two questions: is judiasm a race as well as a religion, and is being hebrew different from being jewish. thanks.
emma
semite is the race, hence the term “anti semetic.” the religion is judaism. anyone can convert to judaism, whether or not they are semetic. The traditional jewish stereotypes (the nose and the hair, im sure youve heard them) are actually semetic stereotypes. im unsure about this part though: i beleive hebrew is the language spoken by semites, and “a hebrew” is the same as a semite.
Here’s my take on it…
Nazis are considered racists because of what they did to the Jews, correct? Yes, it was an act of genocide, but the Nazis also targeted them as a race, and not just as a religious group.
Now back to Jesus: he was a Jew, right? He was a Jew because of his race, not religous beliefs.
Also, when the Jews immigrated to the US, they were considered a “race.” When they controlled a majority of businesses, other people in society got pissed at them. When this was studied later on, Jews were compared to Italians, Irish, etc., as far as education and specialization in skills were concerned. The Jews were being recognized and compared as a race, not as a religious group.
Today in the US being Jewish as a race, or religon, is basically up to the individual. I know people who are Jewish just because of their religon, and I know others who revere themselves as a race.
One more thing, when a child is born, and the mother/father is Jewish, and the other is not, the child is still considered half Jewish to most, even the mother and father. Now, when the child is born to a Presbyterian mother and a catholic father, one does not consider the child “half catholic.” Something to think about.
Actually, according to Jewish law, “Jewishness” is derived from the mother. If the mother is Jewish and the father isn’t (as is the case with me), then the child is a Jew. If the father is Jewish and the mother isn’t, then the child is not considered a Jew.
If you want to get stranger about it, if a non-Jewish woman has a child, then converts and has another child, then the second child is Jewish, but the first one stays non-Jewish.
In any case, “half-Jewish” isn’t an option.
I take exception to herr reitz’s statement “When they controlled a majority of businesses”. This is a blatant piece of anti-semitism trying to justify the general attitude of WASP America when they created the black-ball clubs and restricted quota universities. It has no place in this forum!
the hibris were nomads scattered throughout the levant.
the israelites were hibris called by God under Moses
to inherit caanan
in the bible the hibris who are of the exodus’s geneaology are referred to as israelites
the rest who are not chosen are referred to as hebrews
israel was the name given to jacob after his encounter with the angel of the lord
when he is naughty he is then referred to as jacob:)
there are a few name changes in there which are the result of a type of conversion.
many jews are being patriated in israel having been converted outside israel and causing problems as to their jewish ‘correctness’
the initial religion of a jew is judaism, but i have met ‘jewish’ atheists, who still live the jewish way of life and keep ‘order’
abraham, issac, and jacob figure dynamically in jewish heritage and descendancy.
Sigh Here we go again.
Judaism is not a race. One can convert to Judaism, but cannot convert to another race. Hence, Judaism is not a race.
Judaism is a religion. I don’t think we’ll get any dispute on this.
Judaism is also an ethnicity. There are Jewish foods, Jewish music, Jewish art, Jewish culture, which one can enjoy (or hate) whether one is Jewish or not.
Zev Steinhardt
I knew this would turn into a race war sooner or later. Rampisad, that statement was not meant to be offensive, I was merely stating a fact. If anything, it was a complement to the Jews. They were a highly educated group of people compared to the rest of the immigrants. IN FACT, 70.2% of those Jews who came over were self-employed, compared to the 16.1% of Yankees, or WASPs if you will, who were self employed. A much higher majority of Jews were enrolled in high school and entered a white collar occupation as well. Due to these FACTS, the Jews were able to establish more businesses and obtain higher level jobs because they brought more education and work skills from their homeland. I wasn’t trying to justify anything anti-Semitic, I was just stating history. A good amount of immigrants DID get angry with the Jews because they controlled more business, if anything it was out of jealousy. I’m awaiting your reply, and hoping that it contains some substance.
I suppose it would depend on your definition of “race” (ethnic group vs. superficial bodily characteristics vs. whatever) whether Jews constitute a “race” – but one is an ethnic Jew by being descended in the maternal line from one of the twelve sons of Jacob (reduced in practical terms to Benjamin, Levi, or Judah, whence “Jew”). One is a religious Jew by formally adopting the worship of the Lord God of Hosts as described in the Jewish Bible (=Protestant Old Testament) and following the behavior prescribed there according to one of the four or five basic common standards of practice.
It’s arguable that His intention was to reform Judaism, which had been reduced to (a) punctilious observance of the Law, often in a judgmental manner (Pharisaism), (b) ritualism (Sadducees), © withdrawal-from-the-sinful-world asceticism (Essenes), and (d) rebellion against Roman authority (Zealots) – none of which met His understanding of what following the Lord entailed.
herr reitz, you are talking out of your rear end, and don’t try deny the anti-semitism of statements like yours.
In fact, the vast majority of immigrants to the US came from western Russia and Poland, had absolutely no relevant education, were simple farmers and tradesmen who had the added disability of trying, in the first generation at least, to adhere to the laws of Judaism that kept them from working on Saturdays. The fact that some of them succeeded in business is a tribute to sheer hard work and guts.
To state that they “controlled a majority of businesses” is absolute horse-shit. Name for me any instance of a major manufacturing corporation, bank, insurance company, utility (in other words, the fundamental businesses on which the US economy is grounded) that was owned by Jews, and I’ll give you 20 names of their competition, larger and more profitable, that were owned by WASPs.
Brother. As Zev stated, Judaism is a religion. Because of the nature of that religion (its geographic and cultural isolation, the rarity of converting to it, etc.) most Jews are also of the same “race” (that is, they share a high degree of common ancestry). Thus, one can be said to be religiously Jewish or ethnically Jewish.
Hebrew is a language, spoken by ancient Jews, preserved as a ritual language, and revived as the national language of Israel. The ancient ethnic stock from which the Jewish people spring is also said to be “Hebrew,” but if there are any ancient Hebraic peoples who didn’t become Jews, I don’t know where they are now.
Semitic is a language group, containing Arabic, Hebrew, and others. The peoples who speak these languages also share some common ethnic heritage (supposedly, they’re all the descendants of Shem, the son of Noah). While “anti-Semitic” is a commmon epithet for those who hate Jews, it’s inaccurate and I avoid it.
Howzat, Zev?
I have been arguing with my wife for a decade or more over the definition of “race”. It is often equated with skin color, in which case, Jews are not a race. It is often equated with ethnicity, in which case, leaving converts aside, we are. There are other possible definitions, some of which grade into nationality. So the question cannot be answered since the answer depends entirely on what you mean by race.
There was never a time when the Jews, who may have made up perhaps 3% of the US population, controlled more than a small minority of the businesses. More than 3% no doubt. After all, the homesteads were mostly taken by the time of large waves of Jewish immigration and they gravitated to the cities and towns where most of the businesses were. But even there, the word “tradesman” is more descriptive than “businessman”. The small grocery or dry goods store were often Jewish owned, but not the large factory. And of course, they sometimes grew into large department stores, but not commonly.
Rampisad,
I cannot believe that you are making these statements. First of all, I am not using any derogatory or anti-Semitic comments, and yet you feel the need to get upset, use profane language, and use the acronym “WASP,” a derogatory and bigoted term. Your first post provided no real information whatsoever and instead was just an attack on my justified (as you will see) comments. Now, to address your second post:
-
‘the vast majority of immigrants to the US came from western Russia and Poland’
-In what time period? This does not address the topic on hand and is irrelevant. -
‘had absolutely no relevant education’
-Where are you getting this information? I cannot find any information at the moment on Jewish immigrant education, but as for first-generation Jewish Americans, 54.3% were enrolled in high school, as opposed to 49.6% of Yankee sons (already living in the United States) and 17.2% of Italian (another major immigrant group of the time) immigrants. 21.9% of Jewish sons graduated high school, compared to 13.8% of Yankee sons and 5.9% of Italians. (Stark, 58) -
‘were simple farmers and tradesmen’
-Wow. I really have no idea where you acquired this information. Simple farmers? Only 2% (!) of Jewish immigrants that entered the United States from 1899-1910 were engaged in farming, as opposed to the 25% average of all immigrants entering the U.S. at this time. As for your comment on tradesmen, only 12% of Jewish immigrants were tradesmen, whereas 36% of all immigrants were tradesmen. (Stark, 56) Your statement here is obviously not founded in fact. -
‘who had the added disability of trying, in the first generation at least, to adhere to the laws of Judaism that kept them from working on Saturdays’
-Relevance? Was this really a large obstacle for the Jewish immigrant population? If you are really arguing this point, which seems like quite a stretch, one could argue that Christians had the disability of not being able to work on Sundays. Your point is unfound and I doubt that there is any evidence of this. -
‘The fact that some of them succeeded in business is a tribute to sheer hard work and guts.’
