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Is Judaism a religion or a people? If Judaism is a religion, how can there be Jewish atheists? If it is a people, how can someone join by affirming belief in a religion? Judaism is both. This paradox is key to understanding Jews and the Jewish community. The text on this page is under construction It is here for position only   The paradox begins with Abraham, the first patriarch in Genesis. Legend has it that as a small child, he deduced that the world was ruled by one, invisible God; that fire and wind and sun were not deities, and that the idols worshipped by his pagan neighbors had no power. Outgrowing the beliefs of his father (in this legend, an idol merchant) and his country, Abraham was the pioneer of monotheism. He developed a personal relationship with the God he discovered and walked with Him. Yet none of that legend is recorded in the Torah itself, which takes for granted Abraham's relationship between God and Abraham. Abraham's faith is praised: He heeded God's call to move to the land of Canaan, and to sacrifice his son, Isaac. But the Covenant that God forges with him for his faithfulness is not about religion, but about nationhood. "I will make of you a great people", numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand of the shore. The Torah is given to Moses only after Moses has brought the people of Israel out of slavery, distinguishing them as a nation. From here on, the Biblical story of the Jews is largely a story of God's battle for his people's faith, whether in the Sinai desert before arriving in Canaan, or in the urbane Jerusalem metropolis in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Just how split were religion and peoplehood can be seen in the fact that the people was divided into two rival kingdoms, with rival temples of worship, both of which frequently instituting pagan worship as the state religion.

First Person "It was a long time coming, but last week, it finally hit me: I was a member of the Jewish people. Needless to say, my mother was not very happy when I told her that! --I. M. Guerre Mishpacha Gimel Share your thoughts. Join our private havurah communities.

With the first Exile, the ties between nationhood and religion shifted. The exiled Jews were expected to eventually adopt the gods of their conquerors and neighbors - and thereby lose their national identity. They didn't. Instead, they remained faithful to Judaism, with religious customs delineating them as a people. After the ingathering, when some (not most!) of the exiled Babylonian Jewish community returned to the land of Israel, the formation of the second Jewish commonwealth and the building of the Second Temple, the Jewish people and the Jewish religion went a little more hand in hand. But not too much. There became an increasing number of ways to be Jewish - Pharisees, Saducees, Essenes, etc. It was a time of religious fervor - perhaps because while the Jews were a distinct people, and distinct nation, they had a clearly defined place as one among many peoples in a very large global empire. Jews in Jerusalem sent political taxes to Rome. And Jews in Rome sent imperially-mandated Temple taxes back to Jerusalem. The first Christians were seen as heretics, deviants from the Jewish religion, but still Jews. This continued until the Jewish followers of Jesus began accepting gentiles into their communities without mandating conversion. At that point, the Christians moved from the category of Jews to gentiles - they stopped being Jews not because of their beliefs, but because they were no longer clearly members of the Jewish people. For a thousand years, the distinction didn't matter, as both Christian and Moslem kingdoms also blended religion and nationhood. Modern times Things began to change with the modern era and the rise of the secular state. After the American and French revolutions disestablished religion, what was the place of the Jews? Napoleon convened a "Sanhedrin" of Jewish leaders to answer his questions. Yes, they said, they were loyal Frenchmen; Frenchmen of the Mosaic faith. This "Protestant-style" formulation of Jewish identity, as a creed, became a key plank in the Reform Movement of the 19th century. "We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community," in the words of the movement's 1885 platform. While one response to the modern situation was to create a Judaism that was all religion and no peoplehood, another was the opposite: To create a notion of Jewish nationhood separate from religion. This was centered in the Russian empire, where Jews remained alien, second-class citizens, speaking a separate language (Yiddish) and confined to certain regions (the Pale of settlement). That many in the younger generation found socialism a more convincing promise for redemption than they found Judaism didn't matter to the czar -- or maybe it made matters worse. Thedor Herzl launched the Zionist movement when he became convinced that anti-Semites would never let Jews be accepted as true members of the French nation. The Eastern European Jews didn't need persuading, and flocked to Zionism -- though some continued to advocate a Jewish cultural autonomy in a socialistic Europe (Bundism).   [19th?] Modernity. Jew in home, in street, in synagogue. Zionism. Bundism. Ethnicity. Yiddish and kosher style.   Today, the multiplicity of Jewish ideologies, each convinced of their correctness -- arguing that Judaism is a religion and Zionism is wrong, or that religion is a dying opiate that the Jewish nation most overcome - have fallen away, replaced with the facts of continued Jewish peoplehood and religion. The status of the Jews as a franchised nation has been confirmed by the United Nations. The flag of Israel now flies in embassies the world over.   [20th?]Much that is new. Conversion. Other religions. Openness. State of Israel. Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry. [how does conversion make one part of a race of people? The paradox of Jewish religion and peoplehood that began with Abraham continues today in the lives of all his descendants, physical and spiritual. When Orthodox Jews talk during services, are they not choosing community, peoplehood, over religion? And when .... Israel vs. Religion. Israel instead of religion. [Young, secular Israelis who discuss their Zionism with near=religions fervor] There will be weeks when you feel touched by news from a Jewish community a world away, while the synagogue service leaves you cold. And there will be weeks when the reverse is true.   Perhaps the lesson is that therea re many ways to approach God from the religious standpoint. If we can do that as a nation -- who finds respect for one another in our multiplicity -- we will have accomplished a great thing and come closer to the patriarchal ideal.