Answer:
   
   The name "soc.culture.jewish" (S.C.J) is a net.historical relic. In
   the early years of Usenet, there was only one Jewish newsgroups, and
   it was named net.religion.jewish. In the late 1980s, the Usenet
   namespace was reworked in what was called the "Great Renaming". This
   renaming took the flat namespace of net.* groups, and created the new
   top-level groups: comp, rec, soc, talk, sci, misc, and news. At this
   time, there was a common belief that renaming net.religion.jewish to
   talk.religion.jewish would be detrimental to the group's success, for
   it was believed that talk. groups would have lower propagation and be
   less likely to be carried by administrators. So the net's collective
   "yidisher kop" [or "yidisher kop"] did an end run around this, and
   proposed that the group be moved into the soc.culture.* hierarchy. And
   here we are.
   
   At time has passed, a number of split-offs from soc.culture.jewish
   have been created. Some of these have been created in the
   soc.culture.jewish hierarchy, for various reasons (e.g.,
   s.c.j.parenting, s.c.j.holocaust, s.c.j.moderated). Others have been
   created in other hierarchies, with a clear identification of their
   Jewish nature (rec.food.cuisine.jewish, rec.humor.jewish,
   soc.geneology.jewish). Other newsgroups have been created in the
   free-for-all "alt" hierarchy, with almost any name.
   
   So, while Jews have argued forever about whether Judaism is more of a
   "culture" or a "religion" or a something else, the choice of name for
   this newsgroup is not proof of anything. So if you start arguing "but
   this group is soc.culture.jewish, so...," please, as a well known
   character in a 1970's US television comedy series says: "just stifle."

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