Is Judaism a religion faith ar a race?

[thinker]

My dad has always said that he is 1/8th Jewish. How does this work, is it a race or is it a faith? And what exactly is a race? What race am I? Born in Engalnd - atheist.

bump it

Oooh someone explained this to me on the aibu about boyfriend voting bnp.

It appears to be both race and faith. It is passed down the mother's line so you don't have any Jew in you if your mum doesn't iyswim.

thinker - your Dad is not 1/8th Jewish. He either is or he isnt. It passes down the female line as Flamesparrow says.

I discovered about a year ago that my Grandmother was Jewish, so my mother is Jewish and I am. However, my father is not Jewish although he has a male Jewish relative about 200 years ago. My children are not Jewish as my DW is not Jewish.

I have asked Jewish friends and they say Judaism is not a race or a nationality but a culture and a religion. I am not Jewish in faith or practice but only by birth and I do not feel part of Jewish culture.

I converted so for me it is a faith and a culture, not a race.

• there are jews from different races, eg from Ethiopia, China, India.

Legally, or least under equalities legislation, it can be either or both...

I thought it was both. You could be ethnically Jewish and/or religiously Jewish.
Am sure I could be wrong.

I do have a question about the Jewish mother making you Jewsih though. I assumed it was so that it ensured, somehow, Jewish ethnicty. But, a woman can convert to Judaism and then her childern will be Jewish so it's clearly not the case. So, why is it that the mother has to be Jewish? What's the thinking behind it?

I imagine Jewishness passing through the mother was a practical response to the issue of your people being enslaved, and your women routinely raped by their captors.

Yes, so you could be sure of half of the parentage? Which I can understand from an ethnicity point. But, if a convert becomes Jewish that point is no longer relevant.

Yes, it passes via the mother as that is the only parent anyone could be absolutely sure is really related by blood to the child before DNA analysis was available.

Its a religion..not a race. You are either Jewish or you are not.

I don't hear people saying that they are 1/8th Hindu/Sikh or whatever

Its a bug bear of mine quite frankly!

(and no I'm not racist!)

OK... So, and I'm sure I'm being an idiot here, my DD's paternal great, great grandmother was a Dutch Jew. So, this means that my DD is partly Dutch but not Jewish? Although her father is partly Jewish as his mother, grandmother and great grandmother were Jewish? Is that right?

Originally Judaism was actually passed down through the fathers, then later they allowed it to be passed down through the mothers as well (to allow for rape etc) so in short it can actually passed down through either.

Surely Judiasm is a religion but Jews are a race. I know the Russian census has 'Jewish' as an ehtnic group.

Stewie that is incorrect. You were 'allowed' one or even two Jewish GP's and not face concentration camps. You were definded as a 'mischling' or cross breed. Not allowed to marry German's but not treated like Jews.

Mischlings were not deported. They were not often allowed higher education or to marry German's but they were not deported for having one Jewish GP! In fact Goebbels had one Jewish GP and he was Hitler's little pet...

You said 1/8th Jewish was enough to 'mark you for death which was really really not true!

This is fascinating, thanks, its so complex. So, what race am I ? How is race defined. What are Eskimos ?

'To address the issue of already existing marriages and children, the law defined a Jew as a person who had two (out of the four) Jewish grandparents - less than that and the person was classed as a German, and allowed to marry other Germans - a Nazi concession to the fact that many European Jews were to all practical purposes European in racial make-up'

'Contrary to propaganda surrounding the Third Reich, many of these one quarter Jews served the new German government faithfully, serving in all areas of the Reich's administration, including in the armed forces, without persecution of any sort.'

It was rare for Western European people of less than a quarter Jewish blood to be deported to death camps.

In Germany some non-Jewish women in Berlin even managed to 'retrieve' their Jewish husbands from deportation.

The situation was harsher in Eastern Europe, where people who'd have been 'let off' in Germany or France suffered the full horrors.

I do not think this thread should descend into an historical debate about the Holocaust. Let's not allow the Nazis to determine what constitutes what is a Jew. While the horrors have an undeniable impact on the present such as the Right of Return, it is up to the Jewish community to determine what being Jewish means.

They were not people that were an 8th Jewish as you claimed! You just told the OP that her Father with one Jewish Great Grandparent would have been killed by the Nazi's.... Not only is that wrong but is also a very odd thing to say to someone!