A community is a group of people together with the same goal. It is the social group to which a subject belongs by sharing some characteristic or objective. For example: “The Spanish community in Argentina has several clubs and restaurants”, “A member of the Mexican community was murdered by a gang in the United States”, “Tomorrow the community party will take place in the town square”.
The most common use of the concept is linked to the group of people born in the same country but residing in a foreign nation. Some immigrants meet with their compatriots to maintain their customs, remember their land and fight for their rights.
The communities usually meet in clubs to carry out activities typical of their native countries. These clubs also generally have restaurants offering traditional foods. In this way, not only members of the community can feel closer to their land, but the rest of society can get to know other flavors.
It can be said that the collectivities have various civil associations that arise from their own actions, while other institutions correspond to the State and are under the orbit of the government (such as embassies or consulates).
It is important to note that communities can also correspond to a religion and not to a country, as is the case of the Jewish community: “The Jewish community made public its rejection of the recent attacks that took place in the Middle East”, “I have many friends of the Jewish community ”.
About the Jewish community
The Jewish community is an ethnic group that descends from the ancient Israelites and the Hebrews, and its religion is linked to its ethnicity, as well as its customs and its language. As a people, Jews have been the victims of countless persecutions in various parts of the world, which has generated significant changes in their population. Currently, it is estimated that they reach an average of 13.5 million people, and that a large part of them live in Israel and the United States.
It is worth mentioning that the terms Jew and Judaism were used almost without distinction until the end of the 18th century, when the appearance of the Haskala, a movement also known as the Jewish Enlightenment that took place on the European continent, profoundly marked the mentality of the Jewish people, getting many to maintain their attachment to their roots but did not feel identified with the religious tradition.
When the word Jewish is pronounced, there are three well-defined groups that can be identified with it: ethnic Jews; practitioners of Judaism; who feel identified with this town for its history and culture. According to Jewish law (hajalá), an individual can be considered Jewish when his mother is also Jewish, or after being converted by formal means, which implies the participation of certain religious authorities.
There are other points of view apart from the orthodox one, which admit within Judaism any person born of a Jewish father or mother; These are definitions belonging to the liberal and reformist currents. Similarly, for humanists, anyone who feels Jewish is, regardless of their ancestry and without the need to formally convert.
According to DigoPaul, a particular characteristic of the Jewish community is the large number of people of international prestige and fame that it has produced throughout history. Some examples are: Gustav Mahler, a great romantic composer and conductor born in today’s Czech Republic in the late 19th century; Sigmund Freud, an Austrian-born psychiatrist known worldwide as the founder of psychoanalysis; Albert Einstein, German physicist born in 1879, developer of the theory of relativity and responsible for a legacy that continues to be taken as a reference, several decades after his death.
