Judaism as nationality?

Gary K

New member
Banned
%
"In the 2018 midterms, Jews were again the most Democratic group as designated by religious identity, with 79% voting for the Democrats while 17% voted for the Republicans." -- https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-ta...igious-groups-voted-in-the-midterm-elections/

By your illogic, 79% of voting Jews in America are anti-Semites.

And what you're looking at right there in that statistic is mostly secular Jews. Jews who are ethnic Jews but don't practice Judaism. Among Orthodox Jews, Jews who practice Judaism, support for Trump in a poll done by Ami Magazine, a Jewish publication, says 89% of Orthodox Jews support Trump. In the 2016 election 56% of them voted for Trump. His support among them has grown by 33% since his election.

The trend towards the Democrat party started in the late 1800s and onward for most secular Jews became socialists/communists. That's why we see so many of them in the Democrat party today. The secular Jews of today see the socialism in the Democrat party and gravitate towards it because of the influence of their parents and grandparents.

Now before you start accusing me of anything you might want to see where I got those ideas: from a Jew. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-socialism-in-the-united-states-1880-1920/

He has written other articles on Jewish socialism in the US.
 

Gary K

New member
Banned
It is weird how nearly every question that comes up is polarized on this site into political parties. People are far more complicated than that.

I don't understand your reasoning. We are in the middle of a deep seated cultural war. The divides are very deep because the two sides have completely different basic assumptions about life, morality, spirituality, etc.... The opposing basic assumptions means everything is seen through different lenses.

This natural part of human nature will always end up being expressed in politics because politics determine which way society will move. And opposing basic assumptions will move society in two separate ways. Both sides will want to control which way it moves as they each find the way the other side wants to move society very objectionable. Thus everything in life then becomes political for which ever set of basic assumptions has the reigns of power will necessarily move society towards those basic assumptions.

I see this everywhere I go on the internet, and in real life. I have never been on a forum where politics are discussed that this conflict does not occur. In fact, this conflict comes up on forums which where political discussions are not really wanted. There's a site I occasionally post to on computer issues. I doubt I've seen politics come up more than once or twice in a almost two decades of posting there. But a couple of months ago a subject was raised on which someone in the computer world did something politically incorrect in our overall society. The political explosion was immediate. The mod was on one side of the issue and he went around deleting any posts that differed from his chosen basic assumptions for seeing the world at large.

I've posted to quite a few theological sites. Every one of those sites had a deep political undertone that was specific to the basic assumptions of those who owned/ran the site. Even the attitudes taken on theological issues were seen in the different basic assumptions taken by those expressing their theological points of view. The less Biblical the theology held by the poster the more politically correct their stances would be. And the more the posters relied strictly on the Bible the less politically correct the poster's stances would be.

If a person reads the comments found on news sites you will see this division of basic assumptions very clearly. What one side supports the other side condemns and finds objectionable. Now this doesn't mean that all people are divided, without personal variation, into the two camps, but all of us will have threads of one of the two sides within us which thus determines our overall world view.

So, this is hardly a phenomenon found only on TOL. It's found everywhere in our society. TOL just has people from both sides who express their aversions to the opposite set of basic assumptions pretty candidly. A lot of people just won't express their thoughts because the thought of confrontation or seeing their basic life assumptions challenged is objectionable to them. My wife is someone who will only on very rare occasions speak her political mind because she dislikes the very idea of confrontation. Yet in private she will say what she thinks and how she views the world.
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
Maybe the Navajo was a poor choice, as it brings up all kinds of legal definitions in the US, and images of Indian reservations and the like. It is better if you think of the Navajo before they met Europeans. What made them a people?

Think about Jewish history. We started as a people, with Abraham Isaac and Jacob. The defining event in our history was the Exodus. The Torah (Hebrew Bible) was given to an existing people, the Israelites. The Bible and the "Law" weren't intended for everybody. they were specifically set up for the people of Israel. We have a long political history, linked with a particular land. We have some distinctly tribal customs, such as circumcision. We have our own language.

This is very different from Christianity, which is a religion. One becomes a Christian by accepting the Christian faith. One becomes a Jew by joining the Jewish people. (Yes, I know people often talk about "converting" to Judaism, as if it was a purely religious thing- but it's not.)

There have been attempts to paint Judaism as another religion. Like you can be "of the Jewish faith", just like you can be "of the Christian faith". It doesn't really work.

