Jews - Race or Religion?

[Richie Stan]

The title says it all, But can I practice Judism and not be a Jew?

Dito - Arab - Race or Religion?

[Lonnie]

Nothing at all, I assume you mean the customs etc, without going to a Synagogue or Mosque?.

[jno]

re Arabs: the religion is Islam; there are Christian Arabs and there are non-Arab Muslims (millions of them in Indonesia). Arabs are basically a race; Arabic is a language.

[Clanad]

Usually Lonnie is quite succinct in his given information, but I didn't understand his post at all. Any one can convert to Judaism... that makes you a practioner of a particular religion, whereas a person has to be born a Jew to be of the Jewish race. Short answer (which I, obviously have forgone) is that it is both a race and a religion. There are several different "varities" of Jews... Hassidim, Orthodox, Sephardism as well as a huge number of Jews from countries such as Ethiopia, who are Jews by religion but their race is Negro.
Arabs, on the other hand can be any relgion, but most are Muslim. But the designation of Arab is more a connotation of race rather than religion since there is non "Arab" religion...

[Clanad]

Ooops, sorry jno, didn't see your post...

[Lonnie]

I agree with you Clanad, and to an extent you also jno, but I was taking the question at its face value, 'can you be practice Judaism and not be a Jew', I think you can, just by holding the same values regarding religion, and observing all the rules and regulations involved, without converting, which Clanad has pointed out, you can do.

jno has pointed out, which I didn't, (I apologise for that), that youcan be Arab, and any religion at all, I just took it as read that Islam was the religion meant here, but I think the same criteria stands, you can practice Islam, without becoming a Muslim.

I don't think there's anything at all stopping you from doing either, if you wanted.

[violetblue]

I discussed this question ages ago re the definition of Arab/Arabian with a half-Arab friend of mine, and it seems to depend on whether you're speaking from a geographical/ cultural/religions viewpoint. It seems that the definition of 'Arab' is a very vexed and contested question. You can speak of the Arab states, Arabic language, Arab identity etc. There seems to be a lot of crossover and it's a word I try to avoid using only because I cannot find an adequate definitiion. If you find a perfect definintion, please let us know!

[Lou Knee]

tis simple.....to be a Jew means you are a follower of a religion...to be an arab means you are a member of the arab race.
you can be one or the other or both
.........simple, or at least it should be but in my opinion there is never anything simple about religion.

[Clanad]

Just a final note on the question... many Israeli's are Jewish by nationality but are atheists... Israel has, ironically, a large population of secular citizens... they are still Jewish, by heritage, race and nationality, but not by religion...

[L-Grubov]

My familys is jewish and I dont practice so that means im not jewish its a religion like christianity and islam and to be an arab has nothing to do with religion