Some Jewish Stuff

[nancylebov]

And since these are essay questions, I'm not going to make you look things up.

This is a core dump of things I've thought for a while, but I've been inspired to post it by reading many discussions lately about prejudice.

Here's something small and objective. Jews have a wide range of practices in regards to keeping kosher. There's me--I've never kept kosher, my parents never kept kosher, and so far as my memory goes, neither did my grandparents. I realized how deeply I wasn't into keeping kosher one Yom Kippur when I noticed I was halfway through a ham and cheese sandwich. There are Jews who keep kosher houses, but will eat the little bits of pork in fried rice. And there are Jews who keep kosher with so much focus that they need to ask their rabbi about disputed details.

I appreciate it if people try to accomodate me by offering some sketch of kosher, but I wish I didn't have to tell them three or four times that it isn't necessary. In general, I recommend asking about what sort of kosherness, if any, is wanted rather than assuming you know. And then, listen to the answer.

Here's one I'm a little less sure about--I've had a Christian nag me about the prophecies in Isaiah(?), as though I should take them very seriously. Aside from not being religious (though I seem to have acquired a ferocious ethnic identity somewhere), it's my impression that Conservative and Orthodox Jews consider the prophets to be very much secondary to the Torah (five books of Moses) and the Talmud (commentary on the Torah, with emphasis on how to obey the 613 commandments). More generally, Judaism has had a lot of history since the Bible, and you're not going to understand much about Judaism as it exists now just by reading it.

Sidetrack: You aren't going to understand much about Islam just by reading the Koran, either. Imagine someone trying to understand Christianity-in-practice by reading the New Testament (yes, I know it's a vexed term, but I'm not sure what would be comfortable for everyone and I'm trying to be clear). You couldn't predict Catholicism, Unitarianism, and Fred Phelps that way at all. A lot of human inventiveness goes into a religion, though its holy writings can be expected to exert a gravitational pull.

In re "Why didn't Jews convert?": Well, I wasn't there any more than you were, but here are some possibilities. Some people actually believe in their religion and take it seriously. Also, converting can mean going away from your family and friends, and changing many of your customs. This gets to something it took me a shockingly long time to figure out--the concept of home, and that what's strongly home to other people will probably never feel that comfortable to me. I consider it a useful mental/emotional discipline to keep a grip on the idea that other people really do have different experiences than I do. They're not pretending to like beer. They mean it. And Garrison Keillor is genuinely fond of Protestant hymns--I don't know how much for him is belief, how much is nostalgia, and how much is liking the music. So, even if it seems exotic, Judaism is home for a lot of the people who grew up in it. There are always a few people who don't feel comfortable in their birth culture, but I've never heard of it being a large proportion for any culture. Admittedly, this gets complicated for modern people who keep modifying their cultures.

Anti-semitism doesn't exactly make Christianity look attractive.

Converting isn't a reliably practical strategy anyway. Some of the worst anti-Semitism (the Holocaust and the Spanish/Portuguese persecution) included efforts to find and punish people who were more or less Jewish but weren't part of a Jewish community. Hitler tried to kill anyone with one or more Jewish grandparents. This meant that someone could be a second or third generation Christian, and still end up in a death camp for being Jewish. The Spanish and Portuguese governments demanded conversion or exile--and then for some reason, they didn't trust that the conversions were genuine.

When I've been asked for my explanation of anti-Semitism, my first reaction is to think "Is this person asking me to excuse it? To make them feel better by saying it was partly the Jews' fault?" I don't know if this is my craziness or not.

Allowing for the fact that I wasn't there for most of Jewish history, I've never been an anti-Semite so I can't understand it from the inside, and I'm not a student of the subject, here are my best guesses. One is that being a market dominant minority (better than most at making money without having political power) is dangerous. Overseas Indians and Chinese sometimes run into the same problem.

The usual explanation is that Jews didn't assimilate--didn't socialize (if you keep kosher, it's hard enough in the modern world to accept hospitality from someone who doesn't--it would have been much harder in earlier times) and didn't intermarry. I can understand that sort of thing leading to irritation, insults, and economic discrimination, but mass murder? My tentative theory is that the chosen people thing makes some Christians crazy--I suppose they're not *sure* that God really likes them--but this is just a guess.

Was the founding of Israel a good idea? We're hardly close enough to the end of time to evaluate all the effects. It has been a refuge for Russian and other Jews. There hasn't been an emergency on the scale of the Holocaust since the founding of Israel, but no one can guarantee that such will never happen. The general refusal to accept Jewish refugees during the Holocaust means that having a homeland is important. Also, the lack of a Jewish homeland was used as a justification of anti-Semitism-- I'm not sure how much it's helped, but at least that excuse is gone.

In any case, Israel is no longer a question. It's home (see above for what I mean by home--it isn't just residence) for millions of people. None of which means I think the Palestinians deserve most of how they've been treated.

I have mixed feeling about the "educate yourself" thing. On the one hand, I can see that people don't like being on call for easy-to-find information or going around the same clueless arguments again and again, and have an absolute right to refuse to participate. On the other hand, I think it's a little much to imply that no member of their group will be willing to answer questions.

It may even be that you can't make it work for everyone to get majority privilege on that sort of thing, but it's an interesting experiment to demand it.

At this point, I'm willing to answer questions about Jewish stuff. I'll let you know if I get sick of it, but maybe by then I'll have put a faq together or have acquired pointers to good faqs.

On the other hand, there's an awful lot of that easy-to-find information, and I'm willing to be somewhat forgiving of other people's ignorance in order to forgive myself for mine. And what you need to research isn't always obvious.

Some of this isn't information--it's a more general understanding, like the idea of home being different for different people. Such doesn't usually get conveyed quickly in conversation. Some self-education is required if the truth doesn't hit in a sudden flash.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

May I link to this in my own LJ?

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Certainly.

No.

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

When I've been asked for my explanation of anti-Semitism, my first reaction is to think "Is this person asking me to excuse it? To make them feel better by saying it was partly the Jews' fault?" I don't know if this is my craziness or not.

You're not crazy, you're not imagining it, that's a real and very strong, and very old meme/vibe (predating the Reich, in the UK, that I've read personally) still going strong in the US at least - it's part of the general "blame the victim" syndrome, the attitude that Jews/blacks/Native Americans/Mexicans/women/whoever wouldn't be being treated badly, if they weren't doing something wrong to provoke it.

Because "nice people just like us/our ancestors" couldn't have gone out and done awful things for no good reason, that's too troubling a thought to allow. If black people are still disproportionately poor and ill and imprisoned, the "proper" question is not "why is there still discrimination?" but "why can't black people take responsibility for their lives like white folks?" and if women are disproportionately the targets of spousal violence even to death, the right question is not "why do men think it's all right to choke their wives?" but "why are women such bitches to their loving husbands?" and if Jews have been persecuted across centuries and oceans the proper question, in this mindset, is "what do you keep doing to make everyone mad at you?"

In some older writings I remember encountering how both cultural difference and assimilation were used, sequentially, to justify anti-Semitism - damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Re: No.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I can believe that there's a history of blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. What I don't know is whether, every time a non-Jew asks me about why there's anti-Semitism, they're looking for their people to be partially let off the hook.

I wonder if blacks get asked why there's anti-black prejudice. I have a horrid suspicion that they don't--that most non-black people think anti-black prejudice is so obviously plausible that there's no reason to look for an explanation.

Re: No.

[madfilkentist]

Accusing people of bigotry because they're asking questions is a great way to make sure no dialogue happens. People asking the question, wanting to get some insight, will conclude that you don't want them to understand, just to feel guilty.

The charge of "blaming the victim" gets tiring. If people play victim all the time, then their identity becomes that of a victim, someone who can't improve his situation and has to wait for others to improve it.

Jews have generally been very good at not falling into that trap.

Re: No.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I think that both questions are proper -- anti-Semitism exists in the modern world in part because of the fault of others; in part because of the fault of Jews (mostly, in deliberately cultivating a nonviolent style of responding to violence). In particular, the state of Israel has bent over backwards to satisfy its critics, and by doing so has encouraged its tormentors. Had the Israelis responded to the Palestinian attacks after 1967 by simply expelling the Palestinians from Israeli-controlled territories, they would not be having much of a problem with them today.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Aside from not being religious (though I seem to have acquired a ferocious ethnic identity somewhere)

There's a lot to this point. I've been known--by which I mean that if you hang around me for a week or two you'll probably hear it--to say that Judaism is race, religion, and culture; and to each Jew, the proportions are different. If you have a strong ethnic identity, that's born of race and culture, not religion.

In re "Why didn't Jews convert?"

How exactly are you getting that question, and in what context? Is the question "Why didn't they convert when they came to the New World in order to assimilate"? Because...honestly, I'm bothered by the notion that Jews had some expectation of conversion then. Or is it more "why, when faced with the choice of horrible burning death or conversion, did so many Jews choose the fire"?

and then for some reason, they didn't trust that the conversions were genuine.

To be fair, many weren't...

When I've been asked for my explanation of anti-Semitism, my first reaction is to think "Is this person asking me to excuse it? To make them feel better by saying it was partly the Jews' fault?" I don't know if this is my craziness or not.

I suppose it depends how the question is asked, once again. I tend to see it, when asked by a person in the modern day, as an honest ignorance. Most of the people I talk to don't seem to have any ingrained antisemitism, and are almost confused by the notion...so they want to know why in the world there was an Inquisition. It doesn't make sense to them.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

And then there's Ann Coulter (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003657196)...

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

and then for some reason, they didn't trust that the conversions were genuine.

To be fair, many weren't...

Well, yes--but why would they have expected to get any honest conversions that way?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I found myself suddenly understanding anti-Semitism one day on rasseff during the "deluded" part of the "Happy Holidays" thread. It was a combination of Zev, Gary and Jonathan Baker, all at their worst, and I suddenly caught myself having a "these people" moment. I was only anti-Semitic for about thirty seconds, but it was very illuminating. I understood a whole lot of things better for seeing where that can come from inside me.

Historically, in addition to the not eating and general xenophobia, I think when you're looking at medieval Europe there was also the thing with oaths. Feudal oaths relied on God being on the top to hold them, they were sworn on relics, and they were what made society work. People who couldn't take those specific Christian oaths were outside society and by definition untrustworthy, never mind that they wore funny clothes and ate funny food. Things like the massacre in York -- little boy is missing/was seen near them/they must have killed him/ attack -- seem to me quite explicable in the way people broke the windows of pediatricians in Britain during a pedophile scare in the 90s. Later post-medieval anti-Semitism always seems linked with conspiracy theories.

Incidentally, our apartment is now capable of all levels of kosher up to "Having Alter and Naomi here for a week". But I think any reaction from someone who isn't Jewish to "Do you keep kosher?" "No," other than "Oh good!" would be very strange.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

In re that moment of anti-Semitism: It's not shocking to get aggravated at people, especially if their customs are cross-grained to yours. I can see that there's a bit of amplification when you make into "those people" rather than "those three annoying people".

Still, I suspect that's only the beginning of understanding real anti-Semitism.

Prejudice is probably inevitable when dealing with people from other cultures and sub-cultures, but it turns into something else when it gets ideologized.

As for oaths, that sounds reasonable, but are there period sources which say "You can't trust Jews because they don't take our oaths"?

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

Since I'm being accused here, I've tried to look up the thread in Google Groups, but am so far unsuccessful. It would be nice if I could make up for some past offense.

I suppose I can give as an excuse that now that I'm on an SSRI, I'm much less combative on-line. If Gary was involved, it has to have been a long time ago.

[redbird]

I don't ask people "do you keep kosher?" because it isn't the useful question for me. I ask "Do you have any dietary restrictions?" That covers people who keep kosher, to whatever degree--and they can tell me "I keep kosher" or "I don't eat anything that can't be kosher" or "I keep kosher, but I'll eat vegetarian food anywhere" or whatever else applies. But it also covers your pepper allergy, and non-religious vegetarianism, and so on. What I'm trying to find out is "what can I feed you/where can we eat together?" and the reasons for the restriction are less important. (The strength of it does matter, but that's separate: cattitude's mushroom allergy is much less of a problem than yours to peppers, but they're the same category of problem.

[beable]

(Followed filkerdave here)

I get kosher assumptions alot because I really dislike pork, so however much I explain that I don't keep kosher people tend to assume that it's a kosher thing anyways. People more familiar with kashrut than occasionally blink when they see me eating shrimp or cheeseburgers. But this is all benign and I don't really mind as it's almost well-meant efforts to feed me.

The one that gets me isn't people asking about anti-semitism (other than people expressing surprise that I, in my tender 30-something years, could possibly have ever encountered it because apparently that doesn't happen anymore), it's people asking about anti-zionism.

