Questions you always wanted to ask a Jew #1

Are Jews a race or a religion?

Ahh, yes. No, we're actually neither. We are an ethno-religious group - like Armenians or Yazidis. So yeah, Jews are an ethno-religious group. What does that mean?
Well, it means simply that Jews are an ethnic group because they inherit membership from their parents, but they are not all the same race; they are all the same religion, yet do not necessarily need to practice this religion to be Jewish. Jews define themselves neither fully based on ancestry nor religious affiliation, but rather based on a combination of both.

Although everyone agrees that inheriting Jewishness is definitely legitimate and qualifies you as Jewish, converts to the religion are just as Jewish as those who are born into it. The only difference is that converts MUST practice the religion, because they have no genealogical or cultural ties to it that they would take with them without the religion. This contrasts with born Jews who can be "agnostic Jews" or "non-practicing," yet still have their Jewish culture.

This all happened fairly recently, actually. Anti-semitism is a term invented in the 1800s to cope with the changing demands of the social landscape. Religion was going out of style, hating someone for their religion was simply seen as not-cultured and therefore a new identity for Jews had to be created to satisfy the hungry hate of man. This is when Jews began to become a race, and it was solidified by Hitler during the Holocaust - one could not convert away from Judaism to avoid the fate of their co-religionists. Jews are an ethnicity because we have a certain shared history and culture, but we did not begin as one people. Rather, we were united by our religion, and ethno-genesis occurred as a result of endogamy.