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From: martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: The Myth of Neutrality
Message-ID: <660@ihuxt.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Jul-84 13:54:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxt.660
Posted: Sun Jul 22 13:54:08 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Jul-84 14:57:34 EDT
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Original statement of Yaqim Martillo = *

Reply from Yosi Hoshen = >

Counter-Reply from Yaqim Martillo = #

*Societies always impose a moral/religious code on the members of the
*society.  Personally, I see nothing wrong with having several wives but if
*I marry two women in the U.S.A.  I will probably go to jail.

*In a democracy a successful moral appeal naturally leads to legislation
*against the targeted immoral behavior (like slavery).  Hoshen's position
*sounds like loser's sour grapes.

!I guess that Mr. Martillo would not object if the majority of society 
!decides that his religion is immoral and that he should become a
!Christian.  Is it not preferable to leave the decision on personal moral
!matters  to the individual?

#As Yosi Hoshen probably can guess, my family are Sefardim Tehorim. We
#have this status because we were given the choice in Spain of converting
#to Christianity or leaving.  We left.  My family (under a different name)
#were notables in Tudela.  Consequently we have some documentation of their
#feelings.  As they saw it, Spain had committed an evil act and they wanted
#revenge.

#However, Jews were a small and weak people so that rampaging through Spain
#in a war of revenge was out of the question.  My family were among the
#founders of the first canon-works in the Ottoman Empire and for the next
#two hundred years the Turks were rampaging through Europe in wars of
#annihilation and destruction.  Even though the Turks treated the Jewish
#commununity rotten, apparently the Jewish community was able to take some
#vicarious pleasure in the humbling of European nations.

#From the traditional Jewish point of view, the action of Spain merited
#revenge.  They had no right to try to force us to become Christians nor
#should they have expelled us. The traditional Jewish view of freedom has
#no relationship to the modern view of individual freedom.  Judaism sees
#freedom only communally.  

#Peoples should be free.  A people or society is free if it does not
#suffer from external interference in its establishment, maintenance and
#self-policing.  Therefore Spain had no right to try to impose Christianity
#upon us.

#Neither did Spain have the right to expel us.  All people are required to
#treat one another decently and the expulsion of the Jews was an example of
#particularly indecent behavior.  Of course, fair play required that we not
#rebel, be productive and pay tribute (taxes -- After all we were in
#Galut).

#The arrangement meant we as law-abiding resident aliens would take no part
#in Spanish society and the Spanish would not interfere with our society.

#However, if the Jews were to demand participatory rights in the national
#culture, then the members of the national society would have the right to
#make demands of the Jews.  The members of the society have a right to
#shape the society as they see fit, and if the Jews try to be full members,
#the Jews might have to accommodate the national culture.  For this reason
#having Israel is good because then we can participate in a national
#society without compromising ourselves and we can shape the society as we
#see fit.

#The Sefardim in South America understand these rather simple principles;
#consequently, the Sefardi communities in South America have experienced
#few of the problems with anti-Semitism in South America which have plagued
#the Ashkenazim unless the behavior of Ashkenazim was so outlandish that
#they provoked hatred against all Jews.

#South American countries are a bizarre mixture of modernism and feudalism.
#The dominant culture is overwhelmingly religious.  The Ashkenazi
#intellectuals are not.  The societies are usually defined as Catholic in
#their constitutions.  The Ashkenazi intellectuals are not.  The Jews are
#strongly perceived as alien guests who have no right to participate in
#national culture because Spanish makes almost no
#distinction between Israeli (Israeli or Israelita) and Jew (Israelita). 
#The Jews have their own country.  It is Israel and neither Argentina nor
#Chile nor any of the other Latin nations.

#While the Sefardim would like to be a low-profile productive group of
#resident aliens, the behavior of Ashkenazi intellectuals in making
#political demands seems almost
#calculated to make the Latinos suspicious of Jews and to provoke hatred. 
#Needless to say, there are many areas of disagreement in South America
#between Ashkenazim and Sefardim.

*The issue of imposition of morality has no relationship with religion. 
*Shortly after my family's community came to Israel, the European-dominated
*parliament passed a law forbidding marrying second wives although families
*which were married before they came to Israel were legally allowed to
*remain intact.  Of course, the legislation made polygynous families seem
*somehow wrong or disturbed.  Further, the secular Western Ashkenazim
*(European Jews) put whatever social pressure they could to break up
*polygynous oriental families which were perfectly stable decent
*environments for raising children until the Ashkenazim intervened.  The
*ill-effects of this crude imposition are still apparent in Israel and are
*even more so when the Israeli broken oriental Jewish families are compared
*with Italian oriental Jewish families which remained intact because the
*Italians didn't give a damn how oriental Jews lived.

*Secular, westernized Ashkenazim have never seen any wrong in imposing
*their immorality on others.  Attacking Dubuc when Dubuc tries to impose
*his morality on others is hypocritical.

!Does the fact that Ashkenazi Jews imposed their morality on oriental
!Jews justifies [justify] imposition [of] Mr. Dubuc's morality on others? 
!Should a mistake in one part of the world be repeated by another mistake
!in another part of the world?

#For a culture to be whole and healthy [one word in Hebrew as
#Yosi Hoshen knows] the members have to share in one morality.  Strong
#nations are united nations and nothing can be more divisive that different
#views of morality.

#So believed Ben-Gurion and his followers, so do I believe.
#I meant that when "enlightened," "liberal,"
#Westernized Ashkenazim [like Yosi Hoshen I assume] had the chance to
#impose their morality they did not hesitate to do so.  Therefor, Yosi
#Hoshen should be attacking the type of morality Dubuc wishes to impose not
#the wish to impose.
-- 

Who wouldn't break for whales?

Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo