Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism Say Events Aid Cause - NY Times

[c b]

On 6/26/10, Ralph Dumain
> (Remember the theme song to the film "Exodus"? I was accustomed to
> hearing only Ferrante and Teicher's piano rendition. When I got hold of
> the sheet music, I learned that the theme had lyrics, and when I saw the
> verse "This land is mine, God gave this land to me", I was appalled: I
> had never heard such a thing before, and had accepted the legitimacy of
> Israel as a product of the Holocaust without any crap about God in the
> mix. I don't recall any American Jews ever saying anything about God,
> though they were nominally religious.)
>

^^^
CB: With respect, Ralph, you didn't think a movie titled "Exodus"  had
any notion of God somewhere in it ?

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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism

[CeJ]

RD:>>I can't say I keep up with Zionist arguments since 1967. There have been
a number of arguments for over a century to bolster the obviously shaky
arguments for the colonization of a patch of desert that had no live
connection with the European Jews of the 19th century. <<

There are connections however. Religious Jews (radicals) moved to
Palestine under Ottoman rule and helped in the development of this
part of the Ottoman realm. I'm not an expert on these movements, but
they most likely wanted to get away from Europe, not just its
anti-Semitism but its secularism and assimilation to secular culture
(which is still Christian--European Christian Secularism, a sort of
worldview that reaches its post-mo apotheosis with people like
Christopher Hitchens). So the fact that religious Jews were in
Palestine and then Israel even if they weren't for Zionist Israel made
it possible for all sorts of religious Jews to come to accept Zionist
Israel (with some holdout groups in places like NYC).

>>How much weight those arguments were given depended heavily on the actual 
>>situation of
European Jews, and of course there were weighty counter-arguments as
well. Now if there were no connection whatever between contemporaneous
Jews of a century ago and ancient Judaea, meaning that ancient Judaea
never existed, or that there was no component of its inhabitants that
made its way to Europe ever, then I suppose the argument for Palestine
as opposed to Uganda, Argentina, or Nevada may have never gotten
anywhere, though you never know.<<

I take a different tack. If we want arguments based on re-asserted
property rights that are supposed to go back to where the bulk of
Jewry was located in the classical world, then why not modern-day
Iraq? The interesting shift over 2000 years was from Mesopotamia
hosting the largest number of Jews to Poland, Russia and then the US
being the population centers of world Jewry by the early 20th century.
That would account for 90% plus of the population.


 >>However, for the sake of argument, suppose that modern day Jews could be
connected to the ancient Israelites, and assume also that a huge
percentage of moder Jews got that way via conversion rather than a
bloodline to ancient Israel. So what difference does that make? I
remember from 45-50 years the argument that Israel is the homeland of
the Jews, but I never heard even once any argument for racial or ethnic
purity and I can't see what damned difference it would make one way or
the other, any more than I ever heard any arguments based on the Bible
or the notion of the chosen people. Of course, people may well have
harbored those ideas and I missed the memo. The point remains, the only
argument I ever heard, at least one I can remember that stuck in my
head, was the argument from the history of anti-semitism all over the
world, and the argument from the Holocaust. As far as I know, these were
the only arguments anyone cared about, but apparently I was wrong.<<

That is the beauty of a discussion list over a personal blog or
homepage. We are not circumscribed by the memos you missed over the
years. You do have a point--that the strongest --most often made--
argument was some sort of emotional response to the Holocaust (German
Nazis slaughtered the Jews, so the survivors should return to
Palestine, and if God won't see to it, by goddamnitalltohell, the US
and the UN will).

The Zionists often harness contradictory arguments depending on which
audience of rulers they wish to manipulate.  We have seen all sorts of
arguments:

1. Holocaust, never again.
2. Palestine the desert, the Jews made the desert bloom.
3. The Grand Mufti was a Nazi and perpetrator of the genocide against Jews.
4. Jews are the original inhabitants of Palestine, before it was Palestine.
5. Modern day Palestinians are the descendants of Muslims who
conquered the place.
6. Genetic evidence shows that Jews never intermarried with N.
Africans, Europeans or other ME people.
7. The Arabs are responsible for the plight of the Palestinians.

RD>>would at least grant a more convincing
perspective than the simple-minded propaganda of Stalinists and third
world nationalists, which turns out to be a less effective ideological
tool in combatting Israel's actions than they fancy.<<

I'm not sure who the Stalinists are. You seem to use the term the way
Zionists use the term 'anti-Semite'.
Palestine resists, some of us will not forget al-Nakba, whether you
miss the memo or not.

