Jewish identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as a Jew and as relating to being Jewish. Under the broader definition, the Jewish identity does not depend on whether or not a person is regarded as a Jew by others, or by an external set of religious, or legal, or sociological norms. Jewish identity does not need to imply religious orthodoxy. Accordingly, Jewish identity can be cultural in nature. Jewish identity can involve ties to the Jewish community. Traditional Judaism bases Jewishness on matriachal descent. According to Jewish law (halacha), all those born of a Jewish mother are Jewish, regardless of personal beliefs or level of observance of Jewish law. Jews who are atheists may have Jewish identity. While the absolute majority of people with this identity are of Jewish ethnicity, people born from a mixed Jewish and non-Jewish background may have Jewish identity. (See also "half-Jewish".)
Read more about Jewish Identity: Categories, A Cultural/Ancestral Concept, Antisemitism and Jewish Identity
Famous quotes containing the words jewish and/or identity:
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“Unlike Boswell, whose Journals record a long and unrewarded search for a self, Johnson possessed a formidable one. His life in London—he arrived twenty-five years earlier than Boswell—turned out to be a long defense of the values of Augustan humanism against the pressures of other possibilities. In contrast to Boswell, Johnson possesses an identity not because he has gone in search of one, but because of his allegiance to a set of assumptions that he regards as objectively true.”
—Jeffrey Hart (b. 1930)