We are not what we think we are; we are what those around us think of us. In the time of ghettos and pogroms we all knew who was a Jew. Now we have equal rights and our own state, we have the luxury of self-doubt. How then should we represent ourselves? Not as an ethnic minority: our forefathers rightly encouraged us to integrate. To assume that the Western love affair with multiculturalism will last forever is to jeopardise our grandchildren. The state of being Jewish comprises religious observance, cultural identity and racial heritage in 13 million different combinations.
Ric Cooper is a genealogist
