IN: Jews (Hebrew: y@hv'diym ISO 259-3 Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation [jehu'dim]) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and a nation originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish people, while its observance varies from strict observance to complete nonobservance.

After the destruction of the Second Temple, Judaism lost much of its sectarian nature. Nevertheless, a significant Hellenized Diaspora remained, centered in Alexandria, at the time the largest urban Jewish community in the world. Hellenism was a force not just in the Diaspora but also in the Land of Israel over a long period of time. Generally, scholars view Rabbinic Judaism as having been meaningfully influenced by Hellenism.  Without a Temple, Greek-speaking Jews no longer looked to Jerusalem in the way they had before. Judaism separated into a linguistically Greek and a Hebrew / Aramaic sphere. The theology and religious texts of each community were distinctively different. Hellenized Judaism never developed yeshivas to study the Oral Law. Rabbinic Judaism (centered in the Land of Israel and Babylon) almost entirely ignores the Hellenized Diaspora in its writings. Hellenized Judaism eventually disappeared as its practitioners assimilated into Greco-Roman culture, leaving a strong Rabbinic eastern Diaspora with large centers of learning in Babylon.  By the first century, the Jewish community in Babylonia, to which Jews were exiled after the Babylonian conquest as well as after the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE, already held a speedily growing population of an estimated one million Jews, which increased to an estimated two million between the years 200 CE and 500 CE, both by natural growth and by immigration of more Jews from the Land of Israel, making up about one-sixth of the world Jewish population at that era. The 13th-century author Bar Hebraeus gave a figure of 6,944,000 Jews in the Roman world; Salo Wittmayer Baron considered the figure convincing. The figure of seven million within and one million outside the Roman world in the mid-first century became widely accepted, including by Louis Feldman. However, contemporary scholars now accept that Bar Hebraeus based his figure on a census of total Roman citizens, the figure of 6,944,000 being recorded in Eusebius' Chronicon. Louis Feldman, previously an active supporter of the figure, now states that he and Baron were mistaken. Feldman's views on active Jewish missionizing have also changed. While viewing classical Judaism as being receptive to converts, especially from the second century BCE through the first century CE, he points to a lack of either missionizing tracts or records of the names of rabbis who sought converts as evidence for the lack of active Jewish missionizing. Feldman maintains that conversion to Judaism was common and the Jewish population was large both within the Land of Israel and in the Diaspora. Other historians believe that conversion during the Roman era was limited in number and did not account for much of the Jewish population growth, due to various factors such as the illegality of male conversion to Judaism in the Roman world from the mid-second century. Another factor that made conversion difficult in the Roman world was the halakhic requirement of circumcision, a requirement that proselytizing Christianity quickly dropped. The Fiscus Judaicus, a tax imposed on Jews in 70 CE and relaxed to exclude Christians in 96 CE, also limited Judaism's appeal.
QUESTION: Can you tell me more about something that happened in Babylon?
IN: Tracey Ullman was born Trace Ullman in Slough, Buckinghamshire, the younger of two daughters, to Dorin (nee Cleaver) and Antony John Ullman. Her mother was British, with Roma ancestry, and her father was a Roman Catholic Pole. On the subject of the spelling of her name: "My real name is Trace Ullman, but I added the 'y.' My mother said it was spelled the American way, but I don't think she can spell!

Along with her television work, Ullman has featured in many films throughout her career. Her first theatrical film was a small role in Paul McCartney's 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street. This was followed by a supporting role in the 1985 Meryl Streep drama Plenty. She re-teamed with Streep for 1992's Death Becomes Her, playing Toni, a bartender who runs away with Ernest (Bruce Willis) and lives happily ever after. Director Robert Zemeckis decided to re-shoot the ending, opting for a darker, "more risky ending." This meant that Ullman's scenes would have to be cut. "We were all heartbroken over losing the character. (She) was so great." Despite the cut, some of her scenes were released in an early trailer for the film. Death Becomes Her is one of two instances in which her scenes in a film have ended up on the cutting room floor. Due to time constraints, her song in 1996's Everyone Says I Love You was deleted.  She made her big screen leading role debut in 1990's I Love You to Death acting alongside Kevin Kline, River Phoenix and Joan Plowright. She subsequently appeared in lead and supporting roles in films such as Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Nancy Savoca's Household Saints, Bullets over Broadway, Small Time Crooks and A Dirty Shame. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the category of Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her work in Small Time Crooks in 2001.  Her voice work in film includes Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and the computer-animated The Tale of Despereaux. She acted as creative consultant on the 2006 DreamWorks feature, Flushed Away.  In 2014, she played Jack's Mother in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Into the Woods.  Ullman was under serious consideration for a number of roles: Betty Rubble in 1994's The Flintstones; Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games. Director Adrian Lyne asked her to screen test for his film Fatal Attraction. She passed on the idea and the role went to Glenn Close. She was also sought for reuniting with her Plenty co-star Meryl Streep in She-Devil. The part ultimately went to comedian Roseanne Barr.
QUESTION:
what was her top film?