Jews who are not Jews
Commenter “DNW” asked yesterday:
…[C]an anyone…tell me why an even moderately religious or observant Jew, would continue to speak of left-wing atheist progressives, as “Jews”?
Not that you would necessarily know. I just have no one else to ask.
I’ll take a stab at it.
Jewishness is an odd thing. It’s a religion in the usual sense, which means that someone not born Jewish can become a Jew by conversion. Conversion is considered to make someone fully Jewish, by the way, and Jews around the world are of every ethnicity possible.
However, it’s also a “people.” That can mean a number of things (one definition, for example, is “a group of people with a shared history and a sense of a group identity rather than a territorial and political entity”). But one thing it has tended to mean historically—especially to the Jews’ enemies—is a membership conveyed through birth.
So birth mattered—and still matters—to some people as much as belief or religion. To the Nazis, it mattered a lot. But not just to the Nazis; they just were one group that used the definition in exceedingly pernicious and destructive ways.
At any rate, Jews who have no religion at all but who were born to two Jewish (or even one Jewish) parents are still often considered ethnic Jews, or Jews of some sort, both by enemies and by friends. Call them cultural Jews, call them secular Jews, but they often not only are called “Jews” by others but consider themselves Jewish despite that lack of religion.
At what point does Jewish identity end? For example, you often read that Karl Marx, the father of Communism, was a Jew, right? Here are the facts, however:
Marx wasn’t even a lapsed Jew. He was a lapsed Christian. His father converted to Christianity to advance his career. Young Karl disavowed all religions and would later rant against them, especially Judaism. In fact, he is better remembered as one of the world’s most accomplished anti-semites. His famous “On the Jewish Question” called for an end to the emancipation of the Jews because they were enslaved by a harsher taskmaster than the German state: their own religion. He referred to money as the real God of the Old Testament. And, probably not coincidentally, he was frequently in debt to Jewish moneylenders.
Therefore, Karl Marx only counts as a Jew on the slimmest of halachic opinions. And if there was an expulsion process for the Tribe, he would probably be first on the list. His hatred of Jews arose more from his own confusion about his heritage, and his inability to repay his debts, than from a legitimate concern for the human race.
This isn’t meant to be a “Who Is a Jew” exercise, though. Something more important is at stake. Right-wingers throughout the world often equate Marx’ supposed Judaism with a solid link between the religion and communism. There isn’t. Marx borrowed nothing from the Jewish tradition to formulate his ideals.
If you want to delve even deeper into Marx’s twisted history, we have this, which mentions that Marx’s father’s conversion occurred when Karl was a child, and that for some reason although Catholicism was the dominant religion in his part of Germany he converted to Protestantism. No one mentions the mother. Did she remain Jewish? I have no idea.
The plot thickens when you read this, which states that Marx Sr. converted before Karl’s birth and that Lutheranism (the Christian religion to which he converted) was the dominant religion in his part of the world. So you have a singular lack of clarity.
This is typical, I’m afraid. I would not call Marx any sort of Jew, although his heritage was indeed Jewish in the sense of parents who at least at some point in time had been Jewish. It certainly doesn’t sound as though he considered himself a Jew. But the society in which he moved may have considered him one. Perhaps his hatred of Jews was partly an effort to make it clear that he wasn’t one of those awful Jews; how could he be, when he disliked them so?
At any rate, for most people today Marx’s protests, his atheism, and the fact that he was not raised Jewish mean nothing—he is still identified in people’s minds as a Jew.
But to answer DNW’s question specifically regarding how it is that religious Jews can consider a secular Jew to still be a Jew, we have this stricter definition:
According to Jewish law, a child born to a Jewish mother or an adult who has converted to Judaism is considered a Jew; one does not have to reaffirm their Jewishness or practice any of the laws of the Torah to be Jewish. According to Reform Judaism, a person is a Jew if they were born to either a Jewish mother or a Jewish father. Also, Reform Judaism stresses the importance of being raised Jewish; if a child is born to Jewish parents and was not raised Jewish then the child is not considered Jewish. According to the Orthodox movement, the father’s religion and whether the person practices is immaterial. No affirmation or upbringing is needed, as long as the mother was Jewish.
