What I especially like is that you take a question that people endlessly complicate and reduce it to something clear and understandable. Jews are individuals, a people, a religion, an ethnic group, and a nation. Once you start from that foundation, so many of the arguments surrounding antisemitism suddenly become much easier to understand.
In fact, I think this may be one of the most useful frameworks I have encountered because it answers a very deep question that many people struggle with but cannot quite articulate. I know I will be using this formula in future discussions because it is both simple and comprehensive.
Reading this also made me wonder whether one of the strengths of your definition is that it forces critics to be more precise. If someone is criticizing Jews, Judaism, Jewish peoplehood, Jewish nationhood, or Jewish identity, they can no longer hide behind vague language. They have to explain exactly what they are criticizing and why.
For me, this was a genuinely refreshing article because it cuts through so much confusion and gets right to the heart of the issue.
Good point. I get into this argument a lot, and defining "Jews" leads to the even deeper underlying question: defining "identity" in and of itself. Most people who are trying to be critical of Jews aren't really even sure what they are criticizing, but I guess for them it doesn't really matter.
Absolutely correct. (I've felt all of these things, but I've never realized the practical conclusion that you pointed out.) I especially appreciate your understanding that anti-semitism, of whatever form, is a continuum. The different forms of anti-semitism, going back to before Christianity, have too much in common with each other for me to accept the idea that they are really distinct.
May I just mention that antisemitism does not require that the target be Jewish. This is even a point in Jewish law - Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, perhaps the greatest expert in Jewish law in the middle part of the last century, wrote (IIRC) that Jews had responsibility to help a group that was badly persecuted as Jews, even though he did not consider them actually Jewish. He did not mean that they should be considered Jewish (*), but rather that they should be helped to escape to the US where they could assimilate among the other non-Jews.
(*) As opposed to the common idea that we should consider people with a Jewish grandparent Jewish because the Nazis did. Aside from the fact that this is historically questionable, it essentially makes Heinrich Himmler the Chief Rabbi.
In he eighties, the Presidents of both Israel and the United States, were Irishmen who were neither Catholic not Anglican/Episcopalian. (President's Herzog's father, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, in fact spoke with an Irish Brogue.)
What I especially like is that you take a question that people endlessly complicate and reduce it to something clear and understandable. Jews are individuals, a people, a religion, an ethnic group, and a nation. Once you start from that foundation, so many of the arguments surrounding antisemitism suddenly become much easier to understand.
In fact, I think this may be one of the most useful frameworks I have encountered because it answers a very deep question that many people struggle with but cannot quite articulate. I know I will be using this formula in future discussions because it is both simple and comprehensive.
Reading this also made me wonder whether one of the strengths of your definition is that it forces critics to be more precise. If someone is criticizing Jews, Judaism, Jewish peoplehood, Jewish nationhood, or Jewish identity, they can no longer hide behind vague language. They have to explain exactly what they are criticizing and why.
For me, this was a genuinely refreshing article because it cuts through so much confusion and gets right to the heart of the issue.
This is an excellent essay.
And your definition of the different aspects of being Jewish is truly relevant.
Thank you for sharing your ideas.
Good point. I get into this argument a lot, and defining "Jews" leads to the even deeper underlying question: defining "identity" in and of itself. Most people who are trying to be critical of Jews aren't really even sure what they are criticizing, but I guess for them it doesn't really matter.
Absolutely correct. (I've felt all of these things, but I've never realized the practical conclusion that you pointed out.) I especially appreciate your understanding that anti-semitism, of whatever form, is a continuum. The different forms of anti-semitism, going back to before Christianity, have too much in common with each other for me to accept the idea that they are really distinct.
May I just mention that antisemitism does not require that the target be Jewish. This is even a point in Jewish law - Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, perhaps the greatest expert in Jewish law in the middle part of the last century, wrote (IIRC) that Jews had responsibility to help a group that was badly persecuted as Jews, even though he did not consider them actually Jewish. He did not mean that they should be considered Jewish (*), but rather that they should be helped to escape to the US where they could assimilate among the other non-Jews.
(*) As opposed to the common idea that we should consider people with a Jewish grandparent Jewish because the Nazis did. Aside from the fact that this is historically questionable, it essentially makes Heinrich Himmler the Chief Rabbi.
In he eighties, the Presidents of both Israel and the United States, were Irishmen who were neither Catholic not Anglican/Episcopalian. (President's Herzog's father, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, in fact spoke with an Irish Brogue.)