"You look Jewish" what are they talking about?

[Masha]

I dunno if my dad looks like the typical Jewish guy or not, most people just assumed he was Arab. coworkers used to joke about his passport photo when he was wearing the aviators as they stated he resembled Saddam but I don't really think he did.

One of my Jewish Yemenite friends thought maybe he was a Egyptian Karaite, I guess that style moustache is common in Egypt or something.

HE DOES LOOK MIDDLE EASTERN

Middleeastern - yes. But not typically Jewish. I wouldn't necessarily have identified him as a Jew. And I am good at spotting Jews. Some Jews look typically Jewish, and others have more neutral looks. Still there is such a thing as Jewish looks.

[Masha]

Yep Ze'ev, that's a perfect example of what people are talking about.

Here are some more examples (scientists):

My father was a dead ringer for Albert Einstein. If they made a film about Einstein they should have chosen my father to portray him.

[Moshe92]

I think that many Jews do look slightly similar, and that's because Jews are a relatively small group and never intermarried (until recently). However, there is a wide variety of appearences among Jews. My brother once met someone who thought he was Italian. The guy asked my brother, "what's your name?" My brother then said "Jeff." The guy then said, "Jeff what? Jeff Spaghetti? Jeff Tortellini?" Also, I once saw a video on youtube showing Bill Kristol, and someone wrote, "I'm surprised he's Jewish. He looks like a WASP."

[Moshe92]

I agree with KWRBT about Alan Colmes. I also think that Woody Allen, Larry David, and Barbara Streisand look really repulsive. You can tell by their looks that they are real self-hating Jews.

[Rubystars]

I don't like the way Alan Colmes looks on the outside either.

[cjd]

Golda was the cream of the crop in that group of pictures. She always reminded me of a nice old grandmother.

[Aces High]

White Israelite:  Those pictures look like they are from the 1970's.  Your dad looks like a pretty big guy, over 200 pounds, I'm guessing.   Is he over 6 feet tall?  My great grandfather was 6 feet 4.

[mord]

colmes looks like one of uglier dinosaurs a little bit like a tyrannosaurus

[Boyana]

http://www.foxnews.com/images/402479/2_61_getty.jpg




 

[White Israelite]

White Israelite:  Those pictures look like they are from the 1970's.  Your dad looks like a pretty big guy, over 200 pounds, I'm guessing.   Is he over 6 feet tall?  My great grandfather was 6 feet 4.

My dad was 6ft2

My grandpa was about 6ft4 and my uncles are around 6ft2 to 6ft4

my dad was about 260 pounds, he was a big guy, definitely not someone to mess with and he loved his guns.

Used to joke that maybe one of our ancestors mixed with Goliaths relatives because of how tall the family was.

[Chai]

When im told I look Jewish, I say "thank you" the rest of the world tries to put in our head Jews look like Nazi propaganda photos. Its nonsense... Jews are the best looking people on earth...That is why they were able to start Hollywood.

[Zelhar]

As a matter of fact there is something of a Jewish look, or more accurately Jewish looks, because there are several archetypes. But then again other gentiles have often "Jewish looks". I think the most Jewish looking nation is Portugal. There is an unfortunate historical reason for this- the Portuguese had forcibly converted the Jews in Portugal in great numbers, as much as 25% of the total population.

[JTFenthusiast2]

When im told I look Jewish, I say "thank you" the rest of the world tries to put in our head Jews look like Nazi propaganda photos. Its nonsense... Jews are the best looking people on earth...That is why they were able to start Hollywood.

I'm with you 18 chai, ther is something about this thread that is starting to seem self-hating

[Boyana]

 my children are beautiful,intelligent healthy and yes they are Jews and   look
Jewish

[White Israelite]

I still seem to be getting confused as South American and Mexican. I have also been confused as having Native American blood on a number of occasions but I don't think I have any Native blood in me at all. I do have a friend who's a baptist from Mexico and he says his brother gets confused as Arab all the time and he is full blown Mayan. Weird. I did find out my grandma came from Canada but I think they only married with other Jews. Phenotypes are strange because people from different ethnic groups will claim you are "one of them" and recognize your face and then treat you hostile once they find out your Jewish. Whites think i'm one of them and Spanish, Mexicans think i'm one of them, Greeks think i'm one of them, and Jews say I am one of them. Maybe the Jewish look is more common around the world than we really believe and people are just using this "invisible boogy man" to scare themselves into irrational fears.

[TheCoon]

It's tough to say if there's a Jewish look. I come from a family of sephardic Jews and we look like a cross between arab and mediterranean peoples(italian, spanish, etc). It's funny though, the sephardim I've met and know are all way more attractive than arabs though. Maybe that's b/c they stay with their own kind and never inbreed or rape camels like the arabs?

I've been mistaken for arab, italian and of all things albanian and turk.

[White Israelite]

It's tough to say if there's a Jewish look. I come from a family of sephardic Jews and we look like a cross between arab and mediterranean peoples(italian, spanish, etc). It's funny though, the sephardim I've met and know are all way more attractive than arabs though. Maybe that's b/c they stay with their own kind and never inbreed or rape camels like the arabs?

I've been mistaken for arab, italian and of all things albanian and turk.

Same here, I get confused as Arab a lot especially by other Arabs, some people think I look like king of morocco, or 100 percent Iberian. I've also been confused as Turk and Armenoid. Ironically these same people will claim that we aren't the descendants of Israelites and say that we look like Khazars if they find out we're Jewish, but if we never mention our Jewish heritage, they assume we're from the middle east? Makes no sense at all. I guess that shows the real agenda of the enemy. It's because we preserve our ancient roots and culture that they hate us.

I think the results I posted speak for it's self.

[Moshe92]

It's funny though, the sephardim I've met and know are all way more attractive than arabs though.

 I agree

[White Israelite]

I compiled the statistics from a few different places and here are the results. 84 people responded to what I asked.

I was confused as the following

-Italian 5 people stated I look italian, in person and on forums

-Albanian 2 people have stated I look albanian on forums

-French 3 people have mentioned I look french

-British 2 people on forums mentioned I resemble Mr Bean?

-Mediterranean 7 people have described me as having Mediterranean features or gracile med genetics.

-Hungarian 1 person stated I look Hungarian

-Irish one black person said I look Irish lol

-Dutch 2 people have mentioned I look Dutch on 2 forums

-Greek 6 people have assumed I'm Greek both in real life and on forums

-Portuguese 2 people have stated on forums I look Portuguese

-Spanish 2 people have mentioned I look Spanish

-Balkans 4 people have mentioned my family and I look like we come from Balkans countries

-Eastern European 2 people have mentioned I look Eastern European, one person said I look Ukranian and would fit in there? I don't think so

-Latin American 11 people have described me as appearing to be of Mexican, Columbian, Argentinian, or Puerto Rican descent.

-Levant Middle East 3 people have described me as being native to the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel)

-Native American 5 people have stated I exhibit Native American features found in Metis and Mestizo populations.

-Turkish 5 people have mentioned I look Turkish on forums including a Turk at a restaurant I eat at.

-Jewish 3 Jews have mentioned I look Jewish without ever mentioning my background.

-Arab/Middle Eastern 10 people have mentioned I look Arab from Iraq, Morrocco, or some other Arab country. Some Arabs have accused me of self hating my identity and stated I look Arab until I revealed I was Jewish.
 
-Iranian 5 people have claimed I resemble someone from Persia, on Yahoo answers  

-German 3 people have stated my parents look German from Southern Bavaria

46% 36 people in total assumed I was Mediterranean assuming the countries ( Italian, Albanian, France, Greek, Portuguese, Balkans, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish)
21% 18 people in total assumed I was Middle Eastern background (Arab, Iranian, Levant, Armenian, Assyrian)
19% 16 people in total assumed I was of Latin American or mixed Amerindian background (Native, Columbian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Argentinian)
14% 11 people in total assumed I was of some other European background (Dutch, German, Hungarian, British, Irish, Eastern European)

Mind you these are people of various backgrounds and they are going off phenotypes to what they see in every day society, not every Jew looks alike, infact the only few people who could tell I even looked "Jewish" were Jews themselves. I find that interesting...

Truth is, I am Romanian, German, and some North African background.

My mom is German and converted to Judaism in the 70's, my dad is Romanian and some Algerian background. My moms background is still being looked into because most people don't think she looks German, my dad on the other hand most Romanians assume he is Romanian and Romanians descend from the Dacians and Romans which were Mediterranean people. We can assimilate and look like the places we live but yet they react hostile when they find out we are Jews.

Considering that the vast majority chose Mediterranean (54 total) and a large number also voted Middle Eastern (since the Levant and Israel is a part of the Mediterranean and share similar phenotypes/genetics), I would say that this blows the whole "Khazar" myth out of the water. We're assumed to not be direct descendants of the Israelites and coming from some distant land yet the majority of people in the poll assumed the region I would be from. Funny how that works.

[Rubystars]

It was really fascinating when you posted that if you mentioned being Jewish that people thought you looked Khazar and if you didn't mentioned it they mentioned Middle East.

[Hyades]

No one ever thought I was other than German. Although my mother is Brazilian (of German and Dutch descent), But most people are always surprised to see how warm-hearted our family is. 
My father's mother always had troubles in her childhood. She was called an "Arab camel" because she had crispy black hair and that what was called a "hook nose" here. She told me that one day she went to a hair stylist and let her hair be cut completely - what did not improve the situation. Their Jewish doctor asked my grandma if she was sure that she had not a Jewish father...

[White Israelite]

No one ever thought I was other than German. Although my mother is Brazilian (of German and Dutch descent), But most people are always surprised to see how warm-hearted our family is. 
My father's mother always had troubles in her childhood. She was called an "Arab camel" because she had crispy black hair and that what was called a "hook nose" here. She told me that one day she went to a hair stylist and let her hair be cut completely - what did not improve the situation. Their Jewish doctor asked my grandma if she was sure that she had not a Jewish father...

I never understood the hook nose, I don't have a hook nose, my nose isn't small but it's not "hooked", my dads wasn't really "hooked" either. I've seen that hooked nose feature more often in people of Roman or Italian descent than Jewish.

[JTFenthusiast2]

I think this discussion misses the point on a bunch of levels. 

[muman613]

White Israelite,

We don't allow people to post their own pictures here.. We never know who is reading..

Please remove them... that is my recommendation..

BTW: I would accept you as a Jew... You look Jewish enough to me..

[Ari Ben-Canaan]

I've been told I look Armenian before, by Armenians in an Armenian neighborhood I rented from.  Funny to me because Armenians look like regular run of the mill white/European folks to me.
---
Now a joke, stop me if you've heard it before:

A Jew from New York goes on a trip around the world.  He stops in China and manages to find a Synagogue to visit.  He goes to the Shul and meets a Rabbi who in a somewhat puzzled state goes up to the man and asks, "Are you Jewish?". 

The man replies, "Yes!  I am Jewish!"

The Chinese Rabbi then says, "Funny, you don't look Jewish!".

Ba-zing!