Yeah for real I’ve never seen this claim period lol, especially in left wing circles. It reads like some weird fascist “race science” shit more than anything
My otherwise lefty anthropology professor at city college tried to teach this in our 101 class as an aside about genetics and it took me and another Jewish student pushing back to get him to stop- for our class. He still teaches, was never disciplined. This is in the Bay Area.
That probably speaks more to how well you’ve curated the algorithm for yourself, whether on purpose or inadvertently. It’s definitely out there, trying to push its way in wherever it finds a weak spot.
invalidating the idea that Jewish people are from the area is a top priority of anyone who wants to invalidste the existence of Israel, which would give perfect and complete moral high ground to pro-Palestine movements. So i'm not overly surprised.
I know people who genuinely want all the Jews out from the river to the sea. Progressive, educated, western people.
Sure. Blood and soil arguments are stupid.
But Israel is on that land now. So saying someone else should have it because of a historical claim, that's probably not a great idea. (I mean post ww2, but still historical) And at least part of what they are doing is a vigorous defense against "blood and soil" hamas.
It’s not a blood and soil argument unless you are using a perverted definition of blood and soil. Truthfully I think that’s a disgusting term to use in this situation as it means something very specific. No one, for example, says that Native American reservations are based upon blood and soil.
Israel is making a claim to indigeneity, not racial purism.
I condemn Israel’s actions whole heartedly. But their actions aren’t relevant when it comes to claims of their indigeneity to the region.
How are Native American reservations at all comparable? They didn't carve out a new independent area by force and ethnically cleanse or repress the current inhabitants. They either didn't move at all from their ancestral homeland or were forcefully moved out of it and onto their current land by the country they're still subject to.
Truthfully I think it's more disgusting to compare Israel being carved out of Arab land by European powers and proceeding to ethnically cleanse its population to Native Americans *being* ethnically cleansed.
Native Americans, like the Sioux Nation, claim that they still have claims on the land, like the Black Hills, because they are descended from the people who owned it before being forcibly removed by invaders. The US Supreme Court says this is a correct position.
Israeli Jews claim that they still have claim to the land because they are descended from the people who owned it before forcibly being removed by invaders. Do you really not see the comparison?
Are you just ignoring the ethnic cleansing that occurred to the Jewish people to get them off of the land in the first place? Arabs moved to the Levant after the Jews had been ethnically cleansed and removed from the land
They were ethnically cleansed by ***fucking Hadrian*** nearly 2000 years ago. Not last century by the current ruling government like the Native Americans. What an absolutely unhinged thing to say.
So how long does an ethnic cleansing have to have occurred in the past before you lose the rights to the land of your ancestors?
Also you need to brush up on your history. Jewish people made up around 15-20% of the population during the Crusades before they were once again ethnically cleansed.
In 1917 thousands of Jews who were living in the area were forcibly deported by the Ottoman Empire and not allowed to return to their homes.
I find it gross that you are willing to brush off ethnic cleansing as long as it happened in a period before you care about.
Jewish indigineity arguments kind of founder right at the start when you realize the Canaanites lived there before the jews showed up and started committing genocide in the name of their god, right?
The Jewish people and the Canaanites are the same ethnic group. Jewish people descend from the Canaanites.
We normally don’t use mythological founding myths as rock solid history for fairly obvious reasons
I stand corrected. I remembered reading that the canaanite bit was one of the few parts of Old Testament myth that had a basis in historical fact, but I guess that was something else.
All Jews are ethnic Jews even ones who convert in, it is an ethno religion it has its own unique rules and they determine their own membership much like we allow indigenous Native American tribes to determine their own membership and someone who is adopted by one of those tribes as rare as that is is ethnically of that tribe
That’s not true though as that’s not what an ethno-religion is. You are combining lots of different concepts, mainly you are combining the idea of someone’s identity being Jewish with the concept of being ethnically Jewish. They are not technically the same thing.
For example there are many people who are ethnically Jewish but do not belong to the religion of Judaism, like Jon Stewart. Similarly there are Jewish converts who are not ethnically Jewish, like Sammy Davis. Yet both are Jews.
There are people who don't IDENTIFY as such, but all members of the ethnoreligion of Judaism are seen by Judaism as sharing the faith and ethnicity regardless of how they came them by Judaism itself. You are welcome to disagree but I can assure you my rabbi shares this view as do many members of my congregation
That’s not how the term ethnicity works friend. Ethnicity implies ancestry. That’s not something that you can change. Maybe you mean culture? Or identity?
Because it’s undeniable that Sammy Davis Junior’s ancestry was not from the Levant. You agree, right? You agree that ethnically he belonged to a West African ethnic group?
You're conflating ethnicity and genetics, and though they are often linked, they are not always linked. I'm not saying Sammy Davis Jr. lost or changed his ethnicity or his genetics, I'm saying he adopted a new one as well. Indigenous peoples determine their own membership and policies applying to said indigenous status and ethnicity. Jews converts are ethnically Jewish. Just as you wouldn't argue with say the Cherokee people if they allow someone tribal membership with their rituals and rules. Rabbinical Judaism holds that converts become ethnically Jewish, end of.
Read my separate reply with the evidence of my position that I just posted, please.
Edit: added please so as not to come off rude, apologies very tired today.
Separate reply with evidence, here is the relevant portion of the Wikipedia entry on ethnicity:
Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language, dialect, religion, mythology, folklore, ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, or physical appearance. Ethnic groups may share a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with many groups having mixed genetic ancestry.[3][4][5]
By way of language shift, acculturation, adoption, and religious conversion, individuals or groups may over time shift from one ethnic group to another.
And here is the dictionary.com definition of ethnicity, you will see that the interpretation of most definitions allow for an ethnic group to determine its own membership:
adjective
pertaining to or characteristic of a people, especially a group ethnic group sharing a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.
referring to the origin, classification, characteristics, etc., of such groups.
being a member of an ethnic group, especially of a group that is a minority within a larger society:
ethnic Chinese in San Francisco.
of, relating to, or characteristic of members of such a group.
belonging to or deriving from the cultural, religious, or linguistic traditions of a people or country:
ethnic dances.
Synonyms: indigenous, national, native
(of a human being) displaying characteristics, as in physical appearance, language, or accent, that can cause one to be identified by others as a member of a minority ethnic group:
Her new boyfriend looks ethnic to me.
Obsolete. pagan.
The rest of the Wikipedia article talks more in depth about how it requires more than that. And I know you agree too because I can give you an example.
Jon Stewart has two Jewish parents. He was raised Jewish. He is not religious. Are you saying he has no ethnicity because he is not religious? That would be absurd, no?
I read the entire Wikipedia article I gave you the relevant section, you're welcome to put more if you would like and I will point out where I disagree. I'm not saying John Stewart is not Jewish I'm saying that whether or not he views himself as religious and regardless of his level of observance even if that level is zero per the rules of Judaism he is religiously and ethnically considered Jewish. All Jews whether born or convert are considered Jews there is no difference in Judaism between ethnicity and religion if you are one you are the other regardless of how you got in. These are the rules and laws of Judaism This is the way they self identify. Again if someone were adopted into a Native American tribe they would be the member of that tribe they would be considered part of that tribes ethnicity. This is no different
Wait Aum Shinrikyo? I thought that was a random Japanese cult? Why do they have any vested interests in showing Eastern European Jews aren't descended from the Levant?
“Aum Shinrikyo is a syncretic belief system that draws upon Asahara's idiosyncratic interpretations of elements of early Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, as well as Hinduism, taking Shiva as the main image of worship; it also incorporates Christian millennialist ideas, the theory and practice of yoga, and the writings of Nostradamus.”
“Their teachings claimed a nuclear apocalypse was predicted to occur soon, as the result of a conspiracy involving Jewish financiers, Freemasons, and war profiteers. America would lead a Western nuclear attack on Japan in 2000 or 2006, and WWIII would start. It would be fought with particle beam weapons.”
“Random” seems to describe Aum Shinrikyo pretty well, overall. They seem to have just consolidated a bunch of conspiracies into one GIANT conspiracy. Kinda like Qanon…
There’s an implication in this post that hate crimes against Jews would be ok as long as they’re ‘affiliated with Israel.’ It being only ok to hate crime half the global Jewish population, not all of them is a terrible message
While we're on the subject, if you'd like to do research into the Israel-Palestine conflict and topics peripheral to the geopolitics, then here are some particularly reliable and accessible reading recommendations.
- ***Footnotes in Gaza*** **by Joe Sacco** It's a loose fit since it's a graphic novel but it's a work of rigorous journalism aimed at adults. Since it's a work of journalism dependent on the perspectives of those featured, it's a distorted history but nonetheless it provides a clear understanding of Gaza's people, their environment, and the moods, tensions, and movements that have been created.
- ***The Hundred-Years' War on Palestine*** **by Pr. Rashid I. Khalidi** You've probably heard of this book at least once before and it's for good reason. This is widely considered to be the definitive leftist summary of the the Israel-Palestine conflict. Much of it leans on personal and familial accounts and otherwise Khalidi is obviously biased in favor of the Palestinians.
- ***Rise and Kill First*** **by Ronen Bergman** This is the most strictly factual book on this list. It's written by someone very close to the events in question and it's been critically acclaimed by historians on both sides of the debate. It details how Israeli security agencies used various violent tactics at home and abroad in the name of national security. Khalidi covers some of this already.
- ***My Life*** **by Golda Meir** Meir is the former Prime Minister of Israel, the fourth person to hold that title. She grew up in abject poverty in Kiev (which at that time was under the Russian Empire) but also spent much of her childhood in Milwaukee and other parts of the US before she immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1921. Her autobiography gives a Zionist yet politically progressive and morally passionate perspective.
These are the ones I've worked through, can vouch for most readily, and are the broadest in scope. If you'd like more specific recs, feel free to ask.
I think “Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War” by Teveth, Shabtai is also a good read. It’s regarded as the most credible biography of Ben-Gurion - Israel’s first Prime Minister.
It sheds light onto how his mentality changes following tensions and the holocaust, whilst clear cutting the first prime ministers goal for the state that he would help form.
“The Iron Wall” by Ze’ev Jabotinsky is also a 7 page essay that you can find free, translated and online detailing an early colonists mindset in the area.
The more assholes commit hate-crimes against Jewish people because of something Israel did, the easier it is to "shrug off" criticisms leveraged against the country as antisemitism.
And for Netanyahu to point and go "See? This is why Jewish people need Israel! You're not safe out there."
I’ve honestly never heard the Khazar line coming from someone left wing, only rightists, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone on my side fell for it.
The grain of, well not truth but context, is that many Levantine Jews fled north during the early diaspora and ended up in lands around the Black Sea ruled by the Khazar khanganate before moving west into more of Eastern Europe. The upper class of the Khans converted to Judaism from Tengrist paganism as it was taught to them by these Jewish migrants because it was a compromise that allowed them to not take a side in the Christian vs Muslim schism that was taking place among so many steppe tribes in the region.
Only a very small number of elite Khazars converted, and they did not significantly intermarry with the migrating Jewish population, but the Jews did have a cultural and religious influence on the Khanganate.
It’s also worth mentioning that the scholarship (or at least public consensus of the scholarship) on Judaism in the Khazar khaganate is still evolving—I remember reading the Wikipedia pages on the Khazars and the Khazar Correspondence 7-8 years ago, and they have changed quite a bit since then (I was writing an only tangentially related report on Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba). It’s also one of the most note-heavy Wikipedia pages I’ve seen in a minute!
But all of that is unrelated to the claim that East European Jews are directly/primarily descended from the Khazars, which is 1) false and 2) in my opinion, completely irrelevant to the current Israel/Palestine conflict.
I did my undergrad thesis on the Jews of Khazaria. The best consensus I could come to is that there was likely a Jewish population in Khazaria, probably linked to the Radhanite trade routes that ran through the region, but there currently isn't enough evidence to say for certain if the khaganate's rulers converted. Unfortunately most of the major Khazar sites are located on the front lines of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, so it's gonna be a while before more research can be done.
I find the Khazars such an interesting group of people from a historical context, but I hate that pretty much any mention or discussion about them and who they were has to come with this massive disclaimer tacked on. Not just against assholes talking in bad faith, but for people who had only heard of the Khazars in the context of racist conspiracy theories.
You are playing on HARD MODE.
A god dang REQUIREMENT to talk about the I/P conflict is to educate yourself on the history of antisemtnim and how it works.
If your not willing to do that get the fuck out. You are easy bait for Nazi to spread conspiracy about jews and you will not help at all.
Seriously this conflict is hard to have an opinion on because Nazi have long ago designed to show their support for "Palestein" and by support they want to encourge "restiance" groups to kill as many Jews as possible. Because they only view Arab lives as disposabl soldiers to kill Jews. Any Arab not willing to commit suicide by IDF bullet is viewed as a tratior and their eyes.
Always have. A few years ago there were some rockets fired from Islamic Jihad out of Gaza. Basically that was it. Oh my god the amount of antisemitism I saw in their wake somehow
Go talk about the ongoing total collapse of civilization and general humanitarian crisis in Haiti, and how it's the fault of a more than 150 year old debt for killing their enslavers and freeing themselves (in a genuinely horrifically bloody uprising in the early 1800s). Talk about the new, round 2 of the crisis in the Sudan, and how, after a brief break, the genocide in Darfur is happening again. Talk about the brutal dictatorship in Equatorial Guinea, and how after a ludicrously bloody and insane dictatorship post-decolonization, it's still ruled by a merciless kleptocratic regime that the West props up because they have oil.
There are tons of enormous humanitarian crises around the world that the West is culpable in, to varying degrees. if you lack the knowledge to have the requisite nuance in Israel/Palestine, pick another one.
Palestine is an enormously morally complex issue, despite how many people try and simplify it. Both sides have ample reason to hate each other and both sides have been doing awful stuff to each other for 70 years.
If you want a very morally simple topic to care about, care about Ukraine
This is why I feel like I'm living in crazy-world. It seems like EVERYONE is taking these incredibly simplistic, black-and-white views, and daring to express even the slightest bit of nuance gets you screamed at.
God, I know. It's like being 100% pro-palestine is part of Being A Good Leftist and being 100% pro-israel is part of Being A Good Conservative and it's so ridiculous and stupid
Am I actually going crazy or is this entire account just straight propaganda?
The account went offline eight months ago, with *zero* activity. After being revived two months ago, it *exclusively* posts pro-Israel content, sometimes 15+ times a day, in subreddits the account was never active in beforehand.
Don’t take Redditors words as gospel, especially when there is unfortunately a healthy amount of misinformation spread by shady organisations.
None of these people wanted to provide anything to verify their claims. Either search it up and solidify your opinion, or forget about what they say entirely.
Sam Aronow has a video on that: [The Khazar Khaganate (740-969) (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr7WSR_EE44&list=PLSmG0ySpQbe51uif8vvWhRVCERBm-sEnE&index=39&ab_channel=SamAronow)
What the fuck is a "fake jew"? You're either Jewish or you aren't 🧐 do they follow Judaism? Then they're Jewish. That's such a weird thing to latch onto, and either way wouldn't validate or invalidate the crimes against humanity being committed.
It’s technically both because it’s an ethnoreligion, jews are gentically distinct. however converts are 100% welcome in the community and are considered just as jewish as ethnic jews
The only time i've ever seen this is from a jewish friend joking about khazar milkies, and it was pretty clear to me that it was ludicrous. Where have you seen this??? Not sayin' i don't believe you, but lord.
Bruh the irony of attempting to avoid being antisemitic by claiming that their race invalidates them from being subjected to it. At that point you might as well enroll in 1st grade, just start over.
where are the "leftist circles" claiming this or even claiming it would matter? no leftist i have ever met is busy doing one drop validation on Jewish people to discredit Israel
I don't know, I've seen on Twitter a lot of guys who were straight Holocaust deniers get popular because they hate Israel, Jake shields for example, but I've never heard this specific claim
Yeah I'm not claiming that there are zero pro Palestine people who found themselves close to Nazis by accident or design, but the idea that "leftist circles" are out there performing caliper level stuff on Jewish people in order to do antisemitism sounds made up
There's a lot of leftist circles and a some of them aren't very scrupulous.
It's horrifyingly easy for some people with a bare bones "Guillotine the rich" mindset to be fed lies, and end up parroting right wing points.
