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From: david@fisher.UUCP (David Rubin)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Who is a Jew
Message-ID: <289@fisher.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Aug-84 08:23:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: fisher.289
Posted: Thu Aug 23 08:23:32 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Aug-84 04:06:22 EDT
References: <1438@ittvax.UUCP>, <223@fisher.UUCP> <225@mit-athena.ARPA>, <253@fisher.UUCP> <255@mit-athena.ARPA>
Organization: Princeton Univ. Statistics
Lines: 82


>>Mr. Martillo is by far the most arrogant individual I have yet run
>>into on this net. He has stated that my disagreement with his views
>>DISQUALIFIES me from any input on Jewishness. When all those who are
>>deserving of such disqualification are eliminated, only those who 
>>agree with Martillo will be left. (By the way, all of you who feel I
>>ought to be disqualified need not read this)

>I do not mind disagreement with my  opinions  and  I  do  now  and  then
>concede  the  correctness  of other people's opinions.  You may write to
>Sophie Quigley or Larry Welsh for confirmation.  Your disagreement  with
>my  views  does not disqualify your opinions on how the Jewish community
>should define Jewishness but rather your denial of the existence of  the
>Jewish  community  which  I  can  affirm does exist.  Apparently in your
>limited experience you have  never  had  contact  with  the  functioning
>Jewish  community -- probably because most Ashkenazim are no longer part
>of the Jewish community.

I never denied the existance of a Jewish community. To do so would be,
as you say, contradicted by fact. What I said was that most American Jews
have more in common with American non-Jews than with Jewish non-Americans.
To say that this denies this existence of a Jewish community requires
that you also believe that any individual can belong to only one
community. I do not hold that supposition to be true, and find no
contradiction in my asserting my membership in both the American and
Jewish communities.

>The denial of the existence of a Jewish community which is  so  easy  to
>find  in  New  York,  Boston,  Nashville  and  many  other  cities is an
>interesting  example   of   fossilized   Ashkenazi   thought   patterns.
>Assimilated  German  Jews  from  the  end  of the 19th century until the
>Hitler  years  also  tended  to  deny  the  Jewish  community  and   the
>commonality   of   Jewish   experience.    Even  admitting  the  obvious
>differences between the Ostjuden (Eastern European Jews) and the  German
>Jews,  I  see  no  other community than the Jewish community in which to
>place the German Jews.  Certainly they  were  not  part  of  the  German
>community.   German  Jewish  voting  patterns  were quite different than
>German voting patterns.  German  Jewish  intellectuality  followed  many
>different  paths than German intellectuality.  I will concede a very low
>opinion of Hermann Kohn, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Gershom Scholem
>and their whole crowd but having read them I doubt they could have taken
>part in the slaughter of a people as easy as most of  their  counterpart
>German  intellectuals.   To me this implies an extremely different world
>outlook.  Later events in fact showed that the German Jews were part  of
>the Jewish community and not part of the German community.

German Jews were always members of the Jewish community, and
occasionally members of the German community, too. 

>I  have yet to label individuals on the net idiotic, arrogant or moronic
>although certainly all these types exist on the  net.   I  have  labeled
>opinions  moronic  or  ignorant.  From the standpoint of Judaism limudei
>torat moshe (studies of the teaching of Moses) are not  acts  of  piety,
>they  are fundamental obligations of all Jews and I have little patience
>with  those  Jews  on  the  net  who  show  greater   familiarity   with
>intellectual  second raters like Thoreau, Emerson, Mills, Jefferson than
>with  intellectual  first  raters  like  Maimonides,  Nahmanides,  Isaac
>al-Fasi, Abarbanel, Judah ben Betsalel Loewe (Maharal miPrag), the Vilna
>Gaon -- especially when these Jews show simultaneously no inclination to
>correct this gross intellectual imbalance.

All you mentioned were intellectual first-raters.

>>Martillo, if the truth is so obvious to you, so writ in stone that no
>>discussion can be carried on in good spirit, why do you bother 
>>participating in this group? It cannot be for your edification, as you
>>clearly know it all. It cannot be for our edification, since you respond 
>>to contrary views with insults and rudeness.

>Labeling as insults and rudeness the opinions of those who disagree with
>you is a common net tactic.  This tactic  often  covers  up  fundamental
>ignorance  which  I suspect is the case here since David Rubin has shown
>no familiarity with basic Jewish texts.

You stated that I was not a Jew. You ought not wonder that I took this
for an insult. Your implication that I am ignorant of basic Jewish
texts is a false one. I showed "no familiarty" with basic texts
because discussion is usually hobbled, not enhanced, by reference to
"expert" testimony.

					David Rubin
			{allegra|astrovax|princeton}!fisher!david