[cepb]

Judaism is a religion: Anyone of any race can be a Jew. The word race means people of a similar genetic background. Although modern reserach has shown that most Jews in the world today do derive from a similar genetic background. Here's the reason for this:

Jews believe that they are the "Chosen People". They believe that they are the people (originally the ancient Hebrews) who have been chosen by God to serve him and to "make him happy". This means that they have to follow the 613 rules (mitzvot) and that they have the responsability of serving God, and more responsability than most people. As a result of this they do not encourage people to become a Jew because only "the Jews" need to serve God and have that responsability in order to be holy in God's eyes. Non-jews do not have this extra responsability of the 613 mitzvohs in order to be holy: they only have to follow the first 7 commandments.

The process of becoming a Jew is also long:

1) years of study
2) representation in Beth Din (rabbinical court)
3) circumsission (male)

Therefore, most Jews do derive from the same genetic background because they are mainly born into the religion and this means that they are born with extra responsabilities that normal people. Therefore non-jews are discouraged from becoming a Jew.

However a non-Jew may become a Jew in order to marry a Jewish person. Once all the above steps are fulfilled, the converted person would be as Jewish as the next Jew.

Judaism is more of a race than other religions but not in the genetic sense of the word. E.g, I couldn't become a black person no matter how much I wanted to, but I could become a Jew.

So Judaism is NOT a race.