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From: martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Judeocentrism vs. Cosmopolitanism (Rosen)
Message-ID: <409@ihuxt.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Apr-84 16:42:20 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxt.409
Posted: Thu Apr 12 16:42:20 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Apr-84 20:51:57 EST
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>Clearly Mr. Martillo is as judaeocentric as many of the Christian
>fundamentalists (some of whom submit to net.religion) are christocentric.

Westernized Jews typically know nothing about Judaism but are somewhat
knowledgeable about European culture.  They call this Eurocentrism
cosmopolitanism.  If a Jew knows something about Judaism and states
opinions based on the knowledge, he is Judeocentric no matter how much he
knows about European and (in my case) non-European cultures.

>No, I take it back.  He's much more so, as evidenced by his ridicule and
>disdain for all those who would choose to be different from him.

I generally only ridicule Jews who are complacent in their assimilation.

>Although I suspect some Christian fundamentalists to harbor similar
>disdain, I have no reason to assume that because it never evinces itself
>in a public forum.  Mr. Martillo is quite open about his dislike (even
>hatred) for Ashkenazim (or anyone who holds a different view about what 'real'
>Judaism is), non-religious Jews (or any Jewish born person who chooses to
>make his/her own choices in life as opposed to *his* [Martillo's] idea of what
>choices "must" be made), and just about every ethnic group in the known
>world (I have yet to hear him say anything other than derisive remarks about
>any group of people.

I have no desire to discuss once again the Sefardi/Ashkenazi issue.  But
having contempt for the behavior of assimilated Ashkenazim has no relation
to being Sefardi. I suggest Mr. Rosen read Marx (who specifically exempts
der Schabbos-Jude from his diatribes).  Marx based his critique on his own
assimilated family.  

I have not met non-religious Jews who have truly made
choices.   Making choices requires information.  All the non-religious
Jews I have met had parents with little Jewish training who decided not to
send their children to a school which could give them a good Jewish
background.  After reaching Mr. Rosen's age learning how to learn is
extremely difficult and most Jewishly ignorant Jews prefer to be
complacent.

It might interest Mr. Rosen to learn that being an observant Jew does not
require faith.  Medieval Hebrew (the Middle Ages ended for my family
around 1945) has no word for Jewish religion and medieval Jews were not
aware they were practising a religion.  The faith part of Judaism is
yichud or monotheism which is the belief in the existence of the one God. 
What Ashkenazim consider religion is simply the laws by which the Jewish
community lived.  If a Jew does not believe in God but still observes
Jewish law and does not disclose his non-belief, he is kasher.

I did not dump on every ethnic group in the world merely the ones which
have dumped on Jews.  Most of the peoples in the world have never heard
of Jews, have had no contact with Jews, and would have no inclination to
dump on Jews.  However, the groups that have recently dumped on Jews
include most of the European ethnic groups.  Mr. Rosen shows his
eurocentrism by claiming I have dumped on all the ethnic groups of the
world.

>Mind you, he has said some interesting things in various newsgroups,
>presenting a unique non-Western-oriented point of view, but this does
>not compensate for his vitriolic spouting of venom.

-- 

                    Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo

         (I don't care what you think about my signature)