r/JewsOfConscience • u/AutoModerator • Aug 07 '24
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.
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u/FurstRoyalty-Ties Anti-Zionist Ally Aug 07 '24
I have 2 questions for Jews with some background in rabbinical studies. Not sure if this is the right place to ask about it, but here goes.
How influential is the commentaries and supercommentaries of Rashi, the middle ages Rabbi, on current day theology teachings.
How does one view the story of Noah, when compared to another prophet such as Abraham, within the current teachings of theology.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Aug 07 '24
How influential is the commentaries and supercommentaries of Rashi, the middle ages Rabbi, on current day theology teachings.
In many ways, the commentaries of Rashi (and his contemporaries) are viewed as more important than the Talmud itself. Orthodox Jews view the rulings and explanations of the Rabbinic era from roughly 1000-1500 (known as the "Rishonim", literaly "the first ones") as foundational to Jewish thought and theology. This era culminated in the Shulchan Aruch (compiled in Palestine in 1563) which became the accepted codification of Jewish law and religious practice by all Jews in the world. In Orthodox theology, subsequent Rabbis are mostly forbidden from disagreeing with the Rabbis of this era.
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u/Thisisme8719 Arab Jew Aug 07 '24
How influential is the commentaries and supercommentaries of Rashi, the middle ages Rabbi, on current day theology teachings.
Depends. He isn't influential at all outside of Orthodox circles since his biblical commentaries are silly, puerile and based on ridiculous midrashim. The leaders in those movements also accept findings in academic biblical studies and have varying degrees of adeptness in the scholarship, which you can see in the movements' bibles. The more intellectual circles in the Modern Orthodox world don't care as much about his biblical commentaries, but his talmudic commentaries are commonly used. But in most Orthodox circles he's the commentator, and they understand and teach the texts according to his commentaries. They won't tell you where the text ends and where his commentaries begin.
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u/ezkori Ashkenazi, American, raised in orthodoxy, currently cultural Aug 07 '24
I’m intrigued by your second question. Would you be able to elaborate/restate it? Just so I make sure I’m fully understanding
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u/FurstRoyalty-Ties Anti-Zionist Ally Aug 07 '24
I've read online from some websites that teach about Judaism, that Noah is seen to be just a listener to God's instructions but does not act for the betterment of other people outside of his family.
On the other hand, Abraham is viewed to be seen a more righteous due to praying for the souls of the damned in the cities that were destroyed by Elohim for their blasphemy, sexual deviancy, and intransigence in the cities of Sodom and Gamorrah.
I couldn't find out more about how Noah is viewed in modern Judaic theology apart from this brief difference in how they act on the commands of God, and his story itself.
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u/ezkori Ashkenazi, American, raised in orthodoxy, currently cultural Aug 07 '24
I think Noah generally isn’t really talked about much outside of the flood story, since Noah and his family’s mythologically are the progenitors or all nations, whereas Abraham is the first “Jew”.
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u/FurstRoyalty-Ties Anti-Zionist Ally Aug 07 '24
What about the prophet Methuselah? If I got it right. Is he deemed important for the theology of Judaism? Or is it that Judaism places greater importance for prophets from Abraham onwards ?
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u/sudo_apt-get_intrnet LGBTQ Jew Aug 07 '24
The only real "character" Judaism has between the generation of Adam and his sons to Abraham is Noah. I know other cultures have Methuselah and Enoch as major figures but the Jewish canon basically just lists their names in a single sentence while building a genealogy train.
IIRC Judaism doesn't even give the title of "prophet" to anyone before Abraham, including Noah and Adam.
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u/FurstRoyalty-Ties Anti-Zionist Ally Aug 07 '24
That's very interesting and new to me. What about thoughts on Adam as the progenitor of all mankind ?
