Jews are an ethnically diverse religious group

Question: Are Jews white?
Position‹3 of 3: Jews are not a race
Argument‹2 of 2: Jews are an ethnically diverse religious group

Jews are defined by their religious beliefs, not their racial identity. Viewing them otherwise can lead to dangerous consequences. History shows us that when people choose to see Jews as a distinctive race, it is usually to give license to subordinate them.

The argument

Jews cannot be categorized as a race because they are defined by their religious beliefs rather than their racial identity. Racism is the process whereby certain characteristics, like religion, are taken as signs of biological difference. Therefore, considering Jews as a race fuels anti-Semitic sentiment. This argument stems from the fact that Judaism is a religion. Judaism does not fit in the classification of a race because anyone can become a Jew by converting. The convert is considered a Jew in every regard. There are Jews from a variety of races, including African-American Jews, Indian Jews, and Latino Jews. Therefore, Jews are an ethnically diverse religious group. They have a shared religious identity rather than a shared racial identity.

Premises

[P1]Racism treats characteristics like religion as signs of biological difference, so classifying Jews — who are defined by religious belief — as a race mistakenly biologizes a faith and fuels anti-Semitic sentiment. [P2] Judaism cannot fit a racial classification because anyone can become a Jew by conversion and be considered a Jew in every regard, and Jews come from many races, including African-American, Indian, and Latino Jews. [C] Because Jews share a religious identity rather than a racial one, they are an ethnically diverse religious group and Jews are not a race.

Counter-arguments

One counter-argument comes from genetic research. Scientific evidence suggests that Jews are a distinct biological race. The research of Harry Ostrer, a medical geneticist and professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, suggests that Jews exhibit a distinctive genetic signature. This distinction is enough to define Jews by their racial identity. Another point argues that while Jews may not be a bio-genetic race, they are a socio-historical race. Steven Kaplan, a professor of comparative religion at Hebrew University, asserts that the racial identity of Jews is a cultural reality. It forms a major part of their social identity and self-image. Jewish identity is frequently defined in terms of appearance, descent, and, most recently, genetic heritage. We cannot dismiss these categorizations as only popular misunderstandings because they make up the core social-historical constructions of the Jewish identity.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise makes a sound point about how racism operates and draws the wrong conclusion from it. That racial thinking biologises what is not biological is a reason to reject race as a scientific category, not a reason to reclassify Jewish identity as purely religious — and the historical record cuts against the move, since antisemitism treated Jewishness as inherited regardless of belief or conversion, which is exactly why a religious definition offered no protection. [Rejecting P2] The conversion argument establishes that Jewish identity is not settled by descent alone, which is not the same as showing it is religious only. Identity is transmitted through descent in most traditions as well as through conversion; there are large numbers of secular and atheist Jews whom this definition would exclude; and the presence of Jews of many origins tells against a single ancestry rather than against a shared peoplehood. [Rejecting C] The conclusion concedes the difficulty in its own wording, describing an "ethnically diverse religious group" — ethnicity being the category the argument set out to deny. The position that Jews are not a race is well supported on other grounds, since race is not a biological category for any human population; resting it on religion alone makes it depend on a definition many Jews do not accept.

Proponents cited

Alfred M. Lilienthal
“The Jewish racial myth flows from the fact that the words Hebrew, 'Israelite', Jew, Judaism, and the Jewish people have been used synonymously to suggest a historic continuity. But this is a misuse.”
Raphael Patai
“No Jewish race exists. The distribution of particular diseases cannot be used to differentiate Jews in general from non-Jews, although the discovery of a particular disease in an American might suggest. . . an Eastern European Jewish background . . ., a Yemenite Jewish background . . ., or a non-Jewish background.”
Alain F. Corcos
“To be a race Jews would have to have been isolated from other populations. However, they never avoided crossbreeding and converted many non-Jews. Nevertheless, many people find it difficult to accept the ideas that Judaism is not hereditary, but a religion, and that Jews who abandon the Jewish faith, whether they adopt another religion or none at all, are no longer Jews.”

The argument

Premises

Counter-arguments

Rejecting the premises

Further reading