ON BEING JEWISH

ON BEING JEWISH

Poet Gary Snyder quotes Ezra Pound. I resent Pound’s antisemitism but the Jews he knew were all focused on getting money and power (and still are).  It is written into the origin story:  Jacob fools Isaac to get his blessing with soup,  and Esau is left out.  What happened to the hunter?  His life is never mentioned again.  None of this is “true”,  it is a myth created to support the role of being traders.  Even Ishmael, Hagar’s child has a future (in the origin of Arabs),  but not Esau.  In another myth,  Jews go out of Egypt,  reject slavery to be an independent people,  and are supported by a special god.  No archeological history supports this,  and the narratives are contradictory.  A later collection of rules and regulations, supposedly given by god, is likely the creation of authoritarian priests governing the people.  And there is the story of warrior kings,  Joshua, Saul, and David who established a land protected for a time from outside powers, until Babylon and then Rome.  Jewish history is an authoritarian culture with no basis in democracy.  You can see this in the clothing of Hassids from eastern Europe, who still wear wool coats and full hats in the LA sun.  (The Jews of ancient Israel likely wore clothing more suitable to a desert climate.) Jews fit into an authoritarian belief system, and served as advisors in Moslem empires for centuries. Many were "Trumpers" because of his promise of support for Israel.  (But they did not fit with the Spanish who were busy rooting out Protestants, Muslims, and Jews.  

The laws and traditions that are currently practiced evolved over centuries,  with origins in the middle ages,  not biblical times.  This is a positive sign that the tradition continued to grow,  but not an indication of its evolution in modern times.  Jewish culture values reading and education,  but not inquiry into independent thinking.  The Protestant reform of Christianity/Catholicism  challenged the authority of the pope (setting up an alternative authority),  and made personal commitment to god an essential tenet.  Reform Judaism of the 19th century proposed a similar change.  How do you know when your “personal relationship to god” fits with tradition,  or is some personal aberration?  There is no absolute way to decide,  and modern Pentecostal churches often focus on economic success.  The same is probably true of Reform Judaism.

Being Jewish has three components:

Jews have a belief in the maternal chromosome inheritance:  you are Jewish if your mother is Jewish.  This appears in tradition beginning in the early Christian era,  perhaps as a way of differentiating converted Christian-Jews. Modern genetic research confirms that there is a significant concentration of certain mitochondrial genes,  but these vary in Jewish sub-communities. 

Adhering to a varied collection of rules and observances. These have altered over time,  and the commitment to strict Biblical interpretation is impossible even in the most orthodox traditions.  The validity of the Torah as a holy document is undermined by scholarship that shows it is a composite of multiple origins written much later than the events it describes.  And it was not codified and canonized until the Christian era.

The cultural history of identifying oneself as Jewish. There is not one Jewish history or culture since the Babylonian era.  The variation in Jewish cultures and traditions is evidence of its vitality and evolution,  but not consistency.  Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions are examples.

Jewish values are challenged by the relationship between Israel and the rest of the Jewish world, especially American Jews.  Israel as the Jewish homeland has no historic basis since Roman times.  Herzl's  Zionist movement was an  answer to anti-semitism in Europe (which was not confined to Jews but to other “semites”, Arabs, as well). It is an historical fantasy in which  European Jews claim a territory which they have no historical connection to, and is not be based on any legal doctrine.  Sending European Jews to Israel after WW2 was a "convenient" solution to the uprooting and disruption of the Holocaust,  which failed to return the Jews to their homes in Europe, and totally disregarded the Arab inhabitants.  The US supported the formation of a Jewish state in the nascent UN in 1949 instead of a gradual approach to a bicameral one.   The result was a war which has continued for several generations. The US supports Israel in its survival against other interests in the middle east because of a strong political influence of Jews in the US.  The contemporary situation in Israel now poses a challenge for the American Jewish community.  Other American interests in the middle east are not aligned to Israel’s goals.  Israel has become an independent military and political entity,  which sometime does not adhering to American interests.  Israel is becoming increasingly authoritarian, the orthodox in Israel have argued for a religious authority over the country since their political ascendance.  This is a rejection of the “separation of church and state”  also currently being challenged in the US.

In this season of the Holy Days,  I am trying to reassess my Jewish identity.  I have Jewish genetics, I was born to a Jewish mother.  The Bible has come to be a collection of historical stories with inconsistent guidance for current life.  It is  not the word of god or any deity, but historical traditions only partly modernized, and strict adherence to it is foolish.  My support of Israel is waning,  though I understand the basis of it becoming a theocratic state, I do not respect systems of absolute authority and do not think it bodes well for the country.  The ideal of a refuge for Jews persecuted elsewhere, and a safe homeland forever, is not consistent with the current reality.

These views affect my cultural relationship to other Jews.  The ideal of Jews as leaders with wise decisions, financial wizards, also exploits others.   Our group identity is the victims of others resentment, so we defend ourselves against the unjustified prejudices.  We never see the connection of these two traditions.  I do not like the idea of defining myself as a victim in order to be defended by my tribal group.  This always includes the reverse prejudice of others that is the basis of this group cohesion.  I  realize that my identity as a Jew is separate from the rules and traditions,  the religious authority, and also the cultural community.  I have only my own beliefs and my genetic origins.  As in other aspects of my life,  it is difficult for me to join and feel supported in groups whose values are different.   

I am Jewish, isolated, and struggling to encourage the humanity that I value as a tradition.