and is where the First and Second Holy Temples, which were destroyed in ancient times, once stood. The area served as the spiritual center of the Jewish people for centuries, and it remains a focal point of Jewish liturgy and collective identity. For Muslims, Al-Aqsa at the Haram Al-Sharif was the destination of the Prophet Muhammad on a miraculous Night Journey from Mecca, according to Islamic tradition. From the stone housed in the Dome of the Rock, he is said to have ascended to heaven in a prophetic vision to meet the biblical prophets. It was also the first site toward which Muhammad and his followers directed prayers before they started facing the Ka’ba in Mecca. As a result, the sacred precinct of Al-Aqsa Mosque is considered one of the three holiest sites in Islam.Israel gained control over the Temple Mount during the 1967 Six-Day War when Israeli forces captured the Old City of Jerusalem, which includes the Temple Mount, from Jordan. After Israel took control of the Temple Mount, it granted the Islamic Waqf responsibility for the administration of the site. The Islamic Waqf was first established by Muslim military leader Saladin in 1187 CE, following his recapture of Jerusalem from the Crusaders. From 1948 to 1967, Jordan controlled the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount complex. During this time, the 35 synagogues of Jerusalem’s Old City were destroyed or used to house animals and refuse, Jewish cemeteries were vandalized, and Jewish Torah scrolls and holy books were plundered and burned. Jews were also forbidden from praying or visiting the Western Wall. Jordan’s occupation came to an end as a result of the 1967 Six-Day War when Israel captured these territories. The 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty established a special relationship between Jordan and the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. Under the treaty, Jordan has the role of custodian of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, including the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. This is carried out by the Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem which is part of the Jordanian Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs. Jordan also provides financial support for the maintenance and restoration of the sites. Most recently Jordan’s role was documented in last month’s quadrilateral meeting with American, Israeli, Jordanian, and Egyptian officials in Sharm el-Sheikh. In the joint communique the four countries “reiterated the commitment of upholding unchanged the historic status quo at the Holy Sites in Jerusalem, both in word and in practice, and reaffirmed in this context the importance of the Hashemite Custodianship/special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.” Temple was of central importance in Jewish worship in the Tanakh (Old Testament). In the New Testament, Herod's Temple was the site of several events in the life of Jesus, and Christian loyalty to the site as a focal point remained long after his death. Jews are an ethnoreligious group including those born Jewish (or "ethnic Jews"), in addition to converts to Judaism. The most important teaching and tenet of Judaism is that there is one God, incorporeal and eternal, who wants all people to do what is just and merciful. All people are created in the image of God and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Judaism is the religion and the way of life of the Jewish people. It is the oldest of the monotheistic faiths in the Abrahamic tradition which include Christianity and Muslim . 4 beliefs of Judaism - God is personal and accessible. God is interested in each individual. God listens to each individual. God sometimes speaks to individuals, but in unexpected ways. The Jewish community has been living in India since 75 CE and comprises a tiny but important part of the population. Many Jews settled in India after fleeing coastal areas of what is now Israel after the fall of King Solomon’s second temple. They sought to avoid persecution from the Greeks. There are five Indian Jewish communities — the Bene Israelis of western India, the Bnei Menashe Jews of Northeast India, the Bene Ephraims of Andhra Pradesh, the Baghdadi Jews of West Bengal and the Cochin Jews of Kerala. Despite living in different corners of India, they are still bound by the common thread of food and religion. Over the years, members have stuck to the dietary laws and integrated Indian habits with their customs, leading to some unique ceremonies and rituals that have been passed down from one generation to another. Ancient trade and cultural communication between India and the Levant is documented in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and the accounts surrounding the Queen of Sheba in the Hebrew Bible. Bhavishya Purana is regarded by a number of scholars to have predicted Judaism's prophet Moses, and similar parallels are found in the Vedas. The trade relations of both communities can be traced back to 1,000 BCE and earlier to the time of the Indus Valley civilisation of the Indian subcontinent and the Babylonian culture of Middle East. A Buddhist story describes Indian merchants visiting Baveru (Babylonia) and selling peacocks for public display. Similar, earlier accounts describe monkeys exhibited to