War

[GenghisKush]

I certainly hope you do not maintain that I even remotely attempted to assert that.

That was left as an exercise for the reader.
But, no. I don't.

 

[Microbeman]

I'm a secular Jew. As is my father. His father worked hard to try to prove his non-Jewishness (I have draft family tree revisions, his attempts to demonstrate aryanness) and was privileged enough to only have his citizenship revoked and was permitted to emigrate with my grandmother before 1940 to NY. They were the only members of their extended family able to do so; all others were murdered. Some Jews might question my Jewishness. Although my mother's mother was a Jew she converted to Methodist when she married my maternal grandfather, so my mother has always considered herself a Christian. I think maybe an Orthodox rabbi might hesitate to identify me as a Jew for that reason, just speculation. My opinion is that secular Jews are Jews.

That is a particularly antiquated view, in my opinion. It is one that may be relevant to medieval conceptions of race, supported - arguably - by various ancient religious texts and very little verifiable or reproducible physical evidence. Historically linguists grouped Arabic and Hebrew into the so-called the Oriental languages, more recently called the Semitic languages (fashions change). The word Antisemitism has always been but a euphemism for the more specific term Judenhass or Jew-hatred because Antisemitism is seemingly a more genteel term better suited to "civilized" or "polite" discussions. I view those who conflate the separate concepts of Semitic languages and Semitic peoples as being either in one of two disjoint categories: those who do so due to ignorance, and those who do so in bad faith.

Gracias.

 

[moose eater]