Jewish identity

Ashkenazi Jews praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur. Traditional elements shown include tallit, the torah, kippot and the segregation of men and women in the synagogue. (1878 painting by Maurice Gottlieb)

Jewish identity is the subjective state of perceiving oneself as as a Jew and as relating to being Jewish. Jewish identity, by this definition, does not depend on whether or not a person is regarded as a Jew by others, or by an external set of religious, or legal, or sociological norms. Accordingly, Jewish identity can be cultural in nature. Jewish identity can involve ties to the Jewish community. Jewish identity may be religious. Jews who are Atheists may have Jewish identity. People born from a mixed Jewish and non-Jewish background may have Jewish identity.
See: "Half-Jewish"

Census data

The last page from Had gadya (One goat) by Russian Jewish artist & author, El Lissitzky, 1919.

In the United States, about 51% of the people identifying themselves as Jews are religious. Another 43% of self-identified Jews consider themselves secular.

Anti-Semitism affected Jewish identity

According to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, modern Jewish communities and the modern Jewish identity are influenced by antisemitism. [1] Jewish identity can be influenced by the antisemitism that some non-Jews harbor toward them. The Jewish diaspora in most places suffered persecution by Church or Mosque. They were landless and suffered periodic massacres, expulsions and other abuses. It also involves identification with abusers and attempts to appease them. [2]
see Self-hating Jew.

Israel

Jewish identity can involve a sense of kinship with Israel. Jews in the Jewish diaspora may see Israel as the homeland of their people.

A Cultural Concept

Jewish identity can be cultural.

There are religious and cultural components to Jewish identity, just as there are religious and cultural components of Christian identity or Muslim identity. However, Jewish identity also has a strong ethnic component to it, absent (especially in the United States) in most of the Christian identity.

Jewish identity can be separated into three separate, independent parts:

(1) religious Judaism (those who follow the tenets of the Jewish religion),

(2) ethnic Judaism (those of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi or other Jewish ancestry), and

(3) cultural Judaism (those who celebrate Jewish holidays and were "raised in a Jewish home").

With conversion and deconversion and adoptions, you can have Jews who are any combination of the three above.

This causes much confusion for Christians in the United States, where ethnicity is much less well-defined due to intermarriage. Most American Christians perceive their "Christian-ness" as a religious concept, and so project that frame of reference onto "Jewish-ness". Jews, on the other hand, are much more cognizant of the ethnic and cultural factor of their identity, and (especially among Reform and Conservative Jews) often accept secular or atheist Jews as being members of the Jewish community.

See also

• Jewish population
• Jews for Judaism
• Basic Laws of Israel
• Halakha
• Knesset
• Law of Return
• Matrilineality
• Patrilineality
• Politics of Israel
• Ashkenazi Jews
• Jewish diaspora
• Sephardi Jews
• Mizrahi Jews
• Jewish cuisine
• Secular Jewish culture
• Cultural diversity
• Identity politics
• Self-concept
• Social identity

References

• Love, Hate, and Jewish Identity, Jonathan Sacks
• The Meaning of Jewish Identity, Rabbi Barry H. Block
• The Peace Encyclopaedia
• Zehut Institute