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u/ezkori Ashkenazi, American, raised in orthodoxy, currently cultural Aug 07 '24
If memory serves, Methuselah is one of the generations between Noah and Abraham. If any additional stories exist (same for with Noah) they are mostly exegesis to teach/explain something and not actually in the Torah (but truly I cannot remember what methuselah did in the Torah so take that w a grain of salt lol. He’s not really super relevant to everyday Judaism.)
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u/FurstRoyalty-Ties Anti-Zionist Ally Aug 07 '24
Thanks for discussing this with me. Next week I should hopefully be able to ask some other questions too, if I don't forget about doing so. Haha.
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u/sudo_apt-get_intrnet LGBTQ Jew Aug 07 '24
Methuselah is literally just a name given as part of the "X had a son named Y" linking Adam to Noah. He and Enoch are special since they were said to "walk with Gd" but they had no other actions to speak of. Their entire involvement is 4 possuks.
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u/SpiritualUse121 Non-Jewish Ally Aug 07 '24 edited Aug 07 '24
Hope everyone is having a good week!
1/2 Despite growing up around Jews, I know next to nothing about Judaism. This is due to most being secular and then ultra orthodox which are quite insular. I do not have a Jewish community around me now & live in a Zionist AF country. How can I learn more about Judaism, without being bombarded with Zionism?
2/2 Help - I am unable to reconcile a thought, as any sectarian violence has never made sense to me:
From my own ancestry & studies in anthropology; people chop & change religions, combine cultures, evolve new cultures, etc. I have Palestinian acquaintances that can trace Jewish ancestry. We also know some Jewish populations also converted EG Sephardic & Kaifeng.
Is this logical / rational to you? Is it a common or accepted train of thought?
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Aug 07 '24
We also know some Jewish populations also converted EG Sephardic & Kaifeng.
Sephardic Jews are not converts, their ethnogenesis is very similar to Ashkenazi Jews and both groups are closely genetically related to each other.
Kaifeng Jews are a fascinating but extremely unusual example, there are at most around 1,000. It is believed that they are descended from Persian Jewish merchants who married local Chinese women, but over time they assimilated into the broader culture and only retained traces of Jewish observance, while remaining isolated from the mainstream Jewish world.
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u/sar662 Jewish Aug 07 '24
If you are looking for a Judaism 101, take a look at Herman Wouk's book "This is my God". He works through both the theology and the majority of Jewish history in a clear and accessible fashion. I don't remember how he portrays the Zionist movement and the modern state of Israel but it's definitely not something that is a major theme of the book. I think it's a chapter towards the end that you can just skip.
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u/HusseinDarvish-_- Muslim Aug 07 '24
Hi their, I have a question, How dose identity works for jews? In the middle east jewdiasm is viewed mainly as a religion, only antisemitic people and zionists here view it as an ethnicity. And the reason for that is because zionists used the ethic defention of jewdiasm to uproot arabic Jews and cut them out of their arabic culture and environment and integrate them into the zionist entity and society by redefining their identity as none arabs.
So for me and for alot of people the ethnic definition of jewdiasm is associated with alot of negative things.
Is jewdiasm defined as an ethnicity somthing that started by zionist thinkers and scholars? Or is it something routed in jewdiasm itself. Hope the question is not offensive or anything, genuinely curious and want to learn more about this.
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u/lilleff512 Jewish Aug 07 '24 edited Aug 07 '24
Is jewdiasm defined as an ethnicity somthing that started by zionist thinkers and scholars?
No
Or is it something routed in jewdiasm itself.
Yes
One way to understand this is that Jews coalesced as a distinct people group before the ideas of "religion," "ethnicity," and "nationality" evolved as separate concepts, so we fit into all of those different boxes but we don't exactly fit neatly.
Ironically, viewing Jews as only a religious group can often be seen as antisemitic because it denies certain components of Jewish identity and wholly excludes secular, atheist, and non-religious Jews.
