Yiliang Chee, Student ID: 26321084 1 How have historians analysed Jewish ideas of race and ‘the other’ in Second Temple period Palestine? The question of Jewish identity has become popular and important in recent times. When we say that someone is ‘Jewish’, we usually mean that he was either (1) born to Jewish parents, or (2) a practitioner of Jewish religion (Judaism), or even (3) both. However, according the modern State of Israel, a ‘Jew’ is ‘someone who is born of a Jewish mother or has converted [to Judaism], and is not a member of another religion.’ 1 Again, the Nuremberg Laws passed by Nazi Germany in 1935, defined a ‘Jew’ as a person with three or more Jewish grandparents, regardless of whether he self-identified as a Jew, belonged to a Jewish community or practiced Judaism. 2 In contrast, according to Reform Judaism, the child of a Jewish parent is considered to have forfeited his Jewishness if he denies it. 3 We tend to speak of ‘the Jews’ or ‘the Jewish people’ as if they were a very well-defined group, but the reality is that the age-old question of ‘Who is a Jew?’ has been answered variously depending on the people or groups making that definition—including Jewish people themselves. This was no different in ancient times, and problems arise when Jewish historians 4 anachronistically assume (without proving) that any one of these definitions were always used. This paper seeks to explore how historians have analysed Jewish 5 ideas of race and ‘the other’ in Second Temple period Palestine. I will be examining how three scholars, in their books, address the issue of Jewish identity: (1) Shaye Cohen’s The Beginnings of Jewishness, (2) David Goodblatt’s Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism and (3) Lawrence H. Schiffman’s Who was a Jew? ‘Jew’ versus the rest of the world The importance of Jewish identity cannot be underemphasised. Cohen states that historically, Jewish identity was based on an already-existing ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality: Jewishness [...] presumes a contrast between Us and Them. [...] Between Us and Them is a line, a boundary, drawn not in sand or stone but in the mind. The line is no less real for being imaginary since both Us and Them agree that it exists. 6 In the prologue of his book, Cohen notes that the Jews guarded their definition of Jewishness jealously, and were very careful about whom they identified as fellow Jews. This was so much the case that Jews referred to non-Jews as ‘gentiles’, or goyim—a Hebrew word meaning ‘[members of] nations [other than Israel].’ 7 ‘Without a Them,’ Cohen concludes his epilogue, ‘can there be an Us?’ 8 So what exactly is it which decisively distinguishes ‘Us’ from ‘Them’? That is the question which Cohen seeks to answer in his book. His first chapter examines evidence for whether Herod the Great was Jewish. First, he cites sources where Herod is referred to as 1 מי שנולד לאם יהודיה או שנתגייר, והוא אינו בן דת אחרת(Clause 4B of the Law of Return, 1970; translation mine). 2 Friedländer, 49. 3 American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, Reform Judaism: The Tenets of Reform Judaism (2017) <https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-tenets-of-reform-judaism> [accessed 20 March 2017]. 4 By ‘Jewish historian’ I mean a historian who studies Judaism or the Jewish people. 5 From this point on, unless otherwise stated, the word ‘Jew’ and its cognates will refer to Jews in the Second Temple period. 6 Cohen, 341. 7 Goodblatt, 15. 8 Cohen, 347.