American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants. Minorities from all Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented, including Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and a number of converts. The American Jewish community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions, as well as encompassing the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance.

Depending on religious definitions and varying population data, the United States is home to the largest or second largest (after Israel) Jewish community in the world. The population of American adherents of Judaism was estimated to be approximately 5,128,000 or 1.7% of the total population in 2007 (301,621,000); including those who identify themselves culturally as Jewish (but not necessarily religiously), this population was estimated at 6,489,000 (2.2%) as of 2008. As a contrast, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics estimated the Israeli Jewish population was 5,664,000 in 2009 (75.4% of the total population).

The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎‎ ISO 259-3 Yhudim Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), 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.

Norman Gary Finkelstein (born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust, an interest motivated by the experiences of his parents who are Jewish Holocaust survivors. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and, most recently, DePaul University, where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007.

In 2007, after a highly publicized row between Finkelstein and a notable opponent of his, Alan Dershowitz, Finkelstein's tenure bid at DePaul was denied. Finkelstein was placed on administrative leave for the 2007–2008 academic year, and on September 5, 2007, he announced his resignation after coming to a settlement with the university on generally undisclosed terms. An official statement from DePaul strongly defended the decision to deny Finkelstein tenure, stated that outside influence played no role in the decision, and praised Finkelstein "as a prolific scholar and outstanding teacher."

Lawrence Francis O'Donnell, Jr. (born November 7, 1951) is a political analyst, journalist, actor, producer, writer, and host of The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, a weeknight MSNBC opinion and news program. O'Donnell called himself a "practical European socialist" in a Newsmaker Interview dated November 11, 2005. He frequently filled in as host of Countdown before getting his own show on the cable network. Beginning 24 October 2011, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell switched time slots with The Ed Show, with Ed Schultz taking over the 8 p.m. Eastern slot, and O'Donnell returning to the 10 p.m. Eastern slot.

O'Donnell has also appeared as a political analyst on The McLaughlin Group, The Al Franken Show, and Countdown. He was an Emmy Award-winning producer and writer for the NBC series The West Wing and creator and executive producer of the NBC series Mister Sterling. He is also an occasional actor, appearing as a recurring supporting character on the HBO series Big Love, portraying an attorney. He began his career as an aide to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and was Staff Director for the Senate Finance Committee.

Israeli Jews, also known as Jewish Israelis, can refer to:

Israeli Jews are found mostly in Israel and Western world countries, as well as many other countries worldwide, not necessarily only in Jewish communities. Israeli Jews mostly speak Hebrew and most practice Judaism in some form. Israel, the Jewish state, currently has almost half the world's Jews.

The Jewish community in Israel is composed from all Jewish ethnic divisions, including Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Beta Israel and some converts. The Israeli Jewish community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions, as well as encompassing the full spectrum of religious observance, from the Haredi communities to the Hilonim Jewish communities who live a secular lifestyle.

Despite the ongoing debate over the question of who is a Jew among Israeli Jews, the Jewish status of a person, which is considered a matter of "nationality" by the Israeli authorities, is registered and controlled by the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, which requires a person to meet the halakhic definition to be registered as a "Jew". Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics estimated the Israeli Jewish population was 5,901,000 in December 2011 (75.3% of the total population). Depending on religious definitions and varying population data, Israel is home to the largest or second largest (after the United States) Jewish community in the world.