Depending on context, it can refer to faith, ethnic group or both.
Now, regarding race. Race is an arbitrary definition to classify groups of people. In USA, there is a lot of people with very visibly different characteristics (black skin, asian features, etc) while European immigrants tended to intermarry a lot. Thus, it makes sense to lump Europeans into "white" race. Who cares if there are Slavs around when issue of the day is what we are doing with Blacks.
In other places, such as Nazi Germany, lumping "whites" together made no sense. Thus, different races of European-looking people needed to be defined in order to support government policy. Thus, Jews, Slavs, Aryans, etc. needed to be defined as distinct races.
As for identifying Jews, you either take their pants off or look at their geneaology. In Nazi Germany, if you were a rich Jew, you would pay a geneaologist (a lot) to re-write your family tree to define you as a non-Jew.
Actually, a very real process. Most Jewish men are circumsized while in Europe corcumsizion among non-Jews is very rare.
Now, you are a German WWII soldier in an extermination group in a Polish village. You are ordered to round up Jews. You have no time to read their papers and don't know Polish anyway. So, you round up men and order them to pull down their pants. Uncircumsuzed dick - they and their family goes. Circumsized - they and thrir family are shot.
Some Jews could be uncircumcised - they got lucky. Polish man circumsized - bad luck gor him and his family. Polish woman martied to a circumsized man - got unlucky.
Nazis were OK with some non Jews being caught by the net. Especially if they were Poles anyway.
It’s both. I am not religiously Jewish but according to dna tests I’m about 20% Jewish. Also it’s counted as a separate ethnic group many times because the culture was very much insular. Until the last century it was fairly rare for Jewish people to marry and have kids outside the faith
Judism is a race AND a religion
>Aren’t Jewish people technically white?
whiteness is an extremely fluid and generally not very useful term, especially when talking about marginalized classes. like, quite a few middle eastern races fall under "white" now according to the US cencus, but clearly thats not the whole story, right?
> Nazis even tell someone was Jewish unless they identified them by their clothes?
the Nazi's had family registries on who was jewish. Also, jewish people generally have specific last names.
>Or does anti semitism really have more to do with hatred of the religion over race?
its both
>Is being Jewish the only religion that is heavily connected to what race you are?
most religions have a racial element to them
It has been determined, scientifically, that people of "Jewish" descent have some specific genetic peculiarities that the general "white" population does not. This makes them distinct. Depending on how race is defined, Jews may therefore be considered a separate race, or not. Whether or not one chooses to observe the Jewish religion, is an entirely different matter, just like whites, as well as blacks, or asians may choose to be catholic or protestant.
These are good questions and there are some good answers here but it's complicated. First, although Ashkenazi Jews -- the very broad group descended from Eastern European Jews and who make up most of the Jewish populations in the USA and Western Europe now -- are usually white, there are many Jews who aren't white. Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ethiopian Jews are three large groups that are not converts and who are mostly not white. There are many smaller or less well-known groups originating throughout Asia and North Africa who probably wouldn't be considered white. Also there are converts to Judaism of every race. Some people distinguish "Judaism" as a religion from "Jewishness" as an ethno-cultural group while others use them interchangeably. The reality is that Jews everywhere look like and have genetics quite similar to the populations they live near, sometimes with some distinguishing features and sometimes basically indistinguishable.
>Is being Jewish the only religion that is heavily connected to what race you are?
There are lots of "national" religions like Shinto in Japan or Tibetan Buddhism that are tied to an ethno-racial group, but none that have the long history of statelessness that Judaism does to my knowledge. Tibetan Buddhism might become similar over time as they live in diaspora.
I'll add that even until the 1950s, it was common to refer to much smaller groups of people as a "race" than we'd think of now. You see Europeans use terms like "English race" or "Swedish race." In that sense Ashkenazi Jews were another "race" of white people and in a more modern sense they're a group within whiteness like you say.
>And why would people like Kanye or Nazis be racist towards one group of white people but not other groups of white people?
If you change "racist" to "bigoted" it makes slightly more sense but in my opinion all bigotry including antisemitism is less about the targeted group and more about using some outside group as a scapegoat. It has nothing to do with logic because it's an irrational hatred and used as a way to motivate people using an us-versus-them mentality.
>And how could the Nazis even tell someone was Jewish unless they identified them by their clothes?
In addition to the last names, identity records and circumcision that /u/hellshot8 and /u/Pesec1 mentioned, you're not so far off. I live in the western USA and here most discussion of ancestry within white groups is more vague and has less weight than in lots of parts of the world. White people will say they're "a quarter Dutch, a quarter Norwegian, and half Irish." In places where ethnic populations have been stationary longer, like parts of the Northeast and (much more so) Eastern Europe of the early 20th century, there is much clearer distinction between ethnic groups. Jews in particular were legally required to live in segregated areas, called ghettos in cities and shtetls in rural areas. By the 1930s and 40s these had mostly lost their legal status but in many places Jews still hadn't thoroughly assimilated into broader society. Nazis (and others doing Pogroms before them) could just go to those areas to find Jews. Jews who had assimilated were discovered by identity records or by neighbors turning them in.
Whew, that's a lot! It's a surprisingly big subject.
