Judaism: Race, religion, what?

[pantherhound]

I am a Jew and know a few of you are too. Recently I've been wondering what constitutes one. I was born a Jew, but I don't practice. My parents pretty much didn't. Their parents didn't either. So how am I am Jew? Is it an ethnicity? Some people say many Jews get offended if you call them a race, feeling they link the connotation to the Holocaust etc. I don't get offended though. But maybe I'm not a true Jew? Some say it's not a race as people of any ethnicity can convert. But how is this relevant to me and my 'lineage'?

Any thoughts?

[wufwugy]

It's really just a meh issue, but Orthodox Jews believe the lineage is passed through the mother, born a Jew always a Jew regardless of your practice, and that they're literally special in the eyes of the Yod Hey Vav Hey

I'm not Jewish. For a while as a teen I was some variation of a practicing Messianic Gentile Jew convert or some shit. My dad is not Jewish, but wishes he was. He hasn't converted to Judaism because that would require things like divorcing his wife and moving to walking distant of his synagogue. But he's super cool to the Rabbis and does free stuff for them so they treat him like one of their own even though they say it's against their creed


As much as I loathe religion, Judaism isn't the top of that list. While the Orthodox have their own crazy view of things, they don't proselytize and don't believe in hellfire and brimstone for sinners and non-believers or whatever

[Lukie]

Good question. My roommate is jewish. For all the years I've known him we have talked very little about religion to be quite honest, possibly because he doesn't actively practice. So what defines him as following judaism? I'll have to talk to him about it but it would probably be along the lines of believing in the Old Testament but not the New Testament and most significantly not believing in Jesus as the savior.

Of course, it could be something as simple as he was raised that way by his family and thats just how it is and it won't ever change. (Those are my words and I'm not even if or how accurate that is).

Trying to piece together exactly what qualifies him as jewish does bring up some interesting questions not only as it relates to judaism but christianity as well. For example, most of my friends would claim to be christian/catholic or whatever, but for the large majority of them I can't really come up with a satisfactory description of what make them so besides the one in the second paragraph. If you never go to church, don't follow or even think about the teachings, etc., are you really christian?

Sorry I don't really have an answer, just interesting (to me) questions.

[Lukie]

Ya I'll just defer to Wuf regarding all the technical details.

[wufwugy]

Funny story

My father's mother is full German and marched in Hitler's Youth. She hates blacks, hates Jews, and to this day claims that Hitler was a good guy, it's just his generals that were bad

Well, my dad really wanted to find some evidence of Jewish matriarchy in his lineage, so he broached the subject with his mother. I don't much know how the convo went down but I do know that the next day she went to the attorney and got him removed from her will. Nazi's don't quite like being alluded to as having some Jew in them I guess

[a500lbgorilla]

I am a Jew and know a few of you are too. Recently I've been wondering what constitutes one. I was born a Jew, but I don't practice. My parents pretty much didn't. Their parents didn't either. So how am I am Jew? Is it an ethnicity? Some people say many Jews get offended if you call them a race, feeling they link the connotation to the Holocaust etc. I don't get offended though. But maybe I'm not a true Jew? Some say it's not a race as people of any ethnicity can convert. But how is this relevant to me and my 'lineage'?

Any thoughts?

I really like these questions.

I personally identify by only a very few of my many birthrights. I'm male. Outside of that I'm also white, but I'm a funny kind of red-white. Outside of that I'm Polish, less Irish, lesser Native American, lesser still a European mix. I'm born Irish Catholic and enjoyed all their rites, but was raised outside of religion.

It helps give me one simple perspective: 'Lineage' doesn't mean shit.

Jews are just another way of grouping people. These are the Jews, those are the non-jews. It's just like saying these are the blacks and those are the non-blacks. Or they are the communists and we are not communists.

There is very little worth reading into your heritage. That people think it is what made you doesn't give weight to the differences between you and others. We are a thousand fold more similar than we are different. That's just the name of the game when it comes to being human.

