Hebrews, or jews, ARE a culturual group today. Not WERE a cultural group, Padriac

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Quote:quote='padraic' pid='17187' dateline='1242431076']
The Jews have NEVER been a race.

Jews WERE a people,a cultural and religious group.

Ok. Wikipedia is really a wonderfull source of knowledge although only in a "readers diggest" style.
The sentence that Jews WERE a people,a cultural and religious group is not correct.
First of all Jews ARE a nation.There are a lot of differences between a people and a nation , mainly by that that a people is generally a conglomerate of nations.
The Israelis are a people but the Jews are a nation.
Every people or nation is defined by a lot of charecteristic between them being their cultural and religious life.
The same applies to Jews as a nation not as a cultural or a religious group.

Now what concerns the definitions quoted from the Wikipedia about Ashkenazi versus Sephardic Jews,I would like to add that the differences between the two groups are historic and are maintaining some genetic and cultural differences even today in Israel.
However they see themselves as categorically of the same nation.There are some differences in ritual practices but the religious prayers ,the hollydays and the Hebrew language are definitely the same.

All this being explained I would like to come back to our good friend Ahmedinajad.
His treat to whipe Israel off the map is a racist threat more then other racism we have known.
The american racism was (still partly is) an ugly chapter of America's history but we have never heard from any leader,even from the dark period of the enslavery of Africans,thar one should kill them all.
The racism in South Africa was condemnable in every human or moral aspect but even the fiercest South African racist did not threat to whipe all black people off the map.

It was one man in our modern history who threated to kill all the Jews of Europe and almost succeeded
and this man was Hitler.
His theory of a world conspiracy of the Jews against Germany ,the Judeo-Plutocracy as he named it even in his last will,just a few moments before his suicide differs only a little from Ahmedinajad's theory of a world conspiracy of the "Zionists".
There is no politically correct to call the world conspirators "Jews" so let call them "Zionists" with the clear allusion of Zionism equal to racism.
This equation is a slander regretably being accepted by left oriented political organizations.

There is a profound and very complex conflict berween Jews and Arabs about the same piece of land with a totally area of about 24,000 square kilometers,but this conflict is by no means racist from either side.
Only an extreme religious Islamic leader as this Neo-Hitler can use as a pretext the Palestinian problem which has no contingency whatsoever to Iran, except the failures of the Ayatollah regime against his own people . The demonizing of others in order to justify your own failures is a tool as old as history
and would have been in this case of less importance except that the threat is incumbing the danger of starting a nuclear conflict.
Most of the Arab states perceive this danger against themselves but they are doing to little in order to stop the cataclysm.

(May 18, 2009 at 1:35 pm)josef rosenkranz Wrote: [

Quote:quote='padraic' pid='17187' dateline='1242431076']
The Jews have NEVER been a race.

Jews WERE a people,a cultural and religious group.

Ok. Wikipedia is really a wonderfull source of knowledge although only in a "readers diggest" style.

How very patronising.

I do not use Wiki as a prime scholarly source,but find its information accurate enough for an internet forum..

My views on race and culture are derived from my university studies towards my degree in cultural anthropology. I use both terms advisedly.


It seems we have very different understandings of the word "'culture". Many Jews identify as part of a cultural group.Indeed there are people called "cultural Jews",to distinguish them from religious Jews. There are also many people who are Jewish by birth but do not live as Jews in any way. I know some (The grandfather of one of these people was the first rabbi in this city)


Judaism has not been a single identifiable culture for several centuries. A pedantic argument could be made that they were not so even in the C1st CE (ever heard of "The Samaritans"?)

For an Anthropologist,the word "Jewish" is as useful as a cultural description as as the word
"Christian".

Should we call Israel 'Jewland'?

(May 18, 2009 at 1:35 pm)josef rosenkranz Wrote: The Israelis are a people but the Jews are a nation.

Surely this should be the other way around?

Really, I think the word "Jew" isn't as well definable as something like "Scotsman" or "jehovah's witness".

To me, "Jew" simply means someone who practises the religion of judaism.

That's why I maintain (after some thought about the way in which I use the word, and how others use it) that threatening to destroy Jews cannot be racist.

I think I agree with your general point, that having ahmedinajad speak at an anti-racism conference is ridiculous, but not because I would call him racist, but because the conference is also implied to be pro-tolerance (if that's the right word, I think "tolerance" is kinda like "oh well, we'll put up with you if we have to...", but you get my point), and by his silly jewish conspiracy and anti-israel views is clearly intolerant (even if not racist).

(May 19, 2009 at 11:31 am)g-mark Wrote: Should we call Israel 'Jewland'?

I don't think it's appropriate since 20 percent of the israelian population isn't jewish but muslim or christian (according to wikipedia).

