Do you think that it would be acceptable for Jews in Israel and/or in the Diaspora to have Jewish-only communities?

Midnighter13 said:
I think you are conflating racism, especially among Arabs and Persians, with the religious dictates of Islam. Much like Christianity, Islam in theory holds every believer as equal under god. In fact, I would argue that Islam as a religion is actually less hierarchical (in doctrine anyway) than Christianity (in general). If you convert to Islam, all Muslims are supposed to treat you as a brother/sister under god.

In practice, yes, there is serious discrimination and racism in most Islamic countries. But lets not pretend that Christian nations didn't (and don't) do much the same. Religion is an excellent way to justify racism whether you are discriminating against Arabs, Irish, Italians, African Americans, or any other ethnic group that is primarily of a different religion or race.

The Sunni/Shia divide is no more (or less) bloody than the Catholic/Protestant divide. The Sunni/Shia issue has just been going on for about 500 years longer.
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notice how I mentioned radical islam and I did point out that there were Christian Fringe groups. Difference is there hasn't been a major open conflict between Catholics and protestants for several centuries. Meanwhile the middle east hasn't stopped being in conflict. A religion can be whatever it wants on paper, but when it comes to actual fruits, all factions in the middle east have been cherry-picking their religion to justify their hatred towards each other and fueling their conflicts. the rest of the world is watching shaking their heads as the middle east tears itself apart over rivalries that have been going on for the past 1000 years and counting.
 
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WolfBear said:
FWIW, I actually do think that the West, Muslim world, and other countries actually should accept a fair share of refugees as well just so long as these refugees are actually willing to sufficiently assimilate, as in the Israeli case.
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assuming said countries will even allow people to assimilate. The US has been a sort of an exceptional entity and even then, it took us a while to get there.
 
KilroywasNOTHere said:
assuming said countries will even allow people to assimilate. The US has been a sort of an exceptional entity and even then, it took us a while to get there.
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Well, we were able to get various refugees to successfully assimilate: Jews, Vietnamese, Persians, ex-USSR Evangelical Christians, et cetera. Some other refugee groups were harder to assimilate on average, though, such as the Hmong.
 
KilroywasNOTHere said:
notice how I mentioned radical islam and I did point out that there were Christian Fringe groups. Difference is there hasn't been a major open conflict between Catholics and protestants for several centuries. Meanwhile the middle east hasn't stopped being in conflict. A religion can be whatever it wants on paper, but when it comes to actual fruits, all factions in the middle east have been cherry-picking their religion to justify their hatred towards each other and fueling their conflicts. the rest of the world is watching shaking their heads as the middle east tears itself apart over rivalries that have been going on for the past 1000 years and counting.
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What are you talking about? The last Protestant/Catholic war ended in the late 1990s. The Irish Troubles were explicitly based on those religious divisions. There were several other conflicts in Eastern Europe after WWII that involved the same issues. The IRA was hardly a Christian fundamentalist fringe group.

The Sunni/Shia conflict may be hot now, but it was quite cold for the majority of the Ottomon period, which was the better part of 400 years of peace (at least between Muslims).
 
Midnighter13 said:
What are you talking about? The last Protestant/Catholic war ended in the late 1990s. The Irish Troubles were explicitly based on those religious divisions. There were several other conflicts in Eastern Europe after WWII that involved the same issues. The IRA was hardly a Christian fundamentalist fringe group.

The Sunni/Shia conflict may be hot now, but it was quite cold for the majority of the Ottomon period, which was the better part of 400 years of peace (at least between Muslims).
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Dude people were calling out the IRA from the word go. they weren't exactly a popular group.
 
KilroywasNOTHere said:
Dude people were calling out the IRA from the word go. they weren't exactly a popular group.
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They were popular enough and had enough support to run an effective insurgency. That's all they needed. My point is that inter-Christian wars are not at all a thing of the past, nor are inter-Islamic wars. Both religions are prone to violent conflict with those who do not match their beliefs (even among 'their own'). Yes, the scale is a bit different today, but two or three centuries ago it was the other way around. Two or three centuries from now, it could easily swing back the other way. All it would take is a few countries falling under the control of rival radical religious governments.
 
The issues in Northern Ireland had to deal with issues of Nationalism and Irish Identity, not religion primarily. The fomenting of the conflict did largely fall upon Protestant and Catholic lines, but the conflict itself didn't arise out of a 'State Religious Policy' that took place in Northern Ireland, tensions over doctrinal differences between Catholicism and Protestantism and neither group made religious objectives as major goals of their movement.

During the 1970's religious engagement in Northern Ireland was already dropping (as it was around the world) and it intensified during the conflict, thus implying that religion wasn't a significant cause for the conflict because it wasn't a huge component in the lives of the Northern Irish at the time in general, at least compared to other increasingly secularized parts of the West.

Philip Barnes said:
"The current Troubles are dated from the late 1960's which is precisely the time when most cultural historians identify increasing secularization in Northern Irish society and a shift away from the traditional orthodox belief and religiously sanctioned forms of personal morality. From the 1960's, both formal and informal measures of religiousity reveal a decline in the religious participation and church involvement. In fact, as religions hold on society weakened in the 1970s, the Troubles intensified."
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So maybe you can make an argument that a lack of influence for traditional Christian religion in society might've contributed to the conflict?

Very British Rebels? by James McAuley said:
"The relationship between evangelical Protestantism and loyalism may not however be as straightforward as many suggest. 'Despite their self-identification as Protestants, working-class loyalists often possess very limited connection to the church. While Patrick Mitchel also demonstrates that while evangelicalism may be important to individuals in organizations such as the Orange Order and hte DUP, such views do not sit at the core of either of these groups, both of which he characterizes as examples of religious nationalism."
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Also

Very British Rebels? by James McAuley said:
Mant of the stereotypes prevalent during the Troubles were based on falsehoods including the notion that loyalists were either 'irreligious thugs or evangelical madmen.' Rather, in reality, Combatant groups contained the array of religious commitment and unbelief found in the wider society.
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Some people prefer to call it religious nationalism or ethno-religious nationalism in regards to the conflict, but it's large to explain that a nationalist conflict can occur between two sides who are of different religions, but where religious belief itself is not close to the primary reason for conflict but an incidental difference between the factions.

Now it can be largely expected that Republicans were Catholics and Protestants were Unionists, but the conflict was still largely based on their National identity which happened to overlap their religious identity. Both communities saw themselves differently, one Irish, one British and that was the incompatible belief held between them, not Protestant and Catholic.

Did the Troubles have a religious aspect? Yes. Undeniably so.

Was the Troubles a religious war? No. It was a political conflict.

Calling the Troubles an inter-Christian Religious War is either making the definition so broad as to be imprecise to the point of uselessness, or simply inaccurate and misleading.
 
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Midnighter13 said:
Honestly, I really wish I could believe that. The shtetl was in Russia, so I assume they were Eastern Orthodox Christians, though the Polish were Catholic and did much the same. The Germans were Protestants (mostly) and that certainly didn't stop the Nazis. Nor did the Catholics have any compunction about 'saving' Jewish children and then refusing to return them to their surviving relatives because they had decided the children were their good little Catholic converts.
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And maybe they were?
We may have a cultural disconnect here in relation to how old someone has to be before his or her personal choices in matters of faith count for anything. But while I think you have a right to your religion, I reject the idea that your religion has a right to you.

Midnighter13 said:
No one knows just how many Jewish children the Catholic Church stole during the Shoah, but we do know that many (maybe even most) were never recovered.
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I'd imagine that the Roman Catholics who were doing this stuff took care to make it as off the books and under the radar as possible, for the obvious reason: the Nazis would otherwise have retrieved all those Jewish children at gunpoint, and packed them off to the same death camps their parents went to.


Midnighter13 said:
Even in the modern day, Evangelical Christians are very pro-Jewish, right up until you mention that you don't believe in Jesus and don't plan to convert even if Jesus shows up.
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There are "evangelical Christians" who do not know this about Jews?


Midnighter13 said:
So honestly, while Christians may be a bit more civilized about things these days, I think they are just as eager to 'save' us as they've always been, regardless of our views on the matter.
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Hiding you in a basement when the Nazis come looking for you, and trying to convince you to become Christians, are two actions that proceed from the same motive. Yes, we want to save you. Would you rather we didn't?
 
