Dear Unheard. I think you are doing a super job. I read every article, and agree or disagree, they make me think and open my eyes to a range of interesting ideas and opinions.
However (of course that was coming), this article is simply twaddle. It contains a huge number of factual errors large and small that 5 minutes on Wikipedia would have corrected. It is basically a thinly veiled book review with a few slanders thrown on top. The author seems utterly ignorant of Jewish Diaspora History from antiquity to the present.
But hey, that’s just the opinion of someone who has taught Jewish History for 32 years.
Unheard, I still love you dearly and if you want me to write a rebuttal article let’s talk.
Best regards
Michael
Well put but would have been better if you could have included a couple of the key points you viewed as incorrect, just to get the debate on these going, since other readers may have sources that vary from your own?
I don’t think this piece is twaddle. I found it very interesting. Also Ethiopian Jews have been discriminated against
D Frost
1 year ago
What are black Jews supposed to do? Well, first, let’s agree on who is or isn’t a Jew. The author of this piece states that his Jewishness is on his patrilineal side. If his mother wasn’t a Jew– and he didn’t convert– then he’s not a Jew. Skin color really has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Now, people– Jews included– tend to be provincial. When I was growing up, all the Jews I knew (Ashkenazim) looked more or less like me. But the same is true– to a large extent– for many other Jewish populations, as well. Yemenite Jews and Ethiopian Jews might well look at me and say, “funny, you don’t look Jewish…”
In the end, Judaism isn’t a race or an ethnicity. What black Jews are supposed to do is the same thing white, brown and yellow (apologies if I missed anyone) Jews are supposed to do: follow the Torah.
Only being Jewish if your mother is Jewish is a rabbinical construct because you always know who the mother is (Mama’s baby; Daddy’s – maybe’). It has nothing to do with the main source of Jewish facts and history which is the Torah and the rest of the OT.
Last edited 1 year ago by Judy Johnson
Milton Gibbon
1 year ago
Would have liked a link to how Tamkin gets to the figure of 1.2million black american jews. Ths would be around 10% of the total jewish population worldwide. I find this an incredible figure.
Secondly this is not where I saw the article going after reading the headline. Was there no room for the mentioning of Kanye West’s views – held by other prominent black celebrities – that black people actually are jews even if just to debunk the theory?
Yeah the elephant in the room about the cultural acceptance of black anti-semitism wasn’t covered. Kanye took it to extremes which obliged corporates and other celebrities to condemn him for it – but I get the impression from various expressed opinions and incidents over the years that all he did was voice the thoughts of mainstream black culture in the USA.
Steve State
1 year ago
Really quite a convoluted and uninformative piece.
Being a Jew is about adherence to the Torah, not ‘cultural identity’.
In religious society, despite the significant differences in tradition, there is a very tight bond with high mutual respect between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews. There is also full integration and cooperation.
Not sure this is correct. This is the exclusivist attitude held by some religious jews but most would agree that having a mother who is jewish is enough to confer “jewishness” on her children even if they are brought up in another faith.
I completely agree that being a Jew is conferred by having a Jewish mother (or converting). However being a Jew doesn’t mean that what one does is automatically Judaism.
“Being a Jew is about adherence to the Torah, not ‘cultural identity’.”
I have to disagree. I’m a Jew – raised in a Jewish household by a Jewish mother and a Jewish father, and I had a barmitzvah when I was 13 – but I’m an atheist. I certainly don’t consider my lack of adherence to the Torah to have anything to do with my Jewishness. David Baddiel will tell you the same story.
You are talking about being a |Jew by religion. People who are Jews by race assume that they are descended from Abraham. There are many secular Jews and also some messianic Jews
People who are Jews by race assume that they are descended from Abraham.
Are you serious about that? I would have thought most Jews by race assume only that they are descended from other Jews in the much more recent past than Abraham.
Is there really that level of quasi-magical belief?
Allison Barrows
1 year ago
Sammy Davis Jr. was Jewish, and he certainly didn’t become “white” to please Frank and Dean and the rest of the pack. Maybe just get on with being who you are is the ticket, and most people are happy to do the same.
Not sure how true this is, but I was told that when Sammy converted to Judaism he was asked if being black wasn’t bad enough for him!
Last edited 1 year ago by Jacqueline Burns
Abe Stamm
1 year ago
I’ve posted photos of Israeli Defense Force soldiers who are of Ethiopian descent. But, there are all shades of Israeli Jews, whose ancestral countries of origin (and expulsion) include Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and Turkey. Israeli is a beautiful melting pot of Jews (74%)…and Christians(2%), and Muslims(18%), and Druze (1.5), the rest being of other religions or non-religious atheists and agnostics.
I have no idea what the author of this article is trying to say. I’m an American-Jew, secular and non-practicing. both on the maternal and paternal side, with ancestry from Russia, Poland, and Lithuania. My great-grandparents and grandparents escaped the pogroms. The portion of the family tree that didn’t emigrate to the U.S. in the 1880-90’s were victims of the Holocaust. An ethnic Jew is a Jew is a Jew…it doesn’t matter whether you observe the religion, causally or strictly, or make a living making bacon and pork sausage.
