Reply to PSA: Jews are a racial group

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Fascinating links!  Thank you.

I believe that our religion and culture is such a small minority that we can't afford to turn others away.  Let us embrace these new Jews.[/quote]

I don't think anyone is arguing we should turn people away.

The argument--poorly articulated--was that there is an ethnic/genetic basis to one's Jewish identity, for most Jews.  [/quote]

Sigh. Have missed the last few posts, but let me dive in here.  I can see an "ethnic" component as in "my great grandparents were Jews, so I feel a connection to Jews, even though I not only have nothing to do with Judaism, but also nothing to do with Jewish secular culture"

What I have a problem with is "none of the relatives I actually know by name were Jews, but a genetic testing service says I have "jewish genes" so I am ethnically Jewish"

In one case we are using ethnic to mean a connection to specific individuals who were part of a community one can know about. I don't care for that form of identification (to me secular Jewishness means actually being part of Jewish culture - Yiddish speaking atheism will do if you are not religious) but its coherent.  The latter is using "ethnic" as a euphemism for "racial" and is, IMO very problematic. It would be so even if the genetic tests were guaranteed accurate, but it is more so in that they are not.  [/quote]

Regardless of your level of comfort around there being a genetic subgroup called Ashkenazi Jewish, one exists. That's a matter of science. Expectant parents with Ashkenazi Jewish background need to take an Ashkenazi Jew panel (that's literally what it's called) to test for the presence of certain genes that carry diseases (like Tay Sachs).

Of course, there's a difference between a genetic group and an ethnicity, but there has historically been an extremely strong overlap between those with Ashkenazi Jewish genetic backgrounds and those who identify with the ethnicity from a language/traditions standpoint. More recently, of course, intermarriage has become much more common, so the genetic distinctiveness of the group is lessening, but the fact remains that the group exists.

Wikipedia actually sums it up pretty nicely (and you'll see that the passage uses "genetic subgroup" and ethnicity interchangeably):

In an ethnic sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is one whose ancestry can be traced to the Jews who settled in Central Europe. For roughly a thousand years, the Ashkenazim were a reproductively isolated population in Europe, despite living in many countries, with little inflow or outflow from migration, conversion, or intermarriage with other groups, including other Jews. Human geneticists have argued that genetic variations have been identified that show high frequencies among Ashkenazi Jews, but not in the general European population, be they for patrilineal markers (Y-chromosome haplotypes) and for matrilineal markers (mitotypes).[110] Since the middle of the 20th century, many Ashkenazi Jews have intermarried, both with members of other Jewish communities and with people of other nations and faiths.[111]

A 2006 study found Ashkenazi Jews to be a clear, homogeneous genetic subgroup. Strikingly, regardless of the place of origin, Ashkenazi Jews can be grouped in the same genetic cohort – that is, regardless of whether an Ashkenazi Jew's ancestors came from Poland, Russia, Hungary, Lithuania, or any other place with a historical Jewish population, they belong to the same ethnic group. The research demonstrates the endogamy of the Jewish population in Europe and lends further credence to the idea of Ashkenazi Jews as an ethnic group. Moreover, though intermarriage among Jews of Ashkenazi descent has become increasingly common, many Haredi Jews, particularly members of Hasidic or Hareidi sects, continue to marry exclusively fellow Ashkenazi Jews. This trend keeps Ashkenazi genes prevalent and also helps researchers further study the genes of Ashkenazi Jews with relative ease. It is noteworthy that these Haredi Jews often have extremely large families.[15] 
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