To think it's rubbish that you can tell if someone is of Jewish descent?

[brentlondon]

I'm not talking about stereotypical features etc. as I'm pale and ginger with a very ordinary surname...

I have a very good (Jewish) friend who claims he can tell if someone who isn't Jewish has a Jewish background. Be that a Jewish grandmother or something. Without taking him too seriously I asked him whether it was some special power he possesses but he is adamant it's something he is able to do. He guessed it about me, or so he says.

A few years ago someone told me that it was very likely that I have some Jewish ancestry.

The other day I got chatting to a local reform rabbi by chance and we got talking about my background and history. I mentioned that I am of partly "Jewish" descent. He remarked that he "wasn't at all surprised".

AIBU to think this is rubbish and that you can't tell. I mean, I can take a guess if someone is of Irish descent but that's because of features and a surname. Surely this kind of thing is impossible and they're having me on?

I’m often assumed to be Jewish and was chatted up by Jewish men in NY on that understanding. A bunch of young lads once shouted ‘jew’ at me in the street.

I’m from a small village in Wiltshire as are both my parents who can trace their families back hundreds of years. I’m not Jewish at all as far as I know.

I had a friend in London like that Efferlunt. she was always going on about how her father had traced their family 'back to the Domesday book'.
Years later this was found to be some kind of family lie, and she was indeed of Jewish stock ...

I am soooo terrible at this. I found out that someone I’d known for eight years was Jewish the other day. How did I not know???

Also, when I first met a friend of mine who is half Indian, I had no idea. Yes, she is very light-skinned but even her typically Indian surname didn’t tip me off. This happens to me so often I wonder if it’s actually a brain thing

I was told I was a typical upper East side Jewish girl once by a Jewish guy. Not an ounce of Jewish in me.

Lucia That is no compliment.

I think more people have Jewish ancestry in the U.K. then realized. The UK has been a good place for Jewish people to live since the 1300s.

People claim a lot of shit. Jewdar and Arabdar fails the minute you go to India / Pakistan / or anywhere west of China on the silk route really. I look like every Jew stereotype but I am not and can trace my ancestry back to the 16th century kingdoms around Nepal!

My half sister is from a Jewish line on her mother's side. It totally skipped her, but every single one of her children (6) you could pick out of a line up as Jewish. Which is bizarre as they all look so different, but they all have the stereotypical characteristics.

I had a friend in London like that Efferlunt. she was always going on about how her father had traced their family 'back to the Domesday book'.

My Dad’s family are supposedly one of the families you can trace back until then. But my Dad’s origins are a bit murky because she was an interned German during the war when he was conceived and his ‘father’ was at the other end of the country serving in the RAF. Quite a few Jewish men were interned at those camps and my DF looks nothing like his DF and is always being asked if he is Jewish.

I keep trying to get him to do one of those ancestry.com DNA kits but he’s not having it. There is definitely Jewish blood on my Mother’s side so I can’t tell from my DNA.

‘She’ being my paternal grandma.

Nah, sometimes you can tell, others not. For example Alicia silverstone is Jewish, but I would not have guessed that.

It seems to bother you though? Does it? Does it matter? I come from an Italian family and apparently look Italian. People have commented throughout my life. I had a guy from the electricity board here about two weeks ago, he was from Thailand, really nice man, and he said "where are you from, your face is not British".ehrm, yeah it is. I also had a man, some random, in a cafe walk up to me and actually say to me "excuse me, are you Italian".when I said my family was, he said "yes, I knew it," apparently him and his friend were discussing it. Ffs. How boring for them.

Who cares. People just say uninvited shit.

I would imagine that due to persecution there are many people of Jewish backgrounds who hid their origins, and then later generations believe they are not Jewish. Can his radar penetrate that?

Many mixed race Americans ‘passed’ for white and never disclosed their backgrounds. (You often get inexplicable ‘throwbacks’ for this reason). It’s the same sort of thing.

Yeah, I dunno. From a physical point of view the idea of 'jewishness' as a binary thing (ie you are or aren't) is, like many ideas of discrete racial buckets that you can put people into, a bit daft. Whilst there are of course certain physical characteristics that are relatively common amongst 'Jewish' people, these same characteristics are just as common in many other places. The practiced eye will just tend to infer Jewishness based on a combination of looks but also dress, haircut, mannerisms, the place and context where we encounter someone, etc etc.

