What does it mean to be Jewish?

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I notice in comments sections on youtube sometimes, and in other parts of the internet, that posters will often state that "being Jewish is a religion and that nobody is born a Jew", but that just shows a great lack of knowledge really. There is the religion of Judaism, which is centered mainly on the Tanakh, which is identical to the Christian Old Testament, though generally less attention is paid to what is written in the Tanakh as compared to the writings of Rabbis in the past or the statements of the Rabbi of ones own congregation. That is the religious form of being Jewish, which is not limited to ethnic Jews but also Gentile/Goyim proselytes also. However, the other part of being Jewish is the ethnicity, which is Rabbinically assigned to be derived through matrilineal ancestry, though prior to the Rabbinical assignment the determination was patrilineal. The people who are ethnically Jewish have ancestors, not necessarily all of their ancestors, who trace back to the tribes of Levi, Judah, or Benjamin. Ethically Jewish people are not necessary followers of Rabbinical Judaism, as many are Atheists, some are Buddhists, and others, such as my girlfriend, are Christian. So, being Jewish is something a person can be born as, ethnically through ancestry.

Converts to Judaism are just as Jewish as those whose mothers were not Jewish.

ruveyn

Judaism is a religion. Nothing more or less. Most Jews of modern day are not actually related to the ancient Hebrews. If you believe in Judaism, you are a Jew. If not, you are not a Jew. Same goes for Christianity and Islam.

That's quite ironic considering the racial supremacy that would make Hitler blush

Not so. There is a culture and an ethical system that goes with the religion.

Have you ever heard of Unitarian cuisine? Have you ever seen a stand-up Unitarian comic? Have you ever heard of Unitarian music or dancing? Have you ever heard of Unitarian humor?

No to all of those.

ruveyn

Most Jews think that they are descended from Abraham's wife Sarah, but probably aren't.

Converts to Judaism are not quite as Jewish as those whose mothers are Jewish--if a convert has a cheeseburger, he can be kicked out, whereas someone born Jewish is always Jewish, whether or not he eats a cheeseburger. If he marries a non-Jew, then other Jews may utterly reject him, but he can never erase his Jewishness.

I think the meat and milk rule may only be held that strictly by Orthodox Judaism and Hasidic Judaism, but Conservative and Reformed Judaism are not so strict. And in Messianic Judaism, it depends on the interpretative opinion of the individual and whether they lean more to Ultra-Orthodox or more to Paul's hermeneutics.

"Messianic Judaism" is NOT Jewish. It is stealth Christianity.

ruveyn

Christianity itself is a form of Judaism, Messianic Judaism just has a more Rabbinic flavor to it.

I think most people would reject that characterization. Particularly given that Christian-Jewish relations haven't always been positive, where Jews have been identified as a disliked group. Not only that, but the additional Christian scriptures(which in some groupings of Christians actually are more important than the Old Testament), different beliefs, different structures, cultures, genetic backgrounds, and so on really do seem very significant. Certainly, you wouldn't be rubber stamped into Israel by just being a Christian.

Politics and racism aside, Christianity branches directly from Judaism in terms of its necessary attachment to the Tanakh. The New Testament without the context of the Old Testament is basically lost in space worse than the crew of the Destiny on SGU.

Well, the Christian scriptures are more important for Christianity than the Jewish scriptures are. Not only that, but there are proclaimed Christians and Christian groups that downplay or generally ignore the teachings of the Old Testament, which you might reject but you cannot say that these people don't exist and are outside of the theological framework that the term "Christianity" often refers to. Additionally, Christian teachings include many elements that Jewish teachings do not accept and exclude some accepted teachings, such as the trinitarian nature of God, the incarnation, the atonement, salvation by faith in Christ, a goal of bringing all people under the fold of Christianity, a rejection of Jewish law and Jewish legalistic(Halakhic) reasoning, 27 additional books, rejection of many Jewish sources, in many cases a belief in a Pope, etc.

I mean, the religions are different, Christianity may be a more legitimate off-shoot of Judaism than Islam is in some ways, but it is not Judaism. There are too many differences and too little overlap between Christian and Jewish beliefs.

There are quite a load of differences, especially after Rabbi Akiba. Even moreso after the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as the State Religion in February 27th, 380 AD by declaration of the Roman Emperor Theodosius I.

Well, right, but a lot of the differences are relatively mainstream within the religions themselves. Even Jesus is known for being critical of the Jewish tradition of his days, and rabbi Chaim Saimon considers some of the differences in the NT and Jewish teachings to express a rejection of Jewish thinking down to some very core ways to view things. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... _id=992280

Though that is just an abstract, I think it sounds like most of his paper is an analysis of the Sermon on the Mount compared to Talmud? Probably a few other instances as well, such as the Sadducees views that only the Torah is canon versus all of the Tanakh being valid as canon, which they argued with Jesus over concerning the resurrection of all dead. Probably John 8 as well.

Well, you can also download the paper that the abstract represents using my link as there is a download section near the top.

It actually has nothing to do with the sermon on the mount. The verses used are the plucking of grain on the Sabbath in Mark 2, the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10, and comparing Jewish theological culture with Christian theological culture.

The paper is a legal theory paper more so than just a theological paper, so issues on resurrection and things like that aren't as important, however, it does make a case for differences relatively well I think.