Quote:
Originally posted by Anne Bryant-Hamon:
You've stated on a number of occasions that you are a Jewish woman. I have no idea what that means to you, however. Saying you are Jewish means little more these days than saying you're Christian. Except for the fact that I have not yet met any "Christian atheists", while there are many self-proclaimed "Jewish athiests". well, unless you count those atheists who used to be Christians and are now atheists - but I've not met a one who calls him or herself a "Christian-athiest". Generally, they just drop the religious identity.
I'm a person who believes in Jesus Christ, but I certainly don't agree with the wide-spread delusion within Christianity that we are to "Take Dominion" over the earth and get rid of the infidels through political power and war. But come to think about it, the Christians are only emulating the mentality of those Old Testament Jews who acted in the same manner. Go ahead, Laura - call me anti-Semite - I dare you!
Anne
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Anne,
I don't give a rat's buttocks who's running around trying to bait "antisemitism" discussions on E-sphere on any given week, personally -- Laura's interactions with you aside.
I'll note a couple of differences I have with you, and a couple of evident assumptions buried in your own view of the world,
from my point of view, and if you like you can learn from them or reply to them, if I am missing some insight you are privy to.
You cite that you have heard people declare they are atheist Jews and you don't know what that means.
That just means you don't know what it is to be a Jew, nor
should you have any idea. I don't fault you, though I think you may be curious as to why the categories you hear tell of may be different from those you would expect. I'll try to tell you, to the extent I can do so.
Often in Jewish history, to cut to the chase, if one surrendered one's faith, it made little difference in one's daily life. To use the phrase I learned in my family, it does you no good to deny you're a Jew. The rest of the world will define you as one either way. You could wholeheartedly convert to "escape" the inquisition, for example, but
conversos were in constant heightened danger of more intense scrutiny and at greater risk of torture and death -- to make sure they weren't
marranos, a derogatory word for "secret Jews."
Oh what a terrible thing to learn, one may say, that the world will always call you a Jew, and not always as a compliment. But it is true. My dad was a secular physicist, born in Vienna. I won't bore you with too much history. As a young person, he left, and so did most of his family, and he had particular challenges based on the fact of his Jewish heritage. He was not particularly religious, but there you go. Oddly enough being Jewish in a town in Virginia, for me, was not identical to being Christian in that town.
The Dreyfus Trial was a watershed in this regard: France decided to put a man on trial, a decorated war veteran, a leader, who "happened" to be Jewish -- for a crime he happened not to commit. Read Emile Zola (J'accuse) on that subject. Or just read wiki. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_Trial)
France was regarded at the time as a bastion of "philosemitism", the country that had torn down Europe's ghettoes.
I wax verbose, once again. Suffice it to say, while baptism was considered a ticket you had to punch in Europe for a couple of "enlightened" centuries, Jews were always judged at least in part by ethnicity. In the 20th century in fact, "scientific" or "racial" antisemitism became all the rage. Its primary guiding principle was that Jews were to be hated for their race, not for their religion. Of course, this is nonsense, in terms of genetics. In terms of peoplehood, however, it also makes no sense to say "how can you be an atheist Jew?," just as it makes no sense to say "how can you be an atheist Kurd?"
You want to comment on Jewish identity? Learn about Jewish identity -- not some idea of the role of Jews and Judaism as simulacra of Christians and Christianity.
The fact that Judaism initially came into existence prior to Christianity, in a time of national religions as it were, may be confusing, but only if you insist on interpreting Judaism as a mirror of Christianity "but different," or, as I often see in this context (from the likes of Coulter,) "imperfect." Theology in Judaism is comparatively simple. Identity is quite complex.
With regard to Laura, I will let her speak for herself; I know she has never described herself as an atheist to me. So I have no idea why you believe it appropriate to bring up atheist Jews in her regard.
Your "dare" is weird. I don't know what you're revving up for, but knock yourself out, if you see others with distinct identities as "playing a card" when they tell you how things look through their eyes.
I hope, however, that instead you would attempt to understand Jews who differ from your personal template of what a Jew should be, on their terms, rather than yours, if it is truly mystifying to you that Judaism refers both to a kind of religious expression and to an ethnicity and a shared history.
Although I have tried to study other religions, I am sure I do so at least partially through the lens of Judaism. It seems to me that if one learns enough, one sees through lenses such as "history", but they are still lenses. I do believe, however, they are superior to the lenses of one religious confessional group attempting to fit another group into its proper theological place, one pitfall that is particular tempting to modern Jews, Christians, and Muslims when they try to "understand" each other. That kind of "understanding" is probably responsible for deaths in the millions.
One can not study Judaism from a Christian point of view, and one can not study Christianity from a Jewish point of view. One must study these subjective phenomena from an objective point of view, to the extent one can do so.
By the way, there are many terms for the great bulk of the bible which was written before the time of Jesus. Among Jews -- or at least those seen as important voices in both reform and tradional Judaism -- "Old Testament" is not one that has currency except as a term of convenience.
Within those communities that are more traditional, Tanakh is the usual hebrew abbreviation used. Within the scholarly community, "Hebrew Bible" is used. When you hear Jews use "old testament," they're either quite assimilated on this count, or they simply do not understand the bias implicit in the term. So I do not speak for all Jews when I say this, but speaking for myself, I'd prefer to have discussions about the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Bible (again, from the scholarly terms,) rather than old testament and new testament, which terms assume a given theology.
You mention you are a Universalist. I'm assuming this is the "other U" in the UU church, not some other slightly different idea of Universalist. Well, think of it this way, Anne: there may be a Christian elsewhere of another sect, who watches UU churches attempting to find wisdom in the teachings of another faith entirely, a faith that does not proclaim a single deity. From that individual's point of view, it may look pointless for you to call yourself a Christian. Similarly, a great number of modern Christians, in private conversations with me, have denied the divinity of Jesus, but believe him to be a figure to "emulate to the nth degree," as one Christian once put it to me.
I don't say I don't understand how they are Christians, although other Christians may well do so. It is not my call. It does point to a future, in my opinion. The more one concentrates on message (for the scholars,) and the more one concentrates on one's own realization of the divine (for the mystics,) the more one converges with the "other."
Well, this has been quite the long and boring lecture on my part, and on a football Sunday no less.
Thanks for your time, and I hope this makes some sense to you, if in fact you are perplexed about the subject of Jewish identity.
Dan
[This message has been edited by Dan Halberstein (edited September 14, 2008).]
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