The invention of the Jewish people
Offline For those who are convinced there is something called a Jewish People this should be of interest unless they consider it antisemitism of some sort. Haaretz is the oldest hebrew language newspaper in Palestine/Israel and, as a sign of purity, does not employ a single non-Jew. Le Monde Diplomatique is an internationally respected journal but its value here is an article by the jewish, Israeli author himself.
This is relevant to the invention of the jewish religion in that the responses I receive to the idea of an invented religion have an underlying assumption of a "people" even before the religion appeared. This idea is not only contrary to Judaism itself but is an idea invented barely a century ago and never existed in the religion or the people who professed the religion aka the Mosaic confession.
This also gives the lie to the idea of "secuilar" Jews. A Jew is only a person who follows the religion. No atheist nor agnostic can be a Jew. They can only be a Jew if they profess to Zionism as their religion which is the ideology that invented the idea of a "jewish" people.
For what it is worth, I read Haaretz six days a week and the Jerusalem Post (the oldest English language newspaper in Palestine/Israel several times a week. There have been no objections or refutations of this book and it remains a best seller in Israel. People are not buying it to burn it.
In both cases I say Palestine/Israel because both were in publication before Jews wiped Palestine off of the map after 2500+ years. Who would care if Israel is wiped off the map? No one misses Palestine?
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Haaretz
Thu., February 28, 2008 Adar1 22, 5768
Israel Time: 17:34 (EST+7)
An Invention Called 'The Jewish People'
Israel's Declaration of Independence states that the Jewish people arose in
the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland. Every Israeli
schoolchild is taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in
70 CE. The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return
after two millennia of exile. Wrong, says the historian Shlomo Zand, in one
of the most fascinating and challenging books published here in a long time.
There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also
never happened - hence there was no return. Zand rejects most of the stories
of national-identity formation in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt
and, most satisfactorily, the horrors of the conquest under Joshua. It's all
fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State
of Israel, he asserts.
According to Zand, the Romans did not generally exile whole nations, and
most of the Jews were permitted to remain in the country. The number of
those exiled was at most tens of thousands. When the country was conquered
by the Arabs, many of the Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated among
the conquerors. It follows that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs
were Jews. Zand did not invent this thesis; 30 years before the Declaration
of Independence, it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and
others.
If the majority of the Jews were not exiled, how is it that so many of them
reached almost every country on earth? Zand says they emigrated of their own
volition or, if they were among those exiled to Babylon, remained there
because they chose to. Contrary to conventional belief, the Jewish religion
tried to induce members of other faiths to become Jews, which explains how
there came to be millions of Jews in the world. As the Book of Esther, for
example, notes, "And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the
fear of the Jews fell upon them."
Zand quotes from many existing studies, some of which were written in Israel
but shunted out of the central discourse. He also describes at length the
Jewish kingdom of Himyar in the southern Arabian Peninsula and the Jewish
Berbers in North Africa. The community of Jews in Spain sprang from Arabs
who became Jews and arrived with the forces that captured Spain from the
Christians, and from European-born individuals who had also become Jews. The
first Jews of Ashkenaz (Germany) did not come from the Land of Israel and
did not reach Eastern Europe from Germany, but became Jews in the Khazar
Kingdom in the Caucasus. Zand explains the origins of Yiddish culture: it
was not a Jewish import from Germany, but the result of the connection
between the offspring of the Kuzari and Germans who traveled to the East,
some of them as merchants.
We find, then, that the members of a variety of peoples and races, blond and
black, brown and yellow, became Jews in large numbers. According to Zand,
the Zionist need to devise for them a shared ethnicity and historical
continuity produced a long series of inventions and fictions, along with an
invocation of racist theses. Some were concocted in the minds of those who
conceived the Zionist movement, while others were offered as the findings of
genetic studies conducted in Israel.
Prof. Zand teaches at Tel Aviv University. His book, "When and How Was the
Jewish People Invented?" (published by Resling in Hebrew), is intended to
promote the idea that Israel should be a "state of all its citizens" - Jews,
Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a "Jewish and
democratic" state. Personal stories, a prolonged theoretical discussion and
abundant sarcastic quips do not help the book, but its historical chapters
are well-written and cite numerous facts and insights that many Israelis
will be astonished to read for the first time.
The mosquito from Kiryat Yam
On March 27, 1948, a meeting was held in Hiafa concerning the fate of the
Bedouin of Arab al-Ghawarina in the Haifa area. "They must be removed from
there, so that they, too, will not add to our troubles," Yosef Weitz, of the
Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund), wrote in his personal diary. Two
months later, Weitz reported to the organization's director, "Our Haifa Bay
has been evacuated completely and there is hardly a remnant of those who
encroached our border." They were probably expelled to Jordan; some were
allowed to remain in the village of Jisr al-Zarqa. The fate of the Arab
al-Ghawarina Bedouin has recently made the headlines thanks to Shmuel Sisso,
mayor of the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Yam. He has filed a complaint with the
police against Google. The reason is the addition that one of the site's
surfers, a resident of Nablus, attached to the center of Kiryat Yam in the
world satellite photo, stating that the city is built on the ruins of a
village that was destroyed in 1948, Arab al-Ghawarina. Sisso's complaint
says that this is slanderous.
The facts are as follows: The lands of the Zevulun Valley were purchased in
the 1920s by the JNF and by various construction companies, among them one
called Gav Yam. The Zionist Archives have the plan for the establishment of
Kiryat Yam, dated 1938, and a letter from 1945 states that there were
already 100 homes there. Government maps from the British Mandate period
identify the territory on which Kiryat Yam was built by two names: Zevulun
Valley and Ghawarina. Thus it appears that this was not a settlement but an
area in which Bedouin resided.
The Web site of the Israeli organization Zochrot (Remembering) states that
there were 720 people at the site in 1948 and that the area was divided
among three kibbutzim: Ein Hamifratz, Kfar Masaryk and Ein Hayam, today Ein
Carmel.
This story has been making the rounds on the Internet and drawing responses,
which can be summed up as follows: "If Sisso is suing Google because they
stated that he is living on a destroyed Arab village, the implication is
that he thinks this is something bad." Sisso, a lawyer of 57 who is
identified with Likud and was formerly Israeli consul general in New York,
says, "I don't think there is anything bad about it, but other people might
think it is bad, especially people abroad, and that is liable to hurt Kiryat
Yam, because people will not want to invest here. Since we are not sitting
on a Palestinian village, why should we have to suffer for no reason?"
Moroccan-born, Sisso arrived in Israel in 1955. "I wandered around the whole
region and I saw no trace of anyone's having been here before us and
supposedly expelled." He asked an American law professor how, if at all,
Google could be sued for slander or for damages. This, he says, is the
contribution of Kiryat Yam to the struggle against the right of return (of
the Palestinian refugees).
It could turn out to be the most riveting trial since Ariel Sharon sued Time
magazine, but mayor Sisso has no illusions: "Me against Google is like a
mosquito against an elephant," he said this week.
Who America belongs to
Two professors, Gabi Shefer and Avi Ben-Zvi, were guests this week on
Yitzhak Noy's "International Hour" current events program on Israel Radio.
The anchor, sounding slightly concerned, asked whether the achievements of
Barack Obama show that the United States no longer belongs to the white man.
Prof. Shefer confirmed this: Obama is an immigrant, he said. Prof. Ben-Zvi
asked to add a remark: Gabi Shefer is right, he said. They are both wrong.
If Obama were an immigrant, he would not be eligible to be elected
president. He was born in Honolulu, some two years after Hawaii became the
50th state of the union.
==============================================
Le Monde diplomatique - English edition
September 2008
Zionist nationalist myth of enforced exile
Israel deliberately forgets its history
An Israeli historian suggests the diaspora was the consequence, not of the
expulsion of the Hebrews from Palestine, but of proselytising across north
Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East
By Schlomo Sand
Every Israeli knows that he or she is the direct and exclusive descendant of
a Jewish people which has existed since it received the Torah ([25]1) in
Sinai. According to this myth, the Jews escaped from Egypt and settled in
the Promised Land, where they built the glorious kingdom of David and
Solomon, which subsequently split into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel.
