Quote:
Originally Posted by The An-Jel  Agnostic Christian
Kinda like Jews are a religion and NOT a race!
What do ya think? Anything to detract or add? |
Lots in your post An-Jel with which I agree .This last caught my eye though, namely that Jewishness is not a race. Not a race (there are many genotypes assimilated in the diaspora), but certainly a people.
The reason this makes me nervous is I just ran across some Christian Identity (Neo-Nazis) who call themsleves "real" Israel. You may have been referring to this and essentially challenging their idea, or maybe unknowingly agreeing with their underlying premise that Jews don't exist. They push a brand of Christianity sometimes referred to as British Israelism and get into heated debates on how to spell Hebrew words in English. (JC with a Y or a J--and call God YahYah or some such thing). They claim they are the real Jews, while descendants from the ones who actually wrote lived and developed Scriptures are something else.
It makes me uneasy when people of the majority religious persuasion claim that another people don't exist. Jews are a people with a religion. Italians are not a race, or a religion, but there is an Italian culture and lineage -- a nation-state. There is a religion most would immediately connect to Italy -- Catholicism.
Most nation-states don't have religions connected with them these days, but many have in the past in order to control their populations (e.g. Holy Roman Empire). They borrowed heavily from the Jewish people.