Our Ancient Religious Jews and How they Kept up with Times and Haven't Slowed Down, Part I

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                

Sadducees and Pharisees were of different thoughts in Judaism.  They lived during the 2nd Temple Period around 538 BCE. That was 2,561 years ago and they were modernizing our religion with debates about 2 different ways of thinking about it.   Modernizing Judaism took place 2,561 years ago as the first need to do so.  Actually, Judaism started with Abraham (1948 BCE) a time of human sacrifice, and  believing in one G-d that went against all the civilizations.  Then of course it was Moses (1391-1271 BCE)  who upgraded that belief.  So by 538 BCE, it was time for discussion about it again.                              

 Sadducees were upper-class wealthy men mostly from Jerusalem who made up the Jewish aristocracy. They may have started with the high priest Zadok, a Cohen,  whose descendants carried on till 162 BCE. His father was Phineas Rehabiah. son of Eliezer, son of Moses.    For them, their religion was part of the Temple cult with no abstract faith.  To them, individuals and groups must aspire to well-being in this world without expecting recompense in the world to come.  They had no belief in a future world, resurrection, or the immortality of the soul and also rejected the existence of angels and spirits.  

To me, it sounds like Judaism with many people of today; all quite scientific about it.  

They stuck to the written law which actually caused them to behave severely in cases involving the capital penalty and they interpreted the Lex Talionis literally rather than in the sense of monetary compensation which was adopted by the Pharisees.   

                                                    

Karaite males at prayer in a Karaite synagogue located in Ashdod, Israel, in 1985. Hakham Hayim Levi (left, wearing a hat and eyeglasses) is leading the service. Karaite worshippers remove their shoes before entering their main communal prayer space, and either stand or kneel during prayer (© Ira

The Karaites are a Jewish sect in Israel today:  Karaites believe that all of the divine commandments which were handed down to Moses by God were recorded in the written Torah without any additional Oral Law or explanation.  

They formed in the 8th century in and around Persia (Iran)  and would not accept the discipline of the Babylonian agaonate.  Then the Arab conquest took place in 640 CE. By 1990 there were 25,000 Karaites in Israel.  Karaite doctine is conservative and more stringent than rabbinical teaching;  forbids levirate marriage and all Sabbath illumination and is stricter on laws of purity.  They do not celebrate Hanukkah because it is post biblical and do not use tephillin or mezuzot.  Their own Oral Law has evolved since the beginning.    "They don’t accept the “Oral Torah”—the Talmud, the Shulchan Aruch and other halachic (Jewish legal) texts—but they consider themselves to be devout Jews: The Karaites numbered about 40% of the Jewish people at their height, but today they have shrunk to less than one %.                              

Gever relates, “In the Second Temple period several factions were formed amongst the people of Israel, including the Pharisees and those who did not accept their path.” The Karaites did not accept the Oral Torah that was added over the generations."

            John Hyrcanus I, Ethnarch and High Priest of Hasmonean Dynasty ,king 2,,158 years ago. Hyrcanus was the youngest son of Simon Maccabeus and thus a member of the Hasmonean dynasty (so-called after an ancestor named Hasmoneus). He was king of Judah, probably situated in Jerusalem. 

In politics, they developed into the supporters of the Hasmonean kings of our Chanukah story  from the reign of John Hyrcanus, son of Simon the Hasmonean who ruled (135-104 BCE)  John was governor of Gezer.                   

His father and 2 brothers were murdered by his brother-in-law Ptolemy, son of Abubus. Ptolemy son of Abubus was an official in the early Hasmonean kingdom which then controlled Judea. According to the book of 1 Maccabees, in 135 BC, he served as the governor of Jericho. While High Priest Simon Thassi was visiting, Ptolemy orchestrated the murder of Simon and two of his sons, as well as some of Simon's servants. This act of betrayal of guest right earned Ptolemy a place in Dante's The Divine Comedy; one of the sections of the ninth layer of hell described in Inferno is called Ptolomea, where those who betray guests in their home suffer.  Ptolemy then murdered his mother whom he had been holding as hostage. 

 John was made high priest.   which made the Hasmonean state again a tributary to Syria.  Sadducees constituted the backbone of his army and state administration.  Finally there was a breach with the Pharisees and he abolished several Pharisaic regulations and suppressed the coming uprising.  His last years were peaceful.

                      Jerusalem's Queen: reigning 2,158 years ago for 9 years.  

A Novel of Salome Alexandra (The Silent Years Series)

 They lost influence under Salome Alexandra who was ruler of Judea (76-67 BCE.  She took over from her husband, Alexander Yannai, and reversed his inimical policy toward the Pharisees, traditionally by his dying request.  John Hyrcanus suffered severely at the hands of Herod.  The whole power and existence of the Sadducees was bound up with the Temple cult, and on the destruction of the Temple, they disappeared.  According to Josephus, Salome handed internal control to the Pharisees while retaining responsibility for the army and foreign policy.  Her appointment of her eldest son, Hyrcanus as high priest and heir,  was opposed by his brother, Aristobulus.  The Talmud says that Salome was the sister of Rabbi Simeon ben Shetah and regard her favorably, but Josephus was critical.  

 Pharisees came from all economic classes but were distinguished by their rigid adherence to specific behavior prescriptions arising from their interpretation of the ambiguities in the Torah. They seem to have come from a continuation of the Hasideans.  Their name means to be set apart;  and avoided contact with others for reasons of ritual purity.  The Pharisees were  a relatively narrow body, closed to the masses, but their activity was directed to the masses whom they sought to imbue with a spirit of holiness by propagating traditional religious teaching.  

There was a gulf between the Pharisees and those ignorant of the Law or not practicing it.  The Pharisees used to eat in groups of their own and observe all the rules of purity in the same manner as the priests consuming consecrated food in the Temple.  In other words, they were doing the same things only the food was not as kosher as the food of the Sadducees.

       Simchat Beit Hashoevah - Sukkot's Joyous Water-Drawing Ceremony ...

They tried to influence the Temple whose control there was absolute.  They incorporated into the cult folk-customs not mentioned in the bible, like the Water-Drawing Festival (simhat bet ha-shoevah), to the dismay of the Sadducees.  This was a festival of water-libation at the end of the 1st day of Succot (the Feast of Tabernacles).  It was advocated by the Pharisees, not wanted by the Pharisees as it was not acknowledged by the Sadducees since it had no authority in the Torah  (Pentateuch), but the populace nevertheless observed it enthusiastically.  After all, this was a hot country and water at the end of a hot day was like playing with the hose.  It was a modern addition to the holiday, probably beloved by the children.  With the fall of the Temple it was finished but revived recently in an altered form in modern Israel.  This sounds so much like the Music Festival held on October 7th at a secular kibbutz near Gaza.  

There were other reasons for antagonism between the 2 parties that extended to many spheres, mainly basic social differences. 

The Pharisees admitted the principle of evolution in their legal decisions, while the Sadducees were incapable of adaption to a changing environment.  So, the Pharisees were seen as being generally lenient in their interpretations, while the Sadducees clung to the letter of the written text.  The Pharisees placed the nation's life within a halakic framework expressed in the ORAL LAW which they regarded as no less vital than the Written Law (the Bible).  Their doctrine aspired to embrace the entire life of the community, touching therefore on the theological foundations of life, questions of fate, good and evil, the immortality of the soul, and eschatology.  They admitted divine predestination but also man's responsibility for his deeds.    Pharisees incorporated more than the Torah had written.  They were at the point of thinking of more questions they needed answers to in the frame of the law.  

Yet, by the time Jesus was born , by Jewish literature, died in 29 CE, said to have died at age from 33 to 40 years old, lets say 37, would have been born in 8 BCE and raised, he picked on the Pharisees.  

"Jesus regularly condemned the practices and behavior of the Pharisees because he said they lived hypocritically and went against His teachings.  That's because he was straying way away from Judaism's basic views.  Jesus's education went as far as Bethlehem and Nazareth, small towns.  Pharisees were stationed at the Temple in Jerusalem which was the center, like Yale or Harvard.   To understand the complexity of Jesus and the Pharisees, it’s important to understand who the Pharisees were, why they disliked Jesus, and why Jesus rejected their practices and lifestyle."  They were the most modernized of the two theories, the most lenient.  Jesus was evidently not used to debate, which was how the Sadducees and Pharisees settled their division.  He was like many;  hearing something new that went against his decisions, and he didn't listen anymore;  was angry, even made a scene by throwing things in the Temple where they  changed money from other countries to Israel's so they could buy food.  

