5 ms·

Being Jewish is also multi-tiered because it's associated with both a religion and an ethnicity. I'd love to popularize being thought of Ashkenazi and not Jewis

• whimsicalism 5y ago
  The popular understanding of Jewish in America is Ashkenazi
  • chitowneats 5y ago
    The average American doesn't know an Ashkenazi from an alpaca.
    • whimsicalism 5y ago
      Yes, but the average American also thinks of an Ashkenazi Jew when they think of a Jew, and has no idea that Sephardim & mizrahim even exist, even if they don't know the words for any of it.
      • chitowneats 5y ago
        OP's point is to refer to these people as Ashkenazi. To think of them as that, instead of (or perhaps in addition to) as Jewish. My point is we are a long way away from that, despite how many Ashkenazi Jews live in the US.
  • tootie 5y ago
    My point being that the word "Ashkenazi" is still not understood by most people.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• siculars 5y ago
  If you were your ancestors who were "run out of town on a rail" you would care very, very deeply about your familial bond to Israel. Like yours, my family was run out of town. Unlike yours, many in my family did not run fast enough. If only there was a place they could run to either as first resort or when quota had been reached in other places. If only there was a place that could make running a specific people out of town a very costly pursuit for those who were making those people run. Israel is and will always remain the eternal Homeland of the Jewish people. Am Yisrael Chai.
  • whimsicalism 5y ago
    There are plenty of non-zionist people who survived the Holocaust, it is disingenuous to paint caring about Israel as the natural, inevitable reaction to the Holocaust. The whole concept of having a natural "homeland" because of your DNA/ethnicity/race is bullshit, land doesn't care what color your skin is or what religion you practice.
    • dalbasal 5y ago
      The majority were not zionist, including my family. The Holocaust changed that. The premise of zionism was never "having a natural "homeland" because of your DNA." The premise of Zionism was that Jews could not stay in Europe, particularly in the age of nation states. Most commonly, this was referred to as "The Jewish Question." The majority of secular Jews believed in emancipation. The majority of religious jews believed that only god could create the Jewish state. They were also skeptical of Zionism's desire for secular Jewish identity. That said, my grandparents never referred to themselves as zionists. Before the war, zionism just meant "want a jewish state to exist." Foreign politicians (eg Churchill) were referred to as zionist for this reason. After the war, it generally meant exuberance about zionists political ideologies of the time. Founding Kibbutz, farming, hebrew language revival, etc. "Zionists" wanted to take hebrew names, for example. Today, "zionist" just means Israeli patriotism.
      • whimsicalism 5y ago
        The Holocaust definitely changed how the majority of people felt, but it doesn't mean that I can't be critical of that sentiment. Bundism also continued to exist after the Holocaust, albeit in a diminished form. "premise of Zionism was that Jews could not stay in Europe" -> the creation of a state where citizenship is granted explicitly on the basis of your ethnicity, in the form of a "right of return" is 100% the premise I suggested.
• dalbasal 5y ago
  Ashkenazi is just an old hebrew word for German. If you strip away both Germany (the HRE, more specifically), and Judaism then the term doesn't have much meaning. At least, not as an identity that people have assumed historically. Ashkenazi Jews before the war just called themselves Jews, with secular emancipationists often appending nationality.
  • Mediterraneo10 5y ago
    The etymology of the word "Ashkenazi" is irrelevant (argument from etymology is a fallacy), as for a long time now the word has been used in a different, wider meaning. And Ashkenazi is a valid distinction versus e.g. Sephardi Jews: Ashkenazi Jews used a different reading for Hebrew, adopted different codes of dress, employed different structures of doctrinal authority and hermeneutics of Scripture, etc. Naturally under the Ashkenazi umbrella there were people of different cultures (and different degrees of assimilation to the surrounding non-Jewish population), but those Jews were still more similar to one another than to non-Ashkenazi Jews.
    • dalbasal 5y ago
      I'm not arguing the etymology. I'm just saying that "Ashkenazi, as a demonym would be a new idea historically. I have no problem with people forming new identities. It's also not about accent. There are distinct Sephardic reading styles. It's not technically doctrinally different either, at least formally. In religious terms, distinctions are termed is "customary/minhagim" which are lower on the hierarchy. In any case, etymology is not far off the mark. Ashkenazi judaism isn't just named after germany, it originated in the HRE and Ashkenazim spoke a German dialect. My grandmother was a native polish speaker, secular, and would not have identified as "askenazi" before the war. She identified as polish, strongly, and was as comfortable in a sephardic synagogue as an ashkenazi one. My grandfather, a Yiddish speaker, was more comfortable in an ashkenazi synagogue. Most are mixed, these days, whatever the majority is.
• eli_gottlieb 5y ago
  >I'd love to popularize being thought of Ashkenazi and not Jewish. This is Orientalist as fuck.