Abe Stamm
1 year ago
Ethiopian-Israeli soldiers near Beersheba
steve nola
1 year ago
What label am I and do people respect it? Such a silly thing for a human to worry about.
John 0
1 year ago
Good to read some history outside of “official.”
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
The undoubtedly superior achievements of all Jewish peoples, a matter of empirical fact, has not happened in Africa… Perhaps the author might like to explain, given his theories?
The objectionable idea is that the only acceptable racism is the idea that the Jews are superior per se. Certain groups of people do seem to excel at certain things. If not excelling makes one not a proper Jew then we know why Jews are superior. Those who fail are excluded, at least by Nicky Samengo-Turner.
I was saving this for my article but they are a group of self-identitfing Jews. Trans-Jews if you wish.
Black Hebrews are a spiritual community of African-Americans who identify as descendants of an ancient Jewish tribe and view Israel as their ancestral homeland. With around 2,500-3,000 members, most of them live in the southern desert town of Dimona.
The community was founded by Ben Carter, a Chicago steelworker who renamed himself Ben Ammi Ben Israel after moving to Israel along with 30 of his followers in 1969.
…forgot to mention that the group threatened with deportation arrived on tourist visas and never left. Many consider themselves the true Jews (refer to the anti-Semitic film much in the news this week)
R Wright
1 year ago
I would have liked some discussion of Ugandan Jews and the anti-African policies of the Israeli government in this article. The sterilisation policy and wider anti-migrant sentiment of Jewry is far more interesting to me than this American focussed piece.
Israel is clever enough to realise that as well as being a hotbed of militant Islamic warfare, aside from certain minerals, Africa has nothing useful or positive to offer Israel, and is 2000 years behind the developed world.
You are clearly unaware of what Israel has done for African countries such as introducing water desalination plants & providing the technical ability to produce crops needing less water. Not to mention assitance in emergency disasters. I have never heard of any Jew proposing sterilisation!
Thanks for this. Interesting that you use this one example of an appalling activity by the Israeli government to comment generally on the sterilisation policy of all ‘Jewry’.
The Dutch might also have a track record on this, in promoting abortions for immigrant women. A Russian woman I knew was openly told that they did not want to support her quest for citizenship through giving birth. This was in the late 90s.
Dear Unheard. I think you are doing a super job. I read every article, and agree or disagree, they make me think and open my eyes to a range of interesting ideas and opinions.
However (of course that was coming), this article is simply twaddle. It contains a huge number of factual errors large and small that 5 minutes on Wikipedia would have corrected. It is basically a thinly veiled book review with a few slanders thrown on top. The author seems utterly ignorant of Jewish Diaspora History from antiquity to the present.
But hey, that’s just the opinion of someone who has taught Jewish History for 32 years.
Unheard, I still love you dearly and if you want me to write a rebuttal article let’s talk.
Best regards
Michael
Well put but would have been better if you could have included a couple of the key points you viewed as incorrect, just to get the debate on these going, since other readers may have sources that vary from your own?
I don’t think this piece is twaddle. I found it very interesting. Also Ethiopian Jews have been discriminated against
What are black Jews supposed to do? Well, first, let’s agree on who is or isn’t a Jew. The author of this piece states that his Jewishness is on his patrilineal side. If his mother wasn’t a Jew– and he didn’t convert– then he’s not a Jew. Skin color really has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Now, people– Jews included– tend to be provincial. When I was growing up, all the Jews I knew (Ashkenazim) looked more or less like me. But the same is true– to a large extent– for many other Jewish populations, as well. Yemenite Jews and Ethiopian Jews might well look at me and say, “funny, you don’t look Jewish…”
In the end, Judaism isn’t a race or an ethnicity. What black Jews are supposed to do is the same thing white, brown and yellow (apologies if I missed anyone) Jews are supposed to do: follow the Torah.
You forgot purple, green, and orange. Also vermillion, cerulean, azure, and beige.
Only being Jewish if your mother is Jewish is a rabbinical construct because you always know who the mother is (Mama’s baby; Daddy’s – maybe’). It has nothing to do with the main source of Jewish facts and history which is the Torah and the rest of the OT.
Would have liked a link to how Tamkin gets to the figure of 1.2million black american jews. Ths would be around 10% of the total jewish population worldwide. I find this an incredible figure.
Secondly this is not where I saw the article going after reading the headline. Was there no room for the mentioning of Kanye West’s views – held by other prominent black celebrities – that black people actually are jews even if just to debunk the theory?
That would be an interesting Unherd article.
Yeah the elephant in the room about the cultural acceptance of black anti-semitism wasn’t covered. Kanye took it to extremes which obliged corporates and other celebrities to condemn him for it – but I get the impression from various expressed opinions and incidents over the years that all he did was voice the thoughts of mainstream black culture in the USA.
Really quite a convoluted and uninformative piece.
Being a Jew is about adherence to the Torah, not ‘cultural identity’.
In religious society, despite the significant differences in tradition, there is a very tight bond with high mutual respect between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews. There is also full integration and cooperation.
