Why are you arguing with Eriksson about anything? For antisemites, bashing Jews and Israel is the build-up to an organism that never arrives. Spend your energy on being a proud Jew.
Some of us learn from the legacies of our parents' generation. In the aftermath of WWI most Jews were Bundists. It was the most popular ideology with Jews; it attracted Polish Patriots of Jewish religion. My mother and family were Bundists. They believed they could preserve their Jewish identity, heritage, traditions, culture, Yiddish as a Jewish national language and “coexist” with non-Jews anywhere in Europe. The Bund was a legal movement. However, the cruel fact remains that the Bund proved to be a failed ideology, mistakenly believing in coexistence and that Jews were safe in Europe.
Fundamental question. Most obvious answer is that it emerged because there was an Israel.
Beneath that is the peoplehood connection to a Promised Land. That is to say, fundamental to their identity as a people is their connection to a specific place — Israel.
Expressed as a mathematical equation, it would go something like this: God + Covenant (of which the Land, Israel, is an essential part) + People produces an enduring Peoplehood.
"Zionism was not born because Jews wanted to imitate European imperial powers. It was born because Jews had spent centuries learning that tolerated minorities could become persecuted minorities with terrifying speed."
Hence, Zionism is not a recent invention. It was born some 4,000 year ago. We need only read our perpetual yearning for it so eloquently expressed in Psalm 137 (circa 586 and 538 BCE), not to mention that yearning embedded in Tanach (the correct name for the Hebrew Bible), prayers, rituals, and biblical commentaries.
"The prayers are not only expressions of faith. They are records of longing, loss, gratitude, and return. Hebrew is not merely a religious language."
They are the repository of Jewish meaning and value as a people.
"They heard that Jewish national identity was invented, that Jewish ties to Israel were religious mythology, and that the conflict began in 1948 — or perhaps in 1967."
How does that look when we substitute the word "Palestinian" for Jewish and "Palestine" for Israel?
Would our Progressives (the Red-Green-AltR Axis) mobbing the streets, the Dons commanding professorial lecturns, the advocacy news, social, and entertainment Media claim "Palestinian national identity was invented, that Palestinian ties to Palestine were religious mythology, and that the conflict began in 1948 — or perhaps in 1967?"
How does history, archeology, International Law, Customary International Law, and the UN Charter support or refute the validity of Jewish or "Palestinian" claims? Inquiring minds want to know.
"A Jewish identity built on knowledge" survives the onslaught of propaganda intended to delegitimize it preparatory to eliminating that identity and everything associated with it.
"the ability to distinguish between concern for Palestinians and indifference to Jewish survival"
Begs the question of what constitutes Palestinian? Does it fulfill conventional sociological and ethnological definitions of a People?
Does it describe an indigenous peoples displaced by conquering, colonial, settler, apartheidist, genocidist invaders? Is it a political identity manufactured in 1968?
"The question stops being merely, 'Do I have to do [these religious rituals]?' It becomes, 'What will be lost if no one does?'"
And, for the individual, "What do I lose if I want to live a life filled with meaningfulness and purpose rather than conformity to social expectations of breed, work, retire, die?"
"We are required to understand that when a generation fails to receive and transmit its inheritance, something irreplaceable can vanish."
I don't know what goes on in Jewish day schools, or in the Hebrew schools for after school Judaism. I can't recall any particular Zionism in the Hebrew schools I attended fifty years ago.
Some of us asked for instruction in conversational Hebrew.....there was little to no discussion of Jewish history outside of the Bible or even Holocaust. So has anything improved since I attended Hebrew School. If you have children enrolled in any kind of Jewish program what do they learn? Do they discuss the "occupation" or now "the genocide" Are they encouraged to join Birth Right tours or told it's indoctrination? I don't know what goes on in any Jewish education setting ...worst of all is Jewish studies at the university level. I don't trust a lot of what they indoctrinate the kids in pro Palestine narrative anti Zionism.
I would like to see a Jewish philanthropist step up to fund Jewish day school education for every child who wants it. In these economically challenged times, young families cannot afford the rising costs of a day school education.
You cannot defend what you do not love. And you cannot love what you do not know. Jewish education begins and continues throughout our lives with learning and knowing Torah and the mitzvot. We make Judaism our own when we do those mitzvot. The written Torah and the oral Torah together are our people's constitution. You are correct, Judaism is a belief in God, a legal system to maintain a moral and civilized society, and a people, a nation. A way of life. That's why we are still here, while all those empires that tried to destroy us are gone. Our story begins in the Five Books of Moses. That's same five books that little children and old scholars study. The same story we read over and over but in which we constantly discover new ideas.
With due respect, Vanessa, and understanding that you mean well, I have to say that I don't think Jews need a lecture on how to be a good Jew. I don't like the appellation 'a good Jew' because it immediately imposes judgement, and judgement of this kind a human being can do without. Also, I don't think that after October 7 Jews are asking themselves this question at all. They're asking many questions, I'm sure, such as why does hatred of Jews still exist throughout the world as it does, rising and exploding at every opportunity.
Your description of what Jews know is surprising. Perhaps it is so with the next generation (I am 51), but not so with mine or in my country (Canada). The idea of knowing that Purim has costumes and Chanukah has candles without knowing the context and the Biblical history is preposterous. These are two holidays with a shared insert into the Birkat Hamazon but they couldn't be more different in their origins.
Alas. You seem not only to have missed the point of Vanessa Berg's piece altogether, but have demonstrated the very problem she is cautioning against:
She specially writes that "there is no single..political ideology..that defines Jewish goodness" and asks if we "are trying to understand Jewish disagreements (and if we are)trying to connect to actual Jewish people and communities or ONLY (caps mine) to Jewish opinions?"
I don’t think the point of this article is to encourage Jews to blindly repeat blood libels as if they are facts. But that seems to be what Ericsson is doing. This person is masquerading as a person with questions, but is actually using the platform to asset libelous conclusions as fact. It makes me question this individual’s motivations.
The population in Gaza has increased by many thousands since October 2023. If Israel is attempting to commit genocide, it is doing a really poor job of it. Why would a nation intent on committing genocide make sure that all children in Gaza receive polio and other vaccinations? Why would such a nation permit many thousands of truckloads of tents, food, fuel, clothing, medical supplies and other things the civilian population needs to enter Gaza after those supplies transit Israeli territory? