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Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write
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Re: Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write
#22Re: Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write
#23Wow amazing how the bound of religion and ethinicy can led people to survive thousands of years and still maintain an identity.
Indeed, this fact this makes me proud to be a Jew. (A happy Passover to all whom it may concern). As a young boy my father used to take me to the Pergamon museum in Berlin - one major exhibit is the Babylonian street of processions (it dates to the neo-Babylonian empire) He used to say - here you see our heritage, we were around the show when Berlin (and all the other great capitals of the world) were still a swamp.
Don't take this the wrong way, but from the outside, this seems condescending.
And secondly it's important to remember your roots, but in my opinion the focus was wrong (or maybe the conversation included this aspect, you just didn't present it): we were around back when Berlin was a swamp and we're still around now, prosperous and developed.
In my eyes that's the real achievement! (look at Iraq, Iran, Egypt, even Greece or India to some degree)
Re: Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
jews still lived in jewish quarters, married mostly other jews and aggregated around jewish structures; being integrated is a little more than liking local dishes; beside that "integration" ended up in violence anyway even before wwii, when romanians started persecuting them.
I've actually made a map of the Jewish Bucharest buildings that were nationalized by the communists after WW2 (available here: http://bucuresti.maglina.ro/nationalizari/# - works better on desktop, not so sure about mobile/tablets), you can see that while there was a concentration of buildings in what people now call the "Jewish neighborhood" (which was not called like that back then) those properties were quite larg…
weird because we've been relatively paceful only in the first world and only in the last 30 or so years. jugoslavia was just torn in an ethnic war; spain, ireland and russian client state were host to terrorost movement up until a couple generation ago, with many issue yet unresolved and likely to resurface. before the first world war there were a host of proxy wars around africa and middle east, class cleansing in the east, before that full on wars in the americas, before that france england and germany were in a state of constant skirmishes, with spain under siege by the moors and italy cities changing state flag every couple of generations. china was in warring state mode too until unification, then class warfare, then religious warfare, then the great step ahead.
humans have been a bunch of assholes, we living in a niche of limited peace on a few locations shouldn't give us the peace of mind that everyone else understand the value of integration. note that a person or a family by itself is likely to integrate, it's significant migration that end up into more or less pronounced isolationism.
again, just have a look at all the chinatown and italian quarters. the actual border may be fuzzy, but the sense of identity is definitely there. and while wwii was an exceptional time, smaller conflict are still very present and the failure integration models are popping up every day stronger.
Re: Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, this fact this makes me proud to be a Jew. (A happy Passover to all whom it may concern). As a young boy my father used to take me to the Pergamon museum in Berlin - one major exhibit is the Babylonian street of processions (it dates to the neo-Babylonian empire) He used to say - here you see our heritage, we were around the show when Berlin (and all the other great capitals of the world) were still a swamp.
Don't take this the wrong way, but from the outside, this seems condescending. And secondly it's important to remember your roots, but in my opinion the focus was wrong (or maybe the conversation included this aspect, you just didn't present it): we were around back when Berlin was a swamp and we're still around now, prosperous and developed. In my eyes that's the real achievement! (look at Iraq, Iran, Egypt, even Gr…
I don't see any condescension (it doesn't diminish the present greatness of the great capitals at all), it is a factual observation (also you might need a sense of humour to see the irony on the part of what used to be a persecuted minority, after all - and I used to be in east Berlin before the frigging wall came down)
Re: Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not strange at all, integration is an exception more than the norm. The various chinatowns, italian quarters, irish quarters etc should be a testament to that: communities always tried to stick together thorough time and space, now and in the past. There are comparatively few cases of succesful long term non violent integration.
> There are comparatively few cases of succesful long term non violent integration. I beg to differ. I live in Eastern Europe, at the crossroads of different migration waves, and I'd say we've been quite successful at integrating people over the millennia. Just look at this widely circulated genetic map of Europe ( http://brilliantmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/genetic-... ), you can see that Romania (the countr…
The amount of blood that the eastern European ground soaked up during the course of these great migrations, and recurrent sectarian violence in the Balkans into the present day stands as a strong counterpoint.
Re: Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write
#27Re: Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There are comparatively few cases of succesful long term non violent integration. I beg to differ. I live in Eastern Europe, at the crossroads of different migration waves, and I'd say we've been quite successful at integrating people over the millennia. Just look at this widely circulated genetic map of Europe ( http://brilliantmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/genetic-... ), you can see that Romania (the countr…
jews still lived in jewish quarters, married mostly other jews and aggregated around jewish structures; being integrated is a little more than liking local dishes; beside that "integration" ended up in violence anyway even before wwii, when romanians started persecuting them.
You'd be surprised. We did horrible things to our Jewish communities. But... in a strange way.
Current Romania was formed out of regions that were occupied by different empires. The Old Romanian Kingdom was formed out of the bits formerly under Ottoman control. In 1918 the kingdom expanded to include regions formerly under Austria-Hungarian and Russian control.
When far right sentiment flared during WW2, the Jews in Basarabia (ex-Russian territory) were persecuted, even butchered. The ones in the Old Kingdom weren't.
In a weird way, they were "our Jews". They were considered different, yet still a part of our community.
Re: Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is little in the way of ethnicity. Ashkenazi Jews are an ethnicity, Jews in general, aren't. They even spoke different languages before Hebrew became a thing in early XX century, and many of them still do.
“Ethnicity” is a pretty broad and vague term. People don’t have to speak the same language or be the same race to consider themselves the same ethnicity.
it's not as vague as you think. Ashkenazi Jews literally share a lot of genetic material, for example, when two Ashkenazi Jews get married and want to have a child, they get tested for genetic diseases that only Ashkenazi Jews have.
Re: Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't take this the wrong way, but from the outside, this seems condescending. And secondly it's important to remember your roots, but in my opinion the focus was wrong (or maybe the conversation included this aspect, you just didn't present it): we were around back when Berlin was a swamp and we're still around now, prosperous and developed. In my eyes that's the real achievement! (look at Iraq, Iran, Egypt, even Gr…
I don't see any condescension (it doesn't diminish the present greatness of the great capitals at all), it is a factual observation (also you might need a sense of humour to see the irony on the part of what used to be a persecuted minority, after all - and I used to be in east Berlin before the frigging wall came down)
Could be. What I do know is that I have Greek friends who express the same feeling and they weren't a persecuted minority. There's a certain hubris about nationalities with a rich past.
It's not necessarily bad, but it's still hubris :)