i'd just like to say it again for the people in the back: ethnicity, race, and nationality are DIFFERENT THINGS.
ethnicity = shared cultural characteristics including but not limited to language, food, music, dance, religion, and shared ancestry; learned through cultural transmission; can be changed throughout one's life provided that the ethnic community one is trying to join accepts them
race = a bullshit system of human categorization based solely upon looks; literally invented by europeans trying to sort humans like we are all different species; can also change over the course of someone's life if the necessary conditions are met (see: my great-great-grandparents being marked as non-white "Hebrew" immigrants in 1904 and then passing away right as Eastern Ashkenazi Jewish people began to fully assimilate into whiteness, eg the post-war period; also see the treatment of SWANA Muslims before and after 9/11); also a legal system in the US wherein those deemed "white" receive certain privileges denied to others based upon race science
nationality = one's country of origin and where they hold citizenship; those are sometimes the same and sometimes not; see for example a naturalized US citizen whose nationality might be both Dominican and American
now. why would someone get race and ethnicity, in particular, confused? you see, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, the word "race" both referred to the bullshit system and also to ethnic groups. additionally, in the post-colonial context, some ethnicities are based upon the system of race that was imposed upon settler colonies (for example, Black Americans, who were forcibly removed from their original ethnic communities and, in a show of remarkable resilience, created new and beautiful cultures). this has led to a lasting confusion on the two concepts.
you may be wondering: tzipi, why are you posting this?
because i need you to know that ethnoreligious groups are real. and i need you to know that jewish people are an ethnoreligious group with subethnicities (like Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Mizrahim, Persian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, etc). but that none of these groups are the "real Jews." and that we do, in fact, meet the definition of a distinct ethnic group with some similarities and differences across the many subethnicities that are contained within our ethnicity. we accept converts, who then become ethnically jewish, because ethnicity is not all about blood ties. AND ALSO. someone can be ethnically jewish without being religiously jewish, because they may share in the cultural practices that jewish people do and (usually, in this case,) have jewish heritage. such a person does not need to be Israeli to be ethnically jewish. "Israeli" is a nationality, not an ethnicity, at least right now.
just because, to the eye, we may appear to be different races does not make us "just a religion." some religious groups are not ethnoreligious groups, including (most) Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists, but that does not mean that jewish people are included in that category. thank you for coming to my tedtalk.
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