Jewish Americans

Racial, Ethnic, or Religious Group?

The issue of what makes a Jew is more than a scholarly question; in Israel, it figures in policy matters. The Israel Law of Return defines who is a Jew and extends Israeli citizenship to all Jews. Currently, the law recognizes all converts to the faith, but pressure has grown recently to limit citizenship to those whose conversions were performed by Orthodox rabbis. Although the change would have little practical impact, symbolically this pressure shows the tension and lack of consensus, even among Jews, regarding who is a Jew.

The definition of race used here is fairly explicit. The Jewish people are not physically differentiated from non-Jews. Many people believe they can tell a Jew from a non-Jew, but actual distinguishing physical traits are absent. The wide range of variation among Jews makes it inaccurate to speak of a Jewish race in a physical sense. Jews today come from all areas of the world and carry a variety of physical features. Most Jewish Americans are descended from Northern and Eastern Europeans and have the appearance of Nordic and Alpine people. Many others carry Mediterranean traits that make them indistinguishable from Spanish or Italian Catholics. Many Jews reside in North Africa, and although North African Jews are not significantly represented in the United States, many people would view them as a racial minority, Black.

To define Jews by religion seems the obvious answer because there are Judaic religious beliefs, holidays, and rituals. But these beliefs and practices do not distinguish all Jews from non-Jews. To be a Jewish American does not mean that one is affiliated with one of the three religious groups: the Orthodox, the Reform, and the Conservative. A large segment of adult Jewish Americans, more than a third, do not participate in religious services or even belong, however tenuously, to a temple or synagogue. They have not converted to Christianity, however, nor have they ceased to think of themselves as Jews. Jewish religious beliefs and the history of religious practices remain significant legacies for all Jews today, however secularized their everyday behavior. In a 1998 survey, half of all Jews felt that a “shared history or culture,” much more than religion, defined what it means to be Jewish.

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