Ethnic Jew
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"Ethnic Jews" is a term used to describe people of Jewish ethnicity and background; the term sometimes can refer exclusively to Jews who, for whatever reasons, no longer accept Judaism as their religion, or who are so casual in their connection to that religion as to be effectively secular. Typically, ethnic Jews are cognizant of their Jewish background, and may feel strong cultural (even if not religious) ties to Jewish traditions and to the Jewish people or nation. Like people of any other ethnicity, non-religious ethnic Jews often assimilate into a surrounding non-Jewish culture, but, especially in areas where there is a strong local Jewish culture, they may remain largely part of that culture, even to the point, for example, of participating in many Jewish holiday traditions, or of retaining a diet that stays close to the kosher laws.
Ethnic Jews include atheists, agnostics, non-denominational deists, Jews with only casual connections to Jewish denominations, and even converts to other religions, such as Christianity or Buddhism. Many ethnic Jews reject the traditional Jewish view of Jewish identity being based on matrilineal descent, and consider someone Jewish even if their mother is not Jewish.
Religious Jews from any of the main Jewish denominations reach out to ethnic Jews, and ask them to rediscover Judaism. In the case of some Hasidic denominations such as the Chabad Lubavitch, this outreach extends to active proselytizing.
Israeli immigration laws will accept an application for Israeli citizenship if there is proven documentation that any grandparent -- not just the maternal grandmother -- was Jewish. This does not mean that person is ethnically Jewish, but Israeli immigration will accept them because they have an ethnically Jewish connection.
A few examples of famous ethnic Jews who were not believers or did not practice Judaism:
- Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a baptized Christian
- Karl Marx (1818–1883) — founder of Marxism, atheist
- Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) — father of modern psychoanalysis, atheist
- Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) — creator of the Red Army and philosopher, atheist
- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) — philosopher, baptized and buried as a Roman Catholic, although he appears to have been generally secular