Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!hocda!houxm!hogpc!houxe!drutx!ihnp4!mhuxj!ulysses!unc!mcnc!decvax!mit-athena!martillo From: martillo@mit-athena.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish Subject: Re: Who is a Jew (Mr. Martillo's bark worse than his bite!) Message-ID: <11@mit-athe.UUCP> Date: Wed, 26-Sep-84 02:44:50 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-athe.11 Posted: Wed Sep 26 02:44:50 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 28-Sep-84 04:13:29 EDT References: <1438@ittvax.UUCP>, <223@fisher.UUCP> <225@mit-athena.ARPA>, <253@fisher.UUCP> <255@mit-athena.ARPA>Re: Who is a Je Lines: 105 Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site houxe.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-athena.ARPA Message-ID: <11@mit-athena.ARPA> Date: Wed, 26-Sep-84 02:44:50 EDT w (Mr. Martillo's bark worse than his bite!) Organization: MIT, Project Athena, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 96 >From ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow) Sun Feb 6 01:28:16 206 >I think Martillo is wondering why less-than-orthodox Jews would >*WANT* to decide who is a Jew, not stating that they have no right >to an opinion. A good point but not what I am saying. If a Jews main affiliation is the Communist party he might help write the party constitution but he has no right to help choose the Jewish legal system. Likewise, Jewish communists do not ask rabbis to help write their party constitutions. > As one of those contemptible assimilated dreck, >my chief concern about who is a Jew is that the world has decided >that I am one. Martillo's opinion notwithstanding, I'm very proud >of my Lithuanian Ashkenazi roots, especially my grandparents' >involvement in proto-Communist agitation against the czar, and >a few distant cousins who died in Spain's Abraham Lincoln Brigade. A good example of an especially silly fossilized mental pattern among Ashkenazim. We know now that this protocommunist agitation lead to the establishment of a system in Russia which was even worse for the Jewish people than the czarist government. Perlow should be ashamed of this yihus (lineage). As for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, any Sefardic Jew can tell you that this was one of the stupidest activities of Ashkenazim over the past 500 years. After what Spain did to the Jews, only the most moronic or deluded Jew would involve himself in Spanish politics or die for a Spanish cause. Historical note. Despite this mindless Ashkenazi support for the anarchists Franco went out of his way to save ~45,000 Jews during the Hitler years. Also after the establishment of the state of Israel, Franco was particularly active in helping Jews get out of Arab countries. Of course in both cases most of the Jews saved were mostly Sefardim, so that the typical Ashkenazi leftist would hardly be aware of Franco's service to the Jewish people and might even hold this service against Franco. >Martillo believes Jews have an obligation to live off by themselves, >that we must accept the inevitably disastrous consequences of >muscling into the rest of society. Well, you can steer clear of >bigotry, or you can fight to eliminate it. It's not clear to me >that either strategy makes life any easier, not to mention more >fulfilling. No, I believe Jews should be true to themselves. Sefardi attitudes about commitment as a Jew and contributing to a state are different and more correct. I suggest you acquire a biography of Don Yishaq Abarbanel. The idea that all individuals who live in a state must have the exact same culture, ways and outlook on life is a modern totalitarian aberration which most Jewish leftists have stupidly accepted with hardly any serious thought whatsoever. The constant attempts of Ashkenazim to prove themselves as Frenchmen or Germans or Russians show a lack of pride in their heritage and is self-abasing and probably invites non-Jewish contempt. No other group puts itself through such self-contortions. My family would never want anyone to think of them as Arabs. >Yes, heritage is important. Martillo is proud that he has dined >with kings. And I'm proud that I haven't. I noted the people whom my family entertained merely to point out that kashrut does not cut Jews off from the world but rather guarantees that the convivial setting, which could most easily lead to assimilation, occurs only on Jewish terms so that assimilation is prevented -- this is the real reason Europeans have objected to kashrut -- it prevents assimilation i.e. the destruction of the Jewish people. Just a note about leftist Ashkenazim and social commitment in Eastern Europe. The Ashkenazim who were involved in leftist and particularly communist movements were typically members of the most privileged class of Jews (unlike my mother's family who were impoverished in Libya). These Ashkenazim genuinely wanted to assimilate into Slavic society but could not bring themselves to convert to Christianity. Therefore, they converted to Marxism or some other leftist movement which gave these Jews entry to a segment of non-Jewish society without the psychological trauma of conversion. Granted this segment was a minority, but there were so few Jews in these countries that numerically there were more non-Jews who would approve of this break with traditional Jewish society by conversion to Marxism than there were Jews who could give encouragement and support to a Jew who wished to uphold the tradition. The leftist Jews in Eastern Europe had no genuine commitment to help the poor. If they did they would have worked with the many Jewish poor (who were worse off than the non-Jewish poor because of Slavic antisemitism). Instead, the leftist Ashkenazim ignored the existence of Jewish poor. In fact, Rosa Luxemburg denied that there was any special Jewish sorrow in Poland which in fact had the largest fraction and number of utterly destitute Jews of any country in Europe. So Ken, I know your not a bad fellow but don't give me any of this smugness about your family's leftist traditions. They are a sham.