Judaism is the 5th largest religion in the world.

The Old Testament books of the Bible describe lots of problems of the people of the Jewish faith. After the Exodus from Egyptian slavery following Moses, they wandered around in the desert for forty years before they were able to go to the Promised Land. They had many issues with neighboring people, yet for several centuries were able to keep up a unified state based in Jerusalem.

This occupation of the Promised Land wasn’t going to last. In 722 BC, the northern part of the Hebrew state fell and the Assyrian people came to power. By 586 BC, Jerusalem was conquered by Babylonians. Israel was successively ruled by Persians, Macedonians, Greeks, Syrians, and Romans in times after. Since the Syrian King Antiochus IV Epiphanes tried to suppress the Jewish religion, a rebellion led by Judas Maccabaeus in 167 BC and it gained the independence of the Jewish nation. This is celebrated today by Hanukkah.

In 70 AD, the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem, and the Jewish people were forced out of the area and they settled in the Mediterranean countries and in other areas around and in southwest Asia. This migration of the Jewish people is known as Diaspora. Lots of these people settled in Europe and became victims of persecution and poverty. Ghettoes and slums became their homes and massacres happened often, and because of these living conditions, many fled to the United States in the late 19th century. The emmigration to the United States climbed mostly during and after the Holocaust, which was the organized murder of Jews during and after World War II. Today, the United States has the largest population of Jewish people with high populations in areas such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Miami, and Washington D.C.
In 1917, an attempt to reestablish Palestine as the Jewish homeland started. In 1948, the State of Israel became an independent country. They have regained their Hebrew language, which includes inventing words for new and modern inventions and concepts unheard of centuries ago and writing a Hebrew dictionary to unify the language.