People often think I am because of my Hebrew name (variant of my grandmother Mary's) but actually I am black Irish. DNA testing showed about 10% East European, Jewish, Iberian peninsula and Middle Eastern.

It’s just human perception, isn’t it? I read a study once that said very young children and babies can tell individual sheep (eg) apart easily by sight. We lose that micro perception as we get older but still use all sorts of cues and clues to recognise and categorise people.

It’s not racist or dodgy, it’s just human. And completely fallible.

Hair texture, eye shape?

Idk but there is an eye shape, even in Caucasians and other races , that almost guarantees Mongolian descent.

Then again I’m blonde haired and grey eyed ( and whiter than the damn moon) and my dad looks Iranian ... people always think I’m his gold digger girlfriend

Lesson: people are stupid

I can generally spot people with the following ancestry;
Polish, jewish, algerian, Nigerian, sri lankan, nepali, French, irish, liberian, somali

But not always. Sometimes mix up poles with czechs and somalians with Eritreans and obviously there are lots of mixed heritage though still can tell sometimes.

Mighty why are you trying to get your father to do a DNA test? You could do one yourself, but trying to pressure someone else is really unreasonable.

I’ve known people who despite having German parents/grandparents have grown up knowing nothing about their family history or culture, no German spoken at home.

There’s a Jewish accent?

Mighty why are you trying to get your father to do a DNA test? You could do one yourself, but trying to pressure someone else is really unreasonable.

Because we’re not sure who his Dad is. His mother is German and ethnic German. The man who brought him up as his father is entirely British.

We’re fairly certain that the father who brought him up is not his Dad. His mother was in an internment camp in Scotland for the part of the war when my DF was conceived while my ‘Grandfather’ was based at the South Coast. It’s highly unlikely that they even saw each other around the time my Dad was conceived let alone slept together. There has always been rumblings about this in the wider family because my Dad looks nothing like his ‘father’ and neither do I or my siblings.

I’ve talked to my Dad about it, partly because it does affect me and my siblings because we’re unsure about our family medical history and what we’re at risk of inheriting.

Many of the interned men were German and Jewish and my Dad does look Jewish. My Grandad is dead and there is no way of DNA testing to see if they are related, but one way to find out would be to see what my Dad’s rough DNA mix is. I suggested it, he said no. So that’s the end of it.

We won’t really be able to tell from my DNA because I already know I have a mix of British/Jewish ancestry via my Mum and Germab via my Dad’s mother. So that split would be unlikely to significantly change regardless of who his Dad was and it wouldn’t answer the question.

But it’s my Dad, I can suggest it to him and he can say no! We’re never going to know. He did speak German at home and we’ve been there several times so that’s not really the issue. His mother was German and he grew up with her.

I think people recognise cultural characteristics along with looks

I can spot a British person when abroad regardless of their ethic background, I have lived in Australia and found I could spot Australians when I left there and was usually right

People often thing I'm Jewish but I'm not. Including Jewish people. You sometimes see the hope in people a faces when they ask a subtle gauging type question to try to work out if you are Jewish too!

I wouldn't mind being Jewish, I think it's a really interesting religion and culture, but I'm not at all as far as I can discover!

Yeah does it matter ? Ethnicity is by its nature often fairly obvious especially if you know the race / culture. I can tell - so what ? And sometimes I get it wrong ? Again so what it’s all in my head anyway

I don't care now if people think I'm Jewish. Likewise when people ask if I'm Italian, Spanish or Portuguese.

I cared when I was a schoolchild and one of my best friends told me her mum had told her she couldn't talk to me any more, as her mum had got a good look at me and thought I looked Jewish...

My Jewdar often relies on voice

Younger Jewish women in the UK often have a very similar distinctive drawl - you can frequently tell a North London Jewish women from a Leeds Jewish women. Certainly not always! My Jewdar is reasonable - although my own features aren't particularly semitic (genetically Ashkenazi Jewish only on one side - but looked a lot more Jewish before my nose job! And my genetics are Jewish as I'm a carrier of one of the Ashkenazi genetic diseases). If I pick someone out as Jewish it's often by the voice. It's very different to a Yiddish type accent found more in the older generation

I can't tell ancestry though