I'm back, I found this from the Jewish Virtual Library (I don't know if the source has any standing with you or not):

Judaism: Are Jews a Nation or a Religion?
Judaism can be thought of as being simultaneously a religion, a nationality and a culture.

Throughout the middle ages and into the 20th century, most of the European world agreed that Jews constituted a distinct nation. This concept of nation does not require that a nation have either a territory nor a government, but rather, it identifies, as a nation any distinct group of people with a common language and culture. Only in the 19th century did it become common to assume that each nation should have its own distinct government; this is the political philosophy of nationalism. In fact, Jews had a remarkable degree of self-government until the 19th century. So long as Jews lived in their ghettos, they were allowed to collect their own taxes, run their own courts, and otherwise behave as citizens of a landless and distinctly second-class Jewish nation.

Of course, Judaism is a religion, and it is this religion that forms the central element of the Jewish culture that binds Jews together as a nation. It is the religion that defines foods as being kosher and non-kosher, and this underlies Jewish cuisine. It is the religion that sets the calendar of Jewish feast and fast days, and it is the religion that has preserved the Hebrew language.

Is Judaism an ethnicity? In short, not any more. Although Judaism arose out of a single ethnicity in the Middle East, there have always been conversions into and out of the religion. Thus, there are those who may have been ethnically part of the original group who are no longer part of Judaism, and those of other ethnic groups who have converted into Judaism.

If you are referring to a nation in the sense of race, Judaism is not a nation. People are free to convert into Judaism; once converted, they are considered the same as if they were born Jewish. This is not true for a race.​


I'm not trying to belabor the point, just to understand the point. First: If Jews still (the quote only takes that into the 20th. century) constitute a nation, doesn't that lend weight to the concerns about the suspicion of dual loyalties which some Jews see as a step down a historically bad road? Second, this Jewish source sees Judaism as a religion while it seems you do not, is this a common point of division?
 

chair

Well-known member
I'm back, I found this from the Jewish Virtual Library (I don't know if the source has any standing with you or not):

Judaism: Are Jews a Nation or a Religion?
Judaism can be thought of as being simultaneously a religion, a nationality and a culture.

Throughout the middle ages and into the 20th century, most of the European world agreed that Jews constituted a distinct nation. This concept of nation does not require that a nation have either a territory nor a government, but rather, it identifies, as a nation any distinct group of people with a common language and culture. Only in the 19th century did it become common to assume that each nation should have its own distinct government; this is the political philosophy of nationalism. In fact, Jews had a remarkable degree of self-government until the 19th century. So long as Jews lived in their ghettos, they were allowed to collect their own taxes, run their own courts, and otherwise behave as citizens of a landless and distinctly second-class Jewish nation.

Of course, Judaism is a religion, and it is this religion that forms the central element of the Jewish culture that binds Jews together as a nation. It is the religion that defines foods as being kosher and non-kosher, and this underlies Jewish cuisine. It is the religion that sets the calendar of Jewish feast and fast days, and it is the religion that has preserved the Hebrew language.

Is Judaism an ethnicity? In short, not any more. Although Judaism arose out of a single ethnicity in the Middle East, there have always been conversions into and out of the religion. Thus, there are those who may have been ethnically part of the original group who are no longer part of Judaism, and those of other ethnic groups who have converted into Judaism.

If you are referring to a nation in the sense of race, Judaism is not a nation. People are free to convert into Judaism; once converted, they are considered the same as if they were born Jewish. This is not true for a race.​


I'm not trying to belabor the point, just to understand the point. First: If Jews still (the quote only takes that into the 20th. century) constitute a nation, doesn't that lend weight to the concerns about the suspicion of dual loyalties which some Jews see as a step down a historically bad road? Second, this Jewish source sees Judaism as a religion while it seems you do not, is this a common point of division?

Your source is an interesting one. It deals with the historic development of how people view the ideas of nation, ethnicity and race, more than with who or what the Jews in fact are. I think the author missed the boat completely on "ethnicity", which he/she views as about the same as "race", i.e. a genetic identity.

I am more concerned with clearing up who we are than with concerns of dual loyalties. We've been accused of dual loyalties and worse, despite having been patriotic and serving in the armies of whatever country we live in. The most glaring example is Germany. Many Jews served in the German army in WWI. A few decades later they were blamed for everything that went wrong in Germany, and sent to the gas chambers.

What exactly is this "dual loyalty" concern about? What are people afraid American Jews will do? Why is this different than other American sub-groups that have their own identity?
 

chair

Well-known member
I don't understand your reasoning. We are in the middle of a deep seated cultural war. The divides are very deep because the two sides have completely different basic assumptions about life, morality, spirituality, etc.... The opposing basic assumptions means everything is seen through different lenses.

This natural part of human nature will always end up being expressed in politics because politics determine which way society will move. And opposing basic assumptions will move society in two separate ways. Both sides will want to control which way it moves as they each find the way the other side wants to move society very objectionable. Thus everything in life then becomes political for which ever set of basic assumptions has the reigns of power will necessarily move society towards those basic assumptions....

It still looks odd to me to pigeonhole a people who have been around for over 3,000 years based on the American identity politics of the past 20 years.
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
It still looks odd to me to pigeonhole a people who have been around for over 3,000 years based on the American identity politics of the past 20 years.

probably the Romans tried to do something similar couple thousand years ago, before their empire fell
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
Your source is an interesting one. It deals with the historic development of how people view the ideas of nation, ethnicity and race, more than with who or what the Jews in fact are. I think the author missed the boat completely on "ethnicity", which he/she views as about the same as "race", i.e. a genetic identity.

I am more concerned with clearing up who we are than with concerns of dual loyalties. We've been accused of dual loyalties and worse, despite having been patriotic and serving in the armies of whatever country we live in. The most glaring example is Germany. Many Jews served in the German army in WWI. A few decades later they were blamed for everything that went wrong in Germany, and sent to the gas chambers.

What exactly is this "dual loyalty" concern about? What are people afraid American Jews will do? Why is this different than other American sub-groups that have their own identity?

What exactly is it about? From what I've read it's about exactly what you said regarding being historically accused of dual loyalties. This is the concern of many American Jews, as evidenced by their reaction. People aren't afraid of what American Jews will do, American Jews are afraid of what the government in future may do if they can assign the suspicion of dual loyalties, a first step down the road to a dangerous kind of otherness that they know from their own history. I'm hesitant to put it other than this, I'm not Jewish, I don't want to be ignorantly insensitive, I can't do anything but look to the voices of the Jews speaking out both for and against this executive order. As to why it's different than other American sub-groups: the Jewish people face a danger from American white supremacists, whose agenda Trump allows, condones, and speaks for implicitly.

One of the things I noticed in reading the for and against reaction is the claim that the NYT got it wrong and that Trump is only reiterating an Obama-era policy. When I compared the two though, Trump's order included the words national origin while the Obama document said shared ancestry. Semantics, or not? It seems rather complicated to me, especially since there seems no consensus among American Jews. I found this from the JTA helpful, perhaps you may too:


Trump’s executive order protecting Jewish students (and the controversy), explained
 

Jerry Shugart

Well-known member
The Progressives want to talk about anything and everything except what has been revealed about Obama's FBI and their illegal spying on the Trump campaign.

All they prove is that they care nothing about civil rights because to them the end justifies the means.
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
The Progressives want to talk about anything and everything except what has been revealed about Obama's FBI and their illegal spying on the Trump campaign.

What has been revealed? The report's analysis that

"We did not find any documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI's decision to conduct these operations. Additionally, we found no evidence that the FBI attempted to place any CHSs within the Trump campaign, recruit members of the Trump campaign as CHSs, or task CHSs to report on the Trump campaign."

And:

"We therefore concluded the FBI met the requirement in the AG Guidelines and the DIOG that Crossfire Hurricane be opened for an "authorized purpose," namely "to detect, obtain information about, or prevent or protect against federal crimes or threats to the national security or to collect foreign intelligence." We also determined that, although the investigation had the potential to impact constitutionally protected activity, the FBI's decision to open the investigation was permissible under both Department and FBI policies because there was a legitimate law enforcement purpose associated with the investigation."


All they prove is that they care nothing about civil rights because to them the end justifies the means.

What are you frothing about now Jerry?
 

Jerry Shugart

Well-known member
What are you frothing about now Jerry?

Are you really this dense, annabenedetti?

There were 17 major so-called errors and every single one of them went against Trump!

