It is often thought and taught by the world and many liberal Jews that the jewish people are a race. Many of the major problems of this ideology are as follows:
1. We are Gods chosen people which means we have first rank rights for rule and grace above all others in both this life and the next.
2. The knowledge of who one is by bloodline/DNA/seed lineage/race is just as important as the gospel itself. And in some cases is part of The Gospel.
3. The concern for suffering and injustice in the world is first and foremost goes toward our own people. And in some cases the only people that matter.
4. The bible is not only known as The Word of God, but it was written by hebrews, for hebrews, and to Hebrews.
If you do not believe that this kind of thinking has honestly saturated the minds of people, from the sincere to the scarred, then look no further than the Christian Identity, black Hebrew Israelite, and Aryan movements.
First let us look to what conservative Jews have to say about the idea of "Race" and simply compare it to the positions of the movements above.
The following is from jewfaq.org
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).
This has been established since the earliest days of Judaism. In the Torah, you will see many references to "the strangers who dwell among you" or "righteous proselytes" or "righteous strangers." These are various classifications of non-Jews who lived among Jews, adopting some or all of the beliefs and practices of Judaism without going through the formal process of conversion and becoming Jews. Once a person has convertedto Judaism, he is not referred to by any special term; he is as much a Jew as anyone born Jewish.
- http://www.jewfaq.org/m/judaism.htm. - http://www.jewfaq.org/m/whoisjew.htm
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The following is from haaretz.com
A race, whatever that notion really means, is certainly not something that can be joined. The Jewish people can be joined. We might have plenty of arguments among us as to what constitutes a valid conversion, but conversion is certainly possible. Ever since Abraham and Sarah’s legendary outreach program in which the residents of Charan were convinced to journey with them to Israel, almost every generation of the Jewish people has welcomed non-Jews into its midst. In fact, given any contemporary Jew, it is statistically inconceivable that there shouldn’t be a single convert anyway up their family tree. Admittedly, members of the tribe of Levi claim an unbroken patrilineal chain all the way back to Abraham; but there are bound to be converts on some of the maternal branches of their family tree. There is no such thing as a racially pure Jew. We are not a race.
The Oxford political philosopher, David Miller, has a fantastic study of Nationality, simply entitled “On Nationality.” He defines a nation in terms of five characteristics; none of these characteristics alone define a nation, but they are certainly jointly sufficient.
- https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.haaretz.com/amp/jewish/jews-are-not-a-race-but-a-nation-1.5178342. --------------------------------------------------------------------------
So already you can see that the idea of The Jews being a race must have been pushed as a very modern thought. And not an ancient unanimous one. So let us now turn to the idea of being "Chosen". What did the Jews down through history actually think or believe about it?
The following comes from bc.edu
From the article
SOME ARE CHOSEN, ALL ARE LOVED Rabbi Gilbert S. Rosenthal Executive Director, National Council of Synagogues
V. MEDIEVAL PERMUTATIONS
The traumatic challenge of loss of land, Temple and political independence coupled with the defection of not one but two daughter religions, Christianity and Islam, compounded Israel's need to find a raison d'etre. Christianity preached a theology of displacement and supersession of the mother faith. Islam, no less zealously, accused Jews of having falsified Scripture and rejecting the last and greatest of the Prophets, Muhammad. Both faiths denigrated Jews and Judaism, often stooping to vile epithets and periodically expressing their contempt in violent assaults and expulsions.
