# What does it mean to be jewish? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 4, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163 "2016-04-04T13:35:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/41 "2016-04-08T06:45:46Z")
There is only one commonality that binds all jews. A nagging mother. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/42 "2016-04-08T07:57:07Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > There is only one commonality that binds all jews. A nagging mother. Nu? So would it kill you to call your mother once in a while? :mad: A Catholic friend and I had a discussion about Guilt. We concluded that Jews invented it, Catholics just rent it. ---
**Author:** ![Corporal\_Clegg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Corporal\_Clegg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corporal_Clegg)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/43 "2016-04-08T08:05:19Z")
It’s all subjective. There are Jews who follow Jewish orthodoxy to the letter. There are persons of Jewish ancestry who think god is a crock. I side with them. Work for someone who wears a yaramulca to work every day and see what his Judaism means in defining his view of you. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/44 "2016-04-08T11:42:44Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > What I hate is when they slip and refer to all us gentiles as “Christians.” “It doesn’t work that way, asshole! I don’t accept the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, DON’T call me a fucking Christian! It’s not an ethnic group, it’s a choice of whether you believe!” That’s weird. I find “goyim” or “you people” to be a _way_ more satisfying way to refer to, well, you people. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/45 "2016-04-08T12:25:54Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Hinduism is a belief system (or rather systems) I don’t know all that much about - it strikes me as a whole universe of various different traditions, as you say. Speaking as a Hindu myself, for practical purposes, Hinduism is a religion, but it is not a “belief system.” There is no minimal set of beliefs that draw the line between Hindu and non-Hindu. It’s primarily a cultural identity. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/46 "2016-04-08T12:44:05Z")
If it’s not in the genes, then it’s not “genetic.” We can talk about inheritance without saying “genetic.” ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/47 "2016-04-08T13:12:35Z")
I buy my matzoh after passover, when it is on sale. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/48 "2016-04-08T13:30:12Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Speaking as a Hindu myself, for practical purposes, Hinduism is a religion, but it is not a “belief system.” There is no minimal set of beliefs that draw the line between Hindu and non-Hindu. It’s primarily a cultural identity. Sure, but I was talking specifically about Hindu beliefs about the gods, responding to this: > [@](#): > > Not to mention theres so many schools of hinduism that certainly some of them view the gods as only metaphors or as ways to reflect and talk about psychology and personal development. My only point is that I know there are lots of different beliefs on the subject under the rubric of “Hinduism”, but I don’t know much about them. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/49 "2016-04-08T18:11:18Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Plus matzo brei, noodle kugel, and a nice brisket. You can keep the Manischewitz Concord Grape. Right on! We are having lox and bagels for dinner tonight. We are still eating hamantaschen from last month and looking forward to a secular seder in a couple weeks. But I left the shul on my 13th birthday and have virtually never looked back. Once I had a conversation with a rabbi (reformed) who was trying to convince to come to synagogue where my parents (who had no particular belief in god) went and, when I told him I didn’t believe in god, he astonished me by telling me that neither did he! Of course, I asked him why he became a rabbi and he said that it was some sort of social service. I forget exactly what he said; this was at least 55 years ago. It is evidently an ethnic identification, which might or might not be accompanied by any particular beliefs. One interesting fact is that while there are deep divisions over beliefs, there has not, AFAIK, been wars fought over them. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/50 "2016-04-08T18:28:42Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Plus matzo brei, noodle kugel, and a nice brisket. You can keep the Manischewitz Concord Grape. You can keep the matzo brei and kugel. I’ll have the lox and bagels, thanks. Actually, I’m not a huge fan or “Jewish” cooking. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/51 "2016-04-08T18:35:34Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > Agree 100%. We have G-d’s Torah. > > I am partially observant. > > Many Jews have been geniuses – Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Sigmund Freud. Maybe Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky were evil geniuses. I always thought Karl Marx was raised as a Jew, but I’m currently reading a biography of his youngest daughter (Eleanor), and interestingly it’s explained that Karl Marx’s parents converted to Lutheranism and raised their children as Christians. Although they waited until Karl’s mother’s father (a rabbi) died to have the kids actually baptized. ---
**Author:** ![psikeyhackr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@psikeyhackr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psikeyhackr)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/52 "2016-04-08T18:41:39Z")
Back in the day when I worked for IBM I was walking back to the office from a customer’s account with a Systems Engineer. I was a Customer Engineer and we had just installed a Series I computer. He asked me what I thought of “ **The Old Jew Boy** ” I suppose I would have guessed he was Jewish if anyone had asked me but I had not actually thought about it. My mother sent me to Catholic schools but I decided I was an agnostic at 12. I presume that if there is a God then he, she or it must have a lower opinion of religion than I do. I get the impression that all of the people who have “ **a thing** ” about Jews do not allow them to give up being Jewish, so they don’t really have a choice about it. I don’t understand it. psik ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/53 "2016-04-10T02:18:07Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > I always thought Karl Marx was raised as a Jew, but I’m currently reading a biography of his youngest daughter (Eleanor), and interestingly it’s explained that Karl Marx’s parents converted to Lutheranism and raised their children as Christians. Although they waited until Karl’s mother’s father (a rabbi) died to have the kids actually baptized. Karl Marx was still a Jew. Many geniuses were Jews. Of course Karl Marx was an Evil Genius. ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/54 "2016-04-15T00:48:22Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > Many Jews have been geniuses – Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Sigmund Freud. Maybe Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky were evil geniuses. > [@CCitizen](#): > > The fact that many Jews are outstanding makes it even harder. Many lawyers and doctors are Jewish. My own parents are scientists. :mad: > [@CCitizen](#): > > Does anyone have statistics on what percentage of lawyers in USA are Jewish? What percentage of Jews have PhD? > [@CCitizen](#): > > Karl Marx was still a Jew. Many geniuses were Jews. Of course Karl Marx was an Evil Genius. I see a trend here. Is there an actual point you are trying to make, or do you think that being jewish somehow makes you smarter than the non-jew? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/55 "2016-04-15T14:21:22Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s not completely different from being Christian. Look at Europe. Most people are indifferent about religion, and yet countries have established (Christian) churches, often have Religious Holidays as National Holidays, and people routinely celebrate Christmas and Easter. > > I’m kinda the same way. I’m a hard core non-believer, self-identified atheist but I was raised Catholic and feel like I’m “culturally Christian”. That is, I grew up with all the Bible stories (OT and NT), celebrate Christmas, and even remember much of the Latin mass I had to say as youngster who was an Alter Boy before Vatican II, when Mass was still in Latin. Sure there is such a thing as being culturally Jewish. But ethnically Jewish? I mean, isn’t that kind of like saying you are ethnically American? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/56 "2016-04-15T14:30:46Z")
> [@crypto](#): > > I see a trend here. Is there an actual point you are trying to make, or do you think that being jewish somehow makes you smarter than the non-jew? I have a theory that is probably bullshit but ISTM that being Jewish was really hard for significant periods of history and a lot of that hardship would virtually disappear if you became Christian or Muslim. It was probably particularly intolerable to be a Jew of below average intelligence with little to offer but manual labor and I hypothesize that many of these Jews that couldn’t make it as a tradesman, craftsman or merchant moved to a different city and restarted life as a convert to Christianity or Islam. I mean what would YOU do? If the blacks in America could move to a different city and restart life as a white family, how many of them would do it? Heck how many Asians would do it? My theory is that the folks who stayed Jewish were the ones who could overcome the burden of being a Jewish minority in a largely Christian or Muslim environment with relative ease. And the average intelligence of this group was probably higher then the average for humans. Add to this the fact that rabbinical Judaism seems to place an additional premium on being able to understand some pretty fucking hard to understand stuff by before you are even done with puberty and I don’t know how there are any Jews left in the world. Jut a theory. Probably bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/57 "2016-04-15T14:37:28Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Sure there is such a thing as being culturally Jewish. But ethnically Jewish? I mean, isn’t that kind of like saying you are ethnically American? No. _American_ is a complex of cultures (some of which are ethnicities), and a nationality. The nationality can be added to or subtracted from a person’s identity in a fairly simple process, but it doesn’t work like that for culture and ethnicity. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/58 "2016-04-15T14:38:52Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Sure there is such a thing as being culturally Jewish. But ethnically Jewish? I mean, isn’t that kind of like saying you are ethnically American? Not totally, because America is a “nation” in a totally different sense - one with borders, a government, etc. What we now call a “nation state”. Jews form a “nation” in the ancient sense - it means something more like a present-day “tribe”, from an anthropological POV. This is _sorta_ like what people these days call an “ethnicity”, only differing in details: the notion of ethnicity is supposed to be something conferred only by birth and irrevocable (it isn’t really, but it is supposed to be). You can’t, by an act of will, “become” ethnically German (again, in theory). You can become a citizen of the nation-state of Germany, though, if you can do the necessary paperwork, or by being born to Germans. Similarly, you can become Jewish, by either being born Jewish or converting - which basically means getting a congregation of Jews to accept you as Jewish. Similarly, it is possible (according to most denominations of Jews) to cease being Jewish by an act of will - usually, by converting to a religion not compatible with the rules of Judaism. So Judaism has aspects that are similar to what modern people think of as “ethnic” identity, and other aspects that are more similar to what modern people think of as “national” identity. They don’t fit totally comfortably in either pigeon-hole though, because what they are is a “nation” in a sense that is now quite ancient and not much used elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/59 "2016-04-15T14:43:59Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I have a theory that is probably bullshit but ISTM that being Jewish was really hard for significant periods of history Yep. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > and a lot of that hardship would virtually disappear if you became Christian or Muslim. Well, theoretically. It’s kind of a “one does not simply walk into Mordor” thing, but I get what you mean. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > It was probably particularly intolerable to be a Jew of below average intelligence with little to offer but manual labor and I hypothesize that many of these Jews that couldn’t make it as a tradesman, craftsman or merchant moved to a different city and restarted life as a convert to Christianity or Islam. Yeah, you veered off into total bullshit territory. Jewish settlements during the diaspora were often fully self-sustaining little enclaves within larger gentile populations. They definitely had higher rates of learning since the men were expected to study Torah, but they still needed farmers and shepherds and all the other manual labor bullshit jobs that a village needs. Medieval Jews weren’t a magical race of intelligentsia. They just had a religious reason to respect broad, institutional learning before the rest of western civilization caught on to the idea. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163/60 "2016-04-15T15:04:21Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > …what they are is a “nation” in a sense that is now quite ancient and not much used elsewhere. How’s that? I see plenty of ethnic nations in the world. Many are roughly coterminous with their states. Stateless nations include Uighurs, Kurds, Yoruba, Tuareg, and Basques, among others. Jews are a bit distinctive, in that they _have_ a state, but most of them are not in it and still identify the nationality much more broadly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-jewish/751163.md?page=4)