This piece in the Forward saying that 58 percent of American Jews are now marrying out brightened my day; it occurred to me that I feel less guilty now about marrying out than I ever have, that I even feel a certain pride in marrying out: that I am part of a great moment in Jewish history in which Jews turn out from self-absorption.
For centuries Jews were a nation inside other nations. Thus the longstanding Jewish question in Europe: how to deal with this cohesive minority that had ancient laws and its own language and customs but played an important part in the modern state. The answers were assimilation, anti-Semitism, extermination, transfer (emigration/Zionism).
Those answers are all over now. Jews are fully integrated in American society. Our former importance as alien professionals– doctors, lawyers, bankers, scientists to the goyim even during the days of Gentlemen’s Agreement– has given way to full participation in the American Establishment. And with that power, we have helped build a nation in the Middle East that is a regional hegemon that tyrannizes a minority.
And so the great challenge to Jews right now is to come to terms with this new identity, as fully-empowered.
Yet the leading spokespeople for Jews, most of them formed by the Never-again commandment, are all concerned with that old encapsulated question: What is good for the Jews? Thus a Jewish chauvinist like Jeffrey Goldberg has a very successful career as a journalist. And neocon politicians like Joe Lieberman have incredible power. All speak for that Jewish feeling of being an outsider minority. When the reality couldn’t be more different.
To repeat, that is the great challenge to Jews in history right now: the acceptance that the 2000 years in which ‘we governed ourselves, and were semi-autonomous, responsible only for ourselves‘ (as Michael Walzer put it), are over. We have entered an era in which we are the governors of others, and in fact tyrannize nearly 5 million Palestinians; a racism we rationalize through an ideology of superiority that I grew up with, that Jews are smarter.
Our challenge is to learn to treat the non-Jewish world with respect. That respect means: When international human rights standards are invoked, ala the Goldstone report, we don’t scoff and say, No one can judge us. When non-Jewish scholars critique Jewish power in America, we don’t conduct forums calling them anti-Semites. We cease to treat the Palestinians as animals, and we accept that what fairly comes with American wealth/status/power is scrutiny by journalists and citizens (not to mention marriageability).
So I see my choice to marry out in that larger historical context. Jews are turning their faces to the outside world and meeting others as equals. Yes, some Jews who married other Jews are undertaking that work, too. But I understand my own decision as reflecting interest and respect for other cultures, at a time when Jewish life is in desperate need of those qualities. (Not to mention Jewish intelligence, which is being destroyed by the necessity of arguing that apartheid and permanent war are good things.)
Its just A choice Phil. It is neither the “right” one, nor the “wrong” one.
Its not a new one, and there is no way that it will kill the self-identification of the Jewish people that do choose to intentionally marry within the Jewish community, or invite their new spouses to join the Jewish community.
You see nothing that might be a tad annoying to non-Jewish Americans when Adelson (born, bred, and with the achieved in the USA status of # 3 richest American [now fallen to #20 or so, but rising up the list again, married to Israeli) states in his interview (referenced and discussed on another recent article on this blog) that he
had no interest at all in politics but when he became so interested, he has never thought anything important except “Is it good for the Jews?”
And Lieberman, as a high US congress man, and Goldberg, as am influential MSM
man–how about them with the same attitude?
All AIPAC parrots.
I don’t think that is merely a matter of personal choice.
I think it’s time to at least require public swearing of a loyalty oath to the USA for anyone working in or for government, even private contractors. A soldier born in the USA has to do it, and some government officials upon entering office. New
citizens from foreign lands have to do it. Maybe it’s only symbolic, but it will at
least for a second make those swearing allegiance to the USA aware where their
prime allegiance should be placed. Time to put it back in place in our K1-12 schools too. I guess nothing can be done about the likes of Adelson adults–except if all our government employees checking out, e.g., the funding objectives of tax-exempt
NGOs had to swear the loyalty oath–maybe they’d look as closely at Jewish
charities as they do, e.g., Arab charities.
“I think it’s time to at least require public swearing of a loyalty oath to the USA for anyone working in or for government, even private contractors. A soldier born in the USA has to do it, and some government officials upon entering office. New
citizens from foreign lands have to do it. Maybe it’s only symbolic, but it will at
least for a second make those swearing allegiance to the USA aware where their
prime allegiance should be placed. Time to put it back in place in our K1-12 schools too.”
You betcha! You know, citizen, I think you would be very happy in Israel! Maybe your wife can get you in!
We prefer a big tent so anybody can come in and enjoy the festivities, partake of
the goodies, sing along, get out on the dance floor.
I don’t know what’s so strange about thinking that anyone who works for the US government in a policy-making position ought to actually be loyal to the United States.
Well, Citizen, as far as I know every federal employee takes an oath of allegiance to the US, as well as every elected federal official.
Beyond that, the oath itself is meaningless–not only is the term “allegiance” to the US highly subjective politically–anyone from anarchists to fascists could justify that allegiance–, but also as long as US foreign policy is coextensive with Israel’s domestic and foreign policy, who among those zionists, likudniks, etc., could be tarred with the brush of non-allegiance?
Yeah, pineywoodslim, I know you are right; just look at how the Kennedy brothers were foiled by those who simply changed their former organizational name to AIPAC, and setting up a less direct funding process for its agenda. Hundred of clone organizations followed suit–often those organizational names are complete
red herrings as to their actual agenda–it always helps that donations are fungible.
Well maybe we could apply the oath in a negative way. The employee wouldn’t have so much to swear loyalty to the United States as swear not to put the interests of hostile foreign countries (such as Russia, China, Iran or Israel) ahead of those of the United States.
Yeah Richard, I’ll never forget the way one kippah-headed ziuocaine addict over at Greenwald’s described the process of marrying and converting a Jamaican women. He called it “rolling your own”. He was very proud of the expression.
Hey, Mooser, do you have a link or archival timeframe for that post? Would love to read it.
Oh Lord, piney, it’s buried among literally thousands of comments which piled up at Greenwald’s earlier this year when he was writing on Israel-Palestine issues. I wouldn’t know where to start.
My advice is: just take my word for it. That’s better than a link, any day!
” or invite their new spouses to join the Jewish community.”
That works in reverse, too, Richard, I’m assuming? So when Gentile spouses invite their Jewish victims, oops, I mean mates, to join their particular little “community”
that’s all cool with you, huh?
And of course, in accordance with Jewish Law (I had the whole set of those once, there 121 volumes) the Gentile Mothers get to direct the religious affiliation of the children?
You’re cool with all that, right Richard?
LOL. Waiting for Dick’s response–I predict there won’t be one. BTW, when I was young that was standard Roman Catholic mandate–the kids had to be raised in the Catholic faith; otherwise no priest would agree to a wedding between a Catholic and anyone outside the faith unless the couple promised to do that. I haven’t kept on
it (I left that faith in my heart by the time I was in 7th Grade (while I was an altar boy), though I had to pretend to go to church etc on Sundays until pretty late in High School) but I am sure it’s probably changed–anyone know?
It has not changed.
Looks like you are correct, Eva–I just googled it to make sure–thanks!
Well, Dick Witty, here’s a rabbi’s comment on the subject:
Adam Keller, editor of the Tel Aviv-based The Other Israel , spoke at length on the issue during a lecture tour of the US in September 2004, especially in the course of an intense and highly emotive debate with right-wing Jewish hecklers on the university campus at Fullerton, California. Among other things he said on that occasion:
“I find this term, ‘Silent Holocaust’, more obscene than all the pornography in the world put together. The Holocaust, from which my mother and my father barely escaped and in which many of their relatives perished, was the systematic genocide and mass murder of millions of people, solely because of their ethnic and religious identity. The so-called “silent holocaust” is the freely chosen exercise by human beings of the right to choose a spouse and live a happy and satisfying life with him or her, a right specifically guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which the State of Israel is one of the first signatories. Only a monstrously perverted mind can possibly conceive of making such a comparison. This comes from a mindset in which an individual counts for nothing, his or her wishes count for nothing, and the individual’s only worth is as being a component of an overwhelming, all-supreme Nation or Ethnos. This is a racist way of thinking, a fascist way of thinking. It is, I must say, Hitler’s way of thinking, and I am deeply ashamed that some Jews have taken it for their own.”