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u/Pitiful_Meringue_57 Jewish Aug 08 '24
If i were to take a dna test from ancestry or 23 and me i would get 98-100% ashkenazi jewish. Most ashkenazi jews are not more than 10th cousins. Its absolutely an ethnicity and a pretty genetically homogenous one at that. Most ashkenazi jews have very little genetic similarities to eastern or central europeans despite living beside them for a long time. We have a district culture.
When it comes to other groups of jews it’s not gonna be as homogenous but there’s evidence that all jews are genetically fairly closely related. For other groups it’s gonna be moreso country dependent, iraqi jews, yemeni jews, indian jews, ethiopian jews, spanish jews, moroccan jews, all these groups are their own ethnicity and share various traits with other groups of jews and also their own culture with distinct cultural practices.
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u/ezkori Ashkenazi, American, raised in orthodoxy, currently cultural Aug 07 '24
Unfortunately the words we use are flawed. Judaism has (nearly) always been tribal, in the sense that there is a “communal” identity that exists. This identity is probably best described using the modern term “ethnicity”, but this “ethnic” identity is also given to those who convert into Judaism, so it’s not necessarily based on “real” ethnicity always. The answer is honestly that, while the idea wasn’t birthed by zionists, they have co-opted it and, as a result of much of Israel being secular practice wise (even if there is an undercurrent of Jewish religious beliefs in the secular culture) and the nation-state movement, it was eventually bastardized into the ethno-fascist identity that you see today. I’d say probably the ethnic aspect of Judaism is probably most similar to Roma people in that there is a distinct culture (or set of cultures in the case of Judaisms many sub-ethnic groups). Idk this is my (likely subpar) explanation
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u/HusseinDarvish-_- Muslim Aug 07 '24
And is the way Jews View their identity is it universal to all jews or do ashkenazi jews in perticular view it that way? Because form what I read europe was alot harsher environment for jew, and discrimination make a community close on itself and this mke cause the formation of a separate identity form the rest of society.
In the middle east and Africa their was discrimination as well but it was far less severe then that of Europe, and that's why the jews during that time were alot more connected and alot less separate than the rest of the arabic society. So this makes me wonder do the rest of jews outside of Europe saw their identity differently? And do you recommend any books made by none zionist authors on the subject? Because it seems that alot of the people covering this topic are covering it form a modern zionist identity point of view
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Aug 07 '24
Jewish Peoplehood is an ancient and integral part of Jewish identity, it wasn't created by a particular community. It could be said that persecution in Europe kept Ashkenazi Jews more isolated, but it is not what created the concept of a distinct identity or community. Jews in the Middle East and North Africa, even when more integrated into broader society, were still unique cultural groups who maintained distinct Jewish practices, traditions and languages. It must also be understood that modern understandings of Arab identity are fairly new, and historically the Arab world was less unified and more tribal.
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u/ezkori Ashkenazi, American, raised in orthodoxy, currently cultural Aug 07 '24
Universal to all Jews is a difficult thing, when different groups of Jewish people can’t agree on who is even considered Jewish. You’ll have trouble to find anyone who says that all Jews believe X. We have a saying, “two Jews; three opinions”. Unfortunately it’s not really something that’s super common for there to be a shared culture of a worldwide diaspora. I suppose a similar way to thinking of it would be the Palestinian diaspora in that there is a shared history that caused a diaspora and the result is lots of smaller diasporic groups forming. I suppose the level of integration in their specific communities was varied in those communities. I do think generally in Eastern Europe, Jews were much more isolated whereas in Spain, Germany (pre-nazi), Egypt and definitely probably many other places, there was a lot more integration in the local communities. At least in Germany, this lead to the first big modern “secularizing” of Judaism, the Haskallah. I’d definitely look also at mordechai Kaplan, an American Jewish rabbi who talks of Judaism as a civilization, rather than a religion. I think he makes a lot of salient points. I can try to find some excerpts.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Aug 07 '24
Unfortunately it’s not really something that’s super common for there to be a shared culture of a worldwide diaspora.
All Jewish diaspora groups have always shared universal Jewish cultural elements: the same Torah, same religious literature and (slightly differing) religious practices, the same Jewish holidays, the same concepts of ancient Jewish heritage and being descended from the Israelites, etc. All Jewish diaspora groups identified first as Jews, not by their diaspora group (even the definitions and labels of Jewish diaspora groups have changed over time). These concepts were not challenged by any Jewish groups until very modern times, beginning in the Haskalah.
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u/ezkori Ashkenazi, American, raised in orthodoxy, currently cultural Aug 07 '24
Are you elaborating or disagreeing? I’m not saying Judaism doesn’t have shared culture, I’m saying that it’s hard to conceptualize because there are not as many diasporic groups with this large of a population and as much variety in specific practices.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Aug 07 '24
I am not disagreeing but also not quite agreeing with the assertion that there is no shared Jewish diaspora culture. The very concept of belonging to a Jewish diaspora group is shared across Jewish diaspora groups.
I’m saying that it’s hard to conceptualize because there are not as many diasporic groups with this large of a population and as much variety in specific practices.
what Jewish groups would this be referring to? historically there has been a cohesive "mainstream" Jewish world (especially for the past 500 years) with only a few small remote groups outside of this framework.
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u/ezkori Ashkenazi, American, raised in orthodoxy, currently cultural Aug 07 '24
I’m talking about the Jewish diaspora vs. other diasporic groups who share a cultural identity. It’s hard to conceptialize on a scale like Judaism because of the sheer size and age of Judaism, as well as the relative size of the smaller diasporic groups. I’m also trying to simplify Jewish cultural identity in a way that still values the shared historical culture while also admitting that the diaspora changed and morphed the sub-cultures. For those not raised in this, it’s a weird thing to wrap one’s head around- this nebulous identity not linked (necessarily) to one nationality or religious beliefs or even necessarily one’s heritage! Jewish identity from the outside is confusing af
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Aug 07 '24
I think you are talking more about Jewish self-identity than Jewish diaspora definitions. Historically, Jewish diaspora groups identify as part of the broader Jewish world, not strictly with their diaspora group. And not all Jews, both historically and today, fit neatly into common Jewish diaspora group definitions, while still being fully part of the Jewish world.
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u/ezkori Ashkenazi, American, raised in orthodoxy, currently cultural Aug 07 '24
OP asked about Jewish identity re: ethnicity, I was just trying to break down the many many aspects of how someone would Jewishly identity with relation to ethnicity (which of course is far more modern of an idea than Judaism but regardless). I don’t disagree that Jews were primarily Jews and then diasporic but to see all these “distinct” groups, I don’t blame OP for being confused about Judaism as an ethnic identity. Diasporic identities mattered w/r to the level of integration one had in culture and the effects neighboring cultures changed aspects of Jewish practice.
I dunno I think we’re generally talking in circles right now.
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u/magavte_lanata Jewish Anti-Zionist Aug 07 '24
I don't agree with it (I'm ashki myself) and plenty of other Jews don't. Unfortunately many progressive anti-Zionist Jews haven't realized that "Jews are a race" is not true or helpful.
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u/magavte_lanata Jewish Anti-Zionist Aug 07 '24
Judaism is a religion and within it there are many Jewish cultures. The concept of religion as separate from culture is fairly recent. Mennonites, Greek Orthodox, Coptic Christians, all are cultural religions and they're no different from Jews. There are many Jewish cultures just like there are many Christian cultures. Jews aren't unique in this. Jews are not a race, however. I don't like calling Judaism "ethnic" bc it's just liberal-speak for "Jews are a race" a lot of the time.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Aug 08 '24
Judaism is a religion and within it there are many Jewish cultures.
Judaism is the religion of the Jewish People and it can only be practiced by Jews. The Jewish People long predate Judaism as a religion, certainly the modern understanding of Judaism which is much newer. Converts to Judaism are said to be "joining" the Jewish People, not strictly adopting Judaism as a religion.
