History of Judaism & Israel

[Tez3]

So genetics and religion confers historical knowledge now? How DO you know what happened to Jews in Poland more than 500 years ago?





The Native American creation stories are obviously wrong. So are the Abrahamic creation stories. They do not conform to what we know about the world and our own natural history. That justifies nothing, either way.
"...if the experiment disagrees with the guess, then the guess is wrong." - Richard Feynman

Which bit of 'I don't care' did you miss? Goyim will think what they whatever anyone else says, a closed mind is a closed mind. Justified homicide of any people will always be that.... justified by the perpetrators. The truth rarely is a consideration. The Goy professors are 'right' the Jews 'wrong', so what's new.


No point in stopping here anymore.

 

[CanuckMA]

EmptyHands, Whatever

 

[Empty Hands]

Goyim will think what they whatever anyone else says, a closed mind is a closed mind.

So, to be clear...you are saying that no non-Jew will think fairly in regard to Jews, or listen to their arguments?

 

[CanuckMA]

You're right. Jews always had it great. The expulsions, the pogroms, the Shoah never happened. The Protocols is a real text and we control everything.

 

[Empty Hands]

EmptyHands, Whatever

What is this even supposed to mean, seriously?!? Are you really going to claim that your genetics and your religious practices give you some sort of special knowledge of history 500 years dead that no one not in your tribe can comprehend? Are you that ethnocentric and tribal?

Does my white skin give me special knowledge of the social status of Danish peasants in 1325? Do my Asian friends have special knowledge of Kublai Khan that no one else can comprehend?

This approaches absurdity.

Either something is true, or it is not, and only research will determine which is which. Not your ethnicity or your religion.

 

[Empty Hands]

You're right. Jews always had it great. The expulsions, the pogroms, the Shoah never happened. The Protocols is a real text and we control everything.

That is an extreme position to impart to someone. Clearly you have the citations from this thread to back you up?

 

[Tez3]

What is this even supposed to mean, seriously?!? Are you really going to claim that your genetics and your religious practices give you some sort of special knowledge of history 500 years dead that no one not in your tribe can comprehend? Are you that ethnocentric and tribal?

Does my white skin give me special knowledge of the social status of Danish peasants in 1325? Do my Asian friends have special knowledge of Kublai Khan that no one else can comprehend?

This approaches absurdity.

Either something is true, or it is not, and only research will determine which is which. Not your ethnicity or your religion.

If this is going to be a discussion on history and historians we need a new thread.

I imagine if you are Danish and know your history you would have a good idea of what it was it was to be a Danish peasant in 1325. I certainly have more than a good knowledge of what English peasants were doing then from eyewitness accounts, documents of the time, artefacts, written histories,parliamentary, Church and Royal achives etc.
In 1325 the town I live near looked not so very much different from what it does now as many buildings from that era are still standingsome from earlier. From the Domesday Book we get a very good picture of life in medieaval times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_North_Yorkshire

There's no 'magic' in knowing ones history, I'm not claiming special bonds it's just a case of knowing ones Jewish history. So two Polish academics wrote a history, and histories have never been rewritten? How many people know that the original inhabitants, Indians, were entirely wiped out in the West Indies? Or the Korea used to be spelt with a C, the Japanese changed that. Misinformation is everywhere, sometimes by accident sometimes by design. How many people think what Humphrey Bogart said 'play it again Sam'? He didn't, it was 'play it Sam' but guess which is going down in history?

I think you are being a tad hysterical over something very simple, Jews know Jewish history but we didn't say it was hard to understand, there's plenty of non Jews who can understand it. Danes will know their country's history and Mongolians will certainly know the history of Kublai Khan. What is so strange about that? The Scots certainly know their history ask any Scot about Bruce, Wallace and Culloden. I really don't see why you have a problem with me or any other Jew knowing our history. Don't you know yours even if it is short?

 

[Tez3]

We aren't called the People of the Book for nothing! Academic study, historical research, debates and learning are a very big part of being Jewish. hears some reading to start of with and to give you an idea of how much we actually do study our lives, loves and history as well as our values, philosophies and faith.

http://www.academicstudiespress.com/BookSeries.aspx

We also like a good gossip and if you think anything happened to Jews in one part of the world wasn't shared by Jews anywhere else you are mistaken. Israel doesnt have the best intelligence network in the world for nothing, it's run by Jewish grandmothers!

Try this too.
The Review of Jewish Thought and Intellectual History.

The First issue will be published in September 2009.

This periodical will publish articles dealing with diverse areas of Jewish thought over the ages, including Rabbinic thought and mysticism, Medieval philosophy, Renaissance philosophy, Kabbalah, Hasidism, and Modern and contemporary thought. The journal encourages studies on the repercussions of and interactions with surrounding cultures and schools of thought in Jewish philosophy and mysticism, interfaces of philosophy and other types of thought and literary expression (such as exegesis and poetry), political philosophy, women and gender in Jewish thought, and the Jewish contribution to the sciences.

Editors: Dov Schwartz (Bar Ilan University), Steven Harvey (Bar Ilan University)
Editorial Board: Resianne Fontaine (The University of Amsterdam), Paul Franks (The University of Toronto), Zeev Gries (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), Warren Zev Harvey (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Diana Lobel (Boston University), James Robinson (The University of Chicago), Bernard Septimus (Harvard University)

There will be two issues a year,

ISSN 1943-8257
240 pp.

 

[Empty Hands]

I really don't see why you have a problem with me or any other Jew knowing our history.

I don't, of course. But you didn't offer any cogent facts or citations from history. You dismissed the work cited by mauna because the authors were Poles. You offered no reason to do so other than the fact that they were Poles, such as offering other works, citations or academics which would support your point. When I challenged you on it, you responded with a remark about close minded goy.

What else am I supposed to think?

History is not argued by dismissing the historian for no good reason.

 

[xJOHNx]

I always wonder about the simple thing:
The Jewish people have been exposed to more hate, expulsion and killings that any other race/tribe in the world... Yet why do they impose just the same on other people (being the palestines in this case)?

5 Belgian people were on board of one of the ships.
A special unit that boards ships in international waters? That's illegal. Even if the flotilla was out to break the baracade, operating within international waters is illegal. Simple as it is.

Right now I'm off to get more books on the case and on zionism.

 

[Tez3]

I don't, of course. But you didn't offer any cogent facts or citations from history. You dismissed the work cited by mauna because the authors were Poles. You offered no reason to do so other than the fact that they were Poles, such as offering other works, citations or academics which would support your point. When I challenged you on it, you responded with a remark about close minded goy.

What else am I supposed to think?

History is not argued by dismissing the historian for no good reason.

Look, he just said 'two professors' who wrote a 'history' book which said the people converted to Judaism, give me dates, names and places and I'll show you they didn't. I know they didn't but give me something to work on to prove it. Poland at one point was the largest country in Europe, it contained several countries which are separate entities now, it has a very long history, a random 'oh people converted to Judaism in droves cos the liked the way Jews were treated in Poland and I read it in a book' doesn't cut it. I suspect he's thinking about the Khazars, a totally different kettle of fish.

 

[CanuckMA]

Look, he just said 'two professors' who wrote a 'history' book which said the people converted to Judaism, give me dates, names and places and I'll show you they didn't. I know they didn't but give me something to work on to prove it. Poland at one point was the largest country in Europe, it contained several countries which are separate entities now, it has a very long history, a random 'oh people converted to Judaism in droves cos the liked the way Jews were treated in Poland and I read it in a book' doesn't cut it. I suspect he's thinking about the Khazars, a totally different kettle of fish.

And even for the Khazars, it's not strictly true. While the King did convert at one time, and made Judaism the official religion of the Kingdom, there is no proof that the population followed suit. The Khazars are usually brought in the discussion to 'prove' that Ashkenazi Jews are native from Europe, DNA evidence to the contrary.

 

[CanuckMA]

The closest references I could find is that at some point there was Jewish immigration to Poland. That is not the same as large scale conversions.

And the situation in Poland was better. Not good, just better. Better did not stop the Jews from being blamed and killed for the Plague.

 

[Empty Hands]

And he's been asked for titles and authors.

We can't directly cite other sources because it never happened. History books are usualy light on mentioning things that don't happen.

"At some point in the last decades of the 8th century or the early 9th century, the Khazar royalty and nobility converted to Judaism, and part of the general population followed. The extent of the conversion is debated. Ibn al-Faqih reported in the 10th century that "all the Khazars are Jews." Notwithstanding this statement, some scholars believe that only the upper classes converted to Judaism; there is some support for this in contemporary Muslim texts." LINK

"According to the Tel Aviv University historian, Prof. Shlomo Sand, author of "Matai ve'ech humtza ha'am hayehudi?" ("When and How the Jewish People Was Invented?"; Resling, in Hebrew), the queen's tribe and other local tribes that converted to Judaism are the main sources from which Spanish Jewry sprang. This claim that the Jews of North Africa originated in indigenous tribes that became Jewish - and not in communities exiled from Jerusalem - is just one element of the far- reaching argument set forth in Sand's new book."
LINK in Ha'aretz.

Still so sure? All you have here is dogmatic insistence. I find it odd to believe so strongly with no evidence on your side, and some to the contrary, that no mass conversions to Judaism have ever happened.

 

[xJOHNx]

Zionism and Judaism are different subjects, Not all Jews are Zionists, not all Zionists are Jews. (an example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orde_Wingate )

Try the books on my suggested reading list.

I know.

 

[Tez3]

"At some point in the last decades of the 8th century or the early 9th century, the Khazar royalty and nobility converted to Judaism, and part of the general population followed. The extent of the conversion is debated. Ibn al-Faqih reported in the 10th century that "all the Khazars are Jews." Notwithstanding this statement, some scholars believe that only the upper classes converted to Judaism; there is some support for this in contemporary Muslim texts." LINK

"According to the Tel Aviv University historian, Prof. Shlomo Sand, author of "Matai ve'ech humtza ha'am hayehudi?" ("When and How the Jewish People Was Invented?"; Resling, in Hebrew), the queen's tribe and other local tribes that converted to Judaism are the main sources from which Spanish Jewry sprang. This claim that the Jews of North Africa originated in indigenous tribes that became Jewish - and not in communities exiled from Jerusalem - is just one element of the far- reaching argument set forth in Sand's new book."
LINK in Ha'aretz.

Still so sure? All you have here is dogmatic insistence. I find it odd to believe so strongly with no evidence on your side, and some to the contrary, that no mass conversions to Judaism have ever happened.

Shal we get back to the point and perhaps you could stop moving the goalposts? It was stated that Christians converted to Judaism in Poland because the Jews were treated better than the Christians. That's the point we are arguing, that life was so good for the Jews in Poland everyone wanted to be a Jew. Didn't happen. Thats why I suggested that he was thinking about the Khazars not the Poles.

The Khazars are a whole different case. Yes they converted, for many reasons most political. but not because they wanted to be Jews in Poland having the good life though many of their descendants turned up there centuries later.

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v13/n3/full/5201319a.html


and I'm Sephardi btw.

 

[Tez3]

I know.

But not everyone does.

 

[Empty Hands]

Shal we get back to the point and perhaps you could stop moving the goalposts? It was stated that Christians converted to Judaism in Poland because the Jews were treated better than the Christians.

Yes, that's what mauna said. But it's not what you said in response, which is that no mass conversions to Judaism had ever happened.

From your post #48: "Large numbers of people converted to Judaism? Really? where did you get that from? Very few people want to convert to Judaism as it usually means getting killed or at the very least kicked out of your country. I think your research is faulty there. I have no knowledge of large numbers converting, why would they when hated so much by the Christians? Give me a year or even a century this happened because I can assure you that didn't happen."

That is the claim I am addressing here. I am also addressing your initial dismissal of the research based on nothing more than the nationality of the authors. That's bigoted and wrong, and bad history to boot. If right is on your side, then you won't need bigotry to prove it.

I am not arguing, either, that the authors you dismissed were right. I have no idea. But you claimed they were wrong in the wrong way.

 

[xJOHNx]

But not everyone does.

True that. Lots of ignorance.
On every side.

 

[Tez3]

Yes, that's what mauna said. But it's not what you said in response, which is that no mass conversions to Judaism had ever happened.

From your post #48: "Large numbers of people converted to Judaism? Really? where did you get that from? Very few people want to convert to Judaism as it usually means getting killed or at the very least kicked out of your country. I think your research is faulty there. I have no knowledge of large numbers converting, why would they when hated so much by the Christians? Give me a year or even a century this happened because I can assure you that didn't happen."

That is the claim I am addressing here. I am also addressing your initial dismissal of the research based on nothing more than the nationality of the authors. That's bigoted and wrong, and bad history to boot. If right is on your side, then you won't need bigotry to prove it.

I am not arguing, either, that the authors you dismissed were right. I have no idea. But you claimed they were wrong in the wrong way.

This is the internet, I don't have the time and others the patience to preface all my comments with qualifying statements such as 'as you have brought up the subject of mass conversions in Poland I am answering specifically on the subject of conversions in Poland and people who like to nitpick shouldn't go assuming I'm talking worldwide, as it's patently obvious one is talking about the mass conversions in Poland not anywhere else.'

You are actually quite aware of what I was speaking of but chose to be perverse and try to twist it into something else, hey if thats what pushes your buttons go for it.

What research, what professors, what book? No information was provided.


Sorry Arch, I don't think Canuck or I can answer that question! You'll have to see if an American Jew can supply an answer.