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Jewish problems

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Re: Jewish problems

#141

Post by srl »

berntb wrote: post #98
johnyzee wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great comment and the length of it just goes to show how complex the issue is. If we were to add contemporary issues things would get even more complicated: Zionism and Israeli policies has created a lot of anger against 'Jews'. This has much less to do with ethnicity than historical anti-semitism, but the two get conflated which leaves everybody confused and talking past eachother. Add to the mix the fact that Jews…

Would there be so much anger at zionism if they were Christian? I doubt it, if you compare Israel with e.g. the surrounding dictators -- and (at least here in Europe). Israel gets at least two factors of ten more criticism (before March this year) for arguably much less. The first time when I read criticism of Tunisia's dictator in Swedish media, was when he fled. (I'm not claiming you can't criticise Israel, democra…

[Jewish American here]

From my perspective (in my ultra-liberal enclave in the east), a large part of the criticism isn't that Israel's policies are objectively bad - one can hardly expect a country surrounded by its worst enemies to have a polite attitude toward said folk. The criticism is that we, in America (and until recently, throughout much of the west) are giving them disproportionate (military and otherwise) support. I'm not comfortable with giving aid - especially military aid - to a government with major human rights violations, and a generally trigger-happy military at odds with a free press and so on.

Again - the trigger-happiness is understandable, given their position - but until evidence is produced that withdrawal of military support would make the situation more violent, it's hard to justify that military support.

Re: Jewish problems

#142

Post by _delirium »

Duff wrote: post #130
netcan wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again this is more complicated than just that. The great bulk of responses and opposition to Zionist and Israeli policies comes from the Arab and Muslim world. Since this opposition is shared by many westerners, I think a lot of westerners assume that it is shared based on similar reasoning. Human rights, international law, national freedoms. But the reality is that a substantial portions is nationalist/religious/xen…

One of the benefits of a long-standing, distinct Jewish culture, IMO, is that their cultural stability avoids many of the negative affects of decisions made by the broader culture in which they live. In the Middle East today, the relative prosperity of Israel relative to its neighbors is a good example of that. Abandoning science and reason has a negative affect on a society, and blaming your neighbor for your misfor…

That comparison is a bit tricky to localize to specifically Jewish culture, versus the other ways Israelis on average differ from their neighbors. They are also more European, for example, in the sense of having a significant proportion of the population who in fairly recent history had lived in Europe for generations, and in many cases participated closely in European institutions (e.g. pre-WW2 German and Polish physics research). Especially the first post-'48 generation had much of its science/technology leadership driven by people who had been prominent scientists/technologists in Europe before the Nazis forced them out.

Re: Jewish problems

#143

Post by jberryman »

wtracy wrote: post #36
cheez wrote: post #21

Can someone please explain to me what the hell is the problem people have with Jews? The only thing I can tell is maybe they're disproportionately financially successful? I guess that's a problem...

More so than almost any other culture, Jews have been consistently able to maintain their own cultural identity even when they are in the demographic minority or displaced abroad. A lot of this is due to their willingness to close themselves off from the surrounding population and maintain their own, separate, religious and social structures. So, from the outside, the local population sees a group of foreigners broug…

I mostly agree with your comment about Jews maintaining their cultural identity and can't really speak to how Jews live in other countries. But I wanted to make the point that in the USA Jews have been if anything more involved in civic life (just look at the profound role Jews played in the civil rights movement of the 60s) and certainly have had great influence on what we think of as American cultural. So insular doesn't characterized American Jews at least in the 20th century.

Re: Jewish problems

#144

Post by graupel »

As a Jewish American, the biggest question I have is "How does any college/institution know that I (or my children) are Jewish?"

We don't have a particularly Jewish last name, have some Irish mixed in with an Eastern European background, etc - without putting "Fluent in Yiddish" and "President of Temple Beth Sholom" on a resume, I don't see how anyone would ever pick us out from the crowd as being Jewish.

I can see how it would be easier to discriminate based on race, country of origin, or gender, than religion, that's all.

Re: Jewish problems

#145

Post by lucasjung »

ido wrote: post #125
darklajid wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the long comment. It took me a while and I needed to move here to get a tiny feeling for the complexity of this issue. Before that, 'jewish' was a label that I had in the same mental box as 'christian', 'muslim', 'hindu' or whatever. Boy is that misleading. So many things here in Israel are challenging my understanding, every day. It doesn't help that I'd describe myself as agnostic or atheist. I guess…

I guess Jews are the only example (that I know of) of a group of people that claim to share religion, ancestors and culture. Japan (to some extent)?

They have at least two religions: Shinto and Buddhist.

I don't know how much following either of them gets today, but I do know that during the feudal period the two religions were associated very strongly with the upper castes (Buddhism) and the lower castes (Shinto).

I do know that religion is not an identity to the Japanese in the way Judaism is for Jews. I know people who simultaneously consider themselves Jewish and atheistic or agnostic. That seems bizarrely contradictory unless you understand that "Jewish" is both an ethnic identity and a religious identity, so even individuals who reject the religious part can still embrace the ethnic part.

Like the gp, I would be very interested to know of any other group that ties religion, ancestry, and culture together into a single unique identity the way Judaism does. I think that Persia under Zoroastrianism might have been like that, but the conversion to Islam ended that.

Re: Jewish problems

#146

Post by vbtemp »

jfruh wrote: post #140

This reminds me of an interesting story from Not In My Neighborhood, a history of residential and institutional segregation in Baltimore. Baltimore in many ways had three-way segregation -- black, white, and Jewish -- with Realtors for all three communities refusing to show houses in the "wrong" neighborhood to anyone. However, the public school system only had two-way segregation -- black and white, with Jews attend…

I grew up near Baltimore. It wasn't until the mid 50's I believe that Jews were permitted east of Falls Rd. It took my grandmother decades to be able to comfortably go through that area. In fact, when she and her husband bought their first house in woodlawn, the entire neighborhood signed a petition that they did not want any Jews moving in. My grandparents powered through it anyway.

Re: Jewish problems

#147

Post by sharkman »

philwelch wrote: post #127
wnight wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was informative. I didn't know the USA put restrictions on what the Dalai Lama would say. For China. I think the average person would be surprised to hear it. It's like not recognizing Taiwan as a country. Offensive.

Taiwan doesn't even technically recognize itself as a country. It's just a part of China ruled by a rival government.

Actually they are the "real China", as their president addressed earlier this week on Republic of China's 100 anniversary.

Re: Jewish problems

#148

Post by slavak »

darklajid wrote: post #129
ido wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess Jews are the only example (that I know of) of a group of people that claim to share religion, ancestors and culture. Japan (to some extent)?

Interesting. I've to admit my ignorance again - no idea. How 'religious' is Japan? I was baffled on the day I learned that you cannot marry without a ceremony with a Rabbi here if you're a Jew. In DE it's (all romance removed..) signing paperworks and optionally going to a church if you like that sort of thing. Christian ceremonies have no influence over your status though: You're married _iff_ you signed the paperwo…

This confuses (and infuriates) a lot of native Israelis too. This is more the result of pressure by orthodox interest groups and attempts to maintain status quo. Just another in a long and confusing list of factors shaping the Israeli and modern Jewish culture.

Re: Jewish problems

#149

Post by chopsueyar »

sliverstorm wrote: post #70
alecbenzer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also always wondered why a specific group has been so apparently consistently persecuted against for so long. It seems like it's been too long of a time period for the hate to simply have been passed on from generation to generation.

The reason they have been persecuted for so long is because they have survived for so long. Most heavily persecuted groups don't last long.

5,772 years so far.

Happy New Year.

Re: Jewish problems

#150

Post by vbtemp »

graupel wrote: post #144

As a Jewish American, the biggest question I have is "How does any college/institution know that I (or my children) are Jewish?" We don't have a particularly Jewish last name, have some Irish mixed in with an Eastern European background, etc - without putting "Fluent in Yiddish" and "President of Temple Beth Sholom" on a resume, I don't see how anyone would ever pick us out from the crowd as being Jewish. I can see h…

"How does any college/institution know that I (or my children) are Jewish?"

First - it would have been easier some decades ago. Just look at the neighborhood you're from, your last name (and check the mother's maiden name as well). I believe many applications would also have explicitly asked the question as well. And also, generally, and for better or worse, in many cases one can pick jews out of an arbitrary group of people with the same ease as picking black people or asian people. Being jewish is not simple a religious identification. While people endlessly argue this point, being a jew is a combination of an ethnic, religious, national, and cultural components. Most people in the US simply see it as a religious identification, which just isn't nearly the whole story.

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