Soul Invictus

Please see this thread for reference. My comments in that thread will probably adequately state the idea I'm trying to discuss.

It sounds like there is an appeal that Jews were an identifiable ethnic or racial group, and I am not aware of this. I could have put this in the Science forum, however I figured this would work better here first. I went to two different dictionaries to look up Semite and I found:

This doesn't set any sort of foundation. I'd like to find out what a Jew is supposed to be outside of the religious connotation (adherent of Judaism) and what a Semite is.

Anat

There are lots of definitions of 'Jew':
Orthodox Judaism considers anyone who is matrilineally descended from a known Jew to be a Jew, regardless of the person's beliefs, practices or awareness of the ancestry (though after enough generations they may consider the ancestry somewhat suspect and require some form of conversion - either full or 'giyur l'humra' - a 'just to be on the safe side' conversion for the person to be accepted as a Jew; this is mainly to avoid having the person be suspected of 'mamzerut' - bastardity, which would make hir unmarriageable). They also accept converts to Judaism who have been approved by an authorised Orthodox Beth-Din.

Conservative Judaism is very similar but uses different standards for practice and conversion.

Reform Judaism defines a person as 'Jewish' if s/he has Jewish ancestry from either side, was brought up Jewish (though they use a very broad definition for this) and makes an informed commitment to Judaism (again, using a broad definition) or a convert approved by an Orthodox, Conservative or Reform authority.

Humanistic Judaism uses the definition "A Jew is someone who identifies with the history, culture and future of the Jewish people."

The State of Israel uses the definition - one who was born to a Jewish mother or converted into Judaism and is not a member of an other religion.

Author Amos Oz suggested the definition "anyone crazy enough to want to be called a Jew".

gnosis92

anat do u think messianic jews r jews or messianic judaism is judaism?

since the answer is usually no, if not why not? they seem to practice kosher celebrate jewish holidays know jewish history better than i do

Toto

Hitler (and others of his time) defined Jew as a racial group. Almost everyone now thinks that his definition is pseudo-science and invalid, but an "anti-Semite" is someone who believes that Jews are a racial group (or maybe the equivalent of a racial group) and is prejudiced against them. Anti-Semitism has nothing much to do with Semite - Arabs are Semitic but can be anti-Semites.

But this has nothing to do with Biblical issues. The only issue here is should I move this to GRD or PD?

Anat

Messianics believe in Jesus in some way or another. Any belief system that acknowledges the divinity of anyone or anything other than YHWH is considered non-Jewish by all religious streams of Judaism. Now if one believes that Jesus was merely a historical mortal, yet another false messiah like many others, that would be compatible with Jewish beliefs.

I don't know where they stand wrt other definitions of Judaism. For example, from the Humanistic Judaism perspective, there is the question of whether they are interested in the continued existence of the Jews as a people even if they don't accept the messianics' claims about Jesus.

They probably are Jews according to Amos Oz's definition, though.

Apikorus

Halakhically (i.e. according to orthodox Jewish law), messianics may or may not be Jews, depending on their lineage and conversion status (see Anat's first post above). They are practicing an aberrant form of Judaism, however. (To orthodox rabbonim, Reform Judaism is also an aberration.)

In my experience, Jewish atheists or even Jewish Buddhists are more accepted and less reviled among the Jewish community than the messianics. I think the reason for this is that messianics are viewed as traitorous. There is a long unfortunate history of Christian oppression and proselytization of Jews, and for a Jew to identify with Christian beliefs is viewed much more harshly than were he to profess agnosticism or some eastern religion.

Apikorus

The historical question of Jewishness in the ancient world is addressed in an excellent and nuanced book by Shaye Cohen, entitled The Beginnings of Jewishness. Lawrence Schiffman's Who Was a Jew? also addresses the issue, but from a rather uncritical and rabbinic point of view.

Soul Invictus

So does this mean that if someone's mother adhered to Judaism, then their children are considered to be Jews also?

This sounds similar to Orthodox Judaism practice. It sounds like being a Jew, and/or Jewish ancestry is determined by religious faith.

gnosis92

why do atheist agnostic reform conservative bu-jew jews reject messianic jews?

Apikorus

The halakhic (Orthodox) standard does not involve issues of faith. A baby is either Jewish or non-Jewish -- there is no "faith" criterion.

First of all, I'd guess that there is more tolerance for Jewish Christians (messianics) among the less observant branches of Judaism. Even so, I think the same principle holds. For a Jew to worship Jesus is often viewed as a surrender to our historical oppressors.