Any other people who believe that Jewish is not a race but a religion?

Question

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071228213428AAP9y5D&r=w

Anyone?

'Jewish', not 'Judaism'.

Answer 1

I see a lot of statements here but I don’t see anyone who answered your question. Let me give you the answer you seek.

It seems that most of these yahoo’s don’t have much of a clue as to what they’re talking about. It also seems that the few who do have some idea of the facts, either don’t know all of the facts or are simply participating in the “whitewash”. I’ll not hazard to guess which is the case in any individual since I’d rather not give credit where credit isn’t due.

However, in researching the subject over the last few years, let me fill you in on what I’ve found.

In 'Jews, Multiculturalism, and Boasian Anthropology', in The American Anthropologist, Jewish writer Gelya Frank celebrates American Boasian antiracist anthropology as "Jewish history". She points out that the central Jewish role was intentionally whitewashed for fear that Gentiles would realize that Jews had a radical agenda.

And I quote:
There has always been a lively, if sometimes hushed, in-house discourse about American anthropology's Jewish origins and their meaning. The preponderance of Jewish intellectuals in the early years of Boasian Anthropology and the Jewish identities of anthropologists in subsequent generations have been downplayed in standard histories of the discipline...

This essay brings together strands of these various discourses on Jews in anthropology for a new generation of American anthropologists, especially ones concerned with turning multiculturaIist theories into agendas for activism....

There has also been a whitewashing of Jewish ethnicity, reflecting fears of anti-Semitic reactions that could discredit the discipline of anthropology and individual anthropologists, either because Jews were considered dangerous due to their presumed racial differences or because they were associated with radical causes.

Any number of scholars are reasserting Jewishness in the academy, simultaneously attempting to discover and define what Jewish identity can mean in that most universalist of institutions. Some relevant examples from the long and growing list of sources, include: Behar 1996; Boyarian 1992, 1996; Eilberg-Schwartz 1990, 1992, 1994; H. Goldberg 1987, 1995; Kleebatt 1996; Nochilin and Garb 1995; Prell 1989, 1990, 1996; Robin-Dorsky and Fisher Fishkin 1996; and Schneider 1995.

The reappearance of Jewish difference(s) raises the stakes for Jewish anthropologists engaged in multiculturalist discourses.
-Gelya Frank (1)
End quote.

So here we have the same Jewish-driven anthropology establishment that tells Europeans there is really no such thing as race and that racial identity is silly at best and a moral evil at worst, quietly promoting Jewish "differences" and "genetic identity". Frank's article goes on with unrestrained praise of the Jewish pride in the writing of Barbara Meyerhoff in 'Number Our Days'. (2)

When I first looked into the issue of Jewish genetic relatedness, I did not have the benefit of Frank's article. At that time, I thought that the best way to investigate the issue was to see how similar the geographically separated Jewish populations are to each other and to the Gentile populations among whom they live. Do Jews differ from the other Europeans the same way that, say, an Englishman differs from a Frenchman or a German from a Russian? Or are they altogether different from all European sub-races?

Substantial work had been done on the issue, much of it from Jewish researchers who were busily studying their own people's genetic makeup. Over the years, they enlightened me on this subject in much the same way that I had gained an interesting perspective on Jewish history from Jewish chroniclers. The first thing I found was information on the set of genetically borne diseases that occur almost exclusively in the Jewish community such as Tay-Sachs disease. Their presence certainly indicated a genetic variance specific to the Jewish population and illustrated a genetic difference from the Gentiles. Soon I found scientific papers dealing precisely with the issues I sought. (3)

Genetic researchers Sachs and Bat-Miriam discovered amazing similarity between the Jewish populations of nine countries of North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Europe. Conversely, they found sharp differences between Jews and non-Jews from those same countries. (4) In studying blood group data, Mourant, Kopec, and Domaniewska-Sobczak wrote in a book called 'The Genetics of the Jews' that (Again, I quote)

…it may be said that, in general, blood group data...support the relative homogeneity of the main historical Jewish communities. (5)

Now, here we have mainstream Jewish anthropologists and geneticists - the same group who chronically preach to us that there are no great differences between Blacks and Whites - boldly assert that the Jewish people are genetically distinctive and relatively homogenous! They argue that some differences exist between the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim (the main ethnic division among Jews), but that essentially Jews are a single people with limited genetic resemblance to the European populations among whom they dwell. (6)

In blood group data, two major studies, one in 1977 by Bonne-Tamir, Ashbel, and Kenett and one by Karlin, Kenett, and Bonne-Tamir in 1979, found when using fourteen polymorphic loci, no significant difference in Jewish populations from Iraq, Libya, Germany or Poland. They estimated that the genetic distance between Gentiles and Jews living in the same area is three to five times greater than for Jews living in the different nations studied. In the 1977 study, the researchers state "not much admixture has taken place between Ashkenazi Jews and their Gentile neighbors during the last 700 years or so". (7)

Mille and Kobyliansky discovered in studies of dermatologlyphic data that Ashkenazim (Eastern European Jews) are much more similar to Sephardim (Middle-Eastern and European Jews) than they are to the non-Jewish Eastern Europeans. (8)

Kobyliansky and Livshits in using cluster analysis on 25 morphological characteristics, estimated that Jews in Russia were six times more genetically distant from Russians than Russians were from Germans. They also found the Jews to be completely separate from the twenty-four other ethnic groups studied in Russia, Germany, and Poland. (9)

Another study compared modern Jews and those of 3,000 year old Jewish skeletons discovered in the Middle East. Sofaer, Smith, and Kaye studied dental morphology from Morocco, Kurdish Iraq and Eastern European countries. They found more likeness between the widely scattered Jewish populations than for the Gentile groups living near them. The ancient Jewish skeletal group turned out to be far more similar to the three Jewish populations than for every non-Jewish group studied except for one, an Arab Druse group from the 11th century. (10)

One researcher summed up the overall genetic differences by saying that there was probably at least three times more genetic difference between an average Jew in France and his Gentile Frenchman neighbor than between an average French Jew and a Jew living in Russia or the Middle East.

The Jewish studies amazed me. I would not have guessed that Jews were that genetically different from all Europeans. I knew a few Jews who were indistinguishable from the potpourri of other European-Americans. From their appearance, it seemed impossible that there was three times more genetic difference from us than from Jews in remote regions of the world. But, the research proved that a wide genetic difference existed between Jew and European. I wondered why their appearance did not seem all that dramatically different. These studies not only prove that Jews are a distinct racial group but that, at least for the last 3,000 years, Jews have ACTIVLY avoided assimilating with their host populations to any great extent.

Fritz Lenz suggested back in the 1930s that Jewish resemblance to the European populations did not mean that their genes were similar.(11) He suggested that their similar external resemblance could have emerged from the natural selection of genes within the Jewish gene pool. These genes could simply be a small cluster of genes that lay dormant in the Jewish pool or that were introduced by limited genetic mixture with Gentiles, and which then were selectively favored by the social environment. Genes that caused a greater corporeal resemblance to that of the Gentile host could have favorable results in acceptance, accumulation of wealth, and social advancement and thus on reproductive success.

By a somewhat similar process, distinct species of butterflies not closely related, come to resemble one another without narrowing their genetic distance. Only a small set of genes influencing appearance within the Jewish population could thus be favored, causing a greater similarity of appearance to the Gentile population while not narrowing their overall genetic alienation from their host population.

The way to achieve this is not rocket science. The father offers less than 1/3 of the child’s genetic makeup. Even less than that if the child is a girl. The father provides little more than the outward appearance. Whereas it’s the mother who provides the egg & the oven, so to speak. Therefore it’s the mother who provides the majority of the child’s genetic makeup. By favoring the female children over generations a child with a Jewish mother and, say for example, an Ethiopian father, the children will take on the APPEARANCE of being Ethiopian while still maintaining a predominantly Jewish genetic makeup.

Just as two species of animals occupying a particular geographic area naturally develop a group evolutionary strategy to compete for resources, so human groups can do the same - even in the civilized societies. They can develop certain behavioral traits that give them competitive advantage and greater reproductive success. In human societies, when genetically distinct groups interact, they can assimilate and lose their genetic distinction, or they can develop ethnocentric ideologies and behavior that favor the distinct characteristics of their own gene pool. An ethnocentric group could even develop a religion that rationalizes its evolutionary response to other groups.


So, you see, this whole “Yahoo Answers” thing is primarily just that. A bunch of yahoo’s making what they perceive to be “educated” guesses. Out of the millions of people here I’ve yet to see more than a VERY small percentage of legitimate answers. Most of these people with their "one-liner" answers & their “I’m a this” & “I’m a that” (as if THAT'S supposed to relieve all doubts about their claimed expertise) are really just blowing hot air.

You asked for the facts, I gave you the facts.

And one final note, before anyone goes about calling me an “anti-Semite”, “racist”, “hater” or “Nazi”, remember that the vast majority of studies I’ve quoted from here were done & reported BY Jews. If you wish to call anyone these names then you’ll have to start by accusing these Jewish scientists before you can get around to calling me anything but a reporter of the facts.

Enjoy.

Answer 2

Judaism is a religion. Jewish is an adjective that describes one who is a Jew, which could be either an ethnic or a religious designation.

The Hebrew Scriptures indicate that there occurred intermarriage between Hebrews and the peoples of Canaan. There was also intermarriage with other peoples, such as with those of Moab. Some examples: Samson married a Philistine woman. Boaz married Ruth, a Moabitess, who became King David's great grandmother.

So whether you consider "Jewish" to mean of the tribe of Judah or an adherent to Judaism, there are other things to consider.

I am a Jew. But I am a Christian. So I am a Jew, but I am not Jewish, in the sense that I am not an adherent to traditional Judaism; I am Jewish in the ethnic sense.

And it is important to remember that the Scriptures indicate that he is a true Israelite who is of the FAITH of Abraham, not of the bloodline, but of the faith.

Answer 3

"Judaism" is a religion. "Semite" is a race. "Jewish" is a cultural ethnicity. There are devout traditonal Jews who don't have a single ounce of middle-eastern DNA in them (many European and Ethiopian Jews, for instance). And you can find Jews who are atheists or Christians, but nevertheless their family and community still consider them Jews. Also, an outsider can believe in the principles of Judaism but would not be considered a Jew unless he/she actually married into a Jewish family and becomes part of a Jewish community. It's the only reasonable conclusion that being Jewish has to do with one's cultural connections and is not really tied to any one specific aspect of one's life.

Answer 4

The religion is called Judaism, practiced only by Jews. But not every Jew is religious.

Answer 5

with the info I have

if the slaughters and takeovers are true

most of what the Jews were are thinned out and gypsy like

the religion does not make one Jewish

like me being in the US doesn't make my blood "American"

I have Irish, Scotch, German and Italian blood, all thanks to immigrants via Ellis Island

culture is usually what people fight over, with religion being the glue that pushes traditions, which of course rub others the wrong way, especially if they say they are "chosen race" then go from being patrilineal to matrilineal and using Mom to justify if one is Jewish instead of "bloodline"

Answer 6

Jewish is not a racial distinction, the Tay Sachs argument doesn't stand up as the condition is common in different groups of people. I'm a nurse and have cared for children with this condition.
How do you account for racial differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, and don't forget the Falashi Jews of Ethiopia. There are Jews in India who are ethnically South Asian.

Answer 7

Jews are a loosely defined cultural group and perhaps an ethnicity. You can be a kosher abiding Chinese Jew or you can be a shellfish-eating atheist Jew. Either way, you're still Jewish.

Answer 8

I do! yes you can have a jewish family tree, but without the religion there would be no race

Answer 9

Judaism is a religion which anyone of any race can join. You do not have to be a direct descendant of Abraham to be Jewish so it is a religion, not a race.

Answer 10

I agree with the point that Jews are a separate ethnic group. However, they believed in what is called a Personal God. They believed that they are the chosen people of the God. This group commences its lineage from Abraham. He took to a distinct kind of worship, opposed to the worship of idols of other ethnic groups, and the people believed that their personal God had promised them a land of their own. Therefore, the religious practices of the Jews also came to be associated with the name, 'Jew'.

Answer 11

No. The Jews are a distinct race of people. The Jewish faith is their religion, and we gentiles can convert to it. That doesn't make us Jews by blood though.