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In Reply to: Re: I had my bar mitzvah in '66... posted by Victor Khomenko on March 25, 2007 at 07:47:25:
If I was once conservative and am now liberal am I not allowed to say so? If I was once a Bears fan and am now a Dolphins fan am I not allowed to say so? If I long hated brussels sprouts and now eat them avidly am I not allowed to say so? I'm just talking about facts, here.The fact is that I became a Unitarian Universalist some years back, although I don't particularly identify with that either. But it's not being a UU that interferes with my "being" Jewish, it's the fact that since around the time of my bar mitzvah I haven't been Jewish in any substantive sense. It was during my bar mitzvah study that I realized I'd *never* felt in alignment with any religion. It was my religious education that made it plain that I wasn't, in any sense, what was described as "Jew" in my studies. At no point in the prep for my ceremony did I feel inside myself that "I am a Jew."
It seems to me that it would be less honest to claim Jewishness than otherwise.
Follow Ups:
***since around the time of my bar mitzvah I haven't been Jewish in any substantive sense.One has to be very careful in distinguishing the belonging to Jewish faith, and being a Jew. As your statement did not draw that distinction, it was potentially insulting. One must not ignore the fact that you can be a secular, atheistic Jew, a Jew by birth, by blood.
Why waste a perfectly good answer on someone like you?
As Judaism started from amongst a population that could not possibly have been Jewish before the religion started, then there must have been part of that population that did not accept Judaism.
Plus some who were not "of the blood" at that time and down the generations since have converted to Judaism.
Therefore there is not even the possibility that Judaism could represent a homogeneous racial group.
The continual attempts to see Jews as an unspoilt racial group is a very dubious concept in my opinion.
Both from within and without.
A person born to Italian parents is an Italian whether or not he practices Catholicism, and no matter where he lives.
The nearly took Madagascar instead of Palestine.
...what we are or aren't. It appears to me that what the Nazis did was precisely to deny this. It was all about your blood, which is not how I view it, even though I do recognize the reality of cultural memory, generally speaking.
Sorry, but I don't see how my statement could be construed as "potentially" insulting. I think you're passing my comment through an internal filter of your own that is not common to others. Certainly I don't recognize it. If I was inclined to cast aspersions on Jewishness would I have led with an acknowledgment of my own Jewish origins? And, as a director of the documentary "Paper Clips" I dare say I hardly risk being accused of being insensitive on the subject.Growing up in a cosmopolitan part of the Eastern US the cultural memory one might acquire in an observantly Jewish home or, say, in an intimate village shtetl setting was, in my case, deeply and inevitably diluted by the more pressing, immediate, and to me more real influences of my generic culture. Two of my three sisters have become reasonably observant secular Jews and the son of the other also had his bar mitzvah even though she's less attendant to the religion. So it was never inevitable that I'd veer off this way. It's a personal thing. In fact I've been very interested in religion over the years and my college major was comparative religious studies. Although it sounds pretentious to say so as I'm far from an expert in any of it, I consider myself a religious free-thinker above all.
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When someone from the region presents himself as an Aryan I don't have a problem. Hence my statement about the distinction.
wouldn't so self-describe. Aryans who move to America probably say they're Ukranian or whatever as opposed to "Aryan."
I guess what's interesting is the nationalism angle.
If Israel intentionally attacked a US warship and killed sailors, would a Jewish American back Israel or the US?
Another point: Aryan isn't a religion.
Not clear to me at all why would they suddenly become Ukrainians, if they are born Indians, for instance... your mind is playing games with you.And would a Jew who disagrees with the Israeli policies suddenly stop being a Jew?
Being a Jew is also not about religion. Sammy Davies Jr was never a Jew, and Draz is 100%.
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