This was over 2,000 years ago and Judaism would not stand still but continued to upgrade the religion to fit the times.  Debate was usually the way they did it.  It is a peaceful way, and people can follow it, seeing what is sensible and what isn't.  We haven't even come to the Dark Ages yet of the Middle Ages.  

Since Jesus, Christianity has felt that they are in competition with Judaism.  That's why Rome came down hard on Judaism and took over Christianity for sure with Constantine's mother, Helena and his meetings in the 300s.  In 325 CE (AD), Roman Emperor Constantine I held the First Council of Nicaea in Nicaea, Bithynia (present-day Turkey) to address divisive issues and establish the orthodox beliefs of Christianity: 

Resource:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/early-critics-of-christ-pharisees-and-sadducees.html#:~:text=Sadducees%20were%20upper%2Dclass%20wealthy,the%20ambiguities%20in%20the%20Torah.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1971019/jewish/Simchat-Beit-Hashoevah.htm

https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2014/04/pharisees-and-sadducees-of-2nd-temple.html

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4943529,00.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaite_Judaism#:~:text=Karaites%20believe%20that%20all%20of,additional%20Oral%20Law%20or%20explanation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_of_birth_of_Jesus#:~:text=The%20common%20Christian%20traditional%20dating,is%20dubious%20or%20otherwise%20unfounded.

https://www.angel.com/blog/the-chosen/posts/jesus-and-the-pharisees

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_son_of_Abubus

https://academic.oup.com/book/26648/chapter-abstract/195392028?redirectedFrom=fulltext

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hyrcanus

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Hyrcanus-I

How We Got To the Roman Invasion of the Holy Land of Judah

 Nadene Goldfoot                                       

Son, Judas Maccabee, a 1st son, , leader with brothers fighting against Antiochus Epiphanes in 167-66 BCE Syrian army.  He died in 160 BCE.  He occupied Jerusalem in 164 BCE, then purified the Temple and brought assistance to Jewish communities in transjordan and Galilee.  He forced the Lysias to recognize religious freedom, and maintained his resistance, insisting on political freedom for which he was killed in battle at Elasa. Lysias (/ˈlɪsiəs/; Greek: Λυσίας; c. 445 – c. 380 BCE) was a logographer (speech writer) in Ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace in the third century BCE.

 Among Jews, Judas Maccabee is our prototype of heroism..  

The home of Mattathias, a priest in the village of Modiʿim (now Modiʿin), 17 miles (27 km) northwest of Jerusalem, quickly became the centre of resistance. With him were his five sons, John Gaddi, Simon Thassi, Judas Maccabeus, Eleazar Avaran, and Jonathan Apphus. Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian, gives Mattathias’s great-grandfather the surname Asamonaios. From this title comes the name Hasmonean that was applied to the dynasty that descended from the Maccabees in the following century. 

                    Judaea, Roman spelling for Judah.  

The Hasmonean dynasty ; Hebrew: חַשְׁמוֹנָאִים‎ Ḥašmōnaʾīm) was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity, from c. 140 BCE to 37 BCE. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BCE the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously in the Seleucid Empire, and from roughly 110 BCE, with the empire disintegrating, Judea gained further autonomy and expanded into the neighboring regions of Perea, Samaria, Idumea, Galilee, and Iturea. The Hasmonean rulers took the Greek title basileus ("king" or "emperor"). Forces of the Roman Republic conquered the Hasmonean kingdom in 63 BCE and made it into a client state; Herod the Great displaced the last reigning Hasmonean client-ruler in 37 BCE.

Most certainly, it is known that in 139 BCE, Simon Maccabeus, brother of Judah Maccabeus, leader,  sent a Hasmonean embassy to Rome in order to strengthen his alliance with the Roman Republic against the Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom. The ambassadors received a cordial welcome from their coreligionists already established in Rome.

Large numbers of Jews even lived in Rome during the late Roman Republican period (from around 150 BCE). They were largely Greek-speaking and poor. As Rome had increasing contact with and military/trade dealings with the Greek-speaking Levant, during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, many Greeks, as well as Jews, came to Rome as merchants or were brought there as slaves.

