Are people here aware that we are supposed to be a nation?

Hello, I'm a Catholic woman from an Ashkenazi Jewish origin. I was raised in a modern Orthodox household, but I converted to Catholicism 13 years ago, when I was 20. My reasons of converting were simple tbh. One of the main reasons for me was something that is stated in Yoma 39b in the Talmud, the cessation of the Yom Kippur miracles around the time of Jesus crucifixion. Its a hard thing to explain away from within Judaism, and it forced me to seriously re evaluate everything. Because when I tried to interiorize the explanations I was given it felt like a massive cope to me lol.

Another thing that made me consider conversion back in the day was the recurring accusation that Christians "mistranslate" Jewish scripture, like Psalm 22, where Jews say the verse should read "like lions" instead of “they pierced.” But the Dead Sea Scrolls backed the Christian reading. That really made me realize that Christ fulfilled the Scriptures and that my people are in denial, and that Catholics weren't distorting them. I think it's all because yeah Jews expect the messiah to be a warrior, back then it was to free the Jewish people from Rome, expected a Lion and got a Lamb... so I think that's why it happens, even within the Gospels it's obvious that Jesus followers weren't very understanding of his mission (like when they ask him to sit next to His throne)

Now, something I noticed, especially when I speak to Jews who are more defensive or even hostile about my conversion or when I talk about this nation thing, is that many of them treat Judaism as totally separate from Catholicism, almost as if the Church has no claim to continuity as if it's something the Romans simply stole from Jews, a cultural appropriation more or less, ignoring the fact that the first Christians were Jewish at the temple and then expanded it out, the Pharisees also converted and proselytized people before it was banned. The reason there are less Jews today is because Rome banned Jews from proselytizing after adopting Christianity, that's why Rabbinic Judaism now has the "No Proselytism" idea.

They speak of Judaism as a nation or an ethnoreligion. But to me, this makes no sense honestly, because if "ethnicity" means nation then Catholicism is a nation... and if ethnicity is shared ancestry all jews have different ancestry depending the region living... same with culture.

But in Catholicism we are a people and it's something I notice people often don't seem to understand? I talked with my Priest and he agrees with me, but I notice many lay people in real life and online often don't see it this way. We share doctrine, identity, culture, liturgy, in practical terms I don't see this very different from what jews often claim, the main difference seems to be that there are way more catholics around the world.

The Church is Israel and I really wish this was talked about more explicitly, because a lot of people get confused about doctrine. I constantly see Christians mocking Jews like"lol they are so arrogant to think they're the chosen people (which for jews it mostly means chosen to obey the torah)" but... we literally believe that too as the new convenant and Israel.

So TLDR my question is, why do some Catholics seem sometimes doubtful to say that we are the continuation and fulfillment of Israel? I find it weird that there's no more "Nation" mindset within catholicism, which is sad because I think this is the real continuation of the Temple religion, but I don't know why so many catholics are very "lazy" about the religion, people have in fact told me "You aren't supposed to be strict in this religion you are free now" but to me this makes no sense, even if the mosaic law doesn't apply there are a lot of other rules.