Re: Lowlight, in his Benevolent Magnificince..........
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: EventHorizon</div><div class="ubbcode-body">With all due Merriment you're both wrong. Jew is a reference to Religious belief, not race. It's commonly used as the latter but incorrectly so. I quote:
"In the 1980s, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Jews are a race, at least for purposes of certain anti-discrimination laws. Their reasoning: at the time these laws were passed, people routinely spoke of the "Jewish race" or the "Italian race" as well as the "Negro race," so that is what the legislators intended to protect.
But many Jews were deeply offended by that decision, offended by any hint that Jews could be considered a race. The idea of Jews as a race brings to mind nightmarish visions of Nazi Germany, where Jews were declared to be not just a race, but an inferior race that had to be rounded up into ghettos and exterminated like vermin.
But setting aside the emotional issues, Jews are clearly not a race.
Race is a genetic distinction, and refers to people with shared ancestry and shared genetic traits. You can't change your race; it's in your DNA. I could never become black or Asian no matter how much I might want to.
Common ancestry is not required to be a Jew. Many Jews worldwide share common ancestry, as shown by genetic research; however, you can be a Jew without sharing this common ancestry, for example, by converting. Thus, although I could never become black or Asian, blacks and Asians have become Jews (Sammy Davis Jr. and Connie Chung)." </div></div>
Not wishing to debate - just share my experience. Virtually all of my Jewish friends, aquaintances, co-workers and a girlfriend at one time as well, most assuredly think of themselves as a distinct ethnic group, if not generally a "race" per se(as said above - too much WW2 history invoked by that terminology)).
Indeed, most of my Jewish friends I can think of off hand are actually non-religious entirely - yet still think themsleves 100% Jewish!
In other words, depending who you ask(among Jews or not), Jews are a religious group, an ethnic groups(s), a racial group, all of the above, etc.
Yet, I have had(have) tons of Jewish friends and such(I am in New York, ya know)and absolutely NONE of them I have met or known thought of or described themselves as being part of a religious group alone - never.
None called themselves Hebrews either