The Romans appear to have viewed the Jews as followers of peculiar, backward religious customs, but antisemitism as it would come to be in the Christian and Islamic worlds did not exist (see Anti-Judaism in the pre-Christian Roman Empire). Despite their disdain, the Romans did recognize and respect the antiquity of the Jews' religion and the fame of their Temple in Jerusalem (Herod's Temple). Many Romans did not know much about Judaism, including the emperor Augustus who, according to his biographer Suetonius, thought that Jews fasted on the sabbath. Julius Caesar was known as a great friend to the Jews, and they were among the first to mourn his assassination.

In Rome, the Jewish community was highly organized, and presided over by heads called άρχοντες (archontes) or γερουσιάρχοι (gerousiarchoi). The Jews maintained in Rome several synagogues, whose spiritual leader was called αρχισυνάγωγος (archisunagogos). Their tombstones, mostly in Greek with a few in Hebrew/Aramaic or Latin, were decorated with the ritual menorah (seven-branched candelabrum).

Some scholars have previously argued that Jews in the pre-Christian Roman Empire were active in proselytising Romans in Judaism, leading to an increasing number of outright converts. The new consensus is, that this is not the case. According to Erich S. Gruen, though conversions did happen, there is no evidence of Jews trying to convert Gentiles to Judaism. It has also been argued that some people adopted some Jewish practices and belief in the Jewish God without actually converting (called God-fearers).

In 71 BCE, 6,000 slaves were crucified along the 200-kilometer (120 mi) Via Appia from Rome to Capua  after the Spartacus Slave Uprising..

According to another book, The New Testament, a Jew by the name of Jesus, was nailed to the Roman's cross by 30-33 CE.  It was already said that avenues were lined in these crosses with Jews on them.  The crucifixion and death of Jesus occurred in 1st-century Judea, most likely in 30 CE or 33 CE. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, attested to by other ancient sources, and considered an established historical event.

Rome attacked and occupied the land of Judah by The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), sometimes called the Great Jewish Revolt (Hebrew: המרד הגדול ha-Mered Ha-Gadol), or The Jewish War, which was the first of three major rebellions by the Jews against the Roman Empire, fought in Roman-controlled Judea, resulting in the destruction of Jewish towns, the displacement of its people and the appropriation of land for Roman military use, as well as the destruction of the Jewish Temple and polity.

By 70 CE, Rome had been occupying Judah, and then looted and  destroyed the 2nd Temple and the city of Jerusalem. Herod (73 BCE-4 BCE) son of Antipater the Idumean and Cypros, his Nabatean wife, a man made king of Judea by the Roman Senate.  He had rebuilt the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem on a magnificent scale and erected the 2 new cities of Sebaste and Caesarea.  Outside Judea, he was regarded as a generous patron and as a spokesman and protector of the Jews. So the beautiful makeover of the Temple lasted about 66 years before his bosses destroyed it. Solomon himself ruled from about 961 to 920 BCE.  The 1st Temple he built was destroyed in 586 by the Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians when they had attacked and took away prisoners.   The Temple was rebuilt by Jews freed from Persia in 538 BCE who were told to return and rebuild. Later, of course, Herod had his turn.          

Herod can be compared to the House of Cards American president-Francis Joseph Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey (fictional character and the protagonist villain) on Netflix.   Herod was so evil. When a young governor of Galilee, he executed dissidents.  The Sanhedrin was going to punish him for it-by death, but he was saved by the intervention of Hyrcanus and Sextus Caesar, governor of Syria.  He married his 2nd wife, the Hasmonean Mariamne, who died in 29 BCE, granddaughter of the high priest, Hyrcanus, son and successor of Simon the Hasmonean (135-104 BCE). She became mother to 3 sons and 2 daughters.  Her life was wretched, loathed by Herod's family whom she regarded as upstarts.  She hated Herod who had murdered her kinsfolk.  Herod's sister, Salome, convinced Herod that Mariamne was an adulteress, so she died, condemned and executed.  Doris (Sarah) of Jerusalem is said to be the 1st wife of Herod. Born in Idumea/Edom/Mt. Seir, mother of Antipater III of Judea. 

Resource;

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.geni.com/people/Doris-of-Jerusalem-King-Herod-1st-wife-married-him-twice/6000000003645877042 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appian_Way

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasmonean_dynasty

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Maccabees/Jewish-resistance#ref72913

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Italy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Roman_Empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus#:~:text=The%20crucifixion%20and%20death%20of,considered%20an%20established%20historical%20event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish%E2%80%93Roman_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysias

Did Jews Ever Live Under A Democracy?

