but never “Judaism in Cuba”, always History of the Jews in Cuba - Wikipedia
Essentially every country has the same. What point is being made by this? Who successfully lobbied for this titling scheme and when?
Because not all Jews practice Judaism? Judaism is the religion of the Jews, an ethnic group, but you don’t have to give up your ethnicity just because you don’t practice its religion.
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Why are you asking here instead of on Wikipedia?
Really?
[ul]
[li]Judaism in Mexico[/li][li]Judaism in Nepal[/li][li]Judaism in Australia[/li][/ul]
Most countries have Christian communities because of converts, whereas most countries have Jewish communities because of immigration. Hence, the history of the first is the history of the religion, whereas the history of the second is the history of the people.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds this naming convention strange.
If you want to focus on the people instead of the religion, then why not title the article “History of Jews in X”? The “the” seems totally unnecessary to me.
I don’t see that there’s any “point” being made. My guess would be that the titling scheme was established by the first person who was sufficiently interested in and dedicated to the histories of the Jews across various countries, to write several of the articles.
Some ethnicities get a definite article, some don’t (the French, the Turks, the English, the Jews, the Maltese etc.). Some can go either way (“the Greeks” and “Greeks” both sound OK) some sound weird if you add the definite article (“the Hispanics, the Arabs”).
I’m not really sure what the pattern is, but it seems to be pretty standardized, so not really strange that Wikipedia adheres to it.
You will also find this happening sometimes with respect to “the Amish”. Yes, Amish is a religion (a form of fundamentalist Christianity), but they are also a major ethnic group that formed when followers of the Amish faith emigrated en masse to North America and formed their own communities, many of which still speak German. The Amish ethnicity and the Amish faith still largely overlap as they receive very few converts and apostates can easily become accepted as part of the larger German-American population.
When I hear of conflicts that involve Christians and/or Muslims, it seems it’s usually in terms of the religion, i.e. it’s because they practice/adhere to/believe in Christianity/Islam.
When I hear of conflicts that involve Jews, it seems it’s always because they ARE Jews, not because they practice/adhere to/believe in Judaism. Stereotypes and attitudes about Jews have transcended the actual religion for centuries, and have made being Jewish (or labeled so) a prominent issue. Judaism, and the practice or non-practice thereof, is a minor aspect of it.