By that strict definition under Jewish law, Marx would have been a Jew, and that it how it is that a “moderately religious or observant Jew, would continue to speak of left-wing atheist progressives, as ‘Jews.'”
[ADDENDUM: By the way, for what it’s worth, Engels was not Jewish in any sense of the word, nor was Lenin or Stalin. It has recently been revealed that Lenin may have had a maternal grandfather who was born Jewish but who converted; this does not a Jew make by any accepted definition, as you can see from the post. Trotsky, on the other hand, was born to a family of secular non-religious Jews. It would be interesting to look back and see how many generations back they had lost their religion; if it was more than one, is it correct to consider them Jewish at all?
Here’s an interesting discussion of Trotsky’s Jewishness:
There is no question that genetically speaking, Trotsky was a Jew. But personally and culturally, he emphatically denied any connection with the Jewish people. Quoting from my book Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime:
“Trotsky””the satanic ‘Bronstein of Russian anti-Semites’””was deeply offended whenever anyone presumed to call him a Jew. When a visiting Jewish delegation appealed to him to help fellow Jews, he flew into a rage: “I am not a Jew but an internationalist.”
As with Marx, a fat lot of good it did him—most people would consider Trotsky a Jew. I repeat, though: at what point, if a person’s ancestors and that person him/herself disavows Jewishness, do we take them at their word?]
Complicated stuff. And where in all this do we put Marx’s daughter, Eleanor, whose mother had no Jewish ancestry, and yet was the only Marx to lay “claim to her Jewishness”: “I am the only one of my family who felt drawn to Jewish people, and particularly to those who are socialistically inclined. My happiest moments are when I am in the East End amidst Jewish workpeople.”
Well, why, again, is it that atheist anti-Jewish “Jews” cannot [apparently] be completely disavowed and cast beyond the moral pale?
Re Marx: It’s been a long while since I read “On the Jewish Question”; but a glance as I type this, reinforces the idea that by this time, Marx had already explicitly formulated his theory of alienation as the root of human problems, and figured that achieving full political and even civil rights did not address the underlying cause of human un-fulfillment (if there is such a word) given the fact that gaining formal admission and integration into the Western capitalist political superstructure was just the gaining a superficial admission to an outgrowth of a more deeply problematical human phenomenon, while remaining humanly apart and separate on deeper levels.
There must be a psychological impulse in some people that cannot admit or equably pass over estrangement. “Let them go their own way, and be done with them”, does not seem to be an option that fits with their mental makeup.
Tacitus, was anti-Jewish as well, despite having some complimentary things to say about them – I am thinking of their hardihood as types within their own state here.
Yet he also says,
I find all of this a bit strange since in “Germania”, he praises many of the same, if not all, of the strengths and virtues he condemns or merely acknowledges offhand in the Jews.
DNW:
It’s not primarily Jews who are so eager to claim Marx (except, of course, for his fellow-Communists of Jewish or ex-Jewish ethnicity). It’s the rest of the world that says “Communism is a Jewish idea!” “Bad Jews!”
Whatever number of Jews or ex-Jews or people-the-world-wants-to-label Jews have been connected with Communism, it is most definitely not a Jewish idea.
The whole idea of Jewishness seems to strike an intense emotional chord in many many people, some Jews but many not-Jews. That is, of course, a rather large topic.
Ann :
I believe that religious Jews would say those people drawn to Jewishness in that way have a “Jewish soul,” which does not necessarily mean they have any Jewish ancestry.
See this for one explanation of the “Jewish soul” concept.
‘Jewishness’ has two components, religious and tribal. The embrace or rejection (to whatever degree) of the religious component is voluntary, whereas the tribal component is inviolate and inescapable. Just as someone may walk away from their family or be disowned by them but the DNA remains.
Neo said:
“By that strict definition under Jewish law, Marx would have been a Jew…”
Nuff said. For such a small group of people Jews have played a huge role in history far out of proportion to their size both for good and for bad. Western Civilization would no more exist without Jewish prophets than it would exist without the Greek philosophers. Are Jews good? Definitely. Are Jews bad? Absolutely. Can Western Civilization continue to exist without its Jews? Absolutely not. Jews and Gentiles need each other. We are all in this lifeboat together to sink or swim as one people.
