A reader writes:
I was offended by the way Blunkett, and, for that matter, you, glided over the concept that Judaism is a racial characteristic. Jews are not a race, any more than Anglicans or Catholics. Part of the persistence of anti-semitism lies in the thoughtless assumption that there is a race of people known as Jews, instead of a collection of individuals who have certain beliefs.
Well, everyone has a perfect right to be offended by whatever they please. Nonetheless, as I noted in my post, Jews are an ethnic group, though Judaism is also a religion. People can be ethnically Jewish though irreligious — many Jews are.
Certainly many anti-Semites hate Jews without regard to their religion; the Nazis went after the irreligious Jews as well as the devout Jews, and so did the Soviets. Much anti-Semitic propaganda focuses on Jews’ supposed ethnic or cultural traits, not their religion. Nor is this just an anti-Semitic view; as I understand mainstream Jewish religious teachings, someone whose mother is Jewish, which is to say generally someone who is ethnically Jewish, is “Jewish” for purposes of Judaism even if he is an atheist.
I realize that there’s some fuzziness about the definition of “ethnicity” (it usually turns on people’s descent, but descendants of converts to Judaism may often be treated as ethnically Jewish, just as descendants of people who moved to Ireland not long ago may often be treated as ethnically Irish — especially when the descendants are now not in Ireland in any more, and especially if they characterize themselves as Irish). But there’s also fuzziness about what constitutes “race.” Suffice it to say that an ethnic group is a group that’s usually linked by descent and culture, and that perceived itself and is perceived by others as an ethnic group. We need not delve further into this here, except to say that Jews are often treated as an ethnic group much as are Irish, Poles, Gypsies, and so on.
I prefer to use the term “ethnicity” rather than “race” to refer to Jews. Historically, however, the term “race” has also included what we now think of as ethnicity, so Jews, Italians, Irish, and such were sometimes called “races” rather than just ethnic groups (see here). I inferred from the article in the English newspaper that U.K. “incitement of race hatred” law either explicitly applies both to races and ethnic groups (Jews, Irish, and the like), or applies to races but with “race” interpreted — as one important old U.S. statute is interpreted — to include ethnic groups. (UPDATE: Reader Dan Neidle confirms, saying that “[t]he relevant legislation (Part III of the Public Order Act 1986) defines ‘racial hatred’ to mean ‘hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.'”)
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