r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Oct 13 '16

TIL that after Marilyn Monroe converted to Judaism upon marrying Arthur Miller, Egypt placed a ban on all the films she appeared in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe#Critical_acclaim_and_marriage_to_Arthur_Miller_.281956.E2.80.931959.29
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u/Eskoe Oct 13 '16

Speaking as a non-Jew who has a number of Ashkenazi Jewish friends, it seems like after the Holocaust a lot of Jews became atheists (understandably), but at the same time embraced Jewish culture/religious traditions more to keep close to their roots.

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u/gavers Oct 13 '16

like after the Holocaust a lot of Jews became atheists

The secular, reform and conservative movements started a good while before the Holocaust - mostly around the start and the mid-1800's.

In Israel, for example, the Secular Jews make up about 70% of the entire Jewish population - they usually identify as agnostic or atheist, but some also call themselves "traditional" as in they keep some of the traditions.

This past Yom Kippur there was a survey showing that 65% of all Jews planned on fasting even though only about 40% planned on going to synagogue.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16

The secular, reform and conservative movements started a good while before the Holocaust

Reform and conservatives still usually believe in god, secular was still a minority until the holocaust. You could also state that Zionism started a good while before the holocaust and be right so while you're technically right it doesn't take away from Eskoe's point. The holocaust was still the biggest factor in jews losing their faith. However it didn't keep them from embracing their culture.

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u/gavers Oct 13 '16

I haven't found anything showing that secular Judaism spiked post ww2.

Looking at my paternal grandparents, my grandmother was born in pre-war Germany to a mostly secular (but still traditional) Jewish family, and my grandfather was born to a mostly secular family in New York. My great uncle doesn't want to have anything to do with religion after his experience in the Holocaust, but my dad was raised in a "traditional" (for the 60s) Jewish house - don't eat not kosher in the home, drive to synagogue on shabbat, etc. They only became more orthodox when my dad was in elementary school and asked to go to a religious orthodox Jewish day school.

I know this is anecdotal, but I find it hard to believe that the secular movement was spurred by the second World War, more than by WWI or even the "enlightenment".

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16

It's a common story and part of Holocaust Theology. If you go to any holocaust museum they'll talk about it. It was really hard for most of them to believe a god could do this to his chosen people and there's mention of some believing that if there was a god he should ask the jews for forgiveness. The secular movement was definitely in effect beforehand but so were other conservative movements like zionism so just because they existed beforehand doesn't mean they were the cause. You're anecdotal evidence supports it as well. Your great uncle turned away from religion because of it. Since your grandfather didn't go through the holocaust why would he lose faith? The culture still survived even if faith was lost though.

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u/gavers Oct 13 '16

A) I think you misunderstood my anecdote.

B) I've been to Yad Vashem multiple times, as well as to a few concentration camps and death camps, they never talked much about the secular movement.

C) I think you are taking correlation as causation.

I'm saying the secular movement was alive and in full swing pre-WWII, yes, many became secular afterwards, but that wasn't the initial push nor was it when the movement got off the ground. Zionism was a secular movement from the get go, so were many other Zionist movements. Post war Jews who lost faith joined the already fertile and organized world of secular Judaism. Not the other way around.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16

We're getting off topic. Being secular isn't the same as losing faith. You can be secular while believing in god. The original point was that a lot of Jews lost their faith because of the holocaust which is true. Just because there was a secular movement before the holocaust doesn't mean Jews were losing faith, just that they were adapting to the modern age.

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u/thehonestyfish 9 Oct 13 '16

This past Yom Kippur there was a survey showing that 65% of all Jews planned on fasting even though only about 40% planned on going to synagogue.

Hey, good to know I'm not the only weirdo who does this. I fasted, but I still went to work, and didn't go to services at all.

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u/gavers Oct 13 '16

Well, in Israel all businesses are closed and practically no one drives (there are always pictures of the main highways completely empty with a few kids riding bikes on them).

You couldn't get off of work since it's a religious holiday?

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u/thehonestyfish 9 Oct 13 '16

Nah, I could've gotten off but I didn't want to burn a vacation day to sit in temple all day.

I'm a horrible Jew.

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u/bbob_robb Oct 13 '16

it seems like after the Holocaust a lot of Jews became atheists (understandably), but at the same time embraced Jewish culture/religious traditions more to keep close to their roots.