They experienced two exiles: after the destruction of the first temple, in
the 6th century BC, and of the second temple, in 70 AD.
Two thousand years of wandering brought the Jews to Yemen, Morocco, Spain,
Germany, Poland and deep into Russia. But, the story goes, they always
managed to preserve blood links between their scattered communities. Their
uniqueness was never compromised.
At the end of the 19th century conditions began to favour their return to
their ancient homeland. If it had not been for the Nazi genocide, millions
of Jews would have fulfilled the dream of 20 centuries and repopulated Eretz
Israel, the biblical land of Israel. Palestine, a virgin land, had been
waiting for its original inhabitants to return and awaken it. It belonged to
the Jews, rather than to an Arab minority that had no history and had
arrived there by chance. The wars in which the wandering people reconquered
their land were just; the violent opposition of the local population was
criminal.
This interpretation of Jewish history was developed as talented, imaginative
historians built on surviving fragments of Jewish and Christian religious
memory to construct a continuous genealogy for the Jewish people. Judaism’s
abundant historiography encompasses many different approaches.
But none have ever questioned the basic concepts developed in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. Discoveries that might threaten this picture of a
linear past were marginalised. The national imperative rejected any
contradiction of or deviation from the dominant story. University
departments exclusively devoted to “the history of the Jewish people”, as
distinct from those teaching what is known in Israel as general history,
made a significant contribution to this selective vision. The debate on what
constitutes Jewishness has obvious legal implications, but historians
ignored it: as far as they are concerned, any descendant of the people
forced into exile 2,000 years ago is a Jew.
Nor did these official investigators of the past join the controversy
provoked by the “new historians” from the late 1980s. Most of the limited
number of participants in this public debate were from other disciplines or
non-academic circles: sociologists, orientalists, linguists, geographers,
political scientists, literary academics and archaeologists developed new
perspectives on the Jewish and Zionist past. Departments of Jewish history
remained defensive and conservative, basing themselves on received ideas.
While there have been few significant developments in national history over
the past 60 years (a situation unlikely to change in the short term), the
facts that have emerged face any honest historian with fundamental
questions.
Founding myths shaken
Is the Bible a historical text? Writing during the early half of the
19th century, the first modern Jewish historians, such as Isaak Markus Jost
(1793-1860) and Leopold Zunz (1794-1886), did not think so. They regarded
the Old Testament as a theological work reflecting the beliefs of Jewish
religious communities after the destruction of the first temple. It was not
until the second half of the century that Heinrich Graetz (1817-91) and
others developed a “national” vision of the Bible and transformed Abraham’s
journey to Canaan, the flight from Egypt and the united kingdom of David and
Solomon into an authentic national past. By constant repetition, Zionist
historians have subsequently turned these Biblical “truths” into the basis
of national education.
But during the 1980s an earthquake shook these founding myths. The
discoveries made by the “new archaeology” discredited a great exodus in the
13th century BC. Moses could not have led the Hebrews out of Egypt into the
Promised Land, for the good reason that the latter was Egyptian territory at
the time. And there is no trace of either a slave revolt against the
pharaonic empire or of a sudden conquest of Canaan by outsiders.
Nor is there any trace or memory of the magnificent kingdom of David and
Solomon. Recent discoveries point to the existence, at the time, of two
small kingdoms: Israel, the more powerful, and Judah, the future Judea. The
general population of Judah did not go into 6th century BC exile: only its
political and intellectual elite were forced to settle in Babylon. This
decisive encounter with Persian religion gave birth to Jewish monotheism.
Then there is the question of the exile of 70 AD. There has been no real
research into this turning point in Jewish history, the cause of the
diaspora. And for a simple reason: the Romans never exiled any nation from
anywhere on the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean. Apart from enslaved
prisoners, the population of Judea continued to live on their lands, even
after the destruction of the second temple. Some converted to Christianity
in the 4th century, while the majority embraced Islam during the 7th century
Arab conquest.
Most Zionist thinkers were aware of this: Yitzhak Ben Zvi, later president
of Israel, and David Ben Gurion, its first prime minister, accepted it as
late as 1929, the year of the great Palestinian revolt. Both stated on
several occasions that the peasants of Palestine were the descendants of the
inhabitants of ancient Judea ([26]2).
Proselytising zeal
But if there was no exile after 70 AD, where did all the Jews who have
populated the Mediterranean since antiquity come from? The smokescreen of
national historiography hides an astonishing reality. From the Maccabean
revolt of the mid-2nd century BC to the Bar Kokhba revolt of the 2nd century
AD, Judaism was the most actively proselytising religion. The Judeo-Hellenic
Hasmoneans forcibly converted the Idumeans of southern Judea and the
Itureans of Galilee and incorporated them into the people of Israel. Judaism
spread across the Middle East and round the Mediterranean. The 1st century
AD saw the emergence in modern Kurdistan of the Jewish kingdom of Adiabene,
just one of many that converted.
The writings of Flavius Josephus are not the only evidence of the
proselytising zeal of the Jews. Horace, Seneca, Juvenal and Tacitus were
among the Roman writers who feared it. The Mishnah and the Talmud ([27]3)
authorised conversion, even if the wise men of the Talmudic tradition
expressed reservations in the face of the mounting pressure from
Christianity.
Although the early 4th century triumph of Christianity did not mark the end
of Jewish expansion, it relegated Jewish proselytism to the margins of the
Christian cultural world. During the 5th century, in modern Yemen, a
vigorous Jewish kingdom emerged in Himyar, whose descendants preserved their
faith through the Islamic conquest and down to the present day. Arab
chronicles tell of the existence, during the 7th century, of Judaised Berber
tribes; and at the end of the century the legendary Jewish queen Dihya
contested the Arab advance into northwest Africa. Jewish Berbers
participated in the conquest of the Iberian peninsula and helped establish
the unique symbiosis between Jews and Muslims that characterised
Hispano-Arabic culture.
The most significant mass conversion occurred in the 8th century, in the
massive Khazar kingdom between the Black and Caspian seas. The expansion of
Judaism from the Caucasus into modern Ukraine created a multiplicity of
communities, many of which retreated from the 13th century Mongol invasions
into eastern Europe. There, with Jews from the Slavic lands to the south and
from what is now modern Germany, they formed the basis of Yiddish
culture ([28]4).
Prism of Zionism
Until about 1960 the complex origins of the Jewish people were more or less
reluctantly acknowledged by Zionist historiography. But thereafter they were
marginalised and finally erased from Israeli public memory. The Israeli
forces who seized Jerusalem in 1967 believed themselves to be the direct
descendents of the mythic kingdom of David rather than – God forbid – of
Berber warriors or Khazar horsemen. The Jews claimed to constitute a
specific ethnic group that had returned to Jerusalem, its capital, from
2,000 years of exile and wandering.
This monolithic, linear edifice is supposed to be supported by biology as
well as history. Since the 1970s supposedly scientific research, carried out
in Israel, has desperately striven to demonstrate that Jews throughout the
world are closely genetically related.
Research into the origins of populations now constitutes a legitimate and
popular field in molecular biology and the male Y chromosome has been
accorded honoured status in the frenzied search for the unique origin of the
“chosen people”. The problem is that this historical fantasy has come to
underpin the politics of identity of the state
of Israel. By validating an
essentialist,
ethnocentric definition of Judaism it encourages a
segregation that separates Jews from non-Jews – whether Arabs, Russian
immigrants or foreign workers.
Sixty years after its foundation, Israel refuses to accept that it should
exist for the sake of its citizens. For almost a quarter of the population,
who are not regarded as Jews, this is not their state legally. At the same
time, Israel presents itself as the homeland of Jews throughout the world,
even if these are no longer persecuted refugees, but the full and equal
citizens of other countries.
A global ethnocracy invokes the myth of the eternal nation, reconstituted on
the land of its ancestors, to justify internal discrimination against its
own citizens. It will remain difficult to imagine a new Jewish history while
the prism of Zionism continues to fragment everything into an ethnocentric
spectrum. But Jews worldwide have always tended to form religious
communities, usually by conversion; they cannot be said to share an
ethnicity derived from a unique origin and displaced over 20 centuries of
wandering.
