Erdogan; Zionism is a " crime against humanity "

Abject nonsense, A) modern day Jews are the descendents of the original inhabitants of the Levant IE the Canaanites and later the Israelites, and B) the term Jew stems from Yehudi and can be found on coins long pre-dating the birth of Jesus and came from the people living within the land of Judah the Southern Kingdom and successor state to the United Kingdom which fell to the Assyrians, the peoples of both the Northern and Southern Kingdom were Israelites not Edomites.


The prevailing opinion today is that the Israelites, who eventually evolved into modern Jews and Samaritans, are an outgrowth of the indigenous Canaanites who had resided in the area since the 8th millennium BCE.[8] The name Israel first appears c. 1209 BCE, at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the very beginning of the period archaeologists and historians call Iron Age I, in an inscription of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah. The inscription is very brief and says simply: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not". The hieroglyph accompanying the name "Israel" indicates that it refers to a people, most probably located in the highlands of Samaria.[9] Over the next two hundred years (the period of Iron Age I) the number of highland villages increased from 25 to over 300[10] and the settled population doubled to 40,000.[11] There is general agreement that the majority of the population living in these villages was of Canaanite origin.[10] By the 10th century BCE a rudimentary state had emerged in the north-central highlands,[12] and in the 9th century this became a kingdom. The kingdom was sometimes called Israel by its neighbours, but more frequently it was known as the "House (or Land) of Omri."[13] Settlement in the southern highlands was minimal from the 12th through the 10th centuries BCE, but a state began to emerge there in the 9th century,[14] and from 850 BCE onwards a series of inscriptions are evidence of a kingdom which its neighbours refer to as the "House of David."[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelites#Historical_Israelites


^ Tubb, Johnathon (1998 ). Canaanites University of Oklahoma Press, http://books.google.com/books/about/Canaanites.html?id=GH-n4ctvlDYC

McNutt, Paula (1999). Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22265-9. http://books.google.com.au/books?id...srael++By+Paula+M.+McNutt#v=onepage&q&f=false

Grabbe, Lester L., ed. (2008 ). Israel in Transition: From Late Bronze II to Iron IIa (c. 1250–850 B.C.E.). T&T Clark International. ISBN 978-0-567-02726-9. http://books.google.com.au/books?id...+IIa+(c.+1250-850+B.C.E.)#v=onepage&q&f=false

Joffe, Alexander H. (2006). The Rise of Secondary States in the Iron Age Levant. University of Arizona Press. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...&sig=AHIEtbSIm7oZkrq-cmEGQ9VcnnvfejrQSQ&pli=1

Davies, Philip R. (1992). In Search of Ancient Israel. Sheffield. ISBN 978-1-85075-737-5. http://books.google.com.au/books?id...+search+of+Ancient+Israel#v=onepage&q&f=false


The Jewish ethnonym in Hebrew is יהודים Yehudim (plural of יהודי Yehudi) which is the origin of the English word Jew. The Hebrew name is derived from the region name Judah (Yehudah יהוד&#1492.

Originally the name referred to the territory allotted to the tribe descended from Judah the fourth son of the patriarch Jacob (Numbers). Judah was one of the twelve sons of Jacob and one of the Twelve tribes of Israel (Genesis). Genesis 29:35 [1] relates that Judah's mother — the matriarch Leah — named him Yehudah (i.e. "Judah") because she wanted to "praise God" for giving birth to so many sons: "She said, 'This time let me praise (odeh אוד&#1492 God (יהו&#1492,' and named the child Judah (Yehudah יהוד&#1492", thus combining "praise" and "God" into one new name.[citation needed] Thereafter Judah vouchsafes the Jewish monarchy, and the Israelite kings David and Solomon derive their lineage from Judah. In Hebrew, the name "Judah" (י ה ו [ד] &#1492 contains the four letters of the Tetragrammaton — the special, holy, and ineffable name of the Jewish God. The very holiness of the name of Judah attests to its importance as an alternate name for "Israelites" that it ultimately replaces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew_(word)

 

A) I proved that some of your source was outright lies and the actual legislation did not say what your source said it said.

B) Half of your source doesn't even apply to Arab-Israelis but rather exclusively to non-Israeli Arabs.

