The Troubled History of Jews

Jang # 45

There were estimated 20,000 Jews in India in 1948. Most of them have migrated to Israel with now estimated population at 5000. These are called Bene Israel Jews.

Please read the details available at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bene_Israel

Some basic informatrion is as folllows:

``The Bene Israel (``Sons of Israel``) are a group of Jews who, in the mid-twentieth century, lived primarily in Bombay, Kolkata, Delhi and Ahmadabad. The native language of the Bene Israel is Marathi, while the Cochin Jews of southern India speak Malayalam.``

Total population: 65,000 (est.)
Significant populations in: Israel 60,000 (est.)
Bombay area 4000 (est.)
Kolkata < 200 (est.)
Delhi < 200 (est.)
Ahmadabad < 200 (est.)
Other English-speaking countries 2,000 (est.)

nhk

Strongspirit # 43

For Ashkenazi Jews, please read in detail at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazim

``Ashkenazi Jews or Ashkenazic Jews, also called Ashkenazim , are Jews who are descendants of Jews from Germany, Poland, Austria and Eastern Europe. In historical times, Ashkenazi Jews usually spoke Yiddish or Slavic languages such as (now extinct) Knaanic.

Since the 19th century, many of them have emigrated to other countries such as France, the United States and, recently, Israel.``

nhk

Rsridhar # 47

(Sarah, Abraham`s wife begot Isaac, whose descendents are jews.
Ishmael, whom Abraham begot thr` Haagar (the Egyptian maidservant), was the first among the tribe of Islam)

(How come then the Jews became such achievers, so much so that despite forming less than 1% of total population on earth,)

You are absolutely correct. Ishmael can be said to be the ancestor of Arab Muslims & Isaac of the Arab Jews. Both were sons of Abraham.

However, in general terms, now the Muslims are from different ethnicities worldwide. And different cultures.

The Jews are good achievers because they have had a strong scholarly culture - they have also inherited a good business acumen just like their fellow Arabs. And being always a minority, they have had a strong sense of community support. Similarly, having a worldwide diospora, due to exiles & persecutions, they always have had worldwide contacts - something that contributed to their success in business.

nhk

NHK,
I agree that Jews have proven themselves to be an enterprising group. However, they also appear to be one of the most exclusivist groups of people. As far as I know, non-Jews can not convert to Judaism! Is that true?

Even though you claim Judaism to be non-predatory, some of the sections of Old testament are disturbing to read. In several places it mentions massacre of opposing non-jew tribes.

Basic premise of Judaism is that god created (or chose) them as special people and rest of the people were somehow ``non-special`` in some sense.
That belief got inherited by Christians and Muslims too..

Somehow, current followers of Judaism make me uncomfortable. Many of them think themselves to be a super race..

Blasphemer,

The whole world can believe whatever it wants...it will anyway.

Insofar as genocide is concerned, that`s exactly what the pagan Arabs and some Jewish tribes had in mind for the Muslims: a complete extermination.

some links about jews in india, where they were not hated or persecuted.

several seem to hang around in mumbai and adjoining konkan area, they speak marathi, the local language, and play cricket, but have strange names like ezikel and ralph, but last names ending in kar. now, there are pawwala (catholic) ralphs, but they speak some kind of english and a smattering of konkani (catholics of mumbai have a habit of saying man after every word, similar to the jamaican mon). apparently these guys, even after immigrating to israel continue to play cricket, bridge and carrom, and stage ghati plays (BTW cricket, bridge, carrom and plays defines ghatis for the uninformed.).



