Are Jews a Race (and what exactly is race)?

Very interesting post, dmc. I've always viewed Jewish people to be of a particular religious sect, such as Catholics, Protestants, etc., not of a different race. The races, as I was taught traditionally, are indeed the caucasoid, negroid and mongoloid.

 

Jews are not a race. Speaking genetically they are Semitic. You can be a Jew by birth or you can be Jewish by religious choice. The two are not necessarily the same.

Now as to what is race.

I found this site. Please take a look at it. I found it very interesting.

http://www.understandingrace.org/

The traditional racial groupings are to a great extent based on skin color. Which in not only my opinion but in the opinion of at least some geneticists is not a very good way to classify people.

Quoted from the above link:

It may come as a shock to some but genetically Europeans and Asian are a sub-set of African genetics.

The term race is a cultural word and not a scientific word. We are one species: Homo Sapien although sometimes I'm not too sure about the Sapien part.

For those who like quizes here is one:

http://www.understandingrace.org/humvar/quiz.html

There are 10 questions and if you wish to know your score you will need to keep track of what you get right or wrong yourself.

 

Race is a cultural construct. Therefore the idea of a Jewish race is as viable as any other.

 

There's one race of Humans and it's called Humans.

 

Even if we used "race" to differentiate between humans, there are still only 3 races iirc. Jews are no more a separate race than are Canadians.

Still, I thought being Jewish was mostly an ethnic thing, regardless of what religion you adhere to. If practicing Judaism is all it takes to be a Jew, would that mean that the Khazars were Jewish? They acknowledged Judaism as a state religion, for a time.

 

Yup. And that pretty much closes it. However....

Yeah. Either it's supposed to help people by storing some information which may be of some importance to understanding them, or it's supposed to make WASPs true whites and the rest somewhat less white.

And here I'd close it because I don't feel comfortable dissecting people and putting them under the microscope like they're items.

Practically any general expression is a cultural construct in some understanding. Numbers included. However, cultural constructs are not empty - they have some more or less fixed content. Whichever understanding of race you propose, the difference between an Anglo-Saxon or Celt and a Jew is not the same as between either of them and a black or Asian person. If you keep the differences right and preserve the proportions, you can use whatever names and propose whatever conclusions you want.

And, obviously, there's always been some understanding of "race" which has denoted a nation or even a family. "The Poles are a difficult race to rule. They always rebel." "The Smiths are a noble race. Not a single one of them has broken his word as far as anyone remembers." That way, you can easily classify Jews as a race because of their particular exclusivity as it comes to matters of ethnicity (including anthropological traits), religion, culture. Certainly, if you take a priestly family going back to Aaron (matter of course) with descent recorded at least to early middle ages, they aren't going to be the same as every other John or Jacques or Giovanni and so on and so forth. If you take converts to Judaism or a family that has a history of intermarriage with non-Jews, then you'll need much more information to figure out their heritage with some credibility. However, not even in the case of the first family - with clearly defined ancestry, can you put it forth as a race in the same understanding as blacks or whites.

Finally, as for race being a cultural concept, sure. Conclusions derived from visible differences are pretty much cultural and so are conclusions further derived from those. However, the initial premises are pretty much physical. Phenotypes and other physical differences are a fact, not a cultural concept. I'll grant you that perhaps those differences in mentality which are associated with particular phenotypes might perhaps be more cultural than physical, but whatever is intrinsically associated with a particular phenotype, marks a group different from other groups, and ignoring it in the name of equality could be as misguided as it is elevated. Now, I don't maintain any of those groups is "better" or "worse" than others or that they should each stick to itself and live in ghettos, but I'm seriously disappointed with the omnipresent pretence that we're all the same. On the one hand, there's the cult of diversity, which is probably one of the factors leading to "20 races", on the other hand, we're still not entirely over pretending the traditional three races aren't different from each other.

 

By Chevalier:

But in what way are they different from each other? Other than medical reasons why does it matter? And that brings to my mind that many people, including myself, are a mixture of 'races'. What 'race' are the Australian Aborigines or the Pygmies of Africa?

Genetically we are all descended from Africans. Homo Sapien originated on the continent of Africa and spread out over the rest of the world. Caucasians and Mongoloids are a sub-set of this original group. Further more not all members of these three 'races' are identical. There are many sub-sets. We can and do inter-breed and produce fertile offspring.

I do think it is important for us to realize that we are one species. No longer should we think of someone who is different as "The Other". We have reached the point where it is impossible for us to get away from problems by moving somewhere else. For this reason alone I think it is important to think about the ways we are alike and what we have in common.

 

Speaking of which, aren't we supposed to be Homo Sapiens Sapiens? Homo Sapiens was the neanderthal iirc.

 

Quite an interesting topic.

Like Spell said, you are either Jewish by choice or by birth. Even if you are Jewish by birth, you can chose not to be, which follows the basics of any religion. So, no I don't consider Jews a seperate race.

 

It's no point classing and classing people ad infinitum, creating needless divisions to no end. On the other hand, pretending we all look the same is equally pointless and unfounded. For example, I don't think it's bad when policemen looking for a criminal fill out the race bracket instead of carefully skipping skin colour and just giving eye and hair colour.

Sure, never said otherwise. However, as much as we're all within one species - and different races are hardly even subspecies, we don't look the same and the differences are not random. Heritable appearance and other traits mark some different groups.

Yup, but when ideology clouds reality, problems happen. We need to address facts rather than pretend something which isn't factually true but is ideologically correct. Otherwise it'll be like: "That black gentleman over there..." "Excuse me, there's no such thing as white or black." "..."

 

Well, I’ve always though of race along the traditional lines, but as has been pointed out, we all came from Africa originally. I’m no expert, but it seems to me that “race” is more a way to categorize people’s visual appearance. Of course, if that were true and accurate, then you could make a case for many other races – Arabs, Mexicans, etc. – even perhaps Jews.

Specifically to the topic title – I’ve always thought of Jews as an ethnic group, but not a race. As to “what is a race”, I have no idea.

Thus ends my utterly useless

 

Ethnicity and religion do go together to some extent I think. I remember growing up in the old neighborhoods back East, where immigrants coming into the US would set up communities according to their descent. It was magnificent from my perspective, as you could travel 20 miles or so and pass through Italian, Irish, Jewish, Portuguese, French, Greek and Polish neighborhoods, to name a few. Many people still spoke the languages of the old country -- as a kid, I thought it was most worldly. We, as a family, would visit these neighborhoods routinely and dine in the different restaurants -- after all we only had to go a couple of blocks to walk into another world. I felt very lucky to be part of that miasma of ethnicity and still do.

But, as was previously noted, one can be of one religion, but many ethnic groups, as is evidenced by Irish Catholic, Portuguese-Catholic, etc.

 

I know exactly what you're talking about, Spelly. Here in Winnipeg we have something called Folklorama, a celebration of multi-culturalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklorama)

But that is all about ethnicity, not race. Even though, as I said previously, I have no idea what "race" actually means.

 

That's looks wonderful Splunge. I'd be camped out there for the full 2 weeks! Modernism is great and all that, but I so hope we don't lose all the old ways. Many of the neighborhoods I spoke of in my last post are all torn down now, making way for malls and the like. Kind of sad -- it was a great way of life, rich with history.

 

Technically the races aren't even subspecies in sense of the term from the standpoint of biology for all the races can "inbreed" with any of the other races without the aid of an other race as a go between. A subspecies would be as such: If say Africans and East Asians couldn't produce offspring capable of reproduction, but both groups could breed with Europeans and those unions created young fully capable of reproduction. If the races can be compared to anything, it more like dog breeds who are all Canis Familiaris and are merely distinguished for aesthetic purposes. Biologically we cannot draw a categorical distinction between any of the humans on this planet.

Many anthropologists will even claim that those three categories for races are worthless because they don't relate to any type of cultural formation. Germanic peoples, Bantu Speaking peoples or even Indo-Europeans draw a reference to an actual cultural formation. I have yet to met an anthropologist who has told me that there is a Negroid or Caucasoid culture. Such terms don't hold as much weight as they use to in the social sciences.

 

I said:

So there's no disagreement. Perhaps my post was a bit chaotic, resulting in an urge to skim through it.

We can. We have phenotypes. Our phenotypes give us more distinction than almost any lowest level unit of animals (subspecies that doesn't divide further). Two malamutes or two maine coons don't differ from each other as much as a European does from an Asian or African. This difference pertains to bodies and is physical and heritable, therefore it is biological.

 

It less to do with an urge to skim through it, but put a definitive stamp on it. I just figured that the line about hardly being considered a subspecies left room for confusion on some level in which there was a possibility for the human races being construed as subspecies. I was merely trying to say that under NO circumstance could that distinction be drawn

As for phenotypes, that really isn't a categorical distinction that can be made for a biologist. Saying that blonds could constitute one group of humanity and brunettes another really doesn't say anything that is of importance for a biologist making a classification, it merely variation within a particular species. Evidence of micro evolution at best, but using phenotype as a means of categorization does not allow for a definitive empirical stop. A phenotype can always be sub divided down to an individual (not to mention it lacks the empirical substance to truly prove what a different phenotype is... what shade of blond constitutes what category of blond?), while the ability to inbreed can not. Phenotypes can be left to the artists, it's nearly impossible for a biologist to rely on such a thing, hence why all biological distinctions based on categorization come do to the presence or absence of something, rather then the degree of something.

Also there is becoming increasing scientific evidence to support that the reason we perceive so many differences between different humans is a social adaptation to be able to distinguish individuals which leads to the ability to recognize friend and foe.

 

I'm all in favor of diversity and it saddens me when I see it lost.

I need to point out that I am different from many of you who post here. I lived through the fifties and sixties and this strongly influences my point of view. I do not wish to see us return to what I consider the hypocrisy and racism of that time.

Concentrating on what makes us different has in the past lead to injustice and wars. This why I stress the things we have in common starting with our common humanity. If we can accept this we can move on to enjoying and respecting our differences. this is the reason I stress the oneness of humanity. Our differences make us a glorious species but we are one specie.

 

Well, you wouldn't be alone!

Oh yeah, like that's a big surprise. Freak!

Race. Jewish "race". Why does it matter? Beats me.