It turns out there are problems with Hitler as Grand Posek
Roi Ben-Yehuda is hand-wringing over on Jewcy about the way Jews for Jesus are being treated in Israel. He is upset that the Jews for Jesus are not being accepted as Jews, and notes,
If we are going to say that Hitler and not Halacha determines who is a Jew, then we need to make room for Jews who also believe in Jesus — as Hitler would have done.
Ben-Yehuda has a good point, and I would note that when the Zionist Entity first decided that Hitler was the ultimate authority on who is a Jew, no one could have predicted this problem specifically, or that there would be problems generally. After all, why should there be problems when the Zionists reasonably decided to express their Jewish pride both religiously and as a nation by embracing Hitler as grand posek? Clearly, for their time, the Zionist Entity did the right thing, just…Jewish history took an unpredictable turn, and this ostensibly reasonable choice for an ultimate Jewish authority proved to have shortcomings…but you can’t blame the impeccable reasoning of the Zionists for its time.
25 comments
What?
Do you think referring to Israel as “the zionist entity” is:
a) very witty; or
b) makes you sound like a tit, particularly a Hamas spokesman tit?
I am deleting this blog from my favourites. I won’t be back.
Avi,
This isn’t the place for the hyper-sensitive. Might I recommend Zeek? http://www.jewcy.com/zeek
test
it is a chillul H’ to mention the leader of nazi germany in this context.
David,
Firstly, I was struck by something Ron said some months ago about anonymity. I’ve been wanting to use my real name for some time, but I wasn’t sure how to segue into it. I guess this is the best way to go about it. You’re facilitating my “coming out”!
I left a comment about this both at Jewcy and on Roi’s blog. As I think you know, I have serious problems with Messianic “Judaism”, but not for the reasons that most Jews do. My comment was fairly lengthy; rather than post it here, I’ll just give you the link:
http://roiword.wordpress.com/2.....omment-669
I saw your comment on Jewcy, not roiword. It’s interesting that as an atheist, you don’t prefer the Israel operate in a theologically neutral manner.
Didn’t Ben-Gurion say re: Israeli citizenship that everybody is a Jew that consider themself a Jew?
I just don’t like the JfJ orange T-shirts.
I don’t really see it as a theological issue. Belief in Jesus as Messiah is a theological issue, certainly, one with a lot of baggage for Jews, because of, as I said, our shared history. I can understand why most Jews take it as an act of betrayal. It isn’t an issue for me. Perhaps I don’t identify that much.
Belief in Jesus as divine isn’t an issue for me either; there’s precedent for it in other religions. Indian religion (”Hinduism”, although I don’t really like the term; it’s a made-up Western concept) is chock-full of incarnations of God; in fact, it turns out that ultimately, everyone is an incarnation of God.
Salvific exclusivism is, for me, another matter entirely. I guess I’d have to say that I see it as a more of a humanitarian issue. It crosses the line. Plus, I have huge abandonment issues (goes back to my parents), and this speaks to that.
Adin Steinsaltz asks the question - what are the Jewish people? What kind of entity are we; how do we define ourselves? His answer is that we aren’t a nation, because, even though we have a country for the first time in 1900 years, most of us don’t live there. We aren’t a “race”; we’re comprised of people from many different ethnic backgrounds. We aren’t even really a religion any more, as most of us practice a version of the religion different from that of our ancestors, some don’t practice at all, and some of us have abandoned belief in God altogether.
So, what are we? Steinsaltz concludes that what we are is a family. It’s schmaltzy and sentimental, and can easily be argued against, but I’d like to see that way. And when a Jew says, “It’s all right with me if all the other members of my family go to hell for all of eternity, as long as I can have the security blanket of this belief system for a few brief decades while I’m alive” - as I say, it crosses the line. It’s unconscionable. At that moment, he creates an unbridgeable gap between himself and the other members of the family. Actually, I’d have to say that he ceases to be a member.
Then, when of these guys decides that American winters are too much for him, and he wants to move to Israel, it’s “Let me in; I’m one of you!” He didn’t give a crap about us before, to the extent of being blithely unconcerned about our eternal destinies. Now, all of a sudden – we’re mishpocheh. I can’t simply overlook it. That much, I identify.
You believe in Jesus? Fine. You believe he was divine; you want to worship him? Okay. Even if I believed, even if I were frum, I’d like to think that I wouldn’t toss someone out for that. But – throw all the rest of us into the lake of fire, then toddle off happily to heaven? Screw you – you’ve gone too far.
I’ve told you before – salvific exclusivism is the line of demarcation for me. It always has been; it probably always will be. I can get over pretty much everything else (even that picture of you in the gold lame jacket!), but this is just too much.
(By the way – did you really think Klinghoffer was being satirical, or were you being sarcastic?)
By the way, I didn’t mean to imply that I think it’s all right to believe that non-Jews are going to hell - not at all! I was just focusing on Jews because it’s an in-house dispute.
(You might want to consider allowing for a window in which commenters can edit their remarks, add something they forgot, repair spelling and grammatical errors, etc. And a text editor would be nice, with formatting options. And, as I keep saying, a larger box for data entry. I have to write these in Word then paste them here, otherwise I can’t see what I’m doing.
And where the hell is my little graphic next to your name in Firefox?
I’m putting together a list of demands.)
“By the way – did you really think Klinghoffer was being satirical, or were you being sarcastic?”
Sarcastic. The Forward apparently just sacked him over it: http://www.forward.com/articles/13262/
“You might want to consider allowing for a window in which commenters can edit their remarks, add something they forgot, repair spelling and grammatical errors, etc.”
Maybe one day. I can only bother my webmaster sparingly…but I will remember that suggestion…it’s a good one.
And I didn’t mean “lame”; I meant “lamé”!
Rabbi Kelsey could define his blog as free of typos whatsoever, so it would be free of typos whatsoever per definition.
Wow. They’ve sacked him, or he’s leaving of his own accord (or he’s leaving before they sack him)?
He’ s something else. “At least most conservatives are more civilized in public discourse.” “My experience since college has been that a dynamic in liberalism is inclined more than conservatism to insist on uniformity of opinion.” Right. He, Stein, Medved and Lappin can go do a tap dance together.
Jews working with conservative Christians (who think they’re going to hell) to promote creationism in America’s science classrooms. Good God. Rabbi Polen said to me recently (I was teasing him for having soy “bacon” in his refrigerator), “If you live long enough, you see everything.” Yeah.
I’ve been going on atheist and science blogs recently, and once in a while, someone will ask, “Isn’t Ben Stein Jewish? Why is he doing this?” I’m embarrassed.
The only thing I can think of is that these guys like being a novelty. Why be one of millions of liberal Jews when you can be one of a handful of Jews in a sea of Christian conservatives? Also, there seems to be some evidence now that there is a physiological basis for conservatism (www.latimes.com/news/science/l.....ome-center), and I think they may have this imperative that pushes them way over to the extreme Right, so that they just lose all perspective, all cognizance of whom it is they’re joining over there.
Sarah, if you keep referring to him as Rabbi or Rebbe, I’m afraid he’s going to have that gold jacket made into a bekashe!
Whatever Rabbi Kelsey does, it’ll lead all of his followers the way to a better life. Even if it’s an extreme makeover.
The Nazi definition of Jew is one who has 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents. A person with 1 or 2 Jewish grandparents is a Mischling (second or first degree respectively) , a status in its own right. The Wansee conference protocols provided that a first degree Mischling who married a German and produced children would as a rule be exempted from ‘evacuation’. A second degree Mischling would generally escape ‘evacuation’ even if childless unless they had a racially unfavorable appearance.
The Nazi position being based on race does not allow a Jew to escape being a Jew whatever action he takes even by marrying a non Jew thereby showing an intent to end his Jewish lineage by creating Mischling. The main problem with Jews for Jesus is that they are assimilationist and do not see any need to maintain a separate Jewish identity through their children. Their Jewish birth is as relevant to their being considered Jews as is Jefferson’s early life as a subject of the British king is relevant to what he wanted his children to be. I will always say to an assimilationist that I do not consider him to be a Jew. If the assimilationist says to me that Hitler would disagree with me, then I would tell the assimilationist that I am not too bothered by that. Someone whose Jewish parentage may be somewhat suspect who shows anti assimilationist tendencies (be it Neturei Karta in NYC or Meretz in Tel Aviv) should be considered and given the rights and privileges of a Jew even if Hitler would considers him a Mischling. Assimilationists who trumpets their impeccable Jewish Lineage be they Jews for Jesus or certain extreme left wing groups should have their claims of being Jewish thrown back in their face by reminding them they define themselves in the manner that Hitler would. It really annoys them.
“And when a Jew says, “It’s all right with me if all the other members of my family go to hell for all of eternity, as long as I can have the security blanket of this belief system for a few brief decades while I’m alive” - as I say, it crosses the line. It’s unconscionable. At that moment, he creates an unbridgeable gap between himself and the other members of the family. Actually, I’d have to say that he ceases to be a member.”
Why JFJ and not RWO?
