RE: I was going to ask, is it a religion or is it a race?
We can make it clearer by saying, Jews are a race and Judaism is generally their religion but not necessarily.
You can also say that a person could be a gentile ( non-Jewish ), and convert to Judaism ( see Ivanka Trump as an example ).
But there are black and Adian Jews too. Jews are a People group. And Israel means THE PEOPLE of Israel.
Am Israel.