I recall a remark on a PBS one of their series that many jews
Were intial enthusiastic proponents of marxism because it
Promised a classless society & they felt they were on the bottom rung so marxism would put all on the same level
Surprising to me since many prof & physicians and such were jewish. What exactly were they aiming at? I think they
Wanted to be liberated from scape goat ism which they had to put up with. Sadly we can see the Left is hardly classless
Or tolerant to anyone outside their sphere.
DNW, those people cannot be “unconsidered as Jews” only because the halakha does not allow for it and people who consider them as Jews accept the halakhic criteria for who is Jewish.
Think of being American (an imperfect analogy). There are several ways to become a citizen, from simple birth on the US soil to naturalization, but ultimately it does not matter HOW one got to (legally) have one’s US documents, as from the moment one has them, one is American in principle forever – with rare exceptions by which one can lose or renounce one’s citizenship – and the children can claim the status through their parents (either one).
The halakha _does not allow_ for the exceptions, one cannot lose nor renounce one’s status; it states that the status is automatically _and necessarily_ transmitted to anyone born to a Jewish mother (not father, only matrilineal descent counts – anything else is NOT an Orthodox position and is an influence of _extra-halakhic_ criteria invading the modern Jewish circles!).
If one accepts that the halakha is right, one _has to_ considers as Jewish all people whom the halakha considers as such. It is not a matter of one’s personal conscience or opinion. One does not have to like them, one does not even have to like what the halakha says, but if one _accepts_ it, their status in one’s eyes is _necessarily_ that of Jews.
Likewise, if one recognizes that the US laws rightly define who is a US citizen and by what standards, one _has to_ accept as fellow US citizens all those people who are in that group, which means also those US citizens who are “bad” _qua US citizens_ in one’s eyes. They do not “turn foreigners” just because one does not like them. In extreme cases one can argue that they ought be stripped of their citizenship, e.g. if they commit treason, but meanwhile one is _bound_ to consider them as Americans and to treat them as such. Again, not a matter of personal conscience, but of respecting the legal US definitions and standards.
So for religious Jews, there is no “un-becoming” a Jew and there is no “non-trasmitting” of a Jewish status to one’s children if one is a Jewish woman. The halakha says so, and their criteria are exclusively the halakhic criteria.
Can people be ostracized and _de facto_ disowned if they do certain things? Of course, as in any human society, but they do not stop being _Jewish_, that is the difference. They are _Jews_ whom their families and communities have de facto disowned, but the disowning does not include the change of the metaphysical status as defined by the halakha.
Many religions have something analogous actually; in the RCC there is no “un-baptizing” and not even “re-baptizing” for converts already baptized in another Christian church using the same formula. There is no way “fully out” (not sure how it works with the excommunication though), it seems that the Church still continues to “count”, in some ways, the people who leave. The mechanism is different, the Christian status is never automatically “transmitted” from mother to child (like Jewishness is) – it needs to be attached to every individual specifically (through baptism) – but once attached, it cannot be taken down just by an act of will. Analogously, a child baptized at birth who leaves the fold and decides to go back cannot be “re-baptized”, the status is already there, he had it all along, even when _to him_ it did not matter anything, the Church “counted” it.
So it is not only Jews, different societies have different standards of how and how long they count their members; the problems arise when there are clashes of standards and where some individuals who do not want to be counted into some group find that they cannot escape being counted by others.
Ok, done for today.
I will depart, leaving the earlier rephrased substance of my original question; which, I think was clear enough, even though it was looser than what is placed again below.
Again I ask:
In other words, I imagine that if I were Jewish I would have no more problem with allowing the left-wing totalitarian apostate Barbara Streisand go her own way to die in 6 inches of dirty ditch water, than I as a non-Jew would have in allowing the malevolent Howard Dean or Harry Reid to do the same.
These are not poor wayfaring strangers, or never-edified persons. They are conscious, deliberate, determined and – within their own limits, knowledgeable – ultimately nihilistic enemies of all that is wholesome, holy, and “liberal” in the best sense of the word.
