Part of my family is Jewish, and many close friends I’ve known and celebrated holidays with since I was very young. They believe they are God’s chosen people. Do you disagree?
When the antisemitic charge is used to silence all disagreement, it dilutes the impact of charges of real antisemitism.
Part of my family is Jewish, and many close friends I’ve known and celebrated holidays with since I was very young. They believe they are God’s chosen people. Do you disagree?
When the antisemitic charge is used to silence all disagreement, it dilutes the impact of charges of real antisemitism.
You're conflating the notion of a "chosen people", which can be found in any religion, with an expressed right to dominate or exploit other people. we are all just human and susceptible to human behaviour and Jews don't see themselves any differently. There is no concept of needing to rule over others in Judaism, nor is there any sense of an ordering of "races." It's more akin to a "calling" to obey the commandments, not to impose them on others. Let's also remember that the scribes who wrote the Torah thousands of years ago were living in the world that they inhabited, long before science or the birth of the notion of liberal democracy. Perhaps there is an extreme fringe of Jewish society that believes in Jewish superiority, but the vast majority of Jews worldwide would never make such a claim. And if we are to say that Islamic terrorists don't speak for Muslims at large, certainly the same courtesy can be extended to Jews.
It's a bit disingenuous to claim that, after hundreds of years of persecution and second class status in Arab lands, suddenly the Jews are the ones who believe they are superior. If anything Jews should be an inspiration to indigenous and black communities for their ability to survive and thrive despite this constant persecution.
I don't make accusations of antisemitism lightly, and in fact I have argued with my own community over what is and isn't antisemitism. I personally don't use it to silence disagreement. But I do believe it is up to Jewish people to determine what is and isn't antisemitism, just as any other group defines bigotry against them. The implication that the Jews (sorry, "Israeli settlers") are solely, or even mostly responsible for the current conflict ignores the long history of Arab refusal to accept ANY self-determination for the Jewish people in our ancestral homeland.
As for "The King's Torah", I have had to look hard to find much info on that book (which itself belies the claim that it was a bestseller. One article I found claimed it had sold around 1,000 copies over 10 years ago). It's certainly a divisive book, and seems to have been mostly rejected (there were even attempts to charge the author ), but from what I can tell, it isn't advancing a theory of Jewish supremacy, but rather the idea that the commandment "thou shall not kill" doesn't apply to "non-Jews who threaten Israel". This argument is regularly applied the other way by Palestinians: that Israeli civilians and even children are legitimate targets because they have served, or will serve, in the Israeli army. It's not an argument I would agree with, but it's not based on race, either.
My last response to this petty thread hijack: I mentioned "The King's Torah," written by one settler-raise Rabbi Shapira. The book states with chilling nonchalance that the killing of a non-Jew by a Jew does not even count as murder; moreover, that Israel should be willing to kill a million Palestinian infants (!) for no better reason than to instruct their parents not to stand in the way of Jewish goals for example unlimited expansion (as advocated by Avigdor Lieberman and Ayelet Shaked).
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These people are monsters. Ghouls. As sick as Himmler.
And, of, lest I forget, a lot of the settlers have been unobservant for generations.
It’s problematic to judge any culture by its worst examples. One could cherry pick folks with abhorrent from any culture. It seems disingenuous to argue this view is representative of all Jewish people, and I have to say, this comment does feel antisemitic to me.
Where did I do anything like that? By "these people" I meant Shapira, Shaked, and Lieberman. As someone whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust I don't take to this casual use of "antisemitic." And with that I am definitely out of this hijack. I will respond to it no further.
Part of my family is Jewish, and many close friends I’ve known and celebrated holidays with since I was very young. They believe they are God’s chosen people. Do you disagree?
When the antisemitic charge is used to silence all disagreement, it dilutes the impact of charges of real antisemitism.
You're conflating the notion of a "chosen people", which can be found in any religion, with an expressed right to dominate or exploit other people. we are all just human and susceptible to human behaviour and Jews don't see themselves any differently. There is no concept of needing to rule over others in Judaism, nor is there any sense of an ordering of "races." It's more akin to a "calling" to obey the commandments, not to impose them on others. Let's also remember that the scribes who wrote the Torah thousands of years ago were living in the world that they inhabited, long before science or the birth of the notion of liberal democracy. Perhaps there is an extreme fringe of Jewish society that believes in Jewish superiority, but the vast majority of Jews worldwide would never make such a claim. And if we are to say that Islamic terrorists don't speak for Muslims at large, certainly the same courtesy can be extended to Jews.
It's a bit disingenuous to claim that, after hundreds of years of persecution and second class status in Arab lands, suddenly the Jews are the ones who believe they are superior. If anything Jews should be an inspiration to indigenous and black communities for their ability to survive and thrive despite this constant persecution.
I don't make accusations of antisemitism lightly, and in fact I have argued with my own community over what is and isn't antisemitism. I personally don't use it to silence disagreement. But I do believe it is up to Jewish people to determine what is and isn't antisemitism, just as any other group defines bigotry against them. The implication that the Jews (sorry, "Israeli settlers") are solely, or even mostly responsible for the current conflict ignores the long history of Arab refusal to accept ANY self-determination for the Jewish people in our ancestral homeland.
As for "The King's Torah", I have had to look hard to find much info on that book (which itself belies the claim that it was a bestseller. One article I found claimed it had sold around 1,000 copies over 10 years ago). It's certainly a divisive book, and seems to have been mostly rejected (there were even attempts to charge the author ), but from what I can tell, it isn't advancing a theory of Jewish supremacy, but rather the idea that the commandment "thou shall not kill" doesn't apply to "non-Jews who threaten Israel". This argument is regularly applied the other way by Palestinians: that Israeli civilians and even children are legitimate targets because they have served, or will serve, in the Israeli army. It's not an argument I would agree with, but it's not based on race, either.
My last response to this petty thread hijack: I mentioned "The King's Torah," written by one settler-raise Rabbi Shapira. The book states with chilling nonchalance that the killing of a non-Jew by a Jew does not even count as murder; moreover, that Israel should be willing to kill a million Palestinian infants (!) for no better reason than to instruct their parents not to stand in the way of Jewish goals for example unlimited expansion (as advocated by Avigdor Lieberman and Ayelet Shaked).
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These people are monsters. Ghouls. As sick as Himmler.
And, of, lest I forget, a lot of the settlers have been unobservant for generations.
It’s problematic to judge any culture by its worst examples. One could cherry pick folks with abhorrent from any culture. It seems disingenuous to argue this view is representative of all Jewish people, and I have to say, this comment does feel antisemitic to me.
Where did I do anything like that? By "these people" I meant Shapira, Shaked, and Lieberman. As someone whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust I don't take to this casual use of "antisemitic." And with that I am definitely out of this hijack. I will respond to it no further.
Sorry, Steve.