As you know, Dick Witty, the phrase “silent holocaust” in the context of Jewish intermarriage refers to the concern that marrying a Gentile risks enhancing the
on-going trend of assimilation and losing an obsession like yours with Jewish
“continuity.” The originator of the phrase said it was appropriately applied by him
because the result is the same as Hitler’s goal: no Jews on earth. I guess he assumed
as self-identified jews lessen, all the holocaust history taught in, e.g., USA schools
from early on in our education system will be deleted, and all those holocaust museums on public land (and private land) will be demolished.
I forgot to put quotes around the comment regarding Adam Keller, and he’s not a rabbi, but is (was?) an Israeli editor. I also forget to give the url source:
link to wapedia.mobi
It’s late and I’ve not had a bite to eat today, so gotta go.
The desire of some Jews to self-identify strikes me as no different from the desire of Aryan Germans to self-identify. Both cases strike me as a good deal less than fully enlightened. Besides, I thought leftists considered diversity a moral imperative. Then why do some Jewish leftists ignore the call to religious, cultural and or racial diversity when it comes to choosing a wife?
The desire of some Jews to self identify strikes me as no different than the desire of some African Americans to self identify. Both cases strike me as a desire to delve into the intricacies of identity and fully explore the riches of one’s own culture.
“The desire of some Jews to self identify strikes me as no different than the desire of some African Americans to self identify.”
Holy Shit! That’s a good one! And of course, those African Americans who don’t wish to identify spend inordinate amounts of money on chalk and flour, but it does no good unless they can also afford expensive and time-consuming conks.
Yup, I can just hear those African American who don’t wish to identify when the Klan comes around: “Nosuh, ain’t no Negroes here, suh! We’se just a bunch of high-class WASPS what had an unfortunate encounter with a piece of burnt cork and a brillo pad!”
Ah, the alternative universe of Zionists!
“desire to delve into the intricacies of identity and fully explore the riches of one’s own culture”
For God’s sake, man, don’t hurt yourself! It is not actually possible to get your own head up your own cloaca, although, damn, Wonderful Jew, you come awfully close!
The Aryans made very similar arguments. Why is good for Jews and blacks to self-identify but bad for Nazis? Self-identification has some serious handicaps and implicit disdain for the “other” is right at the top.
Richard, I agree with you that there is no right or wrong choice as far as intermarriage. I think Phil does a good job of describing the significance of his and others’ choices, in terms of a changing world and a correspondingly changing Jewish identity.
You felt guilty about the girl you married? You need to do the twelve-step two-step, double time, at Schmendricks Anonymous
You are one pathetic <i.schlub Weiss. I’d get my bones broken before I ever admitted to that. With the certainty that my wife would cheerfully break them if I did.
Or is he always trying to make Phil guilty about the girl he married? Maybe he goes both ways (at different moments in his pressured noggin). Yeah, that’s the ticket!
And, Mooser, you are projecting at the same time. You could just bait her with your own admission, she’d break maybe a nose bone–but then you could divorce her
for righteous spousal abuse. You could take your bandaged bone right into court
and get most of the property. Sound good?
Not a good plan, Citizen. Everything is in her name, in case my warrants catch up with me. Or that’s what she told me when I signed the papers.
“that I am part of a great moment in Jewish history in which Jews turn out from self-absorption.”
After, of course, the apropriate and approved time spent feeling guilty about it! Ah, Phil, there’s a perfect Yiddish word for you, “faker”.
Phil says he’s feeling less guilty by the day. Maybe he hopes to catch up with your
appropriate and approved time parameters alloted to feeling guilty? Is he less a
faker than you? Or more? Hard to tell. I guess you need to spell out what you mean by “faker” in context here of his article and your comment. Every joke is immersed in
fakery/pretense, no? Part and parcel of the comedic game, yes?
Citizen, you know Yiddish? Cool!
Maybe Rev Hagee, and Palin, Limbaugh do to–Scofield version. Senator Lieberman prefers real Yiddish–they’re all a joke too–but their self-absorption
is for all time–or is that, the end of time? Nice to feel one is being cared for–gives me more time to watch that self-proclaimed Italian American stand-up comedian
do her dishing out on HBO–fun to watch her do her-Talmudic-Scofield parody
of the current USA bible. Of course, like all good comedians, she knows just what to include, and what to leave out.
And Phil will never, ever, “catch up” to me in feeling guilty, so you can just forget about that. Say, did I ever tell you the worst thing I ever did?
Bless you my son, and now–your confession? And please, you don’t need to lean so close to my little veiled window screen. I promise I won’t give you more than three Our Father’s and a dozen Holy Marys. Yes, my son?
PS: Maybe he was trying to catch up to you in feeling not guilty?
“Maybe he hopes to catch up with your
appropriate and approved time parameters alloted to feeling guilty?”
Citizen, you know damn good and well it is my frequently expressed wish that no one should ever feel guilty about who they marry, nor should anyone ever feel guilty for getting married. I would say if the thought of marrying someone makes you feel guilty, you aren’t ready to get married, frankly.
In addition, I fully concur with both Ann Landers and Dear Abby: Go to the wedding! Dance, have a good time, and wish them every happiness!
After all, those two have a lifetime of making each-other feel guilty to look forward to!
So now I’m projecting? I thought you were projecting! I am happily married, just like you and Witty! And Phil! My whole little nuclear family is happy. And my wife never even vaguely threatens to beat me up. Otherwise, sound advice Dear Mooser–Ann and Abby would approve!
“I am happily married, just like you and Witty!”
And a fine wife he has made me! I just ignore all his religious and ZIonist prattlings, as long as my dinner is on the table when I get home from schul.
I meant happily married like you are to your wife and Witty (I assume without warrant) is to his wife.
“I meant happily married like you are to your wife and Witty”
Oh my God, if my wife sees this, I’m dead! You know what she’s like!
On the other hand, marrying both a man and a woman? That was big of me!
Aw’ c’mon! You knew that was coming, and nobody said you had to sit still for it.
I’d feel sorry for you if that happens, Mooser, but I’m too busy feeling sorry for you with the notion that you’d be married to Witty. I can’t imagine what that’s like — you ask him to do the dishes and he goes on this long rambling diatribe about how his “Jewish self-determination” is being violated.
“years in which ‘we governed ourselves, and were semi-autonomous, responsible only for ourselves‘ (as Michael Walzer put it), are over.”
You mean the 2000 years in which we got persecuted from pillar to post, kicked out of countries, and during which others told us how, and where to live? Those years? Yessirreedeedee, indeed, us Jews are coming out to the world, and the goddam world better meet us on our terms, huh, Phil!
Yeah, well, at least you didn’t have to pay a toll to walk across the bridge. Would you rather have been a serf? Be conscripted?
“Would you rather have been a serf?”
From MAD’s “A Look at Surfing”:
“See him? He’s the coolest guy at the beach! He’s so cool, they call him “Iceberg”!
“Iceberg? Who ever heard of a Jewish surfer!”
I just read an Israeli article the other day describing young Israeli’s surfing in the still waters nearby. No details on how they were accomplishing it though, but indication was they were enjoying surfing, and all the latest surf duds and equipment. Must be a difference between an Israeli young man and a (merely?) Jewish one?
” that I am part of a great moment in Jewish history in which Jews turn out from self-absorption.”
And if I hadn’t spent so much time in self-absorption and feeling guilty, I might have even recognised it when it came along fifty years ago. But, of course, it didn’t really happen until it happened to me!
Hey, some people are slow-learners. There was an article on here a few days ago
by a guy who awoke way before Phil did, age-wise–maybe university education is getting
better for more recent generations of Jewish American.
You are probably right, Citizen, some of us just don’t get the right e-mails, or got to the right tea-parties, where the benefits of loyalty oaths are expounded.
But Jeez (oops) why not just make it easy, and pretty goddammed definitive, by simply asking people to kiss a Crucifix, or pray in the name of Jesus or something.
I mean, we are talking wheat from chaff, sheep from goats, those who live in Christ’s Saving Glory and those who will expire unshriven and unannealed, meriting only eternal damnation! Why take chances?
Who do you want running America, the sheep or the goats? I think the question pretty much answers itself, if begged.
I wouldn’t know–how about everybody just kiss some flag? Maybe do a little nodding shuffle around it, while being filmed for the ready archive?
Yeah, that guy really got me. It was the way we were supposed to be proud of him for his ignorance.
But you know, Citizen, I just had a flash of insight! I know what happens next!
Look, all we got to do to solve the entire Israel-Palestine problem is to get the Zionists (and you know who I am really talking about…) to the place where they can start blaming Gentiles for “forcing” them into Zionism. Sure, there’s a big psychic cost there for Jews who have been conditioned to be proud of Zionism and it’s Jewish association, but it doesn’t have to be that way, and considering that it isn’t paying off the way we would like, I think it could be worked.