Interestingly, not all the medieval sages and philosophers met this dual challenge in the same way. Saadia Gaon, for example, did not stress the notion of chosenness in his works. Indeed, he warned Israel not to be arrogant for all nations are God's and election does not imply exclusion of others.36 Likewise, Maimonides barely mentioned the concept in his Guide of the Perplexed.37Yehudah Halevi, however, approached the issue from a racial perspective. For example, he insisted that "only an Israelite by birth is eligible to become a prophet" and he stressed that in his view, gentiles are of inferior stock.38Maimonides rejected this approach, arguing that prophecy can be found among gentiles: "But we believe in a prophet because of what he says, not because of his descent..." He spurned the "biological" approach to Jewishness as is evident from his famous letter to Ovadiah the proselyte:
I received your inquiry asking whether you, as a convert to Judaism, are entitled to say in your daily prayers, "Our God and God of our Fathers." I say to you: Indeed, you may say all of these blessings without changing the wording. You are just like any native-born Jew in this regard .... for Abraham is your spiritual father, and our inheritance is yours as well, since there is no racial distinction in our faith.39
Medieval philosophers split ranks over the issue of the racial factor in election: Several followed Halevi; Albo took the Maimonidean approach and just as Maimonides had refrained from listing chosenness as one of the thirteen "ikkarim" or principles of faith, so did Albo delete the idea from his category of basic principles.40
The school of Kabbalah reinterpreted chosenness in a bold and remarkable fashion. The well-known aphorism of the Zohar, "The Holy One, blessed be He, the Torah and Israel are one" articulates the view that knesset Yisrael (the ecclesia of Israel) unites in mystical union with God via the medium of Torah. Since Israel is the people of Torah, it may cleave to God as no other people. Indeed, it brings "fulfillness" to God. There is cosmic importance to keeping the mitzvot: "If you observe My commandments it is as if, so to speak, you made Me." Conversely, if Israel separates from God, blessings are withheld and God removes His indwelling presence from their midst. When Israel went into exile, God's presence accompanied them. In fact, a part of God Himself went into exile. Using erotically mythic terms, the Zohar identifies God's shekhinah of indwelling presence with knesset Yisrael and the sefirah tiferet and suggests that God cohabits with Israel when they are virtuous while their sinful behavior ruptures that mystical sexual union.41
Lurianic Kabbalah cast Israel in a newer role, viewing the entire people of Israel as a messianic entity charged with the mission of releasing the sparks of divinity encasing the world via the process of tikkun, mending or repairing society. The Hasidic school incorporated this and other motifs and in the HaBaD version of Rabbi Shneor Zalman of Liady, founder of the Lubavitch dynasty, "the nations of the world emanate from the unclean kelipot (shells) which contain no good whatsoever, while Israel possesses a 'Godly soul' rather than an 'animal soul' as is found among the gentiles."42
VI. MODERN REINTERPRETATIONS
With the modern era, the advancement of science, new philosophical schools, and the Enlightenment, the notion of the Chosen People -- along with other basic tenets such as Divine revelation of Scripture and a supernatural Deity -- were subjected to searing criticism. Chosenness seemed to be outdated and embarrassing. Worse, it cast other nations in an invidious light. After all, if one people is chosen doesn't that imply all others are rejected?
The "enlightened" thinkers among European Jews sough to blunt the argument while preserving a remnant of the notion. Moses Mendelssohn, for example, substituted the idea of mission exhorting that Judaism is the "religion of religions" and it must be propagated and taught by Jews to all humans. Geiger followed suit and propounded the notion that Jews have a peculiar "genius" for religion and religious life and it is incumbent upon us to spread the word of God. Even the neo-Orthodox leader, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, propagated the ideal of a Jewish mission. The Reform movement picked up the theme, developing its mission to the gentiles motif but never actually excising the prayer or the idea of chosenness. Instead, it viewed chosenness as God's mandate to Israel to spread His sacred teachings, of monotheism and morality.43 These reinterpretations of the ancient doctrine found deep resonance in the writings of Kaufmann Kohler, Herman Cohen and Leo Baeck. Thus Baeck reflected:
Every people can be chosen for a history, for a share in the history of humanity. Each is a question which God has asked, and each people must answer. But more history has been assigned to this people then to any other people ... The word of the One God penetrated this people from its beginnings.44
Martin Buber viewed the idea of election teleologically, effectively espousing the mission of Israel:
What then is this spirit of Israel of which you are speaking? It is the spirit of fulfillment. Fulfillment of what? Fulfillment of the simple truth that man has been created for a purpose... Our purpose is the upbuilding of peace ... And that is its spirit, the spirit of Israel ... the people of Israel was charged to lead the way to righteousness and justice.45
Abraham Joshua Heschel regarded chosenness as a "spiritual act," for Israel is a "spiritual order" and "in order to be a people we have to be more than a people. Israel was made to be a 'holy people.'" Heschel insisted
We have not chosen God; He has chosen us. There is no concept of a chosen God but there is the idea of a chosen people. The idea of a chosen people does not suggest the preference for a people based upon a discrimination among a number of peoples. We do not say that we are superior people. The "chosen people" means a people approached and chosen by God. The significance of this term is genuine in relation to God rather than in relation to other peoples. It signifies not a quality inherent in the people but a relationship between the people and God.46
Alone among Jewish theologians and philosophers stood Mordecai M. Kaplan in his assault on chosenness and excision of references in the liturgy to the chosen people. He believed the doctrine to be racially tinged and dangerous as a breeder of contempt for others. "The idea of race or national superiority exercises divisive influences generating suspicion and hatred," he wrote already in 1934. Later on, he added that "we cannot assume that Israel must at all times possess that spirit to a higher degree than other people." In his personal diary, he reflected more vitriolicly: "Thank God I had had the courage to go through with the excision of such a cancerous growth from the Jewish consciousness ..." And in a remarkable outburst in class, witnessed by this writer, he heatedly called the doctrine "racism and Nazism" -- much to the outrage of the students. Kaplan carried his theory into practice as he expunged references to the chosen people from his Reconstructionist prayerbook. Thus, he reformulated the blessing upon receiving an honor to the Torah to read:
Blessed are You O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brought us close to His service and gave us His Torah....47
Curiously, many among the new generation of Reconstructionists are urging the restoration of the classic doctrine.48
More recent attempts at redefining the idea of election fall into the category of "Covenant Theology." Thus, Professor Eugene Borowitz muses:
I believe we must supplement human choosing with God's own action if we are to explain to ourselves our fundamental commitment to the continuity of the people of Israel. Yet I believe the traditional view that God "chose us from all peoples and gave us the Torah" clashes too much with our sense of history and reality for us to reaffirm it ... Covenant theology expresses my belief in an enhanced reciprocity between God and people.49
https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/texts/cjrelations/resources/articles/rosenthal.htm
Footnotes:
36. Saadia Gaon, Emunot Ve-Deot II, ll, III, 7 and VII, 3 ed. Rosenblatt (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1948), pp. 126, 158, 267ff.
37. Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed 2:25 & 2:39.
38. Yehudah Halevi, The Kuzari (ed. Zifroni) I, 102-111 & 115, pp. 56-64. Barukh Frydman-Kohl and Lippman Bodoff, op.cit. in n.4, debate whether Halevi was or was not a racist in this matter.
39. Maimonides, Responsa II, 293.
40. Albo, Ikkarim III, 37, pp. 336-351; Maimonides, Introduction to Chapter X of Sanhedrin (ed. Rabinowitz), pp. 147 ff.
41. Zohar III, 17a & b, 73a, 93b; , 159b-160a; llI, 74a-75a & 114a-115b; Isaiah Tishby, Mishnat Ha-Zohar (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1959), I, 231-265; Gershom Scholem, On The Kabbalah on Its Symbolism (N.Y.: Schocken, 1965), pp. 105ff.; idem., Origins of the Kabbalah(Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1987), p 167-169; Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1988), pp. 158-194.
42. G. Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism (N.Y.:Schocken, 1971), pp. 46ff. Tanya, Likkutay Amarim I, 5-11 and especially 6a.
43. Mendelssohn's position is summarized in Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1973), pp. 537-547 and passim. For S.R. Hirsch's stance, see hisHoreb (London: Soncino, 1962), pp. 609f. and The Nineteen Letters on Judaism (New York: Hermon, 1960), pp. 80-81. Geiger's approach is analyzed by Max Wiener in his Abraham Geiger and Liberal Judaism (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1962), pp. 262-264 and passim.
44. Leo Baeck, This People Israel (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1965), p. 402.
45. Martin Buber, Israel and the World (New York: Schocken, 1948), pp. 185-187.
46. Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1956), pp. 423-426.
47. Mordecai M. Kaplan, The Future of the American Jew (New York: MacMillan, 1948), pp. 211 ff.; The Greater Judaism in the Making (New York: The Reconstructionist Press, 1957) pp. 33-40 & 292 ff.; Questions Jews Ask (New York: The Reconstructionist Press, 1956), pp. 204-211. See, too, his Journal entry of April 29, 1941, published by Jack Wertheimer in Conservative Judaism Vol. XLV, No. 4, Summer 1993, pp. 31f. After much debate, the new Reconstructionist prayer book retains the basic position on chosen people but offers several options of traditional texts below the line.
48. On the chosen people concept in the various modern movements in Judaism see my Contemporary Judaism: Patterns of Survival, (New York: Human Sciences Press, 1986), pp. 67 ff., 129 ff., 192 f.; 242-245 and 364 ff.
49. Eugene Borowitz, Renewing the Covenant(Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1991), pp. 144-146, 195-220 and especially 211 ff. David Hartman and Irving Greenberg are also exponents of "Covenant Theology." See Hartman's A Living Covenant (New York: Free Press, 1985), passim. Orthodoxy seems committed to the chosen people idea and while Conservative Judaism accepts it, it has reinterpreted it and stressed the teleological aspect of the notion. See Emet Ve-Emunah, Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism(2nd edition, New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 1990), pp. 33 f.
This concludes the first blog piece on these topics. From the jews down through history we can see a very different stream of thought and where the later thought of being "Chosen" was a late comer and violently opposed by the Jews. Perhaps it was out of desperation from constantly being exiled from countries that the idea became something the later Jews began to fasten themselves to. As far as race goes, the Jews have always considered themselves a nation as the bible states, but not a race.
