Harem of Jewish slave traders to supply eunuchs to harems depended on whether they could acquire castrated males. European artists and writers envisioned and presented the Oriental harem in a romanticized, albeit historically inaccurate manner. The dark eunuch was held as the embodiment of the sensual tyranny that held sway in the fantasized Ottoman palace, for he had been "clipped" or "completely sheared" to make of him the "ultimate slave" for the supreme ruler. In the Ottoman court, white eunuchs, who were mostly brought from castration centers in Christian Europe and Circassia, were responsible for much of the palace administration, while
Who is a Jew? Jews see being Jewish as predominantly a matter of ancestry and culture, rather than religion. The definition of who is a Jew varies according to whether it is being considered by Jews on the basis of religious law and tradition or self-identification, or by non-Jews for other reasons, sometimes for prejudicial purposes. Because Jewish identity can include characteristics of an ethnicity, a religion, or peoplehood, the definition depends on either traditional or newer interpretations of Jewish law and custom. Israel's Law of Return stipulates that a Jew is someone with a Jewish mother or someone who has converted to Judaism