CJ

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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism

[CeJ]

Wexler is the best on the ethnogenesis, Coffman is the best look at
the genetics (another complicated area that is being misused both by
the Zionists and the anti-semites--but we know who gets to place
pieces with the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal,
misinterpreting genetic studies to show how linked the European Jews
of Israel are to the Levant (never Mesopotamia! which is where much of
the 'middle east genes' go back to). Coffman's work does show that
Koestler and the scholars he draws on were on to something with the
Khazar arguments.

 http://www.jogg.info/11/coffman.htm

selected excerpts:

Ironically, however, many scholars believe the Ashkenazi population
probably had its earliest roots in Rome, where Jews began to establish
communities as early as the second century B.C.  While some of these
Jews were brought to Rome as slaves, others settled there voluntarily.
 There were as many as 50,000 Jews in and around Rome by the first
century CE, most who were “poor, Greek-speaking foreigners” scorned
for their poverty and slave status (Konner 2003, p. 86).  Eventually,
however, many of these slaves gained their freedom, continuing to live
in and around Rome.



By the first century, however, the Jewish Diaspora had already spread
to a number of regions of the world, many of which may have
contributed to the make-up of the early Ashkenazi Jewish community.
These include the Aegean Island of Delos, Ostia (a main port of Rome),
Alexandria, and other places in Macedonia and Asia Minor (Konner 2003,
p. 83).  Jews also began to migrate north of the Alps, probably from
Italy (Ostrer 2001).



By 600 CE, Jews were present in many parts of Europe, with small
settlements in Germany, France and Spain.  More to the east, there
were also small Jewish settlements along the Black Sea, as well as
larger communities in Greece and the Balkans (Konner 2003, p. 110).



By the 12th-13th centuries CE, Jews were expelled from many countries
of Western Europe, but were granted charters to settle in Poland and
Lithuania (Ostrer 2001).  The Ashkenazi Jewish population expanded
rapidly in Eastern Europe, growing from an estimated 15,000-25,000
people in the 13th-15th centuries, to two million by 1800 and eight
million in 1939 (Ostrer 2001, Behar 2004b).  Thus, Jewish settlement
in Eastern Europe became the dominant culture of the European Jews,
and then of most Jews throughout the world.


--

The misinterpretation of the Cohanim results was damaging in some ways
to the wider understanding of Jewish genetic ancestry.  For example,
one widely published media quote went like this: “This genetic
research has clearly refuted the once-current libel that Ashkenazi
Jews are not related to the ancient Hebrews, but are descendants of
the Kuzar (sic) tribe – a pre-10th century Turko-Asian empire which
reportedly converted en masse to Judaism.”  Further, it was claimed
that “[r]esearchers compared the DNA signature of the Ashkenazi Jews
against those of Turkish-derived people, and found no correspondence”
(Kleinman 1999).



However, it would soon become very clear that Jewish DNA was much more
complicated than was presented by the media in their reporting of the
Cohanim data.  And Jewish Khazarian ancestry would come to the
public’s attention yet again when another DNA study was conducted,
this time on the Jewish priestly group known as the Levites.

--

Given that the Khazarian kingdom arose in the area of today’s Ukraine,
it is likely that there was a significant amount of indigenous Eastern
European ancestry among this group.  And, in fact, the various
descriptions of the Khazars provided by ancient writers attest to the
probable heterogeneous ethnic mixture in this group.



According to an 11th century Arab chronicler Ibn-al-Balkhi, the Khazars are



. . . to the north of the inhabited earth towards the 7th clime,
having over their heads the constellation of the Plough.  Their land
is cold and wet.  Accordingly their complexions are white, their eyes
blue, their hair flowing and predominately reddish, their bodies large
and their natures cold.  Their general aspect is wild” (Koestler 1976,
p. 19).  An Armenian writer described them as having “insolent, broad,
lashless faces and long falling hair, like women.  (Koestler 1976, p.
20).



A slightly more flattering picture is provided by Arab geographer Istakhri:



The Khazars do not resemble the Turks.  They are black-haired, and are
of two kinds, one called the Kara-Khazars [Black Khazars] who are
swarthy verging on deep black as if they were kind of Indian, and a
white kind [Ak-Khazars], who are strikingly handsome.  (Koestler 1976,
p. 20)



However, Koestler (1976, p. 22) cautions the reader not to place too
much weight on this description, since it was customary among Turkish
peoples to refer to the ruling classes as “white” and the lower clans
as “black.”



It is clear that the Khazars were closely connected to the Huns, who
themselves are 

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism

[CeJ]

The reason I go to the JE is to show that this topic is not as obscure
or zany as the current post-
mo Zionists would have us believe. The zany arguments actually belongs
to the camps that say things like (1) Judaism never expanded through
conversion and/or inter-marriage and (2) Jews ought to be driven out
of Europe because they killed Jesus Christ.

