Doesn ' t entirely link to the question . But I played Santa at my cousins nursery once . I asked one child what he wanted me to bring him and his response was nothing because I ' m Muslim and my mum doesn ' t celebrate it I didn ' t know what say so I wished him a merry Christmas and said I ' d pass over his house anyway to make sure all was well . <| sep |> I ' m having a lot of trouble understanding why Judaism is considered a raceethnicity , while other religions esp . Islam , is not a raceethnicity . In Judaism , women have to convert if they want to marry a Jewish man . In Islam , men have to convert if they want to marry a Muslim woman . In Judaism , your Jewish identity is passed on via the mother . In Islam , your Muslim identity is passed on via the father . In Judaism , you have a priestly tribe or family , represented by a certain family name , and the members of these families show a strong genetic similarity . In Islam , there are also families descended from their prophet , which also share a strong genetic similarity . It seems that all the arguments in favour of there being a Jewish raceethnicity apply equally to Muslims . More than that , while European Jews are genetically distinct from other Europeans , they are genetically identical to the Palestinians and neighbouring Arabs . This would suggest that Semitic is a raceethnicity , but that Jewish or Palestinian is not a real ethnicity .