Jews are members of the indigenous people of Judea-Samaria, the Jewish people. We are not a world proselytizing religion like Arab Islam and European Christianity, but a people with an ethno-religion that ties us to the land of our ancestors no matter where we are in the world. Anyone can choose to be a Muslim or Christian by a simple declaration of “faith” in the theology of their chosen (often colonizing) religion. Very few get to be a member of an indigenous people like Kurds, Jews, Pueblo, Navajo, Hawaiians, and so forth. To be such, the community of Indigenous People must choose you as an indigenous member, by the laws of the Indigenous People. Most (near all) Indigenous People are born within the People – Jews included – and some, who show that they truly deserve it, are accepted by “conversion,” “adoption,” and so forth.
The Jewish people sprung from the land of ANE Moab, the east side of the Jordan river. Then, the Jewish people crossed to the west side of the river, and became an ethno-religious nationality. Of the three descendants of the Canāanite people – Moab, Judah, and Edom – the Jewish people are the only remaining inheritors of our indigenous ancestral language, literatures, ethno-religion, rituals, and halachot. The identity of the Jewish people (includes the Samaritan and Kararite offshoots) is tied to Judea-Samaria, and requires our continued presence and self-sovereignty within our ancestral land.
Judaism (Judāh-ism) has always been about the continuity and future of our indigenous ancestral language, literatures, ethno-religion, rituals, and halachot that tie us לדור ודור ledor vador – for all generations – to the land of our ancestors. As such, a Jew is a recognized member of a Jewish community, as defined by this Jewish community’s halacha, full stop. A Jewish community is one that was formed by a legitimate Jew who is a halachic member of the Jewish people, again, full stop.
If in doubt about a group claiming to be Jewish, ask Jews of a legitimate by halacha Jewish community. We will investigate!
Since the rise of social media platforms, giving wide access to all forms of anti-Jewish racism, it has become a very common online occurrence for those who hate the Jewish people, the Indigenous People of Judea-Samaria, to try and divide us along skin color lines. The most common one that I hear, near every day, is a devoutely anti-Zionist form, which is anti-Jewish racism pure and simple:
“Jews are brown, not white. So, if you are white, that means that your family doesn’t have middle eastern blood, or you are mixed with the Europeans.”
Let’s address this anti-Jewish racism, shall we? We’ll do this, now, using the very Halacha (laws) of our Jewish people, the Indigenous People of Judea-Samaria.
“I call upon heaven and earth to bear witness that whether Jew or gentile, whether man or woman … the Divine Spirit rests upon him in accordance with the halacha which he performs.”
In Judaism, skin pigmentation is unknown as a halakhic concept. The problem of determining the status of the various communities of Jews, regardless what they physical look like, is totally unrelated to skin color. The sole issue is that of Jewish identity, as is established by Jewish law. The question of recognition of black Jews, white Jews, brown Jews, or Jews of any other skin color as members of the Jewish people is only seen within Judaism in this halachic identity context. As such, skin color and physical appearances is not a factor in determining: “Who is a Jew?”
The problem of Jewish identity *is* a crucial one! It is not to be dismissed as being merely a theoretical question in the realm of speculative anthropology, nor a matter of individual choice or belief without Jewish community acknowledgement; it is an issue closely associated with Jewish *survival*. Jews have managed to preserve their ethno-religious indigenous identity over a period of millennia without becoming assimilated into the dominant culture of their lands of habitation, whereas other ethnic groups have disappeared within relatively short periods of time. Despite their wide geographical dispersion, frequent (and sometime forced) migration and lack of an autonomous homeland, Jews have neverthless somehow succeeded in preserving their ethnic identity “through our ethno-religious halacha.”
– https://www.sefaria.org/Contemporary_Halakhic_Problems%2C_Vol_I%2C_Part_II%2C_CHAPTER_XIV_Black_Jews%2C_A_Halakhic_Perspective?lang=bi
The Question of Skin Color in Determining Jewish Identity
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