Scottty said:
And maybe they were?
We may have a cultural disconnect here in relation to how old someone has to be before his or her personal choices in matters of faith count for anything. But while I think you have a right to your religion, I reject the idea that your religion has a right to you.



I'd imagine that the Roman Catholics who were doing this stuff took care to make it as off the books and under the radar as possible, for the obvious reason: the Nazis would otherwise have retrieved all those Jewish children at gunpoint, and packed them off to the same death camps their parents went to.




There are "evangelical Christians" who do not know this about Jews?




Hiding you in a basement when the Nazis come looking for you, and trying to convince you to become Christians, are two actions that proceed from the same motive. Yes, we want to save you. Would you rather we didn't?
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AFAIK, converted Jews weren't always protected from being murdered. Ex.: Edith Stein and Irene Nemirovsky.
 
Midnighter13 said:
As much as I hate to make this argument, why is it on Israel to deal with the refugee issues around the world?
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It isn't and it shouldn't, but the spirit of our modern world demands compassion at any cost regardless of consequences, immediate or protracted. Any hesitancy is being criticized by the same groups that condemn the very idea suggested or enforced by other nations.

Midnighter13 said:
But the rest of the world needs to pick up the slack too.
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For nearly a century, specifically since the 1960s, most nations that were not being actively abandoned took up the burden of sheltering anyone that crossed their borders. There is no slack that has not already been pulled taut to the point of breaking.
 
WolfBear said:
Do you think that it would be acceptable for Jews in Israel and/or in the Diaspora to have Jewish-only communities? I don't mean ones where they are forced to live, but rather where Jews could live if they want to be completely safe from unwanted gentile potential pogromists. (Those Jews who want to live alongside gentiles would, of course, be very welcome to do so elsewhere--specifically in other neighborhoods.) The logic here would be that allowing gentiles to live in Jewish-majority neighborhoods could facilitate pogroms against Jews, hate crimes against Jews, interreligious violence, and/or interethnic violence. In other words, similar to the logic that is used to prevent non-Jews from immigrating to Israel or even to give non-Jews the opportunity to convert to Judaism, as this article advocates:

jewishjournal.com

Israel Should Open Judaism to Refugees

Talleyrand’s famous aphorism applies to Israel’s immigration policy: It is worse than a crime — it is a blunder.
jewishjournal.com jewishjournal.com

Another alternative option, of course, could be to allow those gentiles who already live in Jewish-majority neighborhoods to do so but to have restrictive covenants (and to re-legalize them) that would prohibit any additional gentiles from moving to Jewish-majority neighborhoods.

For what it's worth, I'm simply making this post as a thought experiment rather than as a policy proposal. If keeping non-Jews out of a Jewish state is acceptable for fear of pogroms and whatnot, why not keeping non-Jews out of Jewish neighborhoods as well? In other words, why exactly shouldn't Jews be protected not only from state-sponsored anti-Semitism, but also from individual anti-Semitism as well?

Thoughts on this? FWIW, there have been some discussions about this topic in Israel in recent years:

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Only if all other communities had the same right.But then jews would cry"antysemites" right?
 
Scottty said:
"Converting" just to hide from the Nazis would do no good. Because the Nazis did not care.
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Indeed.In Warsaw was few thausend jewish converts.Jewish authorities selled them to german who delivered them to getto where they were treated as underhumans by other jews - - and when german start sendind jews to death,send them as first.
Not that it saved them - germans eventually killed almost all jews there.
 
ATP said:
Indeed.In Warsaw was few thausend jewish converts.Jewish authorities selled them to german who delivered them to getto where they were treated as underhumans by other jews - - and when german start sendind jews to death,send them as first.
Not that it saved them - germans eventually killed almost all jews there.
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Thats bunk! Jewish authorities didnt decide Jewish converts were still jewish, the Nazi's did!
 
WolfBear said:
That's not quite right. AFAIK, historically speaking, Jews who left the faith at least sometimes were still regarded as Jews by Jewish religious authorities.
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And how does that 'equate' to 'selling them out?' It doesnt change the fact that the Nazi's still made the ultimate decision to kill these converts.
 
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