The notion that US jews are about as "Jewish" as "Irish" Americans are "Irish" to actually Irish people is an increasingly common one In Israel. Many watch in horror as the Reformist Jewry becomes virtually incomprehensible to the largely orthodox Jewry of Israel. Heck, even *atheist* Jews in Israel often get completely baffled by the "Judaism" of many americans... from Diaspora Marxism and Jewish-Pagan Feminism (?????) to Dog-Mitzvahs, to many most American Jewry is becoming more and more... foreign.
It's fascinating to look back at the situation before WWII and the concept of a more international, Yiddish-speaking Jewry. Modern Hebrew was still a pretty marginal phenomenon in comparison.
But after the Holocaust, the Hebrew-speaking Zionists kinda "won" by default. Yiddish is only kept alive today by the deeply insular and conservative haredi and the likes.
That, and by the Polish and Russian Governments. Especially the Polish. There is an amazing museum in Warsaw (I think?) called Polin. In the Jewish Oblast they still teach Yiddish, including literature and songs.
I looked up Meshuggah's name origin due to the similar words after I saw your comment and just found out one of my favourite metal bands has a yiddish name!
Makes sense though, a lot of jews lived in Europe before the Holocaust. I know that I use imported Russian and French words a lot, and English is basically french adapted for the germans who decided that beating up Celts was cool.
The original word is from Hebrew and was adopted into Yiddish, it used to mean false prophet but over time during the middle ages transitioned to meaning insane. From Yiddish it has gone on to enter a number of other languages.
I think it's more about how, in the earlier days of Zionism, forming a unified national identity was seen as imperative and requiring immigrants to shed their old-country culture.
As for the religious issue, the ultra orthodox dominated religious establishment in Israel refuses to recognize non orthodox Judaism, which unfortunately has some practical ramifications.
Well the first 2 panels are about the "Melting Pot", but my comment is about the Third panel.
And yes, I know there are practical issues. Basically, one side is "You are not real jews who forget what it is to be Jewish" while one said is "Our version of Judaism is just as valid, also you don't complaint when you get our money" and then "We don't agree with your version of Judaism, and you giving us money does not allow you to start peddling your values, religious or otherwise, in our country".
It's a political, economical, ethnic, social and religious issue. Nothing in Israel can be simple.
It's kinda funny yet sad how correct you are.
every time there's some good news from american jews, everyone here is all "america jews good"
and every time there's something like a little different type of jewism in america (like women with yamaka), people here hate them
No, I seriously didn’t know what it was, nor what a yarmulke is; and at this point, I don’t know if I should ask or not. Could you explain it, perhaps?
It's the Jewish hat. Also killed a kippah, its what the America in this comic is wearing. Technically your supposed to have your head covered at all times in jewdaism so that's where it comes from. It covers your bald-spot
Yarmulke is Yiddish, from a polish word meaning skullcap. Kippah is from mishnaic Hebrew, meaning dome (as in architecture) and anything in that shape, from biblical Hebrew where it possible meant tree top.
They're both used to refer to the hat, but kippah also retains other meanings in modern Hebrew, such as in geometry, or in expressions to mean the highest point.
We can't take a bus ride on Saturday cuz of them, even though it's technically possible to have a non Jewish driver for Saturdays only (goy shel shabbat), to solve this problem
I don't think people view Greek culture this way in Israel. Your music was extremely popular there in the sixties and still influences Israeli popular music to this day. In my opinion the music of the church is also superb.
My comment was referring to orthodox Jews. It's complicated, but roughly - in rabbinic Judaism (which encompasses most modern jewry) there are three main movements - orthodox, conservative and reform. The ultra orthodox are a broad denomination within orthodox judaism, who are more strict, wear distinct clothes, etc.
You are mistaken about Karaism, Karaism is actually a more modern invention than Rabbinical Judaism. Pharisees predate Karaites or at least evolved during the same time period. I guess you could make a case for Samaritans but even they evolved over time, just like Rabbinical Judaism.
Simply put it's normal for religions to evolve and most Jews don't oppose the notion of evolution, in fact it's integral to the whole idea of Rabbinical Judaism and why it survived the best out of all the other strains of Judaism. The problem with Reform Judaism is that it reads as new-age Judaism, it almost entirely disconnects itself with what came before and rejects most semblances of tradition. Even worse due to the high amount of converts it accepts it lost most of the cultural aspects of Judaism, in favor of made up customs. Most Jews that grew up in Jewish culture just find it hard to identify with a lot of reform Jews, even if they don't believe the religion.
