"Jews in general?" "Conventional Jewish population?" Gosh, that sounds like an distorting stereotype to me. You're not talking about red hair; you're offering a red herring. You've been reading too much of Wikipedia. Amazing how on this list Wikipedia has been bashed as a legitimate sources and here you go citing it. And, how I've been bashed for not citing refereed scientific studies, and you go and cite newspaper reports. Nevertheless, I am confused. Who are you talking about? You're not talking about black dyed red-haired converts to Judaism; you're not talking about black dyed red-haired Jewish converts to other religions; you're not talking about the Lemba; you're not talking about the descendants of Hagar; you're not talking about Joseph's offspring from two Egyptians wives (Gen 41:50-2); you're not talking about offspring of marriages between Jews and non-Jews; you're not talking about Sephardim; you're not talking about Ethiopian Jews; you're not talking about Yemeni Jews; you're not talking about Baghdadi Jews; you're not talking about Iranian Jews; you're not talking about German Jews; you're not talking about the Jews of Kaifeng in China (whom I've met and "don't look Jewish"); you're not talking about the Cochin Jews or Bene Israel Jews of India; you're not even talking about over the 97% of Ashkenazi Jews who don't have the Tay-Sachs gene marker; you're not talking about Jews who lived before the Tay-Sachs mutation occurred. And, if you want to dwell on Tay-Sachs, I guess that makes Cajuns, French Canadians, and Irish American Catholics either members of your "Jewish race" or have "Jewish blood" flowing through their veins since the incidence of Tay-Sachs in these populations is nearly the same as in the Ashkenazi Jews (and don't hand me the debunked "Jewish fur trader hypothesis"). No, I have no trouble with the obvious because it's obvious that you're just talking about "Jews in General" and "conventional Jewish population."
Mike is right. Enough! Make it a good day. --Louis-- Louis Schmier http://www.therandomthoughts.com Department of History http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org Valdosta State University Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\ (229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__/\ \/\ / \/ \_ \/ / \/ /\/ \ /\ //\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\ \_/__\ /\"If you want to climb mountains,\ /\ _ / \ don't practice on mole hills" - -----Original Message----- From: sbl...@ubishops.ca [mailto:sbl...@ubishops.ca] Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 8:40 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Do Jews form a race? I knew I shouldn't have done it, and yet I did. Now I hear myself screaming, "Stop, stop! Don't do it again. Get help for your SPAA (Stupid Pointless Argument Addiction)! And yet I persist. I'm shocked that Louis would stoop to the cheap and disrespectful trick of invoking the Holocaust as a bullying tactic to attempt to silence me. I'm sure the tactic has worked well for him in the past. But not this time. What am I supposed to do, compete with him in whose family suffered more? Louis sneered: > (1) So, tell me, does a convert to Judaism instantly undergo > a miraculous genetic mutation and racial > transformation induced by the mystic waters of the mikvah? > <snip> Here in our community, the rabbi is converting an > entire African-American family to Judaism. Do something > genetic with that! It was clear that I was talking about Jews in general, and the existence of a small number of converts as a special case does not refute the findings that I cited. These findings show that people who self-identify as Jews or the children of Jews tend to have certain genetic markers in common, and therefore may reasonably be referred to as a race in the biological sense. It seems patently obvious that this would not apply to converts. As Louis has trouble with the obvious, let me try again. Consider the analogy of having red hair, unquestionably a hereditary disorder. Yet anyone afflicted with red hair can cure themselves merely by walking into a drugstore. But the existence of hair dye to create conversions to red hair does not weaken our understanding of the genetic origin of hair colour. It's still hereditary, even though on some occasions it might not be. So it is with conversion and the concept of race applied to Jews. As for Louis terming such ideas "bigoted, hateful tripe", it is about as racist to say that Jews have an identifiable biological heritage as it is to say the same thing about people with red hair. Both accusations are equally silly. It is not the fact of biological heritage that is racist but the use of such information to favour one group over another. Calling such ideas racist and building up a fine lather of indignation over them are the kind of tactics employed when one has nothing else to offer. Stephen (Relax, red-haired people. It's a joke. Some of my best friends have red hair.) -------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: sblack at ubishops.ca 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: lschm...@valdosta.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13368.9b8fe41d7a9a359029570f1d2ef42440&n=T&l=tips&o=1827 or send a blank email to leave-1827-13368.9b8fe41d7a9a359029570f1d2ef42...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=1841 or send a blank email to leave-1841-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
