Jewish Identity

Assimilation is when non-Jews love us so much they want to marry us. Anti-Semitism is when non-Jews hate us so much they want to kill us. Why can't we, for once, think about what we think of ourselves?

I have long been uncomfortable with the concept of the "Chosen People". To suggest that as Jews we are somehow closer to G-d than all other nations smacks of arrogance, elitism, and racial prejudice.

My mother was a fairly devout Italian Catholic and my father an Anglican skeptic who never went to church. I was always so confused. Then I discovered Judaism, and I love it! What's my next step?

I have yet to meet a Jew who doesn't proudly claim, "My grandfather was a rabbi." It seems that three generations ago everyone was a rabbi!

Sages and mystics explore the primordial "mind" of G-d to ask: Is it the Torah that makes the Jew a Jew, or is it the Jew who makes the Torah a Torah?

I know that there are many logical proofs for the truth of Judaism. But at the end of the day, how do you know that yours is the right way? What makes you so sure?

Jews have always been called the "chosen people," because that's how we are described in the Bible. But what does it mean to be "chosen"? Chosen for what? How did we get to be chosen? Why did G-d have to choose a people?

I'm an atheist. I married a non-Jew and have no wish to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. My question is: can I consider myself non-Jewish, or do I need some sort of form or dispensation to be officially no longer Jewish?

Once we start understanding Judaism in its own language, all the questions dissolve. Not “religion,” but “brit”—meaning covenant. Not “convert,” but “ger”—a naturalized immigrant.

My mother was Protestant and my father was an atheist Jew. My family survived the holocaust in Europe with great struggle. Am I Jewish or am I a gentile?

There are two basic components to a human being: (a) his essence, and (b) that which he projects forth, such as his talents and abilities . . .

Jewishness became matrilineal as soon as Jewishness was born. There is no reason to believe otherwise.

What does the word "Hebrew" mean? And how did that become the name of the first Jews?

Abraham, commonly referred to as "The First Jew," epitomized "Jewishness" many centuries before the term came into common use

There are African Jews, Japanese Jews, even Eskimo Jews. It seems difficult to call such a mixture a "race"

Isn't it racist to believe you're special because you're Jewish? How is that any different from the Nazi belief in the "superiority" of the Aryan race, for example?

My fiancé's parents told me that for a Jew to marry a non-Jew is worse than the Holocaust! I don't get it. Am I really that terrible?

My question is: my parents aren't religious, we never kept kosher or any of the festivals.Why all of a sudden are they so Jewish when it comes to who I marry?

I am Baptist and my boyfriend is Jewish. Can we still make it work? I am trying to learn about Judaism

I often hear rabbis complain that the Jewish people are shrinking due to intermarriage and assimilation. But you are the major obstacle to Judaism growing! If you would make conversion a bit easier, many more non-Jews would join us...

My Jewish friends are mostly indifferent or even hostile towards their own religion, while I love Judaism and strongly desire to become a Jew. Then this rabbi tells me that "Judaism is not for you" ?!

Keeping kosher is not a reasonable act and neither is Shabbat or the prohibition against mixing wool and linen. These are neither rational nor religious acts—at least not in the modern understanding of "religious"...

The Jews and Greeks could have learned so much from each other! Instead, the extremists of both sides hit the battlefield

I like Shabbat. I like Torah, especially the Kabbalah stuff and Chassidic stories. I feel a strong attachment to the Jewish people. But I'm a non-conformist at heart -- I just can't see myself following all those regulations

I have always felt that the essence of spirituality is that, underneath it all, we are all one. Isn't it absurd to characterize a soul as "Jewish"? Why put souls in boxes?

I was accosted at the beach today by a guy from Jews for Jesus. He offered me a New Testament in Yiddish and said that many Jews have been "saved" by accepting Jesus as the messiah.

Are there Jewish fundamentalists, the way that there are those folks in Christianity and Islam? What would the core beliefs of a "Jewish fundamentalist" be?

As a rabbi, I assume you believe that Judaism is THE truth. If so, how do you explain the fact that there are so many other religions, and only a tiny minority of the world's population believes as you do?

Can you see a time when all Jews will follow the same customs?

I try to live by the words of John Lennon: Imagine there's no countries / It isn't hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for / No religion too.... Isn't that what life is about?

If Tevye's Judaism is anything to go by, don't you think it's time for an updated version?

Interestingly, as much as we have taken from alien cultures in the course of our thousands of years in exile, these cultures were even more affected than we were

In all seriousness, laughing has been an important part of Judaism since biblical times. But what is the source of the Jewish sense of humor in our times? Is it nature or nurture?

At almost every function I attend, a wedding, kid's birthday party or communal gathering, someone comes up to me and says, "Rabbi, do you know why I don't go to synagogue...."

The problem with rabbis is you always talk about the Jewish future, Jewish continuity, Jews marrying Jews. What about the rest of humanity?

What do you say to people like me who simply are not inspired by Judaism?

I pay my taxes, I am friendly to people around me, and I am charitable to those less fortunate. Doesn’t that make me a good person?

My nine-year-old son is the only Jewish child in his school. He has been disappointed numerous times because of the scheduling of fun and exciting events on major Jewish holidays. This has happened again this year. His school's overnight fieldtrip is scheduled on a Jewish holiday.

My Chabad rabbi has been bugging me to take off one semester to study in a yeshiva “some time before graduate school.” It’s still not clear to me what this yeshiva place is all about, and definitely not clear why I should take off in the middle of my studies to go there.