Are Jews a race?

MineSubCraftStarved

@Luigi
Being a Jew isn't based on personal religious belief or observance. Rather, it serves as an ethnic group. For example, Albert Einstein is commonly referred to as Jewish, despite this, he was personally agnostic and didn't believe in the Hebrew god at all. For this reason, Albert Einstein cannot be considered Jewish by religious observance, he was a Jew by ancestry. To say why Jews aren't an ethnic group, while Druze, Alawites, Serb, and Croats, Germans, and Arabs are considered their own is baffling to me. Jews have a unique culture, language, and national identity, have a common genetic ancestor, and are thus their own religion

MineSubCraftStarved

This argument was a repetition.

Nomenclature

@MineSubCraftStarved

Being a Jew isn't based on personal religious belief or observance.

Yes it is. Exactly the same thing was explained to you yesterday. Your argument is completely untenable. It leads to you having to explain how Chinese, Nigerians, Arabs, Inuits and white Europeans can all be part of the same ethnic group.

For example, Albert Einstein is commonly referred to as Jewish, despite this, he was personally agnostic and didn't believe in the Hebrew god at all.

Trying to support a bunk argument by referring to other examples of the same bunk argument is circular reasoning. This was also explained to you yesterday.

To say why Jews aren't an ethnic group, while Druze, Alawites, Serb, and Croats, Germans, and Arabs are considered their own is baffling to me.

I don't understand why that is baffling to you. I can convert to Judaism and become a Jew. I can't convert from an Englishman into an Arabian.

Dee

@MineSubCraftStarved Everything you say is a repetition mostly of other peoples words that you plagiarised

Luigi7255

@MineSubCraftStarved

"Being a Jew isn't based on personal religious belief or observance."

Umm... someone who practices Judaism is called a Jew, people who practice Judaism are Jewish, so yes, it is based off of religious belief.

"Rather, it serves as an ethnic group."

See above.

"For example, Albert Einstein is commonly referred to as Jewish, despite this, he was personally agnostic and didn't believe in the Hebrew god at all."

I see two mistakes here. One, Albert Einstein was considered Jewish because of his family's religious belief instead of some kind of hereditary strand which would be indictive of an ethnicity (reminder that around his time was the time of Nazi Germany). Two, Judaism believes in the same god as Christianity and Islam, they all believe in the Abrahamic God.

"For this reason, Albert Einstein cannot be considered Jewish by religious observance, he was a Jew by ancestry."

See above.

"To say why Jews aren't an ethnic group, while Druze, Alawites, Serb, and Croats, Germans, and Arabs are considered their own is baffling to me."

Because they belonged to separate tribes that turned into those ethnic groups. The "Jewish" ethnic group, however, again, is based on religion, I could suddenly declare my belief in Judaism and have children, then those children would suddenly be considered part of an ethnicity.

"Jews have a unique culture, language, and national identity, have a common genetic ancestor, and are thus their own religion."

Yes, yes, no, no, yes. It may seem Israel is a Jew's national identity, but it isn't. A reminder that Jewish people did not live there originally. And, again, followers of Judaism don't have a common genetic ancestor, since it's all based on the religion.

Nomenclature

@MineSubCraftStarved

But saying that most prisoners would be American by nationality would be a true statement.

If members of a community don't share the same ethnic background then they can't be an ethnic group. In which universe do you think this is debatable?

Similar to how saying most Judaic people have Jewish genetics.

There is no such thing as "Jewish genetics". The genetics you claim are "Jewish" are also dominant in Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian Muslims. You can't hijack a DNA profile and claim it belongs to a religion. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

A Jew by definition is someone of Jewish ethnicity.

You're going around in a circle. There's no such thing as Jewish ethnicity because Jews come from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds.

As I have previously explained, Jews are from an ethnic group as they have very close cultural, religious, food, customs, non-religious and religious holidays, language, and ancestral heritage.

And as I previously explained, you're talking absolute, unadulterated rubbish. The only shared cultural heritage Jews have is religious cultural heritage. Eating the same food as someone else doesn't make you an ethnic group. I don't become Italian just because I like pasta.

The concept of Jews as purely a religious concept is an extremely modern one, and has only existed in the past 2-3 centuries, with it gaining traction within the last 50 years.

That's because, thanks to academia and scholarship, most intelligent people are beginning to wake up to the fact that Jews aren't a race. The idea that the Earth revolves around the sun is also a modern concept. That doesn't make it wrong.

You have yet to respond to this point and appear to be running away from the main content of my argument

Don't make me laugh you utter clown. I posted a multitude of photographs of Jews from different ethnic backgrounds, and asked you one simple question: how can Jews be an ethnic group if they all come from different ethnic backgrounds? You've danced and jigged your way around that one simple question for the last two replies.

Multiple times, I have asked your definition of ethnicity and why a Jew can never be of Jewish ethnicity. Respond.

You're asking a rhetorical question. Jews can't be of Jewish ethnicity because there is no Jewish ethnicity. Judaism is a religion which anybody in the entire world can convert to if they like, and that has always been the case. Jewish ethnicity is a myth proliferated by Jews themselves, who take the claims of the Old Testament literally.

The notion that Shlomo Sand pushes, that Jews did not come from Israel, has been proven wrong by numerous genetic studies.

No it hasn't you absolute quivering sphincter. Just consider the sheer absurdity of what you're saying. How can a "genetic study" trace the ancestry of Jews back to a place which no longer exists and, if it did ever exist, existed millennia before genetic studies were even invented? That's so dumb it's literally comical. Someone time-travelled back to the ancient land of Israel, picked up a range of DNA samples from the local population, then came back to the future and compared them with modern Jews? With Jews who we know simply converted to the religion? What a truly comical thing to believe.

What defines a Jew by Judaism is the same thing as what defines a nationality by a country.

Oh just Ziploc your mouth please. I can wake up tomorrow morning and convert to Judaism. I can't wake up tomorrow morning and convert to being French.

in Judaism, if you are born into it you keep it and are still considered a Jew

This conversation is absolutely pointless because you're ignoring everything I write which debunks you, and simply repeating the same claims I debunk.

YOU CAN'T DEFINE A PERSON'S IDENTITY THROUGH THE RELIGIOUS SCRIPTURE OF A RELIGION THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN, you utterly comical clown. I've explained to you once already that Prince Philip doesn't become a god just because the religious leaders of Tanna say he's a god.

I've met some dullards in my time, but Holy Christ.

Dee

@Nomenclature

They broke the mould when they make this imbecile , how can one even knock sense into a cretin who isn't sure if 1+1 =2 or 3?

MineSubCraftStarved

@Luigi7255

Umm... someone who practices Judaism is called a Jew, people who practice Judaism are Jewish, so yes, it is based off of religious belief.

Untrue, a Jew is defined as someone who descends from the kingdom of Judea.
1: a person belonging to a continuation through the descent or conversion of the ancient Jewish people.

One, Albert Einstein was considered Jewish because of his family's religious belief instead of some kind of hereditary strand which would be indicative of an ethnicity (reminder that around his time was the time of Nazi Germany).

Albert Einstein's parents were both secular, and thus by your logic, would not be Jews(even though by most everyone Einstein's parents and himself were both still Jews, despite their irreligiousness).

of secular Ashkenazi German Jewish parents.

Above is the quote from the Jewish Virtual Library, demonstrating that Einstein's parents were themselves not practicing Judaism, and thus since Einstein himself was agnostic, Einstein was not Jewish by religious practice, and thus by your logic, not Jewish. However, this is untrue, why? Because Einstein was still Jewish by ethnicity, he was not German by any measure and did not have German culture, customs ancestry. Instead, he had Hebrew ancestry.

Because they belonged to separate tribes that turned into those ethnic groups. The "Jewish" ethnic group, however, again, is based on religion, I could suddenly declare my belief in Judaism and have children, then those children would suddenly be considered part of an ethnicity.

Jews also started as a separate tribe and are still a tribe today. Hebrews even predate the existence of modern Judaism itself, this is because Hebrews have existed since ancient times as the children of Yaakov. Prior to the Babylonian exile, there wasn't even a notion of a specific religion. It was simply the customs that people practiced at the time. To understand Judaism, you ahve to understand that it began, not as a formal religious doctrine, but as a familial, and thus ethnic tradition of Israel and his sons.
You cannot declare yourself to be Jewish, unlike in Islam and Christianity, you have to undergo a multiple year long process to convert. Even then, you are not a Jew, you are a person of Judaic faith, but not a Jew.
What is also meant by the differentiation between a tribe and an ethnic group?

Yes, yes, no, no, yes. It may seem Israel is a Jew's national identity, but it isn't. A reminder that Jewish people did not live there originally. And, again, followers of Judaism don't have a common genetic ancestor, since it's all based on the religion.

Jews have long had a national identity, even in the Torah, it identifies Hebrews a distinct people, or descendants of Yisrael. Jews did live there originally and it has been proven that Jews have a very strong connection to the middle east. It is not based on religion because one can still be atheist and still be a Jew. For example, during the Soviet Era, despite the persecutions of Jewish religion and the Jewish people as a whole, there still existed a strong Jewish national identity that was distinct from other groups in Russia. Scientists have identified connected Jewish origins to the middle east, supporting a genetic connection. Writings such as those by Theodor Herzl demonstrate the concept of a Jewish identity.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23052947/#&gid=article-figures&pid=fig-1-uid-0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews#Autosomal_DNA
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20531471/

The history of the Hebrew people predates the creation of modern Judaism, Judaism is simply the religion that Jews have, it is a people with a religion, not the other way around, and certainly not just a religion. Furthermore, Jews form their own culture that makes them distinct form other groups. Maimonides was not Arab, or Spanish, he was a Jew, and was culturally, ethnically and linguistically different from both groups. Theodor Herzl was a secular Jew, despite this, he was not ethnically Austrian as he did not have the same culture and genetic origin as native Austrians. Jews are Hebrews, and thus their own unique ethnic group.

@Nomenclature

I don't understand why that is baffling to you. I can convert to Judaism and become a Jew. I can't convert from an Englishman into an Arabian.

No you can't lmao. A Jew is defined as anyone descending from the kingdom of Judea. If you convert to Judiasm, you are a person of Judiac faith, but not a Jew. You can assimilate into Jewish culture, but you will never be a Jew. Similar to how you can assimilate into Arabian culture but you can never be an Arab. The history of the Hebrew people predates even the existence of Judaism, and today there exist other monotheistic religions among the Hebrew people, such as Samaritans and Karaites(both of whom can trace a connection back to the tribes of Israel). Even Hebrew groups that have different religions are still of Hebrew ethnicity, Rabbinical or Modern Judiasm is simply the largest mainstream branch.

Yes it is.

Not according to Judaism. To claim that Judaism is something that depends on observance is bogus. The Torah and the Talmud clearly describes that Jews are given a responsibility in this world that is different from all other peoples. Therefore, since Jews are given a responsibility, they cannot simply 'abandon' their faith and move to another. That's not how Judaism works, and thus you cannot claim that Judaism is just a religion if you don't even understand that, Jewish culture and Jewish national identity.

It leads to you having to explain how Chinese, Nigerians, Arabs, Inuits and white Europeans can all be part of the same ethnic group.

How so? All of those groups are distinct from each other. Meanwhile Jews all share common similarities.

There is no such thing as "Jewish genetics". The genetics you claim are "Jewish" are also dominant in Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian Muslims. You can't hijack a DNA profile and claim it belongs to a religion. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Different genetic studies have stablished unique genetic haplogroups among the major Jewish sub-groups(some of the studies of which I have cited before) thus establishing a common middle eastern origin. While it is true that many other groups share similar genetics, Jews ultimately constitute themselves as a unique ethnic group. This is because Jews have a long rich history, dating even prior to the advent of modern Judaism today. Jews have established nation states, currency, laws, ethics, cultural practices, both religious and non-religious, a language, and national identity. Hebrews even predate the existence of Judaism(Judaism as we know it today only arose after the Babylonian Exile). It wasn't Judaism, AKA, a concrete religious doctrine, it was simply a set of traditions and cultural practices held by the Jews. The history of the Jewish people and it's culture began as a familial or ethnic practice among Yaakov and his sons.

The only shared cultural heritage Jews have is religious cultural heritage. Eating the same food as someone else doesn't make you an ethnic group. I don't become Italian just because I like pasta.

Untrue, Jewish groups generally have similar non-religious practices. Such as the observance of non-religious holidays, like Chanukah and Tisha B'av, neither of which were prescribed by the Torah, and thus are not Jewish by religion in nature. Jews also share a similar culture of studying and charity.
This is exemplified in secular communities of Jews, which lacked religious culture. Despite the non-religious ways of most American Jewish communities and nearly all Soviet Jewish communities, they still managed to maintain these basic ethical practices. Demonstrating how Jewish culture is not only out of religion.
Today, 70% of the Jewish population in America is secular or reform. Neither of which are Jewish by religion. Yet they are still Jews and still consider themselves Jews, demonstrating how Jews also identify themselves nationally, and thus ethnically. Why is your definition of a Jew so much more valid than what most Jews identify themselves as today? What gives you the right to tell them who they are, and what their culture is?

That's because, thanks to academia and scholarship, most intelligent people are beginning to wake up to the fact that Jews aren't a race.

No it isn't. It's the attempt of modern Secular Jewry to assimilate into Western Society and thus avoid anti-Semitism. I never said that Jews are a race, races don't even exist, but Jews constitute a unique ethnic group, and are more distinct than Druze, Alawites, Serbs, Croats, and many other groups.

I posted a multitude of photographs of Jews from different ethnic backgrounds, and asked you one simple question: how can Jews be an ethnic group if they all come from different ethnic backgrounds? You've danced and jigged your way around that one simple question for the last two replies.

Simply because some Jews look different from other Jews doesn't mean much. The vast majority of Jews have strong middle eastern origins and look that way, even in non-middle eastern populations. Jews from China for example, despite having very different genetic origins, they still maintained their cultural and religious link with Israel, and also maintained their own national identity as Jews. For this reason, they are still ethnically Jewish, not Chinese.
For example, my father was ethnically Jewish but was born in Eastern Europe, but my mother converted to Judaism, she is not a Jew, she is Judaic, she is still ethnically Russian but religiously she is Jewish.
My brother looks Eastern European, and I look middle-eastern/Mediterranean(I've sometimes passed as being from South America or Spain).
I would say that most of my cultural ethics and traditions originate from Jewish ones, although I do speak quite a bit of Russian and eat quite a lot of Russian foods, I still identify more closely with my Jewish ethnicity.
What ethnic group am I then? Russian or Jewish, or a mix of both?
My father was mostly certainly not considered to be Eastern European, he easily passed as a Jew and frequently faced huge bouts of anti-Semitism about it. Like his parents before him, he didn't practice Judaism, he didn't do Bar Mitzvah, and he didn't know any Hebrew. Yet he was a Jew because he was a Jew by culture and by national identity.
I think the most despicable form of anti-Semitism is the denial of the existence of a Jewish people. Jews have existed for millennia with a national identity, and will continue to live.
If I am to be considered completely ethnically Eastern European or Russian, why is that? What makes someone part of an ethnic group? What defines an ethnicity? You have failed to answer this question every single time I have asked it every since we started this debate.

Jews can't be of Jewish ethnicity because there is no Jewish ethnicity. Judaism is a religion which anybody in the entire world can convert to if they like, and that has always been the case. Jewish ethnicity is a myth proliferated by Jews themselves, who take the claims of the Old Testament literally.

