<p>Seriously? I'm surprised that people think that a Jew is only someone who follows Judaism. It's an ethnicity too.</p>
<p>I am 100% Jewish, ethnically - my ancestors came to the United States from Hungary, Russia, and Germany. My parents had to be tested for Tay-Sachs, a genetic disease that overwhelmingly affects Ashkenazi Jews. However, I still consider myself white.
I was raised in the Jewish religion as well - I attended Hebrew school, had my Bat Mitzvah, etc. However, I know many people who consider themselves Jewish ethnically but not religiously. It's kind of a weird thing. I also know people who are ethnically half-Jewish but who are religiously Jewish because their parents decided to raise them that way.</p>
<p>Putting jewish down is the same as putting hispanic down, both are ethnic groups that can be from any "race" (whatever that means).</p>
<p>On a college application:</p>
<p>If you're Jewish and Caucasian, check white.
If you're Jewish and Asian, check Asian.
If you're Jewish and Negroid, check African or Black.</p>
<p>If you're Jewish and Hispanic, check Hispanic. But please be careful here: being Hispanic according to colleges today is not the same as being a Sephardic Jew. The reporter Giraldo Rivera could legitimately check Hispanic because one parent was Jewish and the other was Puerto Rican. But a Jew whose 4 grandparents speak Ladino and emigrated to the U.S. from Turkey or the Balkans isn't "Hispanic" even though their ancestors left Spain in l492 and landed in Turkey or the Balkans. I think most Sephardic Jews in the U.S. today would check "white" for race, unless they had a parent from Mexico, Puerto Rico, or someplace that relates to contemporary American culture as an Hispanic parent.</p>
<p>If you're Jewish and Inuit, check Inuit (if that's on the checklist..)
If you're Jewish and Polynesian, check Polynesian (if that's on the checklist..)</p>
<p>Did I miss anyone?</p>
<p>If being Jewish is meaningful to your outlook, extracurricular activities, family perspective, academic direction, etc. and you'd like to write about it, develop it within a personal essay or refer to it in a short-answer. For the OP's dad, that might be the direction he's taking because it can be interesting. Or not. Depends on you.</p>
<p>Being Jewish has no place in the checkboxes of "race" for college admissions purposes. Some other ideas explored in this thread, such as: whether you or your friend defines Jewish as an ethnicity or a religion; whether one or both parents are Jewish; even why it still bothers Jews (major) to be wrongly called a ""race" as Hitler called them...these are certainly interesting side-discussions in a dorm, but not relevant to the OP's question of what to check on the app.</p>
<p>I hope that guides the OP or anyone else reading with the same question.</p>
<p>Hm, but couldn't one check "White" and -- if they thought it an important part of their identity -- check "Other" and write in "Jewish"?</p>
<p>^^You could, but it's changing the subject. </p>
<p>You could also at that point check White and Other:Texan (because Texas is an important part of your identity)...but you don't because they're asking you for your race.</p>
<p>I'm saying, if it's important to your identity, just write a terrific essay or short answer to express something positive. </p>
<p>It won't hurt or harm you to do as you've suggested, Posseur.</p>
<p>Hm. Fair enough. Although Judaism is an ethnicity in practice, which is closer to a race than, say, a state affiliation... </p>
<p>Anyways, can I check "Other" and write "Pang</p>