This study continues a series of studies conducted by Pastor Terry Austin on world religions. Judaism, based on an historical and cultural heritage spanning roughly 3000 years, is impossible to comprehensively cover in the space of a single lesson. The audience for this lesson, mostly being non-Jewish, arrives at this study with impressions of both Jews and Judaism formed by Biblical studies, facts/opinions gleaned from readings and/or the media, and personal interactions with Jewish friends, acquaintances and organizations. With this in view, the goal is to narrow down the possible range of topics to a manageable few, while still providing an overview of the demographics of the Jewish population and its religious subsets. Since there can be no Judaism as a living faith without the presence of Jewish practitioners, the question, “Who is a Jew,” seems to me to be an appropriate starting point.
