[skissane]

> accepting almost no converts

This isn't true. Most Jewish communities do accept converts (the Syrians Jews are a notable exception). They don't make it as easy as Christians or Muslims do, but I'm not aware of any cases of someone who was seriously committed and motivated and willing to give the process time being rejected – and if that ever happened, they could surely find some other Rabbi willing to give them a different answer. I think the bigger reason why relatively few people convert is relatively few people are drawn to it.

Well-known converts to Judaism include Sammy Davis Jr, Elizabeth Taylor, Zooey Deschanel, Isla Fisher, Walter Kaufmann (the Nietzsche scholar), Ivanka Trump.

And Israel accepts converts for immigration under the Law of Return. The rapper Nissim Black converted to Orthodox Judaism, joined the Breslov Hasidim, made aliyah and now lives in Jerusalem. Due to a Supreme Court of Israel ruling, it also accepts converts to non-Orthodox Judaism (such as Conservative and Reform), even though Israel does not legally consider them Jewish for purposes of family law; but not converts to groups whose claims to Jewish identity are not generally recognised, such as the Christian-derived "Messianic Judaism", or Black Hebrew Israelite groups. (Some of the latter of which have been allowed to settle in Israel, but not under the Law of Return, under an ad hoc arrangement.)

[throw310822]

> not aware of any cases of someone who was seriously committed and motivated and willing to give the process time being rejected

Making it possible but requiring really strong motivation and time is a good way to discourage it. Facts speak by themselves: Jews are an ethnoreligious group, not a religion (you can be Jewish and atheist); they claim a genetic continuity with the Jews of the ancient Israel. This requires a mostly closed community that doesn't easily include converts, though a path exists. The few examples that you cite are exactly this: a few examples.

[skissane]

> Jews are an ethnoreligious group, not a religion

This is presenting the two categories as mutually exclusive, when they aren't.

Another commonly cited example of an ethnoreligious group are the Druze–which are even more closed than Judaism is, they haven't accepted converts since the 11th century; Jews disagree among themselves as to what conversions are valid, but the Druze answer is very simple – none are, unless they happened (almost) a thousand years ago. But the fact that Druze are an ethnoreligious group, doesn't mean they aren't a religion – they are. Of course, many Druze nowadays don't take their religion that seriously (the same is true of many Catholics and Muslims and Buddhists), but that doesn't mean the Druze religion doesn't have identifiable theological content (e.g. the Epistles of Wisdom) which make it a religion.

In the UK, Sikhs are legally classified as an "ethnoreligious group" (see Mandla v Dowell-Lee [1982] UKHL 7), but that doesn't mean Sikhism isn't a religion. Again, Sikhism has clearly identifiable religious teachings (e.g. the Guru Granth Sahib). Sikhism isn't hard to convert to at all, but that wasn't seen as relevant by the UK legal system; while it (mostly) doesn't actively evangelise like many Christians or Muslims do, it doesn't try to filter potential converts for their seriousness like Judaism does. The low level of conversion to Sikhism seems to be more due to few non-Sikhs being interested in it, rather than Sikhs trying to discourage non-Sikhs from doing so.

> you can be Jewish and atheist

You can also be Christian and an atheist. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism

To quote leading New Atheist Richard Dawkins, "I call myself a cultural Christian"

Of course, "Jewish as a non-religious identity" and "Christian as a non-religious identity" don't work in completely the same way – but they don't work in completely different ways either. And consider Northern Ireland, where asking an atheist whether they are a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist or neither makes much more sense than it would in most of the rest of the world.

[throw310822]

> This is presenting the two categories as mutually exclusive, when they aren't.

You're right, there was a "just" missing there: "an ethnoreligious group, not just a religion". Though the religion is properly called Judaism, not Jewishness.

That said, seems we're nitpicking on details. Judaism is a religion for one people, it doesn't seek converts, and the good overlap between the ethnic group and the religion (actual or claimed by the Jews themselves) is the basis for the idea of a right to a "return" to the historical land of Israel.

[mhb]

> it doesn't seek converts

Good try at moving the goalposts. Evangelizing and accepting converts are completely different things.