Religious experience

Emphasis on belonging to a holy people, set apart by the obligations of the covenant.

History, religiously interpreted — so most festivals, weekly and annual, seek to recreate the Jewish experience.

"God brought us out of Egypt" places those present inside the account rather than telling them about ancestors — recreation rather than commemoration.

Ashkenazi and Sephardi music arising from different migrations, world distribution, and the chanting of the Torah in Orthodox worship.

Mysticism and ecstatic expression, including dancing, within a tradition otherwise described through law and obligation — variety of experience inside one religion.

As questions of assimilation, with tensions in the USA well expressed in Chaim Potok's novel The Chosen and the film based on it.

Because Judaism is not a missionary religion and is not believed to be the only path to God; it is seen as important for Jews to stay Jewish and be a witness to the Gentile world.

A period of study, particularly demanding in Orthodoxy, and an appearance before the Beth Din. In theory a convert is then as much a Jew as someone born of a Jewish mother.

Because only Orthodox authority is accepted in Israel, where laws of status follow Orthodox tradition — so an experience question becomes an authority question.