I don't think Hitler thought Jews were a race, but bloodlines were certainly a big concern in the search for the master race.

Judaism is not a race because Jews do not share one common ancestry. For instance, Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardic Jews are both "Jewish." However, whereas Ashkenazi Jews often hail from Europe, Sephardic Jews often hail from the Middle East. People of many different races have become Jewish over the centuries.

Last post on this specific subject as it's not of the subject of the thread, nor is it related to religious beliefs.

I think we are all in agreement that Jews are not a race. I wouldn't worry too much about what is or is not the subject of the thread.

I started the thread and I'm not complaining.

However, and this is important, there are people in Israel who are Israeli citizens and "certified" to be "Jewish" who do not practice the religion at all. It is strictly their bloodline that gets them classified as a Jew.

Not that I agree with this practice. I do not recognize the Jews as a race or as a "people." It is a religion as far as I am concerned.

It is a religion and Jews also define it this way. They are also
historically a nation as they had founded one of the earliest
well recorded and prosperous nations - Israel. They are also a
people who share a common culture and ancestry due to this
history in Israel - just like Italian Americans are described
as Italian because of their ancestral homeland - Italy for example.
This holds true also for all other nationalities - the Japanese
people, Chinese people, Brazilian people, Egyptian people as well
as the Jewish people. A hundred years ago or so, they were more
commonly called the Hebrew people but it was the same thing.

Jews define someone to be Jewish if they practice Judaism or
if either parent is Jewish.
It is simply a way of saying who is considered Jewish as a matter
of their personal history. This does not mean that Jews consider
themselves a race. They do not. Historically the mother's religion
was used as a definition of Jewish and that is still often used.



Here is what actual Jews say about it:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/whojew1.html

Who is a Jew?

Judaism is considered to be both a religion and a nation/culture. More than 13 million people are now identified as Jews, with roughly six million living in the United States and five million in Israel.** Jews come in all shapes, sizes and nationalities. For example, there are black Jews from Ethiopia, Chinese Jews from Shanghai and Indian Jews from India. Practices and beliefs among Jews range from those who call themselves Jews but have nothing more to do with the religion or culture to rigidly Orthodox who strictly observe ancient Jewish precepts.

In common speech, the word "Jew" is used to refer to all of the physical and spiritual descendants of Jacob/Israel, as well as to the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac and their wives, and the word "Judaism" is used to refer to their beliefs. Technically, this usage is inaccurate, just as it is technically inaccurate to use the word "Indian" to refer to the original inhabitants of the Americas. However, this technically inaccurate usage is common both within the Jewish community and outside of it, and is therefore used throughout this site.

Who is a Jew according to Halacha (Jewish Law)?

According to Jewish law, a child born to a Jewish mother or an adult who has converted to Judaism is considered a Jew; one does not have to reaffirm their Jewishness or practice any of the laws of the Torah to be Jewish. According to Reform Judaism, a person is a Jew if they were born to either a Jewish mother or a Jewish father. Also, Reform Judaism stresses the importance of being raised Jewish; if a child is born to Jewish parents and was not raised Jewish then the child is not considered Jewish. According to the Orthodox movement, the father’s religion and whether the person practices is immaterial. No affirmation or upbringing is needed, as long as the mother was Jewish.

Besides for differing opinions on patrilineal descent, the various streams also have different conversion practices. Conversion done under the auspices of an Orthodox rabbi, entails Jewish study, brit milah (for men), mikvah (for both men and women) and a stated commitment to follow the laws of the Torah. Conservative conversions use the same requirements as the Orthodox do; however, conversions by the Reform movement and other streams do not have the same requirements. Since the conversion practices are not uniform, many Orthodox Jews do not recognize Reform or Conservative conversions as valid and, hence, do not consider the converts Jews. Once a person has converted to Judaism, he is not referred to by any special term; he is as much a Jew as anyone born Jewish.
About Matrilineal Descent

Many people have asked why traditional Judaism uses matrilineal descent to determine Jewish status, when in all other things (tribal affiliation, priestly status, royalty, etc.) patrilineal descent is used.