The development of historiography and the evolution of modernity were
consequences of the invention of the nation state, which preoccupied
millions during the 19th and 20th centuries. The new millennium has seen
these dreams begin to shatter.
And more and more academics are analysing, dissecting and deconstructing the
great national stories, especially the myths of common origin so dear to
chroniclers of the past.
Shlomo Sand is professor of history at Tel Aviv university and the author of
Comment le people juif fut inventé (Fayard, Paris, 2008)
Translated by Donald Hounam
([30]1) The Torah, from the Hebrew root yara (to teach) is the founding text
of Judaism. It consists of the first five books of the Old Testament (the
Pentateuch): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
([31]2) See David Ben Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Zvi, Eretz Israel in the past
and present, 1918 (in Yiddish), and Jerusalem, 1980 (in Hebrew); Yitzhak Ben
Zvi, Our population in the country, Executive Committee of the Union for
Youth and the Jewish National Fund, Warsaw, 1929 (in Hebrew).
([32]3) The Mishnah, regarded as the first work of rabbinic literature, was
drawn up around 200 AD. The Talmud is a synthesis of rabbinic discussions on
the law, customs and history of the Jews. The Palestinian Talmud was written
between the 3rd and 5th centuries; the Babylonian Talmud was compiled at the
end of the 5th century.
([33]4) Yiddish, spoken by the Jews of eastern Europe, was a Germano-Slavic
language incorporating Hebrew words.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
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Again you have not been paying attention but I will repeat.
I said you need to present physical evidence from bibleland of the same kind found in support of other ancient cultures which supports the OT stories.
I have said none exists.
I await your recitation of the specifics of what you assert to be evidence for your belief in the OT.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Gee. You found the word nation used in an English translation of a verse from Genesis.
Do you happen to know the translator's name and his basis for choosing that word?
Of course not but you represent an unknown person of unknown credentials as an authority for the use of the word.
Did you ever even go to college?
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
I was referring to what you wrote. If you are interested please quote what you wrote and I will reply in detail.
Do you have the least idea how ridiculous it sounds to cite the NSDAP as the authority on who is a Jew?
And I have never said there are NO Jews. You don't pay any more attention to what is written than spin. I suggest you both drop your talking points and participate in the discussion.
you wrote
People plural indicates collective guilt. "forever shamed" means inherited guilt. Guilt of any kind is a religious concept. Both collective and inherited guilt is a specialization found among other gibberish in the OT.
If you insist upon questioning what I say about what you write please have the courtesy to quote what you wrote as I have no intention of doing your work for you.
As you have so loosely used religious terms in matters of guilt I assume you are aware of the question, Why did not the ordinary German speak out? The implied answer is, regardless of the penalty for doing so, they are guilty in their silence.
I ask you, why do not oridinary Jews speak out?
Bringing it all back home, why bother making a distinction between Israelis and Jews when there only a trivially few Jews have spoken against it and next to none have condemned it?
I would be better advised to say Jews and jewish Israelies and some 20% of the population of Israel is non-Jews and they have spoken widely against it.
Further the Israeli government has often declared it speaks and acts in the name of all the Jews. Again, a trivially few have said it does not and none of condemned it for making such assertions.
I am under no obligation to make a distinction between Jews and Israel because I have no evidence there is a significant difference. I have no obligation to make a distinction they themselves do not make.
The truth about Zionists being animals, more specifically thieves and murderers by defintion. Are you not paying attention?
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
I made the point because it negates all this "ethnic" and genetic crap. There is an answer to who is a Jew and it is very simple and not determined by the Chief Rabbi of the NSDAP.
If you have been reading, I have been getting lots of bullshit about ethnic and genetic and race from the nerfbrains here. You appeared to be into the ethnic idea, assuming that all Jews are like those in New York City.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Months ago I gave you the definition of a rabbinical court from NYC on the requirements for a man to be a Jew. You didn't like that either. Do yo have a private definition you are willing to share?
Your exercise is shooting down strawmen does not rise to the level of juvenalia. You should remember I pointed out Jesus is merely a hood ornament for the religion of Christianity. One does have to be a Christian as per the rules of the chosen sect. Then Christian is a generality with the specific sect required to know what type.
But you know that. Not even good juvenalia.
Mere assertion does not make fact. I find it amusing Jews would want to include this mass murderer in their numbers.
Everyone is born into one of those. That makes them nothing. It is merely a recitation of the circumstances of birth.
It was your ravings like these which lead me to conclude you are one of those fake Jews.
Should you ever present physical evidence of the same type as for every other ancient civilization we can discuss the basis, if any, for your empty assertions. Until then I suggest you get a life.
After four days I find time for a couple posts. Before I quit to go to bed there is a reply from you. I wake up answer another in minutes there is a reply from you. Do you have nothing else to do with yourself?
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
I think it's fair to say that there's plenty of physical evidence for the holocaust. If you'd like to refute that, go ahead.
When I say "it's irrelevant who the Nazis thought were Jewish", how do you take that as my saying they're an authority?
Then what are you saying? I'm actually trying to understand, but you never make a clear statement.
Did you just accuse me of focusing on talking points? Have you heard of the expression "the pot calling the kettle black"? I repeat: I'm actually trying to understand what you're saying.
Okay, I didn't realize that you believed that any guilt experienced at all was religious. Do you think the same thing about remorse? Because remorse is a healthy human emotion. Perhaps you don't understand my use of "guilt".
And I think if you read some of the things people said when the American soldiers came in to rescue the detainees, the people in the towns were in such powerful denial about the camps that they did feel guilty in their silence.
There are many who do! A quick Google search reveals Jews Against Zionism:
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/
I don't know - how does this deal with your point? (Whatever that may be.)
Okay, that's understandable since lots of people don't like destruction and killing.
It's no secret that it's an uphill battle to oppose that kind of aggression.
You're under no obligation to do anything! I'm really, truly, just trying to understand what you're driving at.
And as I've said, you remove yourself from serious discourse by referring to people as "animals". If you have a specific problem with Zionists, or the Zionist movement, then this discussion could have some traction, but since you go in circles around "Zionists are bad" and "Jews aren't a clearly identifiable ethnic group", I don't know what you're driving at. You haven't even illustrated the flaws you perceive in the Zionist movement (be they "murderous" or otherwise). I mean, everyone reading what you write gets that you don't like Israel, but you seem genuinely confused as to why you don't.
Okay, Jews aren't an ethnic group. Are we done with this? Because above, I already told you it was irrelevant when considering whether or not the Nazis rounded up people to kill them. If the Nazis thought they were Jewish, they got shipped off. Reasons included being born into a Jewish family, or even having Jewish grandparents. It's as stupid a reason to kill people as any, and the Nazis went with it. If you're pointing out how stupid it was that the Nazis decided to kill an ethnic group that didn't really exist, I'd say that's a fair criticism of the Nazi extermination program. Not only were they horrifically malicious and destructive, but also poor categorizers of human beings.
In the case of Jewish self-identification, I was talking about those born into a Jewish family, or even converted believers who join the Jewish religion. I don't see how that equates to someone claiming physical attributes they don't posses (like dark skin).
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I'm not here to "support[] the OT stories". You should have learnt that way back when you were making silly claims a bout the Hebrew bible. I don't support the stories from the Hebrew bible. That has little to do with the existence of a Jewish state based on Jerusalem. So, specifically what kind of physical evidence would you like that hasn't been presented in archaeological analyses of the area?
You persist in the blunder of confusing biblical traditions with standards of reality.
You've said a lot of senseless things.
As you haven't done it yet, go read Mazar, Ben-Tor, Finkelstein, then tell me what else you need.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
You like wallowing in your ignorance.
Have a look at the LXX (ethnos) and Vulgate (nationis) translations of the text I cited and stop being utterly incompetent... or better still give up trying to talk about something you know nothing about until you learn something about it.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
During the worst of the Nazi regime the Nazis asked known representatives of the Jews whether Karaites were Jews. They said "no" and many Karaites were saved from the sorts of deaths that those representatives weren't. Going on pronouncements by individuals is not necessarily a good indication of reality.
So you have no response to the analogy other than to try to shift the discussion. Typical. You wiggle around the fact that what makes a socio-cultural entity doesn't necessarily fit your dictates of reality.
Typical bait and switch.
I suppose you received nothing from the time that you were born that reflected the socio-cultural complex of your birth. You were a cypher and still are. Right?
It is the socio-cultural context that you are born into that makes you who you are. Few totally leave it. Many deny it while reflecting it.
Yes, I noticed this piece of cretinism in your diatribes. As a motivational analysist you sadly wouldn't make any money.
What sameness are you talking about exactly? Please be specific and I'll try to accommodate you.
Than deal with your tendentious rubbish? It is better to beat it down than let such festering breed.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
I suggest that even a cursory familiarity with all of the popular "CSI" TV shows will lead to a familiarity with the elements of physical evidence. In all but the rarest of cases a body with a forensically established cause of death is required.
I do not find ignorance such as yours uncommon. What is of interest is the cognitive dissonance between what they (should) know about criminal law and their views of holohuggery -- similar to humbuggery in many aspects.
Again I note it laughable for anyone to cite the Nazis as the final authority on who is a Jew. This is another example of cognative dissonance.
27 million survivors in 1945. How can it have been genocide when the actual number of survivors was twice the number of Jews in the world in 1938?
How is it more accurate? I see them as equally accurate. So tell me how to your mind it is more accurate.
I outlined the jewish crimes in Palestine going back to the early 1920s. You have not objected. You have agreed it is going on right now in Gaza. What are you trying to say?
I choose the mode of expression for my writing. You also choose your own mode of expression. I do not try to get you to change yours. I assure you it is a total waste of time for you to try to change mine.
And as you cannot name a single thing unrelated to religion that is common to all Jews you have not established there is any jewish ethnicity.
Colloquially, you are beating a dead horse.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
27 million holocaust survivors in 1945
Then why do you mention it at all?
Perhaps you can explain how "Jews are followers of Judaism in the same way Muslims are followers of Islam" is unclear. I must have posted that a dozen times. You have not questioned statements like that. You do continue to come back saying you do not understand what I mean. That means agenda.
So either explain what you do not understand "Jews are followers of Judaism" here and now or stop coming back pretending you do not understand what that means.
When I first mentioned this I made a clear distinction between personal feelings and socially imposed guilt. If you disagreed with that distinction you should have said so at the time.
27 million holocaust survivors in 1945
Again, when I first mentioned it I said there were a few. There was the White Rose in WWII Germany. So? For hollywood's sake even Tom Cruise was in WWII Germany!
As you know it was brought up in the context of the current slaughter occurring in Gaza. Defense of the massacre by Jews is nearly unanimous. Why do not ordinary Jews speak out? So trivially few have spoken out that one can only assume the vast majority supports the actions of Israel's own Waffen SS.
And it appears only the non-jewish Israelis don't like it. Israel's secret state police, Shin Bet, is working to suppress them.
It is also no secret that removing the owners of the land in Palestine was first mentioned by Herzl. (google it)
It is also no secret that violent removal became the norm for Zionism in the early 1920s.
It is also no secret Jews have supported these crimes from the beginning.
It is also no secret their fellow rednecks of the Christian persuasion have joined them in supporting these crimes.
You are trying to get me to say something that fits your talking points. Why do you keep coming back to things I have explained many times and pretending you do not understand what I have said?
That is your opinion. I have been in public debate for nearly 30 years. You have not. I know what works as a rhetorical device. You do not.
There you go again. I said Jews are NOT an ethnic group. I said all Zionists are murderers and thieves. Yet there you are deliberately MISquoting me. Why do you do that? Do you not know what you are doing?
I said the Jews drove out or murdered the owners of the land and stole it and the rest of their personal property. How can you be confused by that? You must be very easy to confuse. Possibly you are ignorant of the history of that shitty, little country. (BTW: They are proud of shitty. It is the little that bothers them.)
We are done only when you agree a Jew must be a follower of Judaism. We are done when you agree no flavor of atheist can be a Jew. That is why the ethnic subject came up.
If the Nazis are not the authority why do you keep bringing them up in the context of the 27 million survivors?
As there were 27 million survivors, who was exterminated?
Born into a Jewish family? That means atheists who were born into Christian families are Christians, no? Do you not understand what nonsense that is?
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
As without the OT stories there is little known other than the land was inhabited. There has never been a question of the land being inhabited. Yet you keep trying to claim something beyond the physical evidence that the land was inhabited. Yet we are in complete agreement that the land was inhabited.
In my first or second post on this subject I said the land had been inhabited for some 60,000 to 100,000 years. Yet you keep posting when we agree on that point.
So the absolute requirement for physical evidence of the type available regarding other ancient civilizations is for anything you are claiming beyond the land having been inhabited.
That is NOT a license to name a dozen trivial things like 'people passed through it' and 'it rained' and then pretend you can't establish those trivial things so you can't establish anything.
And it is up to you to present physical evidence of whatever it is you are claiming as we are in complete agreement that the land was inhabited.
I said, what YOU assert. Do you not know what you assert? If all you have are appeals to authority then you have nothing.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Forensic evidence such as that found at Nazi gas chambers, crematoriums, the pond by Birkenau littered with matchstick sized splinters of human bone.... that kind of forensic evidence? You know, the forensic evidence that backs up the other evidence such as punch card records, Nazi correspondence, pictures, film, survivor testimony, and Nazi confessions? Sure, if we ignore all that, there isn't much evidence. Then again, if we ignore all of the evidence for any murder, we find that there isn't much evidence. So what you are saying is that we need to ignore all of the evidence in order to see that there was no holocaust. Not much of a physicist, are you, liar?
Again, liar, show where it is stated or even implied that those numbers represent JEWISH holocaust survivors. You can't, because you are a barefaced lying motherfucker, and so you ignore repeated demands to do so. You KNOW that it was NEVER claimed by ANYONE other than your lying white trash self that those were all Jewish. You have no respect for fact, and prove this at every turn. So either PROVIDE SOURCES TO BACK THIS UP, or drop the fucking LIE! You make me want to vomit for being a Caucasian. I feel filthy just knowing that I share ancestry with you somewhere down the line.
You mean Israeli crimes, right, liar? After all, a some of the Israeli military is made up Druze. Then again, you seem to forget that only about 75% of Israeli citizens are Jewish. But once again, mere facts do not the zealot sway.
And you can not name a single thing that is common to all Greeks, English, French, Japanese, Scandinavians , Hispanics, Eskimo, or Seneca either. Therefore there is no such thing as ANY ethnicity, using your own logic. No supposed ethnic group will ever find ALL the people assigned to that group to share anything you would define as ethnicity. There are Latinos that don't speak Latin, Hispanics that don't speak Spanish, Catholics that don't agree with the pope about evolution, Irish that don't eat cabbage, French that don't drink wine... the list goes on and on. It is also noteworthy that ethnicity is determined by several things, including language, biological traits, culture, behaviors, and religion. Your point is mute, you are not allowed to redefine ethnicity to suit your own racist purposes, and you are still a neo Nazi liar.
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.
Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.
As there were 27 million holocaust survivors in 1945 you are obviously misinterperating the physcal evidence.
As I replied last time, in the most extreme case Jews were only half of those in the holy holocaust. As you insist upon 13.5 million Jews having survived the holy holocaust you have no problem with me. You have only a problem with your own insistance. I see no point in revisiting this matter until you learn gradeschool arithmetic.
I mean the Jewish crimes in Palestine began in the 1920s when they took up violence against both the native Palestinians and the British. So history is on my side.
By its own first Basic Law Israel is officially and legally a Jewish state. So Israeli law is on my side.
By its own public statements, usually refuted only by the crickets, Israel says it acts in the name of the Jewish people. So the silence is on my side.
Do you have anything on your side?
My grandfather would have asked if you were kicked in the head by a mule. Were he still here I would have to say yes.
The subject here is only your total inability to name a single ethnic characterist of Jews which is independent of religion. As to the mule, IF in fact I had said there were no such thing as ethnicity then your reply is in agreement with Jews not being an ethnic group.