So you can see what people knew or thought they knew about the Khazars
over a century ago:



http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=402&letter=C&search=Chazar
mo Zionist

excerpt:

CHAZARS:   (print this article)

By : Herman Rosenthal

ARTICLE HEADINGS:
  Early History.
  Embrace Judaism.
  Succession of Kings.
  Internal Administration and Commercial Relations.
  The Chazarian Letters.
  The Capital of Chazaria.
  Trade and Commerce.
  Relations with Byzantium.
  Chazarian Territories.
  War with Goths.
  Jewish Sympathies.
  War with Russians.
  Decline and Fall of the Chazars.

A people of Turkish origin whose life and history are interwoven with
the very beginnings of the history of the Jews of Russia. The kingdom
of the Chazars was firmly established in most of South Russia long
before the foundation of the Russian monarchy by the Varangians (855).
Jews have lived on the shores of the Black and Caspian seas since the
first centuries of the common era. Historical evidence points to the
region of the Ural as the home of the Chazars. Among the classical
writers of the Middle Ages they were known as the "Chozars,"
"Khazirs," "Akatzirs," and "Akatirs," and in the Russian chronicles as
"Khwalisses" and "Ugry Byelyye."

Early History.

The Armenian writers of the fifth and following centuries furnish
ample information concerning this people. Moses of Chorene refers to
the invasion by the "Khazirs" of Armenia and Iberia at the beginning
of the third century: "The chaghan was the king of the North, the
ruler of the Khazirs, and the queen was the chatoun" ("History of
Armenia," ii. 357). The Chazars first came to Armenia with the
Basileans in 198. Though at first repulsed, they subsequently became
important factors in Armenian history for a period of 800 years.
Driven onward by the nomadic tribes of the steppes and by their own
desire for plunder and revenge, they made frequent invasions into
Armenia. The latter country was made the battle-ground in the long
struggle between the Romans and the Persians. This struggle, which
finally resulted in the loss by Armenia of her independence, paved the
way for the political importance of the Chazars. The conquest of
eastern Armenia by the Persians in the fourth century rendered the
latter dangerous to the Chazars, who, for their own protection, formed
an alliance with the Byzantines. This alliance was renewed from time
to time until the final conquest of the Chazars by the Russians. Their
first aid was rendered to the Byzantine emperor Julian, in 363. About
434 they were for a time tributary to Attila—Sidonius Apollinaris
relates that the Chazars followed the banners of Attila—and in 452
fought on the Catalanian fields in company with the Black Huns and
Alans. The Persian king Kobad (488-531) undertook the construction of
a line of forts through the pass between Derbent and the Caucasus, in
order to guard against the invasion of the Chazars, Turks, and other
warlike tribes. His son Chosroes Anoshirvan (531-579) built the wall
of Derbent, repeatedly mentioned by the Oriental geographers and
historians as Bab al-Abwab (Justi, "Gesch. des Alton Persiens," p.
208).

In the second half of the sixth century the Chazars moved westward.
They established themselves in the territory bounded by the Sea of
Azov, the Don and the lower Volga, the Caspian Sea, and the northern
Caucasus. The Caucasian Goths (Tetraxites) were subjugated by the
Chazars, probably about the seventh century (Löwe, "Die Reste der
Germanen am Schwarzen Meere," p. 72, Halle, 1896). Early in that
century the kingdom of the Chazars had become powerful enough to
enable the chaghan to send to the Byzantine emperor Heraclius an army
of 40,000 men, by whose aid he conquered the Persians (626-627). The
Chazars had already occupied the northeastern part of the Black Sea
region. According to the historian Moses Kalonkataci, the Chazars,
under their leader Jebu Chaghan (called "Ziebel Chaghan" by the Greek
writers), penetrated into Persian territory as early as the second
campaign of Heraclius, on which occasion they devastated Albania ("Die
Persischen Feldzüge des Kaisers Herakleios," in "Byzantinische
Zeitschrift," iii. 364). Nicephorus testifies that Heraclius
repeatedly showed marks of esteem to his ally, the chaghan of the
Chazars, to whom he even promised his daughter in marriage. In the
great battle between the Chazars and the Arabs near Kizliar 4,000
Mohammedan soldiers and their leader were slain.

Embrace Judaism.