One need not persecute such people, but why the compulsion to identify with them? Those are not the only two human options .
What’s the deal with this emotional inability to break off relations?
Honestly, it sounds more like “enabling” to me, than anything else. Especially since there is from the perspective of the participants, no question of eternal fates, being involved.
But it is not an emotional thing! I am bad at brevity, but the short version would be that it is only about respecting the _legal definitions_ of the code of (religious) law to which you subscribe, and these defintions say that certain other people (whom you may perfectly not like) share a given metaphysical or national status with you.
That is all it is about. The code of law to which you subscribes attributes a certain status to these people, and it is not in your power to change that status or the underlying mechanism of how the status is obtained. It obliges you to group some people into X category (“the baptized”, “the US citizens”, “the Jews” etc.), on the sole account of accepting it as binding, _regardless_ of any personal and emotional disposition.
DNW:
I think you are positing some imaginary group of (a) religiously observant Jews; who (b) vocally embrace and claim some emotional identification with secular Jews who have renounced Judaism.
There is no such group of religious Jews who act that way as far as I know. The position that they are still Jews if born of a Jewish mother is something that comes from a long LONG time ago and was a legal distinction not an emotional one (as I believe Anna has explained). Individual religious Jews were not inviting Karl Marx to shabat dinner, with him begging off.
The “born a Jew, stay a Jew” definition had more to do with the Jewish nation/people than it had to do with religion. Remember, also, that over the millennia Jews have been continually subject to forced conversion, sometimes at the sword point (there is a whole legal category to deal with the question of Jews who are forced converts).
I also read somewhere that the inheritance through the mother only was meant to deal with the prevalence of the rape of Jewish women by outsiders. Don’t know if that’s true, though.
Orthodox Judaism is a highly legalistic religion. Conservative and especially Reform Jews do not follow most of these laws and rules. The vast majority of the Jews in the US are not Orthodox.
molly nh:
Not just classless. They thought anti-Semitism would go away under Communism. That was the hope—it certainly didn’t happen.
Interesting article in the Forward about Trotsky and anti-Semitism. He apparently believed the problem would be resolved by Jews becoming thoroughly assimilated, thereby ceasing to be Jews.
To this end, in 1919:
That was almost a decade before Trotsky fell out of favor.
The older, exiled Trotsky, changed his tune, though — again from the Forward article:
“Well, why, again, is it that atheist anti-Jewish “Jews” cannot [apparently] be completely disavowed and cast beyond the moral pale?”
we wait for those people to marry out and have gentile progeny. they’re then not our problem.
“Orthodox Judaism is a highly legalistic religion. Conservative and especially Reform Jews do not follow most of these laws and rules. The vast majority of the Jews in the US are not Orthodox.”
yes, but we are the ones producing Jewish grandchildren.
It is the same split between Semitic people, Arabs and other denizens. Not all Muslims are Arabs, but that’s where they originated.
It’s easy to distinguish that because they named the religion Islam and had a different English word for the region or ethnicity. Language controls thought and an improperly constructed language produces muddied thinking.
this is interesting: ah!
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/02/03/when-democrats-do-it-its-not-poisonous-ethnocentric-chauvinism/
With some people the drama never stops. If not one thing it’ll be another.
Exhausting ….
The disconnect between Judaica and liberalism I’ve always wondered about is that on the one hand it’s clearly a Jewish value to work hard in all you do, achievement and self-motivated excellence in performance, starting as small children, through their upbringing and education, and into their fields, and it clearly works, yet politically they advocate for self-sufficiency-killing governmentally-imposed exceptional safety nets for everyone else.
If you look at the time stamps you will notice that your message immediately preceding mine, was relatively close. I was writing in real time -while preoccupied with other things – after reading an unrefreshed screen, so I would not have seen your 6:04 comment, or a couple others for that matter.
Now, as you acknowledge the matter of any parallel drawn between US citizenship and a status as a Jew, is sketchy.
It is sketchy because what it means to be an American in any sense fellow citizens are bound to respect – except in the narrowest and most formal legal terms – is very much in dispute.
As far as a purely formal recognition of blackletter law, and certain privileges and entitlements flowing from that while a member in good standing – of course I can see that.
Under that definition Bill Ayers is an American. A worthless American. An evil American. An American whose death would leave the country better off.
And finally, he is an American toward whom, outside of the blind justice pledge of the courtroom, no other American has any moral obligations toward whatsoever.
And there is the critical difference, isn’t it? The pledge of the citizen juror to act impartially implies no moral bond, and no sense of identification with the subject. (Garry Wills puling to the contrary notwithstanding)
Furthermore, once an American, say Bill Ayers, renounces his citizenship (though the state department seems to want to make it difficult for idiots to do so) he is no longer an American in any public sense at all. He is owed no obligation of mutuality whatsoever by his former fellows in any sense referential to his political status, not even the purely formal and procedural ones formerly operative.
Of course, the left is and long has been doing everything it can to change this premise, and undermine our system of laws with notions of interpersonal obligation, and the legal shackles of a systemic commitment to “positive liberty”.
Nonetheless for now, the rules and definitions of citizenship can be still changed, by either Congress or Constitutional amendment, depending on the issue mooted. Another critical difference, I think.
As far as Catholicism goes, members of the church can indeed be excommunicated. Then they are then no longer Catholics.
I suppose the halaka is considered part of the “oral Torah” on some level. Well, about that, or the suppositional framework of the Talmud [I am excluding actual scripture here], I have nothing positive to say. I’m already on record regarding both that, and the Brehon Laws.
As far as ethnicity goes, well, I personally suppose there is no arguing that a Jewish male with the Y Cohen gene (if it really exists) is a male of that line. A virtually tautological and indisputable truth which as I see it makes him, and I would think proudly, a biological Jew.
That is as much embedded in his human expression as the Atlantic Modal haplotype is in mine.
Of course, mine does not serve to identify me an ethnic Breton, nor a Connamara Galetacht member nor a Frisian nor ….
Whereas as far as identification as an ethnic Jew goes, this amazing literal and lineal descent of his from … guarantees … well, apparently guarantees him nothing; at least as far as being accepted as an ethic Jew goes.
“avi Says:
February 8th, 2015 at 12:16 am
“Well, why, again, is it that atheist anti-Jewish “Jews” cannot [apparently] be completely disavowed and cast beyond the moral pale?”
we wait for those people to marry out and have gentile progeny. they’re then not our problem.”
Had to note that I got a real kick out of that one. “Good on ya” as the Aussies, at least in some movies, say.
Have a good weekend … what’s left of it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/opinion/luhrmann-belief-is-the-least-part-of-faith.html
japan:
Very nice find.
It boils down to Pascal’s wager… then quiet acceptance/submission …
Sounds … Moooslime! Argh!
Media Jew “not particularly” observant agrees about the “high horse” thingy:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-meyer/2015/02/08/david-brooks-im-totally-pro-obama-attacking-christianity
no stereotype there …
The link leads to:
I’m sorry I brought this up. It is no mystery to me now how Obama got elected … twice.
I feel like saying something obscenely contemptuous about a fair portion of the human species, but I will refrain, and limit myself to confirming the author’s take on the fact situation, while vehemently disagreeing with her positive assessment of it.
As I think I have already mentioned here before, some years ago, while employed by others, I allowed myself to drift into an office conversation somehow involving religion. The women participants, were church going types, much older but socially aware and politically progressive types: Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Unitarians, whatever …
So, whatever the original subject might have been, they were also talking about church doctrines: and evaluating from the broad minded perspective.
I made an abstract reference to “truth” as the critical element upon which everything else should hinge.
That elicited a feminine snort or two.
I replied by saying something the effect of:
“What in the universe could possibly be more important than knowing what is true and what is not, and to understand reality as near to it really is as possible? It’s the only thing that gives anything else any meaning, moral or otherwise, at all. Why bother with an untrue religion”
Barb, replied,
“I don’t care about that. That isn’t what I want”
I was literally stupefied for a moment.
“What do you want more than to know the truth?”
“Joy! I want Joy!”
