Are the Jewish people a religion, race, or nationality?, page 3

Originally posted by Kokatsi
Star and flag for Sigismundus.
My wife is a mainly Sephardic Jew and I inquired from rabbis on conversion rules (mainly because of my studies of mysticism. They are pretty strict - learning a lot of stuff, Hebrew reading of course, eating kashrut, observing shabes etc. A lot of waiting, mitzvahs like cicrumcision and sacred baths. If you are poor and honest, people will help with financing and celebration though. Convert Jews will be called the sons or daughters of Abraham among Jewish religionus circles, because it is considered they are no longer the sons of their non-Jewish parents in a religious sense.
As for the gene stuff, it is almost as mixed up as Hungarians, as Sigismundus says.
When donnie alludes to a cultural inheritance, that is true, in several ways. (Not tied to genes though). First in depth psychology. Carl Jung treated a few people whose ancestors were converts from Judaism. They were fervent Christians but dreamed of Rabbis once and then. Jung, who was a mystical Christian himself, encouraged them to discover their Jewish roots as much as they felt comfortable to do.

Hungary's Jews were asked last year if they voted yes or no on wanting to be defined as a minority ethnic group. There could have been advantages, especially in money and status. Over 90 percent voted no, we do not want to be defined as an ethnic group. (Yet most non-Jewish Hungarians think about Hungary's Jews as one ethnic group). Antisemites buy the arguments on genes passing on learned behavior - then the next moment we hear precisely the stereotypes Hitler so loved.
The question is even more complicated because there are atheist Jews (when I was a kid, I think more Hungarian Jews were atheists - Socialist, Communists, also independent personalities who did philosophy arts etc.) The trend then in educated curcles was definitely atheism. In Europe at least.
For there you have Jewish people with clear parental lineage who are atheist but sometimes show up at Jewish fests for solidarity "with their own people". When I asked one person like that how could she be a Jew without a God, how would she think about that herself, she replied "Judaism is a culture."
So now we have it: there are traces of Sephards who have Hebrew genes, but all the Nazi charicatures (long nose etc.) were sculpted to denigrate Ashkenazi Jews. (Yes, there are many read and even blond and blue-eyed, Ashkenazis.) The Ashkenazi Jews could be considered a separate people with a loose ethnic ancestry. Many Israelites mixed in all Mediterranean countries such as Greece. Islamic countries loved them, they were easier to agree with and not as savage as Western Christians. And they could sell wine.

But in Israel, I read, the official policy is that Jewry is a nation and its homeland is Israel. There were thousands of Jew converts in China earlier - physically Chinese but observing Hebrew law.

So, to sum it up, we are looking for the Jewish identity, and some say it is a people for some definants, a religion (or two, since reformism is different, or three since Kabbalah is again as different as Sufism from Sunni Islam) for other definants, especially converts adn peoples whos race would originally join them to other religions - Ethiopians, Moroccans, arab Jews etc., while being a Jew is simply a statement on an ancestry, or at best a culture for non-religous Jews.

I must point out that my anecdotes of depth psychology derive from exampes where the Jewish person was not farther away that a few generations. It is because ancestors ARE important in many subtle ways for each of us. What I must emphasize is that when antisemites (I recognize the word is badly coined) point out how "the Jews own all the banks", they include all and sundry, and if I point out that vey few bankers go to synagogues and give charity to poor Jewish families, as Judaism would require, even if maybe there are proportionately more people in banking with Jewish roots that say, agriculture, the next answer is that "it is in their blood. Moses told them money is important - so these people became Christians or atheist in vain. They can never shake the bonds of blood. Maybe" - the typical antisemite would continue in this country - "they better all become truly Jewish but like this, it is deplorable." In other words, the secular or difficult-to-define Jew in Eastern Europe has a special hatred in the eyes of the local antisemite.

See, nazis wants everything to be black and white pure and simple.
Sociologists have even pointed out that the sick definitions of Nazism and the remaining attitudes (mind control) do have a repercussion on the Jewish identity.

Imagine, under Communism, where in textbooks Hitler was portrayed as the terrible villain he was, who exterminated Jewish people, it was inappropriate to ask someone if the were Jewish. In the peaceful seventies. It was a secret held and whispered for many years.
It could have been similar to coming out for a gay person when they found out (many families kept it hidden from their own sons and daughters) and decided to talk openly about it. Now the revival of religion, ties to Israel and the fact that Jewish intelligentsia was not persecuted per se under the generally antireligious system changed the air.

Finally, if you are interested, Judaism has its own resonance. Go to a shabeth, eat the food, hear people mutter in Hebrew, see the symbols and songs - there is something very ancient in it. Kabbalah is the same.

As for mysticism, I think Hebrew Kabbalah intertwined with Egyptian sorcery and rulership. Then they left Egypt over major disagreements. This is the source on which probably Hellenistic culture became a subtratum in many mixing bowls. Little survived from the exact rites of anceint greece, but much from Judaism predating it.

That is why the world's Jewry is far from united. Many zealots put their lives to help Palestinian causes, Marxism, science or other very rational philosophies. There were many Jews in the Hippie movement too. When I lived in America, most Jews I met were liberal, easy-going, disliking big capitalism, the right wing etc. A smaller, materially richer segment folded away with pale faces into the folds of the Republican Party - I thought those were quite cranky though. The founders of the neo-conservative movement.
A closing thought: Only Marx, a nonreligious Jew himself, could explain, why rich American Jews would vote Republican while poorer Jews voted Dem or went the left.

[edit on 9/24/2009 by Kokatsi]

Wow, very interesting and informative!

Another thing to throw out - do you think Jewish culture originates in Atlantis?