Hello friends. If this post is inappropriate, please tell me how to fix it or feel free to remove it. I am here because sometimes The Algorithm presents me new information, but especially when it’s about Judaism in the current global climate, I want to make sure I’m not being told something inaccurate or harmful.

  • When I was a kid, I thought Judaism was a religion
  • As I got older, I learnt people also treated it as an ethnicity, it was both
  • Now I am seeing some people (I am unsure of their intentions) say Judaism is not an ethnicity, it is a religion

For example, this guy: https://www.tiktok.com/@yuvalmann.s/video/7317661422694026529

Who is a Jew, from Israel, who is now an anti-Zionist. He says “a Jewish person from Morocco, a Jewish person from Ethiopia and a Jewish person from Germany or Hungary have absolutely nothing to do with each other but one thing, religion”. And later explains that the idea of Judaism as an ethnicity itself was an idea of Zionists.

I’d be curious to hear what people here think about that take, whether it’s accurate, if it’s harmful/inaccurate, etc. Thanks very much!

  • milicent_bystandrEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    There are differing opinions on the historicity of the Jewish scriptures, but I believe the broad brush-strokes are sufficiently agreed on for our purposes.

    So a little ancient history:

    • there was a group of people, descended from one family (obviously plus intermarriage), called the Israelites or the Hebrews
    • Around 1500BC (give or take a few hundred years?) they settled in the land we now call Palestine/Israel.
    • But not them exclusively in that area, nor were they the first - and to some extent they remained an ethnically-exclusive group but it’s a bit complicated.
    • the Israelites/Hebrews comprised of 12 ‘tribes’ each tracing their ancestry to one of the sons of Israel. (Or one of two grandsons… There’s always added detail!)
    • they split, though keeping some shared identity. The southern half was the tribes of ‘Judah’ and ‘Benjamin’ and became known as Judah; the other tribes were the Northern half. The people of Judah are called the Jews.
    • around 500BC (give or take some hundreds) all the Israelites were conquered and most of not all moved to other lands for tens or hundreds of years
    • some returned, keeping their identity intact (in their eyes)
    • some returned but intermarried and we’re considered only dubiously Israelite.
    • some other communities in other parts of the world believe they are descendents of some Israelites who didn’t return.
    • around 0AD (give or take) the Romans occupied that land and then again the Jews/Israelites were scattered.
    • still various communities, from that scattering, continued to identify as Jews.

    That takes us - very crudely - up to the present day of the Jews/Israelites joining together again as the nation of Israel, in that land.

    On the religious side:

    • the Israelites believed in one God (and the gods other people worshipped as either complete lies/nonsense, or created by their God, or something more nuanced)
    • they believed God had chosen them, as a nation / ethnic group, to be in special relationship to him, and that his connection to other people in the world would be through them.
    • the idea was (with some exceptions) that joining the Jewish religion (i.e. worshipping their God on His terms) essentially meant the same as joining in the Israelite ethnic group.
    • after the split between Jews and other Israelites, the Jews came to believe the others had compromised the religion so it wasn’t true any more; hence now Jewish religion (Judaism)
    • when Jesus of Nazareth came (around 30AD) his followers believed he was the fulfillment and continuation of the Jewish religion and in a way that could now include people from all the world, without becoming Jewish. (hence Christianity being a religion not defined by ethnicity)
    • Obviously, other Jews did not believe this! Hence Judaism continuing separately
    • Islam (7th century?) believed much of the same tradition as Jews and Christians, but that the details recorded by Jews and Christians were wrong/lies, and Mohammad was the true final person bringing the truth from God

    So then there’s kind of three main identifications of ‘Jews’, all connected but looking from different perspectives.

    • Ethnically: the people who are descended from the Kingdom of Judah (the tribes of Judah and Benjamin). Obviously that openes the question of whether people can join into said group, and whether intermarriage includes or excludes you.
    • Ethnically II: the people descended from the whole nation of Israel. I believe they sometimes still get called Jews these days.
    • Religious: the people who worship the Jewish God according to Jewish religion. Obviously this opens many questions of what counts as genuine/acceptable worship/religion.

    And an extra note on the ethnic side: because the people identifying as Israelite/Israeli have been scattered for so long, even if you were to have a clear definition of what fits within the ethnic boundary (e.g. maitriliniage), it is hard - if even possible - to know when a community of individual claims Israeli descent what their genetic/ancestral descent really is. So there is necessarily some flexibility for the traditions of communities that claim certain lineage, and that flexibility is argued over. One might put a fourth option for identification:

    • Community: the communities that trace themselves as descending from Jewish/Israelite community. Meaning the continuation of a community, which usually involves a large component of ethnic/familial descent as well as a large component of cultural/religious continuity.

    P S. I’m on mobile so can’t risk double checking egregious typos/etc without losing this long post. Apologies if I’ve put something really badly. I’ll try to be attentive to comments and you can all downvote me to hell/Hades/Gehenna if it’s too awful!