"Ask A Jew" Wednesday

[u/AutoModerator]

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/Rulninger]

So I think you might already have touched on it a bit. But as someone on the left, one of the more controversial parts of Judaism, have always been this question of who is and isn't a Jew and the whole chosen people thing. I guess it mainly becomes problematic when Jews become the dominant group in a society.

There is a broader discussion about the dangers of ethno-nationalism, but Jews of course, were some of the main victims of nationalism in Europe. Antisemitism runs as long current through European history.

I guess what I am asking for is Jewish perspectives on these dilemmas. Jewish thinkers were and are a huge part of the left, but leftist ideologies were meant to be universal.

[u/loselyconscious → u/Rulninger]

I'm not really sure what your question is. Who is a Jew is a matter of internal Jewish law and not really for non-Jews to discuss. That's why we oppose a "Jewish state". It should not become a matter of power. As for Left ideologies being "universal," who are you accusing of being "not universal" "Universalism" is actually a major target of critique from the left, and a servent of colonialism and European cultural hegemony

[u/Rulninger → u/loselyconscious]

Sorry, I didn't want to accuse anyone. It was just ask a question wednesday. Religions are ancient things and most of them have aspects, that we in a modern context, might see as problematic.

A lot of these things with who is in or out, can be solved with tolerance. It doesn't have to lead to division, unless we want it to.

When I talk about universality, I do it from a background of having grown up in an area, were many people or their parents, had immigrant or refugee backgrounds. A lot of politician have tried to define these people as something other and in different ways discriminate against them, use them as scapegoats and exclude them.

[u/loselyconscious → u/Rulninger]

Religions are ancient things and most of them have aspects, that we in a modern context, might see as problematic

You can say that about literally everything. Countries are ancient things, Philosophies are ancient things, etc. Religion is not uniquely "problematic," and Jewishness is not confined to religion.

A lot of these things with who is in or out, can be solved with tolerance. It doesn't have to lead to division, unless we want it to.

There is nothing inherently wrong with cultural groups maintaining the boundaries of their groups. It's when resources are withheld from one group or power reserved for another, that the boundaries become problems "Tolerance" is also irrelevant to the question of "who is a Jew" since it has nothing to do with behavior or belief

When I talk about universality, I do it from a background of having grown up in an area, were many people or their parents,

The answer to bigotry is not assimilation; targeted groups are rarely ever truly allowed to be assimilated, nor should it be taken for granted that the broader culture is something they should have to be part of.

[u/Rulninger → u/loselyconscious]

Second comment: But yeah, you are right. The easy answer to nationalism on the left, have often been to stop having ethnic identities. That these identities are there to create false divisions were there are none. But that's also a bit of a blindspot, thinking of one self as neutral, when in actuality we (Europeans) come with eurocentric views on most things. Still from a European leftist perspective, European ethnic identities are seen as negative, as something problematic and dangerous and they have also clearly been used that way in the past too. But just because we see those identities as negative, does not make us neutral or unbiased.

[u/loselyconscious → u/Rulninger]

That these identities are there to create false divisions were there are none.

No, these identities can be used to stoke vision, but the identities exist because different groups of people are different. The Irish are not British, Jews are not Christians, and Italians are not Germans; those differences are fine and even good.

till from a European leftist perspective, European ethnic identities are seen as negative, as something problematic and dangerous and they have also clearly been used that way in the past too

Which European leftists think this, none I have read from the last 30 years.

ut just because we see those identities as negative

Again, who is "we"

[u/Rulninger → u/loselyconscious]

The event is over and you are a lot more knowledgeable than me, so apologies for this, but in my words:

I think, it's a difference between America and Europe. Europe, to a large extent, consist of nation states, that at least historically, have used nationalism (and invented historical myths) and before that religion, to create coherence and rule. I think that was why they saw Jews as such a treat. Jews were the one group who refused to assimilate or before that convert. These nations states would tell people, how they were different from the people living in neighboring countries and thus ultimately might have to go to war with them, to reclaim or defend some ancestral land. The left (socialists, communists, anarchists (not usually liberals in Europe)) would instead tell workers, that they had far more in common with workers in neighboring countries, than the rulling class in their own countries.

In these European nationstates your ethnicity/cultural background was a tool, the state and rulling class, would use to control you with and make you act against your own interests. From a socialist perspective, nationalism is a divide and rule strategy. Instead of fighting against my boss, I am fighting fellow workers, whom I believe are fundamentally different from myself.

The most scary example of what nationalism might become, if taken to extremes, is what happened in the 30ies and 40ies. But that ideology (Nazism) didn't just magically appear out of nowhere, most European states used aspects of the ideological toolkit previously, just to a much less extreme degree.

(As for which leftist thinkers, well it's everywhere I think. The international etc Working Men of All Countries, Unite!

"The working men have no country."

Karl Marx

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg sponsored this resolution at the second international

"Wars are favored by the national prejudices which are systematically cultivated among civilized peoples in the interest of the ruling classes for the purpose of distracting the proletarian masses from their own class tasks as well as from their duties of international solidarity."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletarian_internationalism

https://en.internationalism.org/pamphlets/nationorclass/

A much less prominent person, but here Scottish folk singer Dick Gaughan sums up many of my points

https://youtu.be/pB9fb3lIXko I am not a hardcore academic, like you, but given time i can come up with more sources if you like)

[u/Pitiful_Meringue_57 → u/Rulninger]

This is an interesting perspective from a european. I don’t know if that’s the dominant view there but it definitely isn’t in America. I have noticed it tho, europeans getting mad when americans call themselves irish or italian or whatnot.

Most of the jews in the sub r probably American just based on demographics and i can only speak from my experience and knowledge as an american but ethnic identities r very much accepted and celebrated on the left in America. Ethnicities come from something real, shared history, culture, language, food etc, whereas race is pretty much entirely made up. If someone were to look at my DNA they can tell fairly easily that i am ethnically jewish, where as again, race is fake (socially though it is very much real and that’s the problem).

[u/Rulninger → u/Pitiful_Meringue_57]

It guess it depends on how seriously one takes it. And I also think it's different when one group is dominant. If you start taking pride in being Anglo-Saxon, in England, for example, then suddenly you start to see a lot of groups as something other and a possible treat to your identity and then suddenly immigrants are a problem and not just competition, but also a potential existential treat. I think part of the reason it gets so bad in Europe, is that nationstates also draw legitimacy from these identities and although it is no longer spoken about, there is an underlying blood and soil framework. European states have committed countless crimes across the globe, I am gentile splaining, but still, the Holocaust is the moment, that definitely proves, without doubt, that european nationalism has to be kept in check and can't be allowed to grow strong.

[u/Rulninger → u/loselyconscious]

Sorry, I was also vague. But that's because it's a difficult subject and that was also why I wanted to have the conversation. I don't think I am arguing for assimilation ?

I have just seen how european ethnic identities, have been used to judge who is in or out with. To descriminate against other groups and see them as something foreign, thus I am highly sceptical of people who take pride in a specific european ethnic identity. (By these identifies, I don't mean Jews. Jews were often the people who were defined as something other as outsider etc and europes history is full of atrocities against Jews)

[u/loselyconscious → u/Rulninger]

If you don't mean Jews, what are you even talking about. And there is nothing wrong with taking pride in your heritage, arguably it is even more important if people are weaponsing your identity against others to create an alternative non-bigoted form of identity 

[u/Rulninger → u/loselyconscious]

First of all, Thanks for taking the time to respond to all this, you have helped me reconsider some things.

I already said some of what I was talking about in the second comment I made. In my experience on the European left, taking pride in a European heritage and cultural identity, is seen as highly problematic and very much potentially racist.

If a guy started talking to me, about his pride in belonging to some white european cultural identity, that would be a major red flag.

But you're right, that just thinking about european cultural identities as negative, does not make us (European leftists) neutral or unbiased. We are undoubtedly blind to a ton of eurocentric bagage we bring with us and structures or ideas we think are neutral, might not be so. If I start demanding that other groups should throw off their cultural bagage, I become the racist and Jews are one of the groups, that clearly crystalizes that.