Come to think of it, Israelis have already adopted that “the Palestinians make us shoot them” thing, and this is only a short distance away.
So Zionism becomes just another example (once Israel has been sucked dry, which won’t be too long) of Gentile persecution! “They (the Gentiles) forced us into this horrible place, into a situation which forced us to become murdererers, or otherwise types bad people! Oy vey is mier if we could only get out from this terrible place (with which we have no connection, we would prefer Scarsdale or a condo at Miami Beach) we would go, but you can’t hold us responsible for what was done here, with Zionism, cause it was the Gentiles (gave us the land, billions of dollars, insisted Jewish refugees go there, military support, etc.) who forced us to become Zionists!
I’m telling you, offer them that, and the Zionists will snap at it faster than a hungry large-mouth at a Hula-Popper! They get to blame everyone else and avoid responsibility, how can they resist? Work along those lines and you’ll have Israel dismantled in twenty years, after paying healthy lifetime subsidies to all the former Israeli residents, of course.
Probably the first achievable plan I have read to solve I/P conflict. It will be costly though.
Sounds like a grand plan–then, on top of the billions of US Gentile tax dollars
going to Israel each year, we could magnify those dollars with reparations from Gentile Americans only–every Jewish Israeli could afford a second home in Scarsdale, Miami Beach, or a sole one–their choice, especially if we had the German allied countries during the Third Reich also pay reparations–that is, the Gentile citizens of those countries.
I thank you both for responding to my plan, but I gotta tell ya’; it was right off the top of my head, through my hat and off my cuff, and I’m sure it’s not clear, nor clearly expressed, but the gist is there, and I thank you for seeing it among the clutter.
Why the hell didn’t I see this a long time ago? Deep down, you couldn’t get it out of them with a crowbar,but the Zionists feel really guilty about what they have done! Just terrible about it. All we have to do is say: “Don’t feel bad, bubele, it wasn’t your fault, it was the result of persecution” and they will be so relieved they will do anything we ask.
I bet they would sigh with relief and admit this whole Brave New Jew thing wasn’t working out anyway. “Sure” they will say “we had land, and power, but ofnachos we had none, zip, bupkis, nada, and it felt like a chihuahua was eating my kashas!”
Gosh darn it. Now I’ve got “The Girl That I Marry” earworming me!
This blog entry should be required reading for every high school senior in the US as part of a civics program to “know and understand your fellow citizens”. The same civics program should require the reading of every column for 2 months published in the US which addresses on any topic, the question: “Is __________ good for the Jews?”.
Just think of how more enlightened these students would be!
Oy, I’m a Catholic who married a Baptist. Enough grief there.
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We have a few Israeli surfers here in Siargao, Philippines, because Indonesia and Malaysia keep them out.
But many of them (hardened IOF veterans) behaved so badly towards the local people, and against surfing etiquette (don’t hog the waves) that the mayor quietly decreed a ban against hosting them in this town.
Is that anti-Semitism or anti-Israeli?
Israelis are known world-wide for their charming manners, and easy-going, non-demanding personalities, along with their consideration of others. Not!
Yeah, there was a collaborative storytelling community I was part of (out of an MMORPG, incidentally) that had Israelis in it for a while. I was even good friends with them for a stretch.
You would not believe how badly they acted. Ultimately they completely subverted and derailed the storylines for my main character, ostensibly just so they could flex some domination muscles over someone. And I was their friend.
There was even this particularly brutal scene where the husband (it was a husband and wife in game and in real life) beat my character and took away his ID because of an incident between my character and another (and that other person was pretty horrified at what they did to my character).
There was this really creepy part in the scene, near the end, after having beat up my character, where he said in an out of story comment, how he was acting like a very good Israeli.
Ultimately, they got banned from the boards for the community because they made such an ungodly disruption of themselves and tried to get other people kicked out.
Any story that starts with “incidentally when I was part of an MMORPG,” is bound to be a hoot.
A little reminder of what Richard Parker means by “good” behavior.
link to coconutstudio.com
The local former Navy traitor / honorary Israeli / creepy internet stalker weighs in.
Would it help if I FedEx’ed you some duct tape so that you could fix that damaged aerial and get back to watching old COPS episodes?
Thanks for not calling me a closeted homosexual this time! I might be offended by the term “traitor.” but, then, aren’t all American soldiers/sailors traitors to you, Chaos?
No, it’s pretty much just you, OJ. Well, you and some other nutjob I ran into on Huff Po who tried to rewrite the Geneva Conventions and pledged his support for Israel far more strongly than for the US (like you do). Of course, he disappeared from the comment boards after making an implicit threat against President Obama’s life.
Incidentally? Just so we’re clear? I’m gay and I can tell that the person on the right in that photo is a WOMAN. I don’t know how long you were in the Navy, sweetie, but it was obviously too long.
You’re gay?–my gosh I never would have guessed.
Well she’s a woman in the Philippines–that’s all that counted in the navy as well.
Okay… so you’re racist against Filipinos? Or just Filipino women?
People like you are why I am frequently embarrassed to be white.
Racist? I’m merely pointing out a fact that the age of consent in Philippines is 12.
Ah yes, I’m white. And what on earth makes you think that?
Personal experience. I’ve only ever run into the level of stupidity that you demonstrate from other white people.
So, you think that woman in the photo is twelve years old, huh? I… you know honestly, I don’t really have anything for that. I guess sometimes pure unrelenting idiocy is just impenetrable to clever humor.
I’d say 15, maybe 16.
wow, that is possibly the creepiest picture I have ever seen. I bet that smile is totally authentic too ;)
If once accepts the premise that ethnocentric militaristic Zionism is bad for the Jews, because it oppresses Palestinians and emphasizes war over other solutions, then there is a certain logic to Phil Weiss’s corollary that intermarriage is good for the Jews because it rejects ethnocentrism. (Obviously we can find Jews who intermarry who support Israel’s militarism and Jews who don’t intermarry who reject Israel’s militarism, but we might reject these as exceptions rather than the rule.)
But let us ignore Zionism for a moment and wonder what should be the Jewish response to the Holocaust if Zionism is ignored. The overwhelming attitude on this site is that the Holocaust ended 64 almost 65 years ago and thus should be relegated to the history books (and in regard to Zionism this may be a valid idea). But for a moment let me recall Shabta Zevi and his pseudo Messianic movement of 1666. There were many factors involved in this movement, but beyond the intellectual basis of the movement emphasized by Gershon Sholem, that of a certain type of Jewish mysticism, I would say that the overwhelming underlying cause of the movement was the expulsion of the Jews from Spain that occurred over 174 years beforehand. Thus from a Jewish viewpoint of thousands of years of history the Holocaust is a recent event and needs a response.
I do not approve of the term silent holocaust to refer to intermarriage, yet I do think that to blind oneself to thousands of years of history or to history of the last 70 years does demand some response besides reading Kafka and Isaac Deutscher and if Israel is the wrong response, then intermarriage is the wrong response as well. A preoccupation with memory can be wrong, but amnesia is wrong as well and some middle ground can be proposed. I do not have a solution what this response could be. (Of course Zionism and its proposed new version antiZionism do exist and cannot be ignored, so the need for a response that ignores Zionism is not urgent but theoretical.)
But let us ignore Zionism for a moment and wonder what should be the Jewish response to the Holocaust if Zionism is ignored
What is your obsession with discussing speculative fiction, anyway? This is for discussing political realities. You might have better luck if you take these spurious arguments to a literary forum, but really nobody’s going to care about the whole “what Zionism might have been if Zionists hadn’t committed war crimes” argument. It’s like saying “Well, Nazi Germany would have been just fine if only they didn’t…”
“and if Israel is the wrong response, then intermarriage is the wrong response as well. ”
Spoken like a true chauvinist.
Duscany- Intermarriage might be the right response to love. It is the wrong response to the Holocaust. Unless one believes that the right response to the Holocaust is disbanding the Jewish religion/people/nation/entity.
Intermarriage might be the right response to love. That is love as in “falling in love” with a nonJewish potential mate. not love in the “love your neighbor” sense.
” Unless one believes that the right response to the Holocaust is disbanding the Jewish religion/people/nation/entity.”
I don’t see what would be so awful about that. I’m a mixture of three or four different nationalities. I feel no particularly responsibility to any of them. If they were disbanded it wouldn’t be a tragedy. All it would mean is that their genes (through me and people like me) were now part of the American gene pool. What’s so awful about that?
