History of Judaism & Israel

[Tez3]

True that. Lots of ignorance.
On every side.

Not necessarily ignorance, not everyone is interested in the subject.

 

[CanuckMA]

"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.

On Shlomo Sand and his book:

One component of Sand's argument is that the people who were the original Jews living in Israel, contrary to what is official, accepted history, were not exiled following the Bar Kokhba revolt. He has suggested that much of the present day world Jewish population are individuals, and groups, who converted to Judaism at later periods. Additionally, he suggests that the story of the exile was a myth promoted by early Christians to recruit Jews to the new faith. Sand writes that "Christians wanted later generations of Jews to believe that their ancestors had been exiled as a punishment from God."[7] Sand argues that most of the Jews were not exiled by the Romans, and were permitted to remain in the country. He puts the number of those exiled at tens of thousands at most. He further argues that many of the Jews converted to Islam following the Arab conquest, and were assimilated among the conquerors. He concludes that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs were Jews.[8]
Sand's explanation of the birth of the myth of a Jewish people as a group with a common, ethnic origin has been summarized as follows: "[a]t a certain stage in the 19th century intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, took upon themselves the task of inventing a people "retrospectively," out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people. From historian Heinrich Graetz on, Jewish historians began to draw the history of Judaism as the history of a nation that had been a kingdom, became a wandering people and ultimately turned around and went back to its birthplace."[6]
He also comments that: "It is true that I am an historian of France and Europe, and not of the ancient period. (...)",[6] and that: "I’ve been criticised in Israel for writing about Jewish history when European history is my specialty. But a book like this needed a historian who is familiar with the standard concepts of historical inquiry used by academia in the rest of the world."[7]
[edit] Critics

Israel Bartal, dean of the humanities faculty of the Hebrew University, in a commentary published in Haaretz,[9] writes that Sand's basic thesis and statements about Jewish historiography are "baseless". Bartal answers to "Sand's arguments (...) that no historian of the Jewish national movement has ever really believed that the origins of the Jews are ethnically and biologically "pure" [and that] Sand applies marginal positions to the entire body of Jewish historiography and, in doing so, denies the existence of the central positions in Jewish historical scholarship." Bartal refers to Sand's overall treatment of Jewish sources as "embarrassing and humiliating." He adds that "The kind of political intervention Sand is talking about, namely, a deliberate program designed to make Israelis forget the true biological origins of the Jews of Poland and Russia or a directive for the promotion of the story of the Jews' exile from their homeland is pure fantasy." Bartel summarizes his critique of Sand's characterization of Jewish historiography as follows: "as far as I can discern, the book contains not even one idea that has not been presented earlier in their books and articles by what he insists on defining as "authorized historians" suspected of "concealing historical truth,"" and calls the overall work "bizarre and incoherent."[9]
Tom Segev wrote that Sand's book "is intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a 'state of all its citizens' - Jews, Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a 'Jewish and democratic' state" and that the book is generally "well-written" and includes "numerous facts and insights that many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time".[8]
Anita Shapira wrote "Sand bases his arguments on the most esoteric and controversial interpretations, while seeking to undermine the credibility of important scholars by dismissing their conclusions without bringing any evidence to bear."[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Sand


Hardly convincing evidence, from someone with a clear agenda.

 

[Tez3]

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


Again, but it was hard reading admittedly but interesting.



"Ashkenazi Jews, who have resided in various European countries during the Diaspora, traditionally trace their origin to the Jewish people that lived in the Holy Land before the Roman exile. However, some studies claimed that a substantial part of Ashkenazim were descendants of Eastern European non-Jews. In particular, according to Middle Age historians, the Khazars from a small kingdom near the Caspian Sea converted en masse to Judaism1 and therefore might have contributed to the composition of the emerging Ashkenazi community. Yet, recent genetic studies, based on Y chromosome polymorphic markers, clearly showed that Ashkenazim are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than to their host populations in Europe.2, 3, 4 Those findings argue against large-scale male-mediated gene flow into the Ashkenazi community during the Diaspora. The male admixture proportion of Europeans in Ashkenazi Jews was estimated to be 0.5% per generation,3 indicating that Ashkenazim remained, to a large extent, genetically isolated throughout their history."




"It is historically well documented that the Khazar King Bulan and his court converted to Judaism at the end of the 8th century CE.1 The Khazars were originally a Turkic tribe from Central Asia who settled in the northern Caucasus and later spread to southern Russia and eastern Ukraine. Some authors argue that after the fall of their kingdom in the second half of the 10th century CE, the Khazar converts were absorbed by the emerging Ashkenazi Jewish community in Eastern Europe.18, 19 Since R-M17 haplogroup is also found at moderate to high frequencies in Central Asia20 and southern Russia/Ukraine,5 this haplogroup could have been present in the Khazars. However, if the R-M17 chromosomes in Ashkenazi Jews do indeed represent the vestiges of the mysterious Khazars then, according to our data, this contribution was limited to either a single founder or a few closely related men, and does not exceed

12% of the present-day Ashkenazim."



I admit I do like that expression 'male mediated gene flow'! Such a scientific expression for well, you know what lol!

 

[elder999]

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

Nope. No more "wrong" than Genesis.

They just don't mean what you think-can't be taken at face value-mean something else-are allegorical-

-do I really have to go on? :lfao:

 

[Empty Hands]

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.

No, I was responding to what you said - what I quoted. I was quite clear on my intentions. I'm sorry if I was unclear somehow, but this is not perversity. If you take issue with my characterization of your words - then tell me what you meant. Don't throw up your hands and impugn my character. That's not how good debate or honest communication happens.

 

[Empty Hands]

Hardly convincing evidence, from someone with a clear agenda.

That may well be. But it's wrong to say that no such arguments or works exist. If the facts are wrong, then correct the facts - but don't shut down debate based on declarative statements with nothing to back them up. This back and forth is much more useful than the earlier "trust me, I'm Jewish" argument closely followed by talk of close minded goy and blatantly misrepresented arguments.

 

[Tez3]

Nope. No more "wrong" than Genesis.

They just don't mean what you think-can't be taken at face value-mean something else-are allegorical-

-do I really have to go on? :lfao:

But, but the people who keep trying to convert me told me that the world was created in 7 days...oh no were they lying to me!


Totally nothing to do with anything other than Native Americans, can anyone explain why we had four Native Americans busking in our local town the other week? quite a shock, not something we see much, well anything, of really. They certainly looked authentic.

 

[Empty Hands]

Nope. No more "wrong" than Genesis.

Which is also wrong, so yes.

They just don't mean what you think-can't be taken at face value-mean something else-are allegorical-

-do I really have to go on?

Unless the tale of a Creator God creating the world and all that is in it is an allegory for natural laws producing a universe with no intelligent creator. Somehow I don't think that's what the authors intended.

Of course, you and I have had this go-around before, so I won't get into it again. Suffice to say I don't think you apply the same scientific rigor to your beliefs in the divine that you do to your physics work. I don't mean that in a mean way either, no one is perfectly consistent.

 

[Tez3]

No, I was responding to what you said - what I quoted. I was quite clear on my intentions. I'm sorry if I was unclear somehow, but this is not perversity. If you take issue with my characterization of your words - then tell me what you meant. Don't throw up your hands and impugn my character. That's not how good debate or honest communication happens.

I'm stressed.... if you want good debate or honest communication look elsewhere, I'm argumentative. Besides why aren't you also asking Maunu for his professors details and his proof etc?
I have a big responsibility at the moment, Canuck would understand as a Canadian, you lot are a republic so wouldn't. Can't tell until after the Visit, oops.

 

[CanuckMA]

That may well be. But it's wrong to say that no such arguments or works exist.

There are works and arguments that the Shoah never happened. Doesn't mean they're right.

 

[elder999]

quite a shock, not something we see much, well anything, of really. They certainly looked authentic.

Fer the money??? :lfao:

 

[Makalakumu]

http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Playground-History-Poland-Origins/dp/0231053517

Here's a better book then the dusty old text book my grandmother owned (which is unfortunately no longer in my possession). It says basically the same thing but is a MUCH thicker book.

Here's another source that people can access right now.

http://rslissak.com/content/khazar-kingdom-jewish-empire-middle-ages

The Khazar Kingdom extended into Poland where Jewish people were afforded high status. This caused a great many people to convert and eventually provided a basis for Poland to form a society that was relatively Jew friendly.

So, now, here's my question. If Palestine and Israel have formed a propaganda/anti-propaganda cycle over this issue, is there ever going to be a way to resolve this question?

Suppose that mass conversions really did happen. Does it really change all that much politically?

As far as the genetic research goes, I simply do not believe that all Jews share DNA that links them back to Palestine. That's impossible. I understand that studies could show that certain insular and conservative communities may have maintained some bloodlines, but I seriously doubt that every Jew on the planet contains some kind of special genetic material that ties them all together. This is doubly impossible if one considers the mass conversions (or any conversions for that matter) that have occurred throughout history.

All of this is starting to sound exactly like the claims made by other religious groups like conservative Christians or Muslims.

 

[CanuckMA]

OK. It's not all Jews, it's the majority. And mass conversions did not occur. The Khazars never mass converted. Numerous DNA studies have been done and shown the same thing. The majority of Jews all over the world share DNA that links them to a tribe and to the Middle East. Furthermore, Cohanim share DNA that traces back to a common ancestor. Cohanim are the descendents of Aaron.

 

[xJOHNx]

Not necessarily ignorance, not everyone is interested in the subject.

But they have an opinion on it, so it becomes ignorance

 

[Tez3]

http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Playground-History-Poland-Origins/dp/0231053517

Here's a better book then the dusty old text book my grandmother owned (which is unfortunately no longer in my possession). It says basically the same thing but is a MUCH thicker book.

Here's another source that people can access right now.

http://rslissak.com/content/khazar-kingdom-jewish-empire-middle-ages

The Khazar Kingdom extended into Poland where Jewish people were afforded high status. This caused a great many people to convert and eventually provided a basis for Poland to form a society that was relatively Jew friendly.

So, now, here's my question. If Palestine and Israel have formed a propaganda/anti-propaganda cycle over this issue, is there ever going to be a way to resolve this question?

Suppose that mass conversions really did happen. Does it really change all that much politically?

As far as the genetic research goes, I simply do not believe that all Jews share DNA that links them back to Palestine. That's impossible. I understand that studies could show that certain insular and conservative communities may have maintained some bloodlines, but I seriously doubt that every Jew on the planet contains some kind of special genetic material that ties them all together. This is doubly impossible if one considers the mass conversions (or any conversions for that matter) that have occurred throughout history.

All of this is starting to sound exactly like the claims made by other religious groups like conservative Christians or Muslims.

Believe what you wish. The fact that you use the word Palestine not Israel shows where your sympathies lie. We aren't claiming anything 'magic' or mystical, just that we share a common DNA which the kind folks in the labs seem to agree. I doubt that's impossible, the people of Shetland share DNA with the Norwegians not the Scots,I imagine there's plenty of other groups of people who share DNA around the world. It's science not anything weird, it's not 'special' it just means a bunch of people came from a place, travelled around, marrying and having kids. Why do you see that as impossible. Do native Hawaiians not share DNA then? it's common to be able to take a DNA sample and discover where or who a person is descended from.

You know you said originally that it was Christians in Poland that were converting to Judaism? You've only mentioned the Khazars after I did and they weren't Christians at all. It was also an Eastern country,the Khazars coming to Poland is very likely a myth, there's no substansive evidence, you second source says nothing about them being in Poland at all. There's still no evidence of mass conversions of Christians though plenty on the forcible conversions of Jews.
http://www.imninalu.net/Khazars.htm

Look at the map, the Khazar kingdom is nowhere near Poland.

It's a common tactic of anti semitic groups to state that the Jewish people of Europe were all converted and therefore have no claim to Israel or even to claim themselvers as Jews, it's all a plot to take over the world. Try Googling 'Jewwatch' an organisation that claims to be defending you from us. Mass conversions of Christians to Judaism is a myth too, I imagine Popes, Bishops etc would have been pretty quickly onto that one! there's no country in the world that has mass conversions to Judaism, it's not a religion that encourages conversion apart from the odd wedding, it's a hard religion to follow, many Jews in fact don't follow it, we aren't all religious many are secular. Christian authorities frowned to say the least on any conversion to Judaism, it tended to get you burnt at the stake or some such thing.

Jewish communities in many places remained isolated from the surrounding population, partly because we believe in intermarrying (not close relatives but fellow Jews) and partly because living with Christian neighbours wasn't always peaceful, there were times yes when the local population was friendly enough that Jews could start livng beyond the Pale but not often enough to dilute the genepool very much. The comments about conversions etc are also directed only at one group the Ashenazi, I'm Sephardi, my genes are very much Middle Eastern. As I've said before we are concerned about 'Jewish' genes because of the genetic flaws that result in terminal and painful diseases, my family have all been gene tested for that reason as have many Jews in the UK. It's painful to find that you will not be able to have children and both spouses carry the Tay-Sachs gene but far better not to have a child suffer.

There's a danger of reading too much into our claim on Israel, why shouldn't we have a homeland? Take away all the European Jewish stuff and you will find Jews who have lived in Israel for generations upon generations.No one cared about who was in that land, it was a global backwater or worse, unimportant until the Jewish settlers arrived and started irrigating it, building and making it a worthwhile place then it became desirable by others and the wars begun. Arabs happily sold useless land to the Jewsih settlers, thinking they were making money while all the Jews did was break their backs, now when there's farms on the lands the Arabs are calling foul. The call went up 'we will drive the Jews into the sea' and the naive believed it, leaving their homes and land in places like Jordan for what they thought was going to be the now fertile Jewish land, it didn't happen and the Arabs were left with nothing. As I said, naive. As I've also said wars are rarely about religion, not even the Crusades were, it's about greed, power and jealousy, it's no different in the Middle East. Israel has land the Arabs want though in many cases they sold it, they could have irrigating it, built modern cities, they didn't they Jews did so they want to take it away. Religion has nothing to do with it, there's Christian Arabs who fight in Israel's armed forces there's even Muslim Arabs in Israeli uniforms. Don't go thinking this is all a mystical, unwinnable battle between religious nuts, it's not, it's about land and water.

The author of your first book is not without criticism, he's been involved in contraversy regarding his views on the Holocaust and was indeed refused a post at Stanford University because of 'scientific flaws'. His is a very Polish centric view of Jews, he's an honorary citizen of four Polish cities and has, many believe, bought into the Polish view of history. Try Lucy Dawidowicz's 'the War Against Jews' and 'The Holocaust and the Historians'.

 

[elder999]

As far as the genetic research goes, I simply do not believe that all Jews share DNA that links them back to Palestine. That's impossible. I understand that studies could show that certain insular and conservative communities may have maintained some bloodlines, but I seriously doubt that every Jew on the planet contains some kind of special genetic material that ties them all together. .

Well, no-not really. Oddly enough, Jewish males from communities as disparate as Yemen, Georgia and Eastern Asia are more likely to share a very high degree of Y- chromosone familiarity. WHen compared to non-Jews from the same region, i.e.Georgian Jew vs. Geoergian Muslim, this degree of similarity falls away-exceopt that the closer one gets to the middle east, the more this similarity increases., to the point that the Y-chromosone corrlates as highly with Jews as it does with non-Jews. So we see a Y chromosone (or, more properly, a set of Y chromosones), spread from fathers to sons, that statistically appears to start in the middle east and spread outward, chiefly among people called "Jewish." Studies have estab lished that the Y chromosone associated with the kohanim-males said to descend from the priestly caste dating to the time of Aaron, the brother of moses-carry a specific Y chromosone called the COhen Model Halotype. Half of all kohanim carry this signature, which points to a common ancestor from the middle east, around 1000 BCE.

THings get a bit more complicated when examining Jewish mitochondrial DNA,for just the reasons that you've stated, but I'm surprised at a fellow scientist throwing the word "impossible" around so blithely, Scott-especially considering that biology isn't even my field....:lol:

Understand, though, while this evidence proves roots in the Middle East,in my opinion it doesn't reinforce any claim on the state of Israel/Palestine, any more than I have any claim on Siberia, GHana or the Hawaiian islands..:lol:....maybe even less claim than I have on the eastern half of Long Island...:lfao:

 

[Archangel M]

Interesting how science can be a trump card when it supports ones politics and questionable when it doesn't. Especially when you see it in a person claiming to be a scientist.

 

[elder999]

Interesting how science can be a trump card when it supports ones politics and questionable when it doesn't. Especially when you see it in a person claiming to be a scientist.

I don't know if this is directed at me or just a general statement, given the seeming contradiction of the my last post, but I should say that I don't really have any opinion on the Israel/Palestine question other than to sey that I wish the U.S. would scale back some of its support to Israel, for reasons that have nothing to do with that particular question. And, that while the science is incontovertible, in my opinion, it's no less so than would be evidence of Shoshone migration from Siberia, or African importation to these shores as cargo from West Africa, or the small bit of mitochondrial DNA that I carry that proves that my great-great grandmother was probably Polynesian-just as ridiculous for me to lay claim to any of those places based on DNA evidence- it's also clear that my father's people: the Shinnecock and Montauk Indians of Long Island-did have a legitimate claim on the eastern half of Long Island right up until 1915, they don't have it anynmore, and possession is 9/10ths of the law, as they say.....:lol:

 

[Archangel M]

It was more of a general statement. I know that you and Mauna have science backgrounds so this debate makes me smirk a bit.

 

[CanuckMA]

But the DNA evidence is in support of the Jews being from the Middle East, along with documented history. There has been a continued Jewish presence in Israel for thousands of years. Moreso since the late 1800s, Jews have been purchasing land and settling back there. When the question of giving the Jews a homeland, Israel was not chosen by throwing a dart at a map. And the reason for the strange map of the original partition plan was because it was divided along the majority populations at the time.

One of the popular ways to de-legitimize Israel is to deny our claim to the land. The myth of the Khazars is often cited. Along with the attempts to destroy evidence of the Temple. It is amazing that in a country where you can't dig a vegetable garden without an archeologist present, large scale digging has taken place on Temple Mount, under the guise of construction. The dirt and artifacts simply being carted away, at which point they lose historical context. The goal is to be able to 'prove' that the Temple never stood in Jerusalem. Of course the side effect is to destroy the founding story of Xtianity.

The latest bizzare attempt was the protest over the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit in Toronto. Pro-Palestinian groups were urging a boycott of the exhibit because the scrolls were stolen from them. WTF? 2,000 year old fragment of scrolls with text of Tanach, written in HEBREW, who else do they belong to?

All we want is to live in peace on our tiny bit of desert.