I´ve got a question about judaism. As far as i know, judaism is a religion just like islam or christianity. But besides a religious group, many people consider jews also to be an ethnic group. The thing is: the rules for determining whether you belong to that ethnic group are determined by jewish religion: You are a jew when your mother is jewish. That´s the rule. But there are secular jews, who still consider themselves to be jewish. Even though they don´t believe in anything jewish religion proscribes. So you would think that they would not believe in the religious rules for determining jewishnes either.

But beside this theorethical thing there is maybe a more basic problem: if jews are an ethnic group, you would expect there to be genes that are typically jewish, just like there are caucasian genes or black or colored genes. But for a gene it doesn´t matter much whether it´s passed on to a next generation by a man or a woman. Genes don´t care about this. Being a black, white or asian person isn´t passed on through the mother either but through the mother and/or father.

So my question is: is there realy something like a jewish ethnicity or is that just a belief, based on tradition? I consider nationality to be a purely judicial term that often (most of the time) has very little to do with ethnicity either.

Nope...the rules determining whether you belong to that religion are determined by Jewish religion. The Jewish religion, afaik, makes no proscriptions as far as enthnicity/culture, primarily because it does not allow for distinctions...and why would it? Such distinctions would hardly further any aspects of the religion.

Yet, Jewish culture vis a vis religion is not a fixed entity...the culture varies to a great degree depending on what subsection of Jews you are talking about (whether religious or geographical). Treating "Jews" as a single cultural identity does not allow for a full anthropological understanding of either the religion or the culture.

Furthermore...

To consider oneself "culturally Jewish", imo, implies that one is commenting on the fact that they have a history/upbringing/view of their cultural identity as rooted in aspects of Jewish history, religion, culture, etc. There's no reason that this view must adhere to religious law any more than any other person's sense of cultural identity.

There are genes (and genetic diseases/traits) that are present in the Jewish gene pool. I don't see how this is a problem...other than not adhering to religious law...which, as a law of men, is entirely fallible.


I don't understand why nationality is mentioned at the end.

Genetically speaking, Jews who have not wandered from the homeland and mixed with non-Jews often are genetically identical to the Palestinians. At that level, it's entirely cultural, not genetic.

Within many traditional Jewish groups, marrying other Jews is considered the only acceptible option... Understandable considering their history of persecution by non-Jews. But this has led to some genetic bottlenecks within certain very "purebred" groups. Mixing it up is always a good thing when it comes to genes.

I think that what makes someone a Jew is not simple to define. The role of Jews in world history has been complex. For example, a traditional Jew will only consider you Jewish if your mother is (or you have converted). Hitler, on the other hand, made no such distinctions.

My wife is half Jewish and nonobservant... Until she hears an anti Semetic slur, in which case she suddenly feels quite defensive.

I think Israelis are the ethnic group which have common genetic similarities. Judaism just being a religion. Just my thoughts.

Israelis aren't an ethnic group, they're a nationality...
Also, Judaism is more than a religion, hence the reason we're having this discussion

Studies Show Jews’ Genetic Similarity

Just because Jewish religion dictates those are the rules, doesn't mean we should adhere to them. To me, when speaking of ethnicity, someone with a Jewish father is just as Jewish as someone with a Jewish mother.

OK, so the predicate 'the jewish people' is something like a cultural 'echo' of when jews still used to live in a sort of tribal collective as described in the bible? That makes sense.

Sort of...but not really. Echo is not correct as it implies that this very real culture (or group of cultures) is an echo or shadow of what once was (implying it is an immaterial remnant). However it is more of an evolutionary path (the material result of historical events) that has led to modern Jews (cultural or religious). Culture is dynamic, no matter what group of people we're talking about, it's always in flux.

Jewish history extends far out of biblical times. Jews have been a cultural group since biblical times. It's not for nothing that they were the target of Russian pogroms or the Spanish Inquisition or the German Holocaust.

"Judaism" refers to the religion, philosophy and culture of people who identify as Jews. Jews being considered an ethnoreligious group (meaning a group of people who identify with each other through a common culture, heritage/history and language, as well as religion) who are descended from the Israelites of biblical times. In essence, the culture is bound up with the religion, but the culture is also a unique anthropological phenomenon that can be traced throughout history.

Don't Christians do the converse? I was always told that in Christianity, it is determined by the father, although Christians are much more eager to get their converts anyway. Obviously these two "rules" are at odds with each other, and should be noted.