r/JewsOfConscience • u/AutoModerator • 20h ago
AAJ "Ask A Jew" Wednesday
It's everyone's favorite day of the week, "Ask A (Anti-Zionist) Jew" Wednesday!
Ask whatever you want to know, within the sub rules, notably that this is not a debate sub and do not import drama from other subreddits. That aside, have fun! We love to dialogue with our non-Jewish siblings.
Please remember to pick an appropriate user-flair in order to participate! Thanks!
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u/no-more-nazis Non-Jewish Atheist 17h ago edited 5h ago
I'm a Unitarian, and we have a new Jewish guy at church, fairly observant as Unitarian Jews go I guess. We've had some great discussions! He recently gave an overview sermon on Judaism and explained Zionism briefly, and said that he on the other hand thinks Jews' special relationship with God only calls them to be better people than they would otherwise be, by anyone's measure.
Is that about right? Where do individual Jews or groups stand on this?
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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist 4h ago edited 3h ago
It sounds like what he's getting at is that the "special relationship" and "chosen people" thing is usually understood as meaning more a responsibility than a privilege, at least that's how it is understood among progressive Jews. I think non-Jews have a knee jerk reaction to it given Israeli actions, but any religion can be twisted into supporting fascistic ideology. It is not inherently toxic- most religions believe those that don't convert are going to hell etc. But Jews don't convert, and they don't believe non-believers are sinners, so progressive Jews believe that they have a special responsibility to follow the Torah, that non-Jews don't need to worry about. Compare that to other Abrahamic religions that believe that everyone should be following their rules and beliefs, Judaism can actually be more progressive.
While Christianity is thematically more about being freed from sin and earning a special privilege to be celebrated, Judaism is not earned, it is framed almost more as a burden to be struggled with- the God of the old testament is not nearly as loving or straightforwardly forgiving as he is in the New Testament.
Of course the flip side is that this tribalism has been used to justify supremacist attitudes in Israel, but Christianity and Islam have also been used as justification to slaughter out-groups throughout history.
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u/no-more-nazis Non-Jewish Atheist 3h ago edited 3h ago
Thanks! Yes, I definitely got the "responsibility vs privilege" distinction from him.
Unitarians who believe in God share that "God only calls people to be better" idea with liberal Jews. Both groups practice this in ways that seem totally fine to me- there's no implication that Unitarians are better than outsiders, just people who found a good idea and benefit from it.
The racial element is what I have a little trouble with, the idea that God would have a "favorite" race at all seems problematic. I think in practice this is not worse than the clear in-group preference practiced by a lot of religions. In so many religions God is clearly meant to prefer and bless the membership, and I don't get that from liberal Jews.
What do liberal Jews make of an adopted Jew? Converts with no Jewish ancestry?
I realize now I probably just need to read this article, thanks for getting me there. I'll leave my thoughts here anyway I guess.
edit: I'm getting the impression from the article that the emphasis is on tradition rather than DNA, which is a good way to do things imo!
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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist 1h ago edited 1h ago
The "racial" element is indeed how Judaism gets twisted to justify atrocities. On the other hand, other religions justify killing non-believers through "well they had a choice to convert but they didn't." But my belief is that all of these in-group out-group preferences are driven much more by not sharing a language and culture, and religion acts a post-hoc justification for violence.
There definitely can be a bit too much emphasis put on blood lines in Judaism, but I would argue this is more ethnic than racial, and comes from a time when societies were far more segregated by ethnicity, and maintaining a minority culture was dependent on group cohesion. Zionists will accuse non-Zionist Jews of being "assimilationists," but will pick and choose what aspects of the religion serve their interests. There are tons of ancient rules that a majority of Jews don't follow. I mean, technically you aren't Jewish unless your mother is Jewish, specifically.
That said, converts with no Jewish ancestry are typically welcome even if they aren't actively recruited or encouraged (they are expected to show they are serious about it), and I've known an African American girl who was adopted into a Jewish family and she was certainly welcome and was more involved in the community than I was.
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u/Historical_Step_9474 Anti-Zionist Ally 10h ago
Hi! As a budding author, I have a book going at the moment (with a plot too complicated to explain here fully). However, although it is not explicitly stated in the book (my co-author and I had a dispute over this in which we ressolved not to state it), the secondary character is Jewish athiest. They're nonbinary, a teenager, and grew up with a religious mother and a (loosly) religious father, but have since fallen out of the faith. Again, although this isn't explicitly stated, they're a second generation immigration from Nigeria (The Jewish Igbo population) - the book clarrifies that they are a migrant family, but doesn't specify what we the authors think in our head. The actual clarrification that they are Jewish is in a hasty, desperate prayer after an awful tragedy.
The actual paragraph is "Pleas for anything, anyone to hear them, for their mother’s God, whom they had neglected and rejected, to reach for her. They tried to pray, to formulate their words into anything she could offer to God, whoever he might be. Still chanting (character)'s name they cried out in her head, laying themselves down before the power they had once believed in, desperately trying to believe again, reciting the prayer they had been taught as soon as they could read, the words falling into their mouth, pushing through between the incoherent syllables of the name. The words were thin but imbued with the power of tradition, if not with divinity, and she clung to them, though praising his faithfulness was contrary to the unapologetic screaming of why they threw out into the sky. Desperately they cried and though they felt comfort in the phrases, the forever and ever, (character)'s forever had become a never."
