Two seperate slices of stupidity from Israel today. Firstly, violent demonstrations by ultra-orthodox Jews (also known as ultra-Jews) have caused chaos in Jerusalem, burning tires and rubbish bins and throwing rocks at riot police. The hubbub was caused by the arrest of an ultra-Jewish mother who apparently starved her 3-year-old child, as she has Munchausen Syndrome by proxy (Consult House for an awesome explanation). The ultra-Jews were upset that one of theirs was arrested, and reportedly think it's impossible for an ultra-Jewish mother to commit such a crime.
Although seeing hundreds of people protesting violently in snappy suits and hats is undeniably a sight, it's just stupid to start riots because a member of your community got arrested.
Secondly, the Israeli government is deciding whether or not 3000 Ethiopians are actually Jewish or just pretending. This absurd practice derives from the fact that Israel is legally a Jewish state, even though it's also supposedly secular. This means that Jews immigrating automatically get citizenship if they want it. This puts the Israeli government in the position of judging whether someone is really Jewish or not, regardless of what they say/believe. It's unclear what ridiculous standards Israel is using to quantify "Jewishness", but it probably includes nose-measuring and joke-telling.
The sheer arrogance of a state purporting to decide for someone else what religion the "really" belong to is mind-boggling.
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A slight clarification may be in order. Zionism, as conceived by the founders of the State of Israel, takes a page out of the hymn-sheet of early 20th century European ethno-nationalism. As Jews were designated as racially foreign by German and Austro-Hungarian ultra-nationalists, despite the fact that, especially in the former case, Jews were very well assimilated and, in many cases (see Karl Marx's parents) actually adopted Christianity, Zionists took this definition to heart and decided that Jews were a nation as well as a religion.
Now, there may be an element of truth in this, as Jews tend to have specific genetic markers which correlate quite well across national populations, but this is hardly conclusive - short of administering extensive mitochondrial DNA tests on the entire population of Israel to show whether or not they are really Jews.
The bottom line is that Zionism is an extension of European ethno-nationalism as well as a reaction to it. Since Judaism has always been an ethnic religion, though, and never sought converts as such, this is unsurprising. The Jewish scriptures are full of hatred and contempt not for other religions, but for other ethnic groups - something one does not find in the more universalistic writings of Christian or Islamic scholars.
'Ultra-Jews', the opposite of 'Israe-Lites'?
Thank you, thank you. No, please don't get up...
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