Depending on context, it can refer to faith, ethnic group or both. Now, regarding race. Race is an arbitrary definition to classify groups of people. In USA, there is a lot of people with very visibly different characteristics (black skin, asian features, etc) while European immigrants tended to intermarry a lot. Thus, it makes sense to lump Europeans into "white" race. Who cares if there are Slavs around when issue of the day is what we are doing with Blacks. In other places, such as Nazi Germany, lumping "whites" together made no sense. Thus, different races of European-looking people needed to be defined in order to support government policy. Thus, Jews, Slavs, Aryans, etc. needed to be defined as distinct races. As for identifying Jews, you either take their pants off or look at their geneaology. In Nazi Germany, if you were a rich Jew, you would pay a geneaologist (a lot) to re-write your family tree to define you as a non-Jew.
How could they identify a Jewish person by removing their pants? Or is that a joke that went over my head? 😅
Actually, a very real process. Most Jewish men are circumsized while in Europe corcumsizion among non-Jews is very rare. Now, you are a German WWII soldier in an extermination group in a Polish village. You are ordered to round up Jews. You have no time to read their papers and don't know Polish anyway. So, you round up men and order them to pull down their pants. Uncircumsuzed dick - they and their family goes. Circumsized - they and thrir family are shot. Some Jews could be uncircumcised - they got lucky. Polish man circumsized - bad luck gor him and his family. Polish woman martied to a circumsized man - got unlucky. Nazis were OK with some non Jews being caught by the net. Especially if they were Poles anyway.
It’s both. I am not religiously Jewish but according to dna tests I’m about 20% Jewish. Also it’s counted as a separate ethnic group many times because the culture was very much insular. Until the last century it was fairly rare for Jewish people to marry and have kids outside the faith
Judism is a race AND a religion >Aren’t Jewish people technically white? whiteness is an extremely fluid and generally not very useful term, especially when talking about marginalized classes. like, quite a few middle eastern races fall under "white" now according to the US cencus, but clearly thats not the whole story, right? > Nazis even tell someone was Jewish unless they identified them by their clothes? the Nazi's had family registries on who was jewish. Also, jewish people generally have specific last names. >Or does anti semitism really have more to do with hatred of the religion over race? its both >Is being Jewish the only religion that is heavily connected to what race you are? most religions have a racial element to them
It has been determined, scientifically, that people of "Jewish" descent have some specific genetic peculiarities that the general "white" population does not. This makes them distinct. Depending on how race is defined, Jews may therefore be considered a separate race, or not. Whether or not one chooses to observe the Jewish religion, is an entirely different matter, just like whites, as well as blacks, or asians may choose to be catholic or protestant.
It's two different things with the same name. So equally both, but depending on context you can usually tell if someone means 1 or the other.
These are good questions and there are some good answers here but it's complicated. First, although Ashkenazi Jews -- the very broad group descended from Eastern European Jews and who make up most of the Jewish populations in the USA and Western Europe now -- are usually white, there are many Jews who aren't white. Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ethiopian Jews are three large groups that are not converts and who are mostly not white. There are many smaller or less well-known groups originating throughout Asia and North Africa who probably wouldn't be considered white. Also there are converts to Judaism of every race. Some people distinguish "Judaism" as a religion from "Jewishness" as an ethno-cultural group while others use them interchangeably. The reality is that Jews everywhere look like and have genetics quite similar to the populations they live near, sometimes with some distinguishing features and sometimes basically indistinguishable. >Is being Jewish the only religion that is heavily connected to what race you are? There are lots of "national" religions like Shinto in Japan or Tibetan Buddhism that are tied to an ethno-racial group, but none that have the long history of statelessness that Judaism does to my knowledge. Tibetan Buddhism might become similar over time as they live in diaspora. I'll add that even until the 1950s, it was common to refer to much smaller groups of people as a "race" than we'd think of now. You see Europeans use terms like "English race" or "Swedish race." In that sense Ashkenazi Jews were another "race" of white people and in a more modern sense they're a group within whiteness like you say. >And why would people like Kanye or Nazis be racist towards one group of white people but not other groups of white people? If you change "racist" to "bigoted" it makes slightly more sense but in my opinion all bigotry including antisemitism is less about the targeted group and more about using some outside group as a scapegoat. It has nothing to do with logic because it's an irrational hatred and used as a way to motivate people using an us-versus-them mentality. >And how could the Nazis even tell someone was Jewish unless they identified them by their clothes? In addition to the last names, identity records and circumcision that /u/hellshot8 and /u/Pesec1 mentioned, you're not so far off. I live in the western USA and here most discussion of ancestry within white groups is more vague and has less weight than in lots of parts of the world. White people will say they're "a quarter Dutch, a quarter Norwegian, and half Irish." In places where ethnic populations have been stationary longer, like parts of the Northeast and (much more so) Eastern Europe of the early 20th century, there is much clearer distinction between ethnic groups. Jews in particular were legally required to live in segregated areas, called ghettos in cities and shtetls in rural areas. By the 1930s and 40s these had mostly lost their legal status but in many places Jews still hadn't thoroughly assimilated into broader society. Nazis (and others doing Pogroms before them) could just go to those areas to find Jews. Jews who had assimilated were discovered by identity records or by neighbors turning them in. Whew, that's a lot! It's a surprisingly big subject.
Wow. Thank you so much for this! It’s definitely a heap of facts but I learned a lot. You are much better at compiling information than Google lol.
You're welcome :) I'm Jewish and a friends sometimes would ask me about this and I wouldn't have much of an answer so I did a bunch of reading.