Creepy, etc.

[Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema]

I can't understand why anyone can fail to see that "the Jews" is offensive.
Using this phrase for any but the most trivial purposes is either an
empirical error, a failure to be informed about the multiplicity of views,
experiences, thoughts, characteristics, etc. among those called Jews, or
else it is an imputation of some mystical significance to Jewishness.
Christianity had a view of their mystical significance. So, apparently, does
Islame, though it seems less integral than in Christianity's case. (I'm
fairly poorly informed about the details of this). Various fascist and nazi
groups had notions of "the Jews'" mystical significance, and used them as
the prelude to attacks on specific persons and populations. But it also is
integral to the parallel ideologies, Judaism and Zionism, which use similar
concepts to arrive at positive conclusions about "the Jews."

Is it not obvious that "the Jews" is always suspect from the standpoint of
democratic values? Not necessarily socialist values, but those rooted in the
most elementary bourgeois democracy?

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema