Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxn.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxn!rlr From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish Subject: Re: Judeocentrism vs. Cosmopolitanism (Rosen) Message-ID: <568@pyuxn.UUCP> Date: Thu, 12-Apr-84 19:52:31 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxn.568 Posted: Thu Apr 12 19:52:31 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 13-Apr-84 21:04:51 EST References: <395@ihuxt.UUCP> <975@qubix.UUCP> <553@pyuxn.UUCP> <409@ihuxt.UUCP> Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J. Lines: 59 > 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. I wonder what Mr. Martillo means when he refers to "a good Jewish background". Does it mean years of extensive yeshiva education? (No, of course not, that's Ashkenazi learning!) My "minute" share of Jewish education convinced me of the folly of religion in general, and I felt no need to be observant, as it had no relevance to my life. These are the choices of this non-religious Jew, based on his information. If this is your version of complacence, so be it. I guess that the only avenue you would consider non-complacent is the path you have chosen. Speaking of information and choices, what information could you have about other choices if you devoted so much to Jewish learning. Perhaps it would have been nice, to broaden your horizons, if your parents had sent you to a Muslim school to learn about some other people. But, no, then you'd only learn to hate Jews... :-? Apparently, in your learning, other hatreds are taught. > 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. So you're saying that Jewish belief in God (religion) and Jewish practices (observance) are disjoint. Thus, this is clearly not a religious issue at all, but a cultural one. (I always said if we were going to have this group let's call it net.roots.jewish) The only reason I could see for following Jewish law is as a path to god. Since I don't believe in god, I see no purpose (for me) in it. As I've already said, my rights as an individual should not be interfered with by those who would say "You're Jewish, it's your duty to preserve the religion." One might say "study it some, you might find it interesting". I have found it interesting, even fascinating, but I don't choose to incorporate everything I find fascinating into my daily lifestyle. > I did not dump on every ethnic group in the world merely the ones which > have dumped 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. Yes, an exaggeration, my apologies. I guess you were not exaggerating when you claimed that degrading of Jews was a part of Muslim culture. Despite what the eloquent Mr. Tannenbaum has said, defaming an entire group, even if based on experience (*your* experience), is out and out bigotry. By the way, since when are the Muslims a "European ethnic group"? How Afrasiocentric of you to have forgotten that you mentioned them... -- "Submitted for your approval..." Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr