Judaism is not a religion.

It is a culture and civilisation deeply rooted in our land, our relationship with God, and our peoplehood.

The Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem (photo: Sander Crombach/Unsplash)

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This is a guest essay written by Ben Freeman, author of the forthcoming book, “The Jews: An Indigenous People” (released on February 27, 2025).

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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The Jews are a people. We are a nation. We are indigenous to the Land of Israel.

And while God plays a central role in our indigenous culture, we are not a religion. Our civilisation contains religion. There is a difference there. The notion that Jews are a religious group, or worse, a faith, is a direct influence of Christianity. It is not an authentic representation of Judaism.

The first mention of the word “Judaism” in history occurs in the Second Book of Maccabees. Written as Ioudaismos, it did not reference a religion; rather, it was used in opposition to Hellenism and ultimately meant Jewishness. Rabbi and Hebraist Shaye J.D. Cohen argued:

“We are tempted, of course, to translate Ioudaismos as ‘Judaism,’ but this translation is too narrow, because in this first occurrence of the term, Ioudaismos has not yet been reduced to the designation of a religion. It means rather ‘the aggregate of all those characteristics that makes Judaeans Judaean (or Jews Jewish).’”

We must remember that there is no word for “religion” in the Torah or Tanakh¹. Even the process of conversion would not have been a “religious” ceremony. Take Ruth, known as the first-ever Jewish convert, as told in Megillat Ruth in Ketuvim (Writings) in the Tanakh. Instead of converting to a religion, she became part of the Jewish people — essentially naturalising as a citizen.

The redefinition of Judaism began in earnest between the 16th and 18th centuries when Judaism started being referred to specifically as the Jewish religion, in response to the Christian discourses that dominated at the time. Prior to the Reformation, “religio” was used only in reference to Christianity, but after this point it came to be used in a broader sense, meaning a set of theological beliefs; in other words, what we define today as a “religion.”

Crucially, this definition was applied to Jews by Christian scholars. Richard Baxter, in his “The Reasons of the Christian Religion,” for instance, wrote in 1667: “Four sorts of Religions I find only considerable upon earth: The meer Naturalists, called commonly Heathens and Idolaters; the Jews; the Mahometans; and the Christians. The Heathens by their Oracles, Augures and Auspices, confess necessity of some supernatural light; and the very Religion of all the rest consisteth of it.’”

The idea of Jews as a religion gained traction to the point that Jews themselves began adopting this definition. The scholar Abraham Melamed suggests that Luzzatto was the first Jew to use the phrase “the Jewish religion” (religione hebrea). By 1836, Joshua van Oven, a Jewish community leader in London, defined Judaism in explicitly religious terms:

“Religion is an inward feeling of awe and veneration, induced by the knowledge of the existence of an omnipotent and eternal God, the creator, preserver, and regulator of the universal, whom we strongly feel bound to worship and adore.”

This could just as easily describe Christianity. As Melamed observed, the very fact that Jews felt the need to create these new definitions proves how much pressure they were under to redefine Judaism in response to their circumstances in a Europe still dominated by a Christian worldview.

Another definition of Judaism that warrants deeper examination is the idea that it is a faith. If we reject the notion of Judaism as a religion in the Christian sense, then we must also challenge the idea of “faith” as understood in Christian theology. But what about faith within Judaism?

Jews have the concept of Emuna — often translated as “faith,” but more accurately meaning reliability, trustworthiness, and steadfastness. This is fundamentally different from the Christian notion of faith.

To explore this distinction, we can turn to Martin Buber’s Zwei Glaubensweisen (“Two Types of Faith”). The English translation of the title is already an indication of the challenges of translation — more accurately, it would be “Two Beliefs.”

As Oxford philosophy professor Mark Wrathall pointed out, faith and belief are often treated as synonyms, but they are not the same. Emuna is not about blind acceptance of doctrine; it is rooted in a dynamic relationship with God — one of trust, loyalty, and deep personal engagement. This is why Jews have a long tradition of wrestling with God, questioning, and even arguing.

Judaism thrives on an ongoing dialogue with the divine, where the individual actively participates in their covenant. In contrast, the Greek Pistis — which became central to Christian theology — leans more toward belief in specific doctrines or truths. As Buber himself wrote in the English translation of his work, “The faith of Judaism and the faith of Christendom are by nature different in kind.”

Maimonides’ Shloshah Asar Ikkarim (“Thirteen Principles of Faith”) is often cited in discussions about faith and Judaism. It’s easy to see why this causes confusion — the title itself includes the word “faith.” But while these principles have been influential and serve as a kind of guide, they do not constitute a creed. They reflect Maimonides’ interpretation of what Jewish belief might encompass, but they are not universally accepted.

In fact, other prominent rabbis, known as Anti-Maimonideans, have put forward alternative views on what should be considered Judaism’s core tenets. As Rabbis Kaufmann Kohler and Emil G. Hirsch argued, “In the same sense as Christianity or Islam, Judaism cannot be credited with the possession of Articles of Faith.” This distinction is rooted in the fundamental difference between Emuna and Pistis — between the Jewish and Christian approaches to belief.

This reorienting of Jewish identity to bring it more in line with Christianity involved mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance. Jews, for much of this period, continued to refer to themselves as Am Yisrael (the People of Israel) and remained centred on the Land of Israel.

They continued to pray towards Jerusalem, speak Hebrew, say l'shana haba'ah b'Yerushalayim (“to next year in Jerusalem”), celebrate Jewish holidays — such as Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Pesach, and Shavuot — which began as agricultural holidays in ancient Israel, and their lives continued to be governed by the Hebrew calendar, a lunisolar calendar specifically rooted in the Land of Israel.

You see, Jews are and have always been indigenous. And while we may not have traditionally used this language to describe our relationship with Israel, this identity is present in all that we do.

However, as individual Jews, we must activate our indigeneity. It cannot remain dormant and undiscovered, because even though it continues to be expressed, we lose our authenticity.

In my first book, “Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People” (2021), I stated that the rejection of non-Jewish definitions of Jewish identity is a key tenet of Jewish Pride. And this must also include a rejection of Jewish definitions of Jewish identity that were used specifically to bring us more in line with Christianity.

Why this process happened is not a surprise. In the Diaspora, Jews live — and have lived — as a minority, often facing intense and genocidal persecution. Meanwhile, the non-Jews among whom we live make up the majority, and as a result, dominate the power dynamic that always exists between the majority and minority.

In my second book, “Reclaiming Our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride” (2022), I describe the effects of this power dynamic as the Broken Mirror of Jewish Identity, where the majority feels able and comfortable creating palatable versions of Jewish identity and reflecting them back to us. This then impacts how we see ourselves, as was the case with Luzzatto and van Oven, who defined Jews as a religion, following the Christian definition of Jewish identity.

However, to stand tall as proud Jews, we must define our own identities — through a Jewish lens. I do understand that indigeneity as a concept is not specifically Jewish; it is used to define the special and emotional relationship that exists between an indigenous people and their specific land.

And while there is no word for indigeneity in the Torah, Jews are part of the world, not apart from it. We can therefore utilise universal principles to explain and understand our own perspective if they fit our experience.

In “The Jews: An Indigenous People,” along with seven United Nations’ criteria to identify indigeneity, I examine the notion of Jewish indigeneity using a depoliticised definition I created to describe an indigenous relationship. It reads:

“An indigenous people are a group whose collective identity began in one specific land, and it is in that land they remained rooted (either physically, spiritually, or culturally). This is their home and is where they originated, developed, and continued to be fixed through a connection to the environment and natural resources, living systems, culture, and practices as a people, irrespective of their sovereignty in the land.”

It is clear this describes the connection between the Jews and Israel. It is where we originated as a people, and there we developed our distinct civilisation and way of life. Even following our exile by the Romans, we maintained our connection through our dynamic legal system found in the Torah and our connection to the Land itself.

Think of Ethiopian Jews arriving from planes in the 1980s and 1990s and kissing the ground as they disembarked. Almost every Jewish practice we do — whether we live in the Diaspora or in Israel itself — is rooted in the Land of Israel.

Ultimately, viewing Judaism through a Christian framework distorts its true nature as our indigenous culture. For centuries, Jewish identity has been shaped by external forces, with the majority defining us from the outside. This has led to the adoption of concepts that don’t reflect our genuine experiences.

To rebuild and strengthen our people, we must reject these foreign definitions and instead embrace an identity that honours our indigeneity. Judaism is not a religion in the Christian sense; it is a culture and civilisation deeply rooted in our land, our relationship with God, and our peoplehood.

This shift is essential to preserving the integrity of our identity and ensuring it aligns with our unique history and truth.

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1. The Hebrew Bible