Mennonites, Greek Orthodox, Coptic Christians, all are cultural religions and they're no different from Jews.
Of these groups, only Copts are similar to Jews in that they are an ethnoreligious group. Mennonites may have some ethnoreligious qualities, but that is a much more recent development than Jews and is not universal for all Mennonites. Greek Orthodox are not an ethnoreligious group by any definition.
Jews are not a race, however. I don't like calling Judaism "ethnic" bc it's just liberal-speak for "Jews are a race" a lot of the time.
Jewish Peoplehood is not about "race" at all. The question isn't whether Jews are a religion or a race, it is whether Jews are "just a religion" or a cultural/ethnic identity (with subcultures and sub-ethnicities) that includes religious traditions as a fundamental, but not exclusive, component of Jewish culture.
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Aug 09 '24
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u/homendeluz Non-Jewish Ally Aug 07 '24
Is there any strand or sect of Judaism that rejects the 'ethnic' component of Jewish identity? That is, are there any forms of Judaism that understand the faith as purely a faith, and not as a people, not as something that can be passed down along the maternal line?
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Aug 07 '24
In 1885 the nascent Reform movement in America adopted a platform that included just that: "we consider ourselves no longer a nation but a religious community" (but did not reject the concept of matrilineal descent). This was considered controversial even among Reform Jews, and they later adopted a platform in 1937 re-embracing the concept of Jewish Peoplehood. Reform is still the most "faith"-like of Jewish denominations, but they still observe matrilineal and, since 1983, patrilineal descent.
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Aug 08 '24 edited Aug 08 '24
In this context, I think it’s important to separate the terms ‘ethnic’, from what we can call, ‘tribal’. One’s Jewish identity being passed down through their maternal lineage can more accurately be described as a ‘tribal’ aspect of Judaism. Judaism in general can be described as far more tribal than any of the other major religions of the world.
To my knowledge, there are no Jewish denominations that outright reject this. Reform Judaism, which is the least observant of the major denominations, acknowledges Jewish identity from either maternal or paternal lineage. But there are some aspects of Judaism associated with the concept of ‘bloodlines’ that Reform Judaism rejects. For example, my paternal side is of kohen lineage . But a Reform synagogue would not acknowledge Kohen status and any Kohen related traditions. The whole topic around the question of Kohen lineage being real, is actually pretty interesting
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u/Pitiful_Meringue_57 Jewish Aug 08 '24
There are sects of judaism that recognize patrilineal descent and not maternal descent and reform recognizes both, and many sects recognize conversion. But since judaism is not a proselytizing religion it’s always gonna be that the vast majority of jews are gonna be jews bcz they were born and raised that way.
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Aug 07 '24
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Aug 07 '24
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u/IWantFries21 Non-Jewish Ally Aug 07 '24
I saw a video recently where an Israeli guy goes around interviewing other Israelis asking them about their heritage, and one guy says his family's from Jerusalem, and something about how far they can trace his lineage back so "they've always been here." That had me wondering though - wouldn't his family have technically been considered Palestinian then? Wouldn't his family have been Palestinian Jews? FTR I'm aware of some of the nuances and reasoning for why Arab Jews are often staunch Zionists, and I read somewhere that Palestinian Jews were automatically offered Israeli citizenship in 1948 but I never looked too much into that. I know a little about the Jewish settlements in the late 1800s but I don't think that's what the guy was referencing with regards to his family.
Something I've noticed from watching local efforts for divestment and seeing online discussion is that a lot of Jewish Zionists have a very real fear that current events are going to turn into another Holocaust. They're genuinely afraid when they see keffiyehs, they believe From The River To The Sea is calling for genocide (rather than dismantling a colonial state). Considering how sensitive that fear is, how do you talk to them about Palestine, if at all?