Be a Mensch. Take a shot at a significant majority characteristic which is categorizable as Jewish rather than something simpler such as eastern European Jew or Palestinian Jew. You have all this time to throw tantrums. Why not do something constructive instead?
Italian derived from the language of Northern Italy so even Italians do not speak Latin or even a descendant of it.
Such juvenalia. Please post what non-religion based characteristics lead to your imagined jewish ethnicity. You waste bandwidth with your name-calling and innumeracy.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Inbred highschool dropout Nazi lie: 24 million Jewish Holocaust survivors;
The mongoloid revised this LIE only after it was pointed out that his figures were incorrect probably a dozen times. I always thought that ' physicists ' were good at math, but he proves that wrong!
Inbred highschool dropout Nazi lie: 13.5 million Jewish holocaust survivors; This LIE is based on an absolute misrepresentation of data from a newspaper article from 2005. The then current calculations put holocaust survivors at a little over 1 million. Deliberately ignoring the fact that a 10% death rate was the current calculation and not a calculation from the 1940's, the white trash idiot then tries to pretend that there were 13 million Jewish holocaust survivors by reverse calculation. The problem is that nowhere in the article does it suggest that 10% of the survivors have been dying every year. He uses these incorrect calculations in a desperate and deliberate attempt to convince his intellectual superiors that he has some fact on his side. It is interesting too that he accepts a newspaper article as authoritative fact, never even considering that the newspaper does not speak for the government and is in fact capable of erroneous print.
Inbred highschool dropout Nazi lie: Neglects to admit that religion is considered an ethnic marker; Builds a straw man and blows it down by redefining ethnicity to suit his lying racist agenda.
Inbred highschool Nazi dropout lie: Insists that the Jews are not an ethnic group, but refuses to recognize his own illogic that leads us to conclude that there are no ethnic groups at all using his narrow and incorrect definition; I challenge the liar once again to use his own criteria and demonstrate to us that there are any ethnic groups. Remembering while he does this that, by his own demands, every single member of the alleged ethnic group must share said characteristic. If any member of the alleged group fails to satisfy this criteria, it must be ruled that they do not constitute an ethnicity. Again, this is the liar's criteria for ethnicity, not my own. Of course the lying coward can simply admit that his definition of ethnicity is incorrect and quit using this lie, but we know that isn't going to happen.
I look forward to exposing many more of this piece of excrements lies in the days and weeks to come. He is a shining example of the neo Nazi movement, and his every exposed lie detracts from their overall strength. Please dear benighted bigot, keep up the good work of the Aryan race. Show us all how duplicitous and untrustworthy your kind is.
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.
Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.
Now I need to teach you demographics too. I doubt you will be able to comprehend it but at least I can say that I tried. The more you insist I explain the more intelligent people will understand completely. You are just making matters worse for yourself.
You endlessly recite the same thing. I give the same reply. You never object to the reply. You simply repeat yourself and I give the reply again but in a better and more complete form that more people can follow. And you appear to want it this way.
And then, on the assumption your two objections are correct, you present two additional arguments showing atheists cannot be Jews.
All you mongoloids did was GUESS an explanation. And it was 27, not 24, million. As I pointed out originally, Israel does not count non-Jews as holocaust victims. I backed that up by pointing out the article also said half of those survivors lived in Israel. As we know Israel only accepts Jews as immigrants, even making it difficult for non-Jewish family members, we know at least half of that number of survivors has to refer to Jews. Further, as we know there are Jews who claim to be holocaust survivors who do not live in Israel we know that more than half that number has to be Jews.
As I said that leaves at least 13.5 million JEWS as survivors in 1945 based solely upon Israel's claim that half of them live in Israel. Why is this so hard for you to understand? I am still interested in 13.5 million jewish survivors as that is roughly the same number of Jews as there were in the world in 1938. But if you have a different number please present your calculations and the basis for them.
There is a specialization of demographics that deals with actuarial statistics, the thing life insurance companies use to determine your rate. The 10% per year refers to those who are still alive today. They have to be at least 64 years old today, 2009-1945. Fact is people who were 65 and older in 1945 would also have been dying at the 10% per year rate. But they do not count in any event because no matter how quickly or slowly they would all be dead now. Death statistics are ALWAYS in terms of the cohort being described. You should know that. You are going to have to learn the rest on your own.
As to the article, if you believe it to be in error on the Israeli government report you are free to correct it. Absent correction it stands. I have seen it cited by many groups included B'nai Brith and the ADL. And they have all assumed the one million means means only Jews.
If you were to correct the article you would be helping many more people than yourself. But until it is corrected it has not been refuted. Therefore it stands without refutation.
Damn!!! That mule must have done a real number on you. Let us assume for a moment you are correct. I said atheists cannot be Jews. You say religion is an ethnic marker. Atheists do not have a religion. Therefore atheists cannot be Jews. You might possibly make an arguement that atheists are an ethnic group but I doubt any mule could have done that much damage and left you alive.
If there are no ethnic groups then Jews are not an ethnic group because there is no such thing. That was the first thing that alerted me to the damage that mule did to you.
Once again you have shown atheists cannot be Jews because they have no religion.
According to the description in the rules I was threatened with you are abusive. One assumes libelous name calling fits the meaning of abusive.
I have once again addressed the issue of the number in the same way I have done in the past. You have yet to disagree with my response. I take silence as agreement.
This time I have even gone so far as to attempt to teach you demographics but there is a limit to both my patience and pedagogical skills and obviously your ability to learn and to read as you did not disagree last time.
You are obviously innumerate as you have been unable to present any calculations of your own.
Despite all your research you have not found a different number from the one million presented in the article which I and many others, including jewish organizations. have used and taken to mean only Jews.
Despite all your research you have not found anyone who says the one million means other than Jews.
You, too, need to get a real life.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Pu-lease, stop with the Sergeant Schultz routine. I've suggested before you continue to talk rubbish that you read something about the topic. As long as you refuse to do so, you will continue to babble, as with the sentence above which started one of your aimless diatribes, which I've snipped.
You claimed no evidence exists. I am still waiting for you to present your case. There is a large body of evidence already in the books of a material agrarian culture that can be observed from prior to the iron age through to the second temple period. As you don't seem to be aware of it, I'll wait for you to get aware, so that you can present a more informed position.
I need to make a clarification about your apparently sclerotic statement. The content of "your belief in the OT" is merely an artifical construct of yours to misrepresent reality. You are sadly deluding yourself and wasting my time repeating such strawmen. This was brought to your attention when you last tried it. My response then was:
You've just rephrased the same absurdity.
Let me remind you of your earlier statement:
I asked you for clarification here: what do you specifically mean by "same kind"? Same kind as what exactly? You have been asked to be specific because I don't know what the fuck you are talking about, especially because you give the impression that you don't know what you're talking about. Please explain, with examples, what "same kind" you are blabbering about.
You need to show that you know the archaeological literature, otherwise I would be wasting my time trying to give you a potted archaeology lesson. So far you've given the impression that you are clueless.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
Inbred highschool dropout Nazi lie: Israel does not count non-Jews as holocaust victims; This obvious lie is refuted by the very article from an Israeli paper that the liar cites. The article makes it clear that they are talking about Jewish AND non Jewish holocaust survivors.
Inbred highschool dropout Nazi lie: Israel only accepts Jews as immigrants; Must be hard to explain the Christian and Muslim populations there, then, hey, liar?
Inbred highschool dropout Nazi lie repeated after refutation: 13.5 million Jewish holocaust survivors. The math deficient lying cretin is once again ignoring that the numbers are CURRENT survivors. It is statistically ridiculous to claim a 10% death rate yearly since 1945.
Inbred highschool dropout Nazi lie repeated after refutation: Ethnicity; Once again, as our resident neo Nazi liar is too slow to grasp things the first, second, or even third time... using your own criteria, demonstrate that ANY ethnic groups exist. Otherwise quit using this strawman argument.
What can I say? Give a Nazi enough rope and he will hang not only himself, but the entire neo Nazi movement by association.
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.
Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.