C) The other half tries to claim discrimination where none exists; such as, not publicly financing organizations which call for the destruction of Israel and call the formation of Israel a catastrophe or another laughable one was not mandating forced conscription for Arabs. Truly discriminatory that, meh meh,

 

In your head. Discrimination against Israel's Palestinian citizens is institutionalised.

 

It was a territorial mandate not a state or a kingdom, the only independent and sovereign state/Kingdom to ever exist where modern day Israel now stands was the Jewish states of the Israelites IE Israel and Judah.

Palestine was not named as such until well after Egyptian control over that area of the Levant after the Romans expelled the Jews after destroying the temple and renaming the lands after the Jews hated enemies the Philistines.

The Israelites are the descendents of the Canaanites and Jerusalem was not yet an established city during this time period:

Also unknown is whether he was part of a dynasty that governed Jerusalem or whether he was put on the throne by the Egyptians. Abdi-Heba himself notes that he holds his position not through his parental lineage but by the grace of Pharaoh, but this might be flattery rather than an accurate representation of the situation. At this time the area he administered from his garrison may have had a population of fifteen hundred people and Jerusalem would have been a 'small highlands stronghold' in the fourteenth century BCE with no fortifications or large buildings.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdi-Hiba

"Palestine" is an invention of the Romans made as an insult to the Jews whom they expelled from their ancestral lands.

The status quo remains and Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel.

The lands of Canaan ceased to be a client of Egypt by this time.

And by this you mean historical fact.

Absolute abject nonsense, the Arabs are of the Arabian Peninsula, the original Egyptians, Canaanites, Syrians, Israelites et al were not Arabs who did not make their way into the region until after the death of Mohammad and the Islamic Arab conquests of the Caliphates.

It is not even known whether or not Abdi-Heba was put on the thrown by the Egyptians or if he was a local Chieftain of Canaanite lineage who swore fidelity to the Egyptians.

I'm not denying that the Hebrews would have been influenced by surrounding communities, I know that the bible is a fictional narrative but the genetic testing proves that the Jews of today are the descendents of the Canaanites and later the Israelites who are simply Canaanites who adopted monotheism.

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Abject nonsense, I debunked your ridiculous article not once but on three separate occasions, keep telling me how not paying for organization which call for the destruction of Israel with Israeli taxpayer dollars is discrimination against Arab-Israelis, it gets funnier everytime I hear it.

 

As will be the nation of Palestine if and when it ever occurs.

 

at least we both know, israel did not exist as a country prior to 48'

and it is still palestinian 'land'

canaan was palestinian lands

palestine was palestine before judaism existed and referenced in amarna

i find a contradiction

Tell el-Amarna Letters

The Amarna letters provide an excellent example of the manner in which archaeological discoveries enrich our understanding of certain things in the Bible. The letters consist of a number of baked-clay tablets written about 1350 B.C. A tell is an artificial mound accumulated through centuries of building, destruction, and rebuilding, in which layers of archaeological items are found. Amarna was a city up the Nile in Upper Egypt, where Pharaoh Akhenaton was headquartered. The letters are a correspondence from feudal-type city governors in Palestine, asking the Pharaoh at Amarna for military support against invaders. Hence the name “Tell el-Amarna Letters.” The letters give good insight into the state of Palestine about a century before the Israelites came into it. In particular they tell of the walled cities of Palestine and of certain invaders (not the Israelites) who were coming into the land.

The letters confirm the report of the spies in Num. 13:28 who were sent into Canaan by Moses to gather intelligence about the land (see Num. 13). The report specifically mentions the walled cities of Palestine, which subject is elaborated upon in the Amarna letters. The letters were discovered in 1887 by a peasant woman. They are now in the British Museum in London

Sorry, Palestine was in effect over 1000 yrs before that romans

and it's documented in 'stone'

your rendering tailmudd or even from the torazz

that's against law that made israel even become a state.

So either you want israel without 'the hill' (tel megiddo - jerusalem is the 'gate of god' (babilu-babylon), or be wiped off the map.

ie... that dire pursuit of zionist, is what destroys them

sorry, i am showing you archeological evidence, that is earlier than what you have been told.

Does it hurt to find out that you're wrong?

that monotheism, is egyptian. The commandments, circumcision, kosher eating, temple, alter, holy of holies, ark and even the quest itself for 'sion' is all EGYPTIAN foundations.


Does it bug you to learn, that you have been hating your own brethren, the whole time?
and why do you bring up muslims? Dirt kissing is for morons as much as head banging on a wall, with curlers in your hair.

ie... them head bangers are hoping to one day, be able to build a temple, upon the very site that is the dome of the rock. To rebuild an alter, sacrafice lambs, and store the 'scrolls' of torah in the holy of holies (which is now under muslim control)...... all in hopes for some messiah to show up.

Why is that?

what do you think that messiah is going to do when he sees the bigots are head banging for him?

what the ffff(*)(*)(*)(*) do people expect to happen?

and why do you care, you dont believe in judaism as i see it?

 

Philistia ( Palestine) , existed , before , the Hebrews/Habiru/Apiru - (supposed run away Egyptian slaves ) but in fact just marauding BANDITS, who invaded the land of Cannaan , carried out their "biblical " genocide/ethnic cleansing (For the love of their god)


However, are you one of those Zionists who believe that some diety / the god of the socalled "Jews" actually promised the land of Canaan to an Iraqi/Mesopotamian guy called Abram ?

.....

 

Read these words carefully again then re post please;

the nation of Palestine

Not territories, not area, not dream but nation.

 

The Palestinian nation already exists, of course, and is a recognised entity under international law. It consists of the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, the refugee diaspora and anywhere else in the world that Palestinians might currently dwell. Anybody contradicting that fact does so with a simian mindset- and a low grade one at that.

 

Unlike idiots, palestinians dont need an army, a flag or an identity of being accepted, to be happy. That FACT is one reason, that I like the side of the meak over the side of the bigots.

There is even a poster that does not believe that the soldiers of america can voice their opposition to a president of america that is about to go against america, just for pride.

That would mean, that hitlers soldiers are not responsible for holocaust.

 

That's just plain wrong, it may be true for the Latin side but you realize that Jews did not speak Latin but Hebrew and Hebrew is the language you should follow in regard for the origin of the word "Jew", it doest matter if Latin speakers called us "Ogibaba" that's just your name not ours...

The Hebrew word is "Yehudi" and that is mentioned in the Bible many times - if you want proof just ask there are many,

More than that in Arch finds such as "Sennacherib Prism" dated 689 BC, 700 years before Jesus, you will find:

"As for Hezekiah the Judahite, who did not submit to my yoke: .........."

Refering to King Hezekiah of the Judean kingdom.

http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/meso/sennprism3.html

You will never find a Latin word in the Hebrew Bible if that's what you are looking for....., the word is "Yehudi" and the Bible does refer to both "Yisrael" and "Yehuda/Yehudi", Yehuda being part of the Israelite nation - according to the Bible, after the destruction of the Israeli kingdom only Yehuda reamined and only the Yehudim are tracked throu history, Yehudim being part of the Israelites, the rest are lost hence the 10 lost tribes.

Much much before the 18th centuray, its in the Bible that Rabshakeh the Assyrian in "Yehudit" refering to Hebrew, that is the language of the native ppl

"And Rabshakeh stood and cried with great voice in Yehudit : Hear now the words of the great king of Assyria"

The marked word reads "Yehudit", regardless of when you think the Book was written, it was before King James time.

You've just been educated , the truth is the most powerful force there is and why anti-semites are always doomed.

 

Gilos , imo - if one is to understand anyone - the best place to start is at the beginning .

First of All - the subject if far more complex than your tutors have lead you to believe. AKI can tell although its related , Classical / Talmudic Hebrew was not the lingua franca of the indigenous/natives in the Land of Canaan .
There are several differing opinions/schools of thought. etc/,

" The Canaanite Language, also known as Phoenician is a branch of the West Semitic languages that include Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic and others. Where Hebrew and Aramaic are closely related to the Canaanite language in vocabulary and grammar, Arabic is a little further off from grammatical proximity, but still retains much common vocabulary. Canaanite was spoken in Lebanon for thousands of years, and most of its lexicon is retained within the Lebanese colloquial dialect.

READ MORE :http://www.canaanite.org/language/

What Language Did Abraham Speak?

Read here :
http://biblicalanthropology.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/what-language-did-abraham-speak.html

The Jebusites

"According to the Hebrew Bible, the Jebusites (Hebrew: יְבוּסִי, Modern Yevusi Tiberian Yəḇûsî ISO 259-3 Ybusi) were a Canaanite tribe who inhabited and built Jerusalem prior to its conquest by King David ( another mythical character )
-
The Hebrew Bible describes the Jebusites as dwelling in the mountains, besides Jerusalem. (Numbers 13:29, Joshua 11:3) According to the Book of Joshua, Adonizedek led a confederation of Jebusites, and the tribes from the neighbouring cities of Jarmut, Lachish, Eglon and Hebron against Joshua, (Joshua 10:1-3) but was soundly defeated, and killed. However, Joshua 15:63 states that Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem ("to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah").

Judges 1:21 portrays the Jebusites as continuing to dwell at Jerusalem, within the territory otherwise occupied by the Tribe of Judah and Tribe of Benjamin.

on the other hand :
Certain modern archaeologists now believe that the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites under Joshua simply didn't happen, and that the Israelites actually originated as a subculture in Canaanite society;[ some biblical scholars believe that the accounts in the Book of Joshua are cobbled together from folk memory of disconnected battles, with numerous different aggressors, which occurred over a time period of over 200 years.

see wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jebusite#Jebusites_named_in_the_Bible


Bible whether in Hebrew/ Greek/Latin or Irish , is a book of contradictions.
I prefer George Gershwin's description of that book .

:It ain't necessarily so
De t'ings dat yo' li'ble
Te read in de Bible,
It ain't necessarily so.

Li'l David was small, but oh my !
He fought Big Goliath
Who lay down an' dieth !
Li'l David was small, but oh my !

It ain't nece-ain't nece
Ain't nece-ain't nece
Ain't necessarily ... so

Wadoo.....

....



.......

 

do hebrews call each other 'jews'?

Ok, then 'semitic' is a language, not a people. Then there is rarely if any human beings against a language; anti semitic.

First, there is no israelite nation, except in theology. Religious belief does not make it 'right', period! Second, why are the 'lost tribes' not just mankind? Because mankind is not 'lost' as 'we the people' are here on the same earth as any 'who'.

So yehudit is now a 'hebrew' language and are native ppl????????????????????????????

So syria is the land of 'yisrael'? Assyria is assads homeland.

semitic is a language
who hates a language?

What people hate are the misleading lies of sobs!

 

Gilos , how do you think Rabshakeh would describe the present day group of people who describe themselves as Jews / (Yehudim- Yahoos " wotever ?

According to another school of thought :

"The Habiru (Hebrews)

"It was at this point in time that I discovered the Habiru. Even though I was a professional historian, I had never heard of them until I began to study Jewish history. A hot topic in the small world of “Biblical scholarship,” their existence had remained almost completely unknown to everyone else.

For 100 years, archaeologists had been unearthing clay tablets in the Middle East which made reference to a group of people variously described as “Habiru” or "Apiru” in the scholarly literature. Hundreds of such references were found, all dating from the 2nd millenium BCE. None of these clay tablets discussed the Habiru at length but rather made reference to them in passing in some larger context.

Sometimes the Habiru were described as mercenaries, other times as day labourers, yet other times as bandits.

The Biblical scholars were in general agreement that the reality behind these different descriptions was that of bands of armed men, most of them fugitives, who camped on the outskirts of the more settled areas and made a living as best they could- robbing /stealing from settled communities in the land of Canaan .

References to such Habiru bands were found in many different parts of the Middle East, making it clear that they did not constitute a tribe or nation but rather a social class, one that was generally viewed by the scribes who mentioned them with a mixture of fear and contempt.

 

hebrew aint a people. I couldnt understand why it looked so weird when I reread that question.

I made 2 mistakes. Hebrew aint the proper rendition of the 'adherent of judaism'; they are people.

So......... "do the adherents of judaism call each other 'jew'?

 

then neither are Arabs.

Israelite=Hebrew=Jew

 

HUH ?


While there are millions of people who identify themselves b and are internationally acknowledge as "Arabs"

I've not heard of any present day people describing themselves as "Heebrews".

I doubt whether any Israeli or diaspora "Jew" , (while acknowledge Hebrew as a language ) would choose to describe him/'herself as a "Hebrew"

Fer Fx . sake , go to Israel and see whether you can any f'ing Hebrew speaking idiot who'd claim to a "He-brew" .

