What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Jacob]

While not wanting to minimize the challenges and discrimination faced by Ethiopian Jews in Israel, what you're describing seems different than what you initially stated.

[The Minsky Moment]

The Ethiopian Jews were obviously welcomed; that's why nearly the entire population is in Israel now, not Ethiopia. The religious disputes are not over race but over the fact that Ethiopian Judaism is pre-Talmudic and dates back before the rabbinic period. That has created religious tension because of the centrality of the Talmud to the dominant Jewish tradition.

[Admiral Yi]

The Ethiopian Jews were obviously welcomed; that's why nearly the entire population is in Israel now, not Ethiopia. The religious disputes are not over race but over the fact that Ethiopian Judaism is pre-Talmudic and dates back before the rabbinic period. That has created religious tension because of the centrality of the Talmud to the dominant Jewish tradition.

Does that mean pre Babylonian exile?

[Solmyr]

Eh? I don't think Zionism is theological?

Israel has tons of laws giving Jews special rights and privileges related to their religion.  A Jew newly arrived from overseas, with no previous connections to the country, can get immediate citizenship and all sorts of perks, while a non-Jew that's actually lived in Israel for their whole life gets none of them.

Zionism started as a nationalist movement (and those are bad enough) but has become a theocratic movement that feels destined to fulfill biblical fantasies.

I think it has less to do with Zionism and more to do with gradual religious takeover of Israeli politics.  The religious faction has always been savvy about using their kingmaker status to extract concessions disproportionate to their numbers.  I would argue that what's happening now is the perversion of what historical Zionists intended rather than what they hoped to achieve, and it's also a different reality from what existed when most Jews migrated to Israel.

Historical Zionists, however, were incredibly naive in believing that people already living in the lands they intended to settle would somehow magically love them.

Theodore Herzl also saw Western Jews as "civilizers" helping less advanced people, which is certainly based on Western colonial thinking.

[DGuller]

Given the grim reality they lived in, I guess there was a psychological need for them to fantasize about some non-Jewish people somewhere loving them where they live.

[Razgovory]

Eh? I don't think Zionism is theological?

Israel has tons of laws giving Jews special rights and privileges related to their religion.  A Jew newly arrived from overseas, with no previous connections to the country, can get immediate citizenship and all sorts of perks, while a non-Jew that's actually lived in Israel for their whole life gets none of them.

Zionism started as a nationalist movement (and those are bad enough) but has become a theocratic movement that feels destined to fulfill biblical fantasies.

I think it has less to do with Zionism and more to do with gradual religious takeover of Israeli politics.  The religious faction has always been savvy about using their kingmaker status to extract concessions disproportionate to their numbers.  I would argue that what's happening now is the perversion of what historical Zionists intended rather than what they hoped to achieve, and it's also a different reality from what existed when most Jews migrated to Israel.

Historical Zionists, however, were incredibly naive in believing that people already living in the lands they intended to settle would somehow magically love them.

Theodore Herzl also saw Western Jews as "civilizers" helping less advanced people, which is certainly based on Western colonial thinking.

Yeah, I guess he didn't know that Arabs hated Jews as well.

[OttoVonBismarck]

My baseline view is Zionism should not seek to be over-defined. I think it should simply be defined as a belief that the Jews were entitled to a homeland, and that after the state of Israel was founded, Israel has a right to exist.

I think like many "isms" in the world, when you labor to over define it, it devolves into almost being meaningless. In Israel popular tons of liberal secular Jews, who favor peace along the Oslo lines, oppose settlers in the West Bank etc call themselves "Zionists." On the flipside many anti-Israeli people like to conflate Zionism with only the worst expressions of far right Jewish supremacy you find from settler types in Israel etc.

There are, IMO, some firm arguments that Jews were entitled to a homeland:

1. Many other Ottoman groups were given various forms of homeland when the Empire was ultimately carved up
2. The Jewish community was one of the recognized millets in the old Ottoman system, the validity of them being a community in the region long established
3. Traditional Jewish communities long established in other countries were subject to random, and severe, repression throughout the prior 2000 years. Essentially, them not having a homeland and simply living as regular citizens had been tried, many, many times--and the outcomes were not great.

Now, it is a valid meta critique that any form of nationalism is bad, I mostly agree--but there is a practicality problem with that. Nationalism on a whole is a blight, but it also isn't a force that policy can meaningfully control. We tried, a lot, to promote policies that denied nationalism and tried to cobble together multiethnic states. The result was a century of very bad wars.

The current map of Europe, which also involved some large forced population transfers, represents the first workable form of peace the continent has known since the rise of nationalism. And many of the national borders are largely what they are due to nationalist concerns.

That doesn't of course mean everything was done right--there remain multinational countries in Europe, some still facing pressures because of it--but I do think the big map redraws have happened, addressing the most serious and violently contentious nationalist claims.

It is a bit disingenuous IMO for the West, who largely has already settled its "musical chairs" when it comes to unmanageable nationalism, to proclaim that "hey, 1948 was too late for that--no more nationalist founded countries, specifically for Jews."

[The Minsky Moment]

The Ethiopian Jews were obviously welcomed; that's why nearly the entire population is in Israel now, not Ethiopia. The religious disputes are not over race but over the fact that Ethiopian Judaism is pre-Talmudic and dates back before the rabbinic period. That has created religious tension because of the centrality of the Talmud to the dominant Jewish tradition.

Does that mean pre Babylonian exile?

No prior to the destruction of the Second Temple in the Jewish Revolt (60s CE)

The Ethiopian Jews claim a much more ancient lineage, including direct descent from Solomon, but those claims can't be taken at face value. But there is enough hard evidence of Jewish presence around that vicinity prior to the Jewish Revolt to date a community there around that time.

I don't think pre-Bablylonian Israelite religion differed materially from other religions of the region. The Books of Kings and Chronicles would indicate that Josiah implemented religious reforms shortly before the Babylonian conquest. It's possible, it's also possible that later ideas were ascribed to him.   The Ezra-Nehemiah sequence describes a situation where returning exiles found a legacy population that did not worship properly.  The narrative suggests backsliding among the people and/or their replacement by gentiles, but the more likely scenario is that the population on the ground had kept to traditional beliefs and the innovations came from the generations of exiles exposed to Bablylonian and Persian (Zoroastrian) ideas.

[Valmy]

Theodore Herzl also saw Western Jews as "civilizers" helping less advanced people, which is certainly based on Western colonial thinking.

Yeah but black American leaders, even freaking WEB Dubois, said similar things about how African Americans would be beloved by Africans and it was the duty of African Americans to civilize them in that period. It was just how deep colonial thinking and had gotten by the 1890s.

[Solmyr]

Theodore Herzl also saw Western Jews as "civilizers" helping less advanced people, which is certainly based on Western colonial thinking.

Yeah but black American leaders, even freaking WEB Dubois, said similar things about how African Americans would be beloved by Africans and it was the duty of African Americans to civilize them in that period. It was just how deep colonial thinking and had gotten by the 1890s.

Yeah, that just reinforces my point that a lot of ideologies born in that era have been strongly influenced by colonialism, Zionism included.

I mean, I support Israel's right to exist. I just don't want Bibi's band of fuckers turning it into an oppressive fascist state.

[Valmy]

I mean, I support Israel's right to exist. I just don't want Bibi's band of fuckers turning it into an oppressive fascist state.

100% with you.

[Josquius]

The Ethiopian Jews were obviously welcomed; that's why nearly the entire population is in Israel now, not Ethiopia. The religious disputes are not over race but over the fact that Ethiopian Judaism is pre-Talmudic and dates back before the rabbinic period. That has created religious tension because of the centrality of the Talmud to the dominant Jewish tradition.

Does that mean pre Babylonian exile?

No prior to the destruction of the Second Temple in the Jewish Revolt (60s CE)

The Ethiopian Jews claim a much more ancient lineage, including direct descent from Solomon, but those claims can't be taken at face value. But there is enough hard evidence of Jewish presence around that vicinity prior to the Jewish Revolt to date a community there around that time.

I don't think pre-Bablylonian Israelite religion differed materially from other religions of the region. The Books of Kings and Chronicles would indicate that Josiah implemented religious reforms shortly before the Babylonian conquest. It's possible, it's also possible that later ideas were ascribed to him.   The Ezra-Nehemiah sequence describes a situation where returning exiles found a legacy population that did not worship properly.  The narrative suggests backsliding among the people and/or their replacement by gentiles, but the more likely scenario is that the population on the ground had kept to traditional beliefs and the innovations came from the generations of exiles exposed to Bablylonian and Persian (Zoroastrian) ideas.

I've always been fascinated by the origins of Judaism but its just such an opaque topic for lay people to try and read about.
The bits about how they switched over to monotheism and its role in how the abrahamic religions don't play well with others is really curious.
When you think about it its just so weird that this unspectacular religion of a minor middle eastern tribe via its extreme variants came to dominate half the world.

[The Brain]

I suppose religions that are universal (not ethnic) and intolerant (don't allow other religions) have a competitive advantage. Hence the victories of Christianity and Islam.

[Admiral Yi]

I suppose religions that are universal (not ethnic) and intolerant (don't allow other religions) have a competitive advantage. Hence the victories of Christianity and Islam.

I was aware of the first but had not considered the second.  New thought for me.

[Barrister]

I suppose religions that are universal (not ethnic) and intolerant (don't allow other religions) have a competitive advantage. Hence the victories of Christianity and Islam.

I feel like "don't allow other religions" is not quite correct, although I see what you're getting at.

Islam in particular had various rules for "dhimmi", for non muslims living under muslim rule.  Christianity has at various times ruled over non-Christian populations, and while they would clearly pressure local inhabitants to convert, it was never of the "run through all non-believers with a sword".  The existanmce of long-standing jewish communities in both the Christian and Islamic world is proof enough of that.