It probably occurred to me to say something about Socrates and the pig, but I hope I didn’t. They were near-elderly, and I don’t like the historical Socrates anyway, and it’s bad form to harrow polite old ladies with your philosophy education during an office chit chat session. So. I let it drop.
But I haven’t forgotten. Though I try to; because I hate what it tells me about the people you rub elbows with every day. As long as they are part of some effen thing, and feel inside and secure, they are happy. No matter what that thing is.
What a race … monkeys huddling in a pack picking ticks and slobbering in each others’ faces … when they are not secretly killing the young of the same others.
To get away from politics for a bit, another Jew-Not Jew was the composer Felix Mendelssohn, whose father renounced Judaism and had Felix and his siblings baptized as children into Reformed Christianity, i.e., Calvinism. Felix wasn’t especially religious at any time during his short life, but he remained both outwardly Christian, and proud of his rich Jewish heritage. He seemed to balance the contradictions of who he was better than many scholars, who continue to argue today about whether Mendelssohn should be considered a Christian or a Jew. To which I would say, “Yes. Now, sit back, relax, stop bickering, and enjoy his music”.
I agree. Especially when the case is such that the so-called “identity” of any given “X” lays no unshakeable and unconditional, obligations of solidarity, or rules of recognition on someone else sharing that same supposed categorial identity.
DNW:
I agree, the distinctions you bring up are important, which is why my analogy was imperfect.
My studies of Judaism were generalist, out of curiosity, and rather short-lived. For some reason I was more interested to learn about the legal technicalities than to explore the spirituality. I know little of the Talmdic discussions, and nothing of the criteria for which opinions and practices are ultimately binding and why, so I cannot comment on that (you brought that up in the other thread). Overall, I found Judaism to be a fascinating scholarly edifice, but there are only so many hours in a day, and many fascinating things to study in this world, so I gave it up – with a massive respect for the Jewish intellectual tradition, but also with a clear understanding that I do not belong there (regardless of any ancestresses that may “qualify” me), perhaps even with a greater understanding of some aspects Christianity, by contrast.
By the way, do you know Molié¨re’s Misanthrope? There is in the first act a monologue by Alceste on how he loathes all of humanity – not entirely unlike some things you wrote – and then there is a response by Philinte which, far from presenting thoughtless optimism (of the “I want joy!” kind), allows for a phlegmatic, almost condescending acceptance of the way men are. A completely off-topic remark, but for some reason your post reminded me of that exchange and prompted me to reread it.
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/moliere/misanthrope/act1.html (English – the translation does not do it justice, but it is the only I could find)
http://www.toutmoliere.net/acte-1,405469.html (French)
neo-neocon
your link to the “Jewish soul” concept
Which goes to this:
Abraham and Sarah, the first Jewish couple
This need to be discussed?
Kind of funny. Yes I had some vague recollection of the Misanthrope but it dated back to high school or some first year college humanities or history class.
If you had asked me on the spot, I would have missed by a century and mumbled something about Voltaire and wondered if he didn’t appear as some kind of Dr Pangloss in reverse in a play.
That said I almost didn’t write that last paragraph not only because it was a bit over the top, but also because I could not figure out how to limit the comment to the collectivist-minded without verbal acrobatics.
It’s easier to do in conversation.
You meet Joe Blow from Kokomo the local Demo party operative at a gathering and he becomes indignant when “one” says in response to any of their always fulminating claims:
“It’s not my moral obligation to haul so and so’s water.”
“What, do you hate people?” he shrieks.
“Not at all.”
“Don’t you care about people and their suffering?!” he demands, while waving his arm around the room.
“Sure I care about people. Some of them anyway.”
“What?”
“Yes, I care about the suffering of some people: like her, and her, and him. You, however, not so much. In fact, not at all.”
Effes them up every time.
I wonder how the ancestors of such hapless and dependent and cowardly people ever got across the Atlantic Ocean in the first place.
The world is full of good and decent people who make great associates and companions.
It’s just that the collectivist kind are so obnoxiously and unrelenting in their quest for attention and benefits.
“Pressing” as the English would have said in Moliere’s time.
DNW Says:
February 10th, 2015 at 2:37 pm
I like.
The alleviating of one’s existential angst with other people’s money phenom is a wondrous thing …