Are the Jews/Judaism a race or a religion ?

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That is purely a halachic (Jewish Law) criterion and has no practical meaning. During the bad old days in Nazi Germany it would have mattered. Both Hitler and Orthodox Jews agreed quite closely on what constituted Jewish heritage.

ruveyn

Italians, are considered an "ethnic group", as are Puerto Ricans.

Likewise Jews can be considered an ethnic group. Although you might argue that by that analogy they are really several ethnic groups: Ashkenazie, Sephartic, and others world subgroupings of Jews.

Judaism is a religion.

So Jews are both a religion and an ethnic group ( or maybe several ethnic groups).

But they are hardly a "race" in the common 20th useage of the word.

Even if you assume that the concept of "race" is other than pure BS, and that there are large subdivisions of the human species that can be called "races" - even then suggesting that Jews are in themselves a "race" is nonsense.

On one hand - yes genetic studies have shown that Jews of the Diaspora in Russia or Canada ( for example) are genetically distinct from the surrounding gentiles in the same countries. Even freckled and red headed Jews have distinct genes from the surrounding gentile whites.

But these same Jews are NOT genetically distinct from other semitic peoples in the middle east ( ie Arabs). In fact Russian Jews are not only genetically closer to Arabs than they are to Russian Gentiles- they are especially close cousins of the Palestinian Arabs.

So even if you're going to lend credence to the concept of "race" and then try to link that concept to the Jews - then the most you can say is that Jews are a racial outpost of a larger semetic middle eastern "race" in places far from the middle east like Europe and the USA, but not that they themselves constitute a "race". They are genetic middle easterners stranded in europe- they are not genetically distinct from the whole human species.

The White Afrikaneers are racially distinct from the surrounding Blacks in South Africa, but not from White people in Europe. so they are not in themselves a "race". European and american Jews at most are like the Afrikaneers- an ethnic group, but not a "race".

"Jewishness" is a bit different from "Catholicness" in the sense that Catholicism, which is a branch of Christianity (which was initally a branch of Judaism aimed at the "gentiles" - i.e. non-(ethnic) Jews) and as such is more universalist and less racially defined. Judaism, over last several hundred years has become increasingly univeralist and less racially exclusivist as well, but it still has an element of many traditional religions - a close identification between religion and cultural clan, in which the cultural clan itself is identified highly with a given ethnic population. The only major (more than a few million adeherents) religion that shares with Judaism this ancient attribute seems to be Hinduism, as to be Hindu in some senses is the same as it is to be Indian, indeed some have claimed that there have been explicitly materialist and atheistic Hindu writers since antiquity.

Still, being "a Jew" in the modern sense can mean either (inclusive or exclusive)

a) Being "racially Jewish".
b) Being "culturally Jewish".
c) Being theologically Jewish.

I think the definition of Judaism can be summarized by the following rules:

1. If you were born non-Jew but you decide to convert to Judaism, you will become a Jew

2. If you were born to Jewish mother, you will be a Jew no matter what your belief is

Thus, rule 1 makes it a religion, while rule 2 makes it a race. Together they will imply something in the middle. Suppose a non-Jewish girl, who is married to non-Jewish man converts to Judaism. She then has kids. The kids reject Judaism. Thus, they are NEITHER genetitcally Jewish (the woman's DNA did not change when she converted) NOR are they Jewish by faith (they chose to reject Judaism). They still, however ARE Jewish. Why? Because woman's conversion was considered valid by rule 1 (which is "cultural" part) and it was then "passed" to her kids by rule 2 (which is genetic part). As a result, kids ended up being Jewish.

But then again, you don't have to agree with the Jewish concept of what a Jew is. After all, according to Catholics, if you were baptised at birth then you are Catholic, no matter what your belief is. Now, a person who was baptized at birth into Catholic church but then chose to be Protestant would NOT agree with being "Catholic". So likewise it is also possible to reject the Jewish definition of a "Jew". Although fewer ppl do it since the definition of a Jew has some reference to race, while the word Catholic sounds like creed.

Jews are an ethnic group. Judaism is a religion. Being "Jewish" is to practice Judaism without actually being a Jew.

At least, that's what my Rabbi tells me...

