The Jewish Identity

[crimzonsol]

I am going to give you my perspective on who is Jewish.

I believe that one can be Jewish by ethnicity or by religious belief. Juaism became an ethnicity when people became segergated by religion. Jews were always in the minority and were kept sepperate from the rest of society. We became an ethnicity because religious Jews only reproduced within the seggregated population of other religious Jews for several thousand years. That is more than enough time for a seperate religious community to become a ethnic group.

Anyway thats my two cents on why there is confusion about who is Jewish.

[Newscaster]

Just as there are many sects that call themselves Christian, there are different groups that claim Judaism as their own. Now these different sects follow differently structured rules but most of the rules are similiar in nature and intent. Therefore if you are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Hassidic, whatever, your sense of Judaism is a private matter between you and G-d. and if someone calls him or herself Jewish, I dont know of any agency empowered to decide the correctness of that statement. If you say you following the Rules of Judaism, thats good enough for me and when I say that I follow those same rules, I expect to be accorded the same respect that is expected of me when talking to a Christian.
Besides, I dont know anyone who goes thru all the very tough gyrations that 12 year old Jewish boy must go through to be Bar Mitzvahed and then not declare his Jewishness.

[December]

The Jews are NOT a nation or race.

Take a look at the Jews who live in Israel - they look DIFFERENT. Why? It is because the Jews are people who believe in Judaism.
There are even BLACK Jews in Israel (from Ethiopia).

However, most of today's Jews are Turks by blood - they are descendants of the tribe of Khazars (the so-called 13th tribe of Israel).
The Khazars were one of the the Turkish tribe which CONVERTED into Judaism in 8th century. They lived in Southern Russia.

www.khazaria.com

[crimzonsol]

By citing the Ethopian Jews you prove yourself wrong december just an FYI.

[December]

How is that?

[crimzonsol]

The ethopian Jews were proven to be Jewish due to similar genetic traits not by their belief system.

[dlap]

A race (nation, if you will) is not defined by collective genetic similarities, but by collective cultural consience. When a white american calls himself jewish, he is not reffering specifically to religion, in fact he is likely not to be reffering at all to religion, but to heritage. Being jewish is something unique compared to other western nations in the sence that whereas language for most nations is a central cultural foundation, for the jews this is not so; instead, religion has taken the place of language as the reference point for the jews, at least since the years of the diaspora. In some ways, this made it easier for them to retain their identity over almost two millenia, as language is more vulnerable to assimilation. The way I see it, the word "jewish" is often used to mean "hebrew", which basically denotes relation to the nation that lived in Israel before the expultion by the Romans, i.e. "descendants" of David and Solomon. The latter, according to myth had a son with queen Sheba, hence the portion of Ethiopians claiming jewish heritage. The reason for "hebrew" being out of use is probably due to the (unlike the majority of religions) non-proselytistic nature of judaism for the past 2000 years, which basically means that any hebrew is automatically jewish by religion.

[crimzonsol]

dlap, how would you explain the Indian Jews?

[dlap]

dlap, how would you explain the Indian Jews?


If I understand your question right, they are hebrews of the diaspora, like other oriental jews (i.e. from Buhara).

In any case, my point was that jewish is more of a national than a religious reference; in a few words it is very difficult to find a person observing judaism without claiming jewish national heritage.

[Newscaster]

I dont look at the genetics of someone to decide if he or she is Jewish or not. Being Jewish indicates acceptance of a belief system that is different from Chrostians, Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, etc etc etc. Being Jewish means you have accepted the faith that has contributed to the establishment of most other faiths with the exception of Eastern religions. Jewish is simply a faith designation. Jewish is not a race because there are Jews of all skin colors, skeletal structure and other anatomical differences. Jewish is not a political designation. I am Jewish but my political designation is American, Democrat, etc. My political designation also has nothing to do with the political parties of Israel. My nationality is also not Jewish. I am an American and my allegiance is to the United States of America. As far as ethnicity is concerned, that is determined by where I live but I could live pretty much where I want, speak with the accent of the region, eat the foods popular in that area, dress like they do and like many of the things they like but I would still be a Jewish American unless of course, I legally changed things.
But there is one other thing that is very important......Jews consider education of paramount importance and because of this, they have been able to give to the world countless cures for diseases, many solutions to technical problems, music, art, architecture and Nobel laureates. Jews come in all sizes, chapes and colors and I believe we are lucky they do.

