Jews

Iran's new foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, twittered "Happy Rosh Hashana.” This will surely be interpreted as a small diplomatic step toward easing the hostilities between his nation and Israel, after the change in Iranian leadership following the recent election.

Christine Pelosi, daughter of U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, replied to the tweet with: “The New Year would be even sweeter if you would end Iran’s Holocaust denial, sir.”

Zarif quickly responded, "Iran never denied it. The man who was perceived to be denying it [former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] is now gone. Happy New Year.” He went on to say, "We never were against Jews. We oppose Zionists, who are a minority of the Jews. We have condemned the killing of Jews by Nazis as we condemn the killing and crackdown on Palestinians by Zionists.” [This puts him in the company of many Westerners, including a large percentage (possibly a majority) of younger Jewish Americans, who do not identify with Zionism and are as opposed to racism of any kind as the majority of Americans are--or at least claim to be.]

It must be pointed out that Iran has the largest Jewish population of any Muslim nation--a distinction that was held until recently by Iraq.

(Abstracted from today's Washington Post)

I have seen no reports of violence or repression against Jews in Iran.
 
Mazulu said:
Happy Rosh Hashanah to you! :D I wish I were a practicing Jew. I wasn't raised that away. :(
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Because you were not raised , you steel can practice if that is what you feel . And if you were circumcised as a baby that is you are in . Look Spidergoat he is an outcast of Judaism, he is a goim
 
exchemist said:
Can you give a reference for this? It seems highly unlikely to me.
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Wikipedia says: from the late Middle Ages through to the end of the 18th century, etiquette and medical manuals advised people to only wash the parts of the body that were visible to the public; for example, the ears, hands, feet, and face and neck. This did away with the public baths and left the cleaning of oneself to the privacy of one's home. The switch from woolen to linen clothing by the 16th century also accompanied the decline in bathing. Linen clothing is much easier to clean and maintain - and such clothing was becoming commonplace at the time in Western Europe. Clean linen shirts or blouses allowed people who had not bathed to appear clean and well groomed. The possession of a large quantity of clean linen clothing was a sign of social status. Thus, appearance became more important than personal hygiene. Medical opinion supported this claim. Physicians of the period believed that odors, or miasma, such as that which would be found in soiled linens, caused disease. A person could therefore change one's shirt every few days, but avoid baths - which might let the 'bad air' into the body through the pores. Consequently, in an age in which there were very few personal bathtubs, laundry was an important and weekly chore which was commonly undertaken by laundresses of the time. Public opinion about bathing began to shift in the middle and late 18th century, when writers argued that frequent bathing might lead to better health. Large public baths such as those found in the ancient world and the Ottoman Empire were revived during the 19th century. The germ theory of disease led health authorities to urge people to bathe regularly, to rid the body of harmful germs. Before the late 19th century, water to individual places of residence was rare; many countries in Europe developed a water collection and distribution network.

To be fair, the article has no links to citations. However, as I said originally, I have seen other writers make the same statement, from various perspectives.

Since it was regarded as evil to immerse the body in water, swimming was also not a skill most people learned. Sailors were an obvious exception, and this helped establish their reputation as uncouth. And it explains why tossing a person into a lake was considered a good way to find out if they were a witch. Most people would sink due to their inability to swim--or even tread water--identifying them as decent folk, who were unfortunately wrongly accused but would be rewarded by early admission into heaven. The few people who could swim and survived the dunking were pulled out and executed for witchcraft.

It's common knowledge that the technology of plumbing as we know it--clean water pumped into private homes with covered sewers to remove the effluent--only became widespread in the late 19th century. This included the toilet, which had been invented much earlier but was only installed in the homes of the elite.

And it's an urban myth that it was invented by Thomas Crapper, who was nonetheless a real plumber. "Crap" comes from the old Latin word crappa.

There was a quantum improvement in health at the turn of the last century, manifesting perhaps most happily in the sudden reduction of infant mortality from 80% (a figure that was steady all the way back to the Stone Age) to less than one percent. Walk through any ancient cemetery that is no longer in use and notice how many of the graves are tiny. Imagine living in an era when everybody was grieving the loss of a child!

It was science and engineering that created this miracle.
  • Vaccines
  • Antibiotics
  • Running water
  • Covered sewers
  • Wrapped food
  • The automobile--yes folks, in the 1880s the streets of every major city were ankle deep in horse manure
 
arauca said:
Because you were not raised , you steel can practice if that is what you feel . And if you were circumcised as a baby that is you are in . Look Spidergoat he is an outcast of Judaism, he is a goim
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Judaism is an ancient jewel in my heart. I will always support Israel on matters of international security as Israel is much wiser and more compassionate than her enemies.
 
arauca said:
Because you were not raised , you steel can practice if that is what you feel . And if you were circumcised as a baby that is you are in . Look Spidergoat he is an outcast of Judaism, he is a goim
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Unfortunately I can't get my foreskin back, G-d already snacked on it.
 
Without the Jews, Europe would probably still be in the Dark Ages.
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This is not accurate.

Financial endeavors aside, the intellectual life of the post-Diaspora, pre-19th century Jews was focused almost entirely on study of the scriptures and the Talmud. The first 450 years of the modern Scientific Era, including the start of the Industrial Revolution, was the exclusive provenance of European and American Christians. In all other fields the only Jew I can think of who has a place in the first rank is the philosopher Spinoza.

Then, about three generations into the admission of Jews to the excellent European education system arose Albert Einstein, and since Einstein's time the Jews have been in an ongoing, incomparable class by themselves in the intellectual procession of the human race.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
Wikipedia says: from the late Middle Ages through to the end of the 18th century, etiquette and medical manuals advised people to only wash the parts of the body that were visible to the public; for example, the ears, hands, feet, and face and neck. This did away with the public baths and left the cleaning of oneself to the privacy of one's home. The switch from woolen to linen clothing by the 16th century also accompanied the decline in bathing. Linen clothing is much easier to clean and maintain - and such clothing was becoming commonplace at the time in Western Europe. Clean linen shirts or blouses allowed people who had not bathed to appear clean and well groomed. The possession of a large quantity of clean linen clothing was a sign of social status. Thus, appearance became more important than personal hygiene. Medical opinion supported this claim. Physicians of the period believed that odors, or miasma, such as that which would be found in soiled linens, caused disease. A person could therefore change one's shirt every few days, but avoid baths - which might let the 'bad air' into the body through the pores. Consequently, in an age in which there were very few personal bathtubs, laundry was an important and weekly chore which was commonly undertaken by laundresses of the time. Public opinion about bathing began to shift in the middle and late 18th century, when writers argued that frequent bathing might lead to better health. Large public baths such as those found in the ancient world and the Ottoman Empire were revived during the 19th century. The germ theory of disease led health authorities to urge people to bathe regularly, to rid the body of harmful germs. Before the late 19th century, water to individual places of residence was rare; many countries in Europe developed a water collection and distribution network.

To be fair, the article has no links to citations. However, as I said originally, I have seen other writers make the same statement, from various perspectives.

Since it was regarded as evil to immerse the body in water, swimming was also not a skill most people learned. Sailors were an obvious exception, and this helped establish their reputation as uncouth. And it explains why tossing a person into a lake was considered a good way to find out if they were a witch. Most people would sink due to their inability to swim--or even tread water--identifying them as decent folk, who were unfortunately wrongly accused but would be rewarded by early admission into heaven. The few people who could swim and survived the dunking were pulled out and executed for witchcraft.

It's common knowledge that the technology of plumbing as we know it--clean water pumped into private homes with covered sewers to remove the effluent--only became widespread in the late 19th century. This included the toilet, which had been invented much earlier but was only installed in the homes of the elite.

And it's an urban myth that it was invented by Thomas Crapper, who was nonetheless a real plumber. "Crap" comes from the old Latin word crappa.

There was a quantum improvement in health at the turn of the last century, manifesting perhaps most happily in the sudden reduction of infant mortality from 80% (a figure that was steady all the way back to the Stone Age) to less than one percent. Walk through any ancient cemetery that is no longer in use and notice how many of the graves are tiny. Imagine living in an era when everybody was grieving the loss of a child!

It was science and engineering that created this miracle.
  • Vaccines
  • Antibiotics
  • Running water
  • Covered sewers
  • Wrapped food
  • The automobile--yes folks, in the 1880s the streets of every major city were ankle deep in horse manure
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I don't see any reference to "sinfulness" of bathing here. And the article seems to make plain it was only in cold, Northern Europe that whole body bathing was unusual: not surprising, in view of the difficulty of obtaining the heated water necessary to make it endurable. Evidently in Italy, for example, the practice of bathing continued.

I can't trace your notion of a supposed Latin word "crappa" either. Do you have a reference for that?
 
exchemist said:
My instant guess would be because they have been the perpetual outsiders, persecuted often, who therefore had to have their wits about them to survive, rather relying on hereditary or state-sponsored power structures for influence; AND aided by a deeply embedded respect for law and scholarship, derived from their faith. Also, possibly, good international connections to their co-religionists, which would have removed nationalistic inhibitions in communication and enabled good awareness of ideas from all over Europe. But this is just my guess.
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I agree and said so with other comments in thread about Jews controlling the press / media now closed and moved to cesspool. Here is what I said:
" Jews are defined by being born to a jewish mother. There is also a jewish religion, quite a few of its menbers are not Jews and quite a few Jews, if not the majority, follow other religions or many, the largest block of Jews, no religion at all.

On thing quite common among all these different groups, as it is in many ethnic groups, is some pride in their cultural heritage. This is typically strongest in ethnic groups with many thousands of years of cultural heritage, like ethnic Jews or Chinese. China has been a large and power nation for most of its history (world's dominate one for more than five times as long as the US has existed). The jewish ethnic group for most of its history, the converse - a small minority often with limited rights in the larger society in which they lived, which sometimes had to back up and flee for their lives in the middle of the night. This has lead that culture to value most things of value they could easily take with them - medical skills, gold and diamonds, including the skill to cut raw diamonds, musical skills, more knowledge than most so they could teach at the university level, and to come to the subject of this thread, to write and edit newspapers in efforts to reduce the abuses they suffered for centuries.

