Note that all of that was before US was at war with Nazis. I asked you for the evidence after the US entered the war. Got any?
Did you read the whole thing?
New Bund leaders replaced Kuhn, most notably Gerhard Kunze, but only for brief periods. A year after the outbreak of World War II, Congress enacted a peacetime military draft in September 1940. The Bund counseled members of draft age to evade conscription, a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in jail and a $10,000 fine. Gerhard Kunze fled to Mexico in November 1941
And of course there was a lot of pressure to cease all public activities:
U.S. Congressman Martin Dies (D-Texas) and his House Committee on Un-American Activities were active in denying any Nazi-sympathetic organization the ability to operate freely during World War II. In the last week of December 1942, led by journalist Dorothy Thompson, fifty leading German-Americans (including baseball icon Babe Ruth) signed a “Christmas Declaration by men and women of German ancestry” condemning Nazism, which appeared in ten major American daily newspapers.
Do you really think all the sympathizers “suddenly” changed their minds because war was declared?
Did YOU read it? Did you notice the word “peacetime”? Or that Gerhard Kunze fled the US even before US entered the war with Germany?
I am sure some did. Those that didn’t were persecuted, and some prosecuted. Do you think Israel should emulate the US in its treatment of those Israeli Arabs that sympathize with Israel’s enemies?
Do you think Babe Ruth, who according to your cite self-identified as “man of German ancestry” “shared identity” with the Nazi Germans?
No, that wasn’t my point in the first place.
You don’t have to be a Nazi to identify with your German roots and culture. That’s politics; I am speaking about cultural identity.
Do I have to agree with French, Greek, Israeli or Italian govt policies to identify with those cultures? Does every Jew have to agree with the current Israeli government to identify as a Jew?
But it is interesting that the Bund’s activities (and of course the Nazis) were probably responsible for weakening the American German’s cultural ties to the homeland in the end. That is when they really assimilated into US culture. But that is an exceptional circumstance. Not every ethnic group was subjected to that challenging situation.
It is mine. Care to respond to it?
In the 1930s and up to 1945 Germany’s culture was tightly intertwined with Nazi ideology. So identifying with it was identifying with Nazis.
“Identify with” is not “same as”. Having German roots and living in the US is not the same as being a German in Germany. The two are separate ethnic identities. One is “American German”. The other is “German”. Living in the US and being Jewish is very different from being Jewish and living in Israel. Or Russia. The three are separate ethnic identities. Similar, and sharing ethnicity, but quite separate. And I have experience being part of all three.
Well, Israeli Arabs are subjected to that challenging situation.
Some identify with Israel’s enemies (too many - see some examples I gave). Some identify with Israel (and I served in the IDF with some like that). And many are on the fence. If they want to be accepted into Israeli society, getting off the fence seems to be indicated.
Seriously? It’s complicated. Do Black Americans enjoy complete equality in the US?
While there are anti-discrimination laws, there are still discriminatory policies that affect the Arab Israelis, and the right wing govt is always trying to push more discriminatory laws through the Knesset.
But the biggest problem is societal. It’s very segregated; not a melting pot situation. Large percentages of Israeli Jews don’t trust them, don’t want to live with them, and don’t think they should have the same rights as the Jews. Prejudice is rampant. And the recent conflicts have only made things worse.
On the other side, the Arab Israelis are torn between the two sides. Most prefer to live in Israel, but it’s not surprising when you consider life in Gaza or the West Bank. Who would want to live like that? But it is very obvious that they are not wanted, and everyone would be happier to see them gone. They are a demographic threat to the Jewish State.
So how can they “assimilate” under those circumstances?
So, really, these so-called “Palestinians” have no legitimate complaints, seeing as how Israeli society is so open and welcoming. Why, all they need do is climb down off the fence!
Like Japanese-Americans in WWII, or black soldiers in Korea and Viet Nam, their service was a testament, a clear statement that America had always played fair and square with them and their people!
You forgot I was a leftist? Ideologically, I don’t agree, and I don’t think the US treatment of Germans Italians and Japanese during WWII was right.
But I do understand it, just as I understand Israel’s concerns.
No. The Germany they identified with was pre-Nazi era. Things change; people change, but you still have an attachment to those places and people regardless of those changes. Will you discard your wife when she gets old?
Plus, a lot of cultural identity involves things like traditions, food, music, folklore, and of course language. Those ties are more enduring.
Yes, I have a multicultural background so I get that. BTW, that book you cited earlier discusses that, and it is quite interesting; I’m still reading it.
Yes. See my reply to elucidator.
How can they assimilate if Israeli society doesn’t change? Everyone has to change for it to work out. And change isn’t really a Jewish thing. Refusal to change served a purpose for thousands of years, but now it’s a problem.
Terr can correct me, but I assume he is referring the the Druze.
As I said, it’s complicated.
The Druze are drafted - they chose not to have an exception in law for them. Some Israeli Arabs volunteer for military service - those are the ones I was talking about.