You shouldn't identify by how others would identify what made you - you should just identify as yourself, a human.

[pantherhound]

You have a smattering of different 'lineages' in your ancestry. I do too, Polish, Russian, Romanian, etc. But while many of those for you became diluted/murky over time (as my 'nationality' lineage did) the enduring 'lineage' for me is 'Jew'. I know I am one, because I was told early on in my life, just as my parents were told early in theirs.

I want to 'read into my heritage' for the sake of interest - I am interested in how such a lineage links to practising a faith, aspects of 'race' such as having certain distinguishing physical features (Based on looks and mannerisms certain people are easily identifiable as Jewish), or both.

I guess the interest lies in the probability that Judaism, if not practised, will become so diluted in future generations as to be as relevant as your lineage (by this I mean, have become such a mish-mash so as to 'not mean shit').

I guess I'm saying I disagree that being a non-practicing Jew 'doesn't mean shit' at this point in time?

I don't think we're at that point yet though, aside from Orthodox communities where things are more cut and dried there are still many people who would idenitify themselves as Jewish, but we're close to a point where it gets murky. A few generations ago (4) my ancestors came to England from Eastern Europe, which would have been the situation for many Jews of my generation. Jewish communities were stronger then, but now, not so. This makes now an interesting time to be a 'Jew', and question what it means before it does actually become irrelevant IMO.

That was just a stream of consciousness really, but I hope there was some sense in there

[Penneywize]

That's a fucked up story wufwugy, guess it serves your horrendously racist grandmother right to have her son become a wannabe jew. I mean absolutely no disrespect, just being honest.

You must admit, the irony is rather thick though... Very very strange.

[wufwugy]

That's a fucked up story wufwugy, guess it serves your horrendously racist grandmother right to have her son become a wannabe jew. I mean absolutely no disrespect, just being honest.

You must admit, the irony is rather thick though... Very very strange.

Oh I don't take any offense to the truth

There's more irony in that my father holds a lot against her for her opinions on Jews, yet he's exactly like her when it comes to his opinion on muslims and liberals. Had he been thirteen in Germany circa 1938 he would have been just like her, as would most of us. She got her opinions from Nazi propaganda, my dad gets his from Murdochian propaganda

It's a weird world we live in

[spoonitnow]

yeah i have no clue wtf a jew is

[spoonitnow]

actually i've known one guy irl that i know was real jewy because he wore the little hat thing. he was a total douchebag.

that doesn't really have anything to do with his little hat thing but the association is there so any time i think of jews or the little hat thing i think of his stupid ass

[UG]

hey guys when you figure it out, please let me know, that way I can work it into my American History class. we just started WWII and goddamn if every year I don't have a kid that questions me on "what is a Jew" and I just make some shit up that sounds good, like THEY HAVE BIG NOSES AND SHIT goddamit. It's actually a really confusing concept.

[supa]

Jews are great. Probably my favorite religion based on the fact that as "gods chosen people" they're not really into converting people, which means they aren't knocking on my door wanting to know if I have a relationship with god.

[BennyLaRue]

It's a cultural identity, imo, with the religion being a big influence on the culture whether the person in question practices Judaism or not.

[BennyLaRue]

That's a pretty fucking solid answer considering how drunk I am.

[a500lbgorilla]

Whatever it means to be Jewish is relative to whatever it means to be non-Jewish. And those differences are small enough not even to worry about. They seem important only because we're good at noticing these differences not because they're actually important.

[a500lbgorilla]

That's a pretty fucking solid answer considering how drunk I am.

My drunk knowledge is like woah.

Drunk and some other stuff.

[spoonitnow]

i don't like holocaust jokes

[spoonitnow]

anne frankly i won't stand for it

[NobleTruths]

It would be kinda nice if people just thought of themselves as "people," without all that shit that makes them want to isolate/separate/kill those who are "not like my group."

[boost]

It would be kinda nice if people just thought of themselves as "people," without all that shit that makes them want to isolate/separate/kill those who are "not like my group."