Last edited by Fnord on 14 Jul 2011, 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And they would be full of s**t. I am who I believe I am, not who strangers say I am because of who some long lost ancestors may say I am.
Beside, I'm much too fond of pork ribs to convert.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

True dat. I'm partial to cheeseburgers with bacon and find the idea that God would be upset by that food choice to be curious at best. I could certainly never be a rabbinic jew.

Should we take a moment to point out that there is also more than one race of jews? Ashkenazi are what western europeans and americans generally identify as jewish but Sephardic jews are just as jewish and have distinctly different genetic traits.

At the time of diaspora the ashkenazim were actually a small minority, but these days they dominate the scene, at least politically.

You are imposing a limitation on the definition of the word, "race," that I don't believe is appropriate. You seem unable to conceive of this sense of the word as having any connotation other than skin colour. Clearly the dictionary doesn't agree with you (supra). I don't deny that skin colour is the sense of the word most often used, but usage has not yet rendered the others obsolete.

You also seem to suppose that race is a unitary characteristic--a person may belong to one race, and only one race--and that to be determined by the colour of that person's skin. I belong to more than one race. My skin colour puts me in the caucasian race. My heritage puts me in the Jewish and Celtic races (and the Scottish and Cornish races, or sub-races, if you will).



No, I said that you were racially Irish. I have never suggested that Roman Catholicism demonstrates the hallmarks of race. Judaism is fundamentally different from other religious traditions in that we do not prostelyse, we accept few converts and those we do accept are generally those who are born to a Jewish father and gentile mother or those who are marrying a Jew.



And again you decide the propriety of my self-identification. Can you not see how presumptuous you are when you do that? It is, in point of fact, downright rude. My self-identification as a Jew is bogus? That seems to have everything to do with your own prejudice and narrow mindedness and very little to do with me or with Judaism.

What I find particularly galling is that you are not, so far as I am aware, a Jew. I would happily engage in the argument about whether or not I am a Jew with another Jew who knows and understands what it is to be a Jew. But to have a gentile come strolling along and call my Jewish identity bogus? What's next, a heterosexual coming along and telling me that I'm not gay? An American coming along and telling me I am not Canadian?

Where legal rights are concerned, I have no issues with drawing rigid, objective lines. I am sufficiently close to my British heritage that I was born a British citizen by derivation. I can claim not only to be racially and ethnically British, but legally British as well. You (I gather) are not sufficiently close to your Irish heritage that you could exercise a similar claim. Therefore you are perfectly correct is drawing a line that says that your "Irish-ness" is dilute. Similarly you cannot (and would not, I hope) expect to claim those particular benefits that accrue to the aboriginal peoples in Australia. But that does not mean that these links do not exist, or that they are are not important.

(Incidentally, I am Jewish enough to qualify for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. But I suppose that's still not Jewish enough for you.)

עליו השלום המביא שלום, בתום לב.

The Ashkenaz and the Sfardim are two branches of the Diaspora. They have a common origin.
However the Khazari who became Jewish by conversion, have a different origin. They are the so-called 13-th Tribe according to Koestler.

ruveyn

Yes. The Ashkenaz, the Sephardim, and all of these other modern subgroupings of Jews evolved AFTER the diaspora- they didnt exist in ancient Judea- contrary to what BlauSamStag seems to be saying- though they do all have roots in ancient Judea.

The Khazars however, are a whole 'nother can of worms.
They were a turkic people in southern Russia who ostensibly converted to Judaism in the dark ages, but its doubtful that they contributed much to the ancestry of modern Jewry. But thats a whole other contraversy.

What is your take on the Falasha? I never had access to anything serious and convincing, and have not kept up with it. I know they were welcomed to Isarel, not always, I hear, with great results [what do you expect, injecting fringe Ethiopians into a community of Levantines, Americans and Eastern Europeans camping out in Palestine?]

Do you know are they more likely like unto the Khazars or more like the Aramaeophone Jewish remnats now almost all moved I hear from Iraq Iran Azerbaijan?

One's chromosomes do not determine the content of one's intellect. One's mind is built by experience and living, not by underlying DNA.

ruveyn

I have actually heard a theory that most of the Ashkinazi Jews today are descendants from Khazars. I really don't have enough knowledge though in order to either agree or disagree with it.

