I am offended at every governmental and non-governmental form I am compelled to complete that does not list Ashkenazi Jews as a race or even an ethnicity. If you can take a blood test and, at the most basic building block of what makes us human, be identified as a distinctive group, then you're a race. Jews also have a common mother language, a set core books and beliefs, as well as a defined set of holidays and foods common to them. That is an ethnicity.
It is time for Jews to demand racial parity with blacks and asians and ethnic parity with hispanics, irish and everyone else who shows up in the master list of acceptable form entries.
Years ago, I sat on the minority affairs committee of the Montgomery County, Md. public schools. I was told that I could not be there as a minority. I replied that I knew that Jews were a minority, the Jewish students knew that they were a minority , and that, when push came to shove, the broader community would treat Jews as the minority they were. To say otherwise was to promote a lie. I was required to leave.
Government bureaucracy does what government bureaucracy does which is follows political mood with more senseless forms that only contribute to ethnic and racial animosity . Personally, I check myself as "other" in relevant box on these forms .
MAZAL TOV! I did my DNA test as well a few years to learn I am 100% Ashkenazi (Eastern Europe). Proud of every drop of my DNA. Recently I watched a very interesting video on YouTube about our DNA and the interesting results of testing Jews from every part of the world, including the Mideast. The scientists have, over many years, read more results and taken even deeper. Jews from all over the world, exception are Jews By Choice, of course, have a commonality that relates to the Mideast. I woke during the night, couldn't get back to sleep, put the TV with YouTube and this video was on. It was fairly and instead of lulling my back to sleep, I watched it all. If this doesn't prove the we are originally from the Mideast, I don't know what will. Am Yisrael Chai!
I too took the 23&Me test. 98+% Ashkenazi. Grandparents emigrated to America in the 1910’s. I was told by my grandparents who were told by their grandparents who were told by their grandparents……….came to Transylvania (Austria-Hungary) by way of the Turkish trade routes from the LEVANTINE. .🙏 It is not only a great historical and scientific piece, it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt we are as much a PEOPLE as a religion. Great explanation. Thanks
My brother did a DNA test. It showed that on our father side, the humans that left Africa 60,000 years ago went through the Middle East. But on our mother side, they crossed into Europe. From both directions, they eventually " met" in Eastern Europe, on both sides.No question, conversion to Judaism happened more often than we think, surely amongst women. Thus the non-Middle Eastern physical traits of many Jews.
The " coloniser" accusation, like all other wilful inversions of meaning or deliberate misinformation, such as " apartheid", "progressive", " ethnic cleansing", " genocide", is the most non-sensical of all. A coloniser needs a mother country from which to " colonise" others. There is a mother country, which has "colonies" elsewhere. The Jews never had a country since the last exile by the Romans from the Land of Israel, 2,000 years ago! The Jews never had a country from which they could colonise others. Those Jews that found themselves in British Palestine in 1947 at the time of the partition, were immigrants. In 1948, Arab countries expelled and dispossessed close to a million Jews, the only true Nakba .
The Jews were immigrants, always, forever wandering, expelled, resettling in someone else's country, at the mercy of that country's rulers and populace. Immigrants, not " colonisers". Ask all the vociferous libelling braindead which country they belong to. Or their parents' countries. US, Europe, Islamic , Arab countries, they were all conquerors and colonisers. They conquered, dispossessed, ruled, oppressed, sometimes slaughtered en masse.
It's good to remind them of that. They descend from colonisers. The Jews don't.
Today there is a difficult situation with the settlers in Israel, a violent minority that breaks laws. They represent only themselves. The State of Israel didn't colonise those areas, even as the current Israeli government has not done nearly enough to combat the phenomenon. Israelis don't want any of it.
But we also remember that between 1948 and 1967 and still into 1988, that territory, called historically Judea and Samaria, was conquered ,occupied,colonised and annexed by Jordan, and all its inhabitants were Jordanians.
As for Gaza, Israel withdrew unilaterally in 2005. Previously, it was not " Palestinian". It was Egyptian.The colonisers of all those territories were Jordan and Egypt.
I am offended at every governmental and non-governmental form I am compelled to complete that does not list Ashkenazi Jews as a race or even an ethnicity. If you can take a blood test and, at the most basic building block of what makes us human, be identified as a distinctive group, then you're a race. Jews also have a common mother language, a set core books and beliefs, as well as a defined set of holidays and foods common to them. That is an ethnicity.
It is time for Jews to demand racial parity with blacks and asians and ethnic parity with hispanics, irish and everyone else who shows up in the master list of acceptable form entries.
Years ago, I sat on the minority affairs committee of the Montgomery County, Md. public schools. I was told that I could not be there as a minority. I replied that I knew that Jews were a minority, the Jewish students knew that they were a minority , and that, when push came to shove, the broader community would treat Jews as the minority they were. To say otherwise was to promote a lie. I was required to leave.
Government bureaucracy does what government bureaucracy does which is follows political mood with more senseless forms that only contribute to ethnic and racial animosity . Personally, I check myself as "other" in relevant box on these forms .
MAZAL TOV! I did my DNA test as well a few years to learn I am 100% Ashkenazi (Eastern Europe). Proud of every drop of my DNA. Recently I watched a very interesting video on YouTube about our DNA and the interesting results of testing Jews from every part of the world, including the Mideast. The scientists have, over many years, read more results and taken even deeper. Jews from all over the world, exception are Jews By Choice, of course, have a commonality that relates to the Mideast. I woke during the night, couldn't get back to sleep, put the TV with YouTube and this video was on. It was fairly and instead of lulling my back to sleep, I watched it all. If this doesn't prove the we are originally from the Mideast, I don't know what will. Am Yisrael Chai!
I too took the 23&Me test. 98+% Ashkenazi. Grandparents emigrated to America in the 1910’s. I was told by my grandparents who were told by their grandparents who were told by their grandparents……….came to Transylvania (Austria-Hungary) by way of the Turkish trade routes from the LEVANTINE. .🙏 It is not only a great historical and scientific piece, it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt we are as much a PEOPLE as a religion. Great explanation. Thanks
My brother did a DNA test. It showed that on our father side, the humans that left Africa 60,000 years ago went through the Middle East. But on our mother side, they crossed into Europe. From both directions, they eventually " met" in Eastern Europe, on both sides.No question, conversion to Judaism happened more often than we think, surely amongst women. Thus the non-Middle Eastern physical traits of many Jews.
The " coloniser" accusation, like all other wilful inversions of meaning or deliberate misinformation, such as " apartheid", "progressive", " ethnic cleansing", " genocide", is the most non-sensical of all. A coloniser needs a mother country from which to " colonise" others. There is a mother country, which has "colonies" elsewhere. The Jews never had a country since the last exile by the Romans from the Land of Israel, 2,000 years ago! The Jews never had a country from which they could colonise others. Those Jews that found themselves in British Palestine in 1947 at the time of the partition, were immigrants. In 1948, Arab countries expelled and dispossessed close to a million Jews, the only true Nakba .
The Jews were immigrants, always, forever wandering, expelled, resettling in someone else's country, at the mercy of that country's rulers and populace. Immigrants, not " colonisers". Ask all the vociferous libelling braindead which country they belong to. Or their parents' countries. US, Europe, Islamic , Arab countries, they were all conquerors and colonisers. They conquered, dispossessed, ruled, oppressed, sometimes slaughtered en masse.
It's good to remind them of that. They descend from colonisers. The Jews don't.
Today there is a difficult situation with the settlers in Israel, a violent minority that breaks laws. They represent only themselves. The State of Israel didn't colonise those areas, even as the current Israeli government has not done nearly enough to combat the phenomenon. Israelis don't want any of it.
But we also remember that between 1948 and 1967 and still into 1988, that territory, called historically Judea and Samaria, was conquered ,occupied,colonised and annexed by Jordan, and all its inhabitants were Jordanians.
As for Gaza, Israel withdrew unilaterally in 2005. Previously, it was not " Palestinian". It was Egyptian.The colonisers of all those territories were Jordan and Egypt.