The Torah does not specifically state anywhere that matrilineal descent should be used; however, there are several passages in the Torah where it is understood that the child of a Jewish woman and a non-Jewish man is a Jew, and several other passages where it is understood that the child of a non-Jewish woman and a Jewish man is not a Jew.

I know what the Jews say about it, I just don't recognize Jews as a "nation" just because of a bloodline, or even because of a religion.

A convert to Judaism is not necessarily allowed to become an Israeli citizen or even considered to be a 'proper Jew' if they do not meet certain criteria, so clearly the religion and the so-called nation/culture of Israel have very little to do with each other. They might be defined as "Jewish" but they may be refused automatic Israeli citizenship.

God does not have to have a "hand" just because the bible says
something was done by the hand of God. It is a metaphor. Elsewhere
in the bible it says that God is formless. God saying stuff is the
same way.

You do know that the bible is not literally true. You have said so
before. So I find it amusing that you also argue that we should take
some of the things in the bible literally.



It is of course absurd to take it literally.



But that does not mean that the bible does not contain eternal
truths. It does.

Yes it is absurd to take it literally I agree. And that is why it annoys me to be preached at by people who go around quoting what God said as if they themselves heard it.

Or quoting the Bible about what God said when God never said anything to anyone.

I don't take it literally at all.

You obviously did not know about it and you still are wrong.



Re-read above post. If that is not enough follow the link to the
whole article. The religion and culture and nationality are all
entwined and related to one another. Trying to separate them is
pointless. The history is clear and well documented for thousands
of years!



You might as well claim that being Italian has nothing to do with
Italy or Italian culture or Italian parentage!

Italians are Italians. It is not a religion.

Christians are Christians. It is not a race or a "nation."

Israel claims that all Jews can come home to Israel....and be a citizen of Israel, but this is not true. You have to be a certain kind of Jew to get Citizenship as a Jew in Israel. You could have been practicing Judaism all your life but if you are not from a certain blood line you will not get the status in Israel.

There is no race and no religion that tries to do what they are trying to do. It is as if they are attempting to create a master race of a certain kind of Jew. Its absurd.

Anyway its getting off topic.

Jewish is a religion, period. If a so-called Jew does not practice Judaism, they are not Jewish as far as I am concerned. They are pretenders.

Here's a question, why would a God who wishes for everyone to come to know, love and understand it, create a book that is so damn difficult to comprehend, to the point that you have to jump through a million different hoops to really understand what any of it means? Short answer? It wouldn't. It would be counterproductive to what it seeks.

If God wants us to know it, it would make it clear without any doubt whatsoever what it is and what it's about without any bells and whistles needed. I believe God does make it clear, we just have complicated it so much that we cannot see that which is right in front of our faces.

Well that is pretty much right on. Whatever the case may be some people will not read it because of the difficulty in comprehension. If you were to the KJV back in the 1600s after it was written then it would be easier to understand but over the years the way the language has changed is not helping anyone.

So getting back to the topic, "And the Lord said,..."

I have a book on "Modern Magick", written by a Jewish man. Or at least he was raised into the Jewish Religion. And I'm assuming that he was also considered to be a "Jew" in other ways as well, such as nationality, or whatever.

In any case, he writes in his book that as a young boy he was taught many Jewish rituals. He would ask where these rituals came from because he wanted to gain a better understanding of why he was performing them. What was their ultimate purpose?

He was totally dissatisfied with the explanations given to him by the rabbis, etc. They basically just referred to scriptures and replied with things like, "And the Lord said,....".

So he began a life-long quest to investigate the origin of these rituals. Over the course of his life he discovered that these rituals actually had their beginnings in the practice of magick.

He now teachings the Kabbalah from a perspective of magick rather than from the traditional views of Judaism. His teachings are still very "Hebrew-oriented" though. He believes that the very ancient Hebrews were actually magi who practiced magick. This then later became contorted to become what is now modern Judaism.