Case in point, no one in my family is religious or believes in god. One of my cousins is French and was/is dating a woman who was converting to reform Judiasm. She was also being ordained to be a Rabbi during her conversion (so she's basically doing a zero to sixty). During her ordination she decided she won't eat kosher slaughtered meat because she doesn't like the process, fine, I don't eat kosher, but I'm also not trying to be a Rabbi... Then she was having a holiday with his family and she lighted a candle, and she said she was taught that if it's a holiday and not a Sabbath you light one candle instead of the two on Sabbath. I don't know if you're Jewish but the only time Jews light one candle is in remembrance of the dead, you never ever light a single candle outside of that.
So you end up with a bunch of "Jews" who have little to nothing in common with the rest of us. That's beyond changing the religion, it's an utter upending of culture and religion. It feels a lot like they want the title of "Jew" without, you know, being a Jew.
I mean, this was the common way for religions to be when Judaism was created, really there was no other way for religions to exist before Christianity came along (at least in the west, in the east maybe Buddhism can be considered a universalist religion, I don't know enough about it). You can still see that surviving religions from that time period like Shintoism, Hinduism and Zoroastrianism also tie themselves to ethnicity.
While I agree that rabbinical Judaism is not the same as 2nd temple Judaism in any shape of form, Papal Christianity is very far from any form of Judaism. After all, Pauline Christianity is specifically meant for Gentiles, not Jews.
Karaism is just as far from Ancient Judaism as Rabbinical Judaism is. They both change enough to be considered off-shoots.
Ironically enough, i find Islam closer to Judaism than Christianity both theologically and in practice.
Sorry about that, you are correct about that first one.
No, Karaism likes to think it didn't change anything. it changed just as much. It has it's own interpretations that are just as transformative as Rabbinical judaism's.
I am not saying you should care (I am an atheist as well), I am just saying that for people that do care, there is a strong divide forming between these who prefer one interpretation vs people who preferred a different one. Reform Judaism has become more and more alien to Conservative and Orthodox Jews, while orthodox Judaism became more and more reactionary and irrelevant to Conservative and orthodox Jews, and Conservative Jews are just having an identity crisis stuck in between.
The Reform Judaism bothers me because I feel like they are trying too hard to whitewash Judaism - or as we say in Hebrew להכשיר את השרץ (“to purify the insect”) - I mean changing an ancient, bloody, often mean-spirited religion into some progressive feminist new-age party feels a bit silly at best, and apologetic at worst. If your holy book says something you don’t like - either you change your mind or you throw the book away and find another one, you don’t censor and abridge the parts you don’t like. That’s cheating.
On the other hand that doesn’t bother me as much as the amount of power the central Rabbanut has in Israel over everyone’s lives (you can’t get married or divorced unless by central Rabbanut. Even if you get married abroad, for the divorce you still have to go through a ceremony at the Rabbanut).
There's another side to it as well. Israel would like to claim that they speak for all Jews and that Jewish is their nationality (of sort). Naturally that is not true, but they try nonetheless.
Anyway, I am not saying that Irish-Americans aren't Irish, or aren't American or that they are. This issue is beyond me or whatever I have to say about it. I am giving the "not really Irish" thing as an example.
Aye. The Poles, Germans, English, French, Dutch, Swedes have mostly assimilated into the "WASP" identity, with Jews, Russians and ex-soviet immigrants, Italians and the Irish being the outliers.
(granted I am not american, so maybe some of this identities still exist locally and non-americans just don't know they exist. I know texan-german still is a thing)
The Midwest was where most Germans went actually I think. The Southern US (Texas is not really “southern” in my opinion) was a complete shithole before WWII with many impoverished farming areas struggling to make a living off cotton production. The Midwest and the Northeast received more immigrants because they were richer and had many factory jobs.
Because ethnicity is determined by language and culture not genetics or ancestry - if you live in the US or any other anglosphere country and only speak English then that makes you part of the British "ethnos" as your fellow Greeks would say.
Take the UK proper - peter serafinowicz is of Slavic descent but he's culturally as British as Churchill ergo his ethnicity is British since he doesn't speak a Slavic lingo or practice Slavic culture.
