Tribe, race, religion whatever: Jews are different. End of story.

If you would like Judaism to be simply a religion you are in the wrong place, you should try traveling back in time to the late 19th and early 20th century. While I grant the fact that there are other "tribes" with in the Jewish community, to say that Judaism is simply a religion is weak. To say that Judaism is not family based is ignoring reality. To say that we are "just like" other religions is just wrong.

Outside of the external factors that force us into "otherness," the Jewish community has set up (to varying degrees) markers to say what makes a Jew a Jew and it never is simply a statement of faith or religious practice. It is lifestyle, custom etc.

While it is fine to say that Jews are not a tribe, we are also not just a religion. Why the hell would we need the likes of Jewcy, the cultural meca of self-righteous Jews, if we simply went to Shul and came home?

Ach I say

- <a href="http://pissedoffliberaljew.blogspot.com" POLJ</a>

Why the hell would we need the likes of Jewcy, the cultural meca [sic] of
self-righteous Jews, if we simply went to Shul and came home?

I think you mean cultural Jerusalem... 

Anyway, "we" don't "need" Jewcy.  I like Jewcy, you like Jewcy, Jewcy is awesome.  Great.  Anyone can read Jewcy (Jews and non-Jews alike), and but not everyone wants to (Jews and non-Jews alike).  Jewcy doesn't speak for all Jews, nor does it purport to.  The mere existence of "Jewish issues" or "things of Jewish interest" doesn't take away from the point of the piece.

 Sure, there's a lot to Judaism beyond the historical belief system / religious tenets (duh!), but (atheist Jews notwithstanding) that's the lowest common denominator among us, ain't it? We've got unique traditions, cultural goodness, shared history, etc.  But for the most those traditions are not universal among Jews; there's Jewry all over the world with different history and traditions.  And though the traditions, et. al., themselves may be unique, the existence of traditions unique to a religion is hardly a fact unique to Judaism.  We're special, but come on now.  So's everyone.

"Tribe, race, religion whatever: Jews are different. End of story."

POLJ, You make a good point that in many cases, Judaism is much more than a religion, but nothing you say backs up the argument that terms like ethnicity, tribe, or race should be used to describe Judaism.

"It is lifestyle, custom etc."

In that regard, you're correct. For most of us, Judaism is some combination that may include beliefs, faith, customs, traditions, and culture. It's important to realize, though, that all of these are examples of things we do, not who we are in a biological sense. This may seem like a matter of semantics to you, but there is a distinction, and it's an important one.

Hello,

As a convert to Judaism I always wonder about the idea that Jewish people are a race. There are tight ethnic lines within Judaism but I would be hard pressed to say that my Ashkenazi family is of the same race as my Yemenite in-laws or the Falashan community.

As a person that converted from the Christian world, I would say that the religious and institutional aspects of Judaism have parallels to the Christians. What I find distinct is the impact of Jewish culture and law that permeates each community whether they are liberal or traditional, American, French, Russian, Yemenite or Israeli. As much as Jews assimilate into their home culture, their outsidedness keeps some aspect of this strong culture.

My comparison is the feeling I had in the beginning attending conservative and traditional services (in the US and Israel). I felt like I was dropped into a different land, different language, different culture, different norms - oh yeah and different races. The first set of differences define the Jewish differences for me.

I am a Jew and I have slowly learned how to adapt to those differences and it is a good thing race doesn't define who is a Jew.

Helen is more wrong than right.  While she is somewhat correct that Jews are not exactly a tribe (since we accept converts), she's wrong in saying that we're rather a religion.  According to Jews' traditional understanding of ourselves, if your mother is/was a Jew, you're a Jew whether or not you believe in or practice the religion.  And the reverse is true -- if your mother is/was _not_ a Jew, and you haven't gone through a conversion ceremony, you're _not_ Jewish no matter what you believe or practice.  (Yes, the Reform movement has accepted a slightly different rule, but even there, belief and practice -- or, more precisely, education in belief and practice -- plays a determinative role only when one parent is a Jew and the other isn't.)  So in fact, she _can't_ "go from Jewish to Sikh" -- all she can do is go from being a Jew who believes/practices Judaism to being a Jew who believes/practices something else.

I'm certainly not disparaging the importance of religion.  However, it's not correct that believing/practicing Judaism makes you a Jew.  The truth is the opposite -- being a Jew makes you one of the persons who is obligated to believe/practice Judaism.

There is a soul, a lets-all-look-the-other-way word in western culture, but it's there and it defines us. Scientists look the other way when they discovered that immediately, and I mean that literally, immediately at the moment of death, the body becomes lighter by 23 grams. There is a Soul/brain/blood link called a neuropeptide, that spreads information, thought and belief into the cells instantaneously--again I mean that literally, the communication moves faster than the speed of light, head to toe, instantaneously. Do a Wiki search on the neuroscientist Candace Pert--who discovered all of this, or at least given her chapter in and appearance on Bill Moyer's Healing and the Mind, will get quite a lot of credit for this knowledge.

They, scientists, have also done DNA analysis on a certain African tribe, and lo and behold, they're not only Jewish, but they are Kohens. My overall point here is that in the western world, words like religion, race, blood, and soul, are all very poorly defined. Which is why discussions, arguments, and you're not hearing a word I'm saying conversations pop up and are never fully resolved. And I didn't even mention a certain propensity for these words to become the mode of transportation for whatever evil lurks in the hearts of human beings.

We are, when it comes to this, walking talking fog machines.

That's how they got the fog in the last scene of Casablanca, bunch of folks on the set talking about you know what and presto! Romantic close-up fog.

Yes, poorly defined, indeed.  The shortcomings and misuses of language are a bigger problem than most people ever realize.  Language can be a paradox, in the sense that it can act as both a bridge and a barrier at the same time.  

In any case, while calling Judaism a "religion" might fall short of fully describing its many aspects, intricacies, and meanings (especially depending on who you ask), I'm pretty certain it's not a race.   

You have good reason to be pretty certain, because our ideas about race, again the definition came from a Frenchman in the 17th century, are just a shambles and have always been so. Talk about pulling a concept out of thin air.

All I can say, and this ultimately means nothing, but I met a--okay, what do I call it if 'race' is a poorly conceived word--but he was African, possibly Nigerian, and a Jew. We spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out how we could look so different and feel such a kinship deep down. We never figured it out.

I still don't know what to make of it. He was also trying to convince me to make Aliyah. Two Jews through and through.

As naftali mentioned, race is a completely arbirary term from a biological standpoint. There is no true biological race, for there isn't enough variation in humans for our differences to qualify as separate races. For more on that, I recommend reading Joseph Graves' "The Race Myth". That being said, I feel that Judaism is unique in that while yes, it is a religion, there are cultural practices and traits that are uniquely Jewish. For Ashkenazi Jews, these include food customs like matzo ball soup and kugel, and we even have our own language, Yiddish (which yes, fewer people speak every day), among many other things. As to the conversion factor, I feel that while someone who converts to Judaism may have a stronger understanding of the religious laws than I do, they don't necessarily automatically become a cultural Jew. In my opinion, there are so many idiosyncrasies of "being Jewish" that take growing up in the culture or a long-term immersion in the culture to possess/understand.

that's just my opinion.

I am trying to learn more about Jewish culture and history myself. I'm a gentile incidently.:-)

How about MOOOTT?

Member Of One Of Twelve Tribes?

I'll play along. I am, culturally speaking, an Eastern European Jew. I know very little of, nor do I much feel a kindred spirit to, and middle-Eastern or North African Jews.

but amongst Eastern European Jews, I am at home and comfortable.

Hence, MOOOTT

We're confusing the words race and tribe. A "tribe" does not mean that its members must be related by ancestry. One online definition is

"1 a: a social group comprising numerous families, clans, or generations together with slaves, dependents, or adopted strangers b: a political division of the Roman people originally representing one of the three original tribes of ancient Rome c: phyle2: a group of persons having a common character, occupation, or interest3: a category of taxonomic classification ranking below a subfamily; also : a natural group irrespective of taxonomic rank <the cat tribe> <the rose tribe> "

Even under the first definition, Jews could be a Tribe. Of course, the Bible tells us that the Jews consisted of 12 Tribes. We'll sort this out when the Moshiach arrives to tell all Jews which Tribe they belong to. Until then, referring to a fellow Jew as a MOT (in the english language) appears accurate.