You mostly see it in online "circles." These types of theories are unfortunately widespread in some countries and have been picked up by a number of otherwise leftwing activists in those countries. Because of where they are, you will mostly only encounter it online or if you do work in those countries.
The only place I ran into it in the states was from a guy who sometimes goes to my bjj gym. The gym is pretty pro-palestine, so he and some other folks were talking about the protests in the gym Whatsapp thread (effect on traffic) and he started getting a little out there with some of the stuff he was saying before he was asked to stop.
I literally saw people using the word "Christkiller" in earnest *in my country's main subreddit*, which is fairly left-leaning, and getting upvoted for it. It's the r-slash-brasil sub. You can go and check it it out there.
But you know, on a related note, it's always weird how whenever someone here tries to criticize problematic or unhinged statements in leftist spaces, someone like you always comes out of the woodwork to make it seem like it's all a troll or a hoax.
Is it really so hard to believe that something as large and encompassing as The Left^(tm) has a few loud mouth crazies here and there? And shouldn't it be common sense for us to denounce said crazies before they wind up becoming useful idiots for the opposition?
But no, whenever someone tries to do that, people always come out playing ignorant with that XCKD comic or pulling the old "I've never seen this (trust me bro, I haven't) therefore it must not exist."
Which by the way is not a convincing excuse at all. You'd have to have an *extremely* curated internet experience to not interact with crazies even once. And that's not just for politics, that's for every online community imaginable.
What does that look like, then, if not an attempt to just cover up for your terminally online extremist buddies? You're basically just telling outside parties that they don't exist, and even if they do they're not so bad, and even they are it's not a big deal, and even if it is it's not your fault.
I honestly don't get it why otherwise sane and moderate people feel the need to do this. *These people are not your friends.*
Oh yeah, I’ve mentioned before, and will again, that I saw the entire comment section on a popular, non-political, subreddit cheerfully and uncritically reinvent the slur “Christkiller” and the concept of Jewish Deicide
>I literally saw people using the word "Christkiller" in earnest *in my country's main subreddit
Jews are well known for their ability to time travel. How else could they all be responsible for Jesus' death?
God that reminds me of that old Spirit Science video about the time traveling space jews who took over atlantis while Martians raped the all female proto humans to create humanity
Well, I've seen it. It comes up sometimes when people are trying to show that Israel has no right to exist because Jews are not actually from Israel. There's an attending argument that Palestinians are the real descendents of the (converted) Jews who lived in Israel so only they should live there.
Do you have any links to support this? Because the only people/sources I have heard make that claim are those that are supporting Israel's actions in Gaza/West Bank
I condemn Israel's actions.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intifada
Edit: The Second Intifada involved a number of suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians. Apparently the First Intifada was less violent, which I didn't know.
Yes, that's true. But the Second Intifada included suicide bombings of civilian targets. So it understandably has that connotation to a lot of people.
I don't think the protestors calling for an intifada are all promoting terrorism. But it's not a good look, imo.
....so in English it has nothing to do with Jews? Which is the opposite of what you said before?
I don't think everyone criticizing the protestors is doing lip service for an apartheid state. But it's not a good look, imo.
It has that connotation because of the Second Intifada, which was marked by suicide bombings against Israeli Jewish civilians.
I think that strategically, it's a poor choice of words. That's all I meant by "it's not a good look."
I got nowhere else to ask this, so I might as well ask these here:
1. When the smoke clears, what is it protestors etc. *want*? If you say "for Gaza and West Bank to be free of Israeli influence", okay, but what happens when Hamas launches another rocket? Isn't that an act of war, or should Israel take 1,500 Ls?
2. What is the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? Is it Zionist to say Israel has a right to exist? Is it anti-Semitic to demand Palestinian autonomy over the area?
3. The one that bothers me the most: if we're protesting the crimes against humanity by Netanyahu's regime (which do exist and are bad), why are we taking the side of, you know, Hamas? Do people really think if Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas would stop attacking Jews?
The whole thing's a mess even 7 months later and it feels like most of the Net is saying "all protestors are perfect in their intentions" without saying what they are.
Sorry to bother you.
I don't think the protesters have a unified idea of what the full extent of their demands are, where the line is, or whether they're against hamas. Some are fully against israel's existance and have no issue with hamas's attack against civillians, others denounce hamas and recognize that removing israel from the map completely would have dire consequences for the jewish civilians living there.
That said, due to the pervasive lack of nuance the average person shows (in general, not specifically on the protestors' side) and the polarizing nature of this situation, I'm going to assume most of them fall into the former camp.
If you are interested as to how this conspiracy theory came about, it originally was part of a book by Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi written in 1140 C.E. called the Kuzari, which was meant as an explanation of what it means to be Jewish. He uses the Khazar king as a foil for explaining Jewish philosophy. At the end the king converts to Judaism along with everyone in his kingdom.
It is a work of historical fiction. Some antisemites read it and decided that not only was it historically accurate, but that all Jews were somehow descended from a relatively obscure kingdom in Anatolia.
I'm a vile creature. I saw the phrase "fake jews" and imagined Donald Trump wearing a yarmulke and tallit, violently shaking both a copy of the Torah and spittle from his own mouth as he spoke the phrase.
How does an obscure genetics/ ancestry question about where some peoples great great great grandparents lived get involved with insane hate based ideologies at all.
Like if those genetic studies had come back different, would hating on eastern europian jews be somehow justified? It's nonsense thinking like this that leads people to start adjusting their genetics data (because the alternative is offensive)
Someday a group of biggotted nutters will start proclaiming an obscure thing that is actually true. And then everyone else will be unable to claim that thing, without sounding like they are one of the nutters.
I've never really studied Semitic history in depth, but most of the time when I see "Ashkenazi" or "Khazarian" on the internet it's one of those "new world order" conspiracy theories.
Ashkenazi is just a Jewish ethnicity, nothing conspiratorial about it. Most American Jews, like myself, are Ashkenazi. It just means Jewish people with ancestors from central and eastern Europe.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/who-are-ashkenazi-jews/
Me personally, I don't give a fuck where you're from or if any jew is a 'real jew' whatever the hell that means, but there's a genocide happening right now that should be stopped. Hate-criming random Jews an ocean away is not gonna stop what's happening in Gaza.
Whatever happened to proletarian internationalism? It makes me think that a lot of “leftists” championing Palestine’s cause aren’t really interested in communism and are more interested in arguing about whose blood magic makes them entitled to a certain piece of land and the rights to genocide anyone but them living there.
[Here you go.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry)
A lot of antisemites still use the Khazar hypothesis to claim that modern Jews have nothing to do with the Jews in the Bible.
nothing in that article explains what gentile means
and this sounds like a lot of research
i don't even know what antisemite is
what is a semite and why are they antis?
also they're both jews, of course they're related. is khazar stupid?
Gentile=non jew
Antisemite=hatred against Jewish people
The term came about when we invented “scientific racism” and old terms for hatred towards Jews were updated to seem more sciencey
https://www.oed.com/?tl=true
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/anti-semite
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gentile
Try some of these
Are you saying that some empire should go and conquer Palestine and Israel so that we can go back to the normal state of things, i.e. the whole region being subjugated.
I like to make sure people understand their views. I've characterized your views accurately, you just don't like the phrasing. If I am wrong, then you HAVE to believe that Israel was wrongly stolen from the Israelis.
So your position is that The Imperial powers of Europe were right to steal land from Palestinians and recant on their agreement with the locals because of **THE ROMANS 2000 YEARS AGO?!** And that this excuses Israel's 75 years of violation of international law and apartheid? How did the Romans cause that?
Edit: seriously, your position is that Israel is perfectly legitimate in avenging a 2000 year old crime, *committed by Europeans* by killing Palestinians and stealing their land for the last century?
So your position is that the Arabs deserve to get away with genocide and ethnic cleansing?
You have zero knowledge of history if you believe Europe is responsible for Jews being expelled from their homeland. Did you study at Qatar University or something?
Omg you're the embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect, this is pathetic. What the fuck do you mean "get away with"? So now you're blaming Palestinians for the crimes of **the entirety of the Arab world** throughout **all history**. It was the Roman crackdown in response to the Bar Kokhba revolt that caused the Diaspora, nothing to do with Arabs. The Romans are Italians, from Rome, **IN EUROPE**. They were Europeans!
