The Jews ( ISO 259-3 Israeli pronunciation ), also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and an ethnoreligious group, originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation. Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.

In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The modern State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish state in its Basic Laws, and Israel's Law of Return states: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh." Israel is the only country where Jews are a majority of the population. Jews achieved political autonomy twice before in ancient history. The first of these periods lasted from 1350 to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, most Jews have lived in diaspora. A minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

, the world Jewish population was estimated at 13.4 million by the North American Jewish Data Bank, or roughly 0.2% of the total world population. According to this report, about 42.5% of all Jews reside in Israel (5.7 million), and 39.3% in the United States (5.3 million), with most of the remainder living in Europe (1.5 million) and Canada (0.4 million). These numbers include all those who consider themselves Jews, whether or not they are affiliated with a Jewish organization. The total world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure. In addition to issues with census methodology, there are ''halakhic'' disputes regarding who is a Jew and secular, political, and ancestral identification factors that may affect the figure considerably.

Name and etymology[link]

The English word ''Jew'' continues Middle English '''', a loan from Old French '''', earlier '''', ultimately from Latin ''''. The Latin '''' simply means ''Judaean'', "from the land of ''Judaea''". The Latin term itself, like the corresponding Greek , is a loan from Aramaic '''', corresponding to , ''Yehudi'' (sg.); , ''Yehudim'' (pl.), in origin the term for a member of the tribe of Judah or the people of the kingdom of Judah. The name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob.

The Hebrew word for Jew, ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced , with the stress on the final syllable, in Israeli Hebrew, in its basic form.

The Ladino name is , ''Djudio'' (sg.); , ''Djudios'' (pl.); Yiddish: ''Yid'' (sg.); , ''Yidn'' (pl.).

The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., "Yahoud"/"Yahoudi" () in Arabic language, "Jude" in German, "judeu" in Portuguese, "juif" in French, "jøde" in Danish, "judío" in Spanish, "joodse" in Dutch, etc., but derivations of the word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., in Italian (''Ebreo''), in Persian ("Ebri/Ebrani" ()) and Russian (''Еврей, Yevrey''). The German word "Jude" is pronounced , the corresponding adjective "jüdisch" (Jewish) is the origin of the word "Yiddish". (See Jewish ethnonyms for a full overview.)

According to ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', Fourth Edition (2000):

It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun ''Jew'', in phrases such as ''Jew lawyer'' or ''Jew ethics'', is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts ''Jewish'' is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of ''Jew'' as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as ''There are now several Jews on the council'', which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like ''Jewish people'' or ''persons of Jewish background'' may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun.

Origins[link]

According to their tradition, the Jewish people originated from the Israelites of the Southern Levant, who had several independent states before being overtaken first by the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and later the Roman Empire, with a large portion of the population being scattered throughout the world. According to the Hebrew Bible, all Israelites were descended from Abraham, who was born in the Sumerian city of Ur, and migrated to Canaan (commonly known as the Land of Israel) with his family. Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide do indeed bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East, and that they bear their strongest resemblance to the peoples of the Fertile Crescent, with only minor contribution from their host populations (historically due to the taboo on intermarriage in Jewish tradition, the low number of converts to Judaism, as well as the general isolations and persecutions of Jews throughout history). According to some Biblical archaeologists, however, Israelite culture did not overtake the region, but rather grew out of Canaanite culture.

Judaism[link]

Judaism guides its adherents in both practice and belief, and has been called not only a religion, but also a "way of life," which has made drawing a clear distinction between Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish identity rather difficult. Throughout history, in eras and places as diverse as the ancient Hellenic world, in Europe before and after The Age of Enlightenment (see Haskalah), in Islamic Spain and Portugal, in North Africa and the Middle East, India, and China, or the contemporary United States and Israel, cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews or specific communities of Jews with their surroundings, others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to from the religion itself. This phenomenon has led to considerably different Jewish cultures unique to their own communities, each as authentically Jewish as the next.

Who is a Jew?[link]

Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation, an ethnicity, a religion, and a culture, making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether a religious or national approach to identity is used. Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who were born to a Jewish family regardless of whether or not they follow the religion; those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent); and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and therefore are followers of the religion.

Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on ''halakhic'' definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. Historical definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the oral tradition into the Babylonian Talmud. Interpretations of sections of the Tanakh, such as Deuteronomy 7:1–5, by learned Jewish sages, are used as a warning against intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews because "[the non-Jewish husband] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This contrasts with Ezra 10:2–3, where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children. Since the ''Haskalah'', these ''halakhic'' interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged.

At times, conversion has accounted for a substantial part of Jewish population growth. In the first century of the Christian era, for example, the population more than doubled, from four to 8–10 million within the confines of the Roman Empire, in good part as a result of a wave of conversion.

Ethnic divisions[link]

Within the world's Jewish population there are distinct ethnic divisions, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating Israelite population, and subsequent independent evolutions. An array of Jewish communities were established by Jewish settlers in various places around the Old World, often at great distances from one another resulting in effective and often long-term isolation from each other. During the millennia of the Jewish diaspora the communities would develop under the influence of their local environments; political, cultural, natural, and populational. Today, manifestation of these differences among the Jews can be observed in Jewish cultural expressions of each community, including Jewish linguistic diversity, culinary preferences, liturgical practices, religious interpretations, as well as degrees and sources of genetic admixture.

Jews are often identified as belonging to one of two major groups: the ''Ashkenazim'', or "Germanics" (Ashkenaz meaning "Germany" in Medieval Hebrew, denoting their Central European base), and the ''Sephardim'', or "Hispanics" (Sefarad meaning "Spain/Hispania" or "Iberia" in Hebrew, denoting their Spanish, and Portuguese, base). The ''Mizrahim'', or "Easterners" (Mizrach being "East" in Hebrew), that is, the diverse collection of Middle Eastern and North African Jews, constitute a third major group, although they are sometimes termed ''Sephardi'' for liturgical reasons.

Smaller groups include, but are not restricted to, Indian Jews such as the Bene Israel, Bnei Menashe, Cochin Jews, and Bene Ephraim; the Romaniotes of Greece; the Italian Jews ("Italkim" or "Bené Roma"); the Teimanim from Yemen and Oman; various African Jews, including most numerously the Beta Israel of Ethiopia; and Chinese Jews, most notably the Kaifeng Jews, as well as various other distinct but now almost extinct communities.

The divisions between all these groups are approximate and their boundaries are not always clear. The Mizrahim for example, are a heterogeneous collection of North African, Central Asian, Caucasian, and Middle Eastern Jewish communities that are often as unrelated to each other as they are to any of the earlier mentioned Jewish groups. In modern usage, however, the Mizrahim are sometimes termed ''Sephardi'' due to similar styles of liturgy, despite independent development from Sephardim proper. Thus, among Mizrahim there are Egyptian Jews, Iraqi Jews, Lebanese Jews, Kurdish Jews, Libyan Jews, Syrian Jews, Bukharian Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, Iranian Jews and various others. The Teimanim from Yemen and Oman are sometimes included, although their style of liturgy is unique and they differ in respect to the admixture found among them to that found in Mizrahim. In addition, there is a differentiation made between Sephardi migrants who established themselves in the Middle East and North Africa after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s and the pre-existing Jewish communities in those regions.