Well, take the extreme case. If you have a human and a dog, do you think a dog can get noble prize in physics if it had a right upbringing?

Now, I am NOT implying that human races are on a level of a dog. OF COURSE NOT! It is just easier to demonstrate a point from extreme examples. If there is antarctica where it is 80 degrees colder than here, then you can also be convinced that hte temperature CAN decrease by 10 degrees if you go to neighboring state. Likewise, if there are animals who are not capable of doing science, then it is possible that for some humans science is "SLIGHTLY more difficult than for others".

That does not negate the fact that people can work and overcome their difficulties. So, yes, if a black person pushes hard enough, he CAN get a noble prize. But it is entirely conceivable that the average black would have to work harder than average white. You can't deny the POSSIBILITY of it unless you have a VERY strong scientifically docummented evidence to the contrary.

Not sure of how this is related to what I said since the subject IS genes and is NOT the content of Jewish people's minds since "race" is a biological and not a cultural classification.

The software programed into your brain is your culture. Your culture has to do with both your religion and your ethnicity, but not your race.

Ofcourse if your using the word "race" in the Victorian sense (basically as synonoum for ethnic group or nationality) then yes the Jews could be called a "race".
But the victorians considered each ethnic group in Europe to be its own "race", and northern and southern Italians were listed as seperate "races" by the US immigration service, and Southern Whites regarded Northern Whites in their same USA as that "Yankee race".

But in the twentieth centurey "race" came to mean a biological subdivision of the human species analogous to "subspecies" in wild organisms. Jews are a small group genetically indistinct from Arabs in the Middle East so they cant be considered a "race" unto themselves. .

To put it another way: European Whites might be classed as a "race".
And West African Blacks might also be classed as a "race".

The former group includes the Czechs - who are an ethnic group but not in themselves a "race". The latter includes the Yorba of Nigeria who similarly are an ethnic group but not in themselves a "race". The Jews are analogous to the Czechs, or to the Yorba, but not to the whole White race, nor to the Whole Black Race. If the Jews were as distinct from even other semetic middle easterners as blacks are from whites then yes they would then be a "race" unto themselves. But Jews are not like the Ainu in Japan who are a small group physically distinct enough from both their Japanese neighbors and from everyone else on the planet to be classed as their own "race".

Yes- that is the thesis of the book "the 13th Tribe" by Arthur Koestler ( famous for the novel "Darkness at Noon" which we read in HS Lit, and author many other books. His thesis being that the Ashkenazai came to eastern europe not from west european jews moving east but were descended from the Khazars moving westward.

The Khazars lived at the mouth of the Ural River north of the caspian sea - right where Europe and Asia meet in what is now the Russian Republic.

In the dark ages the tribes leaders realized that praying to idols was becoming passe and it was time to pick a monotheistic relgion, but which one?
Islam was spreading through central asia, and christianity was spreading through europe. They figured that since "there is Judaism in both Islam and in christianity" to convert the tribe to judaism so that they could get in good with the chambers of comerce in both europe and in asia and trade with both!

It worked for a while. They built up a big powerful empire with farflung trade routes. And they were viewed as "protectors of jews". Prominent rabbis from Spain and Bagdad traveled to Khazaria.

But after a few centuries invaaders from both east and west beat the crap out of them and they finally vanished as a people. Or.. did they?

Most historians believed that this "conversion" to Judaism was a political stunt performed only by the elite. But according Koestler it was a heartfelt conversion by the whole tribe. And when their kingdom collapsed in the early middle ages they dispersed but kept their jewish identity and became the modern Jews of eastern europe.

The book was a best seller when it came out in the early seventies, despite being paned by the experts. Scientists said it contained only crackpot science, and historians said it contained only crackpot history.

Decades later came modern DNA testing techniques. These showed that the Azkenazie Jews of Eastern Europe are infact - Jews- close cousins of the semetic arabs of the middle east and that they probably came from Judea. And that they have no connection with the Turkic peoples of Central Asia like the Khazars. So the already feable theory was finnaly killed off.-and is now beyond dead to the experts. However Koestler's ( himself a Russian Jew living in Britian) book still seems to have a cult following among non-experts.

Ironically- both many Jews, and many antisemites, find comfort for their agendas in Koestler's thesis that many Jews arent really "Jews" ( ie descended from Abraham).