oh while i'm here and to get clarity on something i saw a while ago: is judaism considered to be a "closed religion" by those who follow it? i once saw someone describe it that way and it struck me as a very odd way to label to apply here

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oh while i'm here and to get clarity on something i saw a while ago: is judaism considered to be a "closed religion" by those who follow it? i once saw someone describe it that way and it struck me as a very odd way to label to apply here
as a not-super-practicing Jew: depends how you define it, I guess? like, converting to Judaism is a thing people can do, but my understanding is it's a whole process you have to go through, and from a halakhic standpoint you can't just go "I'm gonna start following Judaism" and become Jewish just like that. but idk how complicated conversion is for other religions, and whether "closed" means "you can't join without going through a process and getting invited in" or "you can't join, period"
Yeah, it really depends on what's meant by "closed" here since while you aren't barred from joining, you can't really saunter in either and there's a number of practices that if you adopted without conversion folks would be Skeptical
this was a tumblr post suggesting that outsiders who were interested in jewish culture/religion/history but who didn't want to "intrude upon a closed religion" turn to jewish academia, without much further elaboration
Oh yeah studying the culture/religion/history etc is fine, not sure what that post may have been on about. That said, a lot of people don't know how to be normal about it, which is a separate problem
(n.b.: I wouldn't say I follow Judaism as a religion but would say I am a Jew)
"Closed religion" sounds like either someone who wouldn't accept conversions, or is trying to draw a distinction between Judaism and Christianity/Islam. I've known ultra-orthodox Jews who would not accept converts, but I think that's a fringe position. More likely it's the latter case, I guess? To distinguish Judaism from the dominant Abrahamic religions? It wouldn't be the language I use either way
You can convert to Judaism by following a process involving a mikvah. Jews don't care about reaching out and getting conversions in the same way as Christianity and it's emphasis on prosletyzing though
Closed religion in this case means that if you are not Jewish and not in a formal conversion process, you shouldn't do something like hosting a passover seder (attending one held by a Jew is fine).