Are Jews a Race? It’s Complicated

Are Jews a race? The Nazis obviously thought so. Their rhetoric centered on race – the Aryan race is superior, the Jews a race but subhuman. Due to this racial definition, some blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jews were able to escape the Nazi murder machine by “passing” as Aryans. On the other hand, Jews who had converted to Christianity ended up in the gas chambers.

According to Hitler, Jews were a race, not a religion.

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Whoopi Goldberg, speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, explained her viewpoint that race has to do with skin color, and Jews are white. Ouch! I live in Israel, where 60% of the Jewish population – whose parents came from Yemen, Iraq, Syria, North Africa – are some shade of what Americans today would call, “people of color.” My blond-haired blue-eyed daughter married a man whose mother is a Moroccan Jew. Their first son has fair skin and light brown hair. Their second son is darker, with black hair. My daughter, seeing a neighbor’s confusion at such different looking brothers, smilingly called them, “chocolate and vanilla.”

Doesn’t Whoopi realize that the KKK hates Jews as much as blacks? Apparently, their hatred penetrates deeper than skin color.

Whoopi also revealed a lack of knowledge of American history. She said that if she were standing with a Jewish friend on a street corner, and the Klan approached, she would have to flee, but her Jewish friend could safely stay put. Is she unaware of how many Jewish families moved into Southern towns only to find on their first night in their new home a flaming cross in their front yard, a warning from the KKK? Doesn’t Whoopi realize that the KKK hates Jews as much as blacks? Apparently, their hatred penetrates deeper than skin color.

Here’s a historical tidbit that confuses the subject of race-based antisemitism. According to the dictionary, a Semite is “a member of any of various ancient and modern peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs.” Yes, Jews and Arabs are both Semites. Yet Hitler, the greatest anti-Semite, hated only Jews, not Arabs. On November 28, 1941, in Berlin, Hitler made a secret pact with the Arab Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. They shared a common goal, what Hitler in that meeting called, “an uncompromising war against the Jews.”

Hitler, who knew only European white-skinned Jews, had no problem forging an alliance with darker-skinned Arabs. Obviously, Hitler identified the Jews according to something deeper than race.

If We’re Not a Race, Nor a Religion, What Are We?

Someone born to a Jewish mother is a Jew, no matter what they believe or practice. A Jew who converts to another religion is still considered by Jewish law to be a Jew.

This would support the contention that we are a “tribe,” a people descended from a common ancestor, linked by our DNA. Indeed, the Jewish liturgy repeatedly refers to “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” The Jewish people originated with the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. Originally a family of seventy people who went down to Egypt, they experienced a population explosion and became the Israelite nation by the time they were freed from Egyptian slavery centuries later.

Conversion transforms a gentile into a Jew, no matter the color of their skin or the slant of their eyes. Spiritually, converts assume a new, immutable identity and acquire new ancestors.

But if Jews are a genetically-based tribe, how do converts become Jews? Conversion transforms a gentile into a Jew, no matter the color of their skin or the slant of their eyes. Spiritually, converts assume a new, immutable identity and acquire new ancestors. When we pray for a sick convert, we refer to him or her as son or daughter of Sarah, the original Matriarch. How can one acquire new ancestors?

Conversion easily works for other religions; a person converts by accepting the beliefs of that religion and undergoes a ritual to confirm it. But we have already established that Jewish identity is not a function of beliefs. Although committing to the mitzvot is a prerequisite for halachic conversion, once a gentile has undergone halachic conversion, the transformation to a Jew is permanent, regardless of subsequent laxity in belief or practice. Conversion to Judaism is like a chemical reaction; when you expose a mixture of zinc and sulfur powder to heat, it becomes a new substance, zinc sulfide, and the process is irreversible.

Conversion actually sheds light on what defines a Jew. Many contend that Jews are a family, and conversion is akin to adoption. Someone not born into the family can become a member of the family. Adoption, however, is a legal procedure; it does not change the person’s DNA. Conversion to Judaism is different; it actually confers on the person a Jewish soul. The body – whatever its race – remains the same, but the essence of the person is now a Jew, meaning they have become a Jewish soul.

The age-old conundrum of whether the Jews are a race, religion, or tribe cannot be solved on the physical level, because the definition of a Jew is spiritual.

Hitler Understood

Hitler could align with Arabs but hate Jews because, for all his race rhetoric, he sensed – and was threatened by – the Jewish essence. As he explained his obsession with exterminating every single Jew:

If one little Jewish boy survives without any Jewish education, with no synagogue and no Hebrew school, it is in his soul… Even if there had never been a synagogue or a Jewish school or an Old Testament, the Jewish spirit would still exist and exert its influence. It has been there from the beginning, and there is no Jew, not a single one, who does not personify it.

So, Jews are not a race, nor a religion, but an assemblage of souls? The Kabbalists go even further. They teach that the Jewish people is one collective soul. Indeed, it has individual components, like a body is composed of myriads of cells. But if you wound the tip of the pinkie finger, the whole body feels it. That’s why when there’s a terror attack in Israel or Paris, Jews throughout the world cry, and when Jews are threatened in Colleyville, Texas, Jews throughout the world feel violated.

The greatest danger to the collective soul of the Jewish people is when its constituent cells attack each other. In medical terms, such a state is called cancer; it’s an existential threat to the organism.

That’s also why the greatest danger to the collective soul of the Jewish people is not antisemitism from the left or the right. The greatest danger to the collective soul of the Jewish people is when its constituent cells attack each other. In medical terms, such a state is called cancer; it’s an existential threat to the organism.

Whoopi Goldberg’s lack of knowledge about the Holocaust is not my greatest concern. Holocaust education, which she – and much of the world – desperately needs, can remedy that. I’m far more worried about the lack of unity among Jews. Of course, as antisemitism increases, we’re worried about the enemy at the gates. But the battles raging within the Jewish people are even more dangerous.