Why is Jesus portrayed as Caucasian?

Simply put: Christianity took a stronger hold in Europe. Everyone makes their god look like themselves. Though, please note that there are depictions of Jesus as black. You would also be interested to know that the Buddha is typically portrayed as East Asian, instead of Indian.

I saw the interview with the guy painted the famous profile picture of a blue-eyed, nearly blonde hair Jesus for the World War II Soldiers, and he admitted that his picture was not accurate, but it made him feel better about Jesus, so he knew it would inspire others to have an extra connection to Jesus, so he went with it as a kind of divine intervention to give Jesus to Americans during what use to be dark times starting in the Depression and then into World War II.

Jews are Caucasian. Jesus would have not been a blond or had blue eyes, but Semites are Caucasian as are Polynesians.

Europeans are the ones that believe he was divine and they felt that any other civilization, even those more advanced than their own like Islam at the time of the crusades were barbaric. So obviously if every other race is barbaric according to common European belief than Jesus must be pink/beige (I hate saying white because it's not true and caucasian sounds stupid and its etymology is stupid to) otherwise how could he be of God?

He wasn't of middle eastern 'descent' he was middle eastern, period :) Jesus was Jewish and from what is now Israel; so if you find some pictures of present day Israel men in their 30s: that's pretty much what Jesus would have looked like! That said, Jews can be dark and fair, they can have red hair, they come in all shades and shapes and sizes. But Israeli men are generally gorgeous!

Because we are never told what Jesus looked like. Jews do not all have the same colouring so it is difficult to know exactly how Jesus looked. So, artists used their imaginations and often fitted Jesus into settings which would not necessarily be true either.

The portraits were done by Western Europeans, they would naturally portray their God as looking like themselves. As racism become more ingrained the idea that Jesus could be anything but white was considered offensive, it still is to many Christians.

Because people from the Middle East are considered caucasian. Look at any employment application. I just filled one out that has Middle East people as caucasian.

It sold better in Europe and given the white desire to conquer in that day and age, naturally religion was a part of that and their image is more widespread.

Although technically Middle Easterners have the same kind of facial features so they are supposedly considered from the same racial stock as whites, darker or not.

I haven't seen a picture of Him being white. But it is however the artist wanted to portray Him.