The Jewish people

Originally posted by Komnenos Judaism, as Christianity and Islam, has been a important and necessary step in the development of human belief systems and thought, and is therefore neither good nor evil.

Necessary?

You are wrong in that. There was no need for any of the Abrahmanic religions and only adherents to them can say that. Chinese or Indians had never any need of such belief systems. Actually we Europeans didn't have that need either.

In Italy we have the oldest western jewish diaspora.

They were here before the first christians too

Originally posted by Mixcoatl Originally posted by Cywr Jews collectivly, no opinion, i've met to many for that one to work. Judism, a little wacky, but no more so than your average religion. second I do have a question for Halevi though: both other Abrahamic religions (Christianity and Islam) seem to have an urge to spread their religion and to convert people, and have become very large because of that. Judaism however doesn't seem to have an urge to convert people at all. Why is that?

This gets to the crux of what it means to be 'jewish' and also helps explain the ongoing debate on this thread over whether 'jewish' is an ethnic, or religious, marker.

Judaism is a tribal religion, not a proselytizing one. In other words, it was developed to help make sense of a *group's* existence/suffering in a meaningless world, rather than try to explain how all of humanity can be saved. It was born out of a very tribal environment.

In other words, Judaism is only concerned with the destiny of a specific family, rather than that of humanity.

Think of it this way: Jewish identity is like a private golf club.

The club was founded by only a few families, all of whom were related. The membership consists only of the founding families and their offspring.  Anyone whose mom is a member is automatically granted membership. It's really hard to get in, otherwise. The rules of the club are the religion. You can be a member of the club by birth, however, and not follow the rules. That just makes you a bad member. Only if you join another golf club is your membership suspended =)

Since the club has been around for so long, and it's members have spread to so many countries, and have had children with so many non-members (mostly illigitimately, since, according to the rules, members are only supposed to marry other members), the gene pool has become increasingly diverse. There is, nonetheless, still quite a bit of shared matrilineal ancestry amongst all the members.

Recently, however, the rules have been relaxed a little so that non-members can apply for membership, usually because they want to marry a member.  This has resulted in even more genetic mixing, including whole families who went to extreme pains to join this ancient, elite golf club.

So, to recap, Jewish identity is technically inherited through your mother (although many kids who have a Jewish father, and a non-Jewish mother also consider themselves Jewish)...  

You can not practice the jewish religion at all, but still be jewish by birth.

Jews tend to share many of their genes with each other, but over the course of history (especially recently, as the rules for club entry have laxed a little) there has also been quite a bit of mixing.

Essentially, Jewishness is an ethnicity, although because of geographic dispersal, and subsequent genetic mixing with local populations, the Jewish 'gene pool' has expanded significantly over time. Judaism is the system of religious rules that applies only to members of the ethnicity. The rules have nothing to do with non-members. To complicate things a little, Jews who abide by all the rules tend to view non-rule-abiding Jews as a little less 'Jewish' (but still redeemable).  And, moreover, recently the rules have been softened a little to allow non-members to become members, in order to facilitate marriages, etc.

Its important to imagine this all occuring over a pretty vast timespan, and being influenced by pretty vast geographical dispersals, hence the creation of many separate 'pockets' of Jews around the globe. They all recongize each other, however, by their rule book and they language that its written in. ; )

The idea of Israel (and im not saying its a good one) is to bring all these different pockets back to the one place their ancestors 'came from' and craft them into the mould of a 'proper' European-style nation-state. The problem, of course, is that the neighbourhood we choose to do this in was already populated.







Edited by Halevi

Originally posted by Paul Hebrew's a language not an ethnicity, a Semitic langauge along with Arabic. Speakers of Hebrew come from Scotland to Persia.

Correct. In fact, as a student of both Hebrew and Arabic, i can confidently say there's a remarkable similarity between the two languages. Most of the roots, in fact, are identical (semitic langauges are based on a three letter root system).

The question is, how come someone from Scotland and someone from Persia were both taught to read and write this language by their parents? What's the connection?

The answer is that both people can trace some of their ancestry (usually maternal) back to a group of people that once spoke the language amongst themselves. We know that group originated in the Middle East precisely because Hebrew is so simliar to other Semitic Middle Eastern languages.

So, Hebrew is a language, and most of its speakers/readers also have a vague ethnic relationship to each other.

Non-religious jews sometimes adopt 'hebrew' as their ethnic/cultural marker, in an attempt to avoid being classified as religiously jewish.

Originally posted by Paul As for what the Nazi's thought or did not think was a race can in no way be taken seriously.

Hahahaha. Well, the Israeli government does. It figues that if you could be killed for your ethnic identity, you should be granted 'protection' for it on the same basis. Its one of histories weirdest ironies, on more than one level.

 

I always thought that Jew is ethnic term and Judaism is religion, Hebrew: Idish and Ivrit are languages. May be I was wrong - I don't  know.

Anyhow, I agree completely with Komnenos's point of view on the matter. And I disagree with Maju on several points. First of all this: >>

"There was no need for any of the Abrahmanic religions and only adherents to them can say that. Chinese or Indians had never any need of such belief systems. Actually we Europeans didn't have that need either." >>

How would you explain adoption of Christianity in Europe then? Accident? Stupidity?   You know, the more I learn about history the more I understand the number of casualities is very little there (I mean things that happen by chance) and almost every event has its logical background. That's most obvious when we are speaking about macrohistory and macroprocesses. I'll dare to cyte myself here: every event happens in its own time and place; every book is written in its own time and place; every person is son/daughter of its own time and place etc.  That's highly incorrect to generalize as you do. You can't estimate medieval or ancient event/person according to modern criterions or according to your personal experience. Thus you can speak only wheather you personally or your surrounding need it now. but that's different matter. If you suppose it to be useless now it doesn't mean it was useless at the time it was adopted.

If your opinion is based on historical knowledge and wisdom, please, back it with facts, logically relevant reasons. 

Although such kind of reasoning (statements like "We didn't need Roman Empire because...") always makes me smile: we even can't be sure we know all reasons and sequences of the events that had really taken place.

Then, how can one forsee all circumstances that would arise in the case any event hadn't  happened or had happened in some different form. Reasoning of that kind operates with "if"s. And as you know history doesn't know word "if"(except "History amusement" topics).

That's the first point. Now the second one.

Religion as many other things tends to to transform according to circumstances, time and place. Christianity confessed in Europe in Middle Ages and further up to nowadays wasn't that Oriental Christianity you are speaking about. Christianity we have now is our creation, planted and fed up on our cultural soil.

So, that's it.

PS: Apologies if I've been too harsh in my statements.

Edited by arsenka

They really know how to use money

Originally posted by Maju No. I have not: Christianity is an Oriental religion.

Not anymore. It's a world religion now, strongly hellenized and deep rooted in european culture and thought. It was oriental in nature, though.

Originally posted by malizai_ Originally posted by Cywr When i was young I went to watch cricket at Lord cricket ground and was for some stupid reason baffled as to y a jewish guy was watching cricket.(ie, what did cricket have to do with him, it semed something very remote). Sadly, its contagious, even the Dutch have taken it up. In which other game do u get to throw a ball at somebodys head at 100mph and then shake hands at the end.

Baseball.  

 

The spread of Christianity is a result of Roman/European Imperialism, Islam for Arabs, Zaroastrianism for pre Islamic Iranians.  The Jews have never been an imperial people, that is why their religion did not spread.

Today Zaroastrians apparently don't accept converts (conservative ones at least), they sure as hell did 1700 years AGO!!

It is a new thing and trendy among ex-patriots.