Are Jews A "People" or a "Religion?" And Is the "Chosen People" A Supremacist Concept?

Anti-Semites have long claimed that Jews are a “race” or “supremacists,” often pointing to the Torah’s description of “Israel” as the “Chosen People.” This reflects a profound misunderstanding of what Jewish identity actually is. Judaism has never defined Jews by race, blood, or ethnicity. The Jews are a nation, but not in the modern sense of the word. Today, “nation” is used as a synonym for “country” or “sovereign state.” When the Torah used the word am (nation), it did not mean that. G-d tells the Jews while they were still encamped in the desert, without a land of their own, “Today you have become a nation to the L-rd your G-d” (Deuteronomy 27:9). It means a people bound together by a shared divine mission. Rabbi Saadiah Gaon captured this truth concisely when he wrote, “Our nation is only a nation through its Torah.” Without Torah, there is no Jewish nation.

Throughout history, Jews have lived in every corner of the world, speaking different languages, following different cultural customs, and belonging to every imaginable ethnic background. What held them together was not culture, cuisine, or geography, it was the Torah. Conversion itself proves that Judaism is not racial. Anyone, from any ancestry or background, can join the Jewish people by accepting the Torah and its commandments. Many of the most revered figures in Jewish history descended from converts. Zipporah, the wife of Moses; Rachav, who married Joshua; Ruth, the great-grandmother of King David; and Onkelos, the translator of the authoritative Aramaic Targum were all converts. Even great Talmudic sages such as Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Meir traced their lineage to converts.

This classical Torah definition of Jewish identity stood unchallenged until the rise of Zionism in the late nineteenth century. The founders of Zionism rejected the Torah’s framework and attempted to redefine Jewishness as a secular national identity, separate from religion. They wanted Jews to be “a normal nation,” like the European national movements of their time. To achieve this, they crafted a national culture reshaped Biblical Hebrew into a modern secular language and transformed the Holy Land into a secular state known as “Israel.” In this process, they replaced “the People of the Book” with a political nationality. They declared themselves “the nation of Israel,” even while openly abandoning the Torah that defines that nation. This ideological revolution created a contradiction: they wished to retain the title “Jew,” yet rejected the very source that grants that identity.

Confusion about Jewish identity deepened with modern ideas of race and ethnicity, with some pointing out that Jews share common DNA. It is true that most Jews come from two common ethnic groups with similar DNA, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi/Sephardi. That simply reflects the fact that there have been relatively few converts over the centuries compared to other religions. But this does not define what a Jew is. A convert who accepts Torah is as fully Jewish as someone born into the community. Jewishness is not determined by skin color, geographic origin, or genetic markers.

Some have attempted to categorize Judaism as a tribe, but even this fails. Tribal lineage in the Torah is patrilineal, (e.g. status as a Kohen or Levite) while Jewish identity itself is matrilineal: a Jew is someone born to a Jewish mother or someone who properly converts. The maternal line establishes Jewish status; the paternal line establishes tribal affiliation. Neither is about ethnicity in the modern sense.

A common question arises: if Jewish identity is defined by Torah, why is someone born to a Jewish mother still Jewish even if they are completely non-observant or even deny the Torah? The answer lies in the distinction between halachic status and spiritual standing. By halachic definition, a person born to a Jewish mother is a Jew, regardless of personal beliefs. This status is permanent. However, one’s spiritual standing within the Jewish people is determined by belief and observance. The holy Rambam, in his introduction to Perek Chelek, writes that a Jew who rejects the fundamental principles of Judaism is not considered part of the Jewish people in the spiritual sense, even though his halachic status remains intact. Such a person retains the obligations and liabilities of a Jew, his marriage and divorce within halachah are valid, and he is accountable for mitzvos and will face the liabilities of transgressing them. Yet he does not enjoy the religious privileges of communal trust, such as serving as a kosher witness or preparing food that observant Jews may eat. Should he return and embrace Torah once again, he does not require conversion, because his halachic identity was never erased.

In truth, Judaism’s vision of peoplehood is unique in human history: a nation defined not by race, bloodline, territory, or culture, but by a divine covenant open to all who accept it. To define Jews as a race is not only inaccurate; it distorts the very essence of Jewish identity. Judaism is the opposite of racism. Its foundational texts insist that any human being, from any background, can enter the covenant and stand shoulder to shoulder with the descendants of Avraham Avinu. The only ideology that imposes birth-based privilege while detaching Jewish identity from Torah is the ideology that tried to replace G-d’s covenant with nationalism, and that is Zionism.

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