Ya, but it would seem that if humans don't become extinct that eventually we will all look fairly similar. "Pure" racial groups can only exist for so long.

[spoonitnow]

Ya, but it would seem that if humans don't become extinct that eventually we will all look fairly similar. "Pure" racial groups can only exist for so long.

ya b/c this totally has happened for every other species

[wufwugy]

ya b/c this totally has happened for every other species

Technically, it is already happening to humans. The fact that humans from one corner of the Earth can breed with ones from the other corner is far beyond like 99% of other species' breeding capacity

It's hard to say how racially ubiquitous we will become. It's probably at minimum a millenium away, and breeding will eventually become a product of genetic engineering. That doesn't mean that artificial selection won't reach for ubiquity anyways

Regardless, racial ubiquity is out of our world any time close to now. If for no other reason that racial identity is one of the most powerful aspects of sociology. Just look at prisons. Doesn't matter what or who you are, if you're in prison, you identify and socialize with your race no matter what

[boost]

ya b/c this totally has happened for every other species

Name another species that can be having sex in Paris with one partner, and sex with a different partner in Tokyo later that same day.

Will everyone look like identical twins? No, but theoretically there should be a time in the future in which visually distinguishing between any two peoples race would be impossible.

[WillburForce]

my gf is half Jewish by heritage (father was a Jewish New Yorker) - but he stopped believing after fighting in Vietnam.

She was brought up Church of England, but doesn't believe any of that bs either.

But she looks noticibly Jewish. If we're in Finsbury Park say (Jewish area of London) she'll get the odd "Shalom" said to her.

She has literally never had any involvement with Jewish religion at all (her Dad was completely no practising when she was born) , but still is seen as Jewish by a lot of people.

Cool thing about most big cities in England now, no-ones gives a fuck. I walk round London with my mixed race daughter (Mums black), Jewish looking gf and me a big white bloke with a skinhead and no-one bats an eyelid.

Then you go on holiday to say South of France and you suddenly notice everyone looking at our "family" like "WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[bigspenda73]

it's clearly a religion

[baudib]

If you're truly interested in this subject, I'd highly recommend reading Mitchell Heisman's 2,000-page suicide note. It's obviously not light reading and I have only slogged through about 250 pages of it but if you're interested in the historical impact of Jews as well as subjects like the Holocaust and the Singularity, it's pretty interesting.

[spoonitnow]

Name another species that can be having sex in Paris with one partner, and sex with a different partner in Tokyo later that same day.

Will everyone look like identical twins? No, but theoretically there should be a time in the future in which visually distinguishing between any two peoples race would be impossible.

niggers

oh wait they do all look alike

[spoonitnow]

lol people who don't know me are going to be like wtf spoon and not realize i constantly make racist comments that are sarcastic to make fun of racism

[BennyLaRue]

lol people who don't know me are going to be like wtf spoon and not realize i constantly make racist comments that are sarcastic to make fun of racism

Is that true, or is this post sarcastic and you're actually anti-against racism, ergo are not indeed what you pretend not to have not been?

[NobleTruths]

Is that true, or is this post sarcastic and you're actually anti-against racism, ergo are not indeed what you pretend not to have not been?

My brain.....hurts!

[spoonitnow]

Is that true, or is this post sarcastic and you're actually anti-against racism, ergo are not indeed what you pretend not to have not been?

shit you got me

[pantherhound]

shit you got me, OR you not got shit???

[BennyLaRue]

He don't got shit.

[spoonitnow]

this guy said "you're such a jew" once, and i had no idea wtf he was talking about or even trying to refer to

[boost]

He meant to say that you are fiscally responsible.

[NobleTruths]

this guy said "you're such a jew" once, and i had no idea wtf he was talking about or even trying to refer to

Was this during a visit to the doctor?

[oskar]

Judaism: Race, religion...

annoyance?

[jyms]

I'm very racist, but pretty much just against stupid people.




And bad drivers







and women that think their looks should earn them some sort of respect


















And really fat people that drink diet pop