Nadene Goldfoot                                            

       Public voting in Ancient Greece by placing pebbles in urn,

funny cartoon vector illustration of democracy origins     The year is 510 B.C. in Athens, a Greek city-state. There is conflict between the rich and the poor, and the tyrant Hippias has just been expelled from the city, ending fifty years of oppression that began with his father Pisistratus. Something must change about the way the city is governed, but what?   Enter Cleisthenes, who earned the title “Father of Democracy” for his radical reforms to the Athenian government, which later Athenians saw as the beginning of their democracy. Building upon the earlier laws of Solon, Cleisthenes utterly transformed the political organization of Athens. Cleisthenes’ reorganization of the many villages of Athens into ten tribes was the basis for the democratic institutions which followed. From these tribes, citizens were chosen by lot to hold public office, serve on juries, set the agenda for the governing assembly, and more.        

                                                                              

                                                                           

                                 In Eretz Yisrael, Deborah, the judge, solving problems for people, would also lead the men into war when needed, a multi-tasked woman.  

Democracy is a form of government in which political power resides in all who have civic rights.  The ancient Hebrew polity, whether under priesthood, judges, or monarchy, cannot be called democratic.                                

Nevertheless, the Torah (5 Books of Moses, (Pentatateuch) laid down fundamental principles which had to be followed by the ruler in governing his "brethern" (Deut. 17:20), them being, therefore, important elements of limited or constitutional monarchy, that is,  the ruler was subject to law.                             

According to one opinion, the Am ha-Aretz (People of the Land) , who had a strong political influence from time to time in the period of the First Temple, was the "Ancient Hebrew Parliament."                                              

                              

A portion of John Sargent’s “Frieze of Prophets,” depicting (from left to right): Micah, Haggai, Malachi, Zechariah (c. 1895)

Copyright © Sheryl Lanzel

The Prophets, most of whom were derived from the masses, exercised continual pressure to modify legislation in favor of the common man.  

1. Micah:  family were peasants, latter 8th century BCE. He spoke for people against the oppression of the ruling-classes, threatens them with the destruction of the country and exile to Babylon, foresees a future monarch of the house of David that would bring peace to the world.  

2. Haggai: 520 BCE, called for the rebuilding of the Temple, questions the priests regarding the laws of uncleanness, foretells the glory of the Temple and the greatness of Zerubbabel. 

3. Malachi:  460-450 BCE, protested against transgressions in matters of sacrifices and tithes.  The priest must turn the multitude from sin and himself maintain a high level of morality.  He also complained of mixed and broken marriages.  

4. Zechariah: first half of 6th century BCE, lived during the period of the return from the Babylonian Exile, a priest, made prophecies concerning with contemporary events and foretold material prosperity, the ingathering of the exiles, liberation from foreign yoke, and the expansion of Jerusalem.  He had visions and were interpreted by an accompanying angel, encouraged people to finish the rebuilding of the Temple.  

The exact nature of the Hever ha-Yehudin  (Community of the Jews), referred to on Hasmonean coins is obscure, but it should be noted that of the 1st,  Simon Thassi, brother of Judas Maccabeus ,Simon's rule was by popular consent.  He died in 135 BCE.   The Hasmonean dynasty was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity, from c. 140 BCE to 37 BCE

                                                                    

The later Hasmonean monarchy, however, was absolute, restricted only by the imprecise authority of the Sanhedrin a group of 71 Cohens (descended from Aaron),  ordained scholars functioning as the Supreme Court and as the legislature. 

In later generations, political democracy was out of the question for the Jewish people, living constantly under alien rule, of which was Rome for starters.

                                                                      

In the medieval communities, authority tended to be vested in the wealthy.   Sometimes the poor had no controlling rights at all.  Sometimes there was a tripartite division, each of the 3 economic ranges;  wealthy, middle-class, poor, having an equal voice.  It is questionable whether the paupers figured in this scheme.  In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.  On left are Jews in the 13th century forced to wear this type of clothing to be identified from others.  Jews had no rights.  

                                                                

Nevertheless, the egalitarian tendencies of Jewish religion and life fostered democratic feelings at all times, and the rights of the poor were always respected.

                                                                     

In the 19th century, the Jews of Europe, long excluded from privilege and clearly forming no part of the aristocracy, threw their weight everywhere on the side of democracy.  They were very active in improvements of this period, both "revolutionary" and constitutional, to secure the establishment of democratic government in all countries.