I've read these kinds of things many times. I've read that in the days of Jesus, there were as many "Mystical Jews" that had a very pantheistic view of "god" as there were Jews who viewed God as a personified male Godhead.

So even in the days of Jesus there was much confusion and disagreement among the Jews themselves concerning the nature of "God" and the meanings and purpose of various ceremonies and traditions.

I think that is actually...true! But what is funny is that he is
not really reinventing anything probably all his current beliefs
have been discussed by traditional Kabbalistic jews for many
centuries already. What he is practicing is probably just another
kind of Judaism from the middle ages or something.

I just think that if his rabbis or whatever couldn't answer his
questions about rituals then they were lame and he didn't try
very hard because I think it is all must be answered online now.



The Jews always debated the meaning of the bible and did not take
it literally but always subjected everything to exhaustive
interpretation.

http://www.jewfaq.org/index.htm

Then I guess not much has changed in 2000 years.

I'm sure they gave him some sort of "answers". Evidently the bottom line was that their answers didn't satisfy him.

This same thing can be seen in Christianity. I have no doubt that many religious Christians would point to web sites, etc, that "claim" to answer questions and issues that I bring up concerning Christianity.

However, the bottom line is that none of those so-called "answers" impress me.

So if the rabbis were giving this guy "standard" answers, he probably just wasn't buying into them. So he broke out of that "box" and looked to other sources for information and evidently he found other sources that made more sense to him.

I shared his story here because it fits in with Jeannie's thread, "And the Lord said,..."

Some people simply aren't impressed by that approach. I'm certainly not impressed by it.

clearly he was just getting lame answers and he found better
and more satisfying answers asking other rabbis (Kabbalists)

But surely Jews do share one common ancestry.

they are human.

like me.

From the One, came many...

by Adam.

I suppose we are all human.
At least we all look human.

Has anyone actually defined what "human" is?

Is big foot human or an animal?

Does DNA determine what is human or it it our thumbs?

It's DNA of course. The same DNA which indicates that the
book by Shlomo Sand called "The Invention of the Jewish People" is
false and should be called:

"The Invention of Shlomo Sand" - written by "Human Genetics"



=-=-=-=

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/06/03/the-dna-of-abraham-s-children.html

The DNA analysis undermines the claim that most of today’s Jews, particularly the Ashkenazi, are the direct lineal descendants of converted Khazars—which has angered many in the Jewish community as an implicit attack on the Jews’ claim to the land of Israel, since it implies that today’s Jews have no blood ties to the original Jews of the Middle East. Instead, find the scientists, at most there was “limited admixture with local populations, including Khazars and Slavs ... during the 1,000-year (second millennium) history of the European Jews.”

Of the non-Jewish Europeans, northern Italians were most genetically similar to the Jews, followed by the Sardinians and French. The Druze, Bedouins, and Palestinians were closest to the Iranian, Iraqi, and Syrian Jews. That is evidence of “a shared genetic history of related Middle Eastern and non-Semitic Mediterranean ancestors who chose different religious and tribal affiliations.” Adds Ostrer, “the study supports the idea of a Jewish people linked by a shared genetic history. Yet the admixture with European people explains why so many European and Syrian Jews have blue eyes and blond hair.”

Likewise an article in the journal Science found Sand to be
basically full of it.

=-=-=-=

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5984/1342

Science 11 June 2010:
Vol. 328 no. 5984 p. 1342
DOI: 10.1126/science.328.5984.1342

News of the Week

Human Genetics
Who Are the Jews? Genetic Studies Spark Identity Debate

Michael Balter

Two new studies conclude that most members of the far-flung Jewish Diaspora can trace their roots to ancestors who lived in the Middle East more than 2000 years ago. The new research, based on recent advances in genome technology, apparently refutes controversial claims that most of today's Jews descend from more recent converts. And it finds that Jews in Ethiopia and India who also claim origins in ancient Israel are more distantly related to other Jewish groups. Yet some researchers argue that although science can track Jewish ancestry, it has little to say about who is a Jew today.