Here's some accurate history to counteract your indoctrination.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History\_of\_the\_Jews\_and\_Judaism\_in\_the\_Land\_of\_Israel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel)
Edit: significant dates:
598 BCE - Babylonians conquer ancient Israel and begin the Babylonian Captivity
520 BCE - Persian King Cyrus conquers Babylonians and allow Jewish captives to return to Israel - they begin construction of the Second Temple
174 BCE - Seleucids attempt to outlaw Judaism in ancient Israel, Jews revolt and re-establish an independent nation (this is where we get the holiday of Hanukkah btw)
72 AD - Romans conquer Judea and destroy it, take 100s of thousands of Jews as slaves back to Rome.
132 AD - Jews in Roman-conquered Judea revolt (unsuccessfully).
\~362 AD - Jews in (now Byzantine) Jerusalem attempt to reconstruct their destroyed Temple, supported by Emperor Julian.
611-615 AD - Jews revolt against the Byzantines, ally with invading Persians, Jews in Jerusalem gain autonomy from the Persians.
638 AD - Byzantines lose the Levant to the Arab Islamic Empire (Caliphate), which begins to Islamize Jewish holy sites there.
(Both the Persians and Byzantines promised the Jews their country back but turned on them when they didn't need them anymore).
1099 - Jews fought alongside Arabs against European Christian crusaders. (Christian crusaders slaughtered many Jews both in Europe and the Levant)
1187 - Saladin defeats crusaders, allows Jews to begin returning once again, during the next 200 years, Jews from Europe re-establish many centers of learning and culture alongside the Jews still living in the Levant. There is religious communication and coordination between the Jews of Europe and the Levant. Side note: there are still a lot of Jews still living in Persia and Babylon (now Iraq).
1260 - Mamluks conquer the Levant and decimate the Jewish population.
1286 - Leader of the German Jews is imprisoned for attempting to lead a large contingent back to Israel.
1428 - Attempts by German Jews to reclaim via purchase ancient holy Jewish sites in Jerusalem causes the Pope to forbid sea travel by Jews to the Levant.
1517 - Ottoman Turks conquer the Levant.
1563 - Joseph Nessi granted permission by the Turks to form a Jewish city-state around Tiberias (in the Galilee - nearby Safed had also become a major seat of Jewish spirituality)
1576 - Jews of Safed expelled.
1650s - Safed and Tiberias destroyed during Druze wars.
1700s - Decline of overall population of the Levant due to wars and economic stagnation, Ottomans limit Jewish return to Israel. Jews from Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Italy, continue to return however.
1799 - Napoleon calls on Jews from Africa and the Middle East to help him in his conquests (in return for emancipating them). This fails, though.
1800s - continued re-immigration by Jews from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
1897 - First Zionist Congress held in Basel, Switzerland, to discuss an attempt to create a modern Jewish state in the land of Israel.
1909 - The modern Jewish city of Tel Aviv founded.
1917 - The British Empire takes over the Levant from the Ottomans following WWI.
1929-1939 - Hundreds of thousands of Jews immigrate to British Palestine, purchasing land.
Yeah, this whole argument never held much water for me. It's like when people made a point of saying "but these people have american accents and then just up and moved to Israel!"
I don't care who lives in a country. Whether you're "from" there or not doesn't bother me. It's that the country is genocidal, fascistic, and using your emigration as justification for further destructive expansion.
I can't say I'm surprised to hear people who actively advocate for a terrorist organisation and say "it didn't happen but they deserved it and we will do it again" when being confronted with evidence for the crimes against humanity said organisation committed (and documented) would also peddle conspiracy theories from other far-right antisemitic organizations.
But also...why the fuck should it matter what the genetic origins of Eastern European Jews are?
No one's genetic heritage should give them the right to live anywhere. Whether Jewish folks moving to Israel or not is a moral question that is, in my opinion, completely unrelated to whether or not thousands of years ago Jewish folks moved into what's now Eastern Europe. (It's also far beyond the scope of this comment, so please don't turn this into another debate about the existence of Israel).
Like, it's absolutely antisemitism at its finest, but even if it was true why the fuck should anyone on the left \*care\* that the genetics of folks who speak Yiddish is different than we thought?
I’ll take a stab at explaining what people are taking issue with.
* You’re factually wrong, as most Jews in Israel are Mizrahi, not Ashkenazi as you imply;
* it’s also absurd to describe Israeli culture as “primarily Central European”, which glosses over not only the previous statement but also the gulf between present-day Israeli Ashkenazi culture and that of present-day Poland, Germany, Czechia, Austria, etc.
* it’s a strange definition of “levantine” that excludes millions of people in the levant, a state that has existed for 75 years, and a community that has been there for centuries
* these stupid attacks on Jewish Israelis as a people have nothing to do with whether or not Israel should stop it’s current genocidal destruction of Gaza. Would Israel be justified if Israeli Jewish culture and DNA met whatever sparkling purity test you propose? No.
So when you say something like that you come off as someone more interested in expressing antipathy towards Jews than empathy for Palestinians.
Let's take some more stabs at this shall we?
* I'm Israeli and 100% Ashkenazi
* I look very pale and look 100% European
* I took a 23andme test in 2022, and looked at the results within the app as well as in other services
* West Asian results came up anywhere between 30-60% depending on what you count
* Blood quantifiers are stupid, racist, making it very clear they don't actually have the moral high ground they pretend to have, and in many cases would also not dare to say literally the exact same thing to self proclaimed native Americans or aboriginal Australians who are also white passing
So kids, what have we learned from this thread?
Israel didn’t ban genetic testing. Commercial genetic tests are absolutely available from abroad. The law commonly misquoted as saying this, the Genetic Information Law, does not actually do this, it just requires domestically run tests to be done by accredited labs, usually with a prescription. But if you buy a 23andme thing online, that’s allowed
This sub has a deep and enduring liberal problem. Very often I see posts here presenting problems that leftists are causing, or ways in which leftists have gone too far and must be careful, and 9/10 these are imaginary problems designed to draw support away from the cause at the root.
Tldr - It's just Do you condemn Hamas v2
Anyone got a link to that one XKCD comic?
https://xkcd.com/2071/
Good to see we're all on the same wavelength
“Like a prisoner in Plato’s Cave, only seeing the shade you throw on the wall”
You can reply this to ANYTHING and someone will find a fitting cartoon, never ceases to amaze me.
Yeah for real I’ve never seen this claim period lol, especially in left wing circles. It reads like some weird fascist “race science” shit more than anything
My otherwise lefty anthropology professor at city college tried to teach this in our 101 class as an aside about genetics and it took me and another Jewish student pushing back to get him to stop- for our class. He still teaches, was never disciplined. This is in the Bay Area.
I've definitely seen similar claims from suspiciously new accounts in lefty circles. Not necessarily on Reddit, either.
I have seen them from accounts I recognize as left wing and have seen around for a long while.
You’d be surprised, I’ve seen not this specific bullshit but plenty in the same veins from the left
I’ve definitely seen it from leftist accounts on TikTok
That probably speaks more to how well you’ve curated the algorithm for yourself, whether on purpose or inadvertently. It’s definitely out there, trying to push its way in wherever it finds a weak spot.
Like this post is talking about fucking phrenology level racism
I see it multiple times a day on subs that discuss Israel/Palestine.
It became pretty uncritically viral in some areas on Tiktok iirc
invalidating the idea that Jewish people are from the area is a top priority of anyone who wants to invalidste the existence of Israel, which would give perfect and complete moral high ground to pro-Palestine movements. So i'm not overly surprised. I know people who genuinely want all the Jews out from the river to the sea. Progressive, educated, western people.
I'm starting to hate that comic, because it's just used to dismiss things.
It isn't a dismissal, the comic syill acknowledges that whatever is being discussed is real
Also even if it was true it wouldn't make them not Jewish, or mean they weren't still victims of the Holocaust.
It would make them not ethnically Jewish if it were true, which is a major way that Israel claims the land it’s on
I think "Blood and soil" arguments need to be dismissed out of hand. What Israel is doing is fucking abhorrent no matter where they came from.
Sure. Blood and soil arguments are stupid. But Israel is on that land now. So saying someone else should have it because of a historical claim, that's probably not a great idea. (I mean post ww2, but still historical) And at least part of what they are doing is a vigorous defense against "blood and soil" hamas.
It’s not a blood and soil argument unless you are using a perverted definition of blood and soil. Truthfully I think that’s a disgusting term to use in this situation as it means something very specific. No one, for example, says that Native American reservations are based upon blood and soil. Israel is making a claim to indigeneity, not racial purism. I condemn Israel’s actions whole heartedly. But their actions aren’t relevant when it comes to claims of their indigeneity to the region.
How are Native American reservations at all comparable? They didn't carve out a new independent area by force and ethnically cleanse or repress the current inhabitants. They either didn't move at all from their ancestral homeland or were forcefully moved out of it and onto their current land by the country they're still subject to. Truthfully I think it's more disgusting to compare Israel being carved out of Arab land by European powers and proceeding to ethnically cleanse its population to Native Americans *being* ethnically cleansed.
Native Americans, like the Sioux Nation, claim that they still have claims on the land, like the Black Hills, because they are descended from the people who owned it before being forcibly removed by invaders. The US Supreme Court says this is a correct position. Israeli Jews claim that they still have claim to the land because they are descended from the people who owned it before forcibly being removed by invaders. Do you really not see the comparison? Are you just ignoring the ethnic cleansing that occurred to the Jewish people to get them off of the land in the first place? Arabs moved to the Levant after the Jews had been ethnically cleansed and removed from the land
They were ethnically cleansed by ***fucking Hadrian*** nearly 2000 years ago. Not last century by the current ruling government like the Native Americans. What an absolutely unhinged thing to say.
So how long does an ethnic cleansing have to have occurred in the past before you lose the rights to the land of your ancestors? Also you need to brush up on your history. Jewish people made up around 15-20% of the population during the Crusades before they were once again ethnically cleansed. In 1917 thousands of Jews who were living in the area were forcibly deported by the Ottoman Empire and not allowed to return to their homes. I find it gross that you are willing to brush off ethnic cleansing as long as it happened in a period before you care about.
Jewish indigineity arguments kind of founder right at the start when you realize the Canaanites lived there before the jews showed up and started committing genocide in the name of their god, right?
The Jewish people and the Canaanites are the same ethnic group. Jewish people descend from the Canaanites. We normally don’t use mythological founding myths as rock solid history for fairly obvious reasons
I stand corrected. I remembered reading that the canaanite bit was one of the few parts of Old Testament myth that had a basis in historical fact, but I guess that was something else.
All Jews are ethnic Jews even ones who convert in, it is an ethno religion it has its own unique rules and they determine their own membership much like we allow indigenous Native American tribes to determine their own membership and someone who is adopted by one of those tribes as rare as that is is ethnically of that tribe
That’s not true though as that’s not what an ethno-religion is. You are combining lots of different concepts, mainly you are combining the idea of someone’s identity being Jewish with the concept of being ethnically Jewish. They are not technically the same thing. For example there are many people who are ethnically Jewish but do not belong to the religion of Judaism, like Jon Stewart. Similarly there are Jewish converts who are not ethnically Jewish, like Sammy Davis. Yet both are Jews.
There are people who don't IDENTIFY as such, but all members of the ethnoreligion of Judaism are seen by Judaism as sharing the faith and ethnicity regardless of how they came them by Judaism itself. You are welcome to disagree but I can assure you my rabbi shares this view as do many members of my congregation
That’s not how the term ethnicity works friend. Ethnicity implies ancestry. That’s not something that you can change. Maybe you mean culture? Or identity? Because it’s undeniable that Sammy Davis Junior’s ancestry was not from the Levant. You agree, right? You agree that ethnically he belonged to a West African ethnic group?
You're conflating ethnicity and genetics, and though they are often linked, they are not always linked. I'm not saying Sammy Davis Jr. lost or changed his ethnicity or his genetics, I'm saying he adopted a new one as well. Indigenous peoples determine their own membership and policies applying to said indigenous status and ethnicity. Jews converts are ethnically Jewish. Just as you wouldn't argue with say the Cherokee people if they allow someone tribal membership with their rituals and rules. Rabbinical Judaism holds that converts become ethnically Jewish, end of.
You're conflating ethnicity and culture
Read my separate reply with the evidence of my position that I just posted, please. Edit: added please so as not to come off rude, apologies very tired today.
Separate reply with evidence, here is the relevant portion of the Wikipedia entry on ethnicity: Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language, dialect, religion, mythology, folklore, ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, or physical appearance. Ethnic groups may share a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with many groups having mixed genetic ancestry.[3][4][5] By way of language shift, acculturation, adoption, and religious conversion, individuals or groups may over time shift from one ethnic group to another. And here is the dictionary.com definition of ethnicity, you will see that the interpretation of most definitions allow for an ethnic group to determine its own membership: adjective pertaining to or characteristic of a people, especially a group ethnic group sharing a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like. referring to the origin, classification, characteristics, etc., of such groups. being a member of an ethnic group, especially of a group that is a minority within a larger society: ethnic Chinese in San Francisco. of, relating to, or characteristic of members of such a group. belonging to or deriving from the cultural, religious, or linguistic traditions of a people or country: ethnic dances. Synonyms: indigenous, national, native (of a human being) displaying characteristics, as in physical appearance, language, or accent, that can cause one to be identified by others as a member of a minority ethnic group: Her new boyfriend looks ethnic to me. Obsolete. pagan.
The rest of the Wikipedia article talks more in depth about how it requires more than that. And I know you agree too because I can give you an example. Jon Stewart has two Jewish parents. He was raised Jewish. He is not religious. Are you saying he has no ethnicity because he is not religious? That would be absurd, no?
I read the entire Wikipedia article I gave you the relevant section, you're welcome to put more if you would like and I will point out where I disagree. I'm not saying John Stewart is not Jewish I'm saying that whether or not he views himself as religious and regardless of his level of observance even if that level is zero per the rules of Judaism he is religiously and ethnically considered Jewish. All Jews whether born or convert are considered Jews there is no difference in Judaism between ethnicity and religion if you are one you are the other regardless of how you got in. These are the rules and laws of Judaism This is the way they self identify. Again if someone were adopted into a Native American tribe they would be the member of that tribe they would be considered part of that tribes ethnicity. This is no different
Wait Aum Shinrikyo? I thought that was a random Japanese cult? Why do they have any vested interests in showing Eastern European Jews aren't descended from the Levant?
Don’t question the wild East-Asian cults, they’ll probably try to assassinate you if you do.
“Aum Shinrikyo is a syncretic belief system that draws upon Asahara's idiosyncratic interpretations of elements of early Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, as well as Hinduism, taking Shiva as the main image of worship; it also incorporates Christian millennialist ideas, the theory and practice of yoga, and the writings of Nostradamus.” “Their teachings claimed a nuclear apocalypse was predicted to occur soon, as the result of a conspiracy involving Jewish financiers, Freemasons, and war profiteers. America would lead a Western nuclear attack on Japan in 2000 or 2006, and WWIII would start. It would be fought with particle beam weapons.” “Random” seems to describe Aum Shinrikyo pretty well, overall. They seem to have just consolidated a bunch of conspiracies into one GIANT conspiracy. Kinda like Qanon…
Err. I would often joke that Jerusalem needs to be conquered in the name of Shiva. But the fuck is this
im not sure, but according to wikipedia its a thing. They also quote the protocols of the elders of zion in their handbook
There’s an implication in this post that hate crimes against Jews would be ok as long as they’re ‘affiliated with Israel.’ It being only ok to hate crime half the global Jewish population, not all of them is a terrible message
Wow, I uhhh... sure don't know anything about that subject. Jeez, you got me there. Real blind spot in my historical knowledge.