                                                                       

In Russia, Tevye, his wife Golde, and their five daughters dealt with the outside influences that were encroaching upon their humble lives. But what happened to those remarkable characters after the curtain fell?
In After Anatevka, Alexandra Silber picks up where Fiddler left off. Second-eldest daughter Hodel takes center stage as she attempts to join her Socialist-leaning fiancé Perchik to the outer reaches of a Siberian work camp. But before Hodel and Perchik can finally be together, they both face extraordinary hurdles and adversaries―both personal and political―attempting to keep them apart at all costs. “ Silber’s admirable continuation imagines Hodel’s life in two post-Fiddler periods: Hodel’s courtship with and engagement to the scholarly Perchik, and her attempts years later to reunite with him after he is sent to a forced labor camp. Silber, an actress who played both Hodel and Tzeitzel in productions of the musical, imbues the book with an obvious fondness for and understanding of the characters...the moving story and attention to detail will make this an enjoyable trip for any fan of Fiddler on the Roof. ”  

The recent experiences of the Jews under totalitarian regimes have reinforced this tendency.  Throughout Eastern and Central Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, commencing with the Haskalah movement and strengthened by current socialist trends, a continuous struggle was waged by some intellectuals and working class "representatives" to destroy the alleged monopoly of wealth and Orthodoxy over Jewish public life.  

                                                                  

The great magician and escape artist, Harry Houdini (originally Eric Weiss), was born in Budapest, Hungary, and was taken to the U. S. when his father became the religious leader of a Jewish congregation in Appleton, Wisconsin. Displayed here is the inside cover of a Bible belonging to his father, Rabbi Samuel Weiss. The two photographs displayed here show Houdini with his "two sweethearts,"--wife Beatrice and mother Cecilia Steiner Weiss--and, in the other, planting a kiss on his mother's cheek.  Fly-leaf and First Page of the Bible of Rabbi Samuel Weiss (1829-1892), father of Harry Houdini (1874-1926) Die Bible oder Die ganze Heilige Schrift des Alten und Neuen Testaments. New York: Amerikanische Bibel-Gesellschaft, 1892. McManus-Young Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (96)

Haskalah translated:  : an intellectual movement among Jews of eastern Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries that attempted to acquaint the masses with European and Hebrew languages and with secular education and culture to supplement talmudic studies.

— see MASKIL

The Haskalah pursued two complementary aims. 

1. It sought to preserve the Jews as a separate, unique collective and worked for a cultural and moral renewal, especially a revival of Hebrew for secular purposes, pioneering the modern press and literature in the language. 

2. Concurrently, it strove for an optimal integration of the Jews in surrounding societies, including the study of native vernacular and adoption of modern values, culture and appearance, all combined with economic productivization. 

The Haskalah promoted rationalism, liberalism, freedom of thought and enquiry, and is largely perceived as the Jewish variant of the general Age of Enlightenment. The movement encompassed a wide spectrum ranging from moderates, who hoped for maximal compromise and conservatism, to radicals who sought sweeping changes.

                                                                 

    Pretty obvious who works and who doesn't, here.  We all need a trade, a skill.  Work is our ethic.  

So, a more democratic direction became established in Jewish community organization though, where contributions for communal purposes are voluntary, the wealthier elements invariably have disproportionate authority.

The influence of the Bible in establishing  democratic tendencies in 17th century England and 18th century America was incalculable.  

Chaim Weizmann, 1st President from 16 May, 1948 to 25 November 1952, chemist, Zionist leader, born at Motel, near Pinsk, joined the Democratic Faction. liked by Lord Balfour and US Justice Brandeis.   

In modern Israel, the VAAD LEUMI and, after it, the KNESSET, were from the beginning, spontaneously organized on a fully democratic basis.  Biblical Israel was not run by a democracy but by a monarchy;  kings, first their own and then those chosen by foreign conquerors. 

Finally, they have a President and a Prime Minister and all the trimmings that go with them, a democracy.   

Reference:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia-Democracy 

https://watchjerusalem.co.il/578-the-biblical-prophets-archaeological-evidence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasmonean_dynasty

https://alexandrasilber.squarespace.com/after-anatevka

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasmonean_dynasty

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/video/antisemitism-enlightenment-world-war-i