recite the Shema declaration of faith in their daily prayers: “Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God. The Lord is one.” The experiences in Babylonia shaped much of the pattern of subsequent Jewish life. Isadore Epstein, editor of an English translation of the Babylonian Talmud, said the people of Judah shared the fate of “captivity” suffered by the ten tribes of the long-vanished northern kingdom of Israel. But, “whilst the other tribes vanished and merged with their conquerors, Judah alone survived.