(May 19, 2009 at 11:31 am)g-mark Wrote: Should we call Israel 'Jewland'?

Yor question derives from ignorance and bears a bad smell which reminds other times.
I don't know your nationality but I bet that one can find for every one derisible names.

But the essence of the question is close to reality .Yes Israel is the homeland of Jews and every Jew throughout the world has the right, by Israeli law, to repatriate himself and become instantly an Israeli citizen.

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(May 20, 2009 at 11:51 am)lilphil1989 Wrote: [quote='josef rosenkranz' pid='17514' dateline='1242668111']
The Israelis are a people but the Jews are a nation.

Surely this should be the other way around?

Really, I think the word "Jew" isn't as well definable as something like "Scotsman" or "jehovah's witness".

To me, "Jew" simply means someone who practises the religion of judaism.

That's just the theory of all people who deny the Jews the right of a homeland,saying that they are a religious group living as citizens in many countries so why this despicable Zionist tendency to occupy a land which does belong to the Palestinians and not to them? Right?
People of good faith who maintain this theory seem to forget that the Jews did not land on Earth from the outer space but originated and lived for nearly 900 years in the same land called by them as "land of Israel"
True there is a conflict between the former owner of the land who leaved it or was forced to leave it 1900 years ago and the people who remained there almost all the time.
Who is right in this conflict is a most complex matter which in the frame of our forum is surely not possible to be solved.

Quote:That's why I maintain (after some thought about the way in which I use the word, and how others use it) that threatening to destroy Jews cannot be racist.

It makes me angry as if this formulation of " treatening to destroy the Jews" weighing as if one speaks about the destruction of bugs should be considered as racist or not.
The Holocaust was racist and every threatening of the same kind made by this mad dog Ahmedinajad has just the same purpose whether formally speaking it is racist or not.
I saw yesterday on the TV the speech he made in front of an immense crowd when he announced the launching of a new rocket for a distance of 2000 kilometers and as a response the crowd began to chant "death for A merica" and "death for Israel. You may call such a performance by every name you wish for the Jews it's racism of it's most abject nature.

I don't like what the nation of Israel do and how it was founded. But I do not hate the country or want people to dies there. I believe in a peaceful negotiations which would lead to peace. I want to add that I don't like those palestinian groups that attack Israel either.

May sound naive and utopia like, but since war haven't fix the problem do I think Israel and Palenstine should try to give peace a chance. Someone need to stop and not try to get revenge every time. It's just stupid.

Someone said that he was so tired of the war that he thought it would be better if the just a-bmobed the whole area and covered it with cement. Not a serious solution I know. But the war is tiering and it's not leading to anything, besided more death.

(May 23, 2009 at 4:22 am)Giff Wrote: I don't like what the nation of Israel do and how it was founded. But I do not hate the country or want people to dies there. I believe in a peaceful negotiations which would lead to peace. I want to add that I don't like those palestinian groups that attack Israel either.

May sound naive and utopia like, but since war haven't fix the problem do I think Israel and Palenstine should try to give peace a chance. Someone need to stop and not try to get revenge every time. It's just stupid.

Someone said that he was so tired of the war that he thought it would be better if the just a-bmobed the whole area and covered it with cement. Not a serious solution I know. But the war is tiering and it's not leading to anything, besided more death.

I cannot but agree with what you are saying about living in peace Iraelis and Palestinians.

You could have done better even not mentionning this a-bomb solution which is utterly stupid and even criminal in a way of thinking.Think of your own family as being a-bombed and covered with cement .

But don't forget the issue of this thread which is Ahmedinajad.The threat of whiping Israel off the map is of religious-political reasons while the Palestinian cause is only a pretext.
Iran has no real causes of conflict with USA -the great Satan nor with Israel-the small Satan.
This blind irrational hatred manifested just only about 70 years ago by Germans and other enlightened Europeean nations (between them ,yes,even the French) towards Jews caused the killing of 6,000,000
people whose only culprit was to be of Jewish nationality.

Not to condemn this neo-racist hatred or turning a blind eye to it or to manifest complacency is in my view condemnable.

(May 23, 2009 at 10:48 am)josef rosenkranz Wrote: You could have done better even not mentionning this a-bomb solution which is utterly stupid and even criminal in a way of thinking.Think of your own family as being a-bombed and covered with cement .

First of all it wasn't something I said seriously and something I didn't mean. Second of all was it something I pretty much quoted from someone I've heared said that. That person didn't either mean it serious.

It was just somehitng I said to show that the war has been tiresome and people also have stopped caring about it. Even thought the a-bombing and cement wasn't something meant serious, does it still show that people just want it to end since it never seem to be any peace there.

As an sidenote do I not like a-bombs and think its an unethical weapon. I would never want it to happen to anyone. Also I would never want civillians to die.