Do The Jews Fit Into The Definition of “Race?
” The idea that the Jews constitute a race cannot be supported by the facts since no set of physical traits can be determined to distinguish this group from another. (Simpson and Yinger, pg. 49). Even Carlton S. Coon, proponent of racial theories, states that Jewish physical characteristics are due to social and “psychological” factors since these traits appear in nonJews as well (Simpson and Yinger, pg. 49). Simpson and Yinger cite Montagu in his rejection of the Jews as a racial group. From a paradigm centered in physical anthropology, he states there can be “no such thing as a jewish physical type, and there is not, nor was there ever, anything remotely resembling a Jewish race” (Montagu, pg. 66 as cited in Simpson and Yinger, pg. 50). For over a century, certain writers have classified the Jews as a race by using the term “Semitic.” This designation does not correspond to the anthropological literature on what constitutes a race. Indeed, the Jews have received a number of nonracial