Mouse's claim to rhetorical skill amuses me. I've yet to see any trace of it, besides resorting to callously humorous insult on occasion, a device used to impress others of similar bias but which when overdone (as by Mouse) succeeds only in advertising its real function - deflection of attention from the flaws in his assertions.
His alleged statistical analysis of surviving jewish populations in Europe in 1945, for example, require a huge amount of qualification which he fails to provide. For a start, it was not just the German government but in fact most European countries who defined "Jewish" both as a religious and ethnic descriptor when compiling census data. While the issue of religious practise would have played a decisive factor in most people so describing themselves we know that many others were willing to describe themselves using the term in its ethnic sense and who were not only non-practising jews but sometimes even vociferously opposed to the religion. So the issue of religion versus ethnicity has never been as clear-cut as Mouse alleges, not that this mattered much to the Nazis when it came to prosecuting their policy of genocide against what they perceived as a distinct sub-population deserving of elimination. And not that it seems to matter much to Mouse either.
For the record, comparison between pre-war and post-war census indicates huge variety from country to country whose jewish populations were targeted by "the final solution". But they yield an overall figure of 9,508,340 people describing themselves as jewish before the war in the occupied countries and 3,546,211 after it (the latter tally taking almost ten years to be computed by a UN commission, by which time it was estimated that the true figure should be revised downwards by a third to reflect the then pattern of emigration). A lot of room for error, in other words, but nowhere to the scale of aberration alleged by Mouse.
His tendency also to fail to distinguish between "jew" and "Israeli" in a modern sense is also noticeable by its persistence, apparently intentional persistence at that. The two are not completely interchangeable, and for a good reason - they indicate two completely different things even if this is not reflected in shoddy news reportage with lamentable regularity (though some editors, such as with the BBC, seem better than others in avoiding conflating the definitions when reporting from the region). There is no denying that jews make up both the largest majority of Israelis and that Israeli governmental policy is formulated by people who describe themselves as jewish, but the historical claim to the territory they inhabit is also based on the notion of a past nation called "Israel" which housed an almost exclusively jewish people. To say that this notion has no historical basis, and that no such kingdom existed, is a claim that would require considerable justification given that its contradiction appears to be confirmed both by archaeological and historical data from antiquity, from sources other than biblical source - which is regarded as assertion rather than primary data by most reputable historians. Analysis of non-biblical (or jewish scripture) sources indicates however that the area did indeed contain such an entity. It fails to corroborate many of the historical claims regarding events in the territory from religious sources, but that is a far cry from contradicting the nation's existence (using the term "nation" to describe any self-governing political entity of the day).
All very dubious stuff coming from Mouse then. When you strip away the personal insults and the bald assertions often based on factual error there is really not much left, except of course a palpable hatred directed against jews in general, and anyone who contradicts him in particular.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
From which I must conclude you are also incapable of elementary arithmetic.
I am getting the impression most atheists are also innumerate.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
You are simply ignorant of math. You confuse your nonsense with math. Nothing more.
You clearly are unable to do math else you would have confirmed it.
As you DID read what I posted you KNOW for a fact that is neither the proper method nor the method I used.
As you know it is not the method I used then you are deliberately lying when you say I did.
Are you a zionist too?
I said, IF it is true religion can be a ethnic marker then atheists cannot be Jews because they have no religion.
Are you illiterate too?
I am still awaiting you to name the first thing that is shared by Jews even if not unanimous. You have already shown if religion is the shared thing atheists cannot be Jews.
I do not expect you to either learn to read nor to learn arithmetic nor to stop lying.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
I agree. You are a believer in secrets you will not reveal.
I agree. You expect me to perform the miracle of showing evidence which does not exist.
Why not find a nice warm place to hang out with your other believers.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
A_Nony_Mouse,
Could you state a source for this 27 million figure you keep mentioning? You keep bringing it up in this thread and your other and I haven't been able to find a real source for Israel declaring 27 million, only some ignorant sod attempting to apply "basic" algebra to something as tricky as a population model as well as making a shoddy assumption that all ages were represented evenly among the survivors. Hell, all ages are not represented evenly among regular populations that haven't been force marched and starved to death.
I would find it dubious to use this single source of poor application of mathematics as counter evidence vs. gas chambers, mounds of shoes and personal effects, eyewitness testimony, Nazi records, charred remains of thousands, and photographs of mass graves. But, you know, that's just me.
The google cached page is here: http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:Zj4ZMjzt7uQJ:giwersworld.org/holo3/holo-survivors.phtml+holocaust+27+million+survivors&hl=en&c... only because I don't want to give the author an actual page hit.
-Triften
If you have trouble remembering what you said, here it is once again:
"[S]ame kind". I'm still waiting for you to clarify. Three times you've been asked.
You've been asked a number of times now what sort of evidence you want, but you don't know, because you know fuck all about archaeology either. You are ignorant about the Hebrew bible that you have pontificated about. You know nothing about the languages involved. You are challenged about what is historical evidence. So, I can't expect you to know what you're talking about in archaeology. The best that you can do is habitual bait and switch. Just look at this gem:
As usual, you know nothing about the subject you are trying to be intelligent about. Bait and switch. Bait and switch. Argument by bait and switch. About the only tangible thing we've got out of you is a fixation for denial regarding Jews. Did the Jewish family up the road when you were a kid make you feel jealous because they had things and you didn't? Don Quixote titling at the big bad Jews.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
I claimed experience. If I had the skill I would use it to keep you folks on matters related to atheism instead of all the side matters you folks want to work up a sweat over. Who in their right mind would be upset over the observation that Jews are followers of Judaism? The ONLY claim to anything beyond that is found in the bible and then only if you don't read to carefully. Amusing but sad to find atheists claiming they can be Jews even if not followers of Judaism for reasons found in the bible that they reject.
It is good to see you are going to provide those details and your calculation based upon them.
How does that have a bearing? It has been pointed out the article does not specifically state it refers to only Jews although that is what it means and the meaning given to it by many jewish organizations. Without debating I am willing to say it refers to everyone and use the "half were jewish" rule to reduce it to 13.5 million jewish survivors.
But just because I miss your point does not mean you are wrong. Show your calculations based upon the points you raise.
I am interested in reading this claimed UN census. Do you have a URL to the UN website? Where did you find it? Did you keep a copy? But there are problems. Russia did not take census by religion so you must find a self-declared census by Russian synagogues. Another problem is the Jewish population of Israel was nearing three million at the time due to immigration from Europe. So the European population would have been at least 2 million higher without that emigration.
As I noted Israel does not make that distinction. By law Israel is a Jewish country. With rare objection Israel openly states it speaks for all the Jews in the world.
What distinction is there to make? I have Israeli law, Israeli custom and jewish silence against making such a distinction.
I asked the last complainer this same question and I received no response. Perhaps you can find an answer.
I am referring to official public statements by Israeli public officials from the Prime Minister on down and the President as quoted in Israeli newspapers such as Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post. These reports are consistent. I have never come across a correction in those newspapers.
If several PMs of Israel saying the same thing without significant objection is not authoritative, what is?
Find a 3000 year old "Welcome to Israel" sign and you have a case maybe. Find the equivalent of what we find in Egypt to identify Egypt 3000 years ago and you might have a case. Until then I suggest you get your nose out of the quack field of "biblical archaeology" and learn the real thing.
But why do you raise this? Even if it had existed back then that give no claim to anyone today to that land. There is NO SUCH THING as a historical claim that is recognized today and the few who make it get slapped down such as Serbia's historical claim to Kosovo. But Serbia's claim is better as it never voluntarily abandoned Kosovo. Jews left Judea voluntarily. They were never expelled. That myth was around and debunked in the 3rd c. AD. Anyone who believes otherwise needs to learn the only thing remotely related is banning Jews from Jerusalem after Rome rebuilt it to add running water and sanitation and the like.
I have no idea who told you that or why you believed them. Should you ever take the time to review the evidence itself you will find it is not true.
I have seen plenty of hatred of Christians and Muslims here. What is the difference? It is just another stupid religion suitable only for idiots.
At times one's druthers are not one's needs.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Hello Mouse.