Jews are not Israelites - for example Sammy + millions of other converts /mischlinge/quasi/pseudo /mamzer "Jews".

While one the other had you'd no doubt find millions of Arabic speaking people who' d without hesitation , describe themselves as Arabs.

Furthermore . not all English speaking people all over the world are English , or is that so hard for you to understand ?




....,

 

arab has many meanings. First is 'nomad' 'roaming', kind of exactly what bible claims of the per se tribes were. The other is the land, which is what palestine and israel sit on, technically. Kind of like Americans are oooosually born in American

If you believe the literature of the religions of the abrahamic sects.

The 'people' are just human beings and the labels are just man made dividers, based on ignorance. For example: only a moron would claim that a person is born 'jew' when judaism is a religion, not a people.

 

i myself have written these facts to him a number of times.

but some hold belief over what is real

 

what you fail to understand is that Judaism follows pre-Christian rules, where nationality and religion were the same.

each nation had its own God and own religion. when one joined the nation, they joined the religion.

when one converts to Judaism, by our rules they have joined our nation.

don't like it? no one really cares.

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how many Irish-Americans speak Gaelic?

and yet they still consider themselves Irish.

and by our rules, when Sammy converted to Judaism, he joined our nation and became an Israelite/Hebrew/Jew.

 

What you seem to overlook is that "Jews " are rarely in agreement with the nterpretations of whatever rules apply . It appears Haridim/Chassidic/Ultra-Orthodox /Reformed / + observant Sephardim/Mizrahim etc. + other denominations - have different rules + definitions of a Jew .

read this : "
Who's a Jew? Redefining Jewish Identity for the 21st Century

extract :

"The Jewish community does not have a unifying creed that can easily be signed onto, the way you can call yourself Christian by accepting Jesus as Savior. There's a Jewish movement that accepts the Torah as the exact word of God, and a Jewish movement that denies the existence of God; there are Jews for whom Zionism is their most important belief, and Jews who reject the establishment of the modern State of Israel as immoral. There is scant little we agree on, and we need to define ourselves to newcomers based on what we are, not what we're not. The Biblical Ruth had a simple credo as her "conversion" to Judaism: "Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God." The "people" in that phrase came before God for a reason. Would it be so bad for the Jews if we reverted back to that kind of conversion?

Or perhaps we can draw our credo from Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, who is quoted as having said, "I consider as Jewish anyone who is meshuge [crazy] enough to call themselves 'Jewish.'"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-golin/whos-a-jew-redefining-jew_b_682124.html

remember - the 2 Jews stranded/marooned on desert island , who built 3 synagogues ?

 

WRONG!!

all Jews agree that when you convert to Judaism, you and your children become Jews.

you join the Jewish nation.

 

Poppycok - First of all the conversion process have become a money making racket / a nice little earner /for Rabbi's lessons. I've heard of exorbitant hourly rates charged by Israeli Rabbis to naïve + gullible converts . i.e. especially lapse Christian women who happened to have married Jewish men .

Read this :

"Better a Jew,
by Nicky Blackburn, Haaretz (Israel) April 24, 2003

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=286180&contrassID
=3&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0

"For the growing minority of non-Jews living in Israel, a sense of
belonging can be impossible to achieve. Just recently, former MK Michael
Kleiner described non-Jewish immigrants to Israel as 'dirty water.' He
applied the metaphor to Russian immigrants, but his racist statement was
also aimed at me. The only difference is that I'm the dirty water that
slopped in from England, not Russia. Kleiner's comments are not unusual in
Israel. For years now I've been listening to politicians, public officials,
even ordinary people spilling out bile toward the non-Jewish citizens of
the country. Living in Israel as a gentile is not an easy experience. There
is always someone out there to remind you that not only do you not belong, but that in some way you are polluting the purity of the country.

During my early years in Israel, the first question people asked me was
whether or not I was Jewish. It was like an obsession. In taxicabs, at bus
stops, at interviews, at work, even in the supermarket, the question
followed me everywhere and anywhere. 'Are you Jewish?' I lied about it
twice. The first time to a taxi driver. He eyed me suspiciously and then
launched into a tirade about his brother who had married a goy and gone to live in America. 'It's people like him who are destroying the Jewish race,'
he told me angrily, his eyes locked on mine in the mirror.'"I cannot forgive him' ...