The claims of the Old Testament constitute the foundation of the Jewish religion... thus if a Hebrew people or Israelite people are identified there, than Jewish religion supports the existence of a common Hebrew ethnic group. This isn't taking the claims of the Old Testament egregiously, the concept of a Jewish person by blood has been support countless in times in the Torah. For example, a Brit Milah, which binds Jews to god(and thus by religion) still leaves the person as an ethnic Jew. And the Torah supports this.

Don't make me laugh you utter clown. I posted a multitude of photographs of Jews from different ethnic backgrounds, and asked you one simple question: how can Jews be an ethnic group if they all come from different ethnic backgrounds? You've danced and jigged your way around that one simple question for the last two replies.

What is meant by ethnic background? Phenotype? Genotype? Culture? Language? Identity? You still have yet to define ethnicity in any way.

How can a "genetic study" trace the ancestry of Jews back to a place which no longer exists and, if it did ever exist, existed millennia before genetic studies were even invented? That's so dumb it's literally comical. Someone time-travelled back to the ancient land of Israel, picked up a range of DNA samples from the local population, then came back to the future and compared them with modern Jews? With Jews who we know simply converted to the religion?

Israel still does exist my guy, and so does the landmass on which it is situated. Evidence of a common connection between Jews and lack of conversion and assimilation is the fact that most Jewish groups share a common ancestry to the middle east. Jews also share a common ancestry with those in Lebanon and Syria, meaning that there exists a common levant ancestry between Jews and other in the Levant.

I can wake up tomorrow morning and convert to Judaism. I can't wake up tomorrow morning and convert to being French.

Lol no. Conversion to Judaism is a long and grueling ordeal, and those that even convert are Judaic, not Jewish.

This conversation is absolutely pointless because you're ignoring everything I write which debunks you, and simply repeating the same claims I debunk.
YOU CAN'T DEFINE A PERSON'S IDENTITY THROUGH THE RELIGIOUS SCRIPTURE OF A RELIGION THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN

Just like I can't define a person's citizenship even if they identify with another country. Except whoops, yes I can.

Throughout the Tanach, we find Jews breaking every facet of their covenant with G‑d, joining and forming all sorts of idolatrous cults and heathen practices. Yet when the prophets chide them, they are called “My people, Israel.”
The Talmud focuses in particular on the precedent of a notorious character named Achan, who appears in the story of the fall of Jericho.2 “Israel has sinned,” exclaims G‑d. “They have transgressed My covenant that I commanded them.” Yet in the story’s narration we discover that the lone sinner is Achan, who took from the spoils of Jericho. The Talmud points out that nevertheless Achan is considered “Israel,” and remarks, “Israel, although he has sinned, is still Israel.”

This is from a verified Jewish religious source, Chabad. This demonstrates how even when Jews convert they are still Jews, they are still Yeledim Meen Yisrael, or Children of Israel.
If I don't believe in Mexican law, and I say I renounce my citizenship, I am still a citizen of Mexico as I am not allowed to renounce it. Similar to in Judaism.
I may not believe in the Mexican constitution, but I am still Mexican in this analogy.

I don't understand why that is baffling to you.
In which universe do you think this is debatable?
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
you're talking absolute, unadulterated rubbish.
Don't make me laugh you utter clown.
No it hasn't you absolute quivering sphincter.
Just consider the sheer absurdity of what you're saying.
That's so dumb it's literally comical.
What a truly comical thing to believe.
This conversation is absolutely pointless
you utterly comical clown.
I've met some dullards in my time, but Holy Christ.

Above are a list of a huge amounts of ad-hominem personal attacks and fallacies.

Nomenclature

@MineSubCraftStarved

No you can't lmao. A Jew is defined as anyone descending from the kingdom of Judea.

No, a Jew is defined as anybody who converts to the religion of Judaism. What you are writing is sheer, unadulterated nonsense, and babbling for 10,000 words because you think the length of your trash posts gives them some form of validity, is a fine testament to your absolute lack of understanding about how objective reality works. It is not physically possible to accurately trace a person's lineage all the way back to a kingdom which there is no firm historical evidence even existed and, if it did exist, existed thousands of years ago. Your claim is absolute trash, it is derived from the rantings of religious demagogues, and it has been debunked by countless academics and scholars.

If you convert to Judiasm, you are a person of Judiac faith, but not a Jew.

Jew (noun): one whose religion is Judaism

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Jew

You can assimilate into Jewish culture, but you will never be a Jew.

Everything you write is self-evidently wrong and absurd in equal measure.

Similar to how you can assimilate into Arabian culture but you can never be an Arab

No, not similar, because you are using a false analogy between a religion (i.e. Judaism) and a geographical area (i.e. Arabia). The correct analogy is between Judaism and Islam. I can convert to Judaism and become a Jew and I can convert to Islam and become a Muslim.

The history of the Hebrew people predates even the existence of Judaism

No, it does not. The earliest records of the Hebrew people are found in the Hebrew Bible, a religious scripture.

and today there exist other monotheistic religions among the Hebrew people, such as Samaritans and Karaites(both of whom can trace a connection back to the tribes of Israel)

For the second or third time, nobody can trace their lineage back to the tribes of Israel. What you are proposing is not possible, because it would require going back to ancient Israel, collecting DNA samples from its local population and comparing them to modern samples. You are making ludicrous statements supported by absolutely nothing except hot air. Most reputable scholars agree that Israel, if it did in fact exist, was a very small kingdom, with a very small population:-

A number of archaeologists have noted that evidence for King David's supposedly vast kingdom is scarce. Jerusalem appears to have been sparsely populated around 3,000 years ago

https://www.livescience.com/55774-ancient-israel.html

Meanwhile Jews all share common similarities.

No, they do not. You know this is not true because I have already demonstrated it to you. I have shown you photographs of African Jews, Chinese Jews, European Jews, and even Inuit Jews. When you are objectively wrong and you simply ignore that fact and continue making the same claim which has been proven wrong it makes communication a pointless endeavour. The only similarities shared between Jews is a religious culture, because it is this religious culture which defines Jewishness.

Albert Einstein's parents were both secular, and thus by your logic, would not be Jews

It is not by my logic. It is an objective fact that Jewishness is not hereditary. There is literally another thread open on this very board in which a qualified biologist makes that absolutely clear:-

To be a race Jews would have to have been isolated from other populations. However, they never avoided crossbreeding and converted many non-Jews. In other words, from Day One Jews have married non-Jews, and therefore there is no way to genetically characterize them as a race. Nevertheless, many people find it difficult to accept the ideas that Judaism is not hereditary, but a religion, and that Jews who abandon the Jewish faith, whether they adopt another religion or none at all, are no longer Jews.

https://www.debateisland.com/discussion/8931/the-myth-of-the-jewish-race-still-persists-why

You are objectively wrong and clearly have no intention of being persuaded by reason or logic.

The Torah and the Talmud clearly describes that Jews are given a responsibility in this world that is different from all other peoples. Therefore, since Jews are given a responsibility, they cannot simply 'abandon' their faith

Were you dropped on the head as a baby? The Jewish religion does not dictate to the rest of the world what objective reality is, you absolute, utter fool. It does not get to decide for other people whether they believe in God, and it does not get to call them Jews after they abandon what made them Jews.

How so?

How so? Because all of the listed groups have Jewish populations you buffoon.

Different genetic studies have stablished unique genetic haplogroups among the major Jewish sub-groups(some of the studies of which I have cited before) thus establishing a common middle eastern origin.

The exact same unique genetic haplogroups can be found among each and every population which has lived in the same geographical area for any length of time, because that's how genetics works. It has absolutely nothing to do with being Jewish. Read my lips: Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent.

Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2014.00462/full

Israel's Rabbis Think Genetic Testing Can 'Prove' Jewishness. They're Wrong

The Israeli rabbinate, pushing DNA tests, has fallen into the trap of 19th century racial science: Jewishness is an identity, not a genetic construct – and it can't be measured in a lab.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-04-29/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israels-rabbis-think-genetic-testing-can-prove-jewishness-theyre-wrong/0000017f-e5ed-d62c-a1ff-fdff15d90000

The sheer irony of you using Hitler's debunked theories about racial eugenics to argue that Jews are a race should not be lost.

The claims of the Old Testament constitute the foundation of the Jewish religion... thus if a Hebrew people or Israelite people are identified there, than Jewish religion supports the existence of a common Hebrew ethnic group.

Exactly how many times must the same thing be explained to you before it sinks into your rock thick skull? The claims made by a religion cannot be used as evidence of the claims of the religion. That's circular reasoning. Just because religious Jews say something is true, does not make it true.

Look, I'm not even reading the rest of your long-winded trash. I can't be bothered because you don't listen to reason, pay no attention when you're debunked, and everything you write is absurdly false.

Dee

@MineSubCraftStarved

Absolutely astounding you are now arguing against Israeli government definitions of who is and isn't a Jew there is no debating with a raging lunatic like you. The state of Israel disagrees with you and now you're saying even they're wrong in their rulings ......Unbelievable

Who is Jew?

A Jew is one who practices the Jewish religion, Judaism. This includes both converts those who have been members of the Jewish religion since birth. Converts to Judaism (Orthodox, Reform, or Conservative denominations—not secular—though Reform and Conservative conversions must take place outside the state, similar to civil marriages).According to the halakhic definition, a person is Jewish if his or her mother is Jewish, or if he or she converts to Judaism

but my mother converted to Judaism, she is not a Jew,

According to Israeli law she is you raging imbecile .....

A Jew is one who practices the Jewish religion, Judaism. This includes both converts those who have been members of the Jewish religion since birth

According to the halakhic definition, a person is Jewish if his or her mother is Jewish, or if he or she converts to Judaism

MineSubCraftStarved

@Nomenclature

No, a Jew is defined as anybody who converts to the religion of Judaism.

I already made a distinction between the semantical differences that you can make between a Jew and a Hebrew in my opening argument. If you want to say that Jews are simply defined as a religious group, you are welcome to, but to deny that there isn't an ethnicity associated with Judaism(IE, Hebrews) is inaccurate. What defines an ethnicity has most consistently a common national identity and culture. As you already pointed out, nearly all Hebrew have very similar genetic structures when compared to other middle eastern groups, thus it would be inaccurate to distinguish Jews as an ethnicity based on genetics at least in the context of other middle eastern populations. And since Hebrews are an ethnic group, you can't convert to them.

Jew (noun): one whose religion is Judaism

The rest of the definitions of a Jew.
1: a person belonging to a continuation through descent or conversion of the ancient Jewish people

3a: a member of the tribe of Judah

b: ISRAELITE

4: a member of a nation existing in Palestine from the sixth century BC to the first century AD
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The majority of the definitions regarding Jews identify Jews as a nation and/or people, and thus an ethnic group. The first most definition of a Jew and the overall majority of the definitions listed do support the idea of Jews as an ethnic group. Look, this is just semantics, it's irrelevant whether you define the word "Jew" by religion or ethnicity. However, to say that there isn't an ethnic group connected or associated with Judaism is inaccurate. Today many ethnic groups are defined as associated with a particular religious sect. Such as Druze and Alawites, or the separation between Croats and Serbs that occurred over religious differences. You have yet to address this point the last half dozen times I have made it, ethnicities can and do exist with religions.

No, it does not. The earliest records of the Hebrew people are found in the Hebrew Bible, a religious scripture.

Samaritans and Karaism are all different forms of religion based on the Hebrew Bible. As stated, rabbinical Judaism or modern Judaism didn't even exist until following the destruction of the second temple. Even during Roman times, there wasn't a concise religion of Judaism, instead, there were different varying factions that each had their own effective religion, those being the Pharisees(Rabbinical Jews), Sadducees(Karaites), and Zealots. Despite these religious differences, there was still a common Jewish or Hebrew identity, and they referred to themselves as that before, during, and after the aforementioned periods. The Hebrew people have survived independent of religious differences.

For the second or third time, nobody can trace their lineage back to the tribes of Israel. What you are proposing is not possible, because it would require going back to ancient Israel, collecting DNA samples from its local population and comparing them to modern samples. You are making ludicrous statements supported by absolutely nothing except hot air.

Such an inane proposition. The lineage between Israel and the middle east can be seen through historical sources such as the Torah and Tanakh. It clearly demonstrates how Hebrews were descended from Iraq, and thus the middle east... Further genetic admixture in the Jewish population only occurred between other middle-eastern groups, such as Phoenicians and Canaanites, making Jews a mix of Levant and Mesopotamian groups from scholarly standpoints, which goes with the significant similarity of ancient Canaanite human remains and Jewish populations today. Thus the middle-eastern genetics in various Jewish diaspora groups almost unequivocally demonstrates the connection between ancient Israel and modern Jewish populations. Unless of course there was a very odd and coincidental event where immigration of another Levantine population in the Mediterranean then converted to Judaism. However the former seems the more logical option, thus, Jews today descend from ancient Israel.
You can also look at the Y-chromosome of Jews and see that they are similar to those of Arabs, which points to a common middle eastern ancestor between Jewish groups to Abraham(as Arabs descend from Ishmael, who was the son of Abraham) and Aaron, meaning that they are the same Hebrews as they were 3000 years ago.

I have shown you photographs of African Jews, Chinese Jews, European Jews, and even Inuit Jews.

First of all, your first image showed a group of Igbo people, who are converts to Judaism, and thus not Jews. Secondly, most Jews do look similar, also, what is a European Jew? The majority of Jews(both in Europe and MENA) do look similar and resemble characteristics typical of middle-eastern populations(look at the images here). Thirdly, Chinese Jews are still presumably culturally Jewish, and thus they are Jewish by ethnicity.
Take a look at the following images:

The girl in the picture is of Arab ethnicity.
Sudans Omar al-Bashir in stable condition Source

The man in this picture is also of Arab ethnicity

The person in this picture again constitutes Arab ethnicity.
The people above are of the same ethnicity despite widely differing physical appearances.
I feel this debate is turning into a typical Quora argument, where people post images to determine ethnicity and structure arguments around rather than actual facts, studies, and data.

Jews is a religious culture, because it is this religious culture which defines Jewishness.

I have already demonstrated many cultural aspects that are unique to Jews and are not defined by Judaism. Furthermore, many cultures today derive their culture from ancient religions. The culture of Arabia is mainly a mix of ancient Arab Paganism and Islam. The culture of the Mandaeans is defined by their religion. The culture of Assyrians today has been defined by religion, with a mix of Syriac Christianity, Sunni Islam, and ancient Assyrian religion. The culture of Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks are all distinguished by religious differences.

It is not by my logic. It is an objective fact that Jewishness is not hereditary. There is literally another thread open on this very board in which a qualified biologist makes that absolutely clear:

While I do concede that Jewishness is not hereditary(with the exception of Ashkenazi Jews, as they originated from a group of 350 people, and now number around 10 million, and as such are genetically close and can be identified by geneticists today), at least in the context of other middle eastern populations. That is not the only thing that defines Jewishness, Druze, Alawites, Arabs, Assyrians and Hebrews are all part of the same general genetic geographic area. Despite this, and their similar religions and languages. They consider each other fundamentally different ethnic groups as they have different cultures and national identities. A qualified biologist also has no say on what defines a Jew from a religious standpoint.

The Jewish religion does not dictate to the rest of the world what objective reality is, you absolute, utter fool. It does not get to decide for other people whether they believe in God, and it does not get to call them Jews after they abandon what made them Jews... The claims made by a religion cannot be used as evidence of the claims of the religion. That's circular reasoning. Just because religious Jews say something is true, does not make it true.

And ignoring what Judaism defines as a Jew does not make your definition of a Jew right. You still have Mexican citizenship even if you don't consider yourself Mexican, similar to how you are still a Jew even if you consider yourself to be part of a different group. Judaism isn't based on observance or belief(as you claim they are), and good luck finding a reliable rabbinical source that states otherwise. Atheists are still considered Jewish and consider themselves Jewish typically. Since Judaism isn't based on observance, converting to Islam or Christianity doesn't mean you convert out of Judaism, you can't do that. As stated previously, in Mexico you can't renounce your citizenship, so even if you get, for example, French citizenship, you still have Mexican citizenship. Just like with conversion from Judaism to another religion.
Regardless, your focusing on a minute part of my argument that simply states that Judaism supports the idea of a Jewish ethnic group. I have already addressed other multiple ways that Jews are ethnic groups, principally a common national identity that is especially prevalent in Jewish literature and culture overall.

The sheer irony of you using Hitler's debunked theories about racial eugenics to argue that Jews are a race should not be lost.

Sighs.
How MANY times do I have to tell you that I never stated Jews were a race and that the idea of race altogether I already acknowledged is arbitrary is pseudo-scientific?

Please answer me this, I have asked these questions during the entirety of this debate, and you have NEVER answered it in a concise manner:

What defines an ethnicity? How do you define an ethnic group, and how do Jews not fit that definition?

I have defined ethnicity and demonstrated how Jews are an ethnic group as they have a common culture, language, and history.

JulesKorngold

Argument Topic: Some well-known Jewish atheists:

Woody Allen
Moshe Dayan
Yitzhak Rabin
Golda Meir
David Ben-Gurion
Stanley Kubrick
Rodney Dangerfield
Randy Newman
Larry King
Howard Stern
Arthur Miller
Isaac Asimov
Yuval Noah Harari
Franz Kafka
Primo Levi
Ayn Rand
Carl Sagan
Marvin Minsky
Norbert Wiener
Richard Feynman
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Sam Harris
Christopher Hitchens
David Silverman (current president of American Atheists who eats kosher food made by his Jewish mother)
Herman Kahn
Erich Fromm

And thousands more...too many to list.

Nomenclature

@MineSubCraftStarved

I already made a distinction between the semantical differences that you can make between a Jew and a Hebrew in my opening argument.

Your "distinction" is a fantasy and your "argument" is nonsense. Hebrews don't exist in the present any more than Sumerians, or Canannites. Will you please stop writing such long-winded rubbish?

If you want to say that Jews are simply defined as a religious group, you are welcome to, but to deny that there isn't an ethnicity associated with Judaism(IE, Hebrews) is inaccurate.

It is completely accurate and a matter of simple common sense, which you are severely lacking in. There are Jewish members of every ethnic group on planet Earth, so to try to push together dozens of different ethnic groups and claim all the Jews within them share an ethnicity is nothing short of absurd. It's ridiculous. How can black African Jews, Chinese Jews and white European Jews all belong to the same ethnic group?

Yes, it is true that Jews associate themselves with the ancient tribes of Israel, but that was the distant past before Judaism spread to other parts of the world through migration, marriage and conversion. Time does not stand still and what may have been true three thousand years ago is no longer true today. Obviously.

What defines an ethnicity has most consistently a common national identity and culture.

The only shared culture among Jews is religious culture, as I've patiently explained to you four or five times already. The culture linking West African Jews with Japanese Jews is religious culture. These Jews belong to separate ethnic groups, not the same ethnic group. Obviously.

The people above are of the same ethnicity despite widely differing physical appearances

Oh, Holy mother of God. Chinese people and White Europeans are not part of the same ethnic group. How is that difficult for you to understand? Which part of your brain is malfunctioning so severely that you cannot understand such a simple, unequivocal truth? Even if what you are saying were true -- which it very clearly isn't -- it would apply equally to Christians and Muslims. Christians all share a common culture, and they can equally trace their national identity back to a specific area of the world, so by the exact same logic Christians are an ethnic group!

I have yet to hear you make an argument about any topic which is not entirely ridiculous. Obviously Jews are not a race, and the only way you could call them an ethnic group is if your definition of ethnic group is so loose as to encompass all the other religious groups, defeating the entire purpose of your argument.

jack

Argument Topic: I think the most despicable form of anti-Semitism is the denial of the existence of a Jewish people.

@MineSubCraftStarved

Hello Lantzman:

BINGO! The above is the sole reason I entered this debate 6 long years ago with the SAME antisemites, who continue to DENY they're antisemites.. You, however, are much better at it than me.

excon

Nomenclature

@jack

BINGO! The above is the sole reason I entered this debate 6 long years ago with the SAME antisemites

Don't make me cringe. It is simply a matter of fact that Jews are neither a race nor a people. They are the followers of a religion.

It always comes back to the same thing with you: agree with me or you hate Jews.

I don't agree with you because you are objectively wrong, and your disgusting efforts at emotional blackmail only expose you as the scumbag you are.

JulesKorngold

Argument Topic: The Simple Answer

Jews can be considered a race, an ethnicity, and a religion.

In terms of race, there is no biological or genetic definition of Jewishness. However, many Jews have shared physical characteristics and a common ancestry, so some people consider Jews to be a race in a cultural or sociological sense.

In terms of ethnicity, Jews share a common cultural heritage, history, language (Hebrew), and social and economic practices. Jewishness is passed down from parent to child, and Jews often consider themselves to be part of a distinct ethnic group.

In terms of religion, Judaism is a monotheistic faith that is based on the belief in one God and the adherence to religious laws and traditions as recorded in the Hebrew Bible and other texts. While not all Jews consider themselves religious, and there is significant diversity among Jews in terms of religious practice and belief, many Jews do identify as Jews primarily through their religious affiliation.

So, Jewish identity can encompass aspects of race, ethnicity, and religion, and the way in which a particular Jew understands their Jewish identity can vary.

Dee

Why do Jews watch porn backwards?

Because their favourite part is when the hooker gives the money back

Nomenclature

@JulesKorngold

Not even Jews agree with you.

Jews Are Not a Race

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2012-06-14/ty-article/jews-are-not-a-race-but-a-nation/0000017f-f735-ddde-abff-ff758cf80000

MineSubCraftStarved

@Nomenclature
I am curious now, why is it so important for you to state that Hebrews do not exist? What do you have at stake here?
I'm gonna ask this for the umpteenth time:

What defines an ethnicity? And why can't modern day Hebrews/Jews/whatever-you-want-to-call-us identify as an ethnic group as you defined it?

Hebrews don't exist in the present any more than Sumerians, or Canaanites.

Reality TV gif An irritated Simon Cowell as a judge on American Idol does a facepalm of sorts as he rubs his eyes

Incorrect, it can be easily demonstrated how most Hebrews today are similar to the Hebrews 3000 years ago. Despite millennia in separation, the major Hebrew groups share distinctly similar genetic commonalities, indicating a common origin from the middle east. For example, Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardic Jews, the main two Hebrew diaspora groups, both share very similar genetics, with both having over 80% having on average the same Y-chromosomes. Indicating a very close relationship to ancient Israelites. This of course begs the question, to what extent is this chromosome representative of ancient Jews?
Well, in Jewish religious law, it is emphasized that Kohanim must only marry other Jews and maintain a paternal connection. Thus, the y-gene of Kohanim 3000 years ago will be very similar to the one today as Hebrews for most of history have been rather religious, and likely would not have intermixed with other gene groups. The consistency of this specific y-gene among Kohanim(over 98%) indicates that this gene originates from the ancient Hebrews, and thus, Hebrews today have a very strong connection to the Hebrews 3000 years ago, indicating a current presence of Hebrews today.
Hebrews exist as much as Persians, Arabs, Copts, Berbers and Assyrians exist today. Furthermore, modern-day Hebrews have managed to maintain many cultural practices, both religious and non-religious, such as the celebration of Chanukah, the partial speaking of Hebrew, ethics such as an emphasis on studying, etc. Furthermore, modern day Hebrews today do have a national Israelite or Hebrew identity, and in many languages, such as Russian, the term "Hebrew" is most commonly used instead of the word "Jew", indicating ethnic rather than religious association.
I'm not saying the Hebrews today are the same Hebrews 3000 years ago, cultures evolve and ethnicities aren't set in stone, and are fundamentally purely societal concepts. But those who claim to be Hebrews today share remarkable similarities with the ancient Hebrews 3000 years ago.
Read up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron
https://www.jns.org/opinion/myth-vs-fact-are-todays-jews-the-descendants-of-ancient-israelites/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews#Autosomal_DNA
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20531471/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23052947/
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/genetics-and-the-jews
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/dna-from-biblical-canaanites-lives-modern-arabs-jews

There are Jewish members of every ethnic group on planet Earth, so to try to push together dozens of different ethnic groups and claim all the Jews within them share an ethnicity is nothing short of absurd. It's ridiculous. How can black African Jews, Chinese Jews and white European Jews all belong to the same ethnic group?

If Jew is defined as pure adherence to the religion of Judaism (it is usually defined as an ethnic group, but again, semantics), as stated previously, there has been and still exists an ethnic group associated with the vast majority of Jews today, I.E, Hebrews.

Yes, it is true that Jews associate themselves with the ancient tribes of Israel, but that was the distant past before Judaism spread to other parts of the world through migration, marriage and conversion. Time does not stand still and what may have been true three thousand years ago is no longer true today. Obviously.

Untrue that it was in the distant past. Hebrews and Jews today worldwide still associate themselves with the ancient Israelites, and genetic testing has proven huge ancestry between ancient Israelites and modern day Hebrews.
It is also laughably incorrect to state that Judaism actively converted and married local populations. For example, Ashkenazi Jews, that historically lived in eastern Europe, and the general pale of settlement region for well over 500 years, and Sephardi Jews, that have lived in North Africa for over 600 years, both have differing genetics that doesn't resemble the genetics of their host populations.

The only shared culture among Jews is religious culture, as I've patiently explained to you four or five times already.

If you want to define Jews as purely a religion, then sure. But that is not how it is typically defined, and most definitions of Jew constitute ethnic ones, as proven previously. I've also patiently described countless non-religious practices held by Jews today. I have patiently explained this, for you to only go on repeating endlessly that Jews only have a shared religious culture.

Even if what you are saying were true -- which it very clearly isn't -- it would apply equally to Christians and Muslims. Christians all share a common culture, and they can equally trace their national identity back to a specific area of the world, so by the exact same logic Christians are an ethnic group!

They wouldn't since there isn't a common or national identity, culture, language, among Christians and Muslims. Nor does there exist a common ancestor from which the vast majority of Muslims or Christians can be identified towards.

Nomenclature

@MineSubCraftStarved

I am curious now, why is it so important for you to state that Hebrews do not exist? What do you have at stake here?

Clearly, you are suffering from some sort of mental health problem.

why can't modern day Hebrews/Jews/whatever-you-want-to-call-us identify as an ethnic group as you defined it?

Ah, well thanks for revealing which one of us has the bias. You want to consider yourself Jewish, so you're perpetuating a mythology that Jews are something other than the followers of a religion. Very dishonest.

Also very dishonest is your pretense that I haven't answered your question half a dozen times already. You can't take people who belong to 15 different ethnic groups and claim they are all the same ethnicity because they worship the same God. That's intellectually redundant.

Incorrect, it can be easily demonstrated how most Hebrews today are similar to the Hebrews 3000 years ago.

I am not incorrect, and since I explained that Hebrews no longer exist, you need to stop pretending that you have shown otherwise.

Despite millennia in separation, the major Hebrew groups share distinctly similar genetic commonalities, indicating a common origin from the middle east. For example, Ashkenazi Jews

Again, you are spectacularly ignoring the fact that Hebrews no longer exist. Ashkenazi Jews are not Hebrews. They are converts to Judaism. See:-

Dr Eran Elhaik of the University of Sheffield used a computer modelling system to convert Ashkenazi Jewish DNA - the Jewish communities historically located in Europe - data into geographical information, which revealed that 90 percent of Ashkenazi Jews descend from the Greeks, Iranians and others who colonised northern Anatolia (now northern Turkey) more than 2,000 years ago before converting to Judaism.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ashkenazi-jews-descended-ancient-turkey-new-research

Sephardic Jews

Sephardic Jews are not Hebrews either. They are converts to Judaism from Spain and Portugal. See:-

Sephardic Jews (Sephardim) are descendants of the Jews who lived in Spain and Portugal from the last days of the Roman Empire until the 15th-century persecution and expulsion of Jews from those countries.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Sephardic-Jews.html

So you've failed at the very first hurdle in your quest to "easily" demonstrate "how most Hebrews today are similar to the Hebrews 3000 years ago", and have only lent support for my factually correct statement that Hebrews no longer exist. Thank you.

With both having over 80% having on average the same Y-chromosomes

Oh wow. Yes, that's clearly irrefutable evidence that Jews are a racial group.

Oh, hold on. Wait a minute. No.

Chimps, Humans 96 Percent the Same, Gene Study Finds

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/chimps-humans-96-percent-the-same-gene-study-finds

So Jews are less genetically similar to each other than humans are to chimps. Clearly, you've outdone yourself with this revelation.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/dna-from-biblical-canaanites-lives-modern-arabs-jews

All of your links are trash, but I'm just using this as an example of the fact that you don't appear to have any understanding about what you have linked. This is an article about how Canaanite DNA, which is regional specific, found its way into the modern populations of those same regions. It has absolutely zero correlation to the idea that Jews are a racial group. Zero.

Since everything you write is wrong, long-winded and dumb, I won't be wasting any more time on this particular post. Feel free to continue writing trash, but I'll almost certainly treat it with an equal amount of contempt.

MineSubCraftStarved

@Nomenclature

Clearly, you are suffering from some sort of mental health problem.

Likewise. Such an eloquent response to my totally flawed argument. I'm running in terror at the moment

. Funny how you run from questions that challenge your world view.

You want to consider yourself Jewish, so you're perpetuating a mythology that Jews are something other than the followers of a religion.

We already clarified for the sake of the argument that Jews define adherents of Judaism, while Hebrews were or are an ethnic group associated with said religion. If that's how we define these terms than I agree, Jews are followers of Judaism, but the question of contention is whether or not there is an ethnic group associated with Judaism, and those being Hebrews. I've clarified this countless time and even in my opening argument, ultimately, whether or not the word "Jew" refers to an ethnic or religious group is irrelevant and purely semantical.

Also very dishonest is your pretense that I haven't answered your question half a dozen times already.

Not once throughout this entire debate have you given a definition of ethnicity, a question from which you have repeatedly run away from. I'd be glad that you'd prove me wrong and demonstrate an understanding of what ethnicity means, but you have yet to do so. You can't claim a group is or isn't an ethnic group unless you define what an ethnic group even is in the first place.

I am not incorrect, and since I explained that Hebrews no longer exist, you need to stop pretending that you have shown otherwise.

You haven't explained anything. Whenever I make an argument for the existence of Hebrews, you carry on with the same rubbish that Hebrews simply don't, without demonstrating how this is the case. I have proven how Hebrews today exist, both genetically, culturally and linguistically. Therefore you have the burden of proof regarding the existence of Hebrews.

