Judaism is the oldest monotheistic religion, believing in one God and his prophets. This religion started around 2,000 B.C. in Israel when God helped Abraham establish a covenant. Abraham is known as the first patriarch and is seen as the exemplar who is faithful to God. Like Judaism, Christianity and Islam are both monotheistic religions, and they all struggled when their religions were first being created because many were upset they were leaving the main religion, resulting in prosecution. The difference between Christianity and Judaism is that the Jews believe that the Messiah's have not come yet, where as the Christians believe they came before B.C. In the Islamic religion they believe Muhammad was the messiah instead and they already came. Another important person in the Judaism religion is Moses. He is the one that led the Jewish people across the Red Sea from Egypt where he then received the 10 commandments at Mount Sinai.
The holy book that people of the Jewish faith use is called The Torah. The Torah is made up of five books of Moses: Bresheit, Shemot, Vayicra, Bamidbar, and Devarim. Most of the Jewish leadership has been through rabbi’s but they used to have prophets and sometimes depending on the country they’ll choose a leader (somewhat like the pope) for the religion but for the most part there is not a universal single leader. Jewish people go to worship in the synagogue or as some of the other branches of Judaism call it a shul or a temple. Judaism was the first religion to only believe in one god and as they evolved so did the idea of what god really is.
The three most common forms of Judaism today are reform, orthodox, and conservative. Conservative Jews wish to conserve the traditional elements of Judaism while also allowing for reasonable modernization and rabbinical development. Orthodox is the most traditional form of Judaism they also hold to “oral law”. Reform Judaism is the most liberal of the three organized under the union for more inclusive forms of Judaism than other main types.
Every religion has a few special holidays. Judaism has Yom Kippur and Passover Yom Kippur is the Jewish New Year. In 2017 Yom Kippur will fall on Friday, September 29. The Day of Atonement is another name for Yom KIppur. On this day, the Jewish people pray that all their sins are forgiven and they forgive everyone that has hurt them. The Judaism Passover is when the Jewish people commemorate the liberation of the children that were led by Moses. This day in 2017 falls on April 10-18. It is usually 7 or 8 days long.
Overall, Judaism is a very unique religion that has it's many similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam.