All religions segregate, where faith unites, even if it’s brief. Where segregation or isolation (Group/Religion) transpires so does intolerance, hate and racism on all sides, inside out and outside in. This is not a Israel/Jewish thing, or a German/Nazi thing – it’s any religion that include or excludes that is always the trigger…

Posted by: Kev | Mar 31 2013 7:48 utc | 3

no 4
the human genome project – one decade later MIT review
plus – very simple mathematics – I got two parents 4 great parents 8 great-great parents 16 great-great-great parents that is a span of ca 120 years. In the Middle Ages we are in 1000’s of people whose genetic trait might have made it to me. What has this person got to do with me?
There is also the fact that people travelled a lot in history and there is this:

In discussing medieval sex, it is also important to keep in mind that attitudes towards sex changed during the course of the Middle Ages. There was far more regulation in the later Middle Ages than the earlier. It is also important to recognise that there were a variety of peoples in the medieval period and not all people were Christian. Some were Christian heretics, but others were members of the Orthodox Church, or were Jewish, or were Muslim. One of the things that Karras does is to look at variations. Though eastern European Catholic sources are even scarcer than their western counterparts, there are still enough to find differences. Orthodox Christianity, if only because priests were married, has quite different ideas from Roman Catholic Christianity, or, for that matter, from Judaism and Islam. Islam, especially in Spain, was part of the Christian West while Jewish groups were widely dispersed. How did each religion influence the other? The one thing that all three groups agreed upon was that sexual relations between members of the different groups were to be discouraged, although the Christian exempla are full of stories of men marrying and converting Jewish and even Saracen women.

Posted by: somebody | Mar 31 2013 8:44 utc | 5

#4 club of rome, the stupidity of this study is endless
of course there was a considerable amount of Germans in Caucasus too
so how does “comparing the genomes of 1,287 unrelated individuals who hail from eight Jewish and 74 non-Jewish populations” and finding “ancestral signatures that pointed clearly to the Caucasus” make sure those are not “German traits” or, indeed, those are not Arab or Persian traits as the Caucasus used to be an Arab caliphate and at one stage was part of Persia in the Middle ages?
Here is a scientific study seemingly supporting the argument by stating that “the very low genetic difference in Europe” has a correlation to geography.

“The map was so accurate that when Novembre’s team placed a geopolitical map over their genetic “map”, half of the genomes landed within 310 kilometres of their country of origin, while 90% fell within 700 km.”

It somehow loses its political charm though when you remember that the distance between Warsaw and Berlin, Munich and Venice, Frankfurt and Paris, Graz and Sarajevo, Palermo and Tunis is less than 700 km and the distance on the borders between Germany and Eastern Europe is 0.

Posted by: somebody | Mar 31 2013 9:38 utc | 7

In California there is an effort to stifle criticism of Israel in higher education. It is anti-semitic(!) and anti-semitism is increasing in the world. (Duh — because of the actions of Israel.)
California House Resolution No. 35
August 29, 2012

WHEREAS, The frequency and severity of incidents of contemporary global anti-Semitism are increasing according to reports by representatives from nations around the world, including the United States Department of State in 2008, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2004, and the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism in 2009; and
WHEREAS, On July 20, 2009, the United States Senate unanimously approved a resolution that unequivocally condemns all forms of anti-Semitism and rejects attempts to rationalize anti-Jewish hatred or attacks as a justifiable expression of disaffection or frustration over political events in the Middle East or elsewhere, and decries the comparison of Jews to Nazis perpetrating the Holocaust or genocide as a pernicious form of anti-Semitism; and . . .
WHEREAS, The United States Commission on Civil Rights reported in 2006 that anti-Semitism exists on some college campuses and is often cloaked as criticism of Israel, and recommended that colleges and universities ensure that students are protected from actions that could create a hostile anti-Semitic environment; and . . .
Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, That the Assembly unequivocally condemns all forms of intolerance, including anti-Semitism, on public postsecondary educational institution campuses in California . . .

Posted by: Don Bacon | Mar 31 2013 14:59 utc | 9

What’s been making me scratch my noggin for several years is the question: Is Judaism a religion or an ethnicity? Are Jewish folks all from a common bloodline or not? It appears to me that Israel isn’t much different than Utah; a state built by masses of useful idiots who believe that their god-fairy is supreme for the financial benefit of a few… might compare to larger versions of FreeWinds the floating nation of the Scientology kooks.
So… are all hebrews related to David or not?

Posted by: DaveS | Mar 31 2013 15:32 utc | 11

“What’s been making me scratch my noggin for several years is the question: Is Judaism a religion or an ethnicity?”
I scratch my head at such useless horseshit as your own ponderings. Who gives a shit? The issue, reduced to its essence, is the actions and policies of Israel as they unfold TODAY. Screw all the history, the polls, and the mental masturbation about ethnicity and religion. The baseline FACT is that Israel is becoming a racist fascist tumor on the earth, and its treatment of the Palestinians is DESPICABLE. I couldn’t care less about what a “jew” is, or isn’t. I do, however, have a deep disdain for what Israel is becoming. A disdain I would have no matter the ethnicity or religion of its general population. Stop jacking off with the ignorant philosophical musings that have NOTHING TO DO WITH the real problem.

Posted by: PissedOffAmerican | Mar 31 2013 15:45 utc | 13

P.S…..
Another Gem POA, Yes!

Posted by: ben | Mar 31 2013 15:56 utc | 15

As a Jew, I protest this article. God damn it, we are supposed to be fairly smart. Some people would say +15IQ (if you are certified Ashkenazim, that is). And damn it, we’re supposed to be fairly hip, too.
What am I supposed to do when my friends read this article, and ask me “Are you guys really that credulous?” “Are you really that ignorant of your own history in this regard?” “Do you really want to sacrifice a 2000+ year old religion to the whims of the American Empire? How has that worked out for you before?”
I mean, c’mon, Rabbis which have civil powers and are employed by the government? I don’t really want it bruited around that I belong to a religion which idealises a basically medieval ghetto system, you know.
And then there the little matter of the fact that, when it’s all said and done, we basically stole the place, or do we believe the British Empire carries out God’s commands? (Remember, they were the ones who controlled the area and allowed Zionist settlement, well until that unfortunate King David Hotel contrempts
Oh weell, I had a pretty good shot at passing myself off as something special, what with the beard, and the Old Testament get-up,and the Yiddish proverbs I make up, but the Zionists are gonna ruin everything. They will show the world we are just like anybody else, only more so. And a couple of hundred years too late.
BTW, have you checked out what is happening in the UK in re Zionism? At least this is a hopeful incident. Scroll down the top five articles are on this incident.

Posted by: Mooser | Mar 31 2013 16:42 utc | 17

P.O.A.–
I’m surprised you take offense to my post and then tell us, “I do, however, have a deep disdain for what Israel is becoming.
Has Israel ever been anything different than what it is today? Seriously, you’re offended that I dare ask a question (bevin@12 answered eloquently) that seems to go along with what b posted and yet the language of your own post seems to hint that Israel was somehow warmer and fuzzier during some previous time?

Posted by: DaveS | Mar 31 2013 17:03 utc | 19

Has Israel ever been anything different than what it is today?

Posted by: Mooser | Mar 31 2013 17:26 utc | 21

“of course there was a considerable amount of Germans in Caucasus too”
according to your own link, some Germans only immigrated to the Caucas in the 19th century.

Posted by: clubofrome | Mar 31 2013 18:55 utc | 23

I’m sorry, clobofrome, I don’t quite grasp which decisions should be made on the basis of DNA “ancestral signatures” Can you aquaint me with which DNA sequences demand or cause which decisions? Can’t quite see the relevance.

Posted by: Mooser | Mar 31 2013 19:27 utc | 25

24 clubofrome, of course he did not, and of course DNA looked at today has ancestors in the 19th century.
I found the best summary of the results of modern genetics and the unfeasability to define race though obviously geographical differences in people’s makeup exist here

As a result of these problems in defining a race, some race realists have bitten the bullet and accepted that race is effectively genealogy. ‘A member of race R’, the philosopher Max Hocutt argues ‘is an individual whose forebears were members of race R. Thus an animal is a coyote if it is descended from a coyote… A human being is an Afro-American if she is descended from Americans whose forebears were Africans.’ Or as Steve Sailer, founder of the self-styled Human Biodiversity Institute (which despite its grand title, is not an academic centre but a website and email discussion group) , puts it, ‘a race is an extended family that is inbred to some degree’. Hocutt accepts that ‘we cannot say with precision how big, how cohesive or how closed a breeding group must be or even how long it must last to count as a distinct race.’ But this is immaterial, he claims, for what he calls the ‘workaday definition of race’.
In fact it is anything but immaterial. After all, British Jews are ‘an extended family and inbred to some degree’. So are French Jews. So are people from Sylhet in Bangladesh who have emigrated to Britain. Those who have emigrated to Canada form another ‘extended family inbred to some degree’. Presumably then, British Jews and French Jews are separate races; and British Sylhettis and Canadian Sylhettis each form a distinct race. The philosopher Naomi Zack points out that ‘there is no coherent explanation of what makes one population, such as inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa, a race, while another breeding group, such as Protestants in Ireland, would fail to be considered a race.’ For Steve Sailer that is no problem: Northern Ireland Protestants, he argues, are a distinct race!
Once again we come back to the old problem: when virtually any group can be a race, then the concept of race becomes meaningless. If everything from the British royal family to the entire human population can be considered a race (because each is an ‘extended family inbred to some degree’), then the category has little value.

There is another clue that the article b. quotes is complete bullshit
“Yiddish, the language of Central and Eastern European Jews, began as a Slavic language” before being reclassified as High German, he notes.”
This is linguistically impossible. Slav languages are indogermanic but that is the only relationship they have with German. Yiddish is clearly German, and is a clue where a large part of Eastern European Jews came from.

Posted by: somebody | Mar 31 2013 19:35 utc | 27

“Are Jewish folks all from a common bloodline or not?”
Off course! You’ve heard of Adam and Eve, haven’t you? Yes, he lost his job, and lost the property in the exclusive Garden of Eden gated community, but they stayed together. And begat, and begat, and begat.

Posted by: Mooser | Mar 31 2013 19:53 utc | 29

#30 of course not. Unfortunately, they are not the only ones, and Israel is not the only racist country. Remember Israel gets supported by US/EU in various degrees, and the reason these countries do that is deeply imperialist racist, too.
Actually researching genetics and Askhenazy Jews is quite revealing:

However, most populations contain hundreds of alleles that could potentially cause disease and most people are heterozygotes for one or two recessive alleles that would be lethal in a homozygote.[8] Although the overall frequency of disease-causing alleles does not vary much between populations, the practice of consanguineous marriage (marriage between second cousins or closer relatives) is common in some Jewish communities, which produces a small increase in the number of children with congenital defects.[9]
According to Daphna Birenbaum Carmeli at the University of Haifa, Jewish populations have been studied more thoroughly than most other human populations because:[10]
Geneticists are intrinsically interested in Jewish populations as a disproportionate percentage of genetics researchers are Jewish. Israel in particular has become an international center of such research.
Jewish populations, and particularly the large Ashkenazi Jewish population, are ideal for such research studies, because they exhibit a high degree of endogamy, and at the same time are a large group.
Jewish populations are overwhelmingly urban, and are concentrated near biomedical centers where such research has been carried out. Such research is especially easy to carry out in Israel, where cradle-to-grave medical insurance is available, together with universal screening for genetic disease.
Jewish communities are comparatively well informed about genetics research, and have been supportive of community efforts to study and prevent genetic diseases.
Participation of Jewish scientists and support from the Jewish community alleviates ethical concerns that sometimes hinder such genetic studies in other ethnic groups.
The result is a form of ascertainment bias. This has sometimes created an impression that Jews are more susceptible to genetic disease than other populations. Carmeli writes, “Jews are over-represented in human genetic literature, particularly in mutation-related contexts.”[10] Another factor that may aid genetic research in this community is that Jewish culture results in excellent medical care, which is coupled to a strong interest in the community’s history and demography.[11]
This set of advantages have led to Ashkenazi Jews in particular being used in many genetic studies, not just in the study of genetic diseases. For example, a series of publications on Ashkenazi centenarians established that their longevity was strongly inherited and associated with lower rates of age-related diseases.[12] This “healthy aging” phenotype may be due to higher levels of telomerase in these individuals.

Posted by: somebody | Mar 31 2013 20:14 utc | 31

“b. your argument is rubbish…”
I’m sorry, I’m a little slow. What is b’s “argument”?
b: “A bunch of east Europeans steal Arab land based on old fairytales and pure racism. They even acknowledge it. This should not be supported in any way. Yes, people differ and differing cultures may live in different ways. But racism used as justification for crimes is a crime in itself and should be punished”
Is it that argument which is “rubbish”. As far as I can see that and the (pretty much inarguable, unless you know of any 100+ yr. old facist regimes)part about “Fortunately history tells us that such fascism seldom survives. Racist people tend to devour their own” are the only “arguments” b. makes in the post.

Posted by: Mooser | Mar 31 2013 22:34 utc | 33

I don’t play those games. May they call themselves and “their” stolen country whatever they please, may they really have originated from Palestine, from Scythia or from wherever.
I also don’t play the holocaust game. It’s rotten with lies and filth.
And I’m not willing or ready to hate Jews.
We, who we live today, are responsible for what we do today. No matter what happened 70 or 700 years ago.
Rather than bending the holocaust to a legitimation for torture and evil of all kinds, it should – and would by real inmates and victims of concentration camps – be the basis to profoundly know, what *never ever* to do, not ever to torture, not ever to brutally discriminate against others.
israel is to be terminated and will be terminated. And they themselves fuel the process towards that end. Because even kind-harted friendly people find more and more anger in themselves when they see how berserk israel acts.
It should be hoped, and I for one certainly do hope that, that there aren’t too many people falling for israels lies and excuses and such wrongly assume that “jew” and “israel” are one and the same. I sincerely hope that many people remember that there is a difference between zionism and a religion (insofar as the religious practice stays within purely religious bounds).
In short: When the time comes I will protect Jews, i.e. (hopefully) decent people who just happen to pray to another God than myself. For zionists, however, be they in israel or elsewhere, I will think “They themselves prepared the path to what happenes to them now. Even worse, they went along that path in such hybris, ignorance, despise for other humans and brutality that they didn’t leave the world another chance than to forcefully push them towards the letal end of that very path”.
It’s about time to pour some gasoline into those vipers nests. Just imagine a usa without aipac and accomplices!

Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Apr 1 2013 0:03 utc | 35

“In short: When the time comes I will protect Jews, i.e. (hopefully) decent people who just happen to pray to another God than myself.”
You would do that, and still allow me to pray to another God than yourself? That’s really cool, man, damned alabaster of you. But if it would make you feel good, I’ll pray to you, too. I mean, you protect me, you become my God. It’s only fair.

Posted by: Mooser | Apr 1 2013 0:17 utc | 37

“I sincerely hope that many people remember that there is a difference between zionism and a religion (insofar as the religious practice stays within purely religious bounds)”
The best plan would be to post monitors in all Jewish Temples, to make sure the boundariues are not transgressed. After all, isn’t that where it all started?

Posted by: Mooser | Apr 1 2013 0:26 utc | 39

Say POA, just because you unfamiliar with the terms ‘alleles’, ‘heterozygosity’ and ‘recessive’ it does not mean that they are irrelevant to the more general discussion of ‘racism’. Unfortunately, over the last 150 years many racist theories that were used to justify the oppression of brown skinned peoples made claims on science to justify the superiority of the white people. It has been known for decades that the these claims were bogus. What has been happening over the past few decades, especially in the last 5 years, is that comparative genomics (check out haplotype mapping if you want to see) is showing that there is very little scientific support for the entire idea of races. Basically, it is looking like we are all mongrels to differing degrees.
This is an important development — it is putting to rest scientific claims of racial superiority. That is important.

Posted by: ToivoS | Apr 1 2013 0:34 utc | 41

“This is an important development — it is putting to rest scientific claims of racial superiority. That is important.”
“scientific claims of racial superiority”? I didn’t know there was such a thing. Lot of pseudo-scientific claims, sure, but “scientific”? I don’t think so.

Posted by: Mooser | Apr 1 2013 1:14 utc | 43

So we all agree– Zionism is racism, a crime against humanity.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 1 2013 1:41 utc | 45

“Oh, BTW Mr. Pragma, I’ll skip that part of the ‘protection’ where you “pour some gasoline into those vipers nests.””
Think I’ll pass on that endeavor as well. I mean, after all, isn’t that what the zionists would claim they are doing to the palestinians?

Posted by: PissedOffAmerican | Apr 1 2013 2:42 utc | 47

“Mooser, I know where you’re coming from, but for the uninitiated, it’s hard to tell, sometimes, if you’re being serious or sarcastic.”
Oh, that’s just great! If you can’t tell, how the hell am I supposed to know? And my right-to-life principles don’t help; they mandate that every joke conceived gets delivered.
But listen, here’s a good test: Show any of my posts on the subject to a Zionist, and take their word for it. They don’t seem to have any trouble figuring it out. If you don’t know any Zionists to show it to, all I can say is, some people have all the luck!

Posted by: Mooser | Apr 1 2013 3:20 utc | 49

“So we all agree– Zionism is racism, a crime against humanity.”
Against humanity? Oh it’s worse than that, it’s a crime against the Jews, too!

Posted by: Mooser | Apr 1 2013 3:31 utc | 51

@52 POA
Biden is more than a fashionable asshole, he’s a main architect of the terrible Iraq War and a significant contributor not only to current U.S. wars but also to the ongoing I/P debacle and the aggression against Iran.
Biden at AIPAC recently:

“Let me make clear what that commitment is,” Biden said. “It is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Period. Period. End of discussion. Period. Prevent. Not contain. Prevent. The president has flatly stated that.”
“President Barack Obama is not bluffing,” he added. “We are not looking for war. We are looking to and ready to negotiate peacefully. But all options, including military force, are on the table.”
In addition, Biden said that the United States will continue to stand against international efforts to delegitimize Israel. Biden explained that when President Obama travels to Muslim-majority countries, the president makes clear that “Israel’s legitimacy and our support for it is not a matter of debate. There is no light. It is not a matter of debate. It’s simple, and he means it. It is not a matter of debate. Don’t raise it with us. Do not raise it with us. It is not negotiable.”
Biden stated he knows that all of Israel’s leaders want peace. “But it takes two to tango, and the rest of the Arab world has to get in the game. We’re under no illusions about how difficult it will be to achieve,” he said.

So when Biden claims he’s a Zionist it says something about not only Biden, the U.S. vice president, supposedly the adult in the room with Barry, but also about Zionism and its intents.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 1 2013 4:06 utc | 53

#33
b.’s argument is rubbish, because the colonial enterprise of Israel is much more complicated than that and a large part of Israeli citizens would have preferred and still would prefer to go to the US if they had been/were given a chance. A large part of immigrants to Israel were victims by any definition of the word. That a victim can become a perpetrator is a fact of life.
If you take b.’s argument further – something that was robbed has to be given back or taken back – you opt for eternal war as it cannot be defined where in history to draw the line – 20 years back, 50 years back, 100 years back, and the genetics of ancestry proves we all came from Africa …. People should have a right to live peacefully with full citizenship where they are.
Zionism is the – defensive – result of continental European – Austrian/Hungarian to be exact – nationalism basing nationhood on “ethnicity” and language. This type of nationalism is still a pest with the potential of causing wars last seen in Europe in Yougoslavia.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 1 2013 7:56 utc | 55

“Yiddish is clearly German, and is a clue where a large part of Eastern European Jews came from”
Yiddish is based on Crimean Gothic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Gothic

Posted by: clubofrome | Apr 1 2013 9:53 utc | 57

@54: The article is wrong in one fundamental fact: Hürriyet journalists applied in the afternoon of that day, while the first one had applied at 8:59 in the morning. There seem to be some weird things about the procedure and I do regret that there hasn’t been found an easy solutions because Turkish media must be given at least one seat. But that’s what is is in the article: a false statement.
Source: http://www.freitag.de/autoren/gsfrb/akkreditierungsanfragen-fuer-nsu-prozess

Posted by: k_w | Apr 1 2013 12:30 utc | 59

I think it’s a mistake to include the topic of religion in discussions about Zionism. Zionism is a cult, a primitive and criminal cargo cult, which worships property aquisition by violence and intimidation, regardless of the religion beliefs of its noisily self-righteous adherents. The fact that most Zionists claim to be Jews is intended to confuse opponents.
It’s a trick.
And it works every time they pull it out of their hat/ass.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 1 2013 15:39 utc | 61

