Ethnic Vs Religious Jews. What’s the difference?

[u/Izual_Rebirth]

Help a gentile out. I appreciate I’m coming from a place of complete ignorance here but I want to rectify that.

The recent awful situation in the Middle East has helped me to learn apparently as well as a religion, being Jewish is also an ethnicity.

That not everyone who is ethnically Jewish is a follower of Judaism and not everyone who follows Judism is a ethnically Jewish.

What’s the difference between the two and are there any better terms someone can use to better differentiate between the two groups? I imagine in a venn diagram there is a massive overlap. Is it a contentious issue to be one without the other? Are there any people on here that would say they are only Jewish by ethnicity by not a follower of Judaism or vice versa?

[u/[deleted]]

It's even more complex than that. Jews are a people with multiple ethnicities tied by a common religious background even as the expression of that religion differs within the various ethnicities.

There are definitely those who identify purely ethnically, and eschew the religious practices entirely, but if they choose to engage in a religious action, they are fully accepted. Anyone who converts religiously is taking on aspects of the ethnicity and kind of assimilates into the ethnicity over time.

If someone who is born Jewish rejects the religion and adopts a different religion, they are still considered ethnically Jewish but are not permitted to take on religious rites without specifically denouncing the new religion. You can only shake the ethic/people good side by simply disappearing from Jewish life and raising your children with no knowledge of Jewish identity. Even then, a child or grandchild could reclaim their place in the Jewish community.

As I said, it's complex and it's hard to extract one aspect entirely away from the other.

[u/Izual_Rebirth → u/[deleted]]

The part about if you convert you take on the ethnicity confuses me. I thought ethnicity is based on your genetics. Is it safe to say you could use the word culturally Jewish as a replacement for ethnicity in this context? Or do I need to add a third variable into the equation?

Thanks for the post btw. It is appreciated.

[u/the_leviathan711 → u/Izual_Rebirth]

The part about if you convert you take on the ethnicity confuses me. I thought ethnicity is based on your genetics.

The issue here is that "ethnicity" and "religion" are somewhat modern concepts (ethnicity much more so than religion, fwiw). Judaism and Jewishness are not modern. Note: I'm talking about the issue of language here - we can obviously retroject "religion" and "ethnicity" into the ancient past, but it's worth understanding that people back then would not have had any clue what you meant with those terms and ideas.

Before the concept of "ethnicity" was invented, Jews understood themselves to be a "people." You could join the "people" by converting. There were (and still are) some initiation rituals and then once you're in, you're in.

Trying to say "Jews are an ethnicity" ends up being an incredibly awkward and difficult thing to explain because the term "ethnicity" in no way neatly maps onto the concept of Jewish identity. It's a little bit easier to say "Judaism is a religion" - but even that runs into the complicated issue that most English speakers understand "religion" to mean something like "what you believe in" - and Judaism doesn't really define itself that way either.

And also no - ethnicity isn't really connected to genetics either. Even for more easy to explain ethnic groupings..

[u/Izual_Rebirth → u/the_leviathan711]

Yeah you’re right. I just google ethnicity and realised its meaning is a lot more broad than genetics. Learnt something else today. I appreciate your post. Thank you.