Jews are a religion. We are a people. We are an ethnicity. These are all true to an extent, yet none of these is the entire answer. A few years ago, geneticists published the startling finding that the original Ashkenazic community, consisting of Jews from Italy who had come to Franco-Germany at the invitation of Charlemagne, had numbered only about 350 souls; with only five of those female. The apparent meaning of this is that the immigrants married either local women, or else purchased Slavic women being sold as slaves (this is, in fact, the origin of the word "slave"). These women were converted, and are in fact the mothers of Ashkenazic Jewry. Further genetic tests showed that this was not only true for Ashkenazim. Jews from all countries show a close affinity on the Y (male) chromosome, but very little on the female X chromosome. 
Apparently, when Jews migrated for economic (rather than persecution) reasons, females were left safely behind, while the males took the risks of going into uncharted territory. When this news hit the media, proud Jews all over Facebook treating this item as the end of the world, or at least as the end of their personal delusions of grandeur. (True, science changes, and later tests may reveal different results, but the numbers from all over the world are so overwhelming, that the basic facts are unlikely to change. Besides, most of the researchers were Orthodox Jews). People were writing cries of "Woe! This can't be true!" I wrote "I have no problem with this. Both born Jews and converts make up our People." The typical response was "You have no problem?!?! Who the Hell are you?" When Rabbi Ovadia Yosef issued a ruling that despite historical doubts, the Ethiopian Jews were to be considered as halachically Jewish, a number of Hareidi Ashkenazic rabbis denounced him as "diluting the Jewishness of our People". He wrote a very controversial rejoinder "the Ashkenazim are the last people to be able to talk". Violence was narrowly averted. This was a decade before the genetic studies came out! I realized that there was a deeper problem here. Jews have been persecuted and oppressed everywhere. "Goy, Sheigitz" (gentile, detestable) is probably the worst insult that one could possibly use for another Jew. The English threw Jews off cliffs in the 12th and 13th centuries, until their expulsion. The German and French would often herd the Jews of a city into the town synagogue, setting it on fire. Later, Poles and Ukrainians would not only murder Jews, but cut pregnant Jewish women's bellies open, throw down the fetus, replacing it with a live cat, and sewing them back up. (Very prevalent in the 17th century). The horrors of the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal are well known, but many details have only come to light recently. Jews in Muslim countries generally fared better, but that depended on who was in power. The Holocaust was not a unique event; merely more efficient. Jews always felt morally superior to their neighbors. The idea of being full blooded descendants of Abraham and Sarah was indeed a comfort. Now, the thought that I am half THEM, the enemy, the persecutor, the rapists and pillagers, was too much for many to accept. Even the Biblical idea of "a Light unto the Nations" seemed like an unreasonable demand. But the Torah tells us that Man is created in G-d's image. (Although at least one group denies that means non-Jews.) One East European rabbi in the 1920s even wrote that non-Jews feel no real connection to their families; even their own children. They are in no way "like us". But the Torah says that no man shall be punished for the sins of his Fathers. The Talmud lists many Jewish heroes who were the children of vicious antisemites. Should we let our bitter experiences blind us to the ideals of the Torah? One great rabbi of the 16th century may have been foolhardy when he came to the Pope, at the height of the Inquisition, urging his conversion to Judaism. But is it wrong to help non-Jews who seek G-d, merely becasue of what their ancestors may have done? In Czarist Russia, a Jew influencing a non-Jew about religion would be put to death. This is still true in many Muslim countries. When the Lubavitcher Rebbe urged his followers to speak with non-Jews about the Noachide laws, he was widely criticized and denounced in many quarters. In this series, i hope to elucidate what our Torah obligations are towards non-Jews. I have already dealt in detail with conversion. But what, exactly, is a Noachide? Can a Christian or a Muslim still be a Noachide? What is a "Ger Toshav" (resident alien)? Is this identical to a Noachide, or is it something else? May, or should, a Noachide take upon him/herself additional mitzvot beyond the seven? Why might he/she want to do this? What should be our attitude towards this? There is much little covered territory to explore.