the public. The Torah has also been helpful for understanding relations between these two traditions. Geographical analysis of Israel suggests that the authors of Torah were talking about India, where the selling of animals such as monkeys and peacocks existed. Trade connections between India and Mediterranean Jewish communities continued, and later, the languages of these cultures started to share linguistic similarities. Jews never faced persecution by Hindus, neither are there any records of Hindus facing persecution at the hands of Jews as both communities share a history of being oppressed, discriminated & forced to convert. The creation of Israel as a Jewish state by Zionists was supported by Hindu nationalists who wanted to make undivided India a Hindu state . The world's first Jewish-Hindu interfaith leadership summit, led by the World Council of Religious Leaders, Hindu organisations in India and Jewish organisations in Israel, as well as the American Jewish Committee, was held in New Delhi in February 2007. Jews have lived in India for over 2,000 years and have never been discriminated against. This is something unparalleled in human history. Swami Dayananda recognized the similarities of both religions and pointed to the belief in One supreme being, non-conversion, oral recitation of the Veda and the Torah, and the special importance of peace and non-violence. Savarupananda Saraswatiji explained that "Both the Hindu and Jewish communities have a lot in common, we need to discover and nurture these areas for the benefit of millions of people." This meeting included Rabbis such as Daniel Sperber, Yona Metzger, and others. They affirmed a number of points, one of which was: Their respective traditions teach that there is one supreme being who is the ultimate reality, who has created this world in its blessed diversity and who has communicated Divine ways of action for humanity, for different people in different times and places. In 2008, a second Hindu-Jewish summit took place in Jerusalem. Included in the summit was a meeting between Hindu groups and then Israeli President Shimon Peres, where the importance of a strong Israeli-Indian relationship was discussed. The Hindu delegation also met with Israeli politicians Isaac Herzog and Majalli Whbee. Hindu groups visited and said their prayers at the Western Wall, and also paid their respects to Holocaust victims. In 2009, a smaller Hindu-Jewish interfaith meeting organized by the World council of Religious Leaders, Hindu American Foundation and the American Jewish Committee was held in New York and Washington. Hindu and Jewish representatives gave presentations, and participants wore lapel pins combining the Israeli, Indian, and American flags. About 5,000 Jews reside in India today. The Bnei Menashe are a group of more than 9,000 Jews from the Indian states Manipur and Mizoram who have resided in India since as early as 8th century BCE. Many Jews take vipassana and yoga as a supplement to traditional Hasidic musical meditation and dynamic meditation. According to a report by the Pew Research Center conducted in the US, of all religious groups, Hindus and Jews remain the most successful at retaining their adherents and are the two most educated groups. On Wed, 11 Oct 2023 at 9:28 PM, Lokanath Mishra <jailoknathjee@gmail.com> wrote: Jewish, Parsi, Muslim, Christian and Hindu: ( part-3) By Lokanath Mishra , Katy, USA —-/————-//———//——-///-//////// There have been Jewish communities in the United States since colonial times, with individuals living in various cities before the American Revolution. Early Jewish communities were primarily Sephardi (Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent and of their New World colonies or Italianate) composed of immigrants from Brazil, Amsterdam, or England. Until the 1830s, the Jewish community of Charleston, South Carolina, was the largest in North America. In the late 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s, many Jewish immigrants arrived from Europe. For example, many German Jews arrived in the middle of the 19th century, established clothing stores in towns across the country, formed Reform synagogues, and were active in banking in New York. Immigration of Eastern Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews, in 1880–1914, brought a new wave of Jewish immigration to New York City, including many who became active in socialism and labor movements, as well as Orthodox and Conservative Jews. Refugees arrived from diaspora communities in Europe after the Holocaust and, after 1970, from the Soviet Union. Politically, American Jews have been especially active as part of the liberal New Deal coalition of the Democratic Party since the 1930s, although recently there is a conservative Republican element among the Orthodox. They have displayed high education levels and high rates of upward social mobility compared to several other ethnic and religious groups inside America. The Jewish communities in small towns have declined, with the population becoming increasingly concentrated in large metropolitan areas. Antisemitism in the U.S. has endured into the 21st century, although numerous cultural changes have taken place such as the election of many Jews into governmental positions at the local, state, and national levels. In