The idea that Jews are not only a religious group, but also a racial group, was the cornerstone of German Nazi policy and was the justification for killing any Jewish person who came under the Nazi occupation.
A definition of Judaism based on physical or genetic traits is also misleading because Jews
appear throughout the world. Generally, Jews resemble their non-Jewish neighbors in the countries
from which they originate. Through centuries of intermarriage and conversion, Jews from
Eastern Europe tend to look like Eastern Europeans; Jews from Ethiopia tend to look like
Ethiopians; Jews from Turkey tend to look like Turks; Jews from India tend to look like Indians.
If someone tells you that the Jewish people are a race, ask them what they mean by the term
race; most anti-Semites who parrot pseudo-scientific ideas have no clear definition of the
term. Ask these people what a Jew should look like. Can a Black person be a Jew? Can an
East Asian or Indian person be a Jew? Can someone be born a Christian and become Jewish?
The answer to each of these questions is yes and together they refute the idea of a Jewish
race as anything other than a figment of the anti-Semitic imagination.