In the year 669 the Ugrians or Zabirs freed themselves from the rule
of the Obrians, settled between the Don and the Caucasus, and

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism

[CeJ]

>>Clearly, not having read it, you misunderstand it.  Koestler was
arguing that the Ashkenazis originated from Khazar Jews who fled
Eastward when the Mongols destroyed the great Khazar Jewish Empire in
the Volga basin and northern Caucasus (the very name Ashkenazi derives
from a Biblical figure, Ashkenaz, who the 9th-century Babylonian
patriarch, Saadiah Gaon, identified as the ancestor of the Khazars).
It is generally held (including by Koestler) that the Khazars were
originally Turkic, but the territories that became the Khazar
heartland were those ("beyond the mountains of darkness") into which
Sargon II had deported the ten northern Israelite tribes more than a
millennium earlier and this is perhaps behind Saadiah's identification
of ther Khazars with Ashkenaz.  Koestler, I think, was mainly
concerned with establishing his own ancestry among that Jewish Khazar
group which accompanied the Magyars (who were not Jews) in their
migration from Khazaria to the Pannonian plains.
Shane Mage<<

Tsk tsk. At most what I have done is either understood a wrong
argument made about
Koestler's controversial work or I have misunderstood a correct
paraphrase of it. Nor does reading something guarantee one depth of
understanding.

At any rate, Koestler is on record as having said one of his
motivations was to show
how irrational European anti-semitism was based on ethnic or racial arguments.
Maybe I overstated the European part of the argument, but perhaps what was meant
was "see the Jews of Europe are not afterall Semitic". I would have
started with the idea
that Yiddish is an Indo-European creole with a Semitic script and gone
from there.


The nation of Russia could be shown to have similar mixed origins on
its southern frontiers.

Koestler was a dabbler and imaginative, so most likely his work is of
little use to read and where
it was valid, most likely superceded. Still, Koestler deserves credit
for renewing
modern interest in the Khazars--and also seems to have revived
scholarly interest in the
real scholars that Koestler relied on in writing his book.

We don't know what the language(s) of the Khazars was (were), but most argue it
was Turkic or a mix of Persian and Turkic languages. The ethnogenesis of
modern Russia shows a similar mix and Russians are called 'Europeans'.

One issue is we are not really very clear on who the Magyars or
Bulgars were in the time
of Khazaria, and we are pretty hazy on Avars (not the Caucasus ones)
and Ugrians (the last of whom
seem to have the lasting linguistic impact on modern Hungarian).

The danger in Koestler's work is the Zionists say it is used by
anti-Semites and now they claim that Sand's new book is largely in
agreement with it (so that Sand's book can also be similarly
dismissed).

The more interesting work has been done by Wexler, highly recommended.
For a start, see:
http://www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/Contributor17.htm

CJ

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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism

[Shane Mage]

On Jun 26, 2010, at 11:51 PM, Shane Mage wrote:

Whoops.  I wrote "eastward" when I meant "westward."
>
> On Jun 26, 2010, at 11:27 PM, CeJ wrote:
>>
>> As I understand it, the now infamous  Koestler "13th Tribe" thesis  
>> was
>> really an attempt of a non-religious Zionist to show that the Jews of
>> Europe largely had a European ethnogenesis...
>
> Clearly, not having read it, you misunderstand it.  Koestler was
> arguing that the Ashkenazis originated from Khazar Jews who fled
> [westward] when the Mongols destroyed the great Khazar Jewish Empire  
> in
> the Volga basin and northern Caucasus (the very name Ashkenazi derives
> from a Biblical figure, Ashkenaz, who the 9th-century Babylonian
> patriarch, Saadiah Gaon, identified as the ancestor of the Khazars).
> It is generally held (including by Koestler) that the Khazars were
> originally Turkic, but the territories that became the Khazar
> heartland were those ("beyond the mountains of darkness") into which
> Sargon II had deported the ten northern Israelite tribes more than a
> millennium earlier and this is perhaps behind Saadiah's identification
> of ther Khazars with Ashkenaz.  Koestler, I think, was mainly
> concerned with establishing his own ancestry among that Jewish Khazar
> group which accompanied the Magyars (who were not Jews) in their
> migration from Khazaria to the Pannonian plains.
>
>
> Shane Mage
>
> "Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64


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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism

[Shane Mage]

On Jun 26, 2010, at 11:27 PM, CeJ wrote:
>
> As I understand it, the now infamous  Koestler "13th Tribe" thesis was
> really an attempt of a non-religious Zionist to show that the Jews of
> Europe largely had a European ethnogenesis...

Clearly, not having read it, you misunderstand it.  Koestler was  
arguing that the Ashkenazis originated from Khazar Jews who fled  
Eastward when the Mongols destroyed the great Khazar Jewish Empire in  
the Volga basin and northern Caucasus (the very name Ashkenazi derives  
from a Biblical figure, Ashkenaz, who the 9th-century Babylonian  
patriarch, Saadiah Gaon, identified as the ancestor of the Khazars).   
It is generally held (including by Koestler) that the Khazars were  
originally Turkic, but the territories that became the Khazar  
heartland were those ("beyond the mountains of darkness") into which  
Sargon II had deported the ten northern Israelite tribes more than a  
millennium earlier and this is perhaps behind Saadiah's identification  
of ther Khazars with Ashkenaz.  Koestler, I think, was mainly  
concerned with establishing his own ancestry among that Jewish Khazar  
group which accompanied the Magyars (who were not Jews) in their  
migration from Khazaria to the Pannonian plains.


