Israel to Refugees: Go Back to Africa or Go to Prison

[ag]

Well, your hatred of Israel (or at least your full rejection of this country, to prevent an unnecessary debate on that) doesn't seem to be based on its "treatment of migrants". Frankly, it seems to me like a very emotional reaction. Amnesty International recently condemned the Netherlands for mistreating asylum seekers. (Of course, this is not all over the news...) Would you compare the Dutch to nazis as well? I don't think so.

I do not hate Israel. I merely object to the nation of ispravniks calling itself a Jewish state.

If you watched me on these boards, you would know that I routinely "compare" many people to Nazis (well, compare might not be the word - consider would work better) Ask our Austrian friends here Hey, I even have been in similar altercations with the Danish and the Swedes over the years. Usually, precisely, on the treatment of migrants. The dutch? I guess, you are the only Dutch avatar that decided to talk on the issue, but if there were another one around here, I would never hesitate

[MalaspinaGold]

a) You know nothing about human nature
b) You do not understand rootless cosmopolitanism. People only "choose" to be rootless cosompolitans when they have no other choice. Nonharedi Jews today have two options: assimilation and "nationation". Hence there will be no "rootless cosmopolitanism" for the Jews anytime soon.

I stand by my previous statement of course. Wishing your children goodnight in Yiddish may be sweet, but sustain a people it does not do.

I, obviously, have a choice. I chose to live in Mexico: could have chosen, say, Australia, or Turkey. And I choose not to care about whatever the abstraction you call the people. If my daughter marries a Nigerian and moves to China, I will be perfectly happy. If she starts talking about "preserving the people", I will be wondering where I failed.

When I was a kid, I had my own nationalist stage. I would pester my grandpa with this Jewish people stuff. And he, the last man in the family still to be able to converse Yiddish, would always respond: "I am an internationalist". He was a much wiser man than I will ever be.

For me Jewishness is in the rootlessness. I identify with others, whose families pass through countries and nations without taking a root.

Well, there are people who think like you, and technically no one can stop you from thinking like that. However, the beautiful thing is no one has to, given that "rootlessness" is unsustainable.

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Uhm...... Firstly, I am not "white". Secondly and most importantly, this statement is pretty disturbing and racist.
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This is news. Are you Mizrahi? Or do you align yourself with people like Yehuda HaKohen? If the latter, my respect for you has increased measurably.

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I didn't think the day would come that I would agree with you, but this is true. However, I don't think ag cares about that.
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For better or for worse (most likely the latter) I'm sure there's many things we agree on.

[ag]

I think I would be able to feel at home in so many countries, provided that there is a Jewish community, and one could call that "geographical rootlessness". If you would just be talking about geography, then I don't even disagree with you, even though we belong in Israel: that's home. However, your notion of general "rootlessness" seems to be based on an incorrect understanding of Jewish history. If we would truly be rootless, then the whole concept of a Jewish people wouldn't even exist anymore. On the contrary, we are the people most rooted in our history and in our tradition. That is not even a value judgment, even though I think that most people who understand this will also be inclined to value Jewish tradition and religion. For instance, one of my best friends is a staunch atheist and doesn't seem to keep any mitzvot, but it doesn't really matter to me, because he understands what it means to be a Jew. You just don't. I pity you for that. Peace be upon you.

I do not need a community: an atheist needs no minyan

We disagree on what Jewishness is, as I said. For me, Jewishness is in being an odd minority. A Slavic name in Germany, a German name in Russia. In Israel it is the Arabs who are the Jews

We disagree on the meaning of the Jewish history. You object to pogroms only because the pogromschiks were killing (those you consider) Jews. I object to the pogroms, because I do not like when they are killing people. You are happy that our fellow-tribesmen have managed to create an imitation of the old Tsar's empire (wholesale, the Pale included), but with themselves as the Russians.  I find no attraction in that. You still hanker for that old contract with god, and search for mythical past: for me the history started with the ancestors I can trace in the shtetl and continues in the dying echo of Yiddish. When it is gone, the Jews will not be gone, even if they call upon the Allah, when fleeing from persecution from the magendovid-wearing gentiles. Do not pity me, I am content

[ag]

and most importantly, this statement is pretty disturbing

Was meant to be

[ag]

I only care about people's intentions. If you're good to me, I'll be good to you.

You know the old joke? About "kill the Turk - and take a rest for a bit?"

[DavidB.]

You are literally crazy, your worldview is literally crazy, and I'm not going to take the effort to reply to your hogwash once again. I'm going to put you on ignore because your baseless accusations go too far, and I'm sure you will not regret that I'll be doing so. Goodbye.

[ag]

A big chunk of my family was killed by nazis,

My grandfather was born in Uman. Ever heard of that little town? His grandma had a dozen kids. Two had moved to Moscow before the war. The rest, and their entire families, were wiped out. On the other side of the family we had quite a few relatives in Alitus. The town was occupied on June 22, 1941: the first day of the German invasion. After the war no trace could be found. All of us had relatives killed by the Nazis: you do not have a monopoly there. This is precisely why I find the original post so disgusting.

"Eastern hordes", my ass.

You clearly consider this so problematic that you think this should happen again to our people. That doesn't sound logical.

Happily pointing out another baseless accusation for those who would want to report me for anti-semitism again.

[MalaspinaGold]

You are literally crazy, your worldview is literally crazy, and I'm not going to take the effort to reply to your hogwash once again. I'm going to put you on ignore because your baseless accusations go too far, and I'm sure you will not regret that I'll be doing so. Goodbye.

Stop feeding the troll (even if it's a silly goyishe troll).

[ag]

You are literally crazy, your worldview is literally crazy, and I'm not going to take the effort to reply to your hogwash once again. I'm going to put you on ignore because your baseless accusations go too far, and I'm sure you will not regret that I'll be doing so. Goodbye.

Stop feeding the troll (even if it's a silly goyishe troll).

Not merely a troll, but a goyishe troll. Nice one

[MalaspinaGold]

You are literally crazy, your worldview is literally crazy, and I'm not going to take the effort to reply to your hogwash once again. I'm going to put you on ignore because your baseless accusations go too far, and I'm sure you will not regret that I'll be doing so. Goodbye.

Stop feeding the troll (even if it's a silly goyishe troll).

Not merely a troll, but a goyishe troll. Nice one

I mean truth be told I think you're both silly goyishe trolls, but the difference is you're a silly goyishe troll that solves himself.

[ag]

You are literally crazy, your worldview is literally crazy, and I'm not going to take the effort to reply to your hogwash once again. I'm going to put you on ignore because your baseless accusations go too far, and I'm sure you will not regret that I'll be doing so. Goodbye.

Stop feeding the troll (even if it's a silly goyishe troll).

Not merely a troll, but a goyishe troll. Nice one

I mean truth be told I think you're both silly goyishe trolls, but the difference is you're a silly goyishe troll that solves himself.

Properly, it sould be a mishigine goyische troll

At least one Israeli thread which develops into a pidgin-yiddish discussion

[MalaspinaGold]

Meshugga Goyishe Troll is the way I learned it. Or if we want actual Yiddish, משוגע גויישע טראָול. On the other hand, meshugga is not exactly what I was going for.

[ag]

Meshugga Goyishe Troll is the way I learned it. Or if we want actual Yiddish, משוגע גויישע טראָול. On the other hand, meshugga is not exactly what I was going for.

Yiddish is a Germanic language, it has adjectives.

I am illiterate, though

[Horus]

You deserve a medal for your posts here ag, you've summed up exactly how I feel about Israel and my personal, complicated relationship with my own Jewry.

[ag]

You deserve a medal for your posts here ag, you've summed up exactly how I feel about Israel and my personal, complicated relationship with my own Jewry.

Thanks!

[MalaspinaGold]

You deserve a medal for your posts here ag, you've summed up exactly how I feel about Israel and my personal, complicated relationship with my own Jewry.

Just out of curiosity what is your relationship with your Judaism (not Jewry, that's a collective noun), and what makes it complicated?

[Horus]

You deserve a medal for your posts here ag, you've summed up exactly how I feel about Israel and my personal, complicated relationship with my own Jewry.

Just out of curiosity what is your relationship with your Judaism (not Jewry, that's a collective noun), and what makes it complicated?

Well, all of the controversy seems to come from that nasty little country that I have no connection to yet am somehow expected to have unquestionable loyalty to by many.

[traininthedistance]

You are literally crazy, your worldview is literally crazy, and I'm not going to take the effort to reply to your hogwash once again. I'm going to put you on ignore because your baseless accusations go too far, and I'm sure you will not regret that I'll be doing so. Goodbye.

I'm not sure that someone who thinks supporting the Iran deal (which, by all objective accounting, will improve the safety of everyone in the Middle East, Israel included) makes you a "race traitor" has any room to talk about "literally crazy" worldviews.

Ag takes the ideal of cosmopolitanism to its logical conclusion.  You don't need to agree (obviously I'm far far more sympathetic than you, but I'm not sure I would, either) but surely you can step outside of your own biases and understand why and how he believes what he does?

[MalaspinaGold]

You deserve a medal for your posts here ag, you've summed up exactly how I feel about Israel and my personal, complicated relationship with my own Jewry.

Just out of curiosity what is your relationship with your Judaism (not Jewry, that's a collective noun), and what makes it complicated?

Well, all of the controversy seems to come from that nasty little country that I have no connection to yet am somehow expected to have unquestionable loyalty to by many.

You're strawmanning, but more importantly you basically admitted you don't have a relationship with Judaism.

[mencken]

For me Jewishness is in the rootlessness. I identify with others, whose families pass through countries and nations without taking a root.

So you identify Jewishness with a strategy that has a 1,900 year success rate at leading to persecution and ethnic cleansing? How delightful.

Well, you know full well that without that strategy there would have been no Jews for the last 1500 years

Adopting a survival strategy out of necessity does not mean abrogating a more successful strategy when the opportunity becomes available.

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Then do not conflate your nomadic lifestyle with Jews as a whole. Some of us went through the legal means to immigrate to accepting countries and flee oppression.

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Appeal to emotion does not work well on an anonymous message board.

Could you could point to an instance where I advocate persecution and ethnic cleansing?

[ingemann]

My dad read a quite interesting book about this which argued that the peculiar Jewish culture (or rather the culture that most in the West now associate with Jews) arose from being in the diaspora (being rootless cosmopolitans).

The book basically points out that the warrior tribe of the Old Testament is very different from stereotypical elderly doctors and pianists that symbolize modern Western Jewry. It then argues that the creation of Israel is getting it back to the old warrior ways. I think the theory has to do with having a land makes you less nice and more aggressive or something.

Given the context of the Holocaust that isn't necessarily an argument against Israel though, naturally.

Beside the logic in people changing over time, we're not the raiders and marauders our ancestors were (even if ag think some of us are cannibals and barbarians).

But there's also another element, having a state come with a prize, it means that you need to use force/violence to enforce the will of the state and protect it from inner and outer foes and taking the responsibility for the violence you use to enforce this. While being "cosmopolitan" or rather a landless minority like non-Israeli Jews, Anabaptists, Christian Arabs etc often result in persecution, but it also give a degree protection from the states inquestion and especially in a modern society a freedom from responsibility (this is meant positive). The moment a Jewish state was established, that freedom was taken from the Israeli, they were a people like all others, who had to be responsible for protecting their state and do the things which was necessary for this. That doesn't mean that all the Israeli actions  are necessary, but upkeeping a army and make war was clearly necessary from the start.

[DavidB.]

  "race traitor"

Please show me where I used these words. Tip: I didn't. Jews are not a "race". Only nazis think Jews are a race.

Ag takes the ideal of cosmopolitanism to its logical conclusion.  You don't need to agree (obviously I'm far far more sympathetic than you, but I'm not sure I would, either) but surely you can step outside of your own biases and understand why and how he believes what he does?

I understand MalaspinaGold's worldview, even though we don't agree on almost everything, but ag's worldview... nope, I don't understand that. I also don't feel the urge to try.

[Horus]

You deserve a medal for your posts here ag, you've summed up exactly how I feel about Israel and my personal, complicated relationship with my own Jewry.

Just out of curiosity what is your relationship with your Judaism (not Jewry, that's a collective noun), and what makes it complicated?

Well, all of the controversy seems to come from that nasty little country that I have no connection to yet am somehow expected to have unquestionable loyalty to by many.

You're strawmanning, but more importantly you basically admitted you don't have a relationship with Judaism.

I don't have a relationship with Israel. Is your definition of Judaism determined solely on how one views Israel?

[DavidB.]

This thread has totally derailed. Jacobtm needs to be awarded the "official best troll of the week" prize.

[traininthedistance]

 "race traitor"

Please show me where I used these words. Tip: I didn't. Jews are not a "race". Only nazis think Jews are a race.

Sorry, "self-hatred", I misremembered.  Your correction is well-taken.  The basic point stands.

Ag takes the ideal of cosmopolitanism to its logical conclusion.  You don't need to agree (obviously I'm far far more sympathetic than you, but I'm not sure I would, either) but surely you can step outside of your own biases and understand why and how he believes what he does?

I understand MalaspinaGold's worldview, even though we don't agree on almost everything, but ag's worldview... nope, I don't understand that. I also don't feel the urge to try.

You don't understand why someone would sympathize with those who are forced to be in the minority, with those who don't have the privilege of power and roots, with the downtrodden and spat-upon?  You don't understand how someone could learn those lessons from their history, how they could generalize from their own experience and apply their empathy to all peoples?

Again, I wouldn't actually say I agree with ag.  There are some important details he misses.  But I do respect his stance on Kohlbergian grounds, and think that all reflective people should at least be willing to take it seriously.