My source for the figures I mentioned come from Tony Judt's 2005 book "Post War" which has some helpful stuff in the appendix section. The figures came from a document which I see has an E/CN-4 code which, as I'm sure you're already aware, means that it was published by the UN Human Rights Commission. The data was not collected by the UN but by member states and submitted - hence the near-decade delay in publishing.
I really haven't a clue what you require by way of calculation after that. The figure of roughly seven million jewish deaths squares with data compiled both by Nazis and by post-war governments.
You seem underinformed on census information generally, but especially when it comes to nationality, religion and ethnicity distinctions in the data. In Germany, for example, both religion and ethnicity were requested in censuses compiled from Weimar up to the war (three in all) with one exception - the 1933 census specified only "Glauben", not "ethnic group". Jewish was regarded as a valid answer for both but the categories were quite separate and the Wannsee Conference discussed at length using the ethnic-group data as a base since it contained a higher number of jews, a course they took since it was most likely to ensure total eradication even if it was bound to include people whose link to judaism was tenuous. Other countries' census data was also available to them. The Dutch 1930 census was handy in identifying only areas of potential urban concentration of jews. Polish data conflated religion with race. Bulgarian data ignored both religion and ethnicity (and it is salient to note that the "final solution" was never instigated there). French data was even better than German data - it provided the genocide planners with detailed mixed-race family data and even their addresses.
Given the statistical nightmare this incongruously compiled data posed to the implementers of genocide, you can imagine therefore the problems presented statistically in post-war Europe to those with the grim task of assessing their success. Post-war Germany, France and the Low Countries used property registers to calculate casualties (of jews and every other category of victim). In Eastern Europe this wasn't possible, though emigration was monitored and regulated at an earlier stage than the west and with more thoroughness, so that by the time census figures could be amassed again a reasonably accurate estimation could be made.
Polish casualties therefore were late in confirmation and worse than even the most dire predictions had guessed. That their publication coincided with the first glimmering of holocaust-denial in eastern Europe is no accident. Notwithstanding the fact that the eventual figure included post-war victims of further pogroms undertaken under soviet rule the sheer scale of their numbers shattered the cosy presumption that the death camp figures were exaggerations and that the "balance" had made it to Israel. So much so that it was easier, for some people, simply to refuse to believe it.
I see you're one of them.
Your further points regarding the ancient territory of Israel and how it was administered reveals a woeful lack of knowledge on your part, or a strange tendency to consider that only super-states of the day, such as dynastic Egypt, qualify as self-governing entities. Should you dismiss the evidence that Israel enjoyed homogeny then quite a lot of other states of the era which are considered of historical provenance must also be dismissed - which begs a few obvious questions historically that I doubt very much you are prepared or qualified to attempt to answer.
Your other point - that Jews left Judaea voluntarily is a moot one and hinges very much on what you consider "voluntary" in the circumstances. All huge population movements and dispersals can be considered as voluntary if the reasons behind them are not understood and the volition alien to an ignorant mind removed by millennia and thousands of miles from its source. But to infer that a group numbering hundreds of thousands should all just wake up one morning and decide to quit their homeland is a little naive. You need to examine the events in the context of what was happening at the same time at every point on the Roman territories' perimeter and in the context of prior political subjugation of the area by Rome to even begin to evaluate what level of voluntarism applied.
It is a fascinating period of history to study and one where many long-held assumptions deserve demolition, but ignorant assertion is not how that study is best served. Especially if that assertion is simply one manufactured to lend false credence to more modern ones, equally ignorant and smacking totally of agenda rather than a desire to establish veracity of any description. If you can manage to contain your argument within the conventions of politeness and the bounds of reason, and support them with fact of course, then I would be happy to reciprocate.
But if not, then no thanks.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
What might be that E/CN-4 code? I have always stated I am interested in the post war census figures. If there is a UN report as you claim which contains such numbers what I want is the correct citation for the numbers in that report. Surely you can provide the information you claim exists.
That claim is another problem. Lots of people believe such data exists but no one appears to know first hand just what it is or where to find it. That means they are repeating what they were told without the least explanation of why they believed what they were told. I refer to it as a holy holocaust because it has only believers who always believed and were never skeptics.
For example you refer to but do not cite a derivative publication by the UN. That is like quoting Rabbi Schneerson on Judaism and about as rational.
The number of survivors in 1945 is the number under discussion here. Frankly I am surprised no one took objection to even 1 million being alive today. The popular mythology holds 6M were holocausted, 3M were kept prisoners behind the Iron Curtain, 2.5M emigrated to Israel and now some multiple of 1M alive today having also been around in 1945. Given only 9M total it is obvious there are errors in the millions some place.
Be that as it may, given the believers have had since 1945 to get their act together one expects there to exist a compilation of pre and post war [i]worldwide[/] census data for Jews and simple subtraction applied. But believers never consider such things important and when there is a discrepency it is attributed to antisemitic arithmetic.
You have no personal knowledge of any such compilation of dead Jews. Nor can you identify any such compilation of dead Jews. Of course official sources with a pulished methodology is required. Words ABOUT such compilations are not the compilations themselves. Only the compilations themselves are acceptable to the standards of a research paper.
As above, to the standards of a research paper. Be the first to produce the material.
I am one who has researched the subject and was not able to find such material but able to find no one who was able to find such material.
I assume you have the deepest faith in a religious sense in what you are reciting but all believers have to some day face the fact their faith has no evidenciary basis.
Of course there have always been village elders. However there is no evidence of anything more than that in bibleland prior to the Greeks.
There is absolutely no evidence of any Israel and jewish, israeli archaeologists such as Finkelstein have even written of it. Israel is as mythical as Abraham and Moses and David and Solomon.
As there is no archaeological evidence of any Israel your simple, childlike faith in a book of magic does not comport with a claim of atheism which is apparently a false claim.
There is absolutely no evidence the Judeans were expelled by the Romans. That myth existed and was debunked 1700 years ago.
Where did you get the idea they left? They simply converted to Christianity and later to Islam. That is the reason the Sephardim are genetically the same as the Palestinians and unrelated to the Ashkenazim.
This is not a secret. It has been known since the conservsions happened.
I am more than willing to examine any PHYSICAL evidence you care to present of this mythical Israel and mythical Israelites or any of their mythical heroes.
I really did not expect an atheist to support the religious mythology of the OT.
Are you really happy here?
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Your speciality seems to be intentionally misstating the other person's point so that your "refutation" of points never made can then be used to advertise your prejudice. You even use this blatant misrepresentation of another person's viewpoint as grounds for slinging insults at them.
That is not discussion. It is not even honest preaching. It is tedious rant interlaced with equally boring personal insult.
Find someone else to talk to yourself with.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I'm still waiting for an explanation of the kind of evidence A_Nony_Mouse would be satisified with to demonstrate the existence of a Jewish state/nation/realm that had autonomy at least twice, 1) during the century or so prior to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, and 2) during the Hasmonean period. A_Nony_Mouse has unaccountably refused to accept the contemporary evidence from Babylon and Assyria for the existence of the Jewish people, as he does with the communications found at a Jewish colony at Elephantine which had communications with Jerusalem in the 5th century BCE. He showed no interest in the Yehud coins I mentioned from the Persian and Greek periods. Still he claims that there is no archaeological evidence for an entity we can call the Jewish people. At this stage, I have asked A_Nony_Mouse three times to tell me what sort of evidence he will deign to accept. So, A_Nony_Mouse, for a fourth time, please could you specify exactly what sort of evidence would satisfy you as evidence for the existence of a Jewish society in Judea during the periods I've referred to? As it is you seem to be living in denial.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
He is right to draw attention to the fact that many things cited as evidence for the existence of a "jewish people" is construed from inference. An Egyptian execration text from the time that Canaan was under direct Egyptian rule mentions Jersualem and its people (as an enemy). But this was in the Middle Bronze Age when, at least according to unbiased archaeological theory, the area's divisions of power mirrored the norm for the rest of the greater Eastern Mediterranean region - a hotch potch of city states which, under shifting alliances, could sometimes approximate a "nation" in appearance. Contemporary events in Greece are a good example of this pattern and are better documented.
