I'm not being dishonest at all. Jews are a religious group that contains multi-ethnic components.

Put it like this, what would happen if there was no Judaism. Would the jews remain an "ethnic group"?

Well, considering their culture, language, economic ties, traditions, values, and even breeding/marriage rites are determined solely by their religion, they couldn't continue to have any ethnos. The Persians have ethnos exist regardless of whether or not they are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or Zoroastrian. This can not be the case with Jews. Without Judaism, they are simply not Jews and there would be nothing to bind them. Jews in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa, and the Middle East would simply meld into the rest of the populations in those areas, and be at best fully segregated ethnic groups unrelated to other formerly "jewish" ethnos.

So, no. Jews can't remain an "ethnic group" without Judaism, because they aren't an ethnic group to begin with. They are tied by religion.