Judaism as a race?

Hey guys ,

Sorry for the absurd question here and I apologise if I offended anyone but I genuinely want to ask this.

I always thought Judaism is a religion and at most a culture rather than a race. I actually believed that clouting a group as a race is a very base discrimination because hitler especially kept spouting the “Jewish race” rhetoric.

But lately I have been lambasted by quite a few Jews, one who even called me virulently anti Semitic because I would not acknowledge them as a “race”. Whereas I know a few Indian Jews who rather call themselves Malayali or Gujarati ( Indian sub ethnicity and language group).

So I decided to ask a larger community. How do I go about this and how would you want it to be ? Not that I call random people as “Jew” but if something is offensive it is better to rectify it.