Judaism is the original of the three Abrahamic faiths, which also includes Christianity and Islam.
According to information published by The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute,
there were around 13.1 million Jewish people in the world in 2007, most residing in the USA and Israel.
According to the 2001 census 267,000 people in the UK said that their religious identity was Jewish, about 0.5% of the population.

Judaism traces its history back to the creation of mankind, but the explicitly Jewish historical origins begin with Abraham and the Hebrews.
According to the Torah, Abraham's home was the northern Mesopotamian town of Harran.
Under God's command, Abraham migrated to the region of Canaan, which is roughly equivalent to modern Israel and Lebanon.
For a time the Hebrews lived in servitude in Egypt, then returned to Canaan.


The biblical book of Genesis begins with a single, all-powerful God creating the world out of chaos in six days,
with human beings created on the sixth day.
Genesis goes on to chronicle an ancient history in which mankind repeatedly turns away from God and to immorality until
God destroys the earth with a flood. God then makes a covenant with Noah, the one man saved from the flood, that he will never
destroy the earth again.
The specifically Hebrew element of biblical history begins with Abraham, who is considered the founder of the Jewish religion.
However, he does not discover God but is rather called by the God who is already known into a covenant,
in which God promises to many descendents and the land of Canaan.

The Tanakh tells the history of the Hebrew people from a religious viewpoint,
beginning with the creation of mankind and ending with the words of the last of the prophets in the 4th century BCE.
This period is often referred to by scholars as "Biblical Judaism."
The Tanakh follows the Hebrew nation as it experiences cycles of favor and discipline by God.
 God establishes successive covenants with humanity (Adam, Noah and Abraham) and issues an extensive set of laws (through Moses) by which
the Hebrews are to be set apart as God's people.
When they stray, God sends prophets and invading armies to bring them back to himself.
"It is this particular claim-to have experienced God's presence in human events-and its subsequent development that is the differentiating
factor in Jewish thought.

The Torah is the first part of the Jewish bible (the tanakh).
It is the central and most important document of Judaism and has been used by Jews through the ages.
The Torah refers to the five books of Moses.
It contains 613 commandments and Jews refer to the ten best known of these as the ten 10 statements.
The second part of the Tanakh is called the Nevi'im, translated means prophets, predictabley these are the scriptings of jewish prophets
similar to the gospels in the bible written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These teach moral lessons and tales of wisdom in judaism.
The ketuvim is the third and final part of the tanakh, the contents include the books of poetry which includes the psalm. The other main
script in the ketuvim is titled 'the five scrolls', this are five short books, these are the latest jewish scripts and are considered
widely as authoritative despite having being written in just the 2nd century AD.

Jew's in modern society are largely split up into 3 main branches, they are orthodox, conservative and reform judaism.
They all follow the basic principles, but differ in the way they follow judaism.
Orthodox Jews believe that God gave Moses the whole Torah at Mount Sinai.
 Orthodox Jews believe that the Torah contains 613 commandments that are binding upon Jews.
 Modern Orthodox Jews strictly observe jewis law, but still integrate into modern society.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews, which includes Chasidic Jews, strictly observe Jewish laws and do not integrate into modern society
by dressing distinctively and living separately.
Conservative Judaism maintains that the ideas in the Torah come from God, but were transmitted by humans and contain a human compontent.
 Conservative Judaism generally accepts the binding nature of jewish law, but believes that the Law should adapt,
absorbing aspects of the predominant culture while remaining true to Judaism's values.
Reform Judaism believes that the Torah was written by different human sources, rather than by God,
 and then later combined. While Reform Judaism does not accept the binding nature of jewish law, the movement does retain much of the values
 and ethics of Judaism as well as some of the practices and culture.