-Opinion. This could be said for any other immigrant population. -
‘To state that they “controlled a majority of businesses” is absolute horse-shit’
-What I actually meant here was the majority of Jews owned their own businesses. There is clear statistical evidence of this fact, if I must state this again: 70.2% of Jewish immigrants owned their own businesses. This is compared to a 19.1% average for all immigrants! (Stark, 58) This is a fact, not “horse-shit,” which should not be hyphenated in any case. -
‘Name for me any instance of a major manufacturing corporation, bank, insurance company, utility (in other words, the fundamental businesses on which the US economy is grounded) that was owned by Jews, and I’ll give you 20 names of their competition, larger and more profitable, that were owned by WASPs.’
-Again with the WASP term. I’m not going to try and play this game. Even if you are able to do this, are you to say that small businesses do not play a large role in American economy? Irrelevant to matter at hand.
To conclude, I would challenge you to dispute any of this information and would encourage you to try to stay on topic. All of this information is provided with the side note that it is still irrelevant to the topic at hand. I would like to thank those involved in this thread that are staying on topic. Ramisad, please refrain from making biased comments that do not have any facts to back them up. There is no need to bring racism or profanity into an otherwise civilized and educational debate.
All citations are taken from the college textbook, “Sociology” by Rodney Stark of the University of Washington. Publisher: Wadsworth Thomson Learning. Copyright 2001.
Hooray for people who use (and cite) references. And on a side note, people who go around looking for racism and creating it out of thin air are the people who cause problems between races and religions. It is necessary to be able to discuss issues like different races and religions impartially in order to live together peacefully.
amen to that, russ!
I don’t know why people are so determined to determine whether Jews are a race or a religion, or something else. What’s the difference. They could be neither a race or a religion. People born of a Jewish mother are Jewish even if they are atheists, so it is claimed. They call themselves Jewish humanists, or humanistic Jews, or something similar. Maybe secular Jews. They can call themselves what they want. And you can call them what you want. To me, they are not Jews, but atheists. People who convert to Judaism are Jews, although the Orthodox Judaism may claim otherwise. Our police chief is a Jew, but he is also a Negro. Then, again, there is a whole people of the Negro race in Africa who claim to be one of the lost tribes and are Jewish.
The Israelites were inhabitants of the nation of Israel. Or the scions of Jacob, who became Israel. Semites include Arabs as well as Jews. So, technically, if you are antisemitic, you are against the Arabs as well as Jews, both being scions of a common descendant. Israelis are the current inhabitants of Israel, who include Arabs and Jews, and possibly some Christians also.
Hebrew is a very powerful beer. 
And I’m going to bed.
if people weren’t so ‘determined to determine whether judiasm was a religion or not’, why would there be a straight dope site? isn’t the whole purpose of this forum to provide information that quenches the thirst of people who have nothing better do to than answer questions about seemingly little value? to ask such a foolhardy queston is to put the entire existance of straight dope under a microscope. the idea…
Ralph Waldo Emerson. (1803–1882). Essays and English Traits. The Harvard Classics. 1909–14:
“Individuals are often noticed as very handsome persons, which trait only brings the story nearer to the English race.”
Elisa Camiscioli, Assistant Professor, Ph.D. 2000, University of Chicago history.binghamton.edu/faculty/camiscioli.htm :
“Producing Citizens, Reproducing the ‘French Race’: Immigration, Demography, and Pronatalism in Early Twentieth-Century France,” Gender and History, Vol. 13, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 593-621. "
Monty Python, The Life of Brian:
“Terrific race the Romans, terrific.”
www.merriamwebster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary :
Main Entry: 3race
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French, generation, from Old Italian razza
Date: 1580
1 : a breeding stock of animals
2 a : a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock b : a class or kind of people unified by community of interests, habits, or characteristics <the English race>
3 a : an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species; also : a taxonomic category (as a subspecies) representing such a group b : BREED c : a division of mankind possessing traits that are transmissible by descent and sufficient to characterize it as a distinct human type
Under defn. 2b, Jews qualify as a race. The attempts to make race solely pertain to the “differences” between black, white, and Asian really make the word useless.
-jsh
p.s. http://jews-for-allah.org/Hebrew/Jews-not-for-Judaism/Semite-Hebrew-Israelite-Jew.htm has an explanation of the difference b/w Semite-Hebrew-etc.
To herr reitz.
I objected to one statement in your original response - that they “controlled a majority of businesses”. The only relevant piece of information in your latest flatulent reply was
That’s as close to a retraction as I can expect from one of your inclination, so for me the subject is closed.
Yes, you certainly did object to it, and you also decided to argue your point with a MULTITUDE of incorrect statements. I corrected myself and followed up with FACTS that did have relevance to the subject, unlike you, who felt the need to follow up with insults and totally unfounded statements. So is it time for you to make some retractions? I guess I should not expect that from “one of your inclination.” You have already been corrected enough on this subject. This subject is closed for me as well. See ya!