I see myself as an American and that’s good enough for me. In short, I simply don’t understand this need to “self-identify”,” unless that’s just a cover phrase for people who think they’re better than everyone else and thus want to protect their genes (Aryans style) from pollution by inferior races.
If the “conversation” here had been serious, then I could be accused of distraction. But the “conversation” was about surfing! If Phil Weiss raises a question about intermarriage, I think I should be allowed to answer it in my own fashion.
WJ, why is “the expulsion of the Jews from Spain that occurred over 174 years beforehand” more important historically than the expulsion of Muslims at the same time, or rather a few years before, but for exactly the same reason as the expulsion of the Jews?
MRW- It is “more” important in that the percentage of Jews who lived in Spain at the time of the expulsion was greater than the percentage of Muslims who lived in Spain at the time of the expulsion. Certainly the individual Muslims might have experienced the same trauma (although there were nearby Muslim controlled countries that took them in, whereas there were no Jewish controlled countries nearby to take the Jews in and ultimately it became Turkey, which was not exactly next door where most of the Jews ended up.)
But your entire premise is wrong. It’s like saying, how come when Christopher Reeves got thrown off the horse he became paralyzed and when Willie Shoemaker got thrown off the horse he walked away without a scratch. Maybe the Muslims were more resilient than the Jews.
But I pointed out a few of the historical differences.
The figures for the Moriscos (Muslims) are not known either, especially since Spain had been a Muslim country before Isbella and Ferdinand got caught up in their inquisition horseshit.
But my premise is that it’s always Jewish losses that are enumerated as the worse. Same with WWII. The Holocaust totally pre-empts discussions of WWII. The Russians lost 79 million people in that horror, and its as if it never happened to them, or as I’ve heard, they had to learn to get over it.
This is Phil Weiss’s web site and he was discussing the issue of Jewish intermarriage. I raised an issue from Jewish history to discuss the issue. If your premise is that the Jews should learn to get over it, your entitled to your point of view.
That is not my premise. You are only reading my words one way, which IS my premise.
MRW- What is your ethnic background?
No, I’ve changed my mind! Wonderful Jew is right! Inter-marriage is not the “right response to the Holacaust” No, the right response would be to marry the Gentile girls, then cheat on them, then divorce them in a bitter proceding which leaves them nothing! After all, this is the Holacaust we’re talking about bub!
I thought I was over it, but I never cease to be amazed by the flacid rigidity of mind and their ability to express themselves in one unending whine.
“MRW- What is your ethnic background?”
Gee, I must have extra-sensual perception! How did I know that was coming.
Here, let me finish for you MRW: “If you aren’t Jewish, you wouldn’t understand!”
“I raised an issue from Jewish history…”
Sabbati Levi? Are you really sure you want to raise that? I would think you, as a Zionist. would like to keep that little episode well under wraps.
Holy Crap! Was that a bunch of hooey! When will Zionists learn that being Jewish doesn’t give you permission to be downright stupid.
“but amnesia is wrong as well” ? Yeah, so go with the false recovered tribal memories, for sure! That’ll work out real good for ya!
And who on earth, gives a husky fuck what you think of intermarriage. 58% percent of Jews (according to Brandeis) think you’re out to lunch, and the food is like poison, and the portions are too small.
Go tell it to the 58% per cent, dummy. Go tell it to the Gentiles! Hey I know! Why not tell the Gentiles that it’s anti-Semitic (Silent Holacaust) to marry a Jew! Ask them “Why do you want to destroy us by marrying us? It must be because you hate us!”
Did anybody else notice how Wondering Jew grew a long beard, and ended up wrapped in a prayer shawl and hunched over a Talmud by the end of the comment? Just like Witty. Turned right into a frickin Rabbi on us! What can you say, huh? Rabbi one minute, IDF sniper the next, forensic medical investigator tomorrow, wow, Zionism just makes you everything.
Man, I’m glad I had the mawkishness and contempt for other’s belief and intelligence slapped out of me at an early age. I’d hate end up like him.
Is intermarriage good for the Jews? What a strange question.
Put it another way: suppose that intermarriage between Jew and Gentile were forbidden by law. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
Such laws were introduced into the Israeli Knesset by far right-wingers from Kach. The laws got a lot of votes in the Knesset but not enough to pass).
There is precedent for laws banning marriage (and sex) between Jews and Gentiles: the Nuremberg laws in Germany.
Back in the US laws forbidding marriage between blacks and whites, or between Chinese and whites, were in effect in many states until the 1960′s. There’s a reason that Obama was born in Hawaii: at the time of his 1960 birth, about half of US states had anti-miscegenation laws on the books.
Thank you, Nevada Ned. It is always amazing to me how Zionists and their supporter promolgate laws and solutions they would never willingly live under, if applied.
Oh, BTW, Wondering Jew, you just keep it up. There’s no better way to ethnically cleanse a religion than by putting pressure (let alone laws) on people about who to marry. Yeah, that’ll work real good!
Anyway, I’m just a guy, so I don’t know, but the Jewish girls I have known who married non-Jews all said it was because they could not find a Jew who would make a decent husband. They all said that Jewish men think marriage is like what the Israelis have with the Palestinians.
Oooh, ouch, Mooser. :)
I bet Wonderful Jew thinks Jews lived in ghettoes because they wanted to, you know to express their identity an all.
You know, cause unlike African Americans, we can’t escape our “identity”.
Have you ever seen Tropical Thunder, Mooser? I think that movie does a far better job of exploring the issue than I ever could. You definitely rival it rather single handedly, though, I have to say.
Anyway, what would Wonderful say to that: “You make better Jewish men, men who don’t cheat, or beat their wives, or tyrannise (or worse, spoil) their children, and we will marry them. And don’t give us that, we can find Gentiles who make money, too.”
As for Jewish women, I have no criticisms, none! Prietzkhs and balaboostas, every one “all three”. But, the sad fact is, I’m not good enough for them. No, no, very kind of you, I apreciatte it, but I know who I am.
And after all, Wonderful Jew, isn’t it better that a low-class Jew like me inflicts himself on a Gentile instead of possibly harraunging some poor Jewish girl into anti-Zionism? (Only to keep her mind off my manifest faults, of course)
I mean, the question isn’t really, in this modern era “How many Jews we got”. but “What is the quality of those Jews?”
Amazing, isn’t it, you got a decentralised religion which can award no sanctions, provide no boons, and doesn’t (so far as I know) promise eternal life after death, but every other Jew tells every other Jew that he’s a traitor unless he sacrifices himself to the religion. Yup, that’s gonna work out good.
I thought we were supposed to be smart?
Mooser – I’d attempt a conversation with you if I thought you were serious, but you’re not serious. The only serious people who responded to what I wrote are seriously misguided. I guess Madeline Albright’s parents had the right idea when they converted and didn’t tell Madeline that she had Jewish roots. I guess that’s the best response to the shoah.
It ain’t no sin to intermarry. It ain’t no sin to forget the past. It certainly ain’t against the law. But if you think it’s great news that most American Jews know the words to silent night and couldn’t identify Rashi, let alone know the difference between Shabtai Zevi and Shabtai Levi (who’s he?), then you must be very happy because there is thrilling news about the disappearance of three fifths or more of the Jews in America. Coming soon.
I really don’t see the problem with the “disappearance of three fifths of the Jews in America” into the great American gene pool. To feel otherwise, it seems to me, is to lament the disappearance of the garlic into the spaghetti sauce whenever you cook dinner.
WJ, has it occurred to you that no small number of American Jews are looking at what Israel stands for, as the self-proclaimed “nation of the Jews,” and deciding they don’t want to be part of that?
I’ll say it over and over and over again. The worst enemy any Jewish person has, are Zionists.
I don’t care who marries whom, but I don’t know why Phil claims that Jews tend to be assimilationists. Most Jews that I know, or know of, are multiculturalists (for everyone else) rather than assimilationists. Maybe a case could be made that Jewish elites have assimilated to the ways of the old NE WASP elites who also held Middle America in low regard, but that’s not a good place for the two-percenters to position themselves, since they are culturally and ethnically quite different from pre-1964 America. It seems that the Jewish position is that immigration and cultural change will allow them to pull the strings in a ethnically and culturally fracture nation, because assimilation is not what most Jews seem to value for themselves.
Phil’s best post ever — it should be the opening chapter of his book on the topic.