the 1940s, Jews comprised 3.7% of the national population. As of 2019, at about 7.1 million, the population is 2% of the national total—and shrinking as a result of low birth rates and Jewish assimilation.. The largest Jewish population centers are the metropolitan areas of New York (2.1 million), Los Angeles (617,000), Miami (527,750), Washington, D.C. (297,290), Chicago (294,280) and Philadelphia (292,450). About Christianity vrs. Jewish: Christianity began as a movement within Second Temple Judaism, but the two religions gradually diverged over the first few centuries of the Christian Era. Today, differences of opinion vary between denominations in both religions, but the most important distinction is Christian acceptance and Jewish non-acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition. Early Christianity distinguished itself by determining that observance of halakha (Jewish law) was not necessary for non-Jewish converts to Christianity . Another major difference is the two religions' conceptions of God. The Christian God consists of three persons of one essence (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), with the doctrine of the incarnation of the Son in Jesus being of special importance. Judaism emphasizes the Oneness of God and rejects the Christian concept of God in human form. While Christianity recognizes the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament by Christians) as part of its scriptural canon, Judaism does not recognize the Christian New Testament. Muslim vrs Jews: In the early days of Islam, according to Islamic sources, a Jewish tribe of Arabia was alleged to have broken the peace treaty with the early Muslims, resulting in the execution of over 700 Jews. The children and women were subsequently taken by Muslim soldiers; one of these, Safiyya bint Huyayy whose husband Kenana ibn al-Rabi had also been killed, was taken by Muhammad as his wife. There were notable persecutions of Jews such as the 1033 Fez massacre, 1066 Granada massacre and 1834 looting of Safed. In the late 19th century, the Zionist movement sought to re-establish a Jewish homeland in historic Israel, within the historical territory of Palestine, also known as Zion, also known as the Holy Land. This created tensions between the Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs, leading to, beginning in 1947, a civil war and the subsequent exodus of many Palestinian Arabs and many Jews from Muslim countries. In 1948, the state of Israel was declared, and shortly after its declaration of independence, the Arab States declared war on Israel, in which the Israelis were victorious. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, twelve more wars were fought between the Arab States and Israel. The Arab–Israeli conflict has weakened Islamic–Jewish relations severely. The most obvious common practice is the statement of the absolute unity of God, which Muslims observe in their five times daily prayers (salat), and Jews state at least twice (Shema Yisrael), along with praying 3 times daily. The two faiths also share the central practices of fasting and almsgiving, as well as dietary laws and other aspects of ritual purity. Under the strict dietary laws, lawful food is called Kosher in Judaism and Halal in Islam. Both religions prohibit the consumption of pork. Halal restrictions are similar to a subset of the Kashrut dietary laws, so all kosher foods are considered halal, while not all halal foods are Kosher. Halal laws, for instance, do not prohibit the mixing of milk and meat or the consumption of shellfish, each of which are prohibited by the kosher laws, with the exception that in the Shia Islam belief shellfish, mussels, and similar sea foods and fish without scales are not considered halal. Sacred texts of both religions ban homosexuality and forbid human sexual relations outside of marriage and necessitate abstinence during the wife's menstruation. Both Islam and Judaism practice circumcision of males.Islam and Judaism share the idea of a revealed scripture. Even though they differ over the precise text and its interpretations, the Hebrew Torah and the Muslim Qur'an share a lot of narrative as well as injunctions. From this, they share many other fundamental religious concepts such as the belief in a day of Divine Judgment. Reflecting the vintage of the religions, the Torah is traditionally in the form of a scroll and the Qur'an in the form of a codex. Muslims commonly refer to Jews (and Christians) as fellow "People of the Book": people who follow the same general teachings in relation to the worship of the one God worshipped by Abraham. The Qur'an distinguishes between "People of the Book" (Jews and Christians), who should be tolerated even if they hold to their faiths, and idolaters (polytheists) who are not given that same degree of tolerance .Some restrictions for Muslims are relaxed, such as Muslim males being allowed to marry a woman from the "People of the Book",or Muslims being allowed to eat Kosher meat. In Judaism, God is an absolute one, indivisible and incomparable being who is the ultimate cause of all existence. In Hinduism, gods are considered to have a similar status to another when distinct, but may also be seen as "aspects or manifestations of a single, transcendent god", or an "impersonal absolute".