Thank you for this piece. In the past, people would often try to counter the misuse of the term "anti-semite" by saying things, like, "Arabs are semites, too," to very little effect. I have learned a lot recently about the history of Zionism, admittedly beginning with the very weak question of "Where did it go wrong?" Though I am now interested in learning more about figures such as Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg, I recognize that colonial dispossession and ethnic cleansing were always at the center of the political Zionist project. Though I still can't figure out how to line your podcasts up for listening during long car trips, your anti-imperialist work has been very helpful!
This is a great article! (but it had the unintended side effect of me going down a mental rabbit hole of how religion and ideology are different from an atheist perspective)
Thanks for this well-researched (first part of a) primer, most welcome.
In a nutshell:
Q: When we are talking about Jews (let alone zionism or anti-semitism), are we talking about an ethnic group, a cultural identity, a religious group, or a political project?
A (earlier): This is complex: in this case the religious groups tend to correlate with inheritance and Jews are defined as a cultural and also political grouping through a shared history of persecution. You should stay out of this lest people will begin to suspect you may be harboring anti-semitic tendencies if you keep talking about the Jews.
A (contemporary). We have deliberately re-defined anti-semitism so we can selectively smear anyone from Nelson Mandela, Jeremy Corbyn to Justin Podur as an anti-semite. (this is an actual problem for members of mainstream leftist parties in Europe).
Race is not a social construct, its population genetics/biological inheritance. Its a proxy for the degree of relation (ie genetic distance, which is created by time plus inheritance). To claim that just because there is a very recent trend of biologists being unwilling to defend the biological reality of racial group differences (which still exist, haven't vanished, and can't be explained via any other mechanism), that race is merely a "social construct" is profoundly ignorant and deliberately obtuse in most cases. Most people who claim otherwise, know damn well race is real. Not only can you see it, but you can personally experience racial group differences, such as the victims of "youth wildings" in Western societies, where somehow, magically, all the perpetrators are the same racial group.
In any case, what you call anti-Jewish racism is just a response to Jewish cultural and social customs and practices. Since there is no race (according to you) and even if you were to admit one, you further already claimed that Jewish is an identity, not a race. Therefore, its a non sequitur to coin a term such as "Anti-Jewish Racism". In fact, any term involving "racism" is invalid, since you reject the entire concept of race out of hand.
Thank you for this piece. In the past, people would often try to counter the misuse of the term "anti-semite" by saying things, like, "Arabs are semites, too," to very little effect. I have learned a lot recently about the history of Zionism, admittedly beginning with the very weak question of "Where did it go wrong?" Though I am now interested in learning more about figures such as Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg, I recognize that colonial dispossession and ethnic cleansing were always at the center of the political Zionist project. Though I still can't figure out how to line your podcasts up for listening during long car trips, your anti-imperialist work has been very helpful!
This is a great article! (but it had the unintended side effect of me going down a mental rabbit hole of how religion and ideology are different from an atheist perspective)
Thanks for this well-researched (first part of a) primer, most welcome.
In a nutshell:
Q: When we are talking about Jews (let alone zionism or anti-semitism), are we talking about an ethnic group, a cultural identity, a religious group, or a political project?
A (earlier): This is complex: in this case the religious groups tend to correlate with inheritance and Jews are defined as a cultural and also political grouping through a shared history of persecution. You should stay out of this lest people will begin to suspect you may be harboring anti-semitic tendencies if you keep talking about the Jews.
A (contemporary). We have deliberately re-defined anti-semitism so we can selectively smear anyone from Nelson Mandela, Jeremy Corbyn to Justin Podur as an anti-semite. (this is an actual problem for members of mainstream leftist parties in Europe).
Race is not a social construct, its population genetics/biological inheritance. Its a proxy for the degree of relation (ie genetic distance, which is created by time plus inheritance). To claim that just because there is a very recent trend of biologists being unwilling to defend the biological reality of racial group differences (which still exist, haven't vanished, and can't be explained via any other mechanism), that race is merely a "social construct" is profoundly ignorant and deliberately obtuse in most cases. Most people who claim otherwise, know damn well race is real. Not only can you see it, but you can personally experience racial group differences, such as the victims of "youth wildings" in Western societies, where somehow, magically, all the perpetrators are the same racial group.
In any case, what you call anti-Jewish racism is just a response to Jewish cultural and social customs and practices. Since there is no race (according to you) and even if you were to admit one, you further already claimed that Jewish is an identity, not a race. Therefore, its a non sequitur to coin a term such as "Anti-Jewish Racism". In fact, any term involving "racism" is invalid, since you reject the entire concept of race out of hand.