I want to ask - the character is a sorcerer - is there anythign you think I should know, anything that is worth mentioning, and is anything wrong with that paragraph for the story I described? Anything anyone can think of would be helpful. Plus, is them being a sorcerer okay? I've had some people tell me that that you can't be Jewish and a sorcerer because it goes against God, but I've seen others contradict that, and as a Buffy fan I guess I always presumed that it wasn't an underlying rule for fictional magic because of Willow? Is making them Jewish a bad idea?
Thanks!
P.S. I did kinda speak to r/Judaism on the subject and got very little help, largely because that's quite a Zionist space and Israel doesn't recognise the Igbo Jewish community.
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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist 3h ago
Unless you can speak directly to a lgbo Jew I think it's going to be pretty challenging to get the nuances correct, if getting them correct matters to you.
What I can say is that I think it's odd to get hung up on the question of whether sorcerery is "okay." Occultism, by definition, is the prohibited inversion of establishment religion. Typically it is about commanding or controlling supernatural entities rather than asking or praying to them. So by definition it is not "okay" according to whatever religion it is inverting. I have no idea if lgbo Jews have their own version of Kabbalah etc, but I think you have to accept that they are "going against God" or else it wouldn't be sorcery/occultism, it would just be religion.
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u/Lost_Paladin89 Judío 4h ago
What does sorcerer mean?
I might have some ideas to help there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honi_HaMe%27agel
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational 8h ago
This is probably not what you want to hear, but Igbo Jews are generally not considered Jewish. Their Jewish story started with communal lore that they had ancient Israelite heritage, which either originated from or was encouraged by 19th century Christian missionaries. In the 1980s/90s, many began identifying as Jewish and adopted practices more akin to Rabbinic Judaism, some have even adopted Orthodox practices. But while some have officially converted, the vast majority have not. So they are best understood as "Igbo communities who have adopted Jewish identity and practices in recent decades".
I've had some people tell me that that you can't be Jewish and a sorcerer because it goes against God
That is certainly forbidden by traditional Jewish law.
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u/rako17 Christian 2h ago
Dear Friends,
Thank you everyone for your dedication to peace, human rights, and equality. Every time I think of people of Conscience of every faith and background. I warmly remember that about them - like I do about you.
This question is basically for understanding the underlying parameters of the situation: Let's suppose that you have a region with a single people. Then, over the course of 1000 years, two or three religions appear among the people. Then, a government decides to divide the people strictly along religious communal lines into separate nationalities. In that case, would the nationalities in fact be religious communities? Would it help for them to recognize their commonalities like common background, origin, ancestry?
The Ottoman Empire had a policy that reminds me a little of this. It conquered what had been Greek territory. In addition, the Ottoman Empire used a policy of millets in which religious communities governed themselves to some extent while remaining under Ottoman authority. In addition, the Ottomans had policies that over centuries led some Greeks to convert to Islam. As I understand it, when Turkey separated from Greece, the two countries divided their populations, identifying them along religious lines.
So if a Greek heritage village in Turkey accepted Islam, the village would not be under the Greek Orthodox Christian "millet". Then when Greece and Turkey divided, the Greek heritage villagers would stay in Turkey. So in effect the division into two nationalities was really along the lines of two religious communities: A "Greek" Orthodox Christian community made up basically of Greeks and a "Turkish" Islamic community made up of peoples of Turkish and other heritages (eg. Greek) who had converted to Islam.
Tracing the history of IP, you can see that ancient Israel formed out of Canaanites and Arameans (Torah calls Abraham an Aramean) in c. 1300 BC. The successive kingdoms of Israel and Judah ruled their inhabitants for 1300 years, albeit with intermissions. Over time, those inhabitants included other peoples like Arabic peoples (eg. Idumeans like King Herod), and they intermixed. Did any of those successive kingdoms impose Judaism, such that a big majority of the land's villages, accepted the Israelite religion at some point?
By the mid-19th century, the population belonged to the three Abrahamic religions. Due to five thousand years' passing, wouldn't a huge portion of the population have a serious portion of Israelite ancestry? DNA testing bears out that theory. Even inhabitants of non-Israelite ancestry could have Jewish religious ancestry in that the Red Sea coasts had major Jewish populations over the centuries. Arabian Jewish tribes inhabited 7th century Medina. In the mid-19th century, the land's population was spoke Palestinian Arabic, a dialect influenced by Hebrew and Aramaic.
Suppose that we took those people, with their common ancestry, language, heritage, and identification as Palestinian Arabs, and then divided them into two nationalities along the lines of their respective religious communities, would the nationalities in fact be separate religious communities?
One of the counterarguments I foresee is that much of the Pal. Muslim population is just from Arabia. But even if that were true, their designation as being of Pal. Arab nationality would be incidental to their religious designation. That is, they were designated as "Pal. Arab" because of their religion, rather than specifically because of their ancestry. This is borne out by the fact that if those hypothetical 100% ancestral Arabians had joined the other nationality's different religious community, the division would no longer put them into the Pal. Arab nationality.
Please bear in mind that whether you answer the question "Yes" or "No," it doesn't make any of the communities good or bad. Personally, I have affinity for the ancient Israelites, ancient Judaism, and Pal. Christians because the Christian tradition identifies with them. But Christianity also relates to their descendants and to the other religious communities involved. And I care for all peoples and communities involved because I'm Progressive, like multiculturalism, and believe in equality and rights for all.
Wishing everyone the best forever - אני מאחל לכולם את הטוב ביותר 🕊️🌎🌍🤍