Shane Mage

"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64





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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism

[Ralph Dumain]

I can't say I keep up with Zionist arguments since 1967. There have been 
a number of arguments for over a century to bolster the obviously shaky 
arguments for the colonization of a patch of desert that had no live 
connection with the European Jews of the 19th century. How much weight 
those arguments were given depended heavily on the actual situation of 
European Jews, and of course there were weighty counter-arguments as 
well. Now if there were no connection whatever between contemporaneous 
Jews of a century ago and ancient Judaea, meaning that ancient Judaea 
never existed, or that there was no component of its inhabitants that 
made its way to Europe ever, then I suppose the argument for Palestine 
as opposed to Uganda, Argentina, or Nevada may have never gotten 
anywhere, though you never know. There were those like Zamenhof who 
thought the actual direct lineage was rather threadbare, not to mention 
that any actual connection was effectively meaningless.

However, for the sake of argument, suppose that modern day Jews could be 
connected to the ancient Israelites, and assume also that a huge 
percentage of moder Jews got that way via conversion rather than a 
bloodline to ancient Israel. So what difference does that make? I 
remember from 45-50 years the argument that Israel is the homeland of 
the Jews, but I never heard even once any argument for racial or ethnic 
purity and I can't see what damned difference it would make one way or 
the other, any more than I ever heard any arguments based on the Bible 
or the notion of the chosen people. Of course, people may well have 
harbored those ideas and I missed the memo. The point remains, the only 
argument I ever heard, at least one I can remember that stuck in my 
head, was the argument from the history of anti-semitism all over the 
world, and the argument from the Holocaust. As far as I know, these were 
the only arguments anyone cared about, but apparently I was wrong.

Actually, it all seems pretty ridiculous now. I suppose Einstein's 
version of Zionism was reasonable and endorseable, but in retrospect it 
seems completely unrealistic. I guess you had to be a European Jew tired 
enough of humiliation and exclusion to entertain the notion. This rather 
than an ur-racism and lust for conquest--a Stalinist lie of 
long-standing, explains a lot, at least for those removed from the scene 
where the dirty work that was done. That's my argument, which is not an 
endorsement for Zionism, just in case anyone is tempted yet again to 
accuse me of being an agent of AIPAC. A Jewish friend of mine who just 
treated me to a birthday movie, dinner, and inebriation told me just a 
few hours ago he thinks Zionism in the end is bad for the Jews, and I 
wouldn't argue otherwise, except to say that examining the historical 
time line with some care, while not necessarily arguing the plausibility 
of an alternate time line, would at least grant a more convincing 
perspective than the simple-minded propaganda of Stalinists and third 
world nationalists, which turns out to be a less effective ideological 
tool in combatting Israel's actions than they fancy.

On 6/26/2010 11:27 PM, CeJ wrote:
> RD:>>There is also the argument of Shlomo Sand, that the concept of Jewry is
> a modern concept, that the Exile never happened, that there were mass
> conversions involved in the formation of the Jews in Europe (and
> elsewhere), and therefore that the actual ties of European Jews to
> ancient Judaea are spurious. Thus the founding Zionist myth is . . . a myth.
>
> To argue for anything on any of these bases, against Zionism as well as
> for, defies logic.<<
>
> As I understand it, the now infamous  Koestler "13th Tribe" thesis was
> really an attempt of a non-religious Zionist to show that the Jews of
> Europe largely had a European ethnogenesis, in order to counter
> European anti-semitism. I haven't read the book, but I have seen how
> its arguments and evidence have been only of selective use to serious
> scholars of the topic. Now the sad sick joke is that the work is
> attacked as anti-semitic and is cited constantly by the Zionists so as
> to obscure the very real scholarship that is showing that the standard
> accounts of the ethnogenesis of European Jewry (W. European Jews moved
> to C. and E. Europe to escape Christian persecution) has far too many
> missing parts and implausiblities. Wexler has done considerable work
> on showing how Ladino-speaking Sephardim are of N. African origin and
> how C. and E. European Ashkenazim are of basically Turko-Slavic
> origin. Even those who have tried to dimss his discussions haven't, as
> far as I can see, shown them to be implausible (whereas one very large
> implausibility is E. Europe getting a very large Jewish population
> because of the migration of a few ten thousand Jews from what is now
> France--before foods like potatoes, European populations in most parts
> didn't increase rapidly).
>
> CJ
>
> ___

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism

[CeJ]

RD:>>There is also the argument of Shlomo Sand, that the concept of Jewry is
a modern concept, that the Exile never happened, that there were mass
conversions involved in the formation of the Jews in Europe (and
elsewhere), and therefore that the actual ties of European Jews to
ancient Judaea are spurious. Thus the founding Zionist myth is . . . a myth.

