What % Jewish is Jewish?
Exploring the Dan Bilzerian Situation
Disclaimer; I don’t like Dan Bilzerian and his low-IQ antisemitism. This article is by no means a form of damage control simply because I will be arguing that those like him are not Jewish. In-fact I want to make a broader point irrespective of the current situation with Dan Bilzerian and Nick Fuentes.
That being said, for a highly-antisemitic person like Dan Bilzerian, it is certainly ironic that he is part Jewish himself even if that part clearly didn’t stop him from doing what he’s doing.
Anyways, for anyone to be a member of a particular group, two conditions must be met:
One must want to be part of a group
The group must accept that person as one of their own
That is freedom of association in a nutshell. It doesn’t just apply to friendships, clubs and employment but it also applies to identity groups like religion, nationality and to some extent ethnicity.
The latter part is primarily biological, however when it comes to the Jewish community, non-Jews can convert to Judaism and symbolically become of a Jewish ethnicity if the Rabbinate determines that they have a Jewish soul.
Even if they don’t belong to the Jewish ethnicity like the almost the entire matrilineal line of Ashkenazi Jews, they belong to the Jewish community by virtue of religion, culture and perhaps nationality if they happen to be Israeli.
Nonetheless, if a person is of a partial Jewish extraction and does not follow the religion nor wants to be affiliated with the group, the Jewish community does not even attempt to claim that person as one of their own. Typically at least.
This is essentially the case with Dan Bilzerian and many people with similar circumstances as him, so here is a little guide that should be helpful as to who is Jewish and who isn’t based on percentages:
12.5% is not Jewish. Nobody could guess you are partially Jewish and the Jewish personality is not recognizable. You can only become Jewish if you convert. Nobody in the community views you as Jewish. Likewise, the Nuremberg laws did not apply to 1/8 people. Only to 1/4 Jews who would not belong to the “German race” but are otherwise approved to have a German citizenship.
25% You appear as having some Jewish personality, and phenotypical markers of a Jew. You are allowed to migrate to Israel as one Jewish grandparent is the cutoff point. To be recognized by the Jewish community you need to do a lot of extra steps. Even if you don’t, you are still part of the “Greater Jewish Community”, those who have up to 1/4 of Jewish DNA. German Nazis would consider you to be “mixed race” but approved to have a German citizenship.
50% You have a Jewish look and a Jewish Personality. If you call yourself a Jew, other Jews easily recognize you as Jewish without you going through self-humiliation rituals. Only the ultra-Orthodox may have a problem with you if your mom is not Jewish but your dad is but they represent a small share of the total Jewish population. Also if your mother is Jewish, you are labelled as Jewish by-default by the religious Jews (also this applies to all previous tier which is why Orthodox Jews are retarded). Nazis would likewise consider you to be “mixed race” but approved to have a German citizenship unless you are married to a Jew, in that case → gas chamber.
100% You are Jewish. No question.
Finally, I’d like to talk a little bit about non-Jews labelling other non-Jews with some Jewish ancestry like Dan Bilzerian literally Jewish: that impact virtually has no impact on who the Jewish community considers as their own and believe me the Jewish community would never take someone like Dan Bilzerian as their own. Not only does he not fit into the “Greater Jewish Community” (requires at least 25% DNA), he can’t make am aliyah to Israel and above all Dan Bilzerian is an extreme antisemite who doesn’t view himself as Jewish nor is interested about converting.
Obviously you can regard him as Jewish or Swiss but at the end of the day this is not going to have an impact on his own identity and the idea on who is Jewish among Jews because the rules are pretty clear.
As of myself I’ve got a stable secondary Jewish ethnic identity since childhood (Russian being primary as I’m primarily ethnically Russian) but I don’t welcome the separatist and oriental aspects of the Jewish identity which is why it never grew dominant.
Do I refer to myself as Jewish? Sometimes. I certainly consider myself, my upbringing and my personality to be Jewish influenced.
Do most Jews regard me as Jewish? 50/50. Israeli ones mostly not, in the diaspora it’s much different and I think because Jews are a rarity here.
Anyways, here are a few shocking polls among Jewish Israelis (among Jewish Americans it is not going to be as extreme so this is only representative of Jewish Israelis)
There was also a poll in which half of Jews agreed that if a 100% genetic Jew has converted to Christianity he is no longer Jewish but I couldn’t find it. This sounds pretty extreme and I don’t think that someone like Dan Bilzerian can set a foot in a New York synagogue let alone in Israel.
As for genetics, assuming no cultural influences, being part Jewish is not like being part Black on both genotypical and phenotypical level due to Ashkenazi Jewish genetic proximity to other Europeans.
For example I cluster with Hungarians, South Poles and West Ukrainians due to me being 2/3 Russian and 1/3 Jewish. Obviously a person who is 2/3 Anglo and 1/3 Black would cluster around Ethiopians. This is just the average genetic location between these two populations. It is not exactly one or the other but a phenomenon of its own.
But at the end of the day this is genetics. It’s most important for ethnicity, but for a “caste” like Judaism (it is a caste), it is simply one of the components and at the end of the day, just like entering any other community you need an invitation besides your own desire.
So to answer your question:
under 25% is not Jewish, but having Jewish DNA may play some part of the persons’ identity
25% or above begins to have Jewish features and personality and being Jewish definitely plays some part of personal and social identity but it is rarely dominant.
50% or more: typically identifies as Jewish above his other ethnicity, has dual loyalty, rarely takes his non-Jewish identity seriously. In my personal experience, every half-Jew I’ve met identified with his Jewish half over his Gentile half.
around 100%: Ben Shapiro.