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.

Stewie - thank you.

Your dad is 1/8th Jewish in the same way as I am 1/4 Latvian. It's in the heritage, but not something that is in any way relevant to the way I think, feel, or live my life.

If it wasn't your great-great-grandfather who was Jewish but your great-great-grandmother, and you descended from her in a purely female line, then you would technically be Jewish. Jewish, not 1/8th or 1/16th Jewish.

Orthodox Jews would not consider you, thinker, to be a Jew because your mother was not Jewish.

Reform and Liberal Jews, OTOH, would also not consider you to be a Jew.

But this would be because neither you nor any of your ancestors since that Jewish g-g-gp live as Jews. For Reform and other progressive Jewish groups, faith and practice are almost as important as ancestry.

Judaism is both a religion, a race, a faith, and a way of life. Some people would also say it's a culture, but I'm not sure that Jewish culture - whcih does exist - can stand alone without one of the other aspects. It doesn't have any effect on your citizenship.

And that's ok.... It's just I try not to go around telling people the Nazi's would have loved to kill them Especially when the OP was asking about Jewish culture... not her chances of being murdered.

The point is being 1/8 Jewish, alone, was not a reason for the Nazi's to kill you. That is simply not true. Had you also been mentally ill, disabled etc then, yes, they probably would have. But they did not try and kill every 1/8 Jewish person in Germany. So to imply that the OP's Father would have been targeted for death is just horrible.

The short answer is: both!

I'm a convert too, bugs me slightly that the orthodox won't recognise me but that's their problem, not mine! I'm not overly religious, but I am Jewish, as are my DDs.

Funny how it's been said that we shouldn't let the Nazis define who is Jewish... DH, who is a Jewish atheist, says he wouldn't actually care about being Jewish one way or the other, except for the halocaust. If it hadn't happened he'd just call himself Israeli. But because of the holocaust and what was done to his family, he'll proclaim himself Jewish to the end, despite a complete lack of faith.

Since, even though it's stricly speaking a religion, it is passed down maternally, making it a culture too.

That is really quite beautiful Annie.

Annie, just worked out what your name means

Lama lo?

Hitler was wrong on both counts when he said

"The jews are certainly a race but they are not human."

This is quoted at the start of "Maus" by Art Spiegelmann.

The Nazis did get themselves into a right old tangle trying to decide who was Jewish and who wasn't on the basis of ancestry - thus proving how utterly stupid and pointless their bigotry was.

OrganicHairbrush - 'cos I is a nutter, innit! . Always love it when someone gets my name!

Gam ani

If a ever need a namechange I might go for AnnieRotzaSherootim, a reference to how most of my time on MN is spent with DD asleep on the other arm, and thus with me unable to move...

Sorry, OP, shouldn't be thread-jacking. Ah the wonderful Jewish humour

I dont get Annie`s name, feel stupid, what is it????

Yes, me too! Give us non-Jews a hand (not for the first time, my Jewish friend is always having to spell out jokes for me...)

It's not for me to reveal. Annie, up to you...?

Sorry... only just got back to this....

In Hebrew, "ani lo beseder" means "I am not okay".

... and "ani rotza sherootim" means (roughly speaking) "I need the loo"...

Oh thank you! What an amazing language. It sounds like its meaning.

It's an amazing language because it was created almost entirely from the Bible and other ancient texts to give the newly-formed state of Israel a common Jewish language. Whatever one believes about Israel (and opinions vary amongt Jews massively), it's quite an acheivemet!

I hadn't realised that, Organic! How fascinating. How did they manage to incorporate very modern words? Borrow them? Recreate them from bits of existing words? Enquiring minds need to know!

I had to ask DH! Apparently, they just sat round discussing it, and mainly worked it out conceptually - for example, cinema is a voice which moves and a computer is something which thinks. It's an ongoing thing... my real name, for example, is still almost impossible to translate into Hebrew. DH also points out that the decision to revitalise Hebrew took place in 1913, so earlier than the state itself.. and before computers...

Oh, thanks for asking your husband. I find stuff like this fascinating. I love the idea of a voice which moves. That's very poetic.