Most of the time when people ask me about anti-zionism it isn't in a "what causes it" bent it's more like they want me to approve the attitude, or they want me to tell them that I'm not a Zionist, or stuff like that. Yet many of these same people who are anti-zionist and not anti-semitic lump Jews and Zionists in the same camp in their very next breath and don't see any irony in this even when it's pointed to them.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

I've found that "Zionism" is confusing largely because different people think it means different things. Really, whenever I use it--which isn't often anyway--I start by defining it. When people realize I mean "the belief that the Jews should have a homeland in what was at the time Palestine" they tend to be surprised, because they never had it straightforwardly explained.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

well, to a large extent, anti-zionism is used as an elliptical locution for antisemitism (I'm not antisemitic, I'm antizionist), which itself was created as an elliptical locution for Judenhass (Jew-hatred).

Now, there are plenty of Jews who are non-zionist or anti-zionist, those of the intellectual left because they reject a divinely-given national destiny, those of the ultra-religious right because a secular zionism is a contradiction in terms - the only true Jewish State must be created by the Messiah.

But many of those groups are quite happy to live in a Jewish Israel, accept government monies, etc. so it rings a bit hollow.

However, outsiders who use "antizionist", well, it's most likely not being used in the religio-political sense above.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

I freely admit to being Jewish by birth and preparing for the worst (like Hitler's final solution extending to Jews who are only "part" Jewish "But wait, my dad isn't Jewish!" Hello Mr/Miss clueless it runs through the matriarch).
But even so, I've chosen not to to be part of the group of Jews who worship out of fear.
If I can't practice out of love for the faith, it ain't worth it, and if God truly is merciful he/she/it will understand.
I know the "rules" but I chose to temper them with the knowledge we have gained since they were created (like food prep and preserving for example).
Ask a practicing orthodox Jew why they keep those rules, and they say "It's a matter of faith!"
Or, as the bumper sticker says:
"God told me to. I believe it and that's all there is to it."
Or even worse:
"It makes me special." (believe me, I've heard this from someone).

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Hitler traced Jewishness through the father's line as well as the mother's, but there are a number of good reasons why we don't have to take his definitions seriously.

If anti-Semitism ever gets really bad again, it won't be exactly like any previous iteration.

There's a story about a composer who handed a new composition to a pianist. A week later the pianist said--"It's impossible to play that the way you wrote it!" The composer said, "Play it as best you can"--and when the pianist did that, the composer said "That's the sound I wanted". Sometimes I wonder if Judaism is like that, but usually I'm more cynical about the whole thing.

I've also read that being observant gives meaning to what would otherwise be ordinary life. I don't know to what extent orthodox Jews see that as a pleasing side effect and to what extent it's felt as an important reason for being observant.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

None of which means I think the Palestinians deserve most of how they've been treated.

I think that ... given the level of violent anti-Semitism displayed by the Palestinian Arabs since the 1920's and 1930's (well before the foundation of the State of Israel), and maintained by them even when the Israelis have tried to compromise, and even when the Palestinians signed formal peace agreements ... the State of Israel has been remarkably tolerant, lenient, and humane in its treatment of the Palestinians. Almost any other State in the world, subjected to such murderous and inhumane violence by a people so much weaker, would have responded with annihilation, or at least explusion.

It is my hope that Israel's patience will eventually run out ... I'm sick and tired of seeing the Palestinians getting infinite chances. For one thing, Israel's humaneness has paradoxically (because it keeps Israel available to the Palestinians for attack and results in retaliatory strikes by Israel) given the world the notion that the Israelis are inhumane, and thus damaged Israel's global image.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Inasmuch as it is stupid and irrational, I think medieval anti-Semitism derived from something very basic in human psychology. We do not like to be reminded that there are other ways of viewing the world. We do not like to think that people who grew up in the same place we did can have reached vastly different conclusions about the world.

I am an atheist. I grew up pretty introverted. When I look at a crowd, I tend to assume that they are atheists too. Learning that they are not comes as a shock. Seeing a yarmulke shocks me. Noticing a cross on someone's neck shocks me. Hijabs and Sikh headgear don't, but niqabs do.

I think that Christians tend to look at a crowd and see Christians.

I think that straight people tend to look at a crowd and see straight people.

Discovering that they are not is a surprise. Heretics are hated more than infidels, and heretics walk unseen in a crowd. The Spanish attempt to convert infidels into Spaniards really just turned them into heretical Spaniards. Heretical Spaniards are much scarier than infidels.

That's why we all need to learn about the tragedies of history. That we all need to be less dogmatic and intolerant in our abstract convictions. I've certainly been too dogmatic in the past.