If you can't figure out that these things were done intentionallly then go back to your cave!

The attorney in charge of the FISA application changed an email that revealed that Carter Page was working for the CIA so that it said that he was not working for the CIA! Only a dolt of the worse kind cannot figure out that this was done on purpose.

Your Trump Derangement Syndrome has resulted in a total inability to think straight.
 

User Name

Greatest poster ever
Banned
The Progressives want to talk about anything and everything except what has been revealed about Obama's FBI and their illegal spying on the Trump campaign.

Jimmy Dore is a left-winger, and he's talking about it. For example, check this out if you have the time (caution--may contain some vulgar language):


There were 17 major so-called errors and every single one of them went against Trump!

This is a legitimate point. It seems that what we are dealing with here is a situation where there is wrongdoing on all sides--meaning that not only is Trump guilty of multiple acts of wrongdoing, so is Comey and many of the major player in this fiasco you would care to mention.
 

Gary K

New member
Banned
Jimmy Dore is a left-winger, and he's talking about it. For example, check this out if you have the time (caution--may contain some vulgar language):




This is a legitimate point. It seems that what we are dealing with here is a situation where there is wrongdoing on all sides--meaning that not only is Trump guilty of multiple acts of wrongdoing, so is Comey and many of the major player in this fiasco you would care to mention.

When you're pointing to Trump for wrongdoing remember whose word you're taking for that supposed wrongdoing. You're taking the word of a media who has trumpeted the Democrat's talking points for years. The media had the resources to know the truth, in fact they were having meetings with the FBI to coordinate the talking points between them. The media also knew that all of this was bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton.

Everything that the media and the FBI/DoJ has said about all of this is based upon lies. Carter Page was convicted of a crime he didn't commit. The FBI was told repeatedly that Page was an operative in contact with Russian agents in his legitimate role for the other agency. The FBI flat out ignored that and then blew that entire story out of context into something that had Trump colluding with the Russians through Carter Page. It's all fruit of the same poisoned tree. In other words, there is nothing reliable about any of it.
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
Are you really this dense, annabenedetti?

There were 17 major so-called errors and every single one of them went against Trump!

If you can't figure out that these things were done intentionallly then go back to your cave!

The attorney in charge of the FISA application changed an email that revealed that Carter Page was working for the CIA so that it said that he was not working for the CIA! Only a dolt of the worse kind cannot figure out that this was done on purpose.

Your Trump Derangement Syndrome has resulted in a total inability to think straight.


You're totally avoiding their finding that despite the lapses, there was no improper motive and the investigation met the guidelines for authorization.

Now could you take this to a related thread? This thread is about Judaism as nationality.
 

Jerry Shugart

Well-known member
You're totally avoiding their finding that despite the lapses, there was no improper motive and the investigation met the guidelines for authorization.

That is not what the FISA officials determined:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court slammed the FBI on Tuesday in a rare public statement over the agency's handling of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page's warrant application and subsequent renewals, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"In order to appreciate the seriousness of that misconduct and its implications, it is useful to understand certain procedural and substantive requirements that apply to the government's conduct of electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes," reads the statement.

The punchline: "The FBI's handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the OIG report, was antithetical to the hieghtned duty of candor" required by federal investigators, adding "The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable," wrote the court, which called the recent watchdog report from the DOJ's Inspector General "troubling."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...blic-statement

You Progressives remain in a daze totally divorced from reality. You actually believe the fables invented by the Democrats because you are infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome. You are a walking zombie!

You don't even understand that you are embarrassing yourself.
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
That is not what the FISA officials determined:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court slammed the FBI on Tuesday in a rare public statement over the agency's handling of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page's warrant application and subsequent renewals, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"In order to appreciate the seriousness of that misconduct and its implications, it is useful to understand certain procedural and substantive requirements that apply to the government's conduct of electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes," reads the statement.

The punchline: "The FBI's handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the OIG report, was antithetical to the hieghtned duty of candor" required by federal investigators, adding "The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable," wrote the court, which called the recent watchdog report from the DOJ's Inspector General "troubling."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...blic-statement

You Progressives remain in a daze totally divorced from reality. You actually believe the fables invented by the Democrats because you are infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome. You are a walking zombie!

You don't even understand that you are embarrassing yourself.



Take it to a different thread, Jerry.
 
Top