Again, you are spectacularly ignoring the fact that Hebrews no longer exist. Ashkenazi Jews are not Hebrews. They are converts to Judaism. See:-
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ashkenazi-jews-descended-ancient-turkey-new-research

A laughably incorrect statement, both by historical and genetic accounts. Your source is also rather ridiculous. It gave no genetic evidence to suggest that Ashkenazi Jews are today genetically Anatolian, and simply derived a connection between Ashkenazi Jews and a few towns and Ashkenazic population centers in Turkey. It is also linguistically absurd that Yiddish, a dialect of German originating from central Europe, somehow started in the Turkic-speaking land of Anatolia. Your "source" gave absolutely no genetic evidence that Ashkenazi Hebrews originate outside the middle east. As seen in the multiple sources I gave before, which you failed to address, modern Ashkenazim share a very strong connection with the middle east. Ashkenazi Jews were typically found in the Rhineland during their early history, and the term "Ashkenaz", literally means in Hebrew, Germany, rather than Turkey or Anatolia.
Another bit of evidence dispelling a supposed historical connection of Ashkenazi Hebrews to Anatolia:

About half of Jewish people around the world today identify as Ashkenazi, meaning that they descend from Jews who lived in Central or Eastern Europe. The term was initially used to define a distinct cultural group of Jews who settled in the 10th century in the Rhineland in western Germany.

As already stated previously, modern Hebrews, including Ashkenazi Hebrews, have demonstrated a connection to the ancient Hebrew people through the demonstration of a paternal link. The idea of Ashkenazi Hebrews descending from Turkic converts is absurd, and your article didn't link any genetic study to support such a conclusion.
Ashkenazi Jews, like all other groups of Jews that lived in Europe, did have some significant admixture with European populations. Despite this, Hebrews, both Sephardic and Ashkenazic have retained a primary and very strong connection to the levant.
Here are two more studies regarding autosomal DNA structures for your liking:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2797531/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3585000/

Sephardic Jews are not Hebrews either. They are converts to Judaism from Spain and Portugal. See:-
https://www.gotquestions.org/Sephardic-Jews.html

Your own website doesn't even support the idea of Sephardic Jews originating purely or mostly from Iberian converts... If anything, the opposite was true, especially during the Spanish Inquisition, but also previously, Jews were forced into conversion to Islam or Christianity, and thus integration outside of Hebrew society, rather than the opposite occurring.
page killer GIF

You fail to find even any reliable sites that support your wild assertions of Jews descending from converts today, and instead have to be poking around Christian religious sites.
As I already demonstrated previously, Sephardic Jews have a very strong paternal connection to that of the ancient Hebrews. Which directly contradicts your claim that Sephardic Jews are primarily made up of Iberian converts..

So Jews are less genetically similar to each other than humans are to chimps. Clearly, you've outdone yourself with this revelation.

Errr.... no.
Modern Human populations are around 99.9% similar to each other on average. So being around, for example, 80% ethnically German, would in actuality probably amount to an even for higher connection then 99.9% of a genetic connection to other Germans from a general standpoint. Being 70% Japanese or being 45% Iranian is simply meant to exhibit the very small genetic differences between human ethnic groups.

All of your links are trash

LOL, then demonstrate how this is the case...

This is an article about how Canaanite DNA, which is regional specific, found its way into the modern populations of those same regions.

Yet despite millennia away from the land of Canaan, Hebrews still have a strong connection to the land.
Another link:
Moroccan and Ashkenazi Jews had a roughly 70 and 60 percent contribution.
And yes, the fact that Canaanite DNA is found in modern populations in the Levant, such as modern Hebrews, as stated by the article, is evidence that current Hebrew populations today are still descendants of the ancient Hebrews 3000 years ago. By admitting that Canaanite DNA is found in modern populations of the levant demonstrates how modern Hebrews, such as those that emigrated to Israel, are still descendants of the ancient Israelites. Since if they weren't, why would they have such a close genetic connection?

It has absolutely zero correlation to the idea that Jews are a racial group. Zero.

For the thousandth time, I have never once claimed modern Hebrews were a racial group.

Since everything you write is wrong, long-winded and dumb, I won't be wasting any more time on this particular post. Feel free to continue writing trash, but I'll almost certainly treat it with an equal amount of contempt.

Keep running.

Nomenclature

@MineSubCraftStarved

Likewise

No, not likewise. Only one of us is suffering from a mental health problem. I have systematically and consistently refuted everything you have written, yet you continue to write huge essays of complete trash in response, loaded from top to bottom with fallacy and mythology. Every time I disprove something you have written, you nonchalantly pretend the exact opposite has just happened.

We already clarified for the sake of the argument that Jews define adherents of Judaism

No, we have not clarified that. The Jewish religion does not get to dictate to the world that its religion is in fact a race which is passed down hereditarily. Just what is actually wrong with you that you think any religion has the right to arbitrarily redefine the laws of factual reality for the rest of the planet?

while Hebrews were or are an ethnic group associated with said religion.

Yes, with the operative word being were. The Hebrews were the original practitioners of the religion, before it spread to the rest of the world and the Hebrews themselves died out.

Jews are followers of Judaism, but the question of contention is whether or not there is an ethnic group associated with Judaism

I have established repeatedly within the context of this very exchange that it is not a question of contention. Number one, practicing Jews belong to a wide variety of different ethnic groups, spread far and wide across the globe. Number two, if the definition of ethnicity is loosened sufficiently to include all these Jews into a separate ethnic subgroup on the basis of shared culture and language, then that same loosened definition also applies to the other major religious groups.

Not once throughout this entire debate have you given a definition of ethnicity

It is not my responsibility to give a definition of ethnicity because I am not a dictionary. I have no power over the meaning of language.

You can't claim a group is or isn't an ethnic group

I can very easily do so, and have done so repeatedly, by pointing out that all the people you want to arbitrarily label a single ethnic group already belong to a wide variety of different ethnic groups.

You haven't explained anything.

If you want to continuously deny objective reality I am powerless to stop you.

Whenever I make an argument for the existence of Hebrews, you carry on with the same rubbish that Hebrews simply don't, without demonstrating how this is the case.

An outright, and unforgivably false statement. In the very post you are replying to, I explained why the groups you labelled "Hebrew" are not Hebrews. I also included links to support the fact that they are not Hebrews.

I have proven how Hebrews today exist

No, you have proven that you are delusional and simply ignore what the other person writes.

A laughably incorrect statement, both by historical and genetic accounts. Your source is also rather ridiculous.

So we're resorting to full blown science denial, are we? Fantastic. Well, I'll just repeat what I told you the first time.

Dr Eran Elhaik of the University of Sheffield used a computer modelling system to convert Ashkenazi Jewish DNA - the Jewish communities historically located in Europe - data into geographical information, which revealed that 90 percent of Ashkenazi Jews descend from the Greeks, Iranians and others who colonised northern Anatolia (now northern Turkey) more than 2,000 years ago before converting to Judaism.

Dr Eran Elhaik is Jewish, and if you're not happy with the source then here's a Jewish source which says the exact same thing:-

https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-dna-tech-pinpoints-yiddish-origins-to-north-turkey/

As already stated previously, modern Hebrews, including Ashkenazi Hebrews, have demonstrated a connection to the ancient Hebrew people through the demonstration of a paternal link.

No, as already stated previously, you are making up your own false version of reality which has no basis in fact. You are continuously calling Ashkenazi Jews Hebrews, despite concrete scientific evidence that they are not Hebrews. They are modern converts to the Judaic religion.

Ashkenazi Jews, like all other groups of Jews that lived in Europe, did have some significant admixture with European populations.

You have been presented with indisputable scientific evidence that 90 percent of Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of Greek and Iranian converts to Judaism and so relentlessly ignoring the fact that everything -- literally everything -- you are saying is scientifically wrong only affirms my original point that you have a mental health problem.

Here are two more studies regarding autosomal DNA structures for your liking

Your efforts to blind me with extremely technical papers which clearly demonstrate the efforts of religious Jews to find a genetic link between Jews only exemplifies the complete lack of coherent argument you have. All human DNA links back to Africa, so by the exact same quasi-logic these researchers employ to try to find a genetic link to Jewishness, there is a far greater and more demonstrable genetic link to paganism. Hence, pagans must be an ethnic group, yes?

What you are writing is complete and utter trash, from start to finish, and even most Jews agree. I previously linked a considerably more reliable peer-reviewed article published in Frontiers in Genetics, which directly rebuts the claim that there is any genetic component to Jewishness:-

Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2014.00462/full

Frontiers in Genetics publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research on genes and genomes relating to all the domains of life, from humans to plants to livestock and other model organisms.

https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=21100236803&tip=sid

But since this paper doesn't agree with your baseless and false assumptions, you simply ignored it and went looking for other material which does. Moreover, the material you have linked is material which begins at the very outset by assuming that the roots of Jewishness can be traced genetically. It is what psychologists call a self-fulfilling prophecy. Indeed, the research I posted from Dr Elhaik, which you chose to simply ignore, explains fully why there might be Middle-Eastern DNA in many Ashkenazi Jews, and it has absolutely nothing to do with their religion.

Your own website doesn't even support the idea of Sephardic Jews originating purely or mostly from Iberian converts.

It literally says they are from Spain and Portugal you completely irrational dolt.

If anything, the opposite was true, especially during the Spanish Inquisition

What are you actually even talking about? Sephardic Jews can be traced back in the region to the days of the Roman Empire. The Spanish Inquisition didn't begin until the fourteenth century. Are you seriously telling me you don't understand how time works?

You fail to find even any reliable sites that support your wild assertions of Jews descending from converts

Wild assertions? It is literally being taught by history professors in Israeli universities you absurdly delusional clown:-

The Invention of the Jewish People (Hebrew: מתי ואיך הומצא העם היהודי?, romanized: Matai ve’ech humtza ha’am hayehudi?, literally When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?) is a study of the historiography of the Jewish people by Shlomo Sand, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University.

Sand began his work by looking for research studies about forcible exile of Jews from the area now bordered by modern Israel, and its surrounding regions. He was astonished that he could find no such literature, he says, given that the expulsion of Jews from the region is viewed as a constitutive event in Jewish history. The conclusion he came to from his subsequent investigation is that the expulsion simply did not happen, that no one exiled the Jewish people from the region, and that the Jewish diaspora is essentially a modern invention. He accounts for the appearance of millions of Jews around the Mediterranean and elsewhere as something that came about primarily through the religious conversion of local people, saying that Judaism, contrary to popular opinion, was very much a "converting religion" in former times. He holds that mass conversions were first brought about by the Hasmoneans under the influence of Hellenism, and continued until Christianity rose to dominance in the fourth century CE.[18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_the_Jewish_People

Precisely which schizophrenic universe are you living in that a Jewish history professor is not a reliable source on Jewish history? In which schizophrenic universe does over a decade's worth of academic research constitute "wild assertions"? You are absolutely freaking ridiculous.

Errr.... no.

Errr... I literally linked you to a genetic study hosted by National Geographic, you unfathomably dense, science-denying clown.

Modern Human populations are around 99.9% similar to each other on average.

Can you actually even read English? The study is about how genetically similar humans are to chimps, not how genetically similar human populations are to each other.

LOL, then demonstrate how this is the case.

I gave you a specific example. They don't evidence what you are suggesting they evidence.

Yet despite millennia away from the land of Canaan, Hebrews still have a strong connection to the land.

Right, so we've established that you can't read English. Your link has nothing to do with Hebrews or with Jews who no longer live in the region. To repeat myself:-

It's an article about how Canaanite DNA, which is regional specific, found its way into the modern populations of those same regions. It has absolutely zero correlation to the idea that Jews are a racial group. Zero.

You either can't read English or you haven't read the article at all and are simply link farming (very likely). The language used in the article is unambiguous and perfectly clear:-

The researchers also compared the ancient DNA with that of modern populations and found that most Arab and Jewish groups in the region owe more than half of their DNA to Canaanites and other peoples who inhabited the ancient Near East

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/dna-from-biblical-canaanites-lives-modern-arabs-jews

You sir, are one of the biggest imbeciles I have spoken to in my entire natural life.

MineSubCraftStarved

@Nomenclature

It is not my responsibility to give a definition of ethnicity because I am not a dictionary. I have no power over the meaning of language.

Then you can't claim some group to be an ethnicity or not be an ethnicity if you can't even define it... That's like claiming that an apple is the shape of a cube while having no idea what a cube actually is.

I can very easily do so and have done so repeatedly

Then what makes a group an ethnic group? Do you have an objective measurement as to what that entails? You have thus far failed to give any.

In the very post you are replying to, I explained why the groups you labeled "Hebrew" are not Hebrews. I also included links to support the fact that they are not Hebrews.

In not a single way you have done so. I have pointed out the shared cultural practices and ethics shared by groups claiming to be Hebrews, and Hebrews today. Furthermore, I have posted 4+ genetic studies regarding the DNA of modern Jewish populations(specifically Ashkenazim and Sephardim). And such studies do demonstrate the connection of modern Jews to the middle east, and thus the ancient Hebrews.
It's absurd to state that a people number 7 million(Bar Hebraeus) could simply disappear off the map. Which is what you appear to be arguing for.

So we're resorting to full-blown science denial, are we?

Laughable coming from you, I've posted multiple sources demonstrating how the majority of Ashkenazi DNA comes from the middle east, and thus from the Hebrews. You keep posting the same flawed geneticist, while I've posted the works of dozens that directly contradict the sources made by him.
The Khazar hypothesis that your Eran Elhaik pushes is well-known as pseudo-scientific and has little to no basis in modern genetics or historical precedents.

Here's a study conducted by 31 separate geneticists and experts disregarding Elhaik's methods of finding genetics(using the GPS method):
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=humbiol_preprints
Another study disproving the methods by Elhaik:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987117/

Elhiak's studies of Khazaric-Jewish origin are also constantly used by white supremacists and religious fanatics, I suppose you agree with this crowd?
https://vaticproject.blogspot.com/2015/07/what-khazars-fear-most-christianity.html
https://callingummah.blogspot.com/2017/10/synagogue-of-satan-are-khazarian-jews.html
https://www.sachbharat.org/2018/03/khazarian-jews-who-run-us-foreign.html

Elhiak's works are almost always conducted by him alone. So to imply that he is the sole expert and represents the main consensus on this area is ludicrous.
By the estimate of most scientists, the idea of Khazaric origin has no basis in factual reality. You cannot claim that I am committing scientific denial without denying what the majority of scientists believe regarding this.

here's a Jewish source that says the exact same thing:-

You're just posting the same evidence, regurgitated by different sources. Citing a single "study" and reposting a dozen sources reporting it does not constitute a dozen sources of evidence.

You are continuously calling Ashkenazi Jews Hebrews, despite concrete scientific evidence that they are not Hebrews. They are modern converts to the Judaic religion.

A number of scientific sources disprove such a wild assertion:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2797531/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3585000/
Moroccan and Ashkenazi Jews had a roughly 70 and 60 percent contribution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron
https://www.jns.org/opinion/myth-vs-fact-are-todays-jews-the-descendants-of-ancient-israelites/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews#Autosomal_DNA
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23052947/

It literally says they are from Spain and Portugal you completely irrational dolt.

Meaning that in the Iberian peninsula, they were born and/or developed a distinct Sephardic Hebrew identity, not they converted there. It's a well-known historical fact that Jews were widely repressed in both the Christian and Muslim parts of Iberia. And it is even more well-known that converts to Judaism were severely discriminated against and more often than not, murdered. To say that the modern Sephardic Jewish population occurred as a result of conversion has no basis in historical or genetic knowledge.

Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent

I've already pointed out how genetic markers can likely not distinguish Jews from other middle eastern populations, such as Druze, Syrians, and Iraqis from each other with a great deal of accuracy due to the shared origin of these populations.
I've posted a multitude of different genetic studies demonstrating how Jewish populations due tend to cluster together. And I've already pointed out how the Aaron Y-chromosome, which is found with a great deal of similarity between Jewish populations, can be used to determine Jewish origin.
Furthermore, genetic studies have definitely pointed out how Hebrews tend to have different genetics when compared to their host population.

Precisely which schizophrenic universe are you living in that a Jewish history professor is not a reliable source on Jewish history? In which schizophrenic universe does over a decade's worth of academic research constitute "wild assertions"? You are absolutely freaking ridiculous.

Sand's notions of Khazaric or Iberic conversions to create the modern Ashkenazi and Sephardi populations have been widely rejected by historical scholars and geneticists.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090303150903/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/999386.html
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2014-06-26/ty-article/khazar-myth-busted/0000017f-db86-df62-a9ff-dfd788d80000
https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/973
^ Historical rejections
https://web.archive.org/web/20100606232900/http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/06/tracing-the-roots-of-jewishness.html
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/a-case-for-genetic-jewishness
^ Genetic rebuttals
I've also posted tons of genetic studies previously, proving that diaspora populations share a common ancestry in the middle east, rather than their host countries.
Your "sources on Jewish history" have no support in any contemporary or older books or studies regarding the Jewish people and our history. Sand himself is widely ostracized in the historical community due to his claims and inaccuracies, and his work is akin to the inaccurate The Thirteenth Tribe.

Your link has nothing to do with Hebrews or with Jews who no longer live in the region.

Excuse your highness for me not stating the obvious... The vast majority of Jews in Israel ultimately descended from or were themselves Hebrews who emigrated back to Israel. Israel's modern-day population is completely made up as a result of diaspora populations that returned to the land. So ultimately, by your logic, Israel's Hebrew population should consist of a mix of different genetics, with a little amount of Canaanite DNA, however, this has been proven to be inaccurate.
You claim that diaspora Hebrew populations do not share a genetic connection with the ancient Hebrews, yet you go on ahead and agree that Israeli Jews, who came from diaspora populations, do in fact have a genetic connection with the ancient Hebrews. This is an obvious contradiction.

Only one of us is suffering from a mental health problem.
If you want to continuously deny objective reality I am powerless to stop you.
you have proven that you are delusional
So we're resorting to full-blown science denial, are we?
What you are writing is complete and utter trash
you are saying is scientifically wrong and only affirms my original point that you have a mental health problem.
But since this paper doesn't agree with your baseless and false assumptions
you completely irrational dolt.
Are you seriously telling me you don't understand how time works?
you absurdly delusional clown
you are making up your own false version of reality which has no basis in fact.
Precisely which schizophrenic universe
you unfathomably dense, science-denying clown.
Can you actually even read English?
You, sir, are one of the biggest imbeciles I have spoken to in my entire natural life.

Interesting.

Your argument is completely incorrect and incoherent, and you repeatedly resort to insults in order to defame me, and thus commit ad hominem fallacies consistently through every argument. I've tried to be reasonable and polite, but I cannot be if every time I try to engage with you there is a brick wall of insults. You clearly have your mind made up and will make no attempt to change it no matter how many studies I post.

You can choose to keep going on about pseudo-scientific and pseudo-historical theories of "Jewish assimilation and conversion." But they are wrong by virtually any academic estimate.

Nomenclature

@MineSubCraftStarved

Then you can't claim some group to be an ethnicity or not be an ethnicity

Laughable. No, I do not have to invent my own definition of words. I would be hard pushed to find a more ridiculous statement.

if you can't even define it

If you want a definition of ethnicity then consult a dictionary like everybody else. I have no authority over language.

That's like claiming that an apple is the shape of a cube

Yes buddy, of course. Refusing to invent my own definition of words which are in the dictionary and can be looked up is like claiming an apple is the shape of a cube. Moving on...

Then what makes a group an ethnic group?

Dictionary. You are the one claiming Jews are an ethnic group in the first place, so you should be the one giving the definition.

In not a single way you have done so

You are rejecting objective reality again. I have repeatedly proven that neither of the groups you mentioned are Hebrews and I even provided a Jewish source after you had a temper tantrum about the original source:-

Dr Eran Elhaik of the University of Sheffield used a computer modelling system to convert Ashkenazi Jewish DNA - the Jewish communities historically located in Europe - data into geographical information, which revealed that 90 percent of Ashkenazi Jews descend from the Greeks, Iranians and others who colonised northern Anatolia (now northern Turkey) more than 2,000 years ago before converting to Judaism.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-dna-tech-pinpoints-yiddish-origins-to-north-turkey/

Ashkenazis are the descendants of non-Hebrew converts to Judaism. You can continue to deny this objective reality for as long as you like, but the evidence will still be there staring you in the face.

Furthermore, I have posted 4+ genetic studies regarding the DNA of modern Jewish populations

Precisely none of which demonstrate that modern Jewish populations are Hebrews. You are link farming and then blindly dropping links as a means to deflect the factual validity of my arguments. It's an extremely common ploy on debate forums when somebody is 100 percent in the wrong but doesn't want to admit it. You sidestep all the evidence I provide, and simply spam the board with your own links. Never, not even once, do you ever source the passage or part of any of your links which you allege prove that all Jews are Hebrews. You simply drop them into space and pretend like your job is done. It's a textbook deflection and disinformation tactic.

Laughable coming from you

You are the one rejecting science, not me. Freudian projection is another favourite tool of sophists, only they are usually far less blatant about it.

The Khazar hypothesis that your Eran Elhaik pushes

My Eran Elhaik? Lmao. He's Jewish you utter clown. That makes him your Eran Elhaik. You're engaging in yet more Freudian projection while you simultaneously attempt to dishonestly pass off the results of a full genetic study as a "hypothesis". This is not a hypothesis:-

Dr Eran Elhaik of the University of Sheffield used a computer modelling system to convert Ashkenazi Jewish DNA - the Jewish communities historically located in Europe - data into geographical information, which revealed that 90 percent of Ashkenazi Jews descend from the Greeks, Iranians and others who colonised northern Anatolia (now northern Turkey) more than 2,000 years ago before converting to Judaism.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-dna-tech-pinpoints-yiddish-origins-to-north-turkey/

A number of scientific sources disprove such a wild assertion

Laughable. None of your blind link drops evidence that modern Jews are Hebrews. Please, feel free to prove otherwise. I'll be happy to debunk you.

Here's a study conducted by 31 separate geneticists and experts disregarding Elhaik's methods of finding genetics(using the GPS method):
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=humbiol_preprints

You are once again telling unforgivable falsehoods. This is not a paper from "31 separate geneticists". Their places of study are listed on page 3, and include various faculties, such as "The Blavatnik School of Computer Science", "The Porter School of Environmental Studies", "The Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sarajevo" and "The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University." You are posting utter trash.

Moreover, even if for argument's sake we say that Elhaik is entirely 100 percent wrong (which of course he isn't), it still lends absolutely zero support to your idea that modern Jews are Hebrews. Hence, on top of lying about the authorship of this paper, you're additionally trying to manufacture a false dilemma in which either Elhaik is right or you are right, when the reality is that you both could be wrong. The specifics of the data aside, at least what Elhaik is arguing is feasible. What you are arguing is not feasible. In no universe is it feasible that converting to Judaism or marrying a Jew changes my DNA into Hebrew DNA. That's self-evidently ridiculous, and since we know intermarriages and conversions have occurred throughout the history of Judaism, there is no way the modern Jewish population could possibly be Hebrew.

I've already pointed out how genetic markers can likely not distinguish Jews from other middle eastern populations

I was the one who pointed that out, clown. And like everything else I've said you tried to argue with me. You posted a National Geographic link which you claimed proved Jews are Hebrews, but what the link actually said is that Canaanite DNA can be found in modern Arab and Jewish populations who live in the same region.

If genetic markers cannot distinguish Jews from other Middle Eastern populations, then there's no way for you to rule out Elhaik's conclusion that the Ashkenazis are descended from Iranians, so you're literally tying yourself up in self-contradictory knots.

This is utterly pointless because you are not simply dishonest: you are full-blown delusional.

Sand's notions of Khazaric or Iberic conversions to create the modern Ashkenazi and Sephardi populations have been widely rejected by historical scholars

Sand IS a historical scholar, you absolute clown. And will you stop blindly dropping links please? If you want to use a link to support a claim, then quote the part of the link which is relevant and include the link underneath. Stop spamming links under a false pretense that they evidence an argument you have made, when they actually do no such thing.

Your VERY FIRST LINK (from history professor Israel Bartal), if you ACTUALLY READ IT, far from "rejecting" Sand's conclusions, SIMPLY ACCUSES SAND OF STATING THE OBVIOUS:-

My response to Sand's arguments is that no historian of the Jewish national movement has ever really believed that the origins of the Jews are ethnically and biologically "pure." Sand applies marginal positions to the entire body of Jewish historiography and, in doing so, denies the existence of the central positions in Jewish historical scholarship.

No "nationalist" Jewish historian has ever tried to conceal the well-known fact that conversions to Judaism had a major impact on Jewish history in the ancient period and in the early Middle Ages.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090303150903/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/999386.html

I'm not going through any more of your link dumps because you're wasting my time. Learn to debate honestly and fairly (i.e. without lying) or go the hell away.

MineSubCraftStarved

@Nomenclature

You are the one claiming Jews are an ethnic group in the first place, so you should be the one giving the definition.

I already did and demonstrated how Jews fit the definition of an ethnic group. I'm not going to repeat myself for the millionth time for you to finally notice. If you're really interested, then you can look at my previous arguments.

Ashkenazim are the descendants of non-Hebrew converts to Judaism. You can continue to deny this objective reality for as long as you like, but the evidence will still be there staring you in the face.

I already responded to this exact argument, but as expected, you ignored it.

Never, not even once, do you ever source the passage or part of any of your links that you allege proves that all Jews are Hebrews.

Granted:

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We find that the Jewish populations show a high level of genetic similarity to each other, clustering together in several types of analysis of population structure.

These results support the view that the Jewish populations largely share a common Middle Eastern ancestry and that over their history they have undergone varying degrees of admixture with non-Jewish populations of European descent.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2797531/ - This study clearly demonstrates how Jews are genetically similar to each other and share a common root in the middle east, although with varying European(presumably Southern European) admixtures. Which I have stated and acknowledged in the past.

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These studies show that the Jews form a distinctive cluster in the Middle East, and it is not known whether the factors driving this structure would also involve other groups in the Levant.

Levant: all Jews (Sephardi and Ashkenazi) cluster in one branch; Druze from Mount Lebanon and Druze from Mount Carmel are depicted on a private branch; and Lebanese Christians form a private branch with the Christian populations of Armenia and Cyprus placing the Lebanese Muslims as an outer group. The predominantly Muslim populations of Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians cluster on branches with other Muslim populations as distant as Morocco and Yemen.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3585000/ - This study not only demonstrates close genetic relationships between Jewish groups. But also demonstrates how Jews form a close genetic similarity with other middle eastern groups.

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This pattern is consistent with a major, but variable component of shared Near East ancestry, together with variable degrees of admixture and introgression from the corresponding host Diaspora populations.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23052947/#&gid=article-figures&pid=fig-1-uid-0 - More evidence of a middle eastern and thus Hebrew origin.

Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. Admixture estimates suggested low levels of European Y-chromosome gene flow into Ashkenazi and Roman Jewish communities.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC18733/ - This demonstrates a strong middle eastern connection of Jewish populations regarding paternal lineage, and the low European admixture once again indicates that Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazic Jews are descendants of the middle east, and had little admixture with local European populations at least paternally. Thus, this demonstrates a common link between Jewish diaspora populations and the middle east, thus making them Hebrew.
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An external file that holds a picture illustration etcObject name is AJHGv73p768fg1jpg

Previous Y chromosome studies have shown that the Cohanim, a paternally inherited Jewish priestly caste, predominantly share a recent common ancestry irrespective of the geographically defined post-Diaspora community to which they belong, a finding consistent with common Jewish origins in the Near East.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1180600/ - This study once again demonstrates a link between Jewish populations and the ancient Hebrews. Since in Jewish religious law, being a Cohen is only passed down paternally, and you cannot convert or become a Cohen unless you are born as one. For this reason, Cohanim would've almost certainly maintained a paternal relationship with the ancient Israelites, and thus it is very likely represents the Y-Chromosomal makeup of their ancestors. Therefore, the similarity between normal Ashkenazi or Sephardic Y-chromosomes to those of Cohanim demonstrates their connection to the middle east.

In no universe is it feasible that converting to Judaism or marrying a Jew changes my DNA into Hebrew DNA. That's self-evidently ridiculous, and since we know intermarriages and conversions have occurred throughout the history of Judaism, there is no way the modern Jewish population could possibly be Hebrew.

At what point did I say otherwise?

This is not a paper from "31 separate geneticists"

Image: https://debateisland.com/uploads/editor/pq/ix6n7t7jqt90.png

Are you able to count?

(which of course he isn't)

Elhaik is a well known support of the Khazar hypothesis, this point you previously did not refute. However, such findings have been widely rejected by the scientific community. For instance:

No particular similarity of Ashkenazi Jews to populations from the Caucasus is evident, particularly populations that most closely represent the Khazar region.

Here is a refutation of Elhaik's findings as a whole which you cited:

In our view, there are major conceptual problems with both the genetic and linguistic parts of the work. We argue that GPS is a provenancing tool suited to inferring the geographic region where a modern and recently unadmixed genome is most likely to arise, but is hardly suitable for admixed populations and for tracing ancestry up to 1,000 years before present, as its authors have previously claimed. Moreover, all methods of historical linguistics concur that Yiddish is a Germanic language, with no reliable evidence for Slavic, Iranian, or Turkic substrata.

You posted a National Geographic link which you claimed proved Jews are Hebrews, but what the link actually said is that Canaanite DNA can be found in modern Arab and Jewish populations who live in the same region.
This is utterly pointless because you are not simply dishonest: you are full-blown delusional.

I already addressed this later in my argument previously but of course you can't be bothered to read.

Your VERY FIRST LINK (from history professor Israel Bartal), if you ACTUALLY READ IT, far from "rejecting" Sand's conclusions, SIMPLY ACCUSES SAND OF STATING THE OBVIOUS:-

I have not once stated that diaspora Jewish populations never had an admixture with their host populations. I simply said that the amount of outside admixture was minimal enough that middle eastern origins and thus Hebrew origins are still

Sand IS a historical scholar, you absolute clown.

That doesn't mean he represents the majority opinion of historical scholars, and I have demonstrated how many if not most of them disagree with him. Today there are physicists with doctorates who reject all of Newton's basic principals, simply because they are still scholars of their subject does not make their views any more valid.

there is no way the modern Jewish population could possibly be Hebrew.

The fallacy in this argumentation that one has to be purely genetically of an ethnic group to be part of it. All groups have had various admixtures with other groups, and no-one is claiming that modern Jews or any other groups are completely identical to their counterparts 1000 years ago. The fact that Arabs brought North African Berber wives back does not make them North African as they still predominantly kept their middle eastern roots. Similar to how if Ashkenazi Jews took Italian wives, it doesn't mean they are Italian as they still kept their predominantly Hebrew roots.

Nomenclature

@MineSubCraftStarved

I already did

In which case you'd be contradicting your own reasons for repeatedly demanding that I give you a definition of ethnicity. There is no legitimate reason for you to believe I can give you a more precise definition than a dictionary.

One only has to converse with you for five minutes to establish that you are thoroughly dishonest and worryingly fanatical.

and demonstrated how Jews fit the definition of an ethnic group. I'm not going to repeat myself for the millionth time for you to finally notice.

You were asking me to define ethnicity. I was not asking you to repeat yourself.

Scroll back through this thread and you will find me debunking the notion that Jews are an ethnicity repeatedly, so the idea that you are the one having to repeat yourself is completely false. It's the exact opposite of the truth. One final time, just for the record:-

The Jewish population is comprised of a wide diversity of different, well-established ethnic groups. Hence, Jews are not themselves an ethnic group.

Anybody can convert to the Jewish religion and become a Jew. Hence, unless religious conversion changes my ethnicity, Jews are not an ethnic group.

Even ignoring the above, if we assume that Jews are an ethnic group, on the grounds of shared language, tradition and religious culture, then that definition is equally applicable to Muslims and Christians, who meet the exact same criteria.

Therefore, "for the millionth time", Jews are not an ethnic group in any way which makes logical sense.

I already responded to this exact argument, but as expected, you ignored it.

No, you did not. You made the false claim that Jews are Hebrews, and then ignored the evidence that they are not Hebrews. The Hebrews are an ancient people who no longer exist. See:-

When did the Hebrews die out?

Extinct: Mishnaic Hebrew extinct as a spoken language by the 5th century CE

Revival: Revived in the late 19th century CE

https://knowledgeburrow.com/when-did-the-hebrews-die-out/

As regards Ashkenazis specifically being Hebrews:-

For a more scientific take on the Jewish origin debate, recent DNA analysis of Ashkenazic Jews – a Jewish ethnic group – revealed that their maternal line is European. It has also been found that their DNA only has 3% ancient ancestry which links them with the Eastern Mediterranean (also known as the Middle East) – namely Israel, Lebanon, parts of Syria, and western Jordan. This is the part of the world Jewish people are said to have originally come from – according to the Old Testament. But 3% is a minuscule amount, and similar to what modern Europeans as a whole share with Neanderthals.

So as you can plainly see, your claim is false. The science could not be clearer. Ashkenazi Jews are neither Hebrews, nor specifically descended from Hebrews.

https://theconversation.com/ashkenazic-jews-mysterious-origins-unravelled-by-scientists-thanks-to-ancient-dna-97962

We find that the Jewish populations show a high level of genetic similarity to each other

Firstly, your diagrams mean nothing. They are part of your generally fallacious approach to argumentation. In this instance, all you have done is switch from blanket link drops to the further fallacy of blinding with science. That is, the use of extremely technical information which cannot be adequately understood (and therefore refuted) without specific technical expertise in the study of human genetics.

Secondly, as has previously been explained to you several times, the entire human race shows a high level of genetic similarity to each other. Indeed, the greatest genetic dissimilarities in humans are found between African tribes with ancestry common to the exact same continental area. Hence, I feel that you are going around in circles, so that every time I debunk one of your claims, you refer back to a claim I have previously debunked.

This demonstrates a strong middle eastern connection of Jewish populations regarding paternal lineage

Which, even if true, would be irrelevant, since Jewish lineage is passed -- according to Jewish law itself -- across the maternal and not the paternal line. Ergo, in your fervour to support your false claims, you are contradicting the very laws of the religion you are attempting to falsely promote into a race.

This study once again demonstrates a link between Jewish populations and the ancient Hebrews

No it doesn't. In only your last post you were forced to concede that a genetic relationship to a particular region is not the same thing as a genetic relationship to any particular ethnic group, so you are swinging back and forth wildly between claims. Moreover, you are apparently oblivious to the fact that even most Jews disagree with you:-

Israel's Rabbis Think Genetic Testing Can 'Prove' Jewishness. They're Wrong

The Israeli rabbinate, pushing DNA tests, has fallen into the trap of 19th century racial science: Jewishness is an identity, not a genetic construct – and it can't be measured in a lab.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-04-29/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israels-rabbis-think-genetic-testing-can-prove-jewishness-theyre-wrong/0000017f-e5ed-d62c-a1ff-fdff15d90000

And so we are forced to confront the very false premise which your pseudo-science is pushing: that Jewishness is somehow detectable from genetic testing. It's a textbook example of what psychologists call a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, when you walk into a scientific experiment with a pre-existing bias then that bias will inevitably find a way into your results. The papers you are producing are almost certainly authored by orthodox religious Jews, who have spent their entire lives indoctrinated into a religious mythology which they are using their training to attempt to "prove". There are a huge number of examples of so-called "Christian scholars" who have attempted the exact same thing. However, when their work is presented to their non-religious peers, it is invariably -- and rightly -- trashed as the pseudo-science it is.

This pattern is consistent with a major, but variable component of shared Near East ancestry, together with variable degrees of admixture and introgression from the corresponding host Diaspora populations.

BINGO. The author of the paper you are attempting to pass off as "science" is making reference to a religious myth which -- as Shlomo Sand and various others have demonstrated -- has no basis in historical reality, nor is supported by any historical literature other than religious scripture. It proves my earlier assertion that the people writing these papers you are referencing are orthodox religious Jews who are looking for confirmation of their own religious beliefs. In other words, the exact opposite of science.

At what point did I say otherwise?

When you spent numerous hours trying to evidence a genetic link between people who have converted to a religious ideology and an ancient people who lived in the Middle East thousands of years ago, in order that you can falsely label those people an ethnicity.

I already addressed this later in my argument

As I addressed the fact that you are link farming, not arguing.

I have not once stated that diaspora Jewish populations never had an admixture with their host populations.

Then I'm not sure you understand how DNA works. It splits in half each time there's a new partnership, making it scientifically impossible to accurately trace genetics back further than just a few generations:-

Commercial DNA tests that claim to tell people whether they are related to Richard III or descended from the Vikings are no more than "genetic astrology", scientists have warned.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/9912822/DNA-ancestry-tests-branded-meaningless.html

Yet here you are, trying to convince people that there is scientific validity in attempting to trace back genetic lineage to events such as the "Diaspora", which are not even supported by the historical literature in the first place! Just total, unforgivable abuse of the scientific method in order to push a false religious mythology.

The fallacy in this argumentation

There is no fallacy in this argumentation. The modern Jewish population is not Hebrew and the science is absolutely clear about this.

MineSubCraftStarved

@Nomenclature

The Jewish population is comprised of a wide diversity of different, well-established ethnic groups. Hence, Jews are not themselves an ethnic group.

That's running under the assumption that Jews are not an ethnic group, and rather a religious group. What you are saying is not an argument, but a definition. It's like me saying since Jews are all part of the same ethnic group. Hence, Jews are themselves an ethnic group. See how that isn't an argument?

Anybody can convert to the Jewish religion and become a Jew. Hence, unless religious conversion changes my ethnicity, Jews are not an ethnic group.

If a Jew is defined as purely a religious idea(it isn't by most definitions, but for the sake of the argument let's assume so), then sure. But there is most certainly an ethnic group associated with Judaism, from which most Jews can trace a common cultural, national, genetic(and thus historical), and linguistic root to. Converts to Judaism, despite being Jews, are not Hebrew by ethnicity.

Even ignoring the above, if we assume that Jews are an ethnic group, on the grounds of shared language, tradition and religious culture, then that definition is equally applicable to Muslims and Christians, who meet the exact same criteria.

Muslims and Christians lack a generally shared genetic ancestry(which genetic studies have proven that most Hebrews have) and a common native language, history, and national identity. Thus they are not an ethnic group, while Jews are because they fit those criteria.
Generally, the most reliable definition of an ethnic group is a shared distinguishable identity and history(all other definitions vary by case). Therefore, since Jews have a shared national identity(among other similarities), Jews are an ethnic group, case-in-point.

https://knowledgeburrow.com/when-did-the-hebrews-die-out/

If you actually read your source you would see that it talks about the Hebrew language and its history.
In 66 CE, the Jews of Judea rose in revolt against Rome, sparking the First Jewish–Roman War. The reverse seized control of Judea and named their new kingdom “Israel” (see also First Jewish Revolt coinage). An estimated 2/3 of the population in the Galilee and 1/3 of the coastal region were Jewish.
At what point in time, or what period of time, did the Jewish people living in the region stop speaking Hebrew as common language and start speaking Aramaic and why?
Your own source even describes Jews as a people and thus an ethnic group, hence contradicting your claim.

It has also been found that their DNA only has 3% ancient ancestry which links them with the Eastern Mediterranean (also known as the Middle East) – namely Israel, Lebanon, parts of Syria, and western Jordan.

The study cites the debunked findings by Elhaik, which have been discredited multiple times, ill repost the studies against them since you apparently never pay attention to actual scientific knowledge:
No particular similarity of Ashkenazi Jews to populations from the Caucasus is evident, particularly populations that most closely represent the Khazar region.

Here is a refutation of Elhaik's findings as a whole:
In our view, there are major conceptual problems with both the genetic and linguistic parts of the work. We argue that GPS is a provenancing tool suited to inferring the geographic region where a modern and recently unadmixed genome is most likely to arise, but is hardly suitable for admixed populations and for tracing ancestry up to 1,000 years before present, as its authors have previously claimed. Moreover, all methods of historical linguistics concur that Yiddish is a Germanic language, with no reliable evidence for Slavic, Iranian, or Turkic substrata.

Furthermore, the total amount of Ashkenazic European admixture among autosomal DNA has demonstrated a minority European admixture:
Using these proxy ancestral populations, we calculated the amount of European admixture in the AJ population to be 35 to 55%.
The structure analysis was compatible with the Iranian and Iraqi Jews having predominant Middle Eastern/Central Asian ancestry and the European and Syrian Jews having both Middle Eastern/Central Asian and European ancestry with the proportion of European ancestry ranging between 20% and 40%

For a more scientific take on the Jewish origin debate, a recent DNA analysis of Ashkenazic Jews – a Jewish ethnic group – revealed that their maternal line is European.

The study mentioned has been disproven by various other studies:
Another interesting case are the Ashkenazi Jews, who display a frequency of haplogroup K similar to the PPNB sample together with low non-significant pairwise Fst values, which taken together suggests an ancient Near Eastern origin. This observation clearly contradicts the results of a recent study, where a detailed phylogeographical analysis of mtDNA lineages has suggested a predominantly European origin for the Ashkenazi communities [48].
Although the study has been hotly contested, there is a chance that it[the study you referenced] is true, however, it would seem that most studies point to a mixed maternal origin of Ashkenazic Jews, between Southern European and Middle Eastern origins.

Firstly, your diagrams mean nothing.

You have admitted to ignoring the science, typical.

That is, the use of extremely technical information which cannot be adequately understood

Apologies for your lack of knowledge, I'll make it real simple for you. When you look at the charts, closer populations mean they are more related, so when Jews are closer to the middle eastern populations, that means they are more related to them. Not hard huh?
Even ignoring the charts, I have cited qualitative statements by the researchers, acknowledging the middle eastern origin of Jews, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic.

so that every time I debunk one of your claims, you refer back to a claim I have previously debunked.

You haven't debunked anything, you're running in circles, avoiding all the scientific evidence I have provided, and even refusing to construct a response, instead dismissing it as "too technical."

Which, even if true, would be irrelevant, since Jewish lineage is passed -- according to Jewish law itself -- across the maternal and not the paternal line. Ergo, in your fervour to support your false claims, you are contradicting the very laws of the religion you are attempting to falsely promote into a race.

You already stated that Jewish religious law is irrelevant as it only applies to religious Jews(your own words), therefore, you cannot then use it again to state that Jewishness is only passed down through the mother, and thus paternal lineage is irrelevant. So what is it? Does the maternal(and thus genetics) line determine Jewishness, or not? You are contradicting yourself.
As a side note, many other Hebrew religions, such as Karaism rely on paternal lineage. Rather than maternal lineage. Making your argument null and void.
It's funny how you disregard the science directly contradicting your claim that Jews do not come exclusively or mostly from the ancient Hebrews.

No it doesn't. In only your last post you were forced to concede that a genetic relationship to a particular region is not the same thing as a genetic relationship to any particular ethnic group,

I also acknowledged that if Jews had a middle-eastern origin, then it most certainly would be of Hebrew origin as it is very unlikely that another middle eastern group moved to Spain, Italy, and Germany on mass and then converted to Judaism. What's your point?

Moreover, you are apparently oblivious to the fact that even most Jews disagree with you:-

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/are-jews-a-people-of-color/ - Jews are middle eastern.
https://jcpa.org/article/jews-one-worlds-oldest-indigenous-peoples/ - Defines Jews as a people.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-identity-and-belief/ - 69% of Jews aren't even Jewish by religion, thus meaning there is an ethnic component to Jewish identity.
https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Genetic-History-Jewish-People/dp/0195379616 - Once again defines Jews as a people.

The author of the paper you are attempting to pass off as "science" is making reference to a religious myth which -- as Shlomo Sand and various others have demonstrated -- has no basis in historical reality, nor is supported by any historical literature other than religious scripture.

I already posted historical rebuttals towards Shlomo Sand's theory, and his observations of Ashkenazic Khazar's identity have been disproven multiple times...
The lugubrious Israeli combination of aggressive one-dimensional conceptuality and blatant disrespect for details (a characteristic mix among writers at both ends of the political spectrum) will undoubtedly captivate the hearts of the public relations executives of the electronic media. However, we, the skeptical historians, who are buried between mountains of books and piles of archival files, can only continue to read what has really been written and to write about what has really been read.
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2014-06-26/ty-article/khazar-myth-busted/0000017f-db86-df62-a9ff-dfd788d80000
There is no foundation in archival research, and Sand does not seem to have fully read (or understood) many of the secondary works on which his thesis relies.
Indeed, the defects are only underscored by his illogic, but this seems to be of no matter to the book’s admirers.

^ Historical rejections
clustered more closely with Middle Eastern and Sephardic Jews, a finding the researchers say is inconsistent with the Khazar hypothesis. "I would hope that these observations would put the idea that Jewishness is just a cultural construct to rest," Ostrer says.
Sand, for example, argues that today’s Jews are all descended from Khazars, an idea Ostrer finds unsupported by the evidence, as he explains in the book.
^ Genetic rebuttals
Another conspiracy: Sand believes that Israeli historians deliberately suppressed the so-called “Khazar Theory,” which posits that the Ashkenazi community is descended from medieval Slavic converts. Sand loves the Khazar Theory because it “proves” the ahistoricity of Zionism — and (wait for it) that there’s no such thing as the Jewish people.
Just as the history of the Jewish people was never his field of study until he published his book “The Invention of the Jewish People.”
^ Jewish rejections
Shlomo isn't even an expert or has any sort of background in the field, as he had his thesis on Marxism, not even something truly historical. Shlomo Sand is an absolute fraud whose work has been heavily criticized and rebutted many times. Not only that, Shlomo is widely rejected among the Jewish community as well. He is also well known for spreading the now-debunked Jewish conspiracy theory of KhazaAshkenaziic origin.

orthodox religious Jews who are looking for confirmation of their own religious beliefs

Enough with your conspiracy theories, if you look at their names you can easily see that half or so of the geneticists in the studies I linked aren't even Jewish. Even if they were, the vast majority of Jews today are not religious(and ergo, not Jewish by religion), so the chance that they are actually religious is quite low.

which are not even supported by the historical literature in the first place!

It most certainly is. Jews have been recorded to have a diaspora Judea to areas of Europe(among others) after the destruction of the second temple and the Bar Kochba revolt.
Much of the Jewish diaspora - the exile - or voluntary migration of Palestinian Jews to many parts of Europe - originated with the crushing Roman defeats of Jews in three wars between 66-135 CE.
But (as everyone also knows) many Jews in late antiquity were to be found scattered around the wider Roman world, not just in the diaspora in the eastern Mediterranean coastlands where Jews had been established long before ad 70, but also in parts of the western Mediterranean and in northern Europe where they are attested only after Jerusalem had been destroyed.

Yet here you are, trying to convince people that there is scientific validity in attempting to trace back genetic lineage to events such as the "Diaspora",

You also cannot invalidate the results of genetic testing without also invalidating the work of Elhiak towards a Khazaric or Turkic origin of Jews.

The modern Jewish population is not Hebrew and the science is absolutely clear about this.

I have posted multiple accredited studies and reports that demonstrate a Jewish connection to the middle east. You have posted well-rebutted sources from isolated experts and amateurs, trying to argue for the well-debunked Khazaric/Turkic/European origin of modern Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. You are resorting to conspiracy theories which I have debunked multiple times. You are deliberately avoid the evidence as "too complicated," and then repeat the same rebutted studies and books over and over again. You have no intention to debate or exchange ideas

Genetic sources:
Another interesting case are the Ashkenazi Jews, who display a frequency of haplogroup K similar to the PPNB sample together with low non-significant pairwise Fst values, which taken together suggests an ancient Near Eastern origin. This observation clearly contradicts the results of a recent study, where a detailed phylogeographical analysis of mtDNA lineages has suggested a predominantly European origin for the Ashkenazi communities [48].
Using these proxy ancestral populations, we calculated the amount of European admixture in the AJ population to be 35 to 55%.
The structure analysis was compatible with the Iranian and Iraqi Jews having predominant Middle Eastern/Central Asian ancestry and the European and Syrian Jews having both Middle Eastern/Central Asian and European ancestry with the proportion of European ancestry ranging between 20% and 40%
Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. Admixture estimates suggested low levels of European Y-chromosome gene flow into Ashkenazi and Roman Jewish communities.
This pattern is consistent with a major, but variable component of shared Near East ancestry, together with variable degrees of admixture and introgression from the corresponding host Diaspora populations.
These studies show that the Jews form a distinctive cluster in the Middle East, and it is not known whether the factors driving this structure would also involve other groups in the Levant.
Among others...

The science does not support your assertions. Hebrews are still around today and genetics + logic shows that. You must accept the facts.

Nomenclature

@MineSubCraftStarved

That's running under the assumption that Jews are not an ethnic group, and rather a religious group.

No Jules, that isn't an assumption. People who convert to the Jewish religion are called Jews. I'm sorry that this objective, factual reality is so difficult for you to grasp.

What you are saying is not an argument, but a definition.

Lmao. No, what you are saying is that Jews are not Jews.

It's like me saying since Jews are all part of the same ethnic group. Hence, Jews are themselves an ethnic group. See how that isn't an argument?

The only thing I see is that you are arguing Jews (i.e people who convert to Judaism) are not Jews. These people, who you claim all belong to the same ethnic group, are Jews:-

I'd ask if you see the issue with claiming these people all belong to the same ethnic group, but since I've already explained this to you four times, I'm going to make an educated guess and say no, you don't.

If a Jew is defined as purely a religious idea(it isn't by most definitions, but for the sake of the argument let's assume so), then sure.

A Jew is somebody who practices the religion of Judaism. There's a very good reason why the only people who attempt to classify Jews as either a race or an ethnic group are Jews. See if you can guess what it might be, clown.

Converts to Judaism, despite being Jews, are not Hebrew by ethnicity.

Nobody is Hebrew by ethnicity because as I've already explained to you at least a dozen times, the Hebrews existed several thousand years ago. Their language became extinct in the 5th century AD and it was only revived in the 19th century AD. You are so obviously and objectively wrong about everything you are saying, that the only possible explanation for your refusal to accept it is that you are delusional. Hebrews are no longer an ethnic group, Aztecs are no longer an ethnic group, and Celts are no longer an ethnic group. Does this compute?

Muslims and Christians lack a generally shared genetic ancestry

Muslims share the exact same genetic ancestry which you are falsely arguing belongs exclusively to Jews you appallingly fallacious halfwit.

Jews are the genetic brothers of Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese, study finds

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/05/000509003653.htm

The study cites the debunked findings by Elhaik

Stop ignoring it when I disprove your mythology. Your paper was authored by orthodox religious Jews who think the Diaspora was a real event. They have a severe conflict of interest with genuine scientific research which you are spectacularly ignoring in the hope that nobody is going to notice. I noticed. If you presented me with a paper which used the proposed geography of Noah's journey as a basis for its conclusions I'd reject it as unscientific for the precise same reasons.

Here is a refutation of Elhaik's findings as a whole:

You've linked the exact same "study" I just debunked in my last post!! Stop making me repeat myself. The erroneous assumption made by these authors that the Diaspora was a real historical event undermines anything they write. The Diaspora is not supported by any historical literature or indeed documented anywhere outside of Jewish religious scripture. No credible scientist in the entire world considers religious scripture to be a reliable source from which to derive scientific conclusions, so your paper is not scientific. It's pseudo-science.

This observation clearly contradicts the results of a recent study, where a detailed phylogeographical analysis of mtDNA lineages has suggested a predominantly European origin for the Ashkenazi communities [48].

Are you even reading the things that you're trying to argue with? Elhaik's analysis revealed that the maternal lineage of Ashkenazis is 90 percent derived from Greek and Iranian converts to Judaism. Iran is not in Europe.

I already posted historical rebuttals towards Shlomo Sand's theory

You did no such thing. You blanket dropped a bunch of random links with no supporting context, as you have done throughout this entire exchange, and the very first one of them I checked was an article from another Israeli professor who chastised Sand for stating the obvious. His only "rebuttal" was against Sand's assumption that any other serious Jewish historian disagreed with him.

Look, I'm not wasting any more time with your delusional, fallacious crap. I proved you wrong days ago, and you're simply repeating yourself.

MayCaesar

Luigi7255 said:

Umm... someone who practices Judaism is called a Jew, people who practice Judaism are Jewish, so yes, it is based off of religious belief.

You appear to be making a logical mistake here. Specifically, it is the generalization fallacy: the fact that everyone following Judaism is called a Jew leads you to conclude that the classification is based off of religious belief, while in reality this is merely a special case and there are Jews who do not follow Judaism and who are considered Jewish from the ethnic perspective.

As an analogy, every banana is a fruit: if I were to apply your reasoning here, it would lead me to conclude that the concept of a fruit is based off bananas. This clearly makes no sense. The truth is, a banana is a special case of a fruit, and a follower of Judaism is a special case of a Jew. There are fruits that are not bananas, and there are Jews who do not follow Judaism.

Here is how the Israel's Law of Return defines a Jew, which is as close to an authority on the subject as you can get. See Amendment No. 2 4B:

For the purposes of this Law, "Jew" means a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion."

MineSubCraftStarved

@Nomenclature

The only thing I see is that you are arguing Jews (i.e people who convert to Judaism) are not Jews. These people, who you claim all belong to the same ethnic group, are Jews:-

One can also be Hebrew by identity and culture, rather than genetics or appearance. Here is an example of an ethnic group with "highly differing" appearances:

The girl in the picture is of Arab ethnicity.
Sudans Omar al-Bashir in stable condition Source

The man in this picture is also of Arab ethnicity

The person in this picture again constitutes Arab ethnicity.
I brought up this point before and you completely ignored it.

There's a very good reason why the only people who attempt to classify Jews as either a race or an ethnic group are Jews.

That literally makes Jews an ethnic group, why? Because it supports a common Jew national identity, which I have already identified previously, is the most consistent and thus accurate way to determine whether or not a group is an ethnic group. Since Jews believe themselves to be a national and ethnic group, then they are. Ethnic groups are arbitrary constructions of human division, they aren't anything special, thus their most consistent definition is one of identity.

Hebrews are no longer an ethnic group

You keep making that claim over and over again. I have patiently explained the fact that Hebrews do exist through a continuation of cultural and genetic elements in groups claiming descendence of Hebrews 3000 years ago. Modern Hebrews have maintained a common national, linguistic(albeit not completly, but consistently to an extant), cultural and genetic connection to their homeland, thus maintaing their Hebrew ethnicity.

Their language became extinct in the 5th century AD and it was only revived in the 19th century AD.

That's irrelevant, many ethnic groups have the same language yet have different identities(Serbs and Croats, Arabs and Alawites, all the various ethnic groups in America that all speak english, etc..), so if some Hebrews speak German, or Spanish, or Arabic, that doesn't make them German, Spanish or Arabic.

arguing belongs exclusively to Jews you appallingly fallacious halfwit.

Two things, many genetic studies have identified a common Hebrew connection between Jewish groups, and a common Hebrew genetic identifier. Regardless of that, I never claimed that Jews have a purely unique set of DNA, I simply said that modern populations of Jews haven't mixed in with large amounts of converts are you claim.

Stop ignoring it when I disprove your mythology. Your paper was authored by orthodox religious Jews who think the Diaspora was a real event. They have a severe conflict of interest with genuine scientific research which you are spectacularly ignoring in the hope that nobody is going to notice.

Unless you can demonstrate accurately how all or the majority of the 25 geneticists in the study have a severe conflict of interest, your argument is mute. You can keep going on and on about an orthodox Jewish conspiracy, but unless you can prove it, your argument is mute.
Funny how you ignored the other two studies which weren't even written by any Jews(you can check your last names):
Using these proxy ancestral populations, we calculated the amount of European admixture in the AJ population to be 35 to 55%.
The structure analysis was compatible with the Iranian and Iraqi Jews having predominant Middle Eastern/Central Asian ancestry and the European and Syrian Jews having both Middle Eastern/Central Asian and European ancestry with the proportion of European ancestry ranging between 20% and 40%
You selectively choose sources to pick on and then run off with a straw manned argument to attack. This isn't a debate, it isn't an argument, it isn't even a squabble or bickering. This is propaganda from you.
Furthermore, if Jews were purely a religious group, why would religious Jews(and thus Jews by religion, unlike secular Jews) choose to support the idea of a Jewish or Hebrew ethnicity?

You've linked the exact same "study" I just debunked in my last post!! Stop making me repeat myself. The erroneous assumption made by these authors that the Diaspora was a real historical event undermines anything they write.

No you didn't, you never touched on it, I reread your last post BTW and you made 0 reference to the study. If you went into the study, go control + F, and you'll find that it makes no reference to the Roman diaspora which you refer to, making your argument mute. Historical events are most irrelevant to pure genetic studies of groups.

You blanket dropped a bunch of random links with no supporting context,

I have done the same thing as you, and linked the source along with a relevant quotation to support my argument. I do not drop a bunch of random links with supporting context, I prove quotes from them to support my argument.

Look, I'm not wasting any more time with your delusional, fallacious crap. I proved you wrong days ago, and you're simply repeating yourself.

Every single argument I make you straw-man and then proceed to abusively berate or completely ignore. You have no prudent ability for intellectual conversation or discussion. Your constant rantings of a "Pseudo-Scientific Orthodox-Jewish" conspiracy among geneticists to disprove the flawed claim, such as by Shlomo Sand of Hebrews being of primarily conversion is irrelevant until you can demonstrate by any reasonable measure that there is in fact this kind of a conspiracy. You sir, are a pseudo-scientific Cretan, a troll, and anti-Semite who is hell bent on removing the history and facts of the Hebrew people. Citing consistently debunked works, especially by those in the field of modern genetics and revisionist history is especially evident of your almost fanatical desire to disprove the existence of a Hebrew people. You have no process for intellectual processing or discussion. And although I profess I have not made the politest of comments, including the one I am writing right now, in virtually every single comment that you post, you manage to insert some vile and nasty attack on me, rather than the argument. I will not respond to any more of your arguments until you construct an argument of actual substance, and respond to the credible science I have submitted, rather than baselessly dismissing it as biased, and moving on. You will probably send an argument to me again on this thread, despite your constant statements that you will proceed not to in virtually every post you have. But unless it actually has some data or arguments of substances I won't care to even look at it throughly.

Another interesting case are the Ashkenazi Jews, who display a frequency of haplogroup K similar to the PPNB sample together with low non-significant pairwise Fst values, which taken together suggests an ancient Near Eastern origin. This observation clearly contradicts the results of a recent study, where a detailed phylogeographical analysis of mtDNA lineages has suggested a predominantly European origin for the Ashkenazi communities [48].
Using these proxy ancestral populations, we calculated the amount of European admixture in the AJ population to be 35 to 55%.
The structure analysis was compatible with the Iranian and Iraqi Jews having predominant Middle Eastern/Central Asian ancestry and the European and Syrian Jews having both Middle Eastern/Central Asian and European ancestry with the proportion of European ancestry ranging between 20% and 40%
Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. Admixture estimates suggested low levels of European Y-chromosome gene flow into Ashkenazi and Roman Jewish communities.
This pattern is consistent with a major, but variable component of shared Near East ancestry, together with variable degrees of admixture and introgression from the corresponding host Diaspora populations.
These studies show that the Jews form a distinctive cluster in the Middle East, and it is not known whether the factors driving this structure would also involve other groups in the Levant.
Another interesting case are the Ashkenazi Jews, who display a frequency of haplogroup K similar to the PPNB sample together with low non-significant pairwise Fst values, which taken together suggests an ancient Near Eastern origin. This observation clearly contradicts the results of a recent study, where a detailed phylogeographical analysis of mtDNA lineages has suggested a predominantly European origin for the Ashkenazi communities
No particular similarity of Ashkenazi Jews to populations from the Caucasus is evident, particularly populations that most closely represent the Khazar region.
^ 8 genetic studies that demonstrate a near-Eastern origin of Jews(and thus a connection to Hebrews, demonstrate that they are in fact, the descendants of Hebrews), and particular dispels the Khazar(regarding Ashkenazim) conspiracy theory which you have perpetrated on this thread.\
Keeping posting your two well-debunked pseudoscientific and pseudo-historical writers. While I have the support of dozens of geneticists, more than a handful of studies to demonstrate a connection between modern and ancient Hebrews.

Nomenclature

@MineSubCraftStarved

One can also be Hebrew by identity and culture

No, "one" can't, because as I've explained to you repeatedly, the Hebrews no longer exist as a people. They have not existed as a people for thousands of years. They intermixed, intermarried, interbred and converted new populations to their religious beliefs. I can call myself a viking, but it doesn't actually make me a viking. Does that objective information compute in any part of your wobbly circuit board?

The problem with this conversation is that you have no respect for objective truth. You simply want to bend reality to your own will. Coupled with the dreary length of your posts, this implies quite strongly that you may suffer from a narcissistic personality disorder.