[dlap]

Newscaster:

Although in my post I said the diaspora jews did not share a common language, different groups of them used their own dialects to communicate, such as yiddish and ladino; these dialects were active until the formation of Israel and the consequent "resurrection" of Hebrew. Now, if jewish were a mere religious adjective, then we are facing a unique phenomenon, where believers of a faith feel the need to form their own language. If, however, jews were a race (refer to my definition a few posts ago), then forming these dialects to safeguard their national heritage would be something completely natural.

I am not ignoring the fact that there are people born gentiles that later convert to Judaism, I just think they constitute the minority, with the majority being born jewish.

[Newscaster]

The difference in language among Jews of the Diaspora is due to the fact that the diaspora began slightly less than two thousand years ago, around 70n AD and in the interim, Jews found themselves have to set u[p their tents in many countries where languages were different, culture was different and sometimes, even physical appearances were difference. As for the word Herbrew, it denotes a language. You dont refer to Jews as Hebrews...at least Jews dont. To a Jewsm another Jews is just that, a Jew. They might be members of a Jewish sect but they are Jews, whether they wear a small Kipah, a Black Fedora or a large wooly Eastern European hat. They bare Jews whether they shave or wear long rich beards. Not all speak Hebrew. Some speak Yiddish, some Russian, Spanish, etc. But under it all, they are Jews.
You are right, the majority of Jews are born Jewish simply because their mother's are Jewish. Others convert but conversion is a long and difficult road.
To me, a Jew is one who reads Torah and Tanacht and follows the tenets of the faith plus has been circumsized and Bar-Mitzvahed. Beyond that...why argue? If you are a Jew...thats fine. If not, its your choice and Jews will not try to convert you.

[dlap]

You dont refer to Jews as Hebrews...


No, you don't; I just used the word to point out the dual meaning of the word "jewish" (religion-race).

As for the rest of your post, 100% with you.

[davo]

The common definition I understand for "who is a Jew?" is "someone who has a Jewish mother or has converted to Judaism".

So according to that logic, you can still be "Jewish" without actually following the religion of Judaism, if you have a Jewish mother.

You can also convert to Judaism if you're not currently a Jew, and thus become a Jew as well.

Some people claim there's a Jewish race or you can be racially a Jew; this may be true for some people in a cultural sense, but its false from a genetic or biological point of view - there's no biological traits common to Jews. People mostly use the word 'race' to describe the Caucasian, Asian, and Negroid races distinctively; in this case there are cultural differences as well as hereditary biological differences. The use of the word 'race' is not the same in these two examples, although it is used interchangeably.

[Newscaster]

You are right. A person is considered Jewish by other Jews if his or her mother was Jewish or they converted. A person can also consider himself Jewish but that doesnt necessarily make it so. There are still rituals to perform, study to be undertaken and in some cases Rabbinical approval.
However you look at it.....for the newborn baby f a Jewish woman , becoming a Jew is easy as pie. For a non Jews, it is a long and difficult process and partyly for that reason, Jews do not seek out converts. You must really want to be Jewish and you must have a good explanation for the rabbi.

[namguy]

I am going to give you my perspective on who is Jewish.

I believe that one can be Jewish by ethnicity or by religious belief. Juaism became an ethnicity when people became segergated by religion. Jews were always in the minority and were kept sepperate from the rest of society. We became an ethnicity because religious Jews only reproduced within the seggregated population of other religious Jews for several thousand years. That is more than enough time for a seperate religious community to become a ethnic group.

Anyway thats my two cents on why there is confusion about who is Jewish.


By religion or by ethnicity one is Jewish. It's what's in the heart that makes someone what they are. I was raised in a community where the larger part of people were either Italian or Jewish. My grandfather's house was right across the street from a Synagogue. They owned stores where we shopped, mostly groceries, I wish I could have those days back again but it's a pipe dream. They were very nice too all of us, they were more like friends to us than anything else.