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I really like protestant hymns. On the other hand, it would never occur to me to ask someone to explain antisemitism. I might ask them to explain why they thought a particular remark/action/whatever was antisemitic, but just out of the blue 'so what's up with antisemitism?' confuses me deeply.

Then again, I also just sort of expect people to understand basic elements of most major world religions and things likely to be offensive or upsetting to people from those religions. This is probably a legacy of growing up in Los Angeles.

I must also admit that if I were planning a meal including people whom I knew to be Jewish, but whose level of keeping kosher I didn't know beyond 'they're planning to have a meal with me and aren't talking about bringing their own or making sure I have paper plates', I would tend to avoid pork, shellfish, or anything involving meat and cheese. But then, when I'm planning food for large groups, unless I know the dietary restrictions of all the people involved, I'll also usually try to have a vegetarian option, a gluten-free option, and a lactose-free option. But if I've asked before, I'll usually remember whether or not someone keeps kosher. Though not always. It's one of those things I'll sometimes check when I'm frazzled (like allergies, strong dislikes, lactose intollerance, celiac, diabetes.) I have a lot of friends with a lot of different dietary restrictions. I try to keep them straight, but I know I don't always manage. I also know that they can change over time. So unless it's in the same conversation, I'd figure the people asking are trying to accomodate everyone. Of course, if it is in the same conversation/at the same event... well unless they're from the upper midwest, that's just silly. (There's this cultural norm I ran into in Minnesota which drives me bonkers of asking people the same thing three times before accepting the answer: 'Would you like me to move so you can have the seat?' 'No, thanks. I'm doing okay.''Are you sure? It wouldn't be any trouble.' 'It's really fine. Don't get up.' 'Are you /really/ sure? It'd be nothing.' 'Honest. I promise. It's okay.' 'Oh, well, alright then.' Okay, even then I find it silly, but somehow it's not real until it's been offered three times. Also, people who grew up in the same cultures usually won't accept until the third, or at least the second offer. Drives me /batty/.)

[kressel.livejournal.com]

BS"D

The violent expression of anti-semitism historically rises when Jews assimilate more, not less. The Spanish Inquisition was directed at those Jews who professed to convert. The ones who remained outwardly Jewish just got kicked out of the country. And in Hitler's Germany, the cry was to purge Germany of the Jews who had gotten so far and high in German society, something they couldn't have done without assimilating.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

That's a cheering way to look at it. :/ Does it apply to the Russian pogroms, too?

I continue to be pleased and impressed with the low level of anti-Semitism in the US.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

By the by.... You may hear an argument that Arabs can't be antisemitic because they are Semites too. This, of course, is bullshit, but the first time I heard it I was unable to reply. It is bullshit because "antisemitism" doesn't mean "opposition to Semites" any more than "anti-imperialism" means "opposition to emperors". It's an example of the etymological fallacy, that a word's "true meaning" can be found by looking at its roots.*

*In fact, the root of "etymology" means 'true', because the Greeks, or some of them, believed this. But I digress.

-- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody

michael vassar

[(Anonymous)]

I really do think that in general gentile's querries into the reasons for antisemetism don't in any sense involve blaming the victim.
Things have reasons. Antisemitism has reasons and is an important thing, so it's worth knowing about. Jews are likely to pay more attention to it.

friend of filkerdave

[mvt.livejournal.com]

Well said and well thought out. A link I like is jewfaq.org it is done by a orthodox jew but has information on types of Jews.

[henrytroup.livejournal.com]

I sometimes think that after however many years (2800, minimum) anti-Semitism is the mirror of why there is still a distinct Jewish identity. That is, the same cultural integrity that keeps the Jews as the Jews inspires anti-Semitism, especially when the economy goes bad. (I hate to sound like a Marxist, but economics explains a lot.)

When times are hard, this close-knit bunch with the strange habits starts to look like a convenient scapegoat.

It's about three years since my (business) trip to Israel - I still have very vivid memories of that week. Yad Vashem nearly crushed me; if I go back to Israel, I'll have to go back there. It was far more of a spiritual turning point than any other Christian or Jewish site I saw.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

That's a similar reaction that I had to the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre (http://filkerdave.livejournal.com/588198.html).

I don't have any strong desire to visit Israel, which is odd for a Jew growing up when I did. But if I did, Yad Vashem is where I'd want to go.