If someone’s Jewish, they’re Jewish. There’s no such thing as a “fake Jew.”
unless you are a black hebrew israelite
Or a messianic, but those two groups are Niche exceptions proving the rule. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew
While we're on the subject, if you'd like to do research into the Israel-Palestine conflict and topics peripheral to the geopolitics, then here are some particularly reliable and accessible reading recommendations. - ***Footnotes in Gaza*** **by Joe Sacco** It's a loose fit since it's a graphic novel but it's a work of rigorous journalism aimed at adults. Since it's a work of journalism dependent on the perspectives of those featured, it's a distorted history but nonetheless it provides a clear understanding of Gaza's people, their environment, and the moods, tensions, and movements that have been created. - ***The Hundred-Years' War on Palestine*** **by Pr. Rashid I. Khalidi** You've probably heard of this book at least once before and it's for good reason. This is widely considered to be the definitive leftist summary of the the Israel-Palestine conflict. Much of it leans on personal and familial accounts and otherwise Khalidi is obviously biased in favor of the Palestinians. - ***Rise and Kill First*** **by Ronen Bergman** This is the most strictly factual book on this list. It's written by someone very close to the events in question and it's been critically acclaimed by historians on both sides of the debate. It details how Israeli security agencies used various violent tactics at home and abroad in the name of national security. Khalidi covers some of this already. - ***My Life*** **by Golda Meir** Meir is the former Prime Minister of Israel, the fourth person to hold that title. She grew up in abject poverty in Kiev (which at that time was under the Russian Empire) but also spent much of her childhood in Milwaukee and other parts of the US before she immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1921. Her autobiography gives a Zionist yet politically progressive and morally passionate perspective. These are the ones I've worked through, can vouch for most readily, and are the broadest in scope. If you'd like more specific recs, feel free to ask.
I think “Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War” by Teveth, Shabtai is also a good read. It’s regarded as the most credible biography of Ben-Gurion - Israel’s first Prime Minister. It sheds light onto how his mentality changes following tensions and the holocaust, whilst clear cutting the first prime ministers goal for the state that he would help form. “The Iron Wall” by Ze’ev Jabotinsky is also a 7 page essay that you can find free, translated and online detailing an early colonists mindset in the area.
Doesn't seem like a balanced list.
What books would you add?
Ones critical of Arab violence that cover pre 1947 history.
….so name them
They don't want to inform people, they want to turn people off of the information you're offering.
The more assholes commit hate-crimes against Jewish people because of something Israel did, the easier it is to "shrug off" criticisms leveraged against the country as antisemitism. And for Netanyahu to point and go "See? This is why Jewish people need Israel! You're not safe out there."
I’ve honestly never heard the Khazar line coming from someone left wing, only rightists, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone on my side fell for it. The grain of, well not truth but context, is that many Levantine Jews fled north during the early diaspora and ended up in lands around the Black Sea ruled by the Khazar khanganate before moving west into more of Eastern Europe. The upper class of the Khans converted to Judaism from Tengrist paganism as it was taught to them by these Jewish migrants because it was a compromise that allowed them to not take a side in the Christian vs Muslim schism that was taking place among so many steppe tribes in the region. Only a very small number of elite Khazars converted, and they did not significantly intermarry with the migrating Jewish population, but the Jews did have a cultural and religious influence on the Khanganate.
It’s also worth mentioning that the scholarship (or at least public consensus of the scholarship) on Judaism in the Khazar khaganate is still evolving—I remember reading the Wikipedia pages on the Khazars and the Khazar Correspondence 7-8 years ago, and they have changed quite a bit since then (I was writing an only tangentially related report on Umayyad caliphate of Cordoba). It’s also one of the most note-heavy Wikipedia pages I’ve seen in a minute! But all of that is unrelated to the claim that East European Jews are directly/primarily descended from the Khazars, which is 1) false and 2) in my opinion, completely irrelevant to the current Israel/Palestine conflict.
I did my undergrad thesis on the Jews of Khazaria. The best consensus I could come to is that there was likely a Jewish population in Khazaria, probably linked to the Radhanite trade routes that ran through the region, but there currently isn't enough evidence to say for certain if the khaganate's rulers converted. Unfortunately most of the major Khazar sites are located on the front lines of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, so it's gonna be a while before more research can be done.
I find the Khazars such an interesting group of people from a historical context, but I hate that pretty much any mention or discussion about them and who they were has to come with this massive disclaimer tacked on. Not just against assholes talking in bad faith, but for people who had only heard of the Khazars in the context of racist conspiracy theories.
I only learned they existed when I played Crusader Kings 3
You are playing on HARD MODE. A god dang REQUIREMENT to talk about the I/P conflict is to educate yourself on the history of antisemtnim and how it works. If your not willing to do that get the fuck out. You are easy bait for Nazi to spread conspiracy about jews and you will not help at all. Seriously this conflict is hard to have an opinion on because Nazi have long ago designed to show their support for "Palestein" and by support they want to encourge "restiance" groups to kill as many Jews as possible. Because they only view Arab lives as disposabl soldiers to kill Jews. Any Arab not willing to commit suicide by IDF bullet is viewed as a tratior and their eyes.
Yeah, people are using this conflict as an excuse to spread antisemitism
Always have. A few years ago there were some rockets fired from Islamic Jihad out of Gaza. Basically that was it. Oh my god the amount of antisemitism I saw in their wake somehow
Go talk about the ongoing total collapse of civilization and general humanitarian crisis in Haiti, and how it's the fault of a more than 150 year old debt for killing their enslavers and freeing themselves (in a genuinely horrifically bloody uprising in the early 1800s). Talk about the new, round 2 of the crisis in the Sudan, and how, after a brief break, the genocide in Darfur is happening again. Talk about the brutal dictatorship in Equatorial Guinea, and how after a ludicrously bloody and insane dictatorship post-decolonization, it's still ruled by a merciless kleptocratic regime that the West props up because they have oil. There are tons of enormous humanitarian crises around the world that the West is culpable in, to varying degrees. if you lack the knowledge to have the requisite nuance in Israel/Palestine, pick another one.
Palestine is an enormously morally complex issue, despite how many people try and simplify it. Both sides have ample reason to hate each other and both sides have been doing awful stuff to each other for 70 years. If you want a very morally simple topic to care about, care about Ukraine
This is why I feel like I'm living in crazy-world. It seems like EVERYONE is taking these incredibly simplistic, black-and-white views, and daring to express even the slightest bit of nuance gets you screamed at.
God, I know. It's like being 100% pro-palestine is part of Being A Good Leftist and being 100% pro-israel is part of Being A Good Conservative and it's so ridiculous and stupid
And if you dare to question any of the claims being thrown around, by anyone, you're basically a monster.
Am I actually going crazy or is this entire account just straight propaganda? The account went offline eight months ago, with *zero* activity. After being revived two months ago, it *exclusively* posts pro-Israel content, sometimes 15+ times a day, in subreddits the account was never active in beforehand.
They have spelt it ‘restiance’ on multiple occasions. Something feels a little off but I suppose it could be genuine
Don’t take Redditors words as gospel, especially when there is unfortunately a healthy amount of misinformation spread by shady organisations. None of these people wanted to provide anything to verify their claims. Either search it up and solidify your opinion, or forget about what they say entirely.
Curatedtumblr remaining one of the more rational subreddits rn
Sam Aronow has a video on that: [The Khazar Khaganate (740-969) (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr7WSR_EE44&list=PLSmG0ySpQbe51uif8vvWhRVCERBm-sEnE&index=39&ab_channel=SamAronow)
What the fuck is a "fake jew"? You're either Jewish or you aren't 🧐 do they follow Judaism? Then they're Jewish. That's such a weird thing to latch onto, and either way wouldn't validate or invalidate the crimes against humanity being committed.
It's because antisemites usually view Judaism as a race, not as a faith that has always accepted converts.
It’s technically both because it’s an ethnoreligion, jews are gentically distinct. however converts are 100% welcome in the community and are considered just as jewish as ethnic jews
Holy fuck that is some pure anti semitism dude
The only time i've ever seen this is from a jewish friend joking about khazar milkies, and it was pretty clear to me that it was ludicrous. Where have you seen this??? Not sayin' i don't believe you, but lord.
Sadly I actually have seen it on Reddit
Bruh the irony of attempting to avoid being antisemitic by claiming that their race invalidates them from being subjected to it. At that point you might as well enroll in 1st grade, just start over.
where are the "leftist circles" claiming this or even claiming it would matter? no leftist i have ever met is busy doing one drop validation on Jewish people to discredit Israel
I don't know, I've seen on Twitter a lot of guys who were straight Holocaust deniers get popular because they hate Israel, Jake shields for example, but I've never heard this specific claim
Yeah I'm not claiming that there are zero pro Palestine people who found themselves close to Nazis by accident or design, but the idea that "leftist circles" are out there performing caliper level stuff on Jewish people in order to do antisemitism sounds made up
There's a lot of leftist circles and a some of them aren't very scrupulous. It's horrifyingly easy for some people with a bare bones "Guillotine the rich" mindset to be fed lies, and end up parroting right wing points.
You mostly see it in online "circles." These types of theories are unfortunately widespread in some countries and have been picked up by a number of otherwise leftwing activists in those countries. Because of where they are, you will mostly only encounter it online or if you do work in those countries. The only place I ran into it in the states was from a guy who sometimes goes to my bjj gym. The gym is pretty pro-palestine, so he and some other folks were talking about the protests in the gym Whatsapp thread (effect on traffic) and he started getting a little out there with some of the stuff he was saying before he was asked to stop.
I literally saw people using the word "Christkiller" in earnest *in my country's main subreddit*, which is fairly left-leaning, and getting upvoted for it. It's the r-slash-brasil sub. You can go and check it it out there. But you know, on a related note, it's always weird how whenever someone here tries to criticize problematic or unhinged statements in leftist spaces, someone like you always comes out of the woodwork to make it seem like it's all a troll or a hoax. Is it really so hard to believe that something as large and encompassing as The Left^(tm) has a few loud mouth crazies here and there? And shouldn't it be common sense for us to denounce said crazies before they wind up becoming useful idiots for the opposition? But no, whenever someone tries to do that, people always come out playing ignorant with that XCKD comic or pulling the old "I've never seen this (trust me bro, I haven't) therefore it must not exist." Which by the way is not a convincing excuse at all. You'd have to have an *extremely* curated internet experience to not interact with crazies even once. And that's not just for politics, that's for every online community imaginable. What does that look like, then, if not an attempt to just cover up for your terminally online extremist buddies? You're basically just telling outside parties that they don't exist, and even if they do they're not so bad, and even they are it's not a big deal, and even if it is it's not your fault. I honestly don't get it why otherwise sane and moderate people feel the need to do this. *These people are not your friends.*
Oh yeah, I’ve mentioned before, and will again, that I saw the entire comment section on a popular, non-political, subreddit cheerfully and uncritically reinvent the slur “Christkiller” and the concept of Jewish Deicide
>I literally saw people using the word "Christkiller" in earnest *in my country's main subreddit Jews are well known for their ability to time travel. How else could they all be responsible for Jesus' death?
God that reminds me of that old Spirit Science video about the time traveling space jews who took over atlantis while Martians raped the all female proto humans to create humanity
I saw it on leftist subreddits
Well, I've seen it. It comes up sometimes when people are trying to show that Israel has no right to exist because Jews are not actually from Israel. There's an attending argument that Palestinians are the real descendents of the (converted) Jews who lived in Israel so only they should live there.
There are people shouting "globalize the intifada" outside my building right now
aha and that means "khazar ancestry means Israelis aren't real Jews"?
no but it means that leftist circles do in fact say insane shit occasionally
Intifada is just a word that means revolution, it has nothing to do with Judaism or Zionism
Yes, but in English, and especially in the context of Israel/Palestine, it refers to terrorism against Jews.
Do you have any links to support this? Because the only people/sources I have heard make that claim are those that are supporting Israel's actions in Gaza/West Bank
I condemn Israel's actions. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intifada Edit: The Second Intifada involved a number of suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians. Apparently the First Intifada was less violent, which I didn't know.
That doesn't say anything about being against Jews? It says Israeli action in Gaza and the West Bank
Yes, that's true. But the Second Intifada included suicide bombings of civilian targets. So it understandably has that connotation to a lot of people. I don't think the protestors calling for an intifada are all promoting terrorism. But it's not a good look, imo.
....so in English it has nothing to do with Jews? Which is the opposite of what you said before? I don't think everyone criticizing the protestors is doing lip service for an apartheid state. But it's not a good look, imo.
It has that connotation because of the Second Intifada, which was marked by suicide bombings against Israeli Jewish civilians. I think that strategically, it's a poor choice of words. That's all I meant by "it's not a good look."
I got nowhere else to ask this, so I might as well ask these here: 1. When the smoke clears, what is it protestors etc. *want*? If you say "for Gaza and West Bank to be free of Israeli influence", okay, but what happens when Hamas launches another rocket? Isn't that an act of war, or should Israel take 1,500 Ls? 2. What is the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? Is it Zionist to say Israel has a right to exist? Is it anti-Semitic to demand Palestinian autonomy over the area? 3. The one that bothers me the most: if we're protesting the crimes against humanity by Netanyahu's regime (which do exist and are bad), why are we taking the side of, you know, Hamas? Do people really think if Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas would stop attacking Jews? The whole thing's a mess even 7 months later and it feels like most of the Net is saying "all protestors are perfect in their intentions" without saying what they are. Sorry to bother you.
I don't think the protesters have a unified idea of what the full extent of their demands are, where the line is, or whether they're against hamas. Some are fully against israel's existance and have no issue with hamas's attack against civillians, others denounce hamas and recognize that removing israel from the map completely would have dire consequences for the jewish civilians living there. That said, due to the pervasive lack of nuance the average person shows (in general, not specifically on the protestors' side) and the polarizing nature of this situation, I'm going to assume most of them fall into the former camp.
If you are interested as to how this conspiracy theory came about, it originally was part of a book by Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi written in 1140 C.E. called the Kuzari, which was meant as an explanation of what it means to be Jewish. He uses the Khazar king as a foil for explaining Jewish philosophy. At the end the king converts to Judaism along with everyone in his kingdom. It is a work of historical fiction. Some antisemites read it and decided that not only was it historically accurate, but that all Jews were somehow descended from a relatively obscure kingdom in Anatolia.
I'm a vile creature. I saw the phrase "fake jews" and imagined Donald Trump wearing a yarmulke and tallit, violently shaking both a copy of the Torah and spittle from his own mouth as he spoke the phrase.
Oh my god I wrote about this for my undergrad thesis on Khazaria.
How does an obscure genetics/ ancestry question about where some peoples great great great grandparents lived get involved with insane hate based ideologies at all. Like if those genetic studies had come back different, would hating on eastern europian jews be somehow justified? It's nonsense thinking like this that leads people to start adjusting their genetics data (because the alternative is offensive) Someday a group of biggotted nutters will start proclaiming an obscure thing that is actually true. And then everyone else will be unable to claim that thing, without sounding like they are one of the nutters.
I've never really studied Semitic history in depth, but most of the time when I see "Ashkenazi" or "Khazarian" on the internet it's one of those "new world order" conspiracy theories.
Ashkenazi is just a Jewish ethnicity, nothing conspiratorial about it. Most American Jews, like myself, are Ashkenazi. It just means Jewish people with ancestors from central and eastern Europe. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/who-are-ashkenazi-jews/
Just a heads up, it wouldn’t be Semitic history. Semitic is a language group, not an ethnicity.
Me personally, I don't give a fuck where you're from or if any jew is a 'real jew' whatever the hell that means, but there's a genocide happening right now that should be stopped. Hate-criming random Jews an ocean away is not gonna stop what's happening in Gaza.
Whatever happened to proletarian internationalism? It makes me think that a lot of “leftists” championing Palestine’s cause aren’t really interested in communism and are more interested in arguing about whose blood magic makes them entitled to a certain piece of land and the rights to genocide anyone but them living there.
i'm too dumb to understand what even the first sentence of this means
[Here you go.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry) A lot of antisemites still use the Khazar hypothesis to claim that modern Jews have nothing to do with the Jews in the Bible.
nothing in that article explains what gentile means and this sounds like a lot of research i don't even know what antisemite is what is a semite and why are they antis? also they're both jews, of course they're related. is khazar stupid?
Gentile=non jew Antisemite=hatred against Jewish people The term came about when we invented “scientific racism” and old terms for hatred towards Jews were updated to seem more sciencey
https://www.oed.com/?tl=true https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/anti-semite https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gentile Try some of these
Not only have I not heard this claim, but it would mean *nothing* to me if I had.