http://www.bh.org.il/Communities/Archive/BeneIsrael.asp
http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/11spec.htm
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/indians.html

re: this article
An interesting article. A quick synopse of Jewish history.
What Nazar Sahib failed to mention (and correct me if i am wrong) was that muslims and jews are in a historical sense, cousins.
Sarah, Abraham`s wife begot Isaac, whose descendents are jews.
Ishmael, whom Abraham begot thr` Haagar (the Egyptian maidservant), was the first among the tribe of Islam.
http://www.jesuscult.com/Genealogy.htm
How come then the Jews became such achievers, so much so that despite forming less than 1% of total population on earth, they have produced 18% of Nobel Laureates (of course, comparison to Hindus is even more stark; more than 1 bilion Hindus have hardly produced a handful of Nobel Laureates).
Is it Genes? Is it their religion that places such high premium on achievements? One wonders.
A list of Nobel Laureates of Jewish descent can be read at this website:
http://www.afterbug.com/jewish_hall_of_fame.html
The most famous of scientist, Albert Einstein, was a jew. I did not know Henry Kissinger is a jew. That was news to me. Boris Pasternak, the famous author of War and Peace, was also a jew.

Nazar Sahib said:
``Historically, whichever society had welcomed the Jews to live in peace with it, it had gained not only in terms of scholarship and knowledge but also in terms of commerce, trade and wealth creation. So could the Middle East.``
Wise words.
USA benefitted immensely from the Jewish exodus from Europe during the second World war and Hitler`s contemptuous referral of Science in those days as ``Jewish science``. In a race to make an atom bomb (later came to be called ``The Manhatten Project``), Jews played an important role.
It is now well known that during April of 1933, Adolf Hitler passed the first anti-Jewish law that stripped ``non-Aryan`` scientists of their post,causing over 100 physicist to flee Germany. Szilard was one of these scientist who relocated to England. In 1938, Szilard came to the United States and learned about the discovery of fission. Since he was not well known in the United States, he seeked the help and the fame of Albert Einstein. Together, they wrote a letter to President Roosevelt and asked for research money in order to study fission. On December 2, 1942, Szilard and Enrico Fermi achieved the first controlled chain reactor at the University of Chicago. The Manhattan Project was started soon after that.
Albert Einstein (himself a Jew) played an important part in all this. He helped the United States to begin the same type of research of uranium and fission that was occurring in Germany. It was not until the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, December 6, 1941, that substantial funds were allocated to the research. These funds allowed Enrico Fermi (another scientist who migrated to US from Italy) to achieve the first controllable chain reaction. Einstein was never officially part of the Manhattan Project, but he was one of the scientists responsible for getting it started.
Jewish diaspora`s contribution to wealth in USA is legendary. And a tiny country like Israel today has more technology than India.
Sridhar

re:#34 by wahi
``Author contends ``Since the 14th century, the Muslim societies have been in a steady decline by virtue of their regressive and non-progressive nature;``. I am totally unclear as to how author came up with 14th century date. By 1707 Aurangzeb had set up the largest mughal empire in India. Turkish empire reached its zenith in mid 16th century during the time of Suleiman.``
Muslims seem to consider tyrants as heroes. Aurangzeb was a tyrant. He may have inherited a large kingdom from his father but he spent most of his life destroying art, architecture and left a legacy of hate. He killed his own brother Dara Shikoh, who was an intellectual and had translated Upanishad into Persian.
Your are entitled to your opinion but Aurangzeb does not hold a candle to Akbar or Ashoka.
Sridhar

Nazar,

There`s a theory that most Ashkenazic (European) Jews are not descendants of the original diaspora, but of the Khazars, a Turkic people who ruled southern Russia, and converted to Judaism. Any thoughts on that?

Vertex

It was you that invoked the word genocide, not me.

The whole world can draw conclusions about how peaceful a religion is that was founded on, and sanctifies, such a blood bath. The template was set, and it has been carried forth.

But it was a kind of genocide, for sure.

Wahi-to # 35

(``Since the 14th century, the Muslim societies have been in a steady decline by virtue of their regressive and non-progressive nature;``. I am totally unclear as to how author came up with 14th century date. By 1707 Aurangzeb had set up the largest mughal empire in India. Turkish empire reached its zenith in mid 16th century during the time of Suleiman)

In my opinion, 14 century is some kind of a watershed in the history. The Christian Europe had just begun to rise out of its Dark Ages & the the Muslim world had just begun its long journey into the Darkness that continues till today. With no Ijtahad, Islam had become static and the Muslims yearning for knowledge took a back seat.

Big Empires like the Aurangzeb do not necessarily mean dynamic societies - eventually all the Muslim empires missed out on the industrial revolution.

It is just an opinion. You are welcome to differ.

Please go through the following links and analyse the issue:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslims#Muslim_civilization

nhk

Blasphemer,

``Well, the fact that the Muslims actually carried out the genocide of those Jewish tribes, not the other way round, tells us who was really hunky and who was really dory ;-)``

har har...and the fact that the Muslims expelled and did not kill most Jews (except those of two tribes who were in open conspiracy against the Muslims, and even then it was the fighting men who were executed). So yes, it does tell us who rally was hunky and who was dory...har har...

Genocide would imply that Muslims were out to kill all Jews. Fact is, it was all about tribal alliances, and those tribes that gambled and lost, well...lost.

Various

For all that you ever wanted to know about the Judaism`s holy sciptures - Tanakh, Mishna, Talmud etc, please read the following and its further links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah

nhk

tintingem # 28

(And that is what led to the rise of the Jewish community and was one of the reasons of the downfall of Muslim rule in Spain. )

I have not found any evidence of that. Please go through the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Spain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Spain

nhk

Various

The purpose of this article was not to prove any faith right - All faiths are good for their followers. Similarly, the Judaism & its history, its interaction with Greeks, Romans and then Europian Christianity and Middle Eastern Islam had to be only touched upon. Many issues getting just a one line space. It all had to be encapsulated in 2000 words.

A para that I deleted was very interesting. I could not help comparing some of the benign similarities of Judaism with another great philosophy Sanatana Dharma taking shape 3000 miles East about 4000 years ago. In essance, both have been non-predatory and knowledge-based meta-physical philosophies.

The similarities are as follows:

Both have had a strong scholarly tradition.
Both were not into preaching others & spreading the belief. (Jews are less than 13 million. The Dharma followers stayed within their geographical origin)
The Jews do not call others Heretics - Dharma believes that all paths lead to same destination.
Worship is non-obligatory in both Judaism & Dharma.
Dharma`s philosophy is to search for that One Brahman (Ultimate Reality) - Judaism believes in One God who should be questioned in search of the Truth.
Both have a strong cultural base.
Both considered themselves as a way of life.


nhk

One possible reason the Jews were not a very popular people was their fiercely independent streak which constantly led them into conflict ( often divinely reinforced) - with the Egyptians, the philistines ( not to be confused with the palestinians), the assyrians, the Babylonians, The Persians ( the story of ruth), and later on with the Greeks ( alexander brutally supressed them) and with the Romans who finally dispersed them often forcibly as slaves.....

The Jewish people always had a very strong intellectual tradition ( something the Muslims need to emulate ) and that combined with a propensity to trade and be involved in monetary flows and transaction - concentrated wealth and power in their hands in a far greater proportion to their population . This combined with a strong preservation instinct to preserve their distinct cultural, linguistic and religious identity often set them apart from the native population.....

The Jewish population has always been very strong in terms of monetary lending and finance ( a strong propensity to save) - and were the informal bankers and money lenders from posterity - Consequently they were relatively affluent - which the general population associated with ``usury`` and stories of Jesus trying to get rid of the money lenders`s in the Temple, medieval shakepearean plays about shylock, the prophet`s ban on ``usury in Medina... , and the strong influence of the rothschilds and other Jewish bankers in the european economy - often made them unpopular ....... The Pathans association with moneylending in the subcontinent has also been used as a link as one of the lost jewish tribes - holds little water since the pathans are a non-semitic people unlike the jewish people......

just some thoughts.......