Not sure this is correct. This is the exclusivist attitude held by some religious jews but most would agree that having a mother who is jewish is enough to confer “jewishness” on her children even if they are brought up in another faith.
Not my fight though.
I completely agree that being a Jew is conferred by having a Jewish mother (or converting). However being a Jew doesn’t mean that what one does is automatically Judaism.
hear hear!!
“Being a Jew is about adherence to the Torah, not ‘cultural identity’.”
I have to disagree. I’m a Jew – raised in a Jewish household by a Jewish mother and a Jewish father, and I had a barmitzvah when I was 13 – but I’m an atheist. I certainly don’t consider my lack of adherence to the Torah to have anything to do with my Jewishness. David Baddiel will tell you the same story.
You may be a Jew, but that doesn’t make anything you do Judaism.
You are talking about being a |Jew by religion. People who are Jews by race assume that they are descended from Abraham. There are many secular Jews and also some messianic Jews
People who are Jews by race assume that they are descended from Abraham.
Are you serious about that? I would have thought most Jews by race assume only that they are descended from other Jews in the much more recent past than Abraham.
Is there really that level of quasi-magical belief?
Sammy Davis Jr. was Jewish, and he certainly didn’t become “white” to please Frank and Dean and the rest of the pack. Maybe just get on with being who you are is the ticket, and most people are happy to do the same.
Not sure how true this is, but I was told that when Sammy converted to Judaism he was asked if being black wasn’t bad enough for him!
I’ve posted photos of Israeli Defense Force soldiers who are of Ethiopian descent. But, there are all shades of Israeli Jews, whose ancestral countries of origin (and expulsion) include Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and Turkey. Israeli is a beautiful melting pot of Jews (74%)…and Christians(2%), and Muslims(18%), and Druze (1.5), the rest being of other religions or non-religious atheists and agnostics.
I have no idea what the author of this article is trying to say. I’m an American-Jew, secular and non-practicing. both on the maternal and paternal side, with ancestry from Russia, Poland, and Lithuania. My great-grandparents and grandparents escaped the pogroms. The portion of the family tree that didn’t emigrate to the U.S. in the 1880-90’s were victims of the Holocaust. An ethnic Jew is a Jew is a Jew…it doesn’t matter whether you observe the religion, causally or strictly, or make a living making bacon and pork sausage.
Ethiopian-Israeli soldiers near Beersheba
What label am I and do people respect it? Such a silly thing for a human to worry about.
Good to read some history outside of “official.”
The undoubtedly superior achievements of all Jewish peoples, a matter of empirical fact, has not happened in Africa… Perhaps the author might like to explain, given his theories?
Why the downvotes?
The objectionable idea is that the only acceptable racism is the idea that the Jews are superior per se. Certain groups of people do seem to excel at certain things. If not excelling makes one not a proper Jew then we know why Jews are superior. Those who fail are excluded, at least by Nicky Samengo-Turner.
I agree. this is a very interesting well researched piece.
robert monks
I thought that ‘black Jews’ were quite recently expelled from Israel. A majority non white? Very odd.
I was saving this for my article but they are a group of self-identitfing Jews. Trans-Jews if you wish.
Black Hebrews are a spiritual community of African-Americans who identify as descendants of an ancient Jewish tribe and view Israel as their ancestral homeland. With around 2,500-3,000 members, most of them live in the southern desert town of Dimona.
The community was founded by Ben Carter, a Chicago steelworker who renamed himself Ben Ammi Ben Israel after moving to Israel along with 30 of his followers in 1969.
…forgot to mention that the group threatened with deportation arrived on tourist visas and never left. Many consider themselves the true Jews (refer to the anti-Semitic film much in the news this week)
I would have liked some discussion of Ugandan Jews and the anti-African policies of the Israeli government in this article. The sterilisation policy and wider anti-migrant sentiment of Jewry is far more interesting to me than this American focussed piece.
Israel is clever enough to realise that as well as being a hotbed of militant Islamic warfare, aside from certain minerals, Africa has nothing useful or positive to offer Israel, and is 2000 years behind the developed world.
I think you should just come out with it and express your racism directly.
Don’t be mean.
You are clearly unaware of what Israel has done for African countries such as introducing water desalination plants & providing the technical ability to produce crops needing less water. Not to mention assitance in emergency disasters. I have never heard of any Jew proposing sterilisation!
I have never heard of any Jew proposing sterilisation!
I have: In the fantasy world of anti-semites.
Could you please provide a link to this “sterilisation policy”, I look forward to reading it.
I suspect they lack the cojones to post it
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseknutsen/2013/01/28/israel-foribly-injected-african-immigrant-women-with-birth-control/?sh=5594720067b8
Thanks for this. Interesting that you use this one example of an appalling activity by the Israeli government to comment generally on the sterilisation policy of all ‘Jewry’.
Are you a big fan of the protocols too?
That comment is beneath you.
Your reference to Jewry in general when referencing a policy of Israel is blatantly anti-semitic. So my comment is a fair call.
The Dutch might also have a track record on this, in promoting abortions for immigrant women. A Russian woman I knew was openly told that they did not want to support her quest for citizenship through giving birth. This was in the late 90s.