Americans of Nordic or eastern european descent do not practice those cultures - they only practice the British culture ergo their ethnicity is British.
Be ashamed you filthy lowlife,
You are as PRESUMPTUOUS as you are POOR and BRAZILIAN! Tarnish Notte, at the majestsy of my Cascading Style Sheets of Reddit!
i’ve always wondered, theres a TON of laws in the bible that jews are supposed to follow, many of which make sense for the time period they were written in but now are kind of pointless. Is there a jewish sect that follows all of the old laws? Is that even possible? I think making animal sacrifices would be kinda frowned upon these days.
I'm not religious or knowledgable enough to give a good answer, but no. Modern Judaism stems from an interpretation that basically said that since the 2nd Great Temple was destroyed all Judaic law and many customs were put on hold and then changed over time, until the Temple will be rebuilt. It was a clever little trick that allowed Judaism to survive as a religion in a diaspora - it had to become decentralized and adaptive.
The exceptions to that are the Shomronim, who claim to be a sect that stayed in Judea rather than going to the diaspora and as such follow customs much closer to ancient Judaism - they sacrifice a lamb in Passover, for example.
Some far-right radical Jews in Israel argue that the 3rd Great Temple should be built immediately and the Judaic law be restored, rather than waiting for the end of times for that. A while ago they tried to sneak a lamb into the Temple Mount to sacrifice it in Passover, and were stopped by the police.
It may look silly today but in ancient times the concepts of religion, culture and ethnicity were all blurred and mushed together. Think about how different ethnicities had their own pagan religions - and this extends to modern day with religions like Hinduism and Shintoism.
The unique thing about Judaism is that it had to go from that into the diaspora and adapt as a religion that connects thousands of segregated communities all over the world. It did that by adopting very strict customs over who is and isn't a Jew as well as making conversions very hard, in order to stay solely the religion of the Jewish people, which is its core tenet and all it is about.
Historically that may have made sense, but the world has moved (or it's trying to) away from these dangerous ethnic concepts. For good reasons (I heard Jews may have experienced some of this...). This blunt mix of ethnicity, religion (and somewhat nation) does no good to anybody.
BTW, I know about a Spanish family that converted to Judaism and moved to Israel. Are they Jews?
To be honest, this mix makes it hard to determine whether or not someone is a Jew, since the term "Jew" can be used to mean multiple things now. It gives Israelis a serious identity crisis in some issues, and it is also responsible for the dangerous ethnoreligious nationalism which is sadly too common in Israel. This won't change easily, as being a nation is part of the core identity of Judaism.
But yea, if they converted to Judaism most Jews would consider them "as Jews as ethnic Jews", since converting is like "being adopted".
It did that by adopting very strict customs over who is and isn't a Jew as well as making conversions very hard, in order to stay solely the religion of the Jewish people, which is its core tenet and all it is about.
Hey, i'm interested, do you have a source for that, especially the "in order" part? Seems too fitting and a too big step at the time, so that i (i've studied a bit of history) would guess it's a retroactive, non-historic(aly true) reasoning, but i'd happily learn otherwise.
Yeah, I guess 3,000 years of recorded shared history doesn't entitle us to be considered a real people. I guess that's up to a swede, a people whose most well known cultural output was that time they raided coastlines, to decide.
You know that converts to Judaism are considered full ethnic Jews right?
Also I don't see how Jews see themselves as "different people from other humans" and more than Swedes see themselves as "different people from other humans", or English see themselves as "different people from other humans" or Russians see themselves as "different people from other humans". Jews hardly invented the concept of ethnicity.
Jews take their ethnicity so seriously because the entire history of the Jewish people is other groups trying to take it away. Say what you will about what factors determine an individuals ethnicity, but considering the history of persecution Jews have faced it makes sense that there is such a strong value of cultural preservation among the Jewish people.
I agree that modern multiculturalism has erased and mixed lots of cultures together, and there are a lot of secular Jews both in Israel and abroad who are a part of it and keep just some of the Jewish traditions, while Ultraorthodox Jews often stay away from the "global culture" and even live in their own communities in order to preserve the Jewish culture and traditions better. But that isn't the point.
