There is a poster hanging in the ultra-religious part of the old city of Jerusalem that reads as follows: "We would rather die as Jews than live as Zionists." In that part of the city, you will NOT see a single Israeli flag -- but plenty of Palestinian ones.
This gets to a fundamental question that everyone thinks they knows: What is a Jew? Or, to put more rigor behind it: What is a Jew in the view of a devoutly religious practicing Jew?
First, I am not Jewish, but have been intensively studying Judaism for nearly 15 years now.
Jewish is often considered like an ethnicity, but that is not accurate. A person cannot "convert" to an ethnicity, but a non-Jew can certainly convert to Judaism. I have heard one religious, orthodox rabbi explain that to be Jewish is more like a job description, and the acceptance of that job, based on the requirements.
If one is born of a Jewish mother, one has an obligation to adhere to the tenets of Judaism. Whether they accept those tenets is up to them. A convert takes on the same obligation.
This is a Jew, as viewed by those who practice the religion.
Hitler's Third Reich had a different conception of what a Jew was.
At risk of over-simplifying: Zionism is to Judaism what Christian nationalism is to Christianity. Zionism was born in Europe as a virulently anti-semitic movement It's an incredible story of how we got to where we are today.
You're not crazy!
So great to feed my spirit with this! Thanks for the boost!
This goes to the topic of "anti-semitism."
There is a poster hanging in the ultra-religious part of the old city of Jerusalem that reads as follows: "We would rather die as Jews than live as Zionists." In that part of the city, you will NOT see a single Israeli flag -- but plenty of Palestinian ones.
This gets to a fundamental question that everyone thinks they knows: What is a Jew? Or, to put more rigor behind it: What is a Jew in the view of a devoutly religious practicing Jew?
First, I am not Jewish, but have been intensively studying Judaism for nearly 15 years now.
Jewish is often considered like an ethnicity, but that is not accurate. A person cannot "convert" to an ethnicity, but a non-Jew can certainly convert to Judaism. I have heard one religious, orthodox rabbi explain that to be Jewish is more like a job description, and the acceptance of that job, based on the requirements.
If one is born of a Jewish mother, one has an obligation to adhere to the tenets of Judaism. Whether they accept those tenets is up to them. A convert takes on the same obligation.
This is a Jew, as viewed by those who practice the religion.
Hitler's Third Reich had a different conception of what a Jew was.
At risk of over-simplifying: Zionism is to Judaism what Christian nationalism is to Christianity. Zionism was born in Europe as a virulently anti-semitic movement It's an incredible story of how we got to where we are today.