Why are Jews "the chosen people" and not whites? Did God make a mistake? Did He not get it right? =================================================
1- This question provides a good opportunity to step back and re-examine.
2- The concept of a God’s chosen people in the sense of an elite race, precious to God above others, apart from being socially divisive and unhealthy runs contrary to the concept of God as the creator of all humanity. If God is the creator of all humanity it is reasonable to say that He’d hold precious the whole of humanity and not a tiny section of it at the expense of the vast majority.
3- The term Jew is so widely misused that correcting that misuse is almost a hopeless task. Its use to indicate a religion and an ethnicity has become entrenched, yet in what must be ultimate source for the word, the Hebrew scriptures, which Christians call the OLD Testament [OT] the word does not appear until 2 Kings 16:6 and there’s no occurrence of the word any earlier.
4- The OT which is almost exclusively all about the descendants of Jacob ben Isaac ben Abraham [ben meaning son of] tells us that Jacob had his name changed to Israel after grappling with God and winning. This Israel had twelve sons and their children became the twelve tribes of Israel and they and their descendants are known and spoken of as the Children of Israel, the nation of Israel or simply the Israelites, throughout the Bible. Their religion was not given a name by God, nor by Moses and not by Jesus who was himself an Israelite and followed the religion of Moses. Judah was a son of Jacob and his descendants form the tribe of Judah, perhaps the largest of the tribes of Israel. The words Judaism and Jew were probably derived from the word Judah. It is the Israelites which the OT portrays as God’s chosen people. The OT, needless to say, was written by Israelites.
5- The strict monotheism of the religion of Moses was appealing to many people around the world who came across it and they converted to it. This is why “Jews” range from European Whites, those of Moroccan complexion, through Indian browns to Ethiopian Blacks.
You don’t have to take my words for it. Here’s Shlomo Sands. He’s a professor of History and a “Jew” living in what was Palestine now renamed Israel.
Salt and Red Pepper 