I met my Israeli husband in India in 1990. We lived in England for a few
years and then decided to move to Israel and get married. Before we left,
my husband asked if I would convert to Judaism. He told me it was important for both him and his family. I agreed. I'm not a practicing Christian. I only went to church on special occasions. My faith went so far as the morning assembly at my Church of England school and the Lord's Prayer. I was open to Judaism. I thought that becoming Jewish would be an
intellectual and emotional challenge. I thought it would bring me closer to
my husband's family and my new way of life. I expected it to give me great insight into the Jewish people. In retrospect it did, but certainly not in
the positive way I was anticipating ...

After talking with the [Orthodox] rabbi [to convert to Judaism], my husband and I realized that it would be impossible to convert this way. We were already married and our lifestyle in Tel Aviv was far from that required by the Orthodox.

We started looking for alternatives, and found a rabbi who would be willing to help me convert for NIS 600 a week. (in l994 ) The rabbi lived in an Orthodox suburb in the hills surrounding Jerusalem. Twice a week we sat in his tiny, dark apartment studying at the dining room table. Whenever I asked a question he would snap at me angrily. 'Don't ask questions. It's a matter of faith. You're not supposed to understand. You're just supposed to believe.' Sometimes he would ask a question and as I made to reply, he would bark out 'wrong!' Whenever possible, he criticized the Christian religion. He told me it had been set up for people who were too lazy to live by Jewish rules, by people looking for an easy life. On one occasion he told me that Baruch Goldstein should be praised for killing 29 Arabs in an attack in Hebron in 1994.

Throughout those awful weekly meetings I kept quiet. I gritted my teeth,
studied the books, paid him the money and did not say a word. Inside,
however, I began to seethe. I was sickened by his hypocrisy. He set himself up as a man of faith, then took our money without a moment's hesitation. The more I learned about the Jewish religion in Israel, the more I realized how rife it was with corruption. The media was full of stories about Orthodox figures taking bribes, about scams and dodges carried out in the name of religion. And worse than that, it was like an open secret. Everyone knew about it, they even laughed about it, but no one was prepared to do anything to stop it. Instead they insisted that it was vital that I become Jewish. After a while I began to question this insistence. No one actually cared whether I believed in Judaism or not, not even the rabbi. No one cared whether I'd continue to celebrate Christmas or any other Christian holidays. When I told Israeli friends that I felt this was morally wrong, many sympathized, but others dismissed my fears. "It's just a game," they'd say. "Don't even think about it." All anyone seemed to care about was that it would say Jewish on my ID card, and that somehow, therefore, I would fit in.

As time went by, I became increasingly distressed. I was shocked by the
discrimination I saw around me toward anyone who was not Jewish. In my
office, colleagues called me 'shiksa' and 'goy' as if it were a joke. They
made comments about my non-Jewish appearance. Readers wrote letters of complaint if newspapers dared run adverts for Christmas festivities. The
media was constantly running stories about how the Jewish race was being
destroyed by assimilation. A cartoon published in 1996 showed a man sitting at a table. 'The two major threats to Jewish continuity today are -
terrorism and assimilation!' he said. 'Or, in other words, the non-Jews who
want to kill us - and the non-Jews who want to marry us.'

Facing facts I continued visiting the rabbi, but he began to grow uneasy as
stories about corruption in the conversion process began to leak to the
press. Finally he told me that he could no longer help. 'You're not
prepared to suffer enough to become Jewish,' he said. We next tried a
rabbinical court lawyer in Jerusalem, a man with good connections to Shas.

He offered to convert me for a large sum of money. We met him in a hotel on the outskirts of Jerusalem. He asked me about Jewish friends, about any connections I had with Judaism as a child. After some coaxing, I realized he was not after the truth, just some fabricated story about how, even as a child, I had always wanted to be a Jew. He told my husband to gather certificates and documents showing that I bought my meat only from Kosher butchers, that I attended synagogue, and was following the rules of the Orthodox way. By the time we left the hotel I knew that I did not want to be Jewish. I bitterly regretted my decision. I was antagonistic and hostile. I did not want to lie or cheat anymore.


