Some overlap of both and how others view you. With context mattering. As with most identity issues.
For the identity of Jewish it is … complicated.
Again context.
Nazi Germany? An individual and the community could both have excluded someone as Jewish (a paternal GF say and living as an observant baptized Catholic) but the impact of the government imposed identity swamped.
In general though it is as has been pointed out, a tribal identity issue. There is your embracing being a member of the the group, respecting its traditions, sharing responsibility as a member of the tribe, the tribe accepting you, and outsiders impacts too.
And this is where I’m coming from. I’m offended by any group believing it can “claim” an individual. I have Catholic in-laws who have told me they believe everyone is a Catholic, including atheist me, and that some just don’t know it yet. Now, I realize that isn’t the position of the Catholic church, but I’m sure there are religions that DO think that way. I seem to recall the Mormons getting flak for posthumous baptisms a few years ago.
I am not available for claiming, I would never claim someone else, and I find the idea offensive. Want to know what I am? Ask me.
Are you offended by the notion that some country can “claim” you as a citizen simply based on the fact that you happened to be born there, and that other countries won’t necessarily accept you as a citizen of theirs based just on your claim to be such?
Groups have a right to decide who is and isn’t part of the group. There are certainly instances where this can lead to oppressive situations, but I have a hard time seeing this as one. If some religious group you choose to have nothing to do with wants to view you as “one of them”, I don’t see how it’s any skin off your (resists urge to make circumcision joke) nose.
I’m not entirely sure, but I think that Catholics think that since I was baptized and subsequently rejected Catholicism, I’m headed for some part of Hell even more unpleasant than ordinary unbaptized heathens are going to. I don’t personally see how their having that belief harms me in any way.
Citizenship is a contract which, by definition, one enters into by being born into a specific place. I’m no philosopher, but I know much has been written about this.
However, if one leaves and is no longer a member of that community, then yes, I feel it is offensive to consider them still claimed by that group. China has made the claim that you never get to stop being Chinese, even if you emigrate and want nothing to do with them.
I said it was offensive, not life-destroying. We’d agree (I suspect) that with things like pronouns we should respect the individual’s decisions, and it would be offensive to put our own views of their pronouns on them. Wouldn’t a Jew find it offensive if a Muslim said “well, with the coming of Mohammed, you all became Muslims and thus I now call you as much?”*
*I also not a theologian, so take the example for what it’s trying to convey without worrying about whether it makes sense
Well, I recognize the right of communities to draw boundaries and decide who is in or out.
If someone insisted on telling me that according to Flying Spaghetti Monster law I am a Pastafarian and need to start wearing a colander, and didn’t drop the subject the first time they were asked to, yes, I would consider that boorish and offensive. But I wouldn’t consider the fact that the FSM church has rules defining who is and isn’t one of them to be inherently offensive.
Likewise, I would never try to convince anyone that they are a Jew if they don’t want to define themselves as such. Perhaps more accurately, I would never try to convince anyone who, by some definition, is objectively a Jew that they should personally consider that definition meaningful. But I don’t think it’s reasonable for them to be offended by my personal opinions on the matter, as long as I keep them to myself.
I’ve seen a claim that Islam similarly doesn’t recognize a “right to opt out” (and that Barack Obama is therefore considered a Muslim under Islamic law, even though from his perspective he is a practicing Christian).
And the Mormons have pulled some weird and offensive tricks.
Thus in 1994, Jews were outraged when it became known that members of LDS were posthumously baptizing Holocaust victims and other Jewish dead. Many followers of Judaism find the practice highly offensive, something akin to the forced baptism of Jews practiced for centuries in Europe during the Middle Ages. Some see the practice as an implicit bias, an act of intolerance.
Am I imagining things, or did someone once post a story about two Japanese who had a kid who spoke Japanese, looked Japanese, and had Japanese citizenship, but because she spent X formative childhood years living and going to school in France, some people told her to her face they did not consider her a true Japanese?
Religion and tribal memberships are precisely being members of a club.
I cannot be Catholic without meeting the standards set by that club for being a member, be that baptism, belief, whatever. My unilaterally saying so don’t mean shit.
And a group of Mormons unilaterally declaring me one of them means as little.
How much and what sort of overlap depends on context of course.
Here is a thread I started almost 12 years ago about an Orthodox group that wasn’t sure I was Jewish (or perhaps Jewish enough for them), and what I might have done about it.
Doesn’t sound familiar. That’s just an example of people being stupid and bigoted, though. The entity that has the authority to decide who is and isn’t Japanese is the Japanese government, so in this case the girl clearly was Japanese.
And we certainly have that in American Jewish culture as well; people who think the only “authentic” Jews are those born into Jewish families of Eastern European descent.
Yeah, I roll my eyes at posthumous Mormon “baptisms” of non-Mormons, but I can’t work myself up to anywhere near “outraged” about it. It’s really not “akin to” forced baptism of living people.
Yuk. I don’t want to resurrect the zombie, but that prayer leader’s behavior (assuming he was in fact talking about you) was wrong by any standard. If you weren’t Jewish (by the Orthodox definition), and he somehow knew that, it would have been appropriate. I think what probably happened is that he heard gossip to the effect that you were a gentile or non-Orthodox convert, believed said gossip, and publicly embarrassed you based on that false belief. And Judaism takes gossipmongering and false accusations much more seriously than it does saying the prayers wrong.
It is very unlikely that anyone heard any gossip about me, since I was a virtual unknown in that group. I think that, not knowing me, he didn’t want to assume I was and risk being wrong or ask and possibly embarrass me. So he just got someone he knew met his standards.
As it happens, I haven’t been in any similar situations since then.
I have no doubt that there are people who maintain strict Jewish practice, at least publicly, while not believing in G-d. However, there are some commandments that even if practiced, cannot possibly be fulfilled properly (per Orthodox Judaism) if one maintains atheist belief. How can one be fulfilling the commandment of saying Shema - the Torah portion declaration of G-d’s unity and the acceptance of his rulership - if while saying the words, he is actually believing that the entity of which it speaks does not exist? How can one be fulfilling the commandment of the Grace After Meals - thanking G-d for the bounty that one has eaten - if while saying the words he does not think he is thanking anyone? How can one be fulfilling the commandment of telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt - which the Torah says specifically is to acknowledge that G-d freed us - if while saying the words he is thinking that we were freed by some mundane means, or maybe even that the Egyptian bondage was a myth in the first place?
While there is debate in the Talmud about whether one fulfills commandments by performing the actions even when not having the proper intent, where the commandment is some expression of sentiment, the expression without the sentiment cannot possibly be a proper fulfillment.
Yes, it was me that said that. And I explained above some examples of Jewish practice (at least among the Orthodox) that proper fulfillment would seem impossible while maintaining an atheist viewpoint. Nonetheless, the notion that performing the commandments (even those I listed as impossible to properly fulfill as an atheist) can draw a person back to belief is still valid. It simply means that while performing the commandments in such a manner, they are not truly being performed properly, but they may still serve a longer-term purpose.