Is being Jewish.....?

Question

A nationality or religion or both? A co-worker and I are split on this. I believe being Jewish is both religion and nationality, but she believes it is a religion only.

Also, if you think it is a nationality where do Jewish people come from?

Answer 1

Being Jewish is both.

We are a nation people, Israel ( tribal origin ) bound by an eternal covenant of the faith ( religion ) of Judaism.

Now let me explain.

The Jewish people are considered a nation. Our connection is primarily one of faith through the covenant of Israel, yet membership is also conferred by birth, through matrilineal descent.One may also become a part of the nation Israel by adoption of the faith of Judaism and formal procedures of conversion.

One who converts to Judaism is considered as fully Jewish as one born Jewish and their children are Jews. This has been the case since the times of the Torah.

However one can be a Jew and not belong to both. One may technically be a Jew if their mother is a Jew, but apostate to the covenant of Israel and no longer be considred a member of the nation.

There are different Jewish cultures that have developed over the millenia in Diaspora lands as well as from the Mizrahi (from the Middle East and North Africa) The Sephardi (Spanish) Ashkenazi, (German, Polish, Russian and other Eastern European) are all slightly different, even within those three designations as to cultural practices and foods, but it is the faith and covenant that binds them all together as Klal Yisrael.

We are Klal Yisrael, the community of Israel, and have a shared " destiny" and history, while still having developed throughout history, many DIFFERENT Jewish cultures developed in the Diaspora. The Diaspora refers to the Jewish presence outside of Israel after the destruction of the First and Second Temple periods and the Bar Kochba revolt.

The Jewish nation began as a group of tribes and our connection to one another is still from the perspective of a tribal nation. One may join through adoption of the covenant or one may be born into it.

One born into the covenant may become apostate to it ( be an atheist, convert to another religion ) and still be considered a Jew, but for all intents and purposes, they're not given the status of a member because they're not counted in a minyan, can't be buried in a Jewish cemetary, etc. They CAN however, return ( teshuvah) without formal conversion should they so desire. ( rather like someone who leaves the country, if they don't give up citizenship, can return without going through citizenship application all over again )

The only way one who isn't born to a Jewish mother can become Jewish is through adoption of the faith, dedication to living AS a Jew through the eternal covenant. Then the children of a Jewish woman who converts is considered every bit as Jewish as one whose ancestry came from Sarah. A convert TO Judaism who becomes fully a Jew does not have the option of becoming apostate to Judaism and still being considered Jewish. You don't have atheist Jewish converts.


Am Yisrael Chai ( the people Israel live!)

Here are some Jewish sources to discuss this issue that may help you.

These two links explain from the Jewish perspective, Jewish identity. Jewish law determines who is and who isn't Jewish.

I highly recommend reading both of these,

http://www.jewfaq.org/judaism.htm

http://www.beingjewish.com/identity/race.html

http://www.whatjewsbelieve.org/ < This is always a good place for comparative study, too.
This is a link to a source that is a scholarly study of the development of Jewish languages. It will help you if you are interested in studying the different Jewish cultures.

http://www.jewish-languages.org/

Jews are in NO way a RACE..other than as members of the human race. For those of you who want to claim Judaism doesn't accept converts as fully Jewish, how about Ruth in the Bible? She was a member of a nation that was condemned to be separate from God for their evil. However, she was a righteous woman who converted and adopted the faith of Israel and was the ancestor of King David. The New Testament depicts her as being an ancestor of Jesus, too. I like to bring this up when some Christians want to declare that converts aren't "real Jews" or that Jews are a race. (something that isn't up to them to decide one way or another anyway)
It is Jewish law alone, not Christianity or any other entity that determines the status of who and what is Jewish.

One cannot be Jewish and Christian at the same time. One may be an apostate Jew who is Christian. A Jew who converts to Islam is a Muslim. A Jew who converts to Christianity is a Christian.
Let me give you a hypothetical to better illustrate:
Let's say a Jew decides to invent a new religion that makes Google it's ORACLE and everyone must consult Google for every aspect of their life and pay obeisance to Google..Does that make Google worship a Jewish religion? Are Googles now Jewish? Or is that Jew apostate to Judaism and by identifying himself as Jewish, misrepresenting the Jewish nation/people?

You can become a member of a tribe or nation if you meet the criteria of citizenship. And the covenant people, Klal Yisrael, remain as in the earliest days of the covenant..a nation. It hasn't changed.

EDIT TO PAPERBACK
..in the case of the atheist...you are right that it is DIFFERENT..while they are not of the Jewish religion an atheist born to a Jewish mother is still a member of the nation because, as you said, they have not adopted a different covenant. So yup, I goofed in including atheism as something that places a Jew as no longer being counted as a member of the tribe..BUT ONLY if they were BORN Jewish. If someone goes through conversion to be a Jew and then decides they are atheist..they are in fact, apostate. Does that make sense?

Pardon if I wasn't clear. An atheist doesn't try to present any other doctrine as Judaism, either.

Shalom :)

EDIT: APPARENTLY some of the name calling people here are unaware of the definition of the word NATION. I am not sure if that is because perhaps English may be a second language? Or they just don't have a good vocabularly..but I'll try to help by posting something I copied that may help the educationally confused :
While the terms country, state, and nation are often used interchangeably, there is a difference.
A State (note the capital "S") is a self-governing political entity. The term State can be used interchangeably with country.

A nation, however, is a tightly-knit group of people which share a common culture. <<<<< NOTE THIS PLEASE

A nation-state is a nation which has the same borders as a State.

Nations are culturally homogeneous groups of people, larger than a single tribe or community, which share a common language, institutions, religion, and historical experience.

When a nation of people have a State or country of their own, it is called a nation-state. Places like France, Egypt, Germany, Japan, and New Zealand are excellent examples of nation-states. There are some States which have two nations, such as Canada and Belgium. Even with its multicultural society, the United States is also referred to as a nation-state because of the shared American "culture."

There are nations without States. For example, the Kurds are stateless people.

If the people insulting others who are using the word nation correctly for being UNeducated on this did not appear serious in their misguided insults..it would be laughable. As it stands..if they are high school graduates it stands as a poor testament to whatever educational system produced their attitude and knowledge.


http://geography.about.com/cs/politicalgeog/a/statenation.htm

Answer 2

You are right!!

The Jews, or rather Hebrews as we were back then, were a nation before even having a land. This is very unusual but is indeed the case with us. We are also a religion, of course, but someone remains Jewish even if they never celebrate a single Jewish festival, never attend a synagogue, etc etc etc. The only time someone loses their place in the Jewish community, or 'nation' is if they adopt another religion.

The best analogy I can offer, though it's far from perfect, is: if someone is American, for example. They may never celebrate any American holidays, i.e. thanksgiving, they may ever, ever vote, but they remain an American citizen.

Doubtless you will get answers to your post claiming Jews are a 'race' or an 'ethnic' group. These are WRONG.

We are not a race; if we were, nobody could convert to or away from Judaism, and clearly both occur!

And we are not one ethnic group, as there are Jews from every ethnic background!

A person is Jewish if:

a) they are born to a Jewish mother
b) they convert to Judaism, in which case once they have done so they are EVERY bit as Jewish as someone born into the faith.

EDIT TO MAMA_PJAMA - a Jew doesn't become an apostate if they are an atheist, because it doesn't involve adopting another, conflicting faith. A Jew only becomes an apostate if they actually switch to another religion :)

Sorry but 'SCNURBB' is talking rubbish. And to be frank, I don't think it's up to him as a non Jew to define what we are! I would never presume to define another person's religion for them.

I hope this answer has helped a bit; for what it's worth, I'm not surprised that many non Jews find it tricky to define us, it's not as clear cut as perhaps with some other religions and nations.

edit 2 MAMA_PJAMA

lol lol lol - blimey, don't you think non Jews must think we are a bit meshugah? lol lol It all gets rather complicated, doesn't it? But yes, I know what you mean. AM YISRAEL CHAI :)

Answer 3

I agree with you -- it's both. We all agree it's a religion, but Jews can also be atheists, Buddhists, etc. If they worship man-made gods, they are apostates.

We are also a nation. It's right there in the Hebrew Bible. We are the nation, Israel. Israel has two meanings -- the land Israel AND the people Israel. Israel is our homeland from which we've been exiled for 2000 years. Our common language is Hebrew, and we all observe the same holidays. Just as Americans are not necessarily Christian, Jews are not necessarily religious, but they have been raised in a Jewish culture and still retain Jewish customs and values.

BTW, many people think that a Semite belongs to a "race." A Semite is a person whose native language is a Semitic language of which there are many -- Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, to name only a few. The myth of a Jewish race originated with the "Limpieza de Sangre." Google it.
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Answer 4

Both Jewish People Come From Israel

Answer 5

EDIT: This answer is probably a bit longer than it needs to be, but I'm too lazy to go back and trim the fat, so, I suggest just skipping to the summary at the end. If that does it for you, great. If not, try going back and reading from the beginning.

Okay, so this first part is borrowed from my answer to a question on whether or not Jews constitute a race, which I must assume is what you're asking. Because the idea of Jews as a "nationality" in the political sense is inherently erroneous. There was no Jewish state for the last 2000 years, and it doesn't make sense to say that now all of a sudden that Jewish sovereignty has returned to the Land of Israel, that Jews suddenly BECOME a nationality. Aside from that, the majority of Jews aren't Israeli, and many Israelis are non-Jews. We call ourselves a "nation," which is true in a certain sense, but not a nation in the sense of having a nationality. There is no country with a Jewish consulate, there are no Jewish passports. (Actually, I think the Soviet Union put a marker on the passports of Soviet Jews to make it clear that they were Jewish, but you know what I mean.) There are Israelis. And as I mentioned before, while most Israelis are Israelites, not all Israelites are Israeli. Confused? Don't worry, you're not alone.

The idea of a Jewish race is an archaic one, but one that has left an indelible mark on people's perception of Jews. Part of this stems from the fact that that being Jewish is passed from mother to son, and people tend to view this as a matter of blood. This doesn't really fit though, since you get just as much DNA from your father as from your mother, and of course, the existence of Jews-by-choice (converts) negates the racial assertion. There is no denying, however, that the Jewish way of life is more than a religion. There are cultural elements (some shared by Jews the world over, some more specific to Jewish subgroups, like the Spanish Jews, or German Jews, or what have you), and Jews could certainly be thought of as an "ethnicity" of sorts. One of those quirky things about Jews is that people have a hard time categorizing them, err, us. We don't fit into our modern definitions of race or religion, which can be frustrating. Simply put, the Jews are a "people." Until recently, the Jews were a nation without a state. Now they're a nation with a state (once again), though the majority of Jews do not live under the governance of that state.

If you look back just half a century or more, you'll find plenty of textual sources, written by both Jews and Gentiles, that speak of Jews or Hebrews as a race. In one sense of the word which is not the standard usage today, race could refer also to a specific cultural and/or linguistic group. Under that archaic definition, Jews could be rightly be called a race - just not not in the modern sense of the word.


Just as an addition for your question specifically as to where we come from, well, Abraham, the first patriarch of the Jewish people, came from a city in ancient Mesopotamia. G-d promised to him the Land of Canaan, which would later become the Land of Israel, and which the Romans would conquer and re-name Palestina (after the Phillistines, who were enemies of the Jews, but who have no actual connection to the Palestinian Arabs of today). Aaanyhoo, you could say that the Jews officially became a nation when the Torah was given at Sinai, but that's not really where we're "from". The generation that received the Torah and became a real nation had been exiled to Egypt. And nowadays, Jews are scattered throughout the globe. If by "why do Jewish people come from" you want to know what land we first called home as a nation, where we dwelt together as one nation, and where we still think of as our homeland, that would the the Land of Israel, which consists primarily of the same land as the modern-day State of Israel, though I think the ancient kingdom may have been a bit bigger.

To sum up, the Jews can be called a "nation" in the cultural sense, but not in the political sense. The Jews are not a "race" in the sense that the word race is used today. And the only place where the Jews dwelled together as a nation (aside from our time as slaves in Egypt and the 40 years we spent wandering in the wilderness), was the Land of Israel, so that's where you could say we're from, though after 2000 years of exile, we're really from pretty much everywhere at this point.

I hope you find this information helpful, and if you have any further questions, feel free to contact me directly.

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Edit: Who in their right mind could give this answer thumbs down? It's CORRECT. I could understand someone not giving thumbs up because it's a little long maybe, but it's thorough, and accurate, and from a Jew, damnit!

Seriously, Yahoo Answers should make people take tests or something before they can contribute to certain sections, to prove they know what the hell they're talking about. Too many people around here (especially in the Religion and Spirituality section) are talking out of their asses.

Answer 6

Judaism is a religion.

That said, there are certain cultural attributes and history that are shared by Jews of all kinds, which is why people will often use the word 'nation'. Culturally, - not politically (obviously excepting Israel here) we could be referred to as a nation because of the prominence of those cultural atributes. The 'nation of Israel" in speech can refer to the small country in the middle east, or as it often does, to the Jewish people as a whole.
Technically, you could correctly say we are a religious and cultural group. how else to explain atheist and secular Jews? In addition to what Mark noted- Sefardim, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, there are a spectrum of practices from orthodox to atheist that cannot be explained to non-Jews, or understood by them, using the term 'religion'.

Answer 7

OK, I'm Jewish so how about I take a shot at this.

Judaism is a religion. Period. Jews are from every race, every nation. Within Judaism today there are also a number of large ethnicities--Sephardim, Mizrahim, Ashkenazim, etc.--as well as people who are not from these groups.

Answer 8

they would be a nationality if they were people

Answer 9

I think it's a religion but it's like... a religion that is ... connected to a certain people. Like an answer up there, Israel is a Jewish State but srsly, there are like Christians and Muslims, etc who live there too.

Also, like... The Jewish people who are white. Like.. I had this teacher who was Jewish but he had like... blue eyes (i think I don't remember) not something you regularly see in the middle-east, yaar.

But see even I just called the Jewish people white just there. I don't know where their ancestry is. But my teacher's last name was Liebesman.

OH YEAH and you know that movie, The Piano? wait no. ok I have no idea what it was called but it had Johnny Depp, Uma Thurman, and Christina Ricci.. and Ricci told Thurman her last name and Thurman thought she was russian by it but then realized she wasn't russian... so she must have been jewish. It was like... an -ovitch name.

so yeah no. Religion, deffy.

Answer 10

Being Jewish is belonging to a people who embrace a common belief system (Judaism)

Answer 11

It is not a nationality because people of different races are jewish, it is a religion shared by millions!!!