Jews were seen as a race only in Nazi pseudoscience.

Evidence

In any case, the Jews are not a race as that word is used at the present time. It was only in the pseudoscience of the Nazis and those who were duped by them that the Jews were regarded as such. Zionism is concerned with the claims of what it asserts to be a nation, and has both the merits and the defects common to nationalist movements. If Zionism is racist, then so too are the various na­ tionalisms of Asia, Africa and elsewhere. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1347

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the general literature on the social construction of race and to anti-Zionism-as-racism debates.
• SEED: An essay angle: the rhetorical double standard by which only Jewish nationalism is prosecuted as racism while other nationalisms escape the charge.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1347