The jews got their own Holocaust, but what about others in the 20th century ?

Discussion in 'History' started by Pasta, Feb 5, 2010.

?

Why do you think the Holocaust is well advertised, and victims of Communism are not ?

  1. A. Jew are influential in pushing advertising of what happened to them in schools, books and films.

    7 vote(s)
    36.8%
  2. B. People sympathetic to Communism are supressing advertisment of Communist democides

    2 vote(s)
    10.5%
  3. A & B

    3 vote(s)
    15.8%
  4. Other

    7 vote(s)
    36.8%
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. WillNever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,595
    More pointed question: why do a great number of arabs seem to want to fly against the idea that there is such thing as a jewish ethnicity, when most non-arabs seem seem to be okay with that idea?
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    72,825
    Arab isn't mentioned in the Qur'an and no one really thinks of Arab as a race, more as a culture. Plus, the Torah itself [or the rabbis that interpreted it] puts the Ashkenaz in Germany [erroneously, since they were probably Scythians] and does not consider them descendants of Shem.

    http://www.forward.com/articles/13681/

    So whether you take the historical approach, the halacha or the Bible, Ashkenazi do not qualify as an ethnicity. And certainly not as Jews.

    Of course, my own view point is, anyone who adopts the halacha is a Jew regardless of his mothers religious inclinations. This is what the Torah upholds, not what a rabbi interprets.
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2010
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. WillNever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,595
    By whose definition of ethnicity..? According to what I've been reading lately, an ethnicity can identify by:

    (1) race
    (2) nationality
    (3) culture
    (4) language
    (5) religion
    (6) common heritage
    (7) a combination of the above

    As long as just one of those factors exists, all that is needed is a willingness to identify together on that basis as an ethnicity.

    That is according to my paperback Webster here, and since there are plenty of Jews who willingly identify with each other as belonging to one ethnicity, why would outsiders seek to deny them that status..? I take it you have a problem with this definition of ethnicity.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    72,825
    Which one do you think applies to Jews? They are not all one race, one nationality, one culture, one language, one religion, or even one common heritage [much of their "heritage" was invented in 1948]. Nor a combination of the above.
     
  8. WillNever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,595
    A combination of the above, consisting mainly of nationality, language, and religion.
     
  9. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    WTF? That's retarded.
     
  10. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    72,825
    What does a Yiddish speaking German atheist Jew have in common with an Arabic speaking Yemeni religious Jew?

    We could say matzo balls, but I don't think a common recipe qualifies as ethnicity.
     
  11. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    I don't claim to be a Jew (although Hitler would have called me one) but I can answer the question. There are several reasons.
    • Religion: Judaism is primarily a religion of laws, not faith. Since the reanimation of corpses, the concomitant resuscitation of souls, and the subsequent sorting of the heaven- and hell-bound will occur at some distant but indeterminate time in the future, perhaps literally billions of years hence, most Jews are far more concerned with their judgment by their fellow Jews, and to a (perhaps) lesser extent by Gentiles, than they are with their judgment by God--who seems to hate them no matter what they do anyway. (I have explained before that "Chosen People" does not at all mean what most non-Jews think it means. Jews alone were chosen to keep the Covenant, and apparently they broke it, so far irreparably.)

      With this context understood, belief in God is obviously not essential to being Jewish. What is essential is obeying the five hundred-odd commandments in the Torah (whether they were shouted by God or crafted by men), the clarifications and enhancements in the Talmud, and the laws of man (to the extent that no conflict occurs).

      There are plenty of young men who have their Bar Mitzvah, marry Jewish girls, live what both they and the Jewish community regard as honorable, law-abiding lives, and gain the respect of the people they leave behind when they die, without ever acknowledging the existence of God except in rituals.

      In fact, all that is required to be considered Jewish by God and by other Jews is to have a Jewish mother. This is why that part of the Halacha is so prominent. You can be only 1/4096 Jewish by DNA, and not even know it, but if it's matrilineal, then according to Jewish law you're Jewish.
      .
    • Community. Jewry (a musty old word but a useful one, like "Christendom") has a culture with traditions, stories, favorite foods, songs and social customs just like any other ethnic group. People who retain strong ties to that community, particularly by not flouting the laws noted in the first bullet, are generally accepted as Jewish, particulary in a place like the USA where Orthodoxy is a minority sect. Marrying within the community is an easy way to maintain those ties and that acceptance. The many who don't go to religious services except on major holidays may literally never be asked by anyone whether they believe in God.
      .
    • Society. Even in America, where Jews have been treated better than perhaps any other country except China, they are still regarded as "others." This is largely due to not being Christians and the new Muslim immigrants are encountering the same thing. When everyone tells you you're Jewish, it's easy to think of yourself that way, whether or not you believe in God.
     
  12. WillNever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,595
    Surely at one point in the past those two wildly different Jews' ancestors were united by at least *one* of those seven factors, or they wouldn't both identify as Jews. There is a link between them, probably based on the religion of their parents, or parents' parents, and so forth.
     
  13. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    72,825
    Could you show me where they were linked? Any evidence? I propose that Ashkenazis are probably converts to Judaism, maybe even by force if a king or something converetd and made it state religion, like Constantinople and hence its not surprising that the vast majority of them prefer paganism, which is what their ancestors followed. Some cultural thingies tend to linger on in the genetic memories. They couldn't even adopt Christianity without the idols.
     
  14. WillNever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,595
    Those are hypothetical caricatures that you made up, so I have no genealogies to look at. However, if both individuals identify as Jewish then there is surely a reason for that. Chances are that at least one parent, or grandparent, or a family member even further back identified as Jewish for the reason that they were, at one point, converted to Judaism. I think that's a pretty safe assumption, considering they thought of themselves as Jewish.
     
  15. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    72,825
    Would you apply the same reasoning to atheist Christians or atheist Muslims?

    Generally the caste system applies the same principle, which I consider to be utter nonsense.
     
  16. WillNever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,595
    I would not, because Christians, atheist or no, do not think about themselves in those terms and do not willingly identify together as an ethnicity in the same way that Jews do. I don't know about how atheist muslims think, though.
     
  17. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    72,825
    Thats because there aint no such animal. My reasoning is that if I do not accept untouchables are born into a caste or that black is a race, it would be highly specious to accept that Jews are a caste or a race. We all know that Judaism is a covenant with God [or G-D] and if you're an atheist, you shouldn't pretend to be a Jew.

    The "atheist Jew" grew of the haskalah movement in Germany and is not a part of halacha.
     
  18. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    I have not come to enforce the law, but to fufill it.
     
  19. WillNever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,595
    Do untouchables see themselves as an ethnicity..? I would consider African-Americans their own ethnicity to be sure, but not "blacks."

    Jews identifying as an ethnicity is their right of self-determination.
     
  20. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,391
    That's obviously not true.

    Although I'm sure a lot of racists out there will be happy to learn that their prejudices towards Arabs don't count as racism.
     
  21. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    72,825
    Anyone who identifies himself by an ideology that involves race, is essentially nuts

    Thats my philosophy. Whether its an atheist who clings to a covenant he does not practice or an untouchable who refuses to drink from a high caste well because it would pollute his dharma, or a black man who joins the KKK because his mother was white, they are all nuts.
     
  22. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,391
    Not accepting "black" as a race is highly specious.

    "We all" don't "know" any such thing. These are your own inventions, which fly in the face of the definitions used by the people who actually have standing to decide this stuff.

    And yet, those people remain Jews, identified as such by themselves, other Jews, and the others around them.
     
  23. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,391
    That would include something like a majority of the world's population.

    There are no such atheists.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page