Are The Jews Considered A Race Or A Religion?

Question

Sometimes it gets to be confusing because there are Jewish from all nationalities. I know some people who claim to be half Jewish because their mother/father is Jewish. Even one girl I know is half Jewish, it's weird because her father is an African-American and she refers to herself as half-Jewish rather than half-black.

Very confusing; are the Jews a race or a religion?

Answer 1

Judaism is a religion, but many consider it a race, but this is not accurate.

Answer 2

Being a Jew fundamentally means being of the Jewish faith. In other words, it's a religious identification and has nothing at all to do with race. However, it's a bit more complicated than that.

One can be a Jew by birth, which technically means being born to a Jewish mother, which automatically confers status as a Jew, according to Jewish law. One can also become a Jew by undergoing an official conversion process.

Unlike people who practice many other religions, Jews don't encourage people of other faiths to convert to Judaism. In fact, they tend to discourage conversion to Judaism and traditionally have made the actual process of conversion rather arduous so that only those who are highly motivated complete the process.

The person who asked this question is confused because someone claimed to be half-Jewish. One can no more be half Jewish than one can be half pregnant. One is either Jewish or not. I must assume that whoever claimed to be "half Jewish" was simply referring to having one parent who is Jewish and another who is not.

One more thing. There are many Jews who do not actually practice the Jewish religion, yet who call themselves Jews because of a cultural identification with their Jewish heritage.

To sum up, being a Jew can only come about either by being born to a Jewish mother or going through an officially sanctioned formal conversion process. This is true whether or not the person practices the Jewish religion.

Answer 3

It's both an ethnicity, with specific physical characteristics, and a religion. With some practice, you can often tell an ethnic jew apart from a white by physical characteristics.

For example, I watched that show on VH1 called the White Rapper Show. I saw that host guy, MC Serch, and immediately thought, "That isn't a white, that's a jew." I go online, look him up, and sure enough he's a jew. Same for that Ronald Perelman guy. I saw a pic of him on VH1 and knew he was a jew. I looked him up...right again. If being a jew was only a religion, it would be impossible to do that. You can't tell an Atheist, Christian, Luciferian, or whatever by their facial features.

Of course, you don't have to be an ethnic jew to be a religious jew.

Answer 4

Judaism is a religion. Any attempt to define races in humans fails so it cannot be a race. Jewish people from Israel are identical in appearance to Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese etc etc so it cannot be a "race". Even if you chose to call all those people Semitic you still cannot define it as a race because people of completely different origins look much the same. Similarly you cannot define a race by skin colour. Dark skin is seen with people from all over the world with different origins, cultures, languages and appearance. To say that "black" is a race is to be completely ridiculous. It isn't. There are no definable races in humans.

Answer 5

i would say it is a religion. but it has created a culture behind it. so the people who belong to the religion have a completely different culture, than the race they may belong to. It originally started with one race, but recently they have started to accept members from other races. this could be where some of the confusion comes in.

ask a jew. im sure they would know.

Answer 6

Hebrew's was the race, then as they grew the called them Jews and then Isralies , .Today they just call them Jew's but they can be American or German or Russian Jew.The Religion is what most refer to them as .

Answer 7

Jews are a race of Ashkenazis joined up with vagabons who were criminals once thrown out of the old country forming their own tribe.

Answer 8

jews are a religion but with all the racism going around many people may think its a race

Answer 9

A religion.

Answer 10

religion...anyone of any race can become Jewish, or Catholic or any other religion.