Yes, there are some who volunteer. I don’t know how long ago you served, but I thought they used to be segregated in minority units (even the Druze, in some cases).
I think you will agree that it would be frustrating to be asked over and over again to be clear, after multiple attempts to clarify - and strictly for your benefit, as no one else was asking. dropzone clearly understood what I was saying and broke it down for you as well. At what point do you take some responsibility for your lack of comprehension?
At this point I think the problem is that my definition of culture and your definition of culture are too far apart to take the conversation further. I did not see any suggestion of cultural differences in the article you cited. I do not agree that multicultural is defined by differences in education level, degree of religiosity, personal interests, or even geographical distance, as per your examples. I’ve never heard or read anything that matches your definition.
Here is my definition of culture:
Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts.
The Center for Advance Research on Language Acquisition goes a step further, defining culture as shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs and understanding that are learned by socialization. Thus, it can be seen as the growth of a group identity fostered by social patterns unique to the group.
Certainly, cultural characteristics will be affected by emigration, but it is a highly variable affect, depending on the individual culture, the conditions of the new location, the reason for emigration, and the number of generations born outside the native location.
Complicating this even more in the case of Israel, is that the Palestinian Israelis are not immigrants. They are the people, and descendants of people, who had been living there before it was officially Israel. The Israeli Jews are technically the immigrants or descendants of immigrants.
Dr. Who fans are a separate culture from Star Trek fans.
Bad definition.
More like New York Irish and Boston Irish, except with several fewer generations separating them.
Don’t be an ass and look at the second paragraph camille quoted. That’s a basic, Anthropology definition of culture, and that’s the one appropriate for this discussion. Israeli Palestinians and West Bank Palestinians and Gaza Palestinians have not been effectively separated much at all, and for far too short a time, do have developed different culture. Isolate them, give them a hundred years, and get back to me. We’ll see what’s changed.
The definitions don’t help us know when to “split” and when to “lump.”
It’s absurd to imagine that a definition of fewer than forty words can help here; it would take an entire textbook, and we still wouldn’t be much farther ahead.
Can one speak reasonably of “Islamic Culture” as a whole? In some ways, yes. Can we speak of “Arab Culture” as a whole? Sometimes, yes. Can we speak of “Palestinian Culture” as a whole? In many cases. And can we divide it further, into Israeli-Palestinian, West-Bank-Palestinian, and Gaza-Palestinian cultures? In some instances, yes, we can.
There is no conceivable definition of the word that can cover all of these cases. No one set of rules can govern all the myriad of concerns that any culture uses, both to unite itself and to divide itself.
camille is being Procrustean in demanding that all Palestinians fit into an indivisible cultural grouping. This is going to be true in some ways, but untrue in others.
(And none of this has jack shit to do with whether the political left is anti-Semitic, so what’s the point of this inane highjack anyway?)
I’m really disturbed by Trinopus’s & Terr’s apparent belief that culture has especially meaningful breaks due to location and local political authority.
I guess if you’re using “culture” to mean “present way of living, in toto,” that sort of makes sense. But no, I don’t think you become a new race and civilization just because you live on a patch of land conquered and nominally assimilated by a given polity.
[sarcasm] But, hey, since you insist, fine. American & French Jews are not Israelis, they’re a different people now, and you can’t have them. Next time Bibi wants to come and shout, “MOVE TO ISRAEL! NOW!” we can tell him that, yes? [/sarcasm]
Then you’re denying that Palestinians exist. Because they all came from somewhere else, some a long time ago, most about a hundred years ago or less. As I explained to Ibn Warraq.
Huh? You think you’re making some kind of point? No, American and French Jews are not Israelis. You’re correct. They are Jews, though. So yes, they can move to Israel if they don’t feel safe where they are (as a lot of French Jews don’t).
To follow it up with a joke:
At the emergency meeting of the UN regarding the conflict in the Middle East, the Israeli representative takes the floor. He starts:
“Ladies and gentlemen, before the rest of my speech, I’d like to tell you an old story… When Moses was leading the Jews out of Egypt they needed water and asked him for it. So he struck a rock and a pond appeared full of cool crystal clear water. The people rejoiced and drank and swam. Moses, wishing to clean himself, went behind the rock, disrobed, and dropped into the water. After he washed, he wanted to get dressed, but his clothes were gone. I think it was the Palestinians that stole his clothes…”
At that moment the Palestinian UN representative jumps up and with great indignation shouts “Lies! Everyone knows that there were no Palestinians around at that time!”
“And with that in mind”, says the Israeli representative, “let me continue with my speech…”
Very droll. Now, about that question you don’t seem to be able to read…
Is it your premise that non-Jewish residents of Israel enjoy complete equality? And that all stories of oppression and prejudice against them are all a bunch of lies?
And if it is true, does this not legitimize the criticism of Israeli policy towards them? Shouldn’t an honest conservative of any nationality join such criticism? Is it that you don’t have an answer, or don’t have one that won’t weaken your narrative?
So, when do we get to hear the joke?