Here is an example of an ethnic group with "highly differing" appearances. The girl in the picture is of Arab ethnicity.

Stop being patently ridiculous for once during this conversation. Every culture in the world experiences interbreeding. In the UK there are plenty of fifth and sixth generation Chinese people, but that does not mean they belong to the same ethnic group as red-haired, fair-skinned, freckle-faced Englishmen. Their features immediately reveal the fact that their lineage is from somewhere else.

You're using brazen circular reasoning in which you begin with a false conclusion, and then follow up by appealing to your own false conclusion. If I show you a photo of a man living in Japan who has blond hair, it does not make Nigerians who live in Nigeria and white Europeans who live in Europe part of the same ethnic group, simply because they worship the same god.

That literally makes Jews an ethnic group, why?

No, claiming yourself to be part of a non-existent ethnic group does not make you an ethnic group. Obviously it doesn't, so please just cut out the absurd circular reasoning.

Because it supports a common Jew national identity

There is no common Jewish national identity because Jewish populations live all over the world and have done so for millennia. Prior to 1948 they didn't have a nation, so calling Jewishness a "national identity" is delusional thinking.

which I have already identified previously,

You have identified only that you are delusional.

Since Jews believe themselves to be a national and ethnic group, then they are.

Lol. Sure thing buddy. And since I believe the world is flat, then it is. Since I believe I am the greatest lover in history, then I am. That's how it works, you see.

You keep making that claim over and over again.

It isn't a claim. It's a fact, documented by the historical record.

I have patiently explained the fact that Hebrews do exist through a continuation of cultural and genetic elements in groups

You can continue to patiently explain it for the next three weeks if you like, but it still won't make it true. Hebrews "exist through a continuation of cultural and genetic elements" in the same way that vikings "exist through a continuation of cultural and genetic elements". That is to say, they don't, and you're talking pure, unadulterated horse crap.

Modern Hebrews have maintained a common national, linguistic

You literally know that isn't true. The Hebrew language was extinct by the 5th century AD. If I and my buddies suddenly start speaking Latin, that doesn't make us Romans.

Just stop. You are 100 percent objectively, irrefutably, unequivocally wrong.

That's irrelevant

Lmao. OK, I'm done.

jack

MineSubCraftStarved said:

You sir, are a pseudo-scientific Cretan, a troll, and anti-Semite who is hell bent on removing the history and facts of the Hebrew people. You have no process for intellectual processing or discussion. And although I profess I have not made the politest of comments, including the one I am writing right now, in virtually every single comment that you post, you manage to insert some vile and nasty attack on me, rather than the argument.

Hello M:

Clearly, it's not your argument he hates.. It's YOU and ME.. So, there's no winning, or convincing here. There's only venom. I dunno. Maybe it's cause he longs to be a member of a race, but can't find one. Maybe it's cause for the last 6,000 years, we've been hated by much better haters than him - yet we survived. And, not only did we survive, we THRIVED - and that pisses him off.

So, pile on.

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha.

excon

Nomenclature

@jack

Clearly, it's not your argument he hates.. It's YOU and ME.

You don't have an argument. You're pushing self-contradictory mythology which has no basis in either historical or scientific fact. I've meticulously disassembled and explicated every fallacy and/or abuse of language either of you have attempted to use, but you refuse to be reasoned with. Nowhere is this better exemplified than your insulting efforts to pretend that, since I don't buy into your upside down religious reasoning and bunk arguments, I therefore must be a bigot. These are highly offensive smear tactics with no basis in fact, and which only exemplify the selfish and vindictive person you are.

Minecraft is a delusional narcissist who literally just labelled peer-reviewed scientific research a "conspiracy theory". He's irrational, and you know he's wrong as well as I do. However, you're a thoroughly dishonest ex-convict who has spent his entire life reaping the benefits of a false social identity, so it is little wonder that you give all his posts a thumbs up.

Maybe it's cause he longs to be a member of a race, but can't find one.

Even Jews agree that Jews are not a race.

Israel's Rabbis Think Genetic Testing Can 'Prove' Jewishness. They're Wrong.

The Israeli rabbinate, pushing DNA tests, has fallen into the trap of 19th century racial science: Jewishness is an identity, not a genetic construct – and it can't be measured in a lab.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-04-29/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israels-rabbis-think-genetic-testing-can-prove-jewishness-theyre-wrong/0000017f-e5ed-d62c-a1ff-fdff15d90000

You're literally a non-Jewish atheist trying to use religious reasoning to argue that you're "racially" Jewish. I can think of very few more disingenuous things to do. It's just utterly pathetic.

Nomenclature

@MayCaesar

You appear to be making a logical mistake here. Specifically, it is the generalization fallacy: the fact that everyone following Judaism is called a Jew leads you to conclude that the classification is based off of religious belief, while in reality this is merely a special case and there are Jews who do not follow Judaism and who are considered Jewish from the ethnic perspective.

It is you who is making the logical mistake, not Luigi. Just because Jewish religious leaders claim Jewishness is an ethnicity does not mean Jewishness is an ethnicity. This is nothing more than a cynical and transparent effort on the part of Jewish religious leaders to ascribe "special" status to their own religion, as per their own ideological belief structure. It has no basis in factual reality. Only one of the following two statements can be true:-

A. Jews are not an ethnic group.

B. Jews, Muslims and Christians are all ethnic groups.

There is no third option.

JulesKorngold

Argument Topic: Some Ethnic Groups

Han Chinese
Arabs
Bengali
Punjabi
Malay
Javanese
Russian
Japanese
Swahili
Hausa
Amhara
Oromo
Zulu
Jews
Yoruba
Kurdish
Persian
Pashtun
Turkic peoples (Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, etc.)
Indigenous peoples (Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, Maori, etc.)

JulesKorngold

Argument Topic: Jews Are All Three

Jews can be considered as all three: an ethnic group, a religious group, and a culture.

Ethnically, Jews are considered a distinct group due to their shared ancestry and genetic markers. Many Jews trace their ancestry back to the ancient Israelites, and their genetic and cultural heritage has been shaped by the various populations they have interacted with throughout history.

Religiously, Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people. The core beliefs and practices of Judaism are central to Jewish identity, and Jewish religious practices and customs have been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years.

Culturally, Jews have a rich and diverse cultural heritage that includes literature, art, music, food, and language. Jewish cultural traditions have been shaped by the different countries and communities where Jews have lived throughout history.

Overall, Jews are a complex and multifaceted group, and their identity can be influenced by a combination of factors including ethnicity, religion, culture, and history.

Nomenclature

@JulesKorngold

You never include your sources because you're a thoroughly dishonest man.

Exclusive: 2021 survey for England and Wales will not include a 'Jewish' option under ethnicity

As part of a government-backed consultation, focus groups in London and Manchester last year showed Jews “prefer to have a ‘Jewish’ option only in the religion question”.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/jewish-ethnicity-split-for-next-census/

It really speaks volumes about the attitude of the fanatical Jewish ultra far right, that they are willing to use Hitlerian fallacies about Jewish ethnicity in order to afford themselves a false social status.

Nomenclature

@JulesKorngold

Europe’s Jews see themselves as religious– not ethnic– group

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/report-europes-jews-see-themselves-as-religious-not-ethnic-group/

You see how it works when honest Jews are interviewed?

jack

Nomenclature said:

Europe’s Jews see themselves as religious– not ethnic– grouphttps://www.jewishnews.co.uk/report-europes-jews-see-themselves-as-religious-not-ethnic-group/

You see how it works when honest Jews are interviewed?

Hello hater:

Nahhh. That we argue with each other, isn't proof we're NOT Jews.. It's proof that we ARE. We argue.. That's why we make such GREAT lawyers and judges.

Du*de!

How do you not know this stuff?

excon

Nomenclature

@jack

Nahhh. That we argue with each other, isn't proof we're NOT Jews

Listen, you thoroughly delusional man, stop falsely including yourself into groups you don't belong to. There is no "we", because you're not Jewish. The people who took the survey are Jewish. You are not Jewish.

jack

Nomenclature said:

Listen, you thoroughly delusional man, stop falsely including yourself into groups you don't belong to. There is no "we", because you're not Jewish. The people who took the survey are Jewish. You are not Jewish.

Hello hater:

WE also make great movie producers, actors, scientists, writers and bankers. Plus, WE have a particularly sharp sense of humor. Or, did all that get by you too? All you gotta do is open your eyes and look around.. We're running the place..

Du*de!

excon

Nomenclature

@jack

You can flap your pointless gums all day long if you like, but you're always going to be a shallow, delusional, obtusely infantile 80 year old attention seeker, never a Jew.

JulesKorngold

The classification of Jews as an ethnic group is widely accepted by scholars in various fields, including anthropology, sociology, and genetics. Jews share a common cultural heritage, history, and religion, and many identify as belonging to a distinct ethnic group.

Nomenclature

@JulesKorngold

The classification of Jews as an ethnic group is widely accepted by scholars in various fields

List of ethnic groups

Indian
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
Chinese
Caribbean
African
English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British
Irish
Gypsy or Irish Traveller
Roma
Arab

https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/ethnic-groups

Stop making bunk appeals to authority, stop ignoring historical facts, stop ignoring scientific facts, stop ignoring basic common sense, and focus on showing me where Jews are in that official list of ethnic groups.

Clown.

Swolliw

@Nomenclature @JulesKorngold

focus on showing me where Jews are in that official list of ethnic groups.

Any other Mixed or multiple ethnic background
Any other ethnic group

Thats where they are so, your argument based on using that evidence is invalid.
The article is taken from census figures which are usually blinkered questions, (not a definitive list) designed to elicit specific data for specific purposes. The UK government did not state that the list was definitive, rather, that is where they obtained their data. Since an ethnic group is generally regarded as a social construct you would find that there are in fact many hundreds of ethnic groups

Nomenclature

@Swolliw

Thats where they are so, your argument based on using that evidence is invalid.

Lmfao. Oh, is it?

Europe’s Jews see themselves as religious– not ethnic– group

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/report-europes-jews-see-themselves-as-religious-not-ethnic-group/

So, to clarify, European Jews don't see themselves as an ethnic group, the British census doesn't see them as an ethnic group, but that's "invalid" because you see them as an ethnic group? Yes?

Please. Do tell me more about this special "ethnic group" of yours which includes black Africans, white Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Inuits, Arabs, Indians and Jamaicans. Tell me more about this special "ethnic group" which includes members of all the other ethnic groups.

You make me laugh pal. I don't know if you're dishonest or just thick, but obviously neither Christians, Muslims or Jews are an ethnic group.

Nomenclature

Argument Topic: You Want To Know The Truly Pathetic Thing About This Argument?

It doesn't have anything to do with ethnicity, or even religion. This is about politics.

Using outdated and erroneous theories of racial science popularised in the 1800s, the German far right arbitrarily labelled Jews as an ethnic group, just so they could persecute anybody even related to a Jew.

Now, almost a full century later, the Jewish far right are abusing the exact same false, intellectually backwards theories, only for the precise opposite reasons.

MineSubCraftStarved

@Nomenclature

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/report-europes-jews-see-themselves-as-religious-not-ethnic-group/

The study also stated that the vast majority of the Jews surveyed(around 64%) were not even Jewish by religion, as they were secular or reform.
How can a Jew be considered still Jewish even if they aren't Jewish by religion? Most Jews today are hardly religious, as seen by the results of the study, nor were many Jewish populations historically (such as in the Soviet Union). Since they are still considered Jews despite not being Jewish by religion, they must be considered Jews by other aspects, namely an ethnic(cultural, national, or genetic) identity.
The report also went on to state the following:

68% mentioned parentage, compared to 58% who mentioned religion;

Religion and parentage are much stronger bases of identity for younger than for older Jews. Older Jews are more likely to define Judaism as their culture and heritage. Ethnicity is the least mentioned definition for all age groups;
In Western and Southern Europe Judaism is commonly understood as both religion and ancestry. In Northern and Eastern Europe ancestry dominates over religion.

Most Jews do see Jewishness as a cultural or ancestral identity, with a strong religious component. Thus constituting the basis of Jewish ethnicity. Furthermore, I think that the reason that most people didn't say that Jewishness was an ethnic idea is that ethnicity is often poorly defined and would've meant different things to different people.

The Hebrew language was extinct by the 5th century AD

Untrue, Hebrew was still spoken in religious praying and circles, it simply wasn't used as a language that was used for day-to-day interactions with other people.

Hebrews "exist through a continuation of cultural and genetic elements" in the same way that Vikings "exist through a continuation of cultural and genetic elements".

For Vikings, people in Scandinavian countries can likely determine ancestry from ancient Vikings, meaning that they can claim to be descendants of them.

They intermixed, intermarried, interbred and converted new populations to their religious beliefs.

Not for the past 2000 years at least, according to the wealth of genetic studies I have posted in this thread, this has not been the case.

Every culture in the world experiences interbreeding.

Exactly, and the relatively small amount of inter-breeding with outside populations that Hebrews have done(as evidenced by genetic studies) still means they kept their genetic identity two thousand years later.

And since I believe the world is flat, then it is.

What you define as your identity is your choice. There is no "concrete" or "scientific" way to determine ethnicity apart from genetics(from which it is difficult to differentiate close groups from each other) and national identity. In both factors, Jews tend to share a closer genetic relationship with each other rather than their host populations. And Jews tend to have a common national identity, thus they are an ethnic group.

There is no common Jewish national identity because Jewish populations live all over the world and have done so for millennia. Prior to 1948, they didn't have a nation, so calling Jewishness a "national identity" is delusional thinking.

So there was no Greek national identity prior to their independence from the Ottoman Empire? Is there no Romani national identity in Europe? If national identity is based purely on the existence of a government from which people live, why are Tibetans today considered a separate national group from ethnic Han Chinese today? The fact of the matter is that national identity does not depend on your control of a piece of land. National identity is simply your open association with a particular social group that is determined through parentage and culture.

Their features immediately reveal the fact that their lineage is from somewhere else.

Pseudo-scientific approximations of ethnicity purely by physical appearance are a definite callback to the era of scientific racism prevalent in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially with practices such as comparing skull features.
Regardless of that fact, many ethnicities do have different physical appearances, there are blond Africans yet they are still African.
The fact of the matter is, Jews, tend to look closer to each other and other middle-eastern groups, rather than their host countries, specifically in Europe. This is evidenced by the close genetic similarity of Jews.
You posted pictures of Kaifeng Jews, who number 3,000 as proof of differing Jewish identities. Although they are not Hebrew by genetics, they still (presumably) carry a common Hebrew/Jewish identity and culture which distinguishes them from their host population.
Jews DO tend to look similar. And the vast majority of them look more similar than the pictures of Arabs I posted previously.

Swolliw

@Nomenclature

but obviously neither Christians, Muslims or Jews are an ethnic group.

Not obvious at all.

eth·nic [ˈɛθnɪk] ADJECTIVE of or belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent:

Whether or not a group sees itself as being or not being ethnic is being subjective on their part and belies the fact of what is or is not an ethnic group. Since religion and culture are so inexplicably linked, by definition, Jews are an ethnic group.

But so what, ethnic schnethnic; Jews, Muslims and Christians all belong to the same group and that of being deluded nit-wits.

Nomenclature

@Swolliw

Not obvious at all

Sorry, I meant obvious to people with an IQ higher than 100.

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List of ethnic groups

Europe’s Jews see themselves as religious– not ethnic– group

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