This category was used by none other than the Bolsheviks, and by none other than you, which is what makes this argument really weird. Are you arguing against yourself?
I'm not really interested in German or French Jews, except insofar as they have historically contrasted themselves to the Ostjuden, nor do I think that they form part of the same group as Eastern European Jews. That was an aside, to illustrate that the Russian situation is hardly unique. However, as James pointed out, large numbers of Jews, of whatever type--German, French, whatever--- have historically believed themselves to be a distinct people. Let's go through the tenets of the religion again: there is this special people, a chosen among nations, that God chose. They have been cast out from their homeland to live among the other nations. However, they still keep God's Law. Someday, a Messiah will come and lead the special people back to the Promised Land, Zion.
You are going to say that that was not/is not believed by ALL Jews, and that is true, but that is not relevant, because we are talking about most people, and almost all Jews before around 1800 or so were religious. This is why there are still Jews after 2000 years of the Diaspora instead of having assimilated.
I kind of get the idea that you are so scared of Zionism that you want you to treat it as some kind of alien infection that has infiltrated the healthy body of Judaism, like all Jews before 19th-century anti-Semitism were progressive harbingers of internationalism.
----- Original Message ---- From: Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> I don't doubt there are some Jews in Russia and some, perhaps many, non-Jews in that country who don't accept that Jews are Russians just as there are, for example, Muslims in France who do not consider themselves to be French and other of their fellow citizens who refuse to acknowledge them as such, but this does not make it so. So long as Jews, like the other national minorities you mention, have Russian passports and enjoy the full rights of citizenship, the world will be properly understand them to be Russians and will treat them as such, ethnic hyphens notwithstanding.
How "authentically" Russian or Jewish are Russian Jews, whether they were born of a Jewish mother or another parent or grandparent was Jewish - that is to say, is the blood coursing through their veins "Jewish" blood or "Russian" blood? - is a question of importance only for traditional antisemites and Zionists and, it would appear, those like yourself who have a peculiar but mainly innocently interest in Jews and other national minorities as exotic Others.
You now disingenuously claim your reference is only to the pre-war Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews "and their descendents". But this discussion began when you cast your net more widely in asserting that Jews in France and Germany equally did not consider themselves to be French or German, the inference being that all Jews were a race or nation apart - and by choice - despite their long histories of assimilation and attempted assimilation into these and other societies. That you have now retreated back into the old Russian Empire, where the then Yiddish-speaking Jewish community did have more of the characteristics of a distinct nation is, I suppose, progress of a sort. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk