#lcje

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When I say that I am a Jew, with a strong sense of Jewish identity, I am making a claim that can be evaluated in a variety of ways. My claim to be Jewish will be assessed against psychological and sociological reference points – in what way do I understand myself to be Jewish, and how does the Jewish community and the world at large respond to my claim? Am I Jewish according to some criterion of  “Jewishness” defined by history and tradition, or something else? And what is this concept or quality of “Jewishness?” Is it ethnic, religious, or a combination of the two? If my identity as a Jew is expressed in unorthodox terms (and the word “orthodoxy” begs a series of further questions), how is my own version of Jewish identity to be evaluated? Is there such a thing as “Jewish identity”, or should we rather be speaking in the plural, of “Jewish identities?”