BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Judaism Jewish People need to unite

Lisa,

I agree with you totally that it is a matter of perspective.

I think jewish unity is possible, but that that requires a long term
strategy, short term tactical manouvres, and both individual and
collective participation of Individual jews and jewish religious
communities, groups, networks, organisations.

Like you do I am somewhere inbetween pessimism and optimism,
because I see division, competition, and like you too a very small
percentage who are actually associated with sinagogues and
Jewish organisations.

But I believe Judaism and the Jews are in the world with a purpose,
as people between the people, as teachers, as stewards or
caretakers of the (cultural) heritage of the world, together or in
cooperation with the brightests and smartests of others peoples.

Jewish unity is needed and necessary to reach Tikkun olam;
"repairing the world" or "perfecting the world."
After that you can reach real Tsedaka, justice and love towards
your fellow being, and chesed (loyalty, unity and unconditional
love). I met an Israeli woman in the Arnhem Shul durig a Yad
Vashem ceremony. I talked with her about Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, and she told me that she believed that only the women, Israeli and Palestinian can solve the ongoing conflict, because the men are stuck in old patterns.

In Dutch Yiddish you have the expression Esjet Cajiel, a powerful
woman (31, The Book of Proverbs, verses 10).
In Judaism you have the power of the matriarchy next to the
Jewish patriarchy, when you unite the intellectual, spiritual and
political power of Jewish men and women you get Judaism.
When you unite the Jewish Diaspora communities with the
Israeli society you get a very vital people, a light in the world
among the nations. One of the most difficult and important
task is to built a bridge between Diaspora jews and Israeli's.

In my country I see a clear distinction between Dutch jews
and Israeli's, they are differant, but both jews.
They do not have the same culture, not always the same
views, but they go the same parties, concerts, exhebitions,
shuls, universities and community centres.

Many jews are individualistic yes, and many are not connected
to judaism in an organised form (religious or non-religious),
but they feel connected to Judaism in their hearts and minds.
I saw it in the eyes and the words of those two friends of mine
and in their individual keeping of Jewish traditions and
in their relationships with their partners and one of them
in the upbringing of her son. (due to me you are a jew and
this is judaism and jewish culture. Your father is christian and this is
your christian heritage. She cooks Yiddish and celebrates Chanukah.
The intellectual, rational jewish approach!)

Jewish unity or any unity starts with the individual!

Pieter

Jewish unity

In my second reply or answer to you Lisa I am going to use examples of other religions to compare them to Judaism in accordance to the Jewish practice.
First Judaism exists more then 5000 years, and therefor has older roots, rituals, traditions, laws, and a religious practice and faith experiance then its offspring Christianity and Islam, and Judaism is closer to the old Zoratrist Persian faith then the two other Monothe�st faiths that came after it.
This old bond and continuation of faith, customs, culture, language and sense of belonging to a special cause and people is in itself already a sort of Unity in diversity. All jews agree on what the core meaning, the fundament and essence of being Jewish or a Jew/Jewess is. And that uniting element makes people who feel connected by the blood (Jewish mother, grandmother and so forth) and their faith to Judaism to be Jewish and united in Judaism.

I start by the Christian example, the largest religion in the world is Christianity and the largest church is the Roman-Catholic church, this church is based on the Jewish person Jesus, his Jewish mother Mary, the Jewish G'd JHW, Adonai or Hashem. Jesus built his church on the Jewish Fisherman Saint Peter, whom he called his rock. The Roman-Catholic church is built around this dogma and 900 million people belong to this faith and feel connected because they share a heritage, faith, customs, culture and a way of life.

Secondly you have the Islam which is the second offspring of Judaism, with their Tenach teachings, Orthodox Jewish way of service and education (the Islamic Madrasah looks very simular to the Jewish Jeshiva), their Jewish prophets (Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Isaiah, Samuel, Ezekiel and Job), 5 prayers a day towards Mecca (that comes from the three prayers towards Jerusalem of the Orthodox jews).

Ummah is an Arabic word meaning Community or Nation. It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or (in the context of pan-Arabism) the whole Arab world. In the context of Islam, the word ummah is used to mean the diaspora or "Community of the Believers" (ummat al-mu'minin), and thus the whole Muslim world.

The Jewish Ummah is K'lal Yisra'eel ('the united jewish community in the world), which means the decendants of the twelve tribes, or the Jewish Diaspora + Israel.
Lisa Judaism is very strong rooted in the world, because in the Old Israel and Judea it had two states, in Islamic Spain and Mideaval Poland jews were advisors and counselors or Sultans and Kings, and administrators of the estates of Polish nobiliy in Ukraine. Jews were also doctors, scientists and philosophers in the Arab world for Arab rulers (Egypt, Alexandria; Maimonides). Although anti-semitism in various parts of Europe, there was a Jewish enlightenment, social progress and reform in some parts of Europe after the middle ages. Napoleon accepted jews, the position of the german jews, jeke's, improved in the 18th and 19th centuries, also due to the the Jewish Enlightenment, Haskalah, and more peaceful coexistence of jewish-non-jewish people. With the exeption of Czarist Russia and the existing anti-semitism under some European writers, artists (the composer Wagner), politicians and rulers. Under influence of the formation of European nation states and European nationalism, especially German nationalism (Theodor Herzl was in advance a Jewish German Nationalist in Austria), Zionism started to develop as an independant branch of Nationalism, because the Jews had no state, and Palestine was Ottoman (Turkish) territory, inhabited with Arabs and Jewish, Druze and Armenian minorities. In the 20th century resurection of Israel the K'lal Yisra'eel
became reality when a part of the World diaspora returned to the land of the prophets and ancesters, and jews of the twelve tribes reunited in a difficult coexistence. Although the existing Kulturkampf (culture clash) of the Central (Poland) and Eastern-European (Russia) ashkenazi's, German Yekke's, American and Western-European jews on one side (most of them white Ashkenazi European jews too), and Southern-European (Latin/Ladino), Mediteranian, North-African and Middle-eastern Sephardic and Mizrachi (Arab) jews on the other side (the dark, semitic features, tinted skinned, Arab looking) oriental jews. Russian jews in Israel look down on the culture and music of the oriental jews in Israel, because they consider the Russian culture superior, and stay in their Russian culture, neighbourhoods, media, circles, networks, communities and atmosphere, Russian enclaves in an Hebrew and Arab speaking environment.

But in the same time jewish unity is growing in the only Jewish state in the world, because Ashkenazim and Sephardim merge in mixed marriages, creating the Israeli Sabra. Jews of European and American heritage become fascinated by the Sephardi and Mizrachi culture, art, music, heritage of the Middle eastern Arab, Berber, Turkish, Persian and Kurd jews, because they stand closer to the hebrew roots of the Torah, Mishnah and Palestinian Talmud. Ashkenazim see that their oriental brothers and sisters stand closer to the semitic roots, the Middle eastern culture, the people from Mosje in Egypt and the desert Sinai. In the same time they are the elite and know that the arab jews have resentments, because they were discriminated by Labour (Labourparty, Histraduth Union and Tshal/IDF army) Ashkenazi elites in the first decades of the existance of Israel. Wounds had to heal and they got their revenge with the victory of Likud with Begin in the seventees, eightees, ninetees and the beginnig of this century.

Like Israel world Judaism has to unite in a slowly proces of advance, being interested in other branches of Judaism, building bridges, and being less doctrinairy, dogmatic and more curious, rational-analytic, empirical,
and filled with the wish for K'lal Yisra'eel, creating a Chevre (circle of friends), and seeing the mitswah of Jewish Unity as part of Tikkun Olam, because when Jews finaly get united the world will be united and world peace will be near!

Jewish unity is probably the most difficult task in the world, but worth while
trying and striving for over and over again!

Jewish Unity in my view already exists, but it is stil hidden in it's diversity,
plurifomity, schisms, fierce intellectual debates and traditions.

Jewish Unity is in my view a sort of Jetser tov, a good approach!

Pieter

The Jewish soul
A simple thing
At one with G-d
In everything

Simcha Wasseman

I really liked how you stated that.

Unfortunately, I think the times when Jews are best able to express our unity is when we are under distress and threats from others - as a people (like now, perhaps).

I am reading a book right now called SACRED CONTRACTS by Carolyn Myss. She reviews how the fathers of each religion came upon their life purposes. It is quite interesting 1) how each religion developed and came to be and 2) how - at the core of each - lies very similar values.

Life - as are all its issues - is quite a paradox. The concept of multiplicity in oneness stands strong in my mind. When all the Tribes were traveling in the desert together, they each camped among their own tribe. They were separate, yet together. They each had a specific task necessary for the survival of them all. They had their differences, yet they remained together in peace and interdependence.

Thank you for contributing so much to this discussion.

Do you have a plan of action for Jewish Unity in your mind?

Like, for example, the website created by Admin mentioned above... Jewish People Unite

Yes, unfortunately, but in the struggle for life, the survival of the fittest and the brigtest (the people who invent the best plans, strategies and actions), and in being unique you reinvent, reform and shape yourself.

The Jews and Judaism have managed to survive thousands of years, and over and over again they came in situations like this. They managed to come out of it time after time, sometimes with large losses, sometimes with little sacrifices.

The problem of today is the same which existed ten years ago and hundreds of years ago. You have enemies who wishes you did not exist. Islamic anti-semitism, Pan-arab Nationalistic anti-semitism, leftwing ideological anti-semitism (Radical anarchist and Communist far left), rightwing ideological anti-semitism (Xenophobic nationalists, Neo-Nazi's and reactionairy ultra-conservatives), Protestant-christian (Lutheranian) anti-semitism, Roman-Catholic anti-semitism, biological anti-semitism (social-darwinism) and related to that academic and intellectual anti-semitism, New anti-semitism and last but not least Jewish anti-semitism (J�discher selbstha�/Jewish selfhatred), well known representatives of this were Bobby Fisher, Karl Marx, Otto Weininger (anti-Semitic, but nonetheless Jewish philosopher), Karl Kraus, the Wittgenstein family, Bernie Madoff (he must be a selfhating jew) and the Austrian Bundes kanzler Bruno Kreiski.

Israel and Diaspora Judaism is in a difficult position, because exept from the USA, the Jewish state does not have much friends. Diaspora Judaism is in a vulnerable position, because the Jewish community is always a minority everywhere. During political or financial crisis, recessions and depressions,
unemployment and poverty, a worldwide decreasing economy, the jews can be an easy scapegoat, because the ancient old anti-semitic image stil exists under the surface under a thin layer of civilization and sophistication.

Jewish unity could be a good counter veiling power, a bastion of truth, strength, pride, social justice, humanity, freedom, legitimation and justification of the jewish cause, and therefor jewish life, jewish community,
jewish culture and faith and so Judaism!

Pieter

Lisa,

I have always been interested in religions, mythologies, and even pagan and earth religions connected to African and Southern-American tribes from an empirical perspective. It was part of my history teacher study in Amsterdam in the early ninetees.
Learning about the Mideaval believer (absolutist Monothe�st faith with a fear of God and the Natural environment), Islamic Spain, Judaism as the basic of the three monotheist religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoratrism (the old Persian faith), Sikh, and others enriched my life. Comming from a secular family in which education, personal development, science, culture and economy were seen as more important then religion, gave me no religious roots, although the awareness of the (Dutch) Protestant, and Polish (Catholic and Jewish) roots. I even look at some ideologies as a sort of atheist religion, because of the Messianic character of Marxism and socialism, and the biological and mythical aspects of fascism and Nazism (with it's pagan cult, and strange mysticism).

Pieter

Lisa,

It is what I believe although I am not a religious jew. A jew once told me he thought that I have a Jewish soul, Nesjomme!

I don't know, I have no idea about that! I don't exactly know what it is!
All I know is that I don't know much and I hope that the little bit I know is enough to be able to have sensable live day to day communication in Dutch with my compatriots in my country and to be able to express myself in
ordinairy English with my American and European counterparts
(fellow forum users). I am not a Jewish cosmopolitan intellectual with a broad general and specific knowledge, nor a rebbe whom is experianced by life in a religious community and teachings, nor an academic expert on Judaism. I am an interested person!

I learned about Tikkun Olam while I was reading about Judaism in one of
my history books and Encyclopedea Judaica (to check what I was reading in that history book). After that I encountered that principle several times on internet. I believe that a Tsaddik, a very righteous person, especially a Hasidic spiritual leader, can only strive for Tikkun Olam, because that is Hashems purpose with the world. A jewish girlfriend told me about what she thought was the role of the Jewish women in this proces: To gather the lost pieces of light of the creation, and put them back togehter (in Dutch she called it: 'Het breken van de vaten', 'the breaking or cracking of the barrels').
The Jewish mother, girlfriend, female teacher, grandmother teaches her children, grandchildren or her pupils and students the Jewish tradition, Jewish customs, jewish holidays, jewish kosher kitchen, jewish sayings, jewish songs, jewish civilization which is kept in the practice of jewish family and community life. The unity is restored when Judaism is fully accepted as a core faith and original belief, the K'lal Yisrael is established, jews are normal people amongst the majority of goyim peoples in the world, peace exists everywhere, and anti-semitism, racism and xenephobia are relics of the past.
In that time there will be more tsaddiks then crooks!

Pieter

Lisa,

I have no plan, action or idea for Jewish Unity, because I have no authority in Jewish circles, know to little jews to be able to have any influence in the Jewish world, and in fact am stil learning from these few jewish friends, and the jewish sources I have acces too.

I believe that my only influence is in one to one discussions, occasional writings like this, following the news as accurate as I can, reading a lot and trying to keep in touch with both the Diaspora and Israeli's in Holland.

Only jews themselves can reach Jewish Unity, and therefor they have to see the rightious jews, the charismatic leaders and tsaddiks amongst themselves to repair their Jewish world, to built the bridges between the communities, and approach eachother with an open view and wish to know eachother, accept eachother, respect eachother, engage eachother and unite in diversity.

Jews know how to do that, and they will have years or decades to do that, the sooner the better! Because Israel has not much time in a hostile world, and the Diaspora communities are to small to survive on their own! Therefor social mobility, mirgation between countries and aliyah are needed. More jews will become Israeli's when peace will be established in the Middle east.

Israeli's become Diaspora jews and Diaspora jews become Israeli's nowadays,
and that's okay. In the future they will be united if the K'lal Yisrael will be normal and established in the world after Tikkun Olam!

People are free to do what they want and to go the direction they find fit to themselves. I hope that they take the right decisions for themselves, follow the right course, get acces to the right knowledge and information, have had good upbringings and educations to devellop themselves and to go to the right places to create change and progress, and to invest in a shared future in which that Unity can exists, fasten, grow and establish itself in a United World Judaism, which is larger than Israel and the Diaspora as seperate identities.

Jewish unity in my view will lead to the unity in other faiths and after that to a better understanding between the three monotheist faiths, and to peace, and world unity in diversity. This process will lead to a better world.

And it is happening right now, but not many people see it!

That's all I can say! That's what I believe!

Pieter

Ranjit -

I, for one, would be very interested in hearing more. There have been recent changes to the coding and permission for sharing websites due to the high volumes lately of spammers.

I am not certain but I believe you have to make a certain number of posts before you can share a website... though if you'd like to email me, I can post it for you.

I must admit my ignorance of Ludwig Wittgenstein and his family though my interest is peaked. I am especially curious to hear more about his deep support for Judaism while being a convert.

I do know one does not have to be a halakhically observant Jew to be strongly connected to the faith of Judaism and Jewish issues.

I look forward to reading your book and hearing more!