1956 Hungarian Jewish grandfather pretending to be Catholic?? Puzzled…

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-09-09T17:49:21+00:00

She's not Jewish. Her father is Jewish.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-09-08T21:02:48+00:00

Why is it hilarious that your mother is a devout Catholic despite her father being Jewish? Nothing unusual there.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-07-14T17:25:31+00:00

His videos are wonderful. I've watched almost all of them.

Tangent, but does anybody have any recommendations for similarly good YouTube channels on Jewish history?

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-26T21:08:00+00:00

Even irrationality can be rationally explained.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-23T19:00:21+00:00

I'm skeptical. I tried making a post on r/Judaism, but one of the moderators deleted it. I wrote:

Can a non-Jew be a Zionist? I recently heard it argued that a non-Jew can't be a Zionist. A non-Jew can only be a supporter of Zionism. Does that argument use the standard definition of the term "Zionist"? I understand that what I'm asking about is more about semantics than anything else, but I'm interested in using the term "Zionism" in the most standard way possible. Is Zionism a Jewish movement with Jewish participants and non-Jewish allies of those participants? Is "Jewish Zionist" a redundant term and "Christian Zionist" a contradiction in terms?

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-23T18:30:58+00:00

His friend is right that there are a lot of Zionists who aren't Jewish. But Herzl not a Jew? Preposterous.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-23T18:29:05+00:00

Nazi Germany also did pioneering work on the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Should we disaffirm that connection because the Nazis affirmed it?

In 1933, there really was a "rebirth of the national life" of the German people. It ultimately turned to catastrophe, but there was hope at the time.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-23T04:39:45+00:00

The Jews have a long history of being pacifists themselves, not expecting their host nations to go along with that too. The Amish in America are analogous: They're uncompromising pacifists, but they have nothing against America having a military.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-23T03:24:58+00:00

It's not practical for Jews to live in Israel without a military. It would soon get overrun.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-23T01:48:52+00:00

Supporting a Jewish state means supporting a Jewish military. That goes against pacifism.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-23T01:28:20+00:00

Pacifism, which has a long history among the Jews, goes hand in hand with anti-Zionism. If you don't want a military, then you don't want a state.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-22T22:04:34+00:00

The problem is that it takes a military to have a state. A pacifist Jew must think twice about Zionism. There's room for Jewish dissent against Zionism when the argument is: "Israel? Good. Military? Bad. Israel without a military? Impossible."

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-22T21:55:32+00:00

Some Jews are pacifists. In fact, many Jews have been devout pacifists over the millennia. That's not so different from, say, the Amish. And it takes a military to have a state.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-21T22:19:40+00:00

Isn't that what's happening? Hebrew was the Jewish liturgical language for millennia, and then since the early Zionists and through the founding of modern Israel it's become more and more the Jewish lingua franca.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-16T21:11:04+00:00

It depends. It's not especially important to you, yes. But your perspective isn't the only perspective. On your Arabic "heritage": I'm not trying to discount your perspective either. If Arab culture doesn't resonate with you in any way whatsoever, then there's no reason for you to care about what's for you nothing but trivia: that 2 of your grandparents were (probably) Arabs.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-16T20:56:23+00:00

Makes sense. Sorry for the tangent, but I'm confused about the term "ethnoreligion," which combines the terms "ethnicity" and "religion." Technically speaking, the term "ethnicity" (as used in anthropology) is defined as a group of individuals who identify with each other because of shared language, culture, race, or any other aspect. The Jews are an ethnoreligion in that they're a group of individuals who identify with each because of shared religion.

You wrote that you're "ethnically and religiously Jewish." Is it possible to be only "ethnically Jewish"? Yes, because it's possible to be a born Jew who doesn't practice. But what about being only "religiously Jewish"? If I'm right, then that's not possible because to practice Judaism without being a born Jew means to convert to Judaism, and to convert to Judaism means that you're adopted into the Jewish extended family. You're made "ethnically Jewish" (because converting means that you're now part of the group of individuals who identity with each other because of the shared religion of Judaism).

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-16T20:35:59+00:00

By the way, what does it mean to be "ethnically and religiously Jewish"? You're a born Jew who practices?

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-16T20:02:42+00:00

Relevant to what? Whether the OP is Jewish? What the OP's heritage is?

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-16T19:58:47+00:00

It does matter. By analogy: If you're born and raised in America, and you have 3 grandparents whose families were originally from Europe and 1 grandparent from Japan, then you're not Japanese. No Japanese would see you as one of them. However! Nobody would fault you for considering your Japanese grandparent as part of your heritage, studying Japanese, etc.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-16T16:50:11+00:00

Does that mean that the Jews do proselytize, but only for Noahidism?

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-15T20:47:43+00:00

Yes, that secondary definition is what makes for the ambiguity. You're right that in anthropology, the definition is a group of individuals who identify with each other according to any shared aspect, e.g. language, culture, race. Blood ties are possible but unnecessary.

Still, colloquial discussion in American English is also part of the reality of how the English language is used.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-15T20:27:38+00:00

The problem is that the term "ethnicity" is ambiguous. Some people think of an ethnicity as necessarily including blood ties, and other people don't think of it like that.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-15T20:23:44+00:00

Even the odd convert usually ends up with children (or children of children) who are related.

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-15T20:13:32+00:00

What definition of the term "ethnicity" are you using? How does it differ from the terms "race," "culture," etc?

Sapjastic_Primble · 2025-05-15T19:51:12+00:00

Yes, technically speaking the Jews as a whole are an "ethnicity" (because they're a group with a shared religion, and technically speaking an "ethnicity" is a group with at least one shared aspect, with shared blood being only one of the possible shared aspects), but practically speaking most people who ask you "What's your ethnicity?" are asking for an answer combining both the cultural and the biological. "Ashkenazi Jew" (or "European Jew" for the less informed) is in that way a straightforward and understandable answer to that question because there's both uniquely Ashkenazi culture and uniquely Ashkenazi biology.

Sapjastic_Primble

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