The archaeology then detects a period roughly around 700BCE where the city takes a stride forward in material development, normally proof during the period of it acquiring a central administrative purpose in a greater territory than before. Its trading prowess seems to have taken a hike upwards also, further indication of its function as a capital. The temple complex mirrors the general aggrandisement of the period.
Jerusalem therefore fits a pattern which is common to several other important city sites in the region, and these invariably coincide with the emergence of enlarged communities operating as independent states and with power enough to maintain themselves against incursion and acquisition by others. During this period the notion of a "jewish people" in nationalistic terms might have emerged but it was nascent and short-lived. It seems that it did however breed sufficient attachment to the locality to ensure that those dispossessed by eventual invasion merely iterated the assertion of "jewishness" when they resumed control.
None of this is evidence for David, or Solomon, or indeed 99% of the scriptural version of the area's history. But that is not the same thing as concluding that Jerusalem and quite a large bit of territory under its dominion did not emerge, did not merit the title of state, and a jewish state at that.
But I have deduced that Mouse is not interested in points for the sake of their accuracy or relevancy, only for the sake of their usefulness in feeding his prejudice. If it is not fed by truthful observation then invention suits him just as well. Life is too short to argue with eejits like that.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Not particularly eloquent but a clear accusation.
Do you have an example or two?
Or are you just blowing smoke?
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
You appear to be referring to a conjectured translation of a set of glyphs as israel. If you are referring to something else please be more specific.
A similar increase is seen on the Greek Peninsula and southern Turkey/Asia Minor as as far as Sicily and Italy. There is a modest suggestion of it as far as Iberia with the trading city of Tartessos. Unfortunately no one knows where Tartessos was any more than "west of Syracuse."
Differing from the cities descendant from Hellenic or Mycenaen culture there is no evidence of anything beyond the 700 BC level. If these are to be elevated to city-states we find they never approached the level of the Greek city-states. They developed art, literature, math, architecture, music, literature, philosophy, astronomy, science, nothing. Thus the most we can say is they reached a stagnation of culture whose peak may have been at most control of segments of the trade routes for purposes of taxation.
It is not that the region was limited in expansion potential. Damascus grew and spread into "bibleland" such that the people there called themselves the Palestine Syrians. The Phoenicians established their city-states and introduced the precursor of the alphabet we use today.
As to a united culture there is no evidence of even a modest unity as the Acheans achieved in repelling the Persians. It was Alexander who first united Hellenic culture. There is no evidence of any such unification. It is not found in the 5th c. BC by Herodotus nor in the 3rd c. BC by Alexander. It first appearance is with the Herodian kings who were uniformly hated by the religious caste.
You have presented no evidence for Jerusalem being any more than a city-state. Even if it were a city-state it was not powerful enough to be worth the time of Alexander to conquer it IF it existed in his time.
You started presenting a reasonable summary of what is seen in the region as a reflection of the thrust of events in the eastern Med.
You erred in assuming much more than is in evidence in regarding to even the existence of Jerusalem as a city-state in the time of Alexander.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
The state of which Jerusalem functioned as administrative centre did not need to emulate hellenistic contemporaries in order to qualify as synchronous in terms of evolution from isolated settlement. In fact the same is true of all the small kingdoms in the region around the time who seem to have been galvanised into expansion more or less for the same reasons. But none of them rivalled, or indeed needed to rival more illustrious neighbours further afield. They needed only to retain sufficient mass to withstand annihilation. The proto-Israeli entity actually failed in this regard, as did two of its successor manifestations, but for it to fail and its failure to be recorded by others, it had to have existed. That the religious texts emphasise a bond between the religion and a very specific region with a very specific power-centre and culture is not isolated posturing or retrogressive expansionism by a later religious elite. It corresponds with what the archeology also reveals in the vicinity.
For your assertions to have any validity in the light of archaeological research one would have to assume that a powerful, if occasionally transient state existed in the locality but that its people had nothing to do with Judaism at all. That is where you depart radically from the existing view and where it is insufficient for you simply to demand others prove you wrong. When you make such bold assertions they require proof themselves, and the motive for having arrived at such deductions from whatever evidence you propose also deserves explanation. So far you have simply avoided doing so.
My own personal interpretation of the archeological record (which is indeed plagued by the amount of religious agenda-driven work that has been done in the past) is that the area produced extremely transient but pugilistic statelets precisely because of its geopolitical and geographical location and its terrain, which lent it an importance to expansionist neighbours only when on a very ambitious push, which occurred occasionally and was never withstood by Israel. It was in the nature of such states (indeed it still is) to wildly exaggerate their importance, even when contemporary events contrived to contradict them. That is why the biblical version of Israel's history is a load of crap. Alexander's race through the region is another of history's exaggerated events by the way given that it did not lead to the dynastic conclusion he had envisaged and quickly deteriorated after his death into more or less the same dynamic as before. His own chroniclers however reckoned the area as vassal to Egypt, which is a very fair assessment for his period, and included its conquest as axiomatic when its two greatest neighbouring power bases were subsumed into the Macedonian's domain.
But to infer that the Judaic identity which was obviously honed throughout this period was a subsequent invention (of whom I wonder) and assigned to the territory retrospectively is a massive claim. I await your supportive evidence with interest.
But as I said - keep it civil or you will lose yet another interlocutor.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Unfortunately you are arguing by analogy. As such we have ZERO knowledge of bibleland from anything but Archaeology (the bible does not match the archaeology as even believers admit) while from Greece and Anatolia we have both archaeology and a modest survival of written records from and close to this period. Without admitting the Greek analogy you have nothing but the archaeology.
As I noted, the only thing which united the peninsula and Anatolia was Alexander with what he inherited from his father. There is no evidence of unifying activity in bibleland.
There was nothing of interest when Pompey came to the region settling local disputes for gold and eventually annexing the entire region.
One of the things which struck me as interesting is the absense of a secular history of the region. Even the few essays that appear to be secular follow the bible outline without mentioning the bible and leave out things which are not in the bible. This is one reason why stick to what is known of the region from Herodotus, Alexander and Pompey. They are left out of the essays. A secular history without secular sources but only those with a bible connection is what I have found.
Excuse me but the archaeological record shows nothing but villages and a a few places with walls that could be called minor city-states. If they were ruled by kings rather than clan chieftains that is not in evidence.
What we do know from Herodotus is that by the time the Persians arrived the region was ruled out of Damascus and the people of Palestine considered themselves Syrians. The idea of "annihilation" is a bible thing and quite rare as the dead do not pay tribute.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
I am writing this having read your contributions to another similar thread , one which you yourself seem to have opened solely as a platform for stating your denial that the attempted extermination of European jews ever occurred, so it should come as no surprise to me to see you operating equally amazing denial with respect to the history of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Such an approach exceeds ignorance since to maintain it one has to apprise oneself of the facts which one then feels obliged to deny, a form of anti-education and a subversion of intellect which typifies a potentially rational mind poisoned by its slavish adherence to a narrow agenda.
I had planned to dissect your assertions against the fact in your last post in sequence but, having read through both of these threads now, I can see that your response would be simply to ignore those items constituting proof against your stance, issue new denials of fact and, should you feel neither tactic sufficiently protects you in the comfort zone of your own self-inflicted ignorance, proceed to disparage and insult the person who counters you. Suffice to say that your dismissal of the historical record which does not suit your prejudice has become, through your constant employment of it, not only a cliche but a signal to all but the illiterate that the rest of your points are, at best, suspect but more likely worthless.
You have done a good job advertising your agenda, however deplorable it may be in terms of bigotry and lack of respect for historical truth. But whether you will ever realise it or not you have also done a marvellous job in exposing the innate hatred and anti-intellectual posturing behind all those who share your view but express it clumsily, in so eloquently revealing it in your own case. You might not see yourself as an object of pity but you have mine. An intellect lost to rationality feeds the cancer of ignorance which blights our species and of which, as you demonstrate, religion is not the only manifestation.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I started no thread for any such purpose.
Why do you feel it necessary to lie about what I have done?
Do hope repetition will make such lies true?
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml