Eastern European Jewry was an ethnic nation lacking legal status, like its neighbors

Evidence

This Jewish community had most, if not all, of the characteristics of a national minority in Eastern Europe—a common culture and way of life, a common religion, a putative common descent, and a common language (Yiddish) exclusive to them. … True, they were not a majority in that area—though in a few parts of it they attained even that—but this was less of an anomaly than might at first appear in regions of very mixed population. The Yiddish nation of Eastern Europe had no political existence—but the same was true of all but a few of their neighbours. The Jews formed an ethnic but not a legal nationality, in this resembling the Poles, the Baltic peoples, the Ukrainians and many others. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 941

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘ethnic but not legal nationality’ by contrasting common markers (language, descent, culture, territory) with absence of political existence.
• DEEPTHINKING: Grapples with how a nation can be fully real — language, literature, schools, history, territory — and yet have no legal or political existence, in a region where that was the norm rather than the anomaly.