Judaism is not a religion.
Now I know we were all raised in a day and
age, and conditioned to consider Judaism as
one of the "world's great religions", which
is a bit strange since Jews make up less than
.01% of the world's population, but Judaism
is actually not a religion at all.
Hear me out.
The word "religion" in almost every dictionary
is defined as the belief system in a G-d,
deity, book, or prophet.
Or commonly understood as a belief system
that spreads across borders and across nations.
Let's look at actual religions like Christianity,
Islam or Buddhism.
If an individual does not believe in Jesus
or in the Christian bible, then that person
is not Christian.
If an individual does not believe in Mohammad
or in the Quran, then they are notMuslim,
and if an individual does not believe in Buddha
or in his teachings, then they are not Buddhists.
The point is that if any individual rejects
any religion’s deity or considers themselves
agnostic or atheists, then by the very definition
of religion, they are not a part of it.
Yet in Judaism, even if a Jew rejects the
notion of G-d and the Torah, they may be atheists
or agnostic, but they are still Jewish.
If we take a Christian for example, from France,
from China, from Argentina and from Cote d’Ivoire
in Africa, they may all have the same belief
system, but they are definitely not the same
people with the same culture or historic origin.
Yet when it comes to Jews, they may have been
physically displaced around the world, but
their identity, culture, history and even
genetics are all linked to one place and to
one people.
Again, by the very definition of a religion,
one must believe in that religion’s deity
in order to be a part of it, yet that rule
does not apply for the Jewish People and their
relationship with Judaism.
There is no doubt that many Jews are religious
and that the Jewish People’s connection
to a higher power and the Torah is an essential
element of their identity, but it is important
to realize the actual definitions of the words
being used, since this what iswhat the world
understands when they hear Jews speak.
The word “religious” describes an individual’s
relationship with something, whereas the word
“religion” very specifically describes
belief systems and not a people.
So if Judaism is not a religion, then what
is it?
Judaism is the portable suitcase of a native
people's identity that was created upon their
forceful displacement from their indigenous
land called Judea.
A suitcase that was built to preserve Judean
culture, values, laws, ethics, history, tradition,
language, aspirations, a connection to a higher
power, their way of life, and the will to
one day return and to liberate their homeland.
Although today the descendants of Judea are
usually referred to as Jews, this same ancient
people have been also called Hebrews or Israelites.
Well let’s go more in detail.
The almost 4,000 year old nation of Israel
is made up of 12 tribes.
I am a descendant of the tribe of Levi from
both sides of my family.
Back in the day, the tribe Judah decided to
break off from the rest of Israel.
This split, forced the creation of two kingdoms.
The Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judea.
Eventually the Kingdom of Judea renamed the
land of Israel to the land of Judea, including
all Israelites, even if they were from other
tribes.
This is why the Israelites or the Hebrews
are today referred to as Jews, because the
name of the land that they last lived in was
called Judea.
Around 2,000 years ago the Roman Empire was
spreading across Europe and Asia, and the
Judeans living in Judea, refused to submit
to their foreign rule.
Due to the rebellious nature of the Judeans,
the Roman Empire destroyed their country and
expelled the vast majority of Jews by importing
them to Rome on slave ships.
In fact, the coliseum of Rome was built by
Jewish slaves, and many of the gladiators
that fought for Roman entertainment were Judean
warriors that had been captured by the Roman
Empire.
Eventually, Jews bought their own freedom
in what is today Italy and were yet again
forced to leave.
This caused for two diasporic groups to be
formed.
One group left to “Sepharad”, which was
a name for Spain, and the other group left
to “Ashkanaz”, which was the region of
Germany.
This is where Sepharadi and Ashkenazi Jewish
history begins.
After the Spanish Inquisition, Sephardic Jews
were forced out of Spain to North Africa and
with the rise of Anti-Semitism in Europe,
Asheknazi Jews began moving East to places
like Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia.
This is why there are Jewish communities in
all of those places.
It was not a religionthat crossed borders
onto these peoples, it was a people that were
physically forced to cross borders because
they were being persecuted due to their Jewish
identity.
It is scientifically and historically incorrect
to view Ashkenazi Jews as Europeans or to
see Sephardi Jews as North Africans.
Jews were never considered “white” or
“European” in Europe, and Jews were treated
unequally as “Dhimmis” in North Africaand
the Middle East.
My personal family on my father’s side was
massacred in Poland during the Holocaust for
being Jewish, and not Polish nor part of the
Aryan race, and my family on my mother’s
side were massacred in Oujda, Morocco for
being Jewish and not Moroccan nor Arab.
Understand this, the word Ashkenazi or Sephardi
is not an adjective that describes the origin
of any Jew, but a word that portrays the experience
that some Jewish ancestors had post the colonization
of their lands.
Even when we look at Ashkenazi Jewish DNA,
it is actually more closely related to Arabs
in the Middle East than it is to white Europeans.
Makes sense, since both Arabs and Jews are
Semitic peoples that originate from the Middle
East.
Jews are from Judea and Judaism is a preservation
tool.
Even the word Judaism itself is never mentioned
in the Torah, because Jews were a people and
there was no need to create something that
would preserve or spread Judean identity.
However, when the Romans expelled the Judeans,
they needed to create something that would
preserve who they were.
This is where Judaism was born.
After a few generations and due to the fact
that Jews are such a small population, it
became hard for others around the world to
understand who or what the Jewish People really
were, and since other nations had religions,
most confused Jewish identity and the preservation
of their cultural as a religion, and even
worse, many Jews themselves began seeing their
true identity and culture as a religion secondary
to their physical birth place’s identity.
If the world understands religions as belief
systems and not peoples, why are some Jews
so attached to still calling Judaism areligion?
It is not Hebrew word.
It is an English word that means something
very specific to the world, and not at all
arepresentation of what Judaism actually is.
Religions do not have rights to lands, peoples
do, and if Judaism is a religion then the
Jewish People have no legitimate claim to
Israel.
Let’s look at other native peoples around
the world who have existed for thousands of
years.
For example, the First Nations of North America
commonly referred to as Native Americans or
Native Canadians.
This people is made up of many tribes and
each have a fundamental connection to a very
specific piece of land.
Although each tribe has their own set of deities
and spirits, the First Nations are not considered
a religion, they are a people.
Furthermore their identity as a people is
notexclusively dependent on an individual’s
belief in such deities or spirits.
What I mean by this, is if a Native American
individual were to reject his or her belief
in their culture’s deities, should he or
she no longer be considered a Native American.
Does he or she no longer have a history, a
culture, a language, a connection to a land,
or an identity?
The answer is clearly that they do, since
being a Native American is being the descendant
of a people and not a part of a religion that
spreads across borders and nations.
What is interesting of indigeneity, is that
it is based on a collective people and not
on an individual’s past.
The point of this video is for non-Jews to
understand who the Jewish People, Am Israel,
really are and for Jews to begin adecolonization
process and undoing the injustices that were
committed against us by invader nations.
To my fellow Jews, How are we to expect that
the world consider Israel as the home of the
Jewish People, if we ourselves in the diaspora
do not call it home.
If we ourselves do not understand who we are
and if we cannot communicate or project our
own narrative to the rest of the world.
Again, Judaism is not a religion but the portable
suitcase of a native people's identity that
was created upon their forceful displacement
from their indigenous land called Judea.
I am a Hebrew, I am an Israelite, I am a Jew,
I am an Israeli.
I am all of those things, because they are
the same.
I’m Rudy Rochman and you're watching J-TV.
