Just a footnote to your post on Jewish history. *Prior to* the establishment of the Israeli State Judaism had been one of the least offensive of all the world religions (though all of those, including Judaism and Islam were always more offensive than purely local religions --various animisms, Homeric Olympianism, etc). For one thing, as my Jewish office mate at the University of Michigan 40 years ago pointed out, the doctrine of immortality was not really native to Jewish religion, and in so far as it was was of late (probably post-biblical) origin. And once you pull the teeth of that "tedious doctrine of immortality" (Engels), you have in part neutralized the socially and politically oppressive grip of a religion.
Carrol