Jewish Nation
Who are the Jews? Are we a race, an ethnicity, a religion, or something else? The "debate" on this topic, clouded by a lack of understanding, rages on.
Jews are not a race: there are Jews of all the various races, including White and Black, and race has no importance in Judaism. Jews are not an ethnicity. There are Jews of many ethnicities. For example, two major Jewish ethnic groups are Ashkenazi (Eastern European) and Sephardi (Mediterranean). As with race, ethnicity plays no role in Judaism. Almost any person can become a Jew, which illustrates that Jewishness is not genetic.
There are some who think that Jews are strictly a religious community. Religion does play a vital role in Jewish life — I do not want to understate it. Yet, Jews disagree with each other on many points of religion. Plus, there are Jews who are secular, and even some who are aggressively atheist.
The correct answer to the question is that Jews are a Nation, and an individual Jew is a citizen of that Nation. The Jewish Nation (JN) is often called by the Hebrew term Am Yisra'el (עם ישראל - "the People Israel"). The Jewish Nation is similar to other nations, such as the United States of America. Here are some of the many ways in which the JN and the USA are similar:
- Both Americans and Jews are made up of many different races and ethnicities.
- A child of American parents is automatically American; a child of Jewish parents is automatically Jewish.
- Almost any person can become an American citizen by accepting American values and going through the naturalization process; almost any person can become a Jew by accepting Jewish values (that is, Judaism), and going through the naturalization process. Although, in the case of becoming a Jew, naturalization is usually called conversion, giving the incorrect impression that it is strictly a religious process.
- There are Americans who are highly critical of basic American values; yet, they remain American citizens. Likewise, there are Jews who are critical of the core values of Judaism, yet they are still Jews.
- Judaism was perhaps the first value system to establish a fair moral code. For instance, Judaism calls for equal treatment of all people before the law, whether they are rich or poor, citizen or permanent resident. These and other values are reflected in the American value system.
An important difference between Jews and many other nations is that, for many centuries, the Jewish Nation did not have sovereignty over its territory. That is, while Jews have lived in their land, in such cities as Hebron and Jerusalem, for 3,000 or more years, for a long time, they did not have political sovereignty in that land. For this reason, Jews, the citizens of the Jewish Nation, have been scattered all over the world.
In 1948, Jews have regained sovereignty of some of their territory and, in that territory, have established a modern state called State of Israel (מדינת ישראל - Medinat Yisra'el). In principle, citizens of the State of Israel are a subset, an important subset, but a subset nonetheless, of the Jewish Nation.
Citizenship
In recent years, "Who is a Jew?" has become a controversial question, with each Jewish religious denomination defining who is and is not a Jew slightly differently. (Note that Jewish denominations are more accurately described as religio-political parties, not as solely religious movements.) One of the reasons that the question is so controversial is that under State of Israel's Law of Return, almost any Jew can easily become a citizen of the State. Thus, by controlling the definition of the word Jew, a party has the power to influence the internal affairs of the State.
In my opinion, this controversy, as many other controversies, is instigated by those fighting for power to the detriment of the people, and in reality has a very simple solution. The solution is that becoming an Israeli citizen should be equivalent to becoming a Jew. That is, the prospective citizen should accept the core Jewish values and affirm that he is an integral part of the Jewish Nation. In this way, even if some denomination questions his status as a Jew before the naturalization, it would not be a problem, since he would become a Jew upon this naturalization. In March of 2005, the Israeli Supreme Court has decided that a person who converts to any Jewish denomination outside of Israel is a Jew for the purposes of the Law of Return.* I see this as a generally positive development since through conversion a person already affirms his desire to become a part of the Jewish Nation.
* I don't know the details of this decision, though I would like to find out what they are.