Not long afterward we were given details of a rabbi in Paris who would
convert me for $5,000 in a simple, one-day process. By then, however, it
was too late. I was so ashamed of the whole process that I could not go
through with it. I felt that by converting I would actually be committing a
sin. I decided, however hard it would be, that Israel would have to accept
me as I was.

My husband's family took the decision badly. They felt I had
cheated and manipulated them, and for a long time afterward their
frustration spilled over into our relationship. Very few people here
understood me. Some Israeli friends felt I was making an unwarranted fuss about something very minor, while at the same time admitting that they would never dream of changing their own religion.

For years after this experience, my bitterness and resentment continued to seethe. I felt let
down by the country. Before arriving here, I believed that the terrible
suffering the Jews have experienced over the centuries would have created a nation where tolerance and understanding was prized. Instead, I found a society full of prejudice and bigotry ...

Today there is a growing minority of non-Jews who live within the Israeli
community. We are full members of this society and yet we are still denied
some very basic human rights. My two sons, for instance, can serve in the
army, they can pay taxes, but they cannot marry here, nor can they be
buried alongside Jewish friends or partners.

Like me, they will spend their
lives listening to constant sniping remarks by politicians and officials
who feel they are second class citizens, the dirty water that slipped in on
a wave of immigration. They too may have to listen to jokes about goys,
sarcastic comments about their parental heritage, and have doubts raised
about their Israeli identity. This, however, is a mistake. Today there are
50,000 Russian immigrants living in Israel who identify themselves as
Christian, and another 270,000 who are not Jewish according to halakha.


While some of them have given up and left Israel, in a few cases even
seeking asylum in England on the grounds of religious persecution, the rest
are here to stay. Israel must make a decision. Does it want yet another
alienated minority, or does it want full citizens who feel a real bond to
their country? In the wake of all this, it is hard to understand why the
Orthodox community is so determined to make conversion such an unpleasant process. Every year thousands apply to convert, but only a small number make it through. Assimilation today is a major problem for diaspora Jews.

Experts are beginning to realize that it is also a growing problem within
Israel. At a recent conference, Dr. Asher Cohen, of Bar-Ilan University's
Institute for the Study of Assimilation, reported that the present rate of
intermarriage in Israel stands at 10 percent, and is rising. Rabbi Yoel
Bin-Nun, head of the Kibbutz Hadati Yeshiva, also told participants that
rabbis who ease the conversion process and promote mass conversion, are
actually preserving Judaism. Instead of welcoming new converts, however,
Judaism shows them its worst face. Potential converts are too often met
with narrow-mindedness, corruption, and distrust. While some people
undertake conversion with a full heart, many others view it as a game in
which you cheat and lie to win. Had I been met with understanding, then
perhaps I would be Jewish now, and so would my two children. For Israel, it was a missed opportunity. Instead of teaching me to respect the religion, I learned instead to despise its protagonists ... I now have a warm
relationship with my parents-in-law, whom I love dearly, and people rarely
ask if I'm Jewish. Despite that, however, I still feel like an outsider. At
Christmas I bring out my tree and decorate the house, but inside I feel
it's almost an act of defiance. A few years ago, a co-worker arrived in the
office fuming because hotels in Jerusalem had put up Christmas trees. I
told her that I put up a tree every year. 'Well I hope you shut your
curtains,' she said bitterly. 'It's not right that people in your neighborhood should have to see it. When you live here you should respect our beliefs.' I was deeply distressed by her prejudice, but the awful truth is that I really have begun to feel that my religion should be hidden away behind curtains. Just a few weeks ago I had another reminder. I was writing
an article on Tekes, a new alternative Israeli organization set up to
provide secular ceremonies for Jews who cannot, or do not want to, undergo an Orthodox ceremony. I suggested to the founder that I might also write up the article for a newspaper here. He hesitated for a few moments, and then said: 'No offense, but I think it would be better if a Jew wrote the story.'"

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Nothing is ever as SIMPLE as some simpletons would believe it to be . (wink)

tata...

 

most Jews don't live in Israel. <<< MODERATOR EDIT: INAPPROPRIATE NAME >>>

 

Some stats (Zionists sources ) claim its roughly 50-50 . Nevertheless , the fact remains that there's no general agreement amongst various Judaic conversion standards/ procedures, even in the "diaspora"



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