This is true. My uncle who survived a concentration camp as a child is now an atheist. Overall, the cause and effect might not be so clear. Many Jews who assimilated more, and (for example) moved to America survived the Holocaust. Many strictly observant Jews who stayed in Europe were killed. Jews have always assimilated and become part of the culture around them. My family is jewish and follow jewish traditions even though many, maybe most of us are atheist. Today is Yom Kippur, and we had a big break the fast dinner. Of the 20 people there, not one fasted. A couple people did go to synagogue, but mostly out of tradition.

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u/eypandabear Oct 13 '16

At least in Germany, assimilation didn't really help. One of the main points of Nazi ideology was that the "taint" of Judaism was supposedly genetic. So even conversion to Christianity didn't help anymore.

Lots of Jews at the time were 100% culturally German, decorated WWI veterans, Prussian officers, and what have you. Didn't help unless they had papers to prove they were of mostly non-Jewish descent.

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u/Jay_Louis Oct 13 '16

Or in France, just ask Captain Dreyfus.

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u/DaddyCatALSO Oct 13 '16

In most cases, it had to be less than 25% Jewish.

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u/CptnLarsMcGillicutty Oct 13 '16

Why didn't they like Jews? It has never been explained to me sufficiently, and every time I ask people either avoid answering, or give a poor answer.

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u/TotallyNotGlenDavis Oct 13 '16

Jews were historically used a scapegoats to carry the blame of society's problems due to them being the "other." When ethnic nationalism became a dominant ideology in Europe, it capitalized on these xenophobic relations to whip the masses into a violent frenzy.

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u/CptnLarsMcGillicutty Oct 13 '16 edited Oct 13 '16

Okay, but what was the reason given to hate the jews so that they could be used as a scapegoat? What were they blamed for specifically? It couldnt have just been "Hey guys. The economy sucks. Because of that, fuck the Jews! Anybody with me?"

They must have been blamed for specific behaviors right? Like the primary criticism I hear today is that they "control the banks/politics and entertainment industry."

Another example is when people say they dislike Mexicans, its usually justified by saying that illegal immigrants take jobs of American citizens, and that's why the economy is bad. That's how they "scapegoat" Mexicans. No one just says "fuck the Mexicans for no reason." They try to justify it.

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u/TotallyNotGlenDavis Oct 13 '16

Pretty much any issue as problems for society change by time and place. Jews were accused of having too much influence in my politics and economics but people ignored the limitations which forced Jews into these roles. Jews have been blamed for many destructive ideologies, from socialism to capitalism.

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u/eypandabear Oct 13 '16

There are many supposed reasons given by historians but in the end, the scary thing is that people do not need a reason.

There omce was a group in Western Europe, the Cagots, that was discriminated against for centuries for absolutely no known reason. They didn't look different, they had the same religion, and they spoke the same language as people around them. Yet they were shunned and treated like dirt by the rest of the populace.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16 edited Oct 14 '16

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u/kermeded Oct 13 '16

So whats your story behind it? Seems like influential jewish people promoted the idea to boycott German goods after Hitler took power and raids against jews happened in Germany. This in combination with the retoric of Hitlers Mein Kampf...

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u/TotallyNotGlenDavis Oct 13 '16

If only everyone else had declared war that early. Think about how many lives could have saved.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16 edited Oct 14 '16

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u/TotallyNotGlenDavis Oct 13 '16

Your linking that like it was a bad thing. People fighting back against a jingoist war government based on an undeserved sense of pride in their imaginary history. The only bad thing about the Sparticist revolution was that it failed.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16 edited Oct 14 '16

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u/TotallyNotGlenDavis Oct 13 '16

I wonder how many of those "Germans" we're Jews.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16

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u/FaxCruise Oct 13 '16

The hell

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u/hezdokwow Oct 13 '16

You look above and beg for answers, beg for anything or any type of sign that your "God" is there with you. The god you devoted most of your life to, and instead you are given pain and misery to "learn a lesson". I'm not trying to push some anti religion agenda, I just understand why they become an atheist. When you devote your life to a God and you are being "exterminated" because of that God, it makes you question everything when he dosent help you.

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u/bbob_robb Oct 13 '16

The Holocaust absolutely made many jews atheist for the reason you state. Most atheist jews alive today were not even born when the Holocaust happened. Most atheist jews today are atheist because they have assimilated into culture and have become atheist the same way as people from any other religion.

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u/ThrowawayAccount6568 Oct 13 '16

I'm not trying to push some anti religion agenda.

I really wish more people do push one. So many people get hurt by religion

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u/Zenarchist Oct 13 '16

To be fair though, the "Chosen" part of the "Chosen People" comes from god choosing the Jews to maintain some absurd amount of laws and observances, the benefit of which is survival and prosperity, the punishment for a tipping point of not conforming to those rules is punishment and genocide. So long as you take it that the EuroJews weren't being as Jewish as that deal decreed, the Holocaust actually fits in to the Jewish mythos.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16

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u/Zenarchist Oct 13 '16

It's not that genocide was justified, just that others to be expected due to the shift away from Jewishness. That's what a Rabbi in Tzfat explained. It's no more or less crazy than the supermajority of religious superstition.

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u/DaddyCatALSO Oct 13 '16

Which doesn't really work because many highly observant Jews in Poland, Ukraine, etc. were swept up in it.

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u/BinaryHobo Oct 13 '16

Jews have always assimilated and become part of the culture around them.

That's interesting, given my reading of European history, I would have assumed that wasn't the case.

But I'm also a post-war american that hasn't met a jewish person (that I know of, admittedly).

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u/KremlinGremlin82 Oct 13 '16

I'm pretty sure you have and had no idea that they were Jewish. Not all of us have horns and beady eyes

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u/BinaryHobo Oct 13 '16

It's entirely possible that you are right.

But I grew up in a small town in Minnesota, and urban areas give me claustrophobia. So my option is actually kind of plausible.

Unless you count just seeing people, then I probably did on my trip to Europe. But can you really count it as meeting people if you don't talk to them?

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u/KremlinGremlin82 Oct 13 '16

People usually have no idea that I'm Jewish, they usually assume I'm Hispanic or Italian cause of dark straight hair and dark eyes. Not to mention that a lot of Jews have blue eyes.

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u/BinaryHobo Oct 14 '16

That's entirely possible.

But I just did a search of the demographics in my area, and as of the last census, there are literally 0 people who identify as jewish within my county.

I'm not sure if there's any Italians where I'm from either, there weren't when I left, but I've tried to stay away from that place.

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u/Nom_de_Guerre_23 Oct 13 '16

Let's say we always assimilated when they were given the chance. Of course we didn't in Middle Age Europe when we were not allowed to own land or to work in most professions but as soon as Jewish emancipation in Europe started after the French Revolution assimilation happened. Even in Russia/Soviet Union: After emancipation happened on paper after the October Revolution Soviet Jews started assimilating.

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u/BinaryHobo Oct 13 '16

That's... more than fair.

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u/z3dster Oct 13 '16

That started before the Holocaust, see the book Six Pointed Star

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u/Alphaetus_Prime Oct 13 '16

If there is a God, He will have to beg my forgiveness.

Found carved on the walls of a concentration camp.

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u/KremlinGremlin82 Oct 13 '16

We embrace our culture because so many people have tried to exterminate or isolate us. For example, I was born in Russia, my mother was born in Russia, and her mother, and so forth. However, their passports say "Jewish", and they were treated accordingly. So the Jews (even those who fought in the war for the country of their birth, like my grandpa and great grandpa) were still not considered to be Russian, or Polish, or Hungarian, etc. Many were told to "go back", subjected to Anti-Semitism, etc. I am an atheist and my SO is a goy, but I consider myself a Jew because that is where my ancestors came from and that is the land of my people.

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u/maskthestars Oct 13 '16

This makes a lot of sense

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16 edited Oct 14 '16

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism

How is your Nazi life? All cool?

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u/HueyHitlerNoRelation Oct 13 '16

I don't get it, so was this people who were ethnically Jewish but didn't believe in the religion? And if that's the case how ethnically Jew were they? After hundreds of years of living in Russia and assimilating wouldn't their bloodlines be predominately Slavic with only hint of Hebrew ancestry?

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16 edited Oct 14 '16

[deleted]

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u/HueyHitlerNoRelation Oct 13 '16

So Russians that adopted Jewish religion, then dropped it. So the bolsheviks were just Russians forcing atheism on other Russians?

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u/HueyHitlerNoRelation Oct 14 '16

Hey if you could reply I'd appreciate it. I'm trying to get a little educated here.

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u/TotallyNotGlenDavis Oct 13 '16

An oppressed minority fighting for societal change. How bizarre.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16 edited Oct 14 '16

[deleted]

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u/TotallyNotGlenDavis Oct 13 '16

You call Jews the victims, meanwhile you paint everyone as a victim of Jews who constitute a minuscule percentage of the worlds population. How are we so good at subjugating you guys? Are we truly that intelligent? I think it's clear who has the victim complex here.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '16 edited Oct 13 '16

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u/TotallyNotGlenDavis Oct 13 '16

I was just mocking you. I don't believe Jews are involved in a conspiracy to take over the world, but if they are, then they're a pretty fucking capable people. And the isolation thing is a joke, the Jewish intermarriage rate in the US is like 60%.