A Jew is a constituent of the longest-running, most confounding, hardest to categorize, most widely-scattered, historically hunted and murdered, nomadic, demographically-challenged, resilient, despised, and admired faith community without a firmly-set liturgy in history. A Jew is a nationality without a nation who therefore is sincerely and deeply hyper-patriotic to the nation in which he/she resides; a Jew is a religious organism who would not necessarily recognize what another Jew is doing theologically in another nation because Judaism is actually a cultural gestalt more than anything else.
A Jew is a person who identifies with his or her ‘peoplehood’ more through ethnicity than liturgical agreement.
A Jew is more or less a descendant of the Hebrews who were enslaved in Egypt—“the Dusty Ones,” as so poignantly phrased by Thomas Cahill in his book, The Gifts of the Jews. Our story is of wandering, of a complicated and eternal relationship with that little arid strip of “promised land” known successively as Canaan, Judea, and Israel. Hardly any Jew, whether living in Seattle, Montreal, Lyon, Bogota, or Athens, even one with no connection to a synagogue, lacks an emotional kinship to “Zion”—the rhapsodic name for Jerusalem, the capital of Judea set high up on the Judean mountain by King David more than 3,000 years ago, centuries before Jesus, Mohammed, and others who came along to interpret what the Jews had written, prayed, and danced.
A Jew is a person who identifies with his or her ‘peoplehood’ more through ethnicity than liturgical agreement. Judaism is sociology; Christianity is liturgy, Christianity is a faith; Judaism is a people with a faith. Candidly, a Jew, especially a Jew living in North America often doesn’t even realize this, which is why it is so hard for him or her to explain the community to a well-meaning non-Jewish friend or lover and the result is some nervous laughter about “a good bagel” or “my grandmother” and then some sprinkled-with-guilt but genuinely felt discourse to the following effect: “Look, I hated Hebrew School, and don’t remember anything they drilled me with. But I just feel this connection and I definitely want my kids to be Jewish, whatever that means.”
A Jew is a person whose world population figures were reduced by 34% in the course of six unspeakable, genocidal European years, 1939-1945, as a result of the basically unchecked German “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” The loss to future living generations is incalculable. The impact upon the global Jewish body-psyche, in spite of all the museums, the rituals, the survivor testimonials, the mind-bending success (and the attendant effect on its own behavior and policies) of the State of Israel is something that is far from clear. In the end, a Jew is not, ultimately, someone whose thesis is about rejecting Jesus, or defying convention, or making money, or any of the other tawdry generalizations that have, for centuries, slurred Jewish obsession with education, social justice, and the spirit, if not the letter of the Hebrew Scripture (for the vast majority of Jews who are not Orthodox, fundamentalist, or radicals).
A Jew is the Ethiopian-born soldier serving at the Lebanese border for the Israel Defense Forces. She is the blue-eyed, raven haired, edgy author-commentator on the American social scene. He is the one of the last rabbis teaching Psalms among the few thousand extant Jews in Poland. He is the legendary Hollywood director chronicling the Holocaust and then bursting forth with some renegade Jurassic dinosaur eggs. She is the tired old teacher in the Bronx who remembers when kids used to have to add and subtract in their heads. He is the silver-haired pensioner from Buenos Aires I once met who couldn’t go to university in Argentina because of his creed but will never, ever forget the greatest honor of his life—being one of the glass-casket bearers for his beloved Eva Peron.
A Jew is a survivor.
Wiki Photo: American commentator Naomi Wolf.
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Comments
Just to be clear, if someone sharing no ancestry with Jewish people accepted the beliefs and practices of Judaism, they are a Jew? And, at the same time, if someone had an ancestry with the Hebrews but did not hold any beliefs of Judaism (let's say, became a Buddhist or something), they too are a Jew?
Thanks :)
DT Strain, Houston Humanist Examiner
To the questions from Mr. DT Strain, anyone who converts to Judaism officially and acceps the beliefs is a Jew, of course. A rabbincel court decides. On the other question, how is it possible to have an ancestry with the Hebrews that can be proven? Aren't we all ancestors of the Hebrews anyhow?
VEry well said........ Marv.
This is absolutely so beautifully expressed and informative for me and any Christian. Thank you Rabbi Ben again for teaching us so that we can teach others.
Thank you. So wonderfully expressed and a big help to those of us trying to define what being Jew is to ourselves, our children and friends.
Veterans of WWII had H for Hebrew rather than J for Jewish on our dogtags
What I find curious is that when one does the math we represent a very small fraction of world population and yet we have made an enormous impact on all walks of life; science, entertainment, finance, industry, philosophy, etc. Why? Certainly not genetics. Culture? Possibly. What aspect of culture? To what extent has our persecution contributed to this? Anything at all? I don't have an answer but it is a fascinating question.
what a wonderful description of a diverse group of people with a shared sprituality. Monotheism at it's roots.
Thank you!
Technically, a hebrew was one who 'crossed over'. There were those who were actually the literal children of Israel (Jacob) and those who crossed over to the covenant people by their faith. A mixed multitude of people left Egypt (others enslaved and some Egyptians). Also, Abraham wasn't a 'jew'. He had a faith in HaShem (God), and it was this faith that birthed the covenant people - NOT vice versa. What I'm getting at is that 'Jew' has taken on a different meaning and is actually inaccurate to describe the people of the covenant with God. The people in covenant with God are those who have faith and follow what He says. This is actually what God intended, "that all nations would be blessed through Abraham", a peoplehood not only based on fleshly decent, man made rabbinic ritual conversion, but faith in Him and adherence to His commands. ie: "the covenant people of God whomever that may be, wherever they may be".
...so two aspects; National covenant and individual covenant. So to answer DT Strain, God has chosen the psychical jewish people based on the FAITH of Abraham. They enjoy many blessings and responsibilities for being physically descended from Abraham. Individually however, every person needs to attach to the covenant by their own FAITH, even as Abraham did. So both a practicing Jew and Buddhist who is Jewish need to have the faith that God requires as their physical lineage doesn't atone for a persons sin.
For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people.
As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are better protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.
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