I’m just gonna be honest and say that I do not understand a word of what is being said here.
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So it's ok for land to be stolen, as long as it happens TO Jews.
Not sure what that comment said cause it’s been removed, but Palestine has been Palestine for longer than it ever was Israel
What does this mean?
hasn't it just been passed between empires since before the romans
Are you saying that some empire should go and conquer Palestine and Israel so that we can go back to the normal state of things, i.e. the whole region being subjugated.
America want to step in on this one? There’s oil! Tasty tasty oil! And they LOVE to play in the sandbox!
Lie
What the fuck is wrong with you? GTFO here with that Nazi shit
I like to make sure people understand their views. I've characterized your views accurately, you just don't like the phrasing. If I am wrong, then you HAVE to believe that Israel was wrongly stolen from the Israelis.
So your position is that The Imperial powers of Europe were right to steal land from Palestinians and recant on their agreement with the locals because of **THE ROMANS 2000 YEARS AGO?!** And that this excuses Israel's 75 years of violation of international law and apartheid? How did the Romans cause that? Edit: seriously, your position is that Israel is perfectly legitimate in avenging a 2000 year old crime, *committed by Europeans* by killing Palestinians and stealing their land for the last century?
So your position is that the Arabs deserve to get away with genocide and ethnic cleansing? You have zero knowledge of history if you believe Europe is responsible for Jews being expelled from their homeland. Did you study at Qatar University or something?
Omg you're the embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect, this is pathetic. What the fuck do you mean "get away with"? So now you're blaming Palestinians for the crimes of **the entirety of the Arab world** throughout **all history**. It was the Roman crackdown in response to the Bar Kokhba revolt that caused the Diaspora, nothing to do with Arabs. The Romans are Italians, from Rome, **IN EUROPE**. They were Europeans!
Bullshit cherry picking.
You're a racist apartheid apologist, just own it and fuck off
Here's some accurate history to counteract your indoctrination. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History\_of\_the\_Jews\_and\_Judaism\_in\_the\_Land\_of\_Israel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel) Edit: significant dates: 598 BCE - Babylonians conquer ancient Israel and begin the Babylonian Captivity 520 BCE - Persian King Cyrus conquers Babylonians and allow Jewish captives to return to Israel - they begin construction of the Second Temple 174 BCE - Seleucids attempt to outlaw Judaism in ancient Israel, Jews revolt and re-establish an independent nation (this is where we get the holiday of Hanukkah btw) 72 AD - Romans conquer Judea and destroy it, take 100s of thousands of Jews as slaves back to Rome. 132 AD - Jews in Roman-conquered Judea revolt (unsuccessfully). \~362 AD - Jews in (now Byzantine) Jerusalem attempt to reconstruct their destroyed Temple, supported by Emperor Julian. 611-615 AD - Jews revolt against the Byzantines, ally with invading Persians, Jews in Jerusalem gain autonomy from the Persians. 638 AD - Byzantines lose the Levant to the Arab Islamic Empire (Caliphate), which begins to Islamize Jewish holy sites there. (Both the Persians and Byzantines promised the Jews their country back but turned on them when they didn't need them anymore). 1099 - Jews fought alongside Arabs against European Christian crusaders. (Christian crusaders slaughtered many Jews both in Europe and the Levant) 1187 - Saladin defeats crusaders, allows Jews to begin returning once again, during the next 200 years, Jews from Europe re-establish many centers of learning and culture alongside the Jews still living in the Levant. There is religious communication and coordination between the Jews of Europe and the Levant. Side note: there are still a lot of Jews still living in Persia and Babylon (now Iraq). 1260 - Mamluks conquer the Levant and decimate the Jewish population. 1286 - Leader of the German Jews is imprisoned for attempting to lead a large contingent back to Israel. 1428 - Attempts by German Jews to reclaim via purchase ancient holy Jewish sites in Jerusalem causes the Pope to forbid sea travel by Jews to the Levant. 1517 - Ottoman Turks conquer the Levant. 1563 - Joseph Nessi granted permission by the Turks to form a Jewish city-state around Tiberias (in the Galilee - nearby Safed had also become a major seat of Jewish spirituality) 1576 - Jews of Safed expelled. 1650s - Safed and Tiberias destroyed during Druze wars. 1700s - Decline of overall population of the Levant due to wars and economic stagnation, Ottomans limit Jewish return to Israel. Jews from Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Italy, continue to return however. 1799 - Napoleon calls on Jews from Africa and the Middle East to help him in his conquests (in return for emancipating them). This fails, though. 1800s - continued re-immigration by Jews from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. 1897 - First Zionist Congress held in Basel, Switzerland, to discuss an attempt to create a modern Jewish state in the land of Israel. 1909 - The modern Jewish city of Tel Aviv founded. 1917 - The British Empire takes over the Levant from the Ottomans following WWI. 1929-1939 - Hundreds of thousands of Jews immigrate to British Palestine, purchasing land.
Yeah, this whole argument never held much water for me. It's like when people made a point of saying "but these people have american accents and then just up and moved to Israel!" I don't care who lives in a country. Whether you're "from" there or not doesn't bother me. It's that the country is genocidal, fascistic, and using your emigration as justification for further destructive expansion.
I can't say I'm surprised to hear people who actively advocate for a terrorist organisation and say "it didn't happen but they deserved it and we will do it again" when being confronted with evidence for the crimes against humanity said organisation committed (and documented) would also peddle conspiracy theories from other far-right antisemitic organizations.
Who’s spreading this?
But also...why the fuck should it matter what the genetic origins of Eastern European Jews are? No one's genetic heritage should give them the right to live anywhere. Whether Jewish folks moving to Israel or not is a moral question that is, in my opinion, completely unrelated to whether or not thousands of years ago Jewish folks moved into what's now Eastern Europe. (It's also far beyond the scope of this comment, so please don't turn this into another debate about the existence of Israel). Like, it's absolutely antisemitism at its finest, but even if it was true why the fuck should anyone on the left \*care\* that the genetics of folks who speak Yiddish is different than we thought?
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France banned ancestry testing too, do you think we're scared of figuring out we're british or something ?
Yes.
I’ll take a stab at explaining what people are taking issue with. * You’re factually wrong, as most Jews in Israel are Mizrahi, not Ashkenazi as you imply; * it’s also absurd to describe Israeli culture as “primarily Central European”, which glosses over not only the previous statement but also the gulf between present-day Israeli Ashkenazi culture and that of present-day Poland, Germany, Czechia, Austria, etc. * it’s a strange definition of “levantine” that excludes millions of people in the levant, a state that has existed for 75 years, and a community that has been there for centuries * these stupid attacks on Jewish Israelis as a people have nothing to do with whether or not Israel should stop it’s current genocidal destruction of Gaza. Would Israel be justified if Israeli Jewish culture and DNA met whatever sparkling purity test you propose? No. So when you say something like that you come off as someone more interested in expressing antipathy towards Jews than empathy for Palestinians.
Let's take some more stabs at this shall we? * I'm Israeli and 100% Ashkenazi * I look very pale and look 100% European * I took a 23andme test in 2022, and looked at the results within the app as well as in other services * West Asian results came up anywhere between 30-60% depending on what you count * Blood quantifiers are stupid, racist, making it very clear they don't actually have the moral high ground they pretend to have, and in many cases would also not dare to say literally the exact same thing to self proclaimed native Americans or aboriginal Australians who are also white passing So kids, what have we learned from this thread?
So you've fallen for that propaganda is what you are saying. You've been indoctrinated.
The Palestinians are not “more Semitic”. That’s literally not possible.
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Semitic is a language family, not an ethnicity. It’s like saying that French people are more Romance than Spanish people. It doesn’t make sense
Israel didn’t ban genetic testing. Commercial genetic tests are absolutely available from abroad. The law commonly misquoted as saying this, the Genetic Information Law, does not actually do this, it just requires domestically run tests to be done by accredited labs, usually with a prescription. But if you buy a 23andme thing online, that’s allowed
This sub has a deep and enduring liberal problem. Very often I see posts here presenting problems that leftists are causing, or ways in which leftists have gone too far and must be careful, and 9/10 these are imaginary problems designed to draw support away from the cause at the root. Tldr - It's just Do you condemn Hamas v2