# I'm no longer a Jew. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 14, 2010, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727 "2010-09-14T14:40:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/81 "2010-09-16T03:34:51Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Looks like the thread’s been **Dio-ized**. (Is that the right phrase?) Sorry, **Cartooniverse** ) Naw, it was ruined by **Shot from Guns** way before that. Well, as far as a pit thread can be ruined. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/82 "2010-09-16T04:08:16Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > > [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > > > Organizing a country around a religion is dumb. > > Perhaps, but it is a place we can go and be safe when folks try to exterminate us. > 🙂 So how has that being working out for you? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/83 "2010-09-16T04:30:29Z")
Well, I’m thinking about all the narrow-minded people in my religio-ethnic group. **I am no longer a Congregationalist of Swiss Descent.** There. carry on. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/84 "2010-09-16T04:56:38Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Organizing a country around a religion is dumb. It screws up the government and it screws up the religion too. Trust me, I know. > > Organizing around an ethnic group is more common, but still quite dumb. > > Trying to do both is simply madness. It is, on the face of it, unjust and unsustainable. As someone (Kissinger?) once pointed out, things that are unsustainable must, by definition come to an end. So what the hell are you doing in Saudi Arabia? ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/85 "2010-09-16T05:50:46Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > > [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > > > So, how does it make you not a bigot against your own ethnic group to treat all of it with such disgust over the actions of \*some \*of its members? And how does it help the image of that group for you to abandon it instead of fight to reclaim it as you believe it should be? > > Many Jews are anti-semites. You might want to read the rules of the road extremely carefully before you go calling me an Anti-Semite. I did not say I was Anti-Semetic. I said I no longer am a Jew. I stand by that OP. The lunatic fringe in Israel that has pushed for this abhorrent law has only themselves to blame when they are measured up against the Nazis and found to be only slightly lacking in form if not content. It is despicable in the extreme. ETA: What **SteveG1** said. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/86 "2010-09-16T07:56:35Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > > [@TriPolar](#): > > > > Many Jews are anti-semites. > > You might want to read the rules of the road extremely carefully before you go calling me an Anti-Semite. > > I did not say I was Anti-Semetic. I said I no longer am a Jew. If you are not Jewish, why did my statement bother you? And, are you denying the validity of the statement? ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/87 "2010-09-16T09:29:54Z")
While many first world nations have these sorts of debates, Israel is different because unlike (for example) the US or the UK or Australia it permits anyone of a certain religion to become a citizen without question. It is an unashamedly bigoted nation. Undoubtedly at a practical level the US and the UK and Australia (again, for example) have very significant bigotry, but _not_ having explicitly bigoted laws is a step in the right direction. The equivalency that posters above posit is false. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/88 "2010-09-16T11:55:07Z")
I swear to og. Will someone please invent a time machine that can go backwards so we can take out Abraham, or whoever started this whole mess. Abrahamic religions, their divisions thereof, and what qualifies a person as membership of them have been the cause of more fussing fighting, wars and general ass-hattery than anything else I can think of in history. Israel is arguably the source of the _majority_ of the strife in the middle east. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/89 "2010-09-16T13:27:39Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > So what the hell are you doing in Saudi Arabia? Changing it, slowly but profoundly. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/90 "2010-09-16T13:50:34Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > While many first world nations have these sorts of debates, Israel is different because unlike (for example) the US or the UK or Australia it permits anyone of a certain religion to become a citizen without question. It is an unashamedly bigoted nation. Undoubtedly at a practical level the US and the UK and Australia (again, for example) have very significant bigotry, but _not_ having explicitly bigoted laws is a step in the right direction. The equivalency that posters above posit is false. Nonsense. There is no “bigotry” in having a safe-haven law, favouring persons of a certain national ethnicity dispersed by a diaspora; that is simply part and parcel of historical reality - that some groups found themselves, as a result of cicumstance, in unique trouble. Moreover, Israel is far from alone in having such laws: many countries do, including many first-world ones. Here’s a list: > **[Right of return](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return)** > > The right of return is a principle in international law which guarantees everyone's right of return to, or re-entry to, their country of citizenship. The right of return is part of the broader human rights concept of freedom of movement and is also related to the legal concept of nationality. While many states afford their citizens the right of abode, the right of return is not restricted to citizenship or nationality in the formal sense. It allows stateless persons and for those born outsi The r... For example, Germany: > [@](#): > > German law allows persons of German descent living in Eastern Europe (Aussiedler/Spätaussiedler (“late emigrants”; de:Aussiedler), see History of German settlement in Eastern Europe) to return to Germany and claim German citizenship. As with many legal implementations of the Right of Return, the “return” to Germany of individuals who may never have lived in Germany based on their ethnic origin has been controversial. The law is codified in Article 116 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, which provides access to German citizenship for anyone “who has been admitted to the territory of the German Reich within the boundaries of December 31, 1937 as a refugee or expellee of German ethnic origin or as the spouse or descendant of such person”.[9] > > The historic context for Article 116 was the eviction, following World War II, of an estimated 9 million ethnic Germans from other countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Another 9 million Germans from former eastern German provinces, over which Stalin and eastern neighbour states extended military hegemony in 1945, were expelled as well. These expellees and refugees (known as Heimatvertriebene) were given refugee status and documents and resettled by Germany; discussion of possible compensation is ongoing. Some German expellees desire to resettle in their territories of birth, youth and early life, but legal procedures often make remigration difficult, even after Poland and the Czech Republic joined the European Union. The German law, like the Israeli law, was a result of the “displaced persons” (DP)problem following WW2: that millions of people had, in effect, no citizenship and no-where to go, as a result of war; moreover, in some cases, such as the Jews, moillions had _died_ because no-one wanted to take them in. The “bigotry” here lies in singling out Israel for particular condemnation for a problem (dealing with illegal immigration) which is common to all, and compounded by the historical ignorance which uniquely denounces Israel for having a ‘safe haven’ law created as a result of historical circumstance - again, very common in the world. The absurdity of blaming all Jews (not just Israelis, but Jews) for this, demonstrated by the OP, is, of course, just icing on the cake of ignorant and stupid. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/91 "2010-09-16T14:58:59Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > I was born an ethnic Jew and that is inescapable. My last name is a Tribal name. As far as how I identify myself? No. I am no longer a Jew… > :mad: > > Cartooniverse If you mother isn’t a Jew, you have nothing to worry about. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/92 "2010-09-16T15:34:42Z")
The ‘right of return’ under discussion is unique, in being afforded to people with no material connection to the territory. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/93 "2010-09-16T15:50:38Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > I swear to og. Will someone please invent a time machine that can go backwards so we can take out Abraham, or whoever started this whole mess. Abrahamic religions, their divisions thereof, and what qualifies a person as membership of them have been the cause of more fussing fighting, wars and general ass-hattery than anything else I can think of in history. > > Israel is arguably the source of the _majority_ of the strife in the middle east. Shhh - you’re not supposed to say that. They’re perennial victims, and that’s all we need to know. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/94 "2010-09-16T15:53:03Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > The ‘right of return’ under discussion is unique, in being afforded to people with no material connection to the territory. Not so. Read the link - most if not all “rights of return” are afforded to people with no material connections to the territory. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/95 "2010-09-16T16:28:23Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Perhaps I did not explain well. They are not deporting people to preserve racial purity. They are deporting people who are in Israel illegally, who have over stayed their work visas. It may not be morally right, but it is not done out of a desire for “racial purity”. Their motivations for importing cheap labor without giving them any route to becoming citizens, however, could certainly be argued to stem from a desire to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel. > [@BigT](#): > > Naw, it was ruined by **Shot from Guns** way before that. Well, as far as a pit thread can be ruined. Yeah, how dare I call someone out for being a bigot. Shame on me. > [@Cartooniverse](#): > > I did not say I was Anti-Semetic. I said I no longer am a Jew. You said that you were no longer a Jew… because you were so ashamed of the actions of a \*minority \*that you’re judging \*the entire disparate group \*based on the activities of those few. But oh no, you’re not a bigot _at all_. Hey guys, I heard that a Black guy robbed someone yesterday. I’ve decided to be scared of and angry at all Black people now. But you can’t call me a bigot, because a Black guy \*really did \*rob someone. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/96 "2010-09-16T16:54:17Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Their motivations for importing cheap labor without giving them any route to becoming citizens, however, could certainly be argued to stem from a desire to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel. Indeed; this tends to be the nature of the immigration problem everywhere - rich first world types want the cheap nannies, fruit pickers, road workers etc. from the third world, but they want them to go home after they are done and not stay, because they aren’t ‘like us’, don’t ‘have our values’, will ‘swamp real (whatevers)’. Forgetting that once upon a time _their_ parents, grandparents or great-grandparents were the “cheap nannies, fruit pickers, road workers etc.”. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/97 "2010-09-16T17:50:33Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > > > Perhaps, but it is a place we can go and be safe when folks try to exterminate us. > > 🙂 > > So how has that being working out for you? Me? I’ve not had to go yet. 🙂 Russian and Ugandan Jews seem pretty happy with it lately. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/98 "2010-09-17T04:48:56Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Nonsense. There is no “bigotry” in having a safe-haven law, favouring persons of a certain national ethnicity dispersed by a diaspora; that is simply part and parcel of historical reality - that some groups found themselves, as a result of cicumstance, in unique trouble. While I haven’t done an absolutely comprehensive reading, ISTM the list on Wikipedia comprises: 1/ 2nd and 3rd world nations with bigotted immigration laws I wouldn’t personally want to hold up as an example of appropriate behaviour. 2/ nations which give a right of return to people with recent antecedents who were citizens of that nation (grandparents or better, mostly) 3/ nations who allow persons or fairly recent descendents of persons who were displaced in living memory to return. A first world nation that says anyone at all has a right of return if they are Jewish even if they have as much connection to Israel as I do to Charlemagne has gone well beyond “we allow people who once lived here or are close descendents of such people to become citizens” and is into “we are bigotted against anyone who isn’t Jewish”. I really don’t know why you’d be arguing. ISTM people on the other side of this argument want it both ways. They wouldn’t for a second deny that Israel is a Jewish state but don’t seem to want to get to grips with what that means. It’s like saying “I’m not racist because I don’t single out black people for discrimination. I just discriminate against _everyone_ who isn’t white”. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/99 "2010-09-17T15:03:30Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > > [@Malthus](#): > > > > Nonsense. There is no “bigotry” in having a safe-haven law, favouring persons of a certain national ethnicity dispersed by a diaspora; that is simply part and parcel of historical reality - that some groups found themselves, as a result of cicumstance, in unique trouble. > > While I haven’t done an absolutely comprehensive reading, ISTM the list on Wikipedia comprises: > > 1/ 2nd and 3rd world nations with bigotted immigration laws I wouldn’t personally want to hold up as an example of appropriate behaviour. > > 2/ nations which give a right of return to people with recent antecedents who were citizens of that nation (grandparents or better, mostly) > > 3/ nations who allow persons or fairly recent descendents of persons who were displaced in living memory to return. Huh? The very example I specifically quoted - Germany - doesn’t fit any of your categories, so I can safley say you are incorrect. Germany is not a “2nd or 3rd world country”. Ethnic Germans living in Poland were not “recent descendants of citizens”. > [@](#): > > A first world nation that says anyone at all has a right of return if they are Jewish even if they have as much connection to Israel as I do to Charlemagne has gone well beyond “we allow people who once lived here or are close descendents of such people to become citizens” and is into “we are bigotted against anyone who isn’t Jewish”. I guess modern Germany is bigoted for allowing ethnic Germans who were displaced by WW2 citizenship? Nonsense. > [@](#): > > I really don’t know why you’d be arguing. ISTM people on the other side of this argument want it both ways. They wouldn’t for a second deny that Israel is a Jewish state but don’t seem to want to get to grips with what that means. People on your side of the debate are simply ignorant of modern history, what “nationalism” has meant, and what bigotry really means. Israel is a “Jewish state” as Germany is a “German state” as Greece is a “Greek state”. Yet people on your side never rally against any of the other countries in the world which self-identify as nationalist nation-states - only Israel. You never “get to grips” with what singling out one country out of all the others “means”. > [@](#): > > It’s like saying “I’m not racist because I don’t single out black people for discrimination. I just discriminate against _everyone_ who isn’t white”. No, people on your side of the debate are analogous to those who complain that all forms of affirmative action are “racist”, ignorant of or ignoring the historical context of racism. Rights of return are designed to ameliorate the bigotry imposed by others which deprives members of a particular ethnicity of a home - for example, by forcibly expelling or killing them (as happened to the “ethnic Germans” in Eastern Europe following WW2, and as happened to the Jews following WW2 and several times since). Certainly, in the perfect world everyone would sink kumbayah together and ethnicity would not matter in the slightest. Unfortunately there are _nasty people_ who don’t believe this, who in fact expell or murder those of different ethnicities. Again, in the perfect world, everyone would be happy to let these poor expelled folk settle in their countries - but that, too, doesn’t happen. Since we do not live in the perfect world, the next best thing is for “rights of return” to exist. Perhaps these mechanisms have outlived their usefullness - or perhaps not. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727/100 "2010-09-17T17:32:05Z")
> [@BayouHazard](#): > > That is uncalled for. I think that the policy of the Arab league is the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard. . Why are you specifically criticizing the Arab League countries? How many Palestinian refugees our western wealthy countries are taking in? Well…I was irritated at the dera [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-no-longer-a-jew/553727.md?page=6)