Does religion = ethnicity?

[Anonymous]

I.e. Ashkenazi = Jewish, Arab = Muslim.

[Anonymous]

No

[Anonymous]

There are often connections, but it does not apply to everyone.

[Anonymous]

No- for example there are a TON of arab christians- especially in NOVA, also in a small town in the Middle east called Bethlehem, lots and lots of gabs who Christian. . Also- persian Jews. I personally know a Pakistani guy who's grandfather converted to Christianity i think in the early 20th century. Ive met a Druze guy who was Iraqi, I also met a lot of Copts (Christians) in Egypt. I recently had a Muslim ethiopian uber driver- I always thought Ethiopians are Christian. Ethnicity is not the same as religion always. Madeline Albright is ashkenazi but she is also Episcopalian, My brother in law's aunt comes from a family of Romans who until WW2 were Jewish but they all converted to Catholicism during the war and still consider themselves Catholic in faith but Jewish Romans ethnically.
The USA is especially ash with ppl who are minorities ethnically and religiously b/c of the draw of the 1st amendment. I know for a fact that this is why my parents moved here in the 1970s. or them it was actually an economic hardship but they moved here to practice their religion freely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I.e. Ashkenazi = Jewish, Arab = Muslim.

No, there are huge numbers of Arab Christians.

And most Muslims are not Arab.

[Anonymous]

The nation with the most Muslims is Indonesia.

[Anonymous]

No. There can be strong correlations but not always. There's a minority of Arab Christians, for example. And plenty of non-Arab Muslims. But by far most Arabs are Muslims.

[Anonymous]

Askenazi is a subethnic group. But you can certainly be Ashkenazi or descendant of Ashkenazi and not be Jew if you choose to be non-religious atheist or different religion.

[Anonymous]

First off, the use of Ashkenazi/sephardi/mizrahi as ethnic descriptors is only one usage within the Jewish world. An older usage refers to halacha (Jewish law) Observant Ashkenazi Jews follow ritual traditions going back to medieval Germany and northern France, sephardim to those from the yeshivas of medieval Spain. In this sense most "mizrahi" jews are actually sephardim (though Yemenites have their own independent traditions) even if their families never spoke Ladino.

Secondly, at least in the US, Ashkenazi is almost never used by itself as independent descriptor. It would always be "ashkenazi Jew" or "Sephardi Jew" etc, unless context made it very clear that it was only ethnic Jews being referred to. Ashkenazi is sometimes use to refer to Israelis by antizionists trying to claim that Israelis are interlopers to the region (despite Mizrahi Jews making up about 40% of the Jewish population there)

There is one poster here who seems to think "Ashkenazi" is a term for Jews of eastern european descent who have become Christians. I have never heard it used that way outside DCUM. People who are not part of the Jewish community don't really follow "ashkenazi customs" (saying Kaddish on yom tov, avoiding legumes on Passover, etc). I mean you are a christian who kugel cause your mom made it? Great, but calling yourself "Ashkenazi" just makes you sound silly.

[Anonymous]

For Jews, yes. For most other religions, no.

[Anonymous]

Ashkenazi is a subgroup of Jews. There are no Ashkenazi non-Jews. There are Jews who are not Ashkenazi.

Not all Arabs are Muslim. Not all Muslims are Arab.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ashkenazi is a subgroup of Jews. There are no Ashkenazi non-Jews. There are Jews who are not Ashkenazi.

Not all Arabs are Muslim. Not all Muslims are Arab.

What? There are plenty of Ashkenazi Jews who do not practice Judaism. And their families, for generations, did not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ashkenazi is a subgroup of Jews. There are no Ashkenazi non-Jews. There are Jews who are not Ashkenazi.

Not all Arabs are Muslim. Not all Muslims are Arab.

What? There are plenty of Ashkenazi Jews who do not practice Judaism. And their families, for generations, did not.

Yes, and most people call them ethnic Jews, Jews by origin, or even "cultural Jews" (though often they have no ties to secular Jewish culture) . Few bother to distinguish them from sephardic or mizrahi Jews, unless you are messing around with some ancestry service, or worrying about grandma's kugel recipe.

And I would suggest that outside Israel, there are few Jews whose familes have not practiced Judaism for generations. In the diaspora such families typically intermarry multiple times over the generations and lose any ties to Jewish identity of any kind. It becomes "oh your great grandma was Jewish, that's cute"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The nation with the most Muslims is Indonesia.

And the nation with the second highest population is India IIRC.

So, no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First off, the use of Ashkenazi/sephardi/mizrahi as ethnic descriptors is only one usage within the Jewish world. An older usage refers to halacha (Jewish law) Observant Ashkenazi Jews follow ritual traditions going back to medieval Germany and northern France, sephardim to those from the yeshivas of medieval Spain. In this sense most "mizrahi" jews are actually sephardim (though Yemenites have their own independent traditions) even if their families never spoke Ladino.

Secondly, at least in the US, Ashkenazi is almost never used by itself as independent descriptor. It would always be "ashkenazi Jew" or "Sephardi Jew" etc, unless context made it very clear that it was only ethnic Jews being referred to. Ashkenazi is sometimes use to refer to Israelis by antizionists trying to claim that Israelis are interlopers to the region (despite Mizrahi Jews making up about 40% of the Jewish population there)

There is one poster here who seems to think "Ashkenazi" is a term for Jews of eastern european descent who have become Christians. I have never heard it used that way outside DCUM. People who are not part of the Jewish community don't really follow "ashkenazi customs" (saying Kaddish on yom tov, avoiding legumes on Passover, etc). I mean you are a christian who kugel cause your mom made it? Great, but calling yourself "Ashkenazi" just makes you sound silly.

The poster you are describing has been starting a lot of "Ashkenazi" threads lately, I would not be surprised if OP is the poster. The poster seems to think that Ashkenazi is stand alone ethnicity.