Despite this diversity, Ashkenazi Jews represent the bulk of modern Jewry, with at least 70% of Jews worldwide (and up to 90% prior to World War II and the Holocaust). As a result of their emigration from Europe, Ashkenazim also represent the overwhelming majority of Jews in the New World continents, in countries such as the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, and Brazil. In France, emigration of Jews from North Africa has led them to outnumber the Ashkenazim . Only in Israel is the Jewish population representative of all groups, a melting pot independent of each group's proportion within the overall world Jewish population.

Languages[link]

Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed ''l'shon ha-kodesh'', "the holy tongue"), the language in which the Hebrew scriptures (Tanakh) were composed, and the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries. By the 5th century BCE, Aramaic, a closely related tongue, joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea. By the third century BCE, Jews of the diaspora were speaking Greek.

For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, often developing distinctive dialectal forms or branches that became independent languages. Yiddish is the Judæo-German language developed by Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Central Europe. Ladino is the Judæo-Spanish language developed by Sephardic Jews who migrated to the Iberian peninsula. Due to many factors, including the impact of the Holocaust on European Jewry, the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, and widespread emigration from other Jewish communities around the world, ancient and distinct Jewish languages of several communities, including Gruzinic, Judæo-Arabic, Judæo-Berber, Krymchak, Judæo-Malayalam and many others, have largely fallen out of use.

For over sixteen centuries Hebrew was used almost exclusively as a liturgical language, and as the language in which most books had been written on Judaism, with a few speaking only Hebrew on the Sabbath. Hebrew was revived as a spoken language by Eliezer ben Yehuda, who arrived in Palestine in 1881. It had not been used as a mother tongue since Tannaic times. Modern Hebrew is now one of the two official languages of the State of Israel along with Arabic.

The three most commonly spoken languages among Jews today are Hebrew, English and Russian. Some Romance languages, such as French and Spanish, are also widely used. Yiddish has been spoken by more Jews in history than any other language, but it is far less used today, after the Holocaust and the adoption of Hebrew by the Zionist movement, then Israel.

Genetic studies[link]

Genetic studies indicate various lineages found in modern Jewish populations; however, most of these populations share a lineage in common, traceable to an ancient population that underwent geographic branching and subsequent independent evolutions. While DNA tests have demonstrated inter-marriage in all of the various Jewish ethnic divisions over the last 3,000 years, it was substantially less than in other populations. The findings lend support to traditional Jewish accounts accrediting their founding to exiled Israelite populations, and counters theories that many or most of the world's Jewish populations were founded entirely by local populations that adopted the Jewish religion, devoid of any actual Israelite genetic input.

DNA analysis further determined that modern Jews of the priesthood tribe—"Kohanim"—share an ancestor dating back about 3,000 years. This result is consistent for all Jewish populations around the world. The researchers estimated that the most recent common ancestor of modern Kohanim lived between 1000 BCE (roughly the time of the Biblical Exodus) and 586 BCE, when the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple. They found similar results analyzing DNA from Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. The scientists estimated the date of the original priest based on genetic mutations, which indicated that the priest lived roughly 106 generations ago, between 2,650 and 3,180 years ago depending whether one counts a generation as 25 or 30 years. These Jews belong to the haplotypes J1e and J2a. However, more recent research has shown that many ethnic groups in the Middle East and Mediterranean area also share this genetic profile.

Although individual and groups of converts to Judaism have historically been absorbed into contemporary Jewish populations, it is unlikely that they formed a large percentage of the ancestors of modern Jewish groups, and much less that they represented their genesis as Jewish communities.

Biologist Robert Pollack stated in 2003 that one cannot determine the biological "Jewishness" of an individual because "there are no DNA sequences common to all Jews and absent from all non-Jews". A 2009 study was able to genetically identify individuals with full or partial Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.

Male lineages: Y chromosomal DNA[link]

A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that "the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population", and suggested that "most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora". Researchers expressed surprise at the remarkable genetic uniformity they found among modern Jews, no matter where the diaspora has become dispersed around the world.

Other Y-chromosome findings show that the world's Jewish communities are closely related to Kurds, Syrians and Palestinians. Skorecki and colleague wrote that "the extremely close affinity of Jewish and non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations observed ... supports the hypothesis of a common Middle Eastern origin". According to another study of the same year, more than 70% of Jewish men and half of the Arab men (inhabitants of Israel and the territories only) whose DNA was studied inherited their Y-chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years. The results are consistent with the Biblical account of Jews and Arabs having a common ancestor. About two-thirds of Israeli Arabs and Arabs in the territories and a similar proportion of Israeli Jews are the descendants of at least three common ancestors who lived in the Middle East in the Neolithic period. However, the Palestinian Arab clade includes two Arab modal haplotypes which are found at only very low frequency among Jews, reflecting divergence and/or large scale admixture from non-local populations to the Palestinians.

A study of haplotypes of the Y-chromosome, published in 2000, addressed the paternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews. Hammer ''et al.'' found that the Y chromosome of some Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews contained mutations that are also common among Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon in the general European population. This suggested that the male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews could be traced mostly to the Middle East. The proportion of male genetic admixture in Ashkenazi Jews amounts to less than 0.5% per generation over an estimated 80 generations, with "relatively minor contribution of European Y chromosomes to the Ashkenazim," and a total admixture estimate "very similar to Motulsky's average estimate of 12.5%." This supported the finding that "Diaspora Jews from Europe, Northwest Africa, and the Near East resemble each other more closely than they resemble their non-Jewish neighbors." However, when all haplotypes were included in the analysis, m (the admixture percentage) increased to 23% ± 7%. In addition, of the Jewish populations in this cluster, the Ashkenazim were closest to South European populations, specifically the Greeks.

In Jewish populations, Haplogroup J1 (defined by the 267 marker) constitutes 30% of the Yemenite Jews 20.0% of the Ashkenazim results and 12% of the Sephardic results. However, J1 is most frequent in Yemen (76%), Saudi (64%), Qatar (58%). J1 is generally frequent amongst Negev Bedouins (62%). It is also very common among other Arabs such as those of the Levant, i.e. Palestinian (38.4%), Syria (30%), Lebanon (25%). In Europe, higher frequencies have been reported in the central Adriatic regions of Italy: Gargano (17.2%), Pescara (15%), in the Mediterranean Paola (11.1%) and in South Sicilian Ragusa (10.7%). Fairly high frequencies have also been reported in other nearby Mediterranean areas: Crete (8.3%), Malta (7.8%), Cyprus (6.2%), Greece (5.3%).

Haplogroup J2 which is found in the Sephardic Jews (29%) and Ashkenazi Jews (23%), or 19%. is found mainly in the Fertile Crescent, the Caucasus, Anatolia, the Balkans, Italy, the Mediterranean littoral, the Iranian plateau, Central Asia, and South Asia. More specifically, it is found in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Greece, Italy and the eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, and more frequently in Iraqis 29.7%, Lebanese 25%, Palestinians 16.8%, Syrians 22.5%, Kurds 28.4%, Saudi Arabia 15.92%, Jordan 14.3%, Oman 10–15%, UAE 10.4%, Yemen 9.7%, in Israel, in Palestine, and in Turkey.

Female lineages: Mitochondrial DNA[link]

Before 2006, geneticists largely attributed the genesis of most of the world's Jewish populations to founding acts by males who migrated from the Middle East and "by the women from each local population whom they took as wives and converted to Judaism", though no genetic relation was found between Jewish and non Jewish female lineages. However, more recent findings of studies of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, at least in Ashkenazi Jews, has led to a review of this archetype. This research has suggested that, in addition to Israelite male, significant female founder ancestry might also derive from the Middle East-with 40% of Ashkenazim descended from four women lived about 1000–1500 years ago in the Middle East. In addition, Behar (2006) suggested that the rest of Ashkenazi mtDNA is originated from about 150 women, most of those were probably of Middle Eastern origin. Approximately 32% of people with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry belong to the mtDNA haplogroup K. This high percentage points to a genetic bottleneck occurring some 100 generations ago.

Research in 2008 found significant founder effects in many non-Asheknazi Jewish populations. In Belmonte, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Bene Israel and Libyan Jewish communities "a single mother was sufficient to explain at least 40% of their present-day mtDNA variation". In addition, "the Cochin and Tunisian Jewish communities show an attenuated pattern with two founding mothers explaining >30% of the variation." In contrast, Bulgarian, Turkish, Moroccan and Ethiopian Jews were heterogeneous with no evidence "for a narrow founder effect or depletion of mtDNA variation attributable to drift". The authors noted that "the first three of these communities were established following the Spanish expulsion and/or received large influxes of individuals from the Iberian Peninsula and high variation presently observed, probably reflects high overall mtDNA diversity among Jews of Spanish descent. Likewise, the mtDNA pool of Ethiopian Jews reflects the rich maternal lineage variety of East Africa." Jewish communities from Iraq, Iran, and Yemen showed a "third and intermediate pattern... consistent with a founding event, but not a narrow one".

In this and other studies Yemenite Jews differ from other Mizrahim, as well as from Ashkenazim, in the proportion of sub-Saharan African gene types which have entered their gene pools. African-specific Hg L(xM,N) lineages were found only in Yemenite and Ethiopian Jewish populations. Among Yemenites, the average stands at 35% lineages within the past 3,000 years.

Genome-wide association and linkage studies[link]

In genetic epidemiology, a genome-wide association study (GWA study, or GWAS) is an examination of all or most of the genes (the genome) of different individuals of a particular species to see how much the genes vary from individual to individual. These techniques were originally designed for epidemiological uses, to identify genetic associations with observable traits.

A 2006 study by Seldin, ''et al.'' used over five thousand autosomal SNPs to demonstrate European genetic substructure amongst the Ashkenazi. The results showed "a consistent and reproducible distinction between 'northern' and 'southern' European population groups". Most northern, central, and eastern Europeans (Finns, Swedes, English, Irish, Germans, and Ukrainians) showed >90% in the 'northern' population group, while most individual participants with southern European ancestry (Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Spaniards) showed >85% in the 'southern' group. Both Ashkenazi Jews as well as Sephardic Jews showed >85% membership in the "southern" group. Referring to the Jews clustering with southern Europeans, the authors state the results were "consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups".

A 2007 study by Bauchet, ''et al.'' found that Ashkenazi Jews were most closely clustered with Arabic North African populations when compared to Global population, and in the European structure analysis, they share similarities only with Greeks and Southern Italians, reflecting their east Mediterranean origins.

A 2010 study on Jewish ancestry by Atzmon-Ostrer ''et al.'' stated "Two major groups were identified by principal component, phylogenetic, and identity by descent (IBD) analysis: Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews. The IBD segment sharing and the proximity of European Jews to each other and to southern European populations suggested similar origins for European Jewry and refuted large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry.", as both groups—the Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews shared common ancestors in the Middle East about 2500 years ago. The study examines genetic markers spread across the entire genome and shows that the Jewish groups (Ashkenazi and non Ashkenazi) share large swaths of DNA, indicating close relationships and that each of the Jewish groups in the study (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek and Ashkenazi) has its own genetic signature but is more closely related to the other Jewish groups than to their non Jewish fellow countrymen. Atzmon's team found that the SNP markers in genetic segments of 3 million DNA letters or longer were 10 times more likely to be identical among Jews than non-Jews. Results of the analysis also tally with biblical accounts of the fate of the Jews. Using their DNA analysis, the authors traced the ancestors of all Jews to Persia and Babylon, areas that now form part of Iran and Iraq. The study also found that with respect to non-Jewish European groups, the population most closely related to Ashkenazi Jews are modern-day Italians. The study speculated that the genetic-similarity between Ashkenazi Jews and Italians may be due to inter-marriage and conversions in the time of the Roman Empire. It was also found that any two Ashkenazi Jewish participants in the study shared about as much DNA as fourth or fifth cousins

A 2010 study by Bray ''et al'', using SNP microarray techniques and linkage analysis, estimated that 35 to 55 percent of the modern Ashkenazi genome is specifically traceable to Europe, and that European "admixture is considerably higher than previous estimates by studies that used the Y chromosome". The study assumed Druze and Palestinian Arabs populations to represent the reference to world Jewry ancestor genome. With this reference point, the linkage disequilibrium in the Ashkenazi Jewish population was interpreted as "matches signs of interbreeding or 'admixture' between Middle Eastern and European populations". In their press release, Bray stated: "We were surprised to find evidence that Ashkenazi Jews have higher heterozygosity than Europeans, contradicting the widely-held presumption that they have been a largely isolated group". "Thus, the AJ population shows evidence of past founding events; however, admixture and selection have also strongly influenced its current genetic makeup." The authors note that their results will require further investigation.

Demographics[link]

Population centres[link]

! Country	! Jews, №	! Jews, %
! Total	13,558,300	0.21%

There are an estimated 13–14 million Jews worldwide. The table lists countries with significant populations. Please note that these populations represent low-end estimates of the worldwide Jewish population, accounting for around 0.2% of the world's population.

State of Israel[link]

Israel, the Jewish nation-state, is the only country in which Jews make up a majority of the citizens. Israel was established as an independent democratic and Jewish state on May 14, 1948. Of the 120 members in its parliament, the Knesset, currently, 12 members of the Knesset are Arab citizens of Israel, most representing Arab political parties and one of Israel's Supreme Court judges is a Palestinian Arab.

Between 1948 and 1958, the Jewish population rose from 800,000 to two million. Currently, Jews account for 75.8% of the Israeli population, or 5.4 million people. The early years of the state of Israel were marked by the mass immigration of Holocaust survivors and Jews fleeing Arab lands. Israel also has a large population of Ethiopian Jews, many of whom were airlifted to Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Between 1974 and 1979 nearly 227,258 immigrants arrived in Israel, about half being from the Soviet Union. This period also saw an increase in immigration to Israel from Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States

A trickle of immigrants from other communities has also arrived, including Indian Jews and others, as well as some descendants of Ashkenazi Holocaust survivors who had settled in countries such as the United States, Argentina, Australia, Chile, and South Africa. Some Jews have emigrated from Israel elsewhere, due to economic problems or disillusionment with political conditions and the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict. Jewish Israeli emigrants are known as yordim.

Diaspora (outside Israel)[link]

The waves of immigration to the United States and elsewhere at the turn of the 19th century, the founding of Zionism and later events, including pogroms in Russia, the massacre of European Jewry during the Holocaust, and the founding of the state of Israel, with the subsequent Jewish exodus from Arab lands, all resulted in substantial shifts in the population centers of world Jewry by the end of the 20th century.

Currently, the largest Jewish community in the world is located in the United States, with 5.3 million to 6.4 million Jews by various estimates. Elsewhere in the Americas, there are also large Jewish populations in Canada, Argentina, and Brazil, and smaller populations in Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, and several other countries (see History of the Jews in Latin America).

Western Europe's largest Jewish community can be found in France, home to 490,000 Jews, the majority of whom are immigrants or refugees from North African Arab countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia (or their descendants). There are 295,000 Jews in the United Kingdom. In Eastern Europe, there are anywhere from 350,000 to one million Jews living in the former Soviet Union, but exact figures are difficult to establish. The fastest-growing Jewish community in the world, outside Israel, is the one in Germany, especially in Berlin, its capital. Tens of thousands of Jews from the former Eastern Bloc have settled in Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East were home to around 900,000 Jews in 1945. Fueled by anti-Zionism after the founding of Israel, systematic persecution caused almost all of these Jews to flee to Israel, North America, and Europe in the 1950s (see Jewish exodus from Arab lands). Today, around 8,000 Jews remain in all Arab nations combined.

Iran is home to around 10,800 Jews, down from a population of 100,000 Jews before the 1979 revolution. After the revolution some of the Iranian Jews emigrated to Israel or Europe but most of them emigrated (with their non-Jewish Iranian compatriots) to the United States (especially Los Angeles, where the principal community is called "Tehrangeles").

Outside Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and the rest of Asia, there are significant Jewish populations in Australia and South Africa.

Demographic changes[link]

Assimilation[link]

Since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks, a proportion of Jews have assimilated into the wider non-Jewish society around them, by either choice or force, ceasing to practice Judaism and losing their Jewish identity. Assimilation took place in all areas, and during all time periods, with some Jewish communities, for example the Kaifeng Jews of China, disappearing entirely. The advent of the Jewish Enlightenment of the 18th century (see Haskalah) and the subsequent emancipation of the Jewish populations of Europe and America in the 19th century, accelerated the situation, encouraging Jews to increasingly participate in, and become part of, secular society. The result has been a growing trend of assimilation, as Jews marry non-Jewish spouses and stop participating in the Jewish community.

Rates of interreligious marriage vary widely: In the United States, they are just under 50%, in the United Kingdom, around 53%, in France, around 30%, and in Australia and Mexico, as low as 10%. In the United States, only about a third of children from intermarriages affiliate themselves with Jewish religious practice. The result is that most countries in the Diaspora have steady or slightly declining religiously Jewish populations as Jews continue to assimilate into the countries in which they live.

War and persecution[link]

The Jewish people and Judaism have experienced various persecutions throughout Jewish history. During late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages the Roman Empire (in its later phases known as the Byzantine Empire) repeatedly repressed the Jewish population, first by ejecting them from their homelands during the pagan Roman era and later by officially establishing them as second-class citizens during the Christian Roman era.

According to James Carroll, "Jews accounted for 10% of the total population of the Roman Empire. By that ratio, if other factors had not intervened, there would be 200 million Jews in the world today, instead of something like 13 million."

Later in medieval Western Europe, further persecutions of Jews in the name of Christianity occurred, notably during the Crusades—when Jews all over Germany were massacred—and a series of expulsions from England, Germany, France, and, in the largest expulsion of all, Spain and Portugal after the Reconquista (the Catholic Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula), where both unbaptized Sephardic Jews and the ruling Muslim Moors were expelled.

In the Papal States, which existed until 1870, Jews were required to live only in specified neighborhoods called ghettos. In the 19th and (before the end of World War II) 20th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church adhered to a distinction between "good antisemitism" and "bad antisemitism". The "bad" kind promoted hatred of Jews because of their descent. This was considered un-Christian because the Christian message was intended for all of humanity regardless of ethnicity; anyone could become a Christian. The "good" kind criticized alleged Jewish conspiracies to control newspapers, banks, and other institutions, to care only about accumulation of wealth, etc.

Islam and Judaism have a complex relationship. Traditionally Jews and Christians living in Muslim lands, known as dhimmis, were allowed to practice their religions and to administer their internal affairs, but subject to certain conditions. They had to pay the jizya (a per capita tax imposed on free adult non-Muslim males) to the Islamic state. Dhimmis had an inferior status under Islamic rule. They had several social and legal disabilities such as prohibitions against bearing arms or giving testimony in courts in cases involving Muslims. Many of the disabilities were highly symbolic. The one described by Bernard Lewis as "most degrading" was the requirement of distinctive clothing, not found in the Qur'an or hadith but invented in early medieval Baghdad; its enforcement was highly erratic. On the other hand, Jews rarely faced martyrdom or exile, or forced compulsion to change their religion, and they were mostly free in their choice of residence and profession.

Notable exceptions include the massacre of Jews and/or forcible conversion of some Jews by the rulers of the Almohad dynasty in Al-Andalus in the 12th century, as well as in Islamic Persia, and the forced confinement of Moroccan Jews to walled quarters known as mellahs beginning from the 15th century and especially in the early 19th century. In modern times, it has become commonplace for standard antisemitic themes to be conflated with anti-Zionist publications and pronouncements of Islamic movements such as Hezbollah and Hamas, in the pronouncements of various agencies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and even in the newspapers and other publications of Turkish Refah Partisi."

Throughout history, many rulers, empires and nations have oppressed their Jewish populations or sought to eliminate them entirely. Methods employed ranged from expulsion to outright genocide; within nations, often the threat of these extreme methods was sufficient to silence dissent. The history of antisemitism includes the First Crusade which resulted in the massacre of Jews; the Spanish Inquisition (led by Torquemada) and the Portuguese Inquisition, with their persecution and ''autos-da-fé'' against the New Christians and Marrano Jews; the Bohdan Chmielnicki Cossack massacres in Ukraine; the Pogroms backed by the Russian Tsars; as well as expulsions from Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, and other countries in which the Jews had settled. According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics 19.8% of the modern Iberian population has Sephardic Jewish ancestry, indicating that the number of conversos may have been much higher than originally thought.

The persecution reached a peak in Nazi Germany's Final Solution, which led to the Holocaust and the slaughter of approximately 6 million Jews. The Holocaust — the state-led systematic persecution and genocide of European Jews (and certain communities of North African Jews in European controlled North Africa) and other minority groups of Europe during World War II by Germany and its collaborators remains the most notable modern day persecution of Jews. The persecution and genocide were accomplished in stages. Legislation to remove the Jews from civil society was enacted years before the outbreak of World War II. Concentration camps were established in which inmates were used as slave labour until they died of exhaustion or disease. Where the Third Reich conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings. Jews and Roma were crammed into ghettos before being transported hundreds of miles by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority of them were killed in gas chambers. Virtually every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics of the mass murder, turning the country into what one Holocaust scholar has called "a genocidal nation."

Migrations[link]

Throughout Jewish history, Jews have repeatedly been directly or indirectly expelled from both their original homeland and the areas in which they have resided. This experience as refugees has shaped Jewish identity and religious practice in many ways, and is thus a major element of Jewish history. The incomplete list of major and other noteworthy migrations that follows includes numerous instances of expulsion or departure under duress: The patriarch Abraham was a migrant to the land of Canaan from Ur of the Chaldees after an attempt on his life by King Nimrod. The Children of Israel experienced the Exodus (meaning "departure" or "exit" in Greek) from ancient Egypt, as recorded in the Book of Exodus. The Kingdom of Israel was sent into permanent exile by Assyria, initially to the Upper Mesopotamian provinces of the Assyrian Empire, from whence they scattered all over the world (or at least to unknown locations). The Kingdom of Judah was exiled by Babylonia, then returned to Judea by Cyrus the Great of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, and then many were exiled again by the Roman Empire. The 2,000 year dispersion of the Jewish diaspora beginning under the Roman Empire, as Jews were spread throughout the Roman world and, driven from land to land, and settled wherever they could live freely enough to practice their religion. Over the course of the diaspora the center of Jewish life moved from Babylonia to the Iberian Peninsula to Poland to the United States and, as a result of Zionism, back to Israel. Many expulsions during the Middle Ages and Enlightenment in Europe, including: 1290, 16,000 Jews were expelled from England, see the ''(Statute of Jewry)''; in 1396, 100,000 from France; in 1421 thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of these Jews settled in Eastern Europe, especially Poland. Following the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, the Spanish population of around 200,000 Sephardic Jews were expelled by the Spanish crown and Catholic church, followed by expulsions in 1493 in Sicily (37,000 Jews) and Portugal in 1496. The expelled Jews fled mainly to the Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands, and North Africa, others migrating to Southern Europe and the Middle East. During the 19th century, France's policies of equal citizenship regardless of religion led to the immigration of Jews (especially from Eastern and Central Europe). The arrival of millions of Jews in the New World, including immigration of over two million Eastern European Jews to the United States from 1880–1925, see History of the Jews in the United States and History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union. The Pogroms in Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, and the rise of Arab nationalism all served to fuel the movements and migrations of huge segments of Jewry from land to land and continent to continent, until they arrived back in large numbers at their original historical homeland in Israel. The Islamic Revolution of Iran caused many Iranian Jews to flee Iran. Most found refuge in the US (particularly Los Angeles, CA) and Israel. Smaller communities of Persian Jews exist in Canada and Western Europe. When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of the Jews in the affected territory (who had been refuseniks) were suddenly allowed to leave. This produced a wave of migration to Israel in the early 1990s.

Orthodox and Conservative Judaism discourage proselytism to non-Jews, but many Jewish groups have tried to reach out to the assimilated Jewish communities of the Diaspora in order for them to reconnect to their Jewish roots. Additionally, while in principle Reform Judaism favors seeking new members for the faith, this position has not translated into active proselytism, instead taking the form of an effort to reach out to non-Jewish spouses of intermarried couples.

There is also a trend of Orthodox movements pursuing secular Jews in order to give them a stronger Jewish identity so there is less chance of intermarriage. As a result of the efforts by these and other Jewish groups over the past 25 years, there has been a trend of secular Jews becoming more religiously observant, known as the ''Baal Teshuva'' movement, though the demographic implications of the trend are unknown. Additionally, there is also a growing movement of Jews by Choice by gentiles who make the decision to head in the direction of becoming Jews.

Leadership[link]

There is no single governing body for the Jewish community, nor a single authority with responsibility for religious doctrine. Instead, a variety of secular and religious institutions at the local, national, and international levels lead various parts of the Jewish community on a variety of issues.

Notable individuals[link]

Jews have made contributions in a broad range of human endeavors, including the sciences, arts, politics, and business. Although Jews comprise only 0.2% of the world's population, over 20% of Nobel Prize laureates have been Jewish, with multiple winners in each field.

See also[link]

Outline of Judaism

Antisemitism

Ashkenazi Jews

:Category: Jewish ethnic groups

:Category: Jewish history by country

Interfaith marriage in Judaism

Israel

*Basic Laws of Israel

*Law of Return

*Politics of Israel

Jewish diaspora

Jewish identity

Jewish languages

Jewish population

Jewish population by cities and city areas

Judaism

Lists of Jews

Mizrahi Jews

Pogrom

Sephardi Jews

Notes[link]

References[link]

Baron, Salo Wittmayer (1952). ''A Social and Religious History of the Jews,'' Volume II, ''Ancient Times'', Part II. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.

Lewis, Bernard (1984). ''The Jews of Islam''. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00807-8

Lewis, Bernard (1999). ''Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice''. W. W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-31839-7

Poliakov, Leon (1974). ''The History of Anti-semitism.'' New York: The Vanguard Press.

Ruderman, David B. ''Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History'' (Princeton University Press; 2010) 326 pages. Examines print culture, religion, and other realms in a history emphasizing the links among early modern Jewish communities from Venice and Kraków to Amsterdam and Smyrna.

Stillman, Norman (1979). ''The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book''. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. ISBN 0-8276-0198-0

External links[link]

;General

Jewish Virtual Library

Judaism 101

Maps related to Jewish history

The Future of Judaism series at Patheos

;Secular organizations

American Jewish Committee

American Jewish Congress

Anti-Defamation League

B'nai B'rith International

Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life

Jewish Federations of North America

;Religious organizations

Aish HaTorah (Orthodox)

ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal (Renewal)

American Sephardi Federation (Sephardic)

Chabad Lubavitch (Chabad)

Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (Reconstructionist)

The Karaite Korner (Karaite)

The Orthodox Union (Orthodox)

Society for Humanistic Judaism (Humanistic)

Union for Reform Judaism (Reform)

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (Conservative)

;Zionist organizations

Ameinu

Hadassah: the Women's Zionist Organization of America

The Jewish Agency for Israel

Religious Zionists of America

World Mizrachi Movement

Zionist Organization of America

Category:Ancient peoples Category:Ethnic groups in the Middle East Category:Ethno-cultural designations Category:Ethnoreligious groups Category:Indigenous peoples of Western Asia Category:Religious identity Category:Semitic peoples

af:Jode ar:يهود an:Chodigos arc:ܝܗܘܕܝܐ av:ЖугьутӀал az:Yəhudilər bn:ইহুদি be:Яўрэі be-x-old:Габрэі bg:Евреи bs:Jevreji ca:Jueus ceb:Hudiyo cs:Židé sn:Judah (vana vaIsrael) cy:Iddewon da:Jøde de:Juden et:Juudid el:Εβραίοι es:Pueblo judío eo:Judoj eu:Judu fa:قوم یهود fo:Jødar fr:Juifs gag:Çıfıtlar ko:유대인 hy:Հրեաներ hi:यहूदी hr:Židovi ig:Jew id:Yahudi ia:Judeo os:Дзуттаг адæм is:Gyðingar it:Ebreo he:יהודים jv:Yahudi kn:ಯೆಹೂದ್ಯ ka:ებრაელები kk:Еврейлер kg:Bayuda lad:Pueblo djudio lez:Чувудар la:Populus Iudaicus lv:Ebreji lt:Žydai hu:Zsidók mk:Евреи mg:Jiosy mr:ज्यू लोक ms:Orang Yahudi nl:Joden nds-nl:Jeuden ja:ユダヤ人 pih:Jua no:Jøder nn:Jødar nrm:Juis oc:Josieus pa:ਯਹੂਦੀ pnb:یہودی nds:Joden pl:Żydzi pt:Judeu ro:Evrei ru:Евреи sah:Дьэбэриэйдэр sco:Jews scn:Abbreu si:යුදෙවුවෝ simple:Jew sk:Židia (etnikum) sl:Judje sr:Јевреји sh:Jevreji fi:Juutalaiset sv:Judar tl:Mga Hudyo ta:யூதர் tt:Яһүдләр th:ชาวยิว tr:Yahudiler uk:Євреї ur:یہودی ug:يەھۇدىلار vi:Người Do Thái yi:ייד bat-smg:Žīdā zh:犹太人

Birthname	James Richard Perry
Order	47th
Office	Governor of Texas
Lieutenant	Bill RatliffDavid Dewhurst
Term start	December 21, 2000
Predecessor	George W. Bush
Order2	39th
Office2	Lieutenant Governor of Texas
Term start2	January 19, 1999
Term end2	December 21, 2000
Governor2	George W. Bush
Predecessor2	Bob Bullock
Successor2	Bill Ratliff
Office3	9th Commissioner of Agriculture of Texas
Governor3	Ann RichardsGeorge W. Bush
Term start3	January 15, 1991
Term end3	January 19, 1999
Predecessor3	Jim Hightower
Successor3	Susan Combs
Office4	Member of the House of Representatives of Texasfrom District 64
Term start4	1985
Term end4	1991
Predecessor4	Joe Hanna
Successor4	John Cook
Birth date	March 04, 1950
Birth place	Paint Creek, Texas
Residence	West Austin, Texas(Temporary residence since 2007, during repairs to the Texas Governor's Mansion)
Spouse	Anita Thigpen
Children	GriffinSydney
Alma mater	Texas A&M; University (B.S.)
Party	Republican Party (since 1989)Democratic Party (until 1989)
Profession	Military OfficerFarmerPolitician
Religion	Christianity (evangelical)
Signature	Rick Perry signature.svg
Branch	United States Air Force
Serviceyears	1972–1977
Unit	772nd Tactical Airlift Squadron
Rank	Captain
Website	www.governor.state.tx.us }}

James Richard "Rick" Perry (born March 4, 1950) is the 47th and current Governor of Texas. Perry, a Republican, was elected Lieutenant Governor of Texas in 1998 and assumed the governorship in December 2000 when then-governor George W. Bush resigned to become President of the United States. Perry was elected to full gubernatorial terms in 2002, 2006 and 2010. With a tenure in office to date of , Perry is the longest continuously serving current U.S. governor, and the second longest serving current U.S. governor—after Terry Branstad of Iowa. Perry served as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2008 (succeeding Sonny Perdue of Georgia) and again in 2011. Perry is the longest serving governor in Texas state history. As a result, he is the only governor in modern Texas history to have appointed at least one person to every eligible state office, board, or commission position (as well as to several elected offices to which the governor can appoint someone to fill an unexpired term, such as six of the nine current members of the Texas Supreme Court).

Perry won the Texas 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary election, defeating U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and former Wharton County Republican Party Chairwoman and businesswoman Debra Medina. In the 2010 Texas gubernatorial election, Perry won a third term by defeating former Houston mayor Bill White and Kathie Glass.

On August 13, 2011, Perry announced in South Carolina that he was running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2012 presidential election. On January 19, 2012, Perry announced he would be suspending his campaign for the Republican nomination, and endorsed Newt Gingrich.

Early life, education, and military service[link]

A fifth-generation Texan, Perry was born in Paint Creek, about north of Abilene in West Texas, to ranchers Joseph Ray Perry and the former Amelia June Holt. Perry's ancestry is almost entirely English, dating as far back as the original thirteen colonies. His family has been in Texas since before the Texan Revolution.

His father, a Democrat, was a long-time Haskell County commissioner and school board member. Perry has said that his interest in politics probably began in November 1961, when his father took him to the funeral of U.S. Representative Sam Rayburn (D-TX), who during his long public career served as speaker of the Texas House for a short time at the age of 29 and then later for 17 years as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Perry was in the Boy Scouts (BSA) and earned the rank of Eagle Scout; his son, Griffin, would later become an Eagle Scout as well. The BSA has honored Perry with the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

Perry graduated from Paint Creek High School in 1968. He then attended Texas A&M; University, where he was a member of the Corps of Cadets, a member of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity, was elected senior class social secretary, and was also elected as one of A&M;'s five yell leaders. Perry graduated in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science in animal science.

Perry said that the Corps of Cadets gave him the discipline to complete his animal sciences degree and earn a commission in the Air Force. In a 1989 interview he said that "I was probably a bit of a free spirit, not particularly structured real well for life outside of a military regime, I would have not lasted at Texas Tech or the University of Texas. I would have hit the fraternity scene and lasted about one semester." Perry was a prankster in college: he once placed live chickens in the closet of an upperclassman during Christmas break and used M-80 firecrackers to prank students using the toilet.

In the early 1970s, Perry interned during several summers with the Southwestern Company, as a door-to-door book salesman. "I count my time working for Dortch Oldham [President of the Southwestern Company] as one of the most important formative experiences of my life," Perry said in 2010. "There is nothing that tests your commitment to a goal like getting a few doors closed in your face." He said that "Mr. Oldham taught legions of young people to communicate quickly, clearly and with passion, a lesson that has served me well in my life since then."

Upon graduation in 1972, Perry was commissioned in the Air Force and completed pilot training in February 1974. He was then assigned as a C-130 pilot to the 772nd Tactical Airlift Squadron at Dyess Air Force Base. Perry's duties included two-month overseas rotations at RAF Mildenhall in England and Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany. His missions included a 1974 U.S. State Department drought relief effort in Mali, Mauritania and Chad, and two years later, earthquake relief in Guatemala. He left the Air Force in 1977 with the rank of captain, returned to Texas, and went into business farming cotton with his father.

Early political career[link]

Texas Legislature [link]

In 1984, Perry was elected to the Texas House of Representatives as a Democrat from district 64, which included his home county of Haskell. He served on the House Appropriations and Calendars committees during his three two-year terms in office. He befriended fellow freshman state representative Lena Guerrero of Austin, a staunch liberal Democrat who endorsed Perry's reelection bid in 2006 on personal, rather than philosophical, grounds.

Perry was part of the "Pit Bulls", a group of Appropriations members who sat on the lower dais in the committee room (or "pit") who pushed for austere state budgets during the 1980s. At one point, ''The Dallas Morning News'' named him one of the ten most effective members of the legislature.

In 1987, Perry voted for a $5.7 billion tax increase proposed by Republican governor Bill Clements. Perry supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries and worked in an unspecified capacity for Gore's campaign in Texas. In 1989, Perry announced that he was switching parties, becoming a Republican.

Agriculture Commissioner [link]

In 1990, as a newly minted Republican, Perry challenged Jim Hightower, the incumbent Democratic Agriculture Commissioner. Hightower had worked on behalf of Jesse Jackson for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, while Perry had supported U.S. Senator Al Gore of Tennessee.

During 1990, Hightower's office was embroiled in a FBI investigation into corruption and bribery. Three aides were convicted in 1993 of using public funds for political fundraising, although Hightower himself was not found to be involved in the wrongdoings. Perry narrowly defeated Hightower in November 1990.

As Agriculture Commissioner, Perry was responsible for promoting the sale of Texas farm produce to other states and foreign nations, and for supervising the calibration of weights and measures, such as gasoline pumps and grocery store scales.

In April 1993, Perry, while serving as Texas agriculture commissioner, expressed support for the effort to reform the nation's health care, describing it as "most commendable". The health care plan, first revealed in September, was ultimately unsuccessful due to Republican congressional opposition. In 2005, after being questioned on the issue by a potential opponent in the Republican governor primary, Perry said that he expressed his support only in order to get Clinton to pay more attention to rural health care.

In 1994, Perry was reelected Agriculture Commissioner by a large margin, getting 2,546,287 votes (62 percent) to Democrat Marvin Gregory's 1,479,692 (36 percent). Libertarian Clyde L. Garland received the remaining 85,836 votes (2 percent). Gregory, a chicken farmer from Sulphur Springs, Texas, was on the Texas Agricultural Finance Authority with Perry in the early nineties, as a Republican. He became a Democrat before running against Perry in 1994.

Lieutenant Governor [link]

In 1998, Perry chose not to seek a third term as Agriculture Commissioner, running instead for Lieutenant Governor to succeed the retiring Democrat Bob Bullock. During this election, Rick Perry had a notable falling out with his previous top political strategist Karl Rove, which began the much-reported rivalry between the Bush and Perry camps. Perry polled 1,858,837 votes (50.04 percent) to the 1,790,106 (48.19 percent) cast for Democrat John Sharp of Victoria, who had relinquished the Comptroller's position after two terms to seek the lieutenant governorship. Libertarian Anthony Garcia polled another 65,150 votes (1.75 percent). Perry thus became the state's first Republican lieutenant governor since Reconstruction, taking office on January 19, 1999.

Governor of Texas [link]

thumb|President George W. Bush and Texas Governor Rick Perry shake hands after a question and answer session at the Port Arthur airport. Port Arthur was hit hard by Hurricane Rita.Perry assumed the office of governor on December 21, 2000, following the resignation of George W. Bush—who was preparing to become President of the United States. He won the office in his own right in the 2002 gubernatorial election, where he received 57.80% of votes to businessman Tony Sanchez's 39.96%. He was re-elected in the 2006 gubernatorial election against three major opponents, polling 39% of votes against runner-up Chris Bell with 29.8%. In the 2010 gubernatorial election, Perry became the first Texas governor to be elected to three four-year terms, polling 54.97% of votes to Bill White's 42.48%.

In his three gubernatorial campaigns, Perry received hard-money campaign contributions of $102 million, half of which came from 204 donors.

In the 2001 legislative session, Perry set a record for his use of the veto, rejecting 82 acts, more than any other governor in any single legislative session in the history of the state since Reconstruction.

Fiscal policies[link]

In his presidential campaign, Perry has highlighted the economic success Texas achieved under his governorship, although the true success of his policies has been questioned. A proclaimed proponent of fiscal conservatism, Perry has often campaigned on job growth and tax issues, such as his opposition to creating a state income tax. Perry refused in 2002 to promise not to raise taxes as governor, and in the following years did propose or approve various tax and debt increases. In 2009, Perry signed Grover Norquist's pledge to "oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes".

Texas began borrowing money in 2003 to pay for roads and will owe $17.3 billion by the end of 2012, increasing total state debt, from $13.4 billion in 2001 to $37.8 billion in 2011. The state's public finance authority sold $2 billion in bonds for unemployment benefits, and it's authorized to sell $1.5 billion more if necessary. Texas federal borrowing topped $1.6 billion in October 2010, before the bond sales. Texans voted November 8, 2011 for a Water Works Bill with an additional $6 billion of debt and against new tax breaks for landowners. A Republican on the Natural Resources Committee laments “we couldn’t get the votes” which would break Perry's pledge not to raise taxes.

In 2003, Perry signed legislation that created the Texas Enterprise Fund, which has since given $435 million in grants to businesses. The New York Times reported that many of the companies receiving grants, or their chief executives, have made contributions to Perry's campaigns or to the Republican Governors Association.

Health[link]

As Governor, Perry has been an outspoken opponent of federal health-care reform proposals and of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, describing the latter as "socialism on American soil". Perry's focus in Texas has been on tort reform, signing a bill in 2003 which restricted non-economic damages in medical malpractice judgments. Perry touted this approach in his Presidential campaign, although independent analysts have concluded that it has failed to increase the supply of physicians or limit health-care costs in Texas.

During Perry's governorship, Texas rose from second to first among states with the highest proportion of uninsured residents at 26%, and had the lowest level of access to prenatal care in the U.S. Perry and the Republican-led state legislature have cut Medicaid spending and made it more difficult to enroll in the program, which currently covers one-third of Texas children. The cost of caring for uninsured Texans has been borne by those with insurance, leading to substantial rises in insurance premiums and leading Texas to rank next-to-last among states in terms of affordability of health insurance. The ''Los Angeles Times'' wrote that under Perry, "working Texans increasingly have been priced out of private healthcare while the state's safety net has withered."

Perry's office has argued that Texas represents a model private-sector approach to health-care. His spokeswoman stated that "Texas does provide an adequate safety net to those truly in need... and many individuals simply choose not to purchase healthcare coverage."

Perry is pro-life and has signed multiple bills creating new rules or restrictions for abortion procedures and funding for such. These bills include a May 2010 law requiring that a sonogram be performed prior to every abortion, and that the practitioner discuss the sonogram images with the patient except in limited cases where the patient may waive the explanation. In December 2011, Perry said he had undergone a "transformation" and now opposed all abortions, including in cases of rape and incest. The next day he clarified that he would allow an exception for abortions that would save a mother's life.

In February 2007, Perry issued an executive order mandating that Texas girls receive the HPV vaccine, which protects against some strains of the human papilloma virus, a contributing factor to some forms of cervical cancer. Following the move, news outlets reported various apparent financial connections between Perry and the vaccine's manufacturer, Merck. Merck's political action committee has contributed $28,500 since 2001 to Perry's campaigns. The order was criticized by some parents and social conservatives, and a lawsuit was filed later that month. In May 2007, the Texas Legislature passed a bill undoing the order; Perry did not veto the bill, saying the veto would have been overruled, but blamed lawmakers who supported the bill for the deaths of future cancer victims.

In 2011, Governor Perry both had adult stem cell surgery himself, in Houston by Dr. Jones, and started "laying the groundwork" for the commercialization of the adult stem cell industry in Texas.

Religion[link]

Perry grew up in the Methodist church, until 2010 when he began attending Lake Hills Church in Austin. In 2006, Perry stated that he believes in the inerrancy of the Bible and that those who do not accept Jesus as their savior will go to hell. He later clarified, "I don't know that there's any human being that has the ability to interpret what God and his final decision-making is going to be." In his 2008 book ''On My Honor'', Perry expressed his views on the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. "Let's be clear: I don't believe government, which taxes people regardless of their faith, should espouse a specific faith. I also don't think we should allow a small minority of atheists to sanitize our civil dialogue on religious references." In June 2011, Perry proclaimed August 6 as a Day of Prayer and Fasting, inviting other governors to join him in a prayer meeting hosted by the American Family Association in Houston. The event was criticized as going beyond prayer and fasting to include launching Perry's presidential campaign.

Perry has called himself "a firm believer in intelligent design as a matter of faith and intellect", and has expressed support for its teaching alongside evolution in Texas schools, but has also said that "educators and local school officials, not the governor, should determine science curriculum."

Education[link]

Perry has repeatedly attacked the Robin Hood plan to provide court-mandated equitable school financing for all school districts in the state. In 2005, following rejection of Perry's proposal to replace the Robin Hood plan, Perry vetoed all funding for public schools for the 2007–2008 biennium, saying he would not "approve an education budget that shortchanges teacher salary increases, textbooks, education technology, and education reforms. And I cannot let $2 billion sit in some bank account when it can go directly to the classroom." Following a second rejection of Perry's bill, Perry asked John Sharp to head a task force charged with preparing a bipartisan education plan, which was subsequently adopted.

In 2001, Perry expressed his pride in the enactment of the statute extending in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who meet Texas' residency requirements. It also required the undocumented students to pledge to apply for permanent residency or citizenship if this became a possibility for them.

LGBT issues[link]

In 2002, Perry described the Texas same-sex anti-sodomy law as "appropriate". The United States Supreme Court's civil rights decision in ''Lawrence v. Texas'' struck down the statute Perry referred to the following year for violating the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Perry supported the 2005 ballot proposition which amended the Texas constitution by defining marriage as "only a union between a man and a woman" and prohibiting the state from creating or recognizing "any legal status identical or similar to marriage". In 2011, after New York legalized same-sex marriage, Perry stated that it was their right to do so under the principle of states' rights delineated in the 10th Amendment. A spokesman later reiterated Perry's support for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, saying that position was not inconsistent since an amendment would require approval by three-fourths of the states.

In his first book, ''On My Honor'', published in 2008, Perry drew a parallel between homosexuality and alcoholism, writing that he is "no expert on the 'nature versus nurture' debate", but that gays should simply choose abstinence. During the 2012 presidential campaign, he criticized the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell".

Crime[link]

Perry's campaigns for lieutenant governor and governor focused on a tough stance on crime. He has supported block grants for crime programs.

Jeff L. Blackburn, chief counsel of the Innocence Project of Texas, said of Perry that "He has done more good than any other governor we've ever had ... unless, of course, it involves the death penalty. On the death penalty, Rick Perry has a profound mental block".

In 2007, Perry signed a law ending automatic arrest for marijuana possession.

Death penalty[link]

Perry supports the death penalty. In June 2002, he vetoed a ban on the execution of mentally retarded inmates. As of August 10, 2011, Texas has carried out 234 executions since Rick Perry became governor. Cases in which Perry has been criticized for his lack of intervention include those of Cameron Todd Willingham, Frances Newton, and Mexican nationals José Medellín and Humberto Leal Garcia.

Perry commuted the death sentence of Kenneth Foster, who was convicted of murder despite evidence that he was only present at the scene of the crime. Perry also pardoned Tyrone Brown, who was sentenced to life in a Texas maximum security prison for smoking marijuana while on probation. Perry's actions in both these cases were following the recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Infrastructure[link]

In 2001, Perry proposed the Trans-Texas Corridor, a $145+ billion-dollar project that would build multi-lane highways, rail lines and data lines from Oklahoma to Mexico, and from east to west in southern Texas. Instead of paying for the project with taxes, Perry proposed that it be partially financed, partially built and wholly operated by private contractors, who would subsequently receive all toll proceeds. All of Perry's gubernatorial opponents opposed the corridor project, as did the 2006 state party platforms of both the Democratic and Republican parties. After much contentious debate between supporters and opponents, an official decision of "no action" was issued by the Federal Highway Administration on July 20, 2010, formally ending the project.

Gun ownership[link]

Perry has an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association. He possesses a Concealed Handgun License (CHL) and has signed a number of bills that increased CHL access.

2012 presidential campaign [link]

Until 2011, Perry persistently denied aspirations to higher office; he was originally included on the 2012 Presidential Straw Poll ballot at the Values Voter Summit in September 2009, but his name was removed at his own request. In April 2008 while appearing as a guest on CNBC's ''Kudlow & Company'', he specifically stated that he would not agree to serve as Vice President in a McCain administration, stating that he already had "the best job in the world" as governor of Texas. Further, during a Republican gubernatorial debate in January 2010, when asked if he would commit to serving out his term if re-elected, he replied that "the place hasn't been made yet" where he would rather serve than the governor of Texas. In December 2010, when asked if he was a "definite maybe" to run for President in 2012, he replied, "a definite no, brother".

On May 27, 2011, he said he is "going to think about" running for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination after the close of the Texas legislative session. Perry said in a response to a question from a reporter, "but I think about a lot of things," he added with a grin.

On August 11, a Perry spokesman said that he will be running for President in 2012, with plans to announce his formal entry into the race the next day, August 12. Perry himself confirmed it on a visit to KVUE, the ABC affiliate in Austin. As the Associated Press bulletin announcing his entry into the race came across the wire, Perry signed and dated a printed copy of the bulletin.

On August 13, Perry officially announced that he will be running for president.

In October 2011, the ''Washington Post'' reported that Perry's family leases a hunting camp once called "Niggerhead". According to some local residents interviewed by the ''Post'', the Perrys used the camp for years before painting over a large rock with that name on it, which stands at an entrance to the area, and during this time Perry hosted friends and supporters at the camp. Perry's campaign disputed the claims, stating that the Perrys painted over the rock almost immediately after acquiring a lease on the property in 1983.

On December 6, Perry released a Presidential campaign video on YouTube called "Strong" discussing his religious beliefs, as well as criticism of Obama's governance. The video states "there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but your kids can't openly celebrate Christmas." The video has been largely criticised in the on-line community and has received over 750,000 dislikes on YouTube.

Perry announced on January 19, 2012, that he would be dropping out of the 2012 Presidential Race, publicly endorsing Newt Gingrich. However on April 25, 2012, Perry endorsed Mitt Romney after Gingrich announced that he drop out a week later.

Political views [link]

''See'': Political positions of Rick Perry

Publications [link]

Rick Perry has written two books: ''On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts are Worth Fighting For'' was published in February 2008. In his book, Perry celebrates the positive impact of the organization on the youth of America and criticizes the ACLU for its legal actions against the Boy Scouts of America. His second book, ''Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington'' was published in November 2010. Perry's second book discusses his support for limited central government.

Perry has also written a lecture about the role of the federal government and the military in disaster management titled ''Federalizing Disaster Response''.

Personal life [link]

In 1982, Perry married Anita Thigpen, his childhood sweetheart whom he had known since elementary school. They have two grown children, Griffin and Sydney. Anita Perry attended West Texas State University and earned a degree in nursing. She has spearheaded a number of health-related initiatives such as the Anita Thigpen Perry Endowment at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, which focuses on nutrition, cardiovascular disease, health education, and early childhood development. Anita has also helped develop and host the Texas Conference for Women.

Electoral history [link]

References [link]

External links [link]

Governor Rick Perry ''official state site''

Rick Perry for President ''official presidential campaign site''

Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission

Financial information at OpenSecrets.org.......

;National and international media coverage

Rick Perry category at ''CNN

Rick Perry page at ''Fox News''

Rick Perry category at ''The New York Times''

Rick Perry section at ''The Wall Street Journal''

Rick Perry index at ''The Economist

Rick Perry collection at ''The (London) Guardian

Rick Perry directory at ''The Open Directory Project''

;Local media coverage

The Perry Trap at ''The Austin Chronicle''

Perry Watch at ''The Dallas Morning News''

Rick Perry 2012 at the ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram''

Rick Perry at the ''Houston Chronicle''

The Perry Trove at the ''Texas Monthly''

The Perry Trail at ''The Texas Observer''

Rick Perry at ''The Texas Tribune''

;Governor

|- |- |- |- |- |- }} |-

Category:1950 births Category:Agriculture commissioners of Texas Category:American evangelicals Category:American farmers Category:American people of English descent Category:American Methodists Category:American military personnel of the Vietnam War Category:Article Feedback 5 Additional Articles Category:Conservatism in the United States Category:Distinguished Eagle Scouts Category:Federal Emergency Management Agency critics Category:Governors of Texas Category:Lieutenant Governors of Texas Category:Living people Category:Members of the Texas House of Representatives Category:People from Haskell County, Texas Category:Republican Party state governors of the United States Category:Texas A&M; University alumni Category:Texas Republicans Category:United States Air Force officers Category:United States presidential candidates, 2012

ar:ريك بيري be:Рык Перы cs:Rick Perry cy:Rick Perry da:Rick Perry de:Rick Perry et:Rick Perry es:Rick Perry eo:Rick Perry fa:ریک پری fo:Rick Perry fr:Rick Perry gl:Rick Perry ko:릭 페리 it:Rick Perry he:ריק פרי la:Iacobus Richardus Perry lv:Riks Perijs nl:Rick Perry ja:リック・ペリー no:Rick Perry pl:Rick Perry pt:Rick Perry ru:Перри, Рик simple:Rick Perry sk:Rick Perry sh:Rick Perry fi:Rick Perry sv:Rick Perry tr:Rick Perry uk:Рік Перрі vi:Rick Perry zh:里克·佩里