To argue for anything on any of these bases, against Zionism as well as
for, defies logic.<<

As I understand it, the now infamous  Koestler "13th Tribe" thesis was
really an attempt of a non-religious Zionist to show that the Jews of
Europe largely had a European ethnogenesis, in order to counter
European anti-semitism. I haven't read the book, but I have seen how
its arguments and evidence have been only of selective use to serious
scholars of the topic. Now the sad sick joke is that the work is
attacked as anti-semitic and is cited constantly by the Zionists so as
to obscure the very real scholarship that is showing that the standard
accounts of the ethnogenesis of European Jewry (W. European Jews moved
to C. and E. Europe to escape Christian persecution) has far too many
missing parts and implausiblities. Wexler has done considerable work
on showing how Ladino-speaking Sephardim are of N. African origin and
how C. and E. European Ashkenazim are of basically Turko-Slavic
origin. Even those who have tried to dimss his discussions haven't, as
far as I can see, shown them to be implausible (whereas one very large
implausibility is E. Europe getting a very large Jewish population
because of the migration of a few ten thousand Jews from what is now
France--before foods like potatoes, European populations in most parts
didn't increase rapidly).

CJ

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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism

[CeJ]

I've been around and around on this topic on various discussion fora
online, and must say that there is an awful lot complicating any
discussion of Zionism that it almost always draws a lot of even
self-contradictory responses without any conclusions.

1. Israel is a state that was founded as something super-imposed over
Palestine, but also something super-imposed over other possible
solutions to what world leaders post-WW II considered the 'Jewish
question'.

2. The Yiddish-speaking cultures of European Jewry moved towards
nationalistic awareness but did not achieve a nation (unlike, for
example, Christian Slavs of various related but arguably distinct
ethnicities).

3. The US got in on it and imposed an American-centric, simplistic
'Americo-Zionist' view on what could have been instead a more peaceful
conclusion to a related but separate issue: what to do about
independence for the former Ottoman holdings that the British and
French had folded into their colonial systems between WWs I and II.
Thus, a conclusion for Palestine could have been parallel to
conclusions for Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, etc.

However, those final waves of Yiddish-speaking Jews would have to have
gone to the US, Canada and Australia. Instead they were forced into
being a part of still yet another European landgrab in the ME.

4. One possible contradiction about Zionism and the fate of Palestine
is simply that the very sort of Jews who helped lead a 'back to the
Holy Lands' movement from Europe in the 19th century are also of the
sort who might reject Israel as a Jewish state.

5. It's a sad aspect of so much of the American left side of the
political spectrum that its Jewish parts have tended to see Zionism as
progressive and liberational and have, over several generations, come
to be indoctrinated that questioning the status of the Zionist state
as unquestionable. This isn't to say that there aren't many
non-religious, secular, assimilated 'Jews' who oppose Israel, but I
often sense the position, if you explore it, comes down to:
Militaristic Zionism and the landgrab of 1945-1948 weren't evil, that
Zionism is reformable (a bit like talking with mixed race South
Africans who considered themselves white and apartheidists to the
end).

6. Also in the US, Israel has come to represent at least two complex things:

One, it is a symbol or focus for many Jews who feel they have lost
their ethnic identity (like so many Americans they probably have very
little idea of what that identity actually was--their Yiddish-Slavic
cultures, such as Sorbian, Polish and Russian Jewish have been lost).
Before Israel, about the only way they knew they were in some sense
'Jewish' was that they knew of at least one grandparent who practiced
some form of the religion, and certain relatives were victims of the
Holocaust.

Two,  a constant part of American national identity seems to be of
America as a chosen people engaged in the construction of a privileged
nation. Yes, many will argue that there are many other forms of
nationalism and these all tend to be exclusive. However, Americans
have latched onto the idea that the US is the New Zion. And so the
US's overwhelming support of Israel's militarism, belligerence,
colonialism is actually an extension of what the US has got away with
1945-now. Combine that with a sense that Americans and Israelis are
'victims' and you get two very crazy, dangerous, paranoid, war-crazy
countries, one the superpower, the other the client state.

To conclude: The people who founded this modern Zionist state of
Israel were and still are Europeans (Yiddish has largely been replaced
by Yiddo-Hebraic, best called 'modern Israeli' but also American
English).

