What is a Jew? Where do they originate from? Can I be a Jew if I’m American and white? Can a Jew not be a Jew if he is from wherever Jewish people come from and now a Catholic? Enlighten me, please.
You can be a Jew and of any race or nationality. Judaism is a religion, but it’s a religion with a sense of tribal identity.
Shalom!
Being Jewish is more than just a religion…it is considered to be a way of life.
For some reason, however, many people like to refer to all Israeli’s as Jews, which is of course, very incorrect. For starters many Israeli’s just happen to be Muslim, as well as Christian, Catholic, or Greek Orthodox.
Why do people not understand the difference? I have no idea…sorry!
Depends on what you mean by “nationality”.
Judaism is certainly not a nationality in the legal sense of a citizenship. The closest citizenship would be Israeli but, as has been pointed out, many Israelis are not Jews, and of course most Jews are not Israelis.
But nationality can be used in a looser sense, to refer to a cultural identity which, although strong, is not the same as a legal citizenship. Scottish nationality undoubtedly exists, for instance, although there is no such thing as Scottish citizenship. Used in this sense, nationality is not necessarily exclusive. A person can regard themselves as having both Scottish and British nationality, for instance.
Judaism could be a nationality in this sense. Whether it is or not largely depends on whether Jews themselves, and the people among whom they live, regard their Jewish identity as sufficiently distinct from the identity of the wider community to amount to a nationality. Probably Jews living in the modern United States do not consider themselves a separate nation. A distinct religion within the American nation, undoubtedly, and a distinct ethnic identity – like being Irish-American, or Hispanic-American, or Black-American.
But Jews living in 19th Century Russia (and their gentile neighbours) might have taken a different view. A much higher degree of social separation, a distinct language, and a degree of exclusion not so much adopted by the Jews themselves as forced upon them by Gentile Russians might all lead to a situation in which we could reasonably speak of Jews as a distinct nation living within Russia. It is, of course, easier to come to this conclusion in a multinational state which is already used to the idea of distinct nations living in the same state, as Russia was.
So, Judaism is a religion. It is not a citizenship. It can be a national identity, but is not necessarily so.
For me it’s always been a cultural thing.
But my nationality has always been American. And I like it that way.
One thing I have discovered living in Canada is that the word nationality has a very different meaning here. It does not refer to citizenship or anything close. The French Canadians consider themselves to be a nation, although not a state in the legal sense. Of course somewhat more than half of them would like to make it a state as well, but that is not my point. The Scots are certainly a nation, as are the Welsh, while the Northern Irish consist of two quite separate nationalities.
Now where does that leave the Jews? I have no interest in religion; I would as soon believe in any god as in Harry Potter’s magic. Nonetheless, I certainly identify myself as Jewish, donate money to Jewish charities, don’t erect Christmas trees (or pay any attention to it, in fact) and behave as a Jew in most matters that do not specifically involve relgious belief. I can even recite the prayers when called upon to do so, but they still mean nothing to me. All this leads me to believe that being Jewish, while clearly a religious belief to many, is also a nationality.
According to some different Human Geography texts:
Nationality: Identity with a group of people that share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a particular place as a result of being born there.
Nation 1)Legally a term encompassing all the citizens of a state. Most definitions now tend to refer to a tightly knit group of people posessing bonds of language, ethnicity, religion, and other shared attributes.
2)a group of people often sharing common elements of culture such as religion or language, or a history or political didentity.
Race : 1)Identity with a group of people descended from a common ancestor
2)a problematic classification of human beings based on skin color and other physical characteristics.
You’d think people could agree on definitions, but no. My teacher says most anthropologists say that acknowledging races is racist. So I would say Judaism is an ethnicity and a nationality for people whose lives are rooted in it, and just a religion for people who have adopted different ethnicities and nationalities.
Judaism is basically a religion, being a follower of Judaism makes one a Jew.
However, as previously mentioned, for Jews, it is also very much a way of life. Similarly, the Torah is not just the Pentateuch, but also a way of life, as the Torah describes in great detail the laws of Judaism.
As such, I am forced to agree with Megan O’, ethnicity is probably a very good way to define it. However, nonetheless, it is still just a religion.
Judaism can not be correctly considered a “nationality”, as noone was born into citizenship of the nation of Jew. They may be born as Israelis, or Americans, or Iraqis, or Timorese, or whatever, though.
I still disagree with your argument that a nation requires a state. I wouldn’t even say that America is a nation (but that’s a whole other story).
make no mistake, Judaism is a race (roywood’s definition of race seems accurate). Technically speaking (ignoring modern schisms of pseudo-judaism) a child is only born jewish if the mother of the child is jewish. I believe this is because the jews are in many ways the oldest genetic engineers in the world. They bred ppl for specific traits, just like farmers breed certain animals, or dog breeders create dogs good at specific things.
Sure there is an affiliated culture, religion etc but the reason judaism has survived and thrived where so many other groups have failed is this genetic engineering.
Logical Phallacy, you are competely ignoring the whole concept of Conversion. This is a completely legitimate way of becoming Jewish, and pretty much eliminates your bizarre idea of Jews breeding for specific traits. Where in the world did you come up with that idea?
**
You mean I was bred to be a computer programmer? :dubious
That is just plain insane. You’re saying that a bunch of people living 3500 years ago decided to engage in genetic engineering and (as an aside) built up a religion and culture?
Zev Steinhardt
I have to guess that you’re either a troll are supremely ignorant. I’ll leave that to the mods. So, before I call you a eugenic-loving (neo?)nazi, and because this is GQ, I’ll ask:
Cite?
Or any evidence for this?
PC
I would like the opinion of an anthropoligist here because that sounds like racism to me.
The beginning of the definition of that is:
Logical Phallacy, we don’t ban people for holding unpopular opinions, and we don’t generally ban people for expressing opinions in GQ. But we do ban people for trolling, and it smacks of trolling for you to express, as if it were a fact, in the forum devoted to facts, what you must know to be a highly inflammatory opinion. Do not do that again. The proper forum for discussing the supposed genetic engineering of the Jewish people is Great Debates.
Since the General Question has been answered by the Staff Report linked to above, I will close this thread.
bibliophage
moderator GQ