Reb Leibish, Mischlinge were also killed, partly in the Euthanasia. One was considered a Jew with one Jewish ancestor six generations back. German home economics school books of that time had blank family trees and a chapters dedicated to finding out if your future spouse had any Jews in his family tree up to six generations back. Basis were the ‘Nürnberger Rassengesetze’ of 1935; the Wannsee-Conference decided on the ‘Final Solution’ when expulsion, expropriation, torturing, imprisonment, executions based on allegations of non-patriotic behaviour etc. had already been in full swing for years.
Cf. http://www.hdg.de/lemo/objekte.....index.html
Mohammed, cause RWO make a more decorative, ‘authentic’ set of guests at weddings than guys in orange T-shirts.
Are BPers already fleeing upstate?
Sarah
I knew there had to be some reason.
Who was it that said “I love you like a brother (and I hate my brother)?
Don’t know; a Google search brought no results. The best I could get was, “I hate you like a brother” (Shaq vs Kobe).
But it equals to my, “Don’t get me wrong, I like my sis. I’ve always had a particular interest in fossils.”
Sarah/froylein. The basis of classification of Aryan, Mischling, Jew arouse from the Berufsbeamtengesetze of April 1933 which predate the Nuremburg laws.
A typical second degree mischling would be someone whose grandparent (whom may well have died before the Mischling was born) converted to Roman Catholicism in the 19th century prior to marriage. The Mischling’s parent would have been raised as German Roman Catholics maybe having fought for the Fatherland in the First World War and would have married a ‘pure’ German who raised as a German with no Jewish influences whatsoever. This Mischling would not consider himself as anything other then German, in fact he might feel disgust as seeing a OstJude in traditional garb . Such a person’s world would have been shattered on being declared a second degree Mischling and persecuted on that account(although not to the extent of being declared a Jew). The proper response to the persecution of such a second degree Mischling is to not to declare that persecution as entitling that person to be regarded as being Jewish. That proper response is to declare that this second degree Mischling’s complete assimilation and lack of identity with Judaism makes him a non-Jewish German whatever Hitler said and that the persecution of non-Jews by Hitler was also evil. Likewise even the first degree Mischling parent should be regarded as a German Non Jew if raised as such and assimilated. Furthermore the Jewish grandparent in becoming a Roman Catholic in order to marry a German shows that by choice he wishes to be regarded as no longer Jewish and that children born of that marriage be assimilated into German society. Although parentage is a one factor in deciding if someone is a Jew, not being fully assimilated into non Jewish society must also be a necessary factor (as the Israeli definition allows but which the Nazi definition refutes). Identity does not necessarily follow parentage. If some Roman Catholic tells me that he is Jewish through his maternal grandmother and that it pains him as a Jew that his ‘brothers and sisters’ do not realize that their suffering comes from their rejection of Jesus, he is seeking to use his meaningless Jewish ancestry to hide lack of meaningful Jewish identity. There is a powerful stand of left thinking that has been unable to address forms of oppression not directly linked to class and for who Jews are a problem whose ‘final solution’ adopts the assimilationist position in which there is no room within emancipated humanity for Jews as a separate ethnic or cultural identity, and which advocates a society where both cultural as well as economic difference is eliminated. People with Jewish ancestry can hold such views just as those without such ancestry. A group of such leftist assimilationists wrote to the London Guardian declaring their regret at the foundation of the State of Israel. However instead of honestly stating their beliefs that humanity would benefit if Jewish identity would fade away and that accordingly the foundation of a Jewish state is a retrograde step for humankind, they dishonestly pretended to be caring Jews concerned for the plight of the Mufti’s dispossessed followers.
Reb Leibish, I was addressing your claim that the Nazis did not consider Mischlinge Jews and persecute them accordingly. You backed away from your initial claim in your response. The issue raised was who the Nazis considered to be Jewish, not what the “Orthodox” world thinks, particularly not what assimilated-to-18th century-Poland-but-trying-to-pass-it-off-as-authentic-Judaism Orthodox think.
Sarah/Froylein, Mischlinge were not considered Aryan but neither were they considered Jews. They were sui generis as shown by the heading in the chart you linked to. I do not deny for a moment that they were terribly persecuted, but that fact of persecution does not make them any less German or more Jewish.
Roi Ben Yehuda asks “from the perspective of the Law of Return, shouldn’t the ubiquitous gaze of the antisemite be the deciding factor of whether or not someone is Jewish?”.
I would say no. Insofar as the Law of Return is a guide to who is Jewish as opposed to whom should be allowed to live in Israel, the decision need not follow either Hitler or halacha. There are some people who consider themselves Jews and whom an antisemite might consider Jewish whom the State of Israel is perfectly entitled to refuse to allow to live in Israel. From the perspective of the Law of Return, Jewish identity should be the a decisive factor and that identity can be cast off by choice just as the American patriots cast off their Britishness.
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