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).
While Jews are not a race, neither, strictly speaking, are anyone else. Race is an urban/suburban & agricultural myth. It's impossible to define any race in a meaningful way. Who, for example, is African? Someone with 100% African ancestors? Then we're all African, since all of our ancestors trace all their lines back to Africa.
So we should stop referring to David Baddiel as jewish, given he is an atheist? I think it is a race - descedant from the biblical 13 tribes. Even if I convert to Judaism, I doubt I would have been a target for the Nazis given I have blue eyes and blonde hair? It wasn't the religion the Nazis hated it was the different genetic traits. I agree with you, with intermarraige, it is not as clear as it used to be, but it exists all the same. Your last point to YV backs up his point - it is both. Thus you can adopt the religion but not the race. Sammy Davis was a religious Jew, but not an ethnic Jew.
Africa is a place, so you could argue anyone born there is African. There is no country on the planet called Jew, there is however a massive religion called Judaism, hence why in my opinion it's a religion and not a race. Same goes for Christianity, Islam, Hinduism etc, all religion but not races.
"Dressing up in Black garb etc is too stereotypical- all we need to do is wear skull caps." Dressing as a Frumer sets the extreme boundary. Specifically : can REAL Frumers go into WHL and chant Yid army ?? And if not, which "race" are they offending with the chants ??
"It wasn't the religion the Nazis hated it was the different genetic traits." Adolf hated the fact that they had got into key areas in German professional society. In the case of financing (banking etc) , not without some historic Christian irony. The genetic traits became a very convenient means of trying to identify and stigmatise those people.
Hitler's bag was all about control. He hated the fact that a closed non-Aryan clique appeared to be controlling German culture and politics. He set about destroying and obliterating it by, firstly, convincing the German and Austrian peoples that that clique was (a) not German/Austrian, and (b) intent of manipulating and using the generosity of Germans/Austrians for its own greed. The propaganda was very successful at inciting large numbers of people into hating a specific group, and it ultimately swept Hitler into power. This is undoubtedly one of the prime motives behind all systems of governments, and particular ours and the American, enforcing such draconian "anti" this-and-that laws, ie. to prevent any of us over-throwing the Establishment off the back of base distrust and loathing of another set of people.
Having a particular social malaise, and then placing its causes on a particular human racial/ cultural group, is a time-honoured human technique. Past historical emnities help too. The Nazi "Aryan" stuff has always made me laugh. Specifically how the blonde + blue-eyed Adolf fetish was the only possible genetic evolutionary destiny of the not even remotely blond + blue-eyed ancient Indo-Aryan peoples.
Judaism is a religion. The Jews are a race descended from the Hebrews. Israel is a Jewish nation-state. The fact that many Jews are spread around the world (mainly in the U.S and other parts of Europe) owes much to migration because of persecution.
Especially given that it isn't likely that you'd find many Italians or Japanese with blonde hair and blue eyes, yet that apparently never occurred to him at any point when they were allies.
Yes. I should have added the caveat, "According to the latest research, which is not certain but which does seem to be an overwhelming consensus..." It's theoretically possible, but highly unlikely, that the earliest human ancestor came from Asia, or perhaps even somewhere else. I should also have added that what I meant when I said race doesn't exist is that race does not exist as a scientifically meaningful word, as opposed to say, species. Some use it as I would use ethnicity, meaning a loose designation of the place and/or culture of someone's family. Jew, to me, is a religion and an ethnicity, rather than a race, but is interesting for being the only religion which is also an ethnicity. Also to me, Hitler was primarily interested in using scapegoating to build unity and fervor. Getting people to agree to hate one or more other people does tend to be the best way of getting them united. There was a lot of pseudoscience flying around about the German and the Jewish race which was just that, pseudoscience. It was wrong on both counts. Germans are of course one of the peoples who have the most mixed ethnic background, living as they do in the middle of one of the highways of the world. The pseudoscience claimed, and Hitler may have believed, that the German "race" was being sullied by the admixture of the Jewish "race", and that the thing to do was put a stop to it by killing all the Jews. Though I could hardly guess, he seems to have believed at least some of it, but may simply have believed the conspiracy theory that Jews were out to destroy Germans, and wanted, therefore, to destroy Jews. The ridiculous nature of the Nazi Aryan concept was hard to miss. "Blonde as Hitler, athletic as Goering and fit as Goebbels," was often whispered.
Under Hitler, Boris Johnson would have been lauded and provided with a constant succession of beautiful, buxom sex-slaves forced to have sex with him, over and over, in order to breed more blond children. That's something to think about.
