As for Richard Dawkins and the modern anti-religion movement, it’s clear to me now that you hadn’t meant that their arguments were any more valid against Christianity, but that those arguments center around faith, which is something less central to Judaism than it is to Christianity. It’s very gratifying to read your comments on these ill-founded arguments, anyway. As I mentioned in my email, Dawkins and his followers don’t seem aware that all their points against religion have been considered sincerely and deeply by religious practitioners throughout history. (Or that their idea of religion not only misses the mark for the majority of theists, but also ignores the non-theistic religions of the world!)

Not even if I learn the language, go to live in Italy and become an Italian citizen?

Francesca, the two religions are incommensurable in their criteria (or so it seems to me), so I don’t know that there’s an answer external to them that has any particular power. Personally, I tend to accept people’s explicit self-definitions.

Hanan, I understand your cringing at my attempt to point to some generalized differences, and I share your cringing at the behavior of some Jewish religious extremists. But: if one thinks there are differences between two religions, then it’s worth trying to get at those differences, isn’t it? This is different from attempting to define Judaism once and for all, which even I don’t have the chutzpah to do. And it seems to me that the differences I’ve pointed to, as generalizations, hold generally to be true. The one that most likely sticks in your craw (given the shameful example you point to) is my use of the term “fundamentalism.” I’m using it in a specific, and I think accurate, sense that has nothing to do with the ferocity and intolerance of one’s belief, but rather whether one thinks that beliefs can spring from a literal reading of a text.