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From: jho@ihuxn.UUCP (Yosi Hoshen)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: test for Jewishness
Message-ID: <772@ihuxn.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Jul-84 10:28:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxn.772
Posted: Wed Jul 18 10:28:46 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Jul-84 03:15:46 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
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Rich Rosen = }

>>Test for Jewishness = Eligibility for the concentration camps

> This statement is a rather negative definition of Jewishness and gives no
> reason for pride in Jewishness.
> 	Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo

}Exactly.  The point being:  why let other people define who YOU are?
}Am I a Jew when Martillo has deemed it so?  When Nazis have deemed it so?
}Am I a Jew because you say I am?  Do I have some obligations imposed on me
}because someone else has stated that I am a member of some group without
}my input or consideration?
}
}I don't take statements like "You have to do it for your race/religion/family."
}very seriously.  Since, so often, such externally imposed obligations are used
}as a propagandistic tool to rile you up to fight a bloody conflict for
}something you have no part in and don't even believe in.

I sympathize with Rich position.  It would be nice if people would not
have to be classified by race, nation, religion, etc.  The problem is
that we are living in a real world, not the world that we would like it
to be.  If you, Rich, Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo and I were living in
Europe during WW II, the all three of us would find ourselves in a
German concentration camp.  We  would all be fully qualified for the Nazi
gas chambers as Jews.  It would not make any difference if we did not know
of our Jewish background, whether we were atheists or orthodox, our fate
would be sealed.  A very unpleasant and unjust situation, but a fact of life.
We could not escape from Europe.  No country would accept us, not even the
US.  Palestine would be also closed, because the British would not let
us in.
-- 

Yosi Hoshen
Bell Laboratories
Naperville, Illinois
(312)-979-7321
Mail: ihnp4!ihuxn!jho