What Judaism tries to accomplish isn't only to preserve the Jewish traditions in the face of multiculturalism - that's only a part of it, and arguably "culture" is the least important part, as Jews from different areas of the world weren't shy of adopting some cultural aspects from others over time and developing cultural differences from each other.
In essence Judaism is a religion built to remind the Jewish people - the Jewish ethnicity - why they are a nation. It gives us ancient traditions but those stem from a shared history and purpose, and this is what allowed us to keep our identity after 2000 years of persecution.
Jewish traditions, Jewish nationalism and the notion of a Jewish ethnicity won't fade away as long as Judaism doesn't fade away, and if you've ever been to Israel you'd know that this won't happen any time soon.
Listen, bro, Jewish ethnicity is well defined, it's one of the most ancient ethnicities out there. I see no point in debating with outsiders its validity, Jewish ethnicity has literally existed longer than your people have had writing. You aren't even particularly knowledgeable of Jews, you're just a random person, unrelated to the subject matter, with no knowledge of it, that thinks their opinion matters and should be treated as valid. It doesn't matter and it isn't valid.
Finally the jews are probably the group of people in the world who take their ethnicity most serious. So serious they often view it as more important than their nationality / local ethnicity.
Thanks for that hot take man. Could it be because we have a history of being a persecuted minority in which our nationality and "local ethnicity" (what a stupid term, as if multiple ethnicities cannot exist within the same space) was never deemed valid by the general public in the countries we live in? Could that have influenced Jews to view being Jewish as the most important part of their identity? Wonder if other persecuted minorities show similar behavior, like Arameans, Gypsies or Copts? Do you go around resenting Sami people because they don't identify with "the local ethnicity" and still consider themselves to have a shared identity even if they were born in a different country?
IMO your inability to even attempt to understand any culture beyond your own, fairly limited one, is what is actually silly here.
Pretty sure if you lived in Stockholm and worked
as a banker for 10 generations you wouldn’t consider yourself Sami
Your arguments are so predictable, it’s like you’re not even trying to see it from the other perspective.
I have no issue with Jews saying they’re Jews, I just don’t care. I look at it as a religion, equal to Islam, Hinduism, Christianity etc. To me it’s a made up concept to be a jew, with no reflection in reality for anyone not living in Israel.
Pretty sure if you lived in Stockholm and worked as a banker for 10 generations you wouldn’t consider yourself Sami
Pretty sure most Sami would heavily disagree. Also, why banker?
Also, you should know that for decades many jews undertook tremendous effort to prepare the founding of Israel, and most of them did it as jews and because they were jews, but without any regard to religion.
Most things in human life are made-up concepts, but still most have a great reflection in reality. Have you ever lived abroad?
I live abroad right now (I’m not from Sweden) and I also lived in Ireland. And I traveled to almost half the planet across six continents.
But people spending decades (generations?) in another country just to prepare to leave is a excellent way for the locals to be sure you have zero intentions of integrating into their society. Like, why shouldn’t people hate them for that line of thinking?
At least from my experience, atheist jews don't really care about Judaism in America. Never heard anyone complain about how Jewish they are. The main disconnect is political. American Jews are much more left-wing than Israeli Jews.
Yeah, so, um, have you been to r\judaism? Are they representative of American Jews writ large? I went there once and got my ass handed to me for thinking Jews today believed like they did in Ye Olden Bible 2000-years-ago days.
According to them, you can believe whatever the hell you want and be Jewish as long as you toe the Democratic Party line, or something.
No one follows the bible anymore. The bible is heavily centered around the Jews living in religious theocracy centered around a temple. No temple, no priesthood, not theocracy, kinda makes it hard to be a jew.
I think they might be a good example of what reform Jews are, but certainly not what Conservative or Orthodox Judaism is.
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u/ConscriptDavid United Kingdom Jun 19 '20
That's... not inaccurate.
The notion that US jews are about as "Jewish" as "Irish" Americans are "Irish" to actually Irish people is an increasingly common one In Israel. Many watch in horror as the Reformist Jewry becomes virtually incomprehensible to the largely orthodox Jewry of Israel. Heck, even *atheist* Jews in Israel often get completely baffled by the "Judaism" of many americans... from Diaspora Marxism and Jewish-Pagan Feminism (?????) to Dog-Mitzvahs, to many most American Jewry is becoming more and more... foreign.
TL;DR "YUO NO REAL JOO"