I believe it is important to respond to Abraham's comments. In every case cited above, the discussions, positions, pronouncements were about a reality for the per-Holocuast Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews the majority of whom spoke their own language, Yiddish, and were for intents and purposes, a very distinct European nationality. I've always maintained that the mechanical Marxism exhibited by the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party in its discussions on nationality was simply put, wrong. In this I agree with Abraham. Ashkenazi Jews were, in Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine and a few other places an oppressed nationality. The fact that they had no defined territory to call their own was basically wholly irrelevant to their national identity and existence. I would also argue that several million of them who had emigrated to the United States maintained strong roots in this culture for at least that generation and the first native born Jewish-Americans. See "World of Our Fathers" by Irving Howe to get the full cultural understanding of the Yiddish culture and especially for the origin of "Jewish-Americans" such as myself.
But, Abraham tosses out history, including the Holocaust, as if nothing changed. That Jewish nationality was basically destroyed with a about a million of them dispersed or...concentrated after the Holocaust in displaced persons camps in Greece and Cyprus, under the control of the various Zionists groupings. What made them such a distinct nationality as I laid out above was destroyed, consciously, by the Zionists of all stripes who all but banned Yiddish. In the U.S.S.R. by the end of the 1960s, the overwhelming majority, in their millions, assimilated into Russian culture as "Jewish-Russians" in much the same way as those Jews who went to the UK, Argentina, U.S. and Canada assimilated. I believe Abraham lives in the past, as if those Jews still constitute a "Jewish People/Nation". He has never put anything forward to proves other than the repeated assertions on the subject he has made for years here. As I noted, we (both Abraham and myself) were talking about our ancestors in Europe. But a close to half the population of Israel today (and identifies quite strongly with it) have ZERO to do with Ashkenazi Jews from Europe because they are not European at all, but Arab or Amazig/Imazighen (North African) Jews whose existence is owed to both the Greek Empire under Alexander to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb (and Spain) as well as the Ottomans later. I find no evidence that any sort of national identity that ties Ashkenazi Jews with those of the Arab, Persian and North African. David -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#31879): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/31879 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/107980589/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
