English Title ： On the Identity of Jewish Culture and Judaism
XU Xin
Professor and Director Institute of Jewish Culture, Department of Philosophy, Nanjing University. Mail address: Xianlin Campus of Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, P. R. China. Email：xxinlian@nju.edu.cn.
Abstract ：For a nation, the people usually treattheir nation’s culture and religion separately. Religion is considered only as part of the culture. Thus, religionis not the most essential element, upon which a nation is to be distinguished from another. But, there is no such a distinction between Jewish culture and Judaism. For Jewish people, at least before the coming of modernity, culturalis religious. Just because of this, Judaism has been considered as a national religion. All believers of Judaism have thus been considered as Jews. Why has occurred such a phenomenon? Why can Jewish nation not be separated from Judaism religion? According to the present author, this is because of the identity between Jewish culture and Judaism, since the bodies of Jewish culture and Judaism are same, and the birth of Jewish nation and the beginning of Judaism were synchronic, synchronous and cannot be separated from each other.
Key Words ：Jewish culture, Judaism, identity, Jewish success, American Jewish history