>>21
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090423100428AA5VGhO
I hope this helps since I am a Russian Jew
I'm off Jewish heritage, meaning my ancestors were Jewish, my grandmother is a Holocaust survivor and I chose to follow Jewish religion.
Even though Judaism is a religion and not a race or an ethnicity, IN RUSSIA and neighboring Slavic countries it is seen as an ethnicity. Why am I so sure? Because on my grandmother's, my mother's and many of my friends and family's BIRTH CERTIFICATE under Ethnicity it clearly reads Jewish. Yes, in the former Soviet Union, ethnicity was listed on the birth certificate. (they don't do it anymore, but that's only the last 10 years or so)
So yes my mother's birth certificate states Jewish on it, even though she's a practicing Christian, she even christened me and raised me christian as well (going to church and everything). But I'm very grateful to her that she enrolled me into Jewish classes as a child, payed for my Jewish private school, and still supports me following Jewish faith. More then anything I was raised with two religions, and I was able to pick for myself.
Now MY birth certificate reads: Ukrainian, because (by Russian standards) I'm 1/4 Jewish. My grandfather was Ukrainian and my father was Ukrainian. Yet I am still a practicing Jew (well I'm not super religious just spiritual, yet Judaism is a religion that I identify myself with the most)
I hope I've given a good example. My mother who was born and raised in Russia and is Russian Orthodox, by Russian Standards is considered A Russian Jew, by American standards she's just a Russian. Me on the other hand, I am considered in Russia to be just a Russian (or a Ukrainian if you will) But in America I am a Russian Jew...