My uncle used to have Orange County Jewish Heritage newspaper mailed to him from California. I was shocked to see old pictures of Chinese Jews with long ques. That is why it still surprises me when anyone says Jews are a “race.” We are all races.
(Some) Jews flip back and forth between designating themselves as an ethnic group, religion and nationality, depending on which designation serves their purposes at the moment.
None of the three really fits all people who call themselves Jews.
It’s well-known many Jews don’t consider converts to be “real Jews.” And there are a great many people considered by themselves and others to be Jews who are open atheists. So religion doesn’t define who is a Jew, at least not in the same sense as it does being Catholic or Muslim.
Jews are obviously of a great many nationalities, so that doesn’t seem to work as an overall definition.
Ethnic group (the term race hasn’t worked since Hitler) doesn’t fit too well either, as it’s obvious by appearance that Jews incorporate many ethnic strains.
So what do you think is, or should be, the definition?
Maybe, but the Israelites, which were/are a race, were God’s “chosen people” according to any interpretation of the Old Testament. This implies that all others are not God’s people. I think this doctrine of the faith is what not only drove people to Christianity instead of Judeism in droves back in ancient and medieval times, but also limits the rate of Jewish converts today. The early Catholic church spun Christ’s purpose of existance to be God’s new covenent to all people, not just the Israelites. I myself walk a line between Catholic and agnostic (I believe in the history as taught by the Catholic church, but struggle to find the faith to believe in the hocus pocus side), but I can certainly see why people perceive the jews as a race.