Is jewish an ethnicity?

[...]

OK so I've noticed that quite a few people have used Jewish as their ancestry, along with Japanese, black Indian ect on facebook twitter. so I'm confused.

Judaism is the practice of Jews,
Jew or Jewish: the person or people who practice Judaism.
I could understand if you said you were Jewish because in order to be one you must practice Judaism or your family would practice it.
But why do people add this to their ethnicity?


Is Jewish considered an ethnicity?
I know this question seems dumb but I don't understand and I just want answers that's all

[george]

I'm partly Jewish ans have been asking that question myself. I don't look like I'm 'half' anything.. so I don't know.

[Chezelle]

No. It's a religion. It can, however, be used to describe Israeli people as half the population of Israel is Jewish.

[Jenny]

NO

It has never, and will never be one as , ethiopians, chinese, european looking people found to be JEWISH! in their own clan.

We're not in the 30's anymore, we have books to know about their religion!!
Stop f*ing segregate

[Scarface]

can we call them hebrews?

[Wizened wizard]

This is from Wikipedia: "Who is a Jew? Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation, an ethnicity, a religion, and a culture, making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether a religious or national approach to identity is used. Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who were born to a Jewish family regardless of whether or not they follow the religion; those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent); and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and therefore are followers of the religion."

[her]

What people think of the "Jewish race" is actually those who are of Israeli ancestry. Being Jewish is not a race, it is a religion. My temple does outreach work Ethiopian Jews. There are Jews all over the world.

[violeta]

No, it isn't. There were east Europeans who converted to joodiasm and are now claiming they are the chosen people, but they are converts and not the real Izraelites as mentioned in the Bible. They stole Palestinian land and claim they have a right to be there because they are the chosen people, which they are not. That is why most look white who live in Izrael. They actually spoke Yiddish a Germanic language, and are now claiming hebrew as their language which is not theirs as well.
Palestinians are the real semites.

[Beth]

In the 80s, the US Supreme Court ruled that Jews are a race, but only for the purpose of classification for certain anti discrimination laws. It really angered a lot of Jews. However, most Orthodox Jews believe that if a Jewish man has children with a non Jewish woman, those children are not jewish, as their bloodline is believed to be matriarchal. It's not strictly a Religion, because almost 50% of Jews in Israel claim to be secular or non religious, and if it's a religion and they don't practice, then that would eliminate their Jewishness. I guess the answer is: nobody knows, and everyone has their opinion. It's more than a race, religion, culture and nation etc. best to just leave it as "complicated".

[Mike]

It is both an ethnicity, and a religion. Actually, there are more than one Jewish ethnicities (Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, etc.).