57) you are clearly trying to spread racist fascist mythology.
Ahnenerbe

“After the German army conquered the Crimea in early July 1942, Himmler sent Dr. Herbert Jankuhn, as well as Karl Kersten and Baron Wolf von Seefeld, to the region in search of artifacts to follow up the recent displaying of the Kerch “Gothic crown of the Crimea” in Berlin.
Jankuhn met with senior officers of Einsatzkommando 11, part of Einsatzgruppe D, while waiting at the field headquarters of the 5th SS Panzer Division. Commander Otto Ohlendorf gave Jankuhn information about the Crimean museums.[8]
Traveling with the 5th SS Panzer, Jankuhn’s team eventually reached Maikop, where they received a message from Sievers that Himmler wanted an investigation of Manhup-Kale, an ancient mountain fortress. Jankuhn sent Kersten to follow up on Manhup-Kale, while the rest of the team continued trying to secure artifacts that had not already been taken by the Red Army. Einsatzkommando 11b’s commander Werner Braune aided the team in their efforts.
Jankuhn was ultimately unable to find Gothic artifacts denoting a German ancestry, even after receiving intelligence about a shipment of seventy-two crates or artifacts shipped to a medical warehouse. Unfortunately, the area had been ravaged by the time the team arrived, and only twenty crates remained—but they contained Greek and stone-age artifacts, rather than Gothic.”

The oldest Jewish graves in Frankfurt date from the 13th century – no need to invent Crim Goths to account for the fact that European Jews spoke a High German dialect.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 1 2013 15:52 utc | 63

“Yiddish is clearly German, and is a clue where a large part of Eastern European Jews came from”
Oh, don’t believe all that Zionist puffery, it’s no larger than anybody else’s.

Posted by: Mooser | Apr 1 2013 16:03 utc | 65

From Xymphora April 1…
Milk and honey news: “Israeli Gas Field Opens, Setting Stage for Energy Boom” “Israel Starts Tamar Gas Production” “Lobby’s effort to exempt Israel from sequester gets ‘Israel first’-ers into the lexicon” “AIPAC takes on the latest threat to Israel — sequestration” They claim they will spend their new wealth on social programs, which in Israel means illegal settlements and murdering Palestinians.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 1 2013 16:16 utc | 67

#65, well in the case of Yiddish all I have to do is trust my ears. I can understand it and I speak neither Hebrew nor any Slav language, just German.
And if you look into people’s faces you realise that quite a few Celts mendeled their traits through to Zionism.
All that ancestry discussion is pointless really, people robbed and grabbed in history whatever they could and they mixed whenever they felt like it, religion hardly had any control.
In the case of the Ashkenazy genetics research – all it tells you is that inbreeding is bad for your kids.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 1 2013 16:33 utc | 69

@ 68.
Unlike colonialism, which was simply a benevolent impulse to help and enlighten the natives, which went wrong?
Uh??
What’s ‘unlike colonialism’ about Zionism?

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 1 2013 16:51 utc | 71

@63
Don’t you think it’s interesting that the oldest Jewish grave in Frankfurt date to 13th century, and Jewish history only began in Germany in the 12th century. And Khazaria just happen to have collpased in the 11th century?

Posted by: clubofrome | Apr 1 2013 19:02 utc | 73

“In the case of the Ashkenazy genetics research – all it tells you is that inbreeding is bad for your kids.”
While I am all for hybrid vigor, sometimes a bit of consanguinity can’t be avoided in this fleshuggana world. Some time after we were married, my non-Jewish wife confessed her family’s shameful secret: that the grand-matriarch of the clan may very well been forced out of the German village of her youth when she was impregnated by an itinerant Jewish peddler. (Spel-Chek is intent on blaming a bicyclist, and really, no wonder. Can you trust a guy who shaves his legs?) Anyway, on the basis of this, my wife decided I shouldn’t have children.
Of course, all this criminality brutality and pathological credulity could really get a guy down (I’m talking about Zionism, not my marriage). And when it does, and I feel like the victim of congenital idiocy, I just go talk to other Americans about the War on Terror. Then (as the song says) I don’t feel so bad. It’s one of my favorite things.

Posted by: Mooser | Apr 1 2013 19:24 utc | 75

As it seems to have been missed here in the discussion, B’s larger point of “where” east-European Jews originated, is that they do not come from Palestine. That would undermine the notion of right of return. Which is where the zionist project of Isreal finds its legitimacy in western eyes – the eyes of its protectors/supporters. Of course the notion of right of return should lose its legitimacy after 1500 years if not a few generations; how many Americans truly think that we should give everything back to the native Americans, after all (and that’s only after 200 years at the most)?
As an example, let’s say that an army of Nigerians (or pick your favorite ethnicity) invaded and conquered Rome and central Italy, tossed out the inhabitants, or assimilated them. Then 1500 years later, Mexicans living in the U.S., who are Roman Catholic, decided that they needed to “return” to Rome. They speak a Latin-based language, and are Roman Catholic, and hold all the holy places in reverence. Should they have the right of return? What about all the, now, Nigero-Italo people who never left? Should they be pushed out and beaten down because of an event from 1500 years ago over which their ancestors had no control, but in which they adapted to and then continued on?

Posted by: skuppers66 | Apr 2 2013 1:11 utc | 77

no 77 skuppers66, that is why I call b.’s argument as foolish as the Rabbis’ racism. In all probability people around the Black Sea did not become Jewish out of nowhere but Jews travelled the Roman empire which spread far and amongst other things along the Rhine. There are Jewish artefacts from the 4th century in Germany. Romans were not racist and they employed mercenaries and civil servants from all over. Germanic tribes used to cooperate and to fight them, ie the genetic pool of anybody within the boundaries of the Roman empire has to be very mixed indeed except your family has subsisted for 2000 years in a remote mountain valley (and then you probably have quite a few degenerative deseases)
It simply does not matter how your religion spread, or your forfathers travelled. My genetic pool presumably is part Slav, part Germanic, part somewhere in the Roman empire and who knows some Jewish people made it, too. What time in the development of the human race entitles you to land property? And which part of your genetic pool? And what historic struggle entitles you to kill people in revenge?
Of course none of the above. I would even argue that your father’s or mother’s riches do not entitle you to inherit it, but you should work yourself. So yes, there should be an inheritance tax.

Posted by: somebody | Apr 2 2013 6:38 utc | 79

80) or madness :-))

Posted by: somebody | Apr 2 2013 10:03 utc | 81

As a Jew, I protest this article. God damn it, we are supposed to be fairly smart. Some people would say +15IQ (if you are certified Ashkenazim, that is). And damn it, we’re supposed to be fairly hip, too. – Mooser at 17.
Heh.
> Relies on definition of people by religion/ethnicity, down to the Ashkenazi thing.
> Relies on IQ which is really (if it has any validity at all) a measure of education level and fitting in to X culture (the tests are adjusted.) Scores are in any case hazardous and manipulated, and in fine, meaningless.
> makes reference to ‘hip’ .. I see that as a plea to take into account some types of domination as given, natural. Savvy, world-wise, wordy, glib. (Position and money.) Not about music or any art…
Are we supposed to accept that Jews, as a ‘group’ of some kind, and by extension, the ‘author’, are special?
Or is it all just irony? Confused guilt? If so it is misplaced, even disgusting, in its light, sarcastic supposedly humorous? treatment of issues that keep ppl in poverty and under sadistic domination etc. etc.?

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 2 2013 16:01 utc | 83

“The insistence on the fundamental, essential difference between ‘peoples’, stretching today to ‘genes’ or ‘genetic makeup’ etc. is simply a symptom of deep-rooted racism.”
Bingo! You have hit the bulls-eye, rung the bell, and entitled to cigar or coco-nut, winner’s choice.
And your personal criticisms: “misplaced, even disgusting, in its light, sarcastic supposedly humorous? treatment of issues that keep ppl in poverty and under sadistic domination” are right on! That’s me all over. But I’ve got an MDR for irony that’s worse than an opioid addiction. Guess I’ll go to Humornon, and try and kick the habit, shed my skin, find some new stuff to go dancing in.
Althought one little trio of wirds, Noirette, in you post, terrified me: “Mooser at 17” Ouch!

Posted by: Mooser | Apr 2 2013 16:16 utc | 85

“Confused guilt?”
And exactly what Noirette, am I guiilty of? Do I bear some of the guilt for Zionism, simply because I am Jewish? Want to explain how that works?
But for God’s sake, leave out anything I did at 17! I got a histamine reaction just reading the words.

Posted by: Mooser | Apr 2 2013 16:27 utc | 87

88) frankly speaking from a German point of view
have you ever seen the ruins of a Roman villa with heated floors because they knew about heat going to the top and aquaeducts and all that ..
do you know what German winters mean? … they had these villaes in the area of German tribes
do you realize how bad the heating was in German medieval castles centuries later?
do you wonder why all these Germanic tribes from occupied Italy, Germany, Britain wanted to go on a crusade?
then you realise that Romans were way ahead of their times …
and we owe it to Muslims that we know of how ahead of their times they were

Posted by: somebody | Apr 2 2013 18:37 utc | 89

@76
The real fantasy is continuing to believe the biblical narrative that all the Jews in the world are descendents of ancient Israelis.

Posted by: clubofrome | Apr 2 2013 22:37 utc | 91