The single largest group falling under a single term would be the
'Ashkenazim' of C. and E. Europe. They spoke and produced a literate
culture based on Yiddish, which could now be viewed as a broad dialect
band that ranged from German-based to Sorbian-based. Most Europeans
didn't understand much of anything at all about Yiddish because it was
written in an alien script and used by a 'non-Christian people'. The
other important group in the foundation of Israel were the so-called
Sephardim, who were culturally speaking also Europeans. While the
Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim were formed from Italic, Balkan, Persian,
Turkic and Slavic and possibly Caucasus sources, the Ladino-speaking
Sephardim of Spain are largely of Arabic and N. African origins (their
historical tragectory complicted by their exodus to the Ottoman realm
when Spain was re-Catholicized). Even this sort of fairly recent
development takes on near incomprehensible twists in the arguments
about why European Jews deserve to take over Palestine. When Israelis
refer to their mixed population and various ethnicities, they often
include the Sephardim as 'ME Jews'--when they are as European as their
more populous Ashkenazic counterparts (although this argument could
still be complicated if people would start to admit just 

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism Say Events Aid Cause - NY Times

[Ralph Dumain]

An interesting factual account, but one is loathe to draw definitive 
conclusions from it. Coincidentally, a Pakistani Facebook friend 
recently posted a video called Judaism vs Zionism, featuring someone 
with an English accent contrasting Jewish ethics with the Zionist state. 
Such simple-minded reasoning clarifies little, and in fact promotes 
irrationalism rather than dispels it. There's a three-way conflation 
here between ethnicity, religion, and nationalism, and four-way when one 
adds biology to the mix.

There is also the argument of Shlomo Sand, that the concept of Jewry is 
a modern concept, that the Exile never happened, that there were mass 
conversions involved in the formation of the Jews in Europe (and 
elsewhere), and therefore that the actual ties of European Jews to 
ancient Judaea are spurious. Thus the founding Zionist myth is . . . a myth.

To argue for anything on any of these bases, against Zionism as well as 
for, defies logic. Additionally, there is an assumption that religious 
justifications and myths of origin played the decisive role in the 
formation of Zionism in the 19th century and a constant, unvarying role 
throughout its history, which, as the Stalinists and partisans of 
/other/ nationalisms would have it, was always and unvaryingly fueled by 
racialism and a master plan to drive out the Arab inhabitants of the 
region. Counter-myths are not necessarily more illuminating than myths. 
There is not a single point that was not already debated by Zionists 
themselves in the pre-Herzl period, not to mention anti-Zionists, more 
often on a secular than on a religious basis. And the rational and 
irrational components of pro-Zionist arguments have to be calibrated 
along a sliding scale, which can be done when we see what those 
arguments were, especially as Palestine was by no means a target of 
universal consensus in the early period.

We will learn more if we examine the conditions of 19th century Europe, 
esp. Eastern Europe, but also Central Europe, and look at what 
nation-building meant across the board among nationalities under the 
yoke of empires, in a world almost completely subject to empires and 
that by the end of the century would be completely subjugated, with 
nothing but empire in sight. We could also compare fantasies and schemes 
of colonization and resettlement among various peoples. One could, for 
example, examine 19th century black nationalism and compare it to 
Zionism before Zionism got anywhere so that it could be imitated or opposed.

Taking all this as a base, we can better understand the variations on 
the theme, and to what extent nationalist projects actually were 
underwritten by irrationalist ideologies like religion, racial theories, 
metaphysical idealism (German Romanticism), Social Darwinism, etc., and 
how much weight these ideologies had, among secular and religious 
components of the population.

What it takes to convince people of anything depends heavily on 
circumstances and options as well as ideologies, and sometimes it 
doesn't take much of a push to convince people of something. Which is 
why secularists and even people with little taste for nationalism (like 
Einstein) would turn to Zionism.  Another factor is that those far 
removed from a concrete situation may not even have the facts with which 
to justify the policies they are being sold. Religion, shmeligion, 
ancient homeland, shlomeland, between 1945 and 1967 the Holocaust was 
the only argument anyone needed to hear, and for American Jews at least 
the other elements played rationalizing supporting roles at best, at 
least as I remember the atmosphere of the early '60s.

(Remember the theme song to the film "Exodus"? I was accustomed to 
hearing only Ferrante and Teicher's piano rendition. When I got hold of 
the sheet music, I learned that the theme had lyrics, and when I saw the 
verse "This land is mine, God gave this land to me", I was appalled: I 
had never heard such a thing before, and had accepted the legitimacy of 
Israel as a product of the Holocaust without any crap about God in the 
mix. I don't recall any American Jews ever saying anything about God, 
though they were nominally religious.)

On 6/26/2010 8:44 AM, Jim Farmelant wrote:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/us/26religion.html
>
> American Jews Who Reject Zionism Say Events Aid Cause
> By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
>
> One day nearly 20 years ago, Stephen Naman was preparing to help the
> rabbi of his Reform Jewish temple in South Carolina move the congregation
> into a new building. Mr. Naman had just one request: Could the rabbi stop
> placing the flag of Israel on the altar?
>
> "We don't go to synagogue to pray to a flag," Mr. Naman, 63, recalled
> having said in a recent telephone interview.
>
> That rabbi acceded to the request. So, after being transferred to North
> Carolina and joining a temple there six or seven years later, Mr. Naman
> asked its rabbi to remove the Israeli flag. This time, the

[Marxism-Thaxis] American Jews Who Reject Zionism Say Events Aid Cause - NY Times

[Jim Farmelant]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/us/26religion.html

American Jews Who Reject Zionism Say Events Aid Cause
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

One day nearly 20 years ago, Stephen Naman was preparing to help the
rabbi of his Reform Jewish temple in South Carolina move the congregation
into a new building. Mr. Naman had just one request: Could the rabbi stop
placing the flag of Israel on the altar? 

“We don’t go to synagogue to pray to a flag,” Mr. Naman, 63, recalled
having said in a recent telephone interview. 

That rabbi acceded to the request. So, after being transferred to North
Carolina and joining a temple there six or seven years later, Mr. Naman
asked its rabbi to remove the Israeli flag. This time, the reaction was
more predictable. 

“The rabbi said that would be terrible,” recounted Mr. Naman, a retired
paper company executive who now lives outside Jacksonville, Fla., “and
that he’d be embarrassed to be rabbi of such a congregation.” 

As shocking as Mr. Naman’s insistence on taking Israel out of Judaism may
seem, it actually adheres to a consistent strain within Jewish debate.
Whether one calls it anti-Zionism or non-Zionism — and all these terms
are contested and loaded — the effort to separate the Jewish state from
Jewish identity has centuries-old roots. 

For the past 68 years, that stance has been the official platform of the
group Mr. Naman serves as president of, the American Council for Judaism.
And while the establishment of Israel and its centrality to American Jews
consigned the council to irrelevancy for decades, the intense criticism
of Israel now growing among a number of American Jews has made Mr.
Naman’s group look significant, or even prophetic. 

It is not that members are flocking to the council. The group’s mailing
list is only in the low thousands, and its Web site received a modest
10,000 unique visitors in the last year. Its budget is a mere $55,000. As
Mr. Naman acknowledges, the council’s history of opposition to Zionism
renders it “radioactive” for even liberal American Jewish groups, like J
Street and Peace Now. 

Yet the arguments that the council has consistently levied against
Zionism and Israel have shot back into prominence over the last decade,
with the collapse of the Oslo peace process, Israel’s wars in Lebanon and
Gaza, and most recently the fatal attack on a flotilla seeking to breach
the naval blockade of the Hamas regime. One need not agree with any of
the council’s positions to admit that, for a certain faction of American
Jews, they have come back into style. 

“My sense is that they believe that events are proving they were right
all along,” Jonathan D. Sarna, a historian at Brandeis University and
author of the seminal book “American Judaism,” said in a telephone
interview. “Everything they prophesied — dual loyalty, nationalism being
evil — has come to pass.” 

“I would be surprised if vast numbers of people moved over to the A.C.J.
as an organization because of its reputation,” he continued. “But it’s
certainly the case that if the Holocaust underscored the problems of
Jewish life in the diaspora, recent years have highlighted the point that
Zionism is no panacea.” 

Mr. Naman grew up in a Texas family deeply involved in the council, and
as a result he has lived through the swings of the political pendulum. 

“We were ostracized and maligned,” he said. “But we felt back then, and
we feel now, that our positions are credible. They’ve been justified and
substantiated by what has occurred.” 

On that matter, to put it mildly, there is disagreement. If American
Zionists who oppose the West Bank occupation face withering criticism
from the conservative part of American Jewry, which has tended to
dominate the major communal and lobbying groups, then the unapologetic
foes of Zionism in the council are met with apoplexy and indignation. 

The rejection of Zion, though, goes back to the Torah itself, with its
accounts of the Hebrews’ rebelling against Moses on the journey toward
the Promised Land and pleading to return to Egypt. Until Theodore Herzl
created the modern Zionist movement early in the 20th century, the
biblical injunction to return to Israel was widely understood as a
theological construct rather than a pragmatic instruction. 

Most Orthodox Jewish leaders before the Holocaust rejected Zionism,
saying the exile was a divine punishment and Israel could be restored
only in the messianic age. The Reform movement maintained that Judaism is
a religion, not a nationality. 

“This country is our Palestine,” a Reform rabbi in Charleston, S.C., put
it in 1841, “this city our Jerusalem, this house of God our temple.” The
Reform movement’s 1885 platform dismissed a “return to Palestine” as a
relic akin to animal sacrifice. 

Only when the Reform leadership, on the eve of World War II, reversed
course did its anti-Zionist faction break away, ultimately forming the
council in 1942. Its discourse was simultaneously idealistic and
contemptuous — a proposed curriculum i