“The Jews are ruining what you love most.”LIE

In Genesis, each day of creation is “evening and morning,” so the day begins at nightfall. Shabbat starts on Friday at sundown.

No. Millions of Jews are secular, meaning not religious, and many don’t believe in God at all. They are every bit as Jewish, even by the strictest religious rules. A Christian or Muslim who stops believing often stops calling themselves Christian or Muslim. A Jew who stops believing is still a Jew, because being Jewish means belonging to a people, not signing on to a set of beliefs. The Hebrew Bible doesn’t even have a word for “religion.” When modern Hebrew needed one, it borrowed dat, a Bible word that means something closer to “law.”

The Jewish people began in the Land of Israel, in the Middle East, more than 3,000 years ago. From there, communities spread to Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Ethiopia, Morocco, India, Spain, Poland, Argentina, the United States and beyond, and people of every background have chosen to join. Many people picture Jews as white Europeans, but nearly half the world’s Jews live in Israel, and about half of Israel’s Jews have family roots in the Middle East and North Africa. And DNA studies show that even Jews whose families lived in Europe for centuries are more closely related to Middle Eastern Jews than to their non-Jewish European neighbors.

An enormous record of debates about Jewish law and life, collected over centuries. It keeps the losing arguments too, so later readers can think for themselves.

In Jewish tradition, arguing isn’t disrespect. Done right, it’s holy work. The name Israel means “one who wrestles with God.” Abraham argued with God to spare Sodom, and Job said, “I desire to argue my case with God.” In one Talmud story, a voice from heaven takes one rabbi’s side. Another rabbi answers, “It is not in heaven”: it’s up to people to interpret the Torah. And God laughs: “My children have defeated me.” Arguing to find the truth, not just to win, is called “an argument for the sake of heaven.”

It is the ancient homeland, the one place where Jews have lived continuously for 3,000 years, and today it is home to nearly half of the world’s Jews.

Even the word “Jew” comes from there. It means a person of Judah, or Judea, the ancient kingdom around Jerusalem. The proof is in the ground and in the language: a stone from about 2,800 years ago that names the “House of David”; a Hebrew inscription carved into a Jerusalem water tunnel around 700 BCE; the Dead Sea Scrolls, mostly written in Hebrew; and Roman coins stamped “Judaea Capta” (“Judea captured”) after Rome destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE.

Zionism is the idea that Jews, like other peoples, have the right to govern themselves in their ancient homeland, the land of Israel. A Zionist is someone who supports that idea. It says nothing about any particular government, leader or policy, and many Zionists argue fiercely with Israel’s leaders. When someone uses “Zionist” to mean a secret cabal or an evil force, they have changed the meaning of the word.

It depends on the family. Jews who follow the tradition rest from Friday sundown to Saturday night: no work, no driving, no screens, just shared meals, prayer, reading, and long talks. Many secular Jews spend Saturday like everyone else, and plenty keep just part of it, like a Friday night dinner with candles and bread. They are all Jewish.