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Jewish identity is the subjective state of perceiving oneself 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.






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Gottlieb Jews Praying in the Synagogue On Yom Kippur
Jewish identity is the subjective state of perceiving oneself 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
Kehilla

A kehilla or kehillah is a Jewish community. In pre-World War II Europe, all towns or cities with a Jewish population had one communal organisation, or occasionally more....
. Jewish identity may be religious
Halakha

Halakha ? also Hebrew transliteration Halocho and Halacha ? is the collective body of Judaism religious law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions....
. Jews who are atheists
Atheism

Atheism is the absence or rejection of belief in deity, or the explicit view that Existence of God.Many list of atheists are Skepticism of all supernatural beings and cite a lack of empiricism evidence for the existence of deities....
 may have Jewish identity. People born from a mixed Jewish and non-Jewish background may have Jewish identity. (See also "half-Jewish"
Who is a Jew?

"Who is a Jew?" is a basic question about Jewish identity. The question has gained particular prominence in connection with several high-profile legal cases in Israel since the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948....
.)

Antisemitism and Jewish identity

According to Rabbi
Rabbi

Rabbi , in Judaism, means a religious ?teacher?, or more literally, ?my great one?, when addressing any master. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ?great?, used in many senses, including the sense of a ?master? and apprentice, whence someone who is a distinguished ?teacher?....
 Jonathan Sacks
Jonathan Sacks

Rabbi Sir Jonathan Henry Sacks is the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. His official title is Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth of Nations....
, modern Jewish communities and the modern Jewish identity are influenced by antisemitism. Jewish identity can be influenced by the antisemitism that some non-Jews harbor toward them. The Jewish diaspora
Jewish diaspora

The Jewish diaspora , the presence of Jews outside of the Land of Israel, is a result of the expulsion or emigration of Jews from Israel and religious conversion to Judaism....
 in most places suffered persecution by Church
Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
 or Mosque
Islam

Islam is a Monotheism, Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the Prophets of Islam Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure....
. They were landless and suffered periodic massacres, expulsion
Expulsion

Expulsion may refer to:*Expulsion , removing a student from a school or university*Expulsion from the United States Congress*Deportation, the expulsion of someone from a country...
s and other abuses. It also involves identification with abusers and attempts to appease them. (See also self-hating Jew
Self-hating Jew

Self-hating Jew is a pejorative term "often used rhetorically to discount Jews who differ in their life-styles, interests or political positions from their accusers"....
.)

Israel

Jewish identity can involve a sense of kinship with Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
. Jews in the Jewish diaspora
Jewish diaspora

The Jewish diaspora , the presence of Jews outside of the Land of Israel, is a result of the expulsion or emigration of Jews from Israel and religious conversion to Judaism....
 may see Israel as the homeland of their people.

United States

In the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
, about 51% of the people identifying themselves as Jews are religious. Another 43% of self-identified Jews consider themselves secular.

A cultural concept

Jewish identity can be cultural
Cultural identity

Cultural identity is the Identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as he or she is influenced by her belonging to a group or culture....
.

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
    Judaism

    Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts....
     (those who follow the tenets of the Jewish religion)
  2. ethnic Judaism (those of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi or other Jewish ancestry)
  3. cultural Judaism (those who celebrate Jewish holidays and were "raised in a Jewish home")


See also

  • Jewish population
    Jewish population

    Jewish population refers to the number of Jews in the world. Precise figures are difficult to calculate because the definition of "Who is a Jew" remains a source of controversy....
  • Jews for Judaism
    Jews for Judaism

    Jews for Judaism, established by Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz in 1985, is an international organization designed to counter Christianity missionary trying to convert Jews....
  • Basic Laws of Israel
    Basic Laws of Israel

    The Basic Laws of Israel are a key component of Israel's constitutional law. These laws deal with the formation and role of the principal state's institutions, and the relations between the state's authorities....
  • Halakha
    Halakha

    Halakha ? also Hebrew transliteration Halocho and Halacha ? is the collective body of Judaism religious law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions....
  • Knesset
    Knesset

    The Knesset is the legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem....
  • Law of Return
    Law of Return

    The Law of Return is Israeli legislation, enacted in 1950, that gives Jews, those of Jewish ancestry, and their spouses the right to migrate to and settle in Israel and gain citizenship....
  • Matrilineality
    Matrilineality

    Matrilineality is a system in which lineage is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors.A matriline is a line of descent from a female ancestor to a Kinship in which the individuals in all intervening generations are female....
  • Patrilineality
    Patrilineality

    Patrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage; it generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well....
  • Politics of Israel
    Politics of Israel

    Politics of Israel takes place in a framework of a parliamentary system representative democracy republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Israel is the head of government, and of a multi-party system....
  • Ashkenazi Jews
    Ashkenazi Jews

    File:Juden 1881.JPGAshkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish ethnic divisions of the Rhineland in the west of Germany....
  • Jewish diaspora
    Jewish diaspora

    The Jewish diaspora , the presence of Jews outside of the Land of Israel, is a result of the expulsion or emigration of Jews from Israel and religious conversion to Judaism....
  • Sephardi Jews
    Sephardi Jews

    Sephardi Jews are a subgroup of Jews originating in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, usually defined in contrast to Ashkenazi or Mizrahi Jews....
  • Mizrahi Jews
    Mizrahi Jews

    Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahim, , also referred to as Adot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
  • Jewish cuisine
    Jewish cuisine

    Jewish cuisine is a collection of international cookery traditions linked by Jewish dietary laws and Jewish holiday traditions. Certain foods, notably pork and shellfish, are forbidden; meat and dairy may not be combined, and meat must be Ritual slaughter and salted to remove all traces of blood....
  • Secular Jewish culture
    Secular Jewish culture

    Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena; above all, it is the culture of Secularity communities of Jewish people, but it can also include the cultural contributions of individuals who identify as secular Jews, or even those of religious Jews working in cultural areas not generally considered to be connected to religion....
  • Cultural diversity
    Cultural diversity

    Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. There is a general consensus among mainstream anthropologists that humans first emerged in Africa about two million years ago ....
  • Identity politics
    Identity politics

    Identity politics is political action to advance the interests of members of a group whose members perceive themselves to be oppressed by virtue of a shared and marginalized identity ....
  • Self-concept
    Self-concept

    Self-concept or self identity refers to the global understanding a Sentience being has of him or herself. It presupposes but can be distinguished from self-consciousness, which is simply an awareness of one's self....
  • Social identity
    Social identity

    Social identity is a theory formed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner to understand the psychological basis of intergroup discrimination. It is composed of four elements:...


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