Thread by @JustSayXtian

A thing that I bring up often on here is that Judaism is an ethnoreligion - one indivisible thing, not two separate things, which means every Jew is ethnically Jewish and no non-Jews are ethnically Jewish. But does that also mean all Jews are religiously Jewish?

Yes, yes it does. Which I think can be upsetting to hear for some Jews who do not consider themselves religious, who are staunchly atheist, or who have major struggles with problematic parts of Judaism, so I would like to explain what I mean by way of a joke:

A man is walking one day, and as he passes a synagogue the rabbi steps out. "Excuse me, are you Jewish?" the rabbi asks. "Actually, yes" the man says. "Oh good," says the rabbi, "Could you come in for a minute? We need one more so my friend can say kaddish."

The man shakes his head. "Oh, no, I'm sorry, I'm Jewish but I'm not religious" he says. The rabbi shrugs and says "Not religious, what does that mean?" "Well," says the man, "I've never been to synagogue." The rabbi gestures him in. "Neither had Abraham, Moses or David. So what?"

"I wasn't bar mitzvahed," the man protests, "So I'm not -"
The rabbi cuts him off. "You're older than thirteen, right? The ceremony is window dressing, you're over thirteen you're a bar mitzvah. Come in!"

"But I don't even believe in God!" the man exclaims. "I don't keep Shabbat, I don't keep kosher, none of it!"
"Is the God you don't believe in Adonai Eloheinu, the God of our ancestors, who is One?" The rabbi asks. "Well, yeah, but -"

The rabbi cuts him off again. "Ok, so you can help my friend mourn his father. You and God can argue about which of you really exists later, right now we just need for for five minutes."

You see where I'm going here? Even a Jew whose engagement with religion is a rejection of belief, practice, ethical authority, *everything* is still rejecting those things within the religion of Judaism, and it's still counted as religiously valid by that ethnoreligious system.