Why is being Jewish considered an ethnicity?

Yes, in addition to the meaning of any member of the religion Judaism, the word also refers to an people descended from the ancient Hebrew people. If you’ve read much of the Christian Bible, you’ll have heard of them.

See for example:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jew-people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_history
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history

I think mostly because we, Jewish people, reject being addressed as a race and a large portion of us aren’t religious, about 40%, so describing us as an ethnic group seems to fit best.

I googled the definition of ethnicity: the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition.

It’s the cultural part of that statement that really defines why the Jewish people feel part of an ethnic group, although among Jewish people the Sephardic and the Ashkenazi are subgroups that have slightly different traditions and culture, but still the history of the Jewish people binds them together.

Since they are a division of humanity and they are discriminated against.

Most Jews share common ancestry – they are an ethnic group. Well, two ethnic groups.

Ashkenazi Jews have European ancestry. Most Jews today are Ashkenazi.
Sephardic Jews descend from Mediterranean people.

The terms were originally more specific (Ashkenazi = German and Sephardic = Spanish/Iberian), but today they commonly used to mean European Jews and everyone else.

That is very broad-brush and if you want to get see A LOT more info Wikipedia will get you started: Jewish ethnic divisions

This is super interesting, I came across it while googling:
LA Times – DNA ties Ashkenazi Jews to group of just 330 people from Middle Ages

I find this confusing myself. It basically comes down to the term “Jewish” being used to refer to 2 different groups of people that largely overlap. One group refers to the ethnic descendants of the Jewish people and the other refers to practitioners of Judaism. Of course a person of any race/ethnicity can practice Judaism and people who are ethnically Jewish may not practice Judaism. To further complicate the matter, you have Jewish atheists, who practice many of the cultural religious traditions, but don’t believe in God.

I wish there was a more descriptive set of vocabulary to avoid ambiguity because it can lead to misunderstandings.

@gorillapaws Jews do clarify (when asked) whether they are religious or not. In America we even use words like reform, conservative, orthodox, or some people will use the term observant. The God part is tricky, because people can attend service at the synagogue and even observe some traditions and be atheist. Hard to guess, especially if they are reform Jews.

I think it’s similar to Catholics. Some are very religious. Some cafeteria. Some not religious at all, but raise their children still with CCD and confirmation. Although, it seems to me many Catholics feel if they become atheists they have to stop identifying as Catholic, while Jews don’t, because of the ethnicity factor. Maybe because most people have a national background they identify with like Italian or Irish, while Jews feel less ties to the old countries of their parents and grandparents, especially in America among the Ashkenazi.

Plus, people hate the Jews throughout time and group us all together. Even if we don’t want to be grouped, we realistically don’t have a lot of choice about it.

I’m saying I agree with you, but also trying to further explain.

@JLeslie ”I think it’s similar to Catholics…”

While I take your meaning about the spectrum of religiosity among Catholics, I’m not sure they’re a particularly apt comparison since they don’t have the inherent entanglement with faith, ethnicity, and culture. Catholics generally haven’t experienced widespread persecution and hatred like the Jewish people have had to endure. Perhaps the Sikh people might be a more apt comparison, or even the Muslim Uighurs in China.

@gorillapaws Agree that the Catholic comparison is only really analogous regarding religiousity. I don’t know enough about the Sikh to comment whether it is similar or not.

Jewish is both a race and a religion/faith. (the most persecuted race.)

@si3tech What race? Why are Jewish people a race? That term is not used anymore to describe the Jewish people. There are Black African Jews, Italian Jews, Russian Jews, Middle Eastern Jews, and many other countries and regions. How do you describe us as a race?