Thus still today members of the jewish ethnic group are dis proportionally represented in these activities, but who controls newspapers in the long run is the buyers of them and they are switching to the internet for their news with papers economically failing, so there is little point to this thread, but I think it should not be closed. That is not the common practice at Sciformums, IMHO, as more than half the treads have little point or merit, at least after the initial few posts. "

I can't delete it there, but ask any mod that can to do so to avoid double posting.
 
Hygiene is part of the Jewish culture. Washing hands before eating is mandatory for orthodox Jews. In lands where water is scare, Rabbis have decreed that one must use enough water when washing your hands that if forearm is held vertically at least one drop falls from your elbow. Jews don't need to immerse their bodies in water for their hygiene but note the first baptisms (of Jews of course) were done by total immersion in a lake – Clearly symbolic of removing ones sins as well as accumulated dirt.

My best friend in high school was the Rabbi' s son. We were very tight. We keep Kosher food at our house for him to eat on plates covered with AL foil and he had two sets of utensils (one for milk and one from meat meals). I was taken with them to fish etc. in a rural lake in Canada, and to serve as the gentile (Shickengle) who could do the "work" of turning off light switches, close windows and doors, etc. on Friday eve, and also, sigh, the cleaning of the ALL the fish we, in two boats, caught late Friday.

Normally only family member eats Yom Kippur dinner, but I was a guest at one. That caused the Rabbi some static as few in his congregation had been extended that honor. I learned a lot about the Jewish culture during those years but was well indoctrinate in the Lutheran version of Christianity. This caused a huge moral dilemma for me. My friend was doomed to Hell – Should I try to convert him? Well he soon became an atheist and I an agnostic as we discussed religions so that problem passed. If I were to adopt a religion, it would definitely be Jewish.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
Uncleanliness puts stress on the brain and body, making the people weaker and more stupid. In particular, the Black Plague killed a huge portion of the Christian population of Europe, while taking a much smaller toll among the Jews.[*]Because the Christians read the Bible in translation, they made several errors. One was the translation of a word meaning what today we would call "predatory lending" (charging too much interest) to include any lending of money for interest as usury, and this was called a "sin." This prohibited them from establishing a banking system. However, they had no prohibition against borrowing money, so the Jews lent them their own money. After several generations of this practice, the Jews became Europe's de facto bankers.
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In regards to Ashkenazi Jews there's a theory they have a higher IQ relative to other Europeans.

WIKI: Today's Ashkenazi Jews have a higher average mathematical and verbal IQ and an unusual cognitive profile compared to other ethnic groups, including Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews.
- Journal of Biosocial Science, Cambridge University Press (May 2007): Intelligence difference between European and oriental Jews in Isreal.

While I'm not sure I agree that this is a true finding, if it is, that advantage could make the difference in their impact on society at large.

One theory suggests the because the Rabbis could reproduce, the smartest members of the Jews society continued to pass along their genes (perhaps maybe even having larger families due to their academic success - given they were forced to be bankers). Whereas for Christians, those that had the inclination and sought to develop academic pursuits were forced to become Priests - which meant their genes where selectively not passed along.
 
Michael said:
Whereas for Christians, those that had the inclination and sought to develop academic pursuits were forced to become Priests - which meant their genes where selectively not passed along.
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Priests were not always required to be celibate, although I don't have a timeline. Furthermore, even when they are required to be celibate, this doesn't mean that they actually are. ;)
 
Michael said:
In regards to Ashkenazi Jews there's a theory they have a higher IQ relative to other Europeans.

WIKI: Today's Ashkenazi Jews have a higher average mathematical and verbal IQ and an unusual cognitive profile compared to other ethnic groups, including Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews.
- Journal of Biosocial Science, Cambridge University Press (May 2007): Intelligence difference between European and oriental Jews in Isreal.

While I'm not sure I agree that this is a true finding, if it is, that advantage could make the difference in their impact on society at large.

One theory suggests the because the Rabbis could reproduce, the smartest members of the Jews society continued to pass along their genes (perhaps maybe even having larger families due to their academic success - given they were forced to be bankers). Whereas for Christians, those that had the inclination and sought to develop academic pursuits were forced to become Priests - which meant their genes where selectively not passed along.
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Have they made any comparison between the Ashkenazim and the Safardic Jews , I believe the environment have some to do
 
Mazulu said:
Judaism is an ancient jewel in my heart.
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Yikes!! I highly recommend that you see a heart specialist. Depending on the size and mobility of the jewel you could be facing a serious heart problem in the near future!
 
Captain Kremmen said:
Einstein was a Jew. Jesus was a Jew. Neil Bohr was a Jew. Hitler was a Jew.............
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That rumor has been circulating for decades. But it's simply not true.

His father, Alois Hitler, was the illegitimate son of a woman who worked as a housekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz. The rumor specifically postulates that their son, Leopold Frankenberger, was her father.

However, there is no record of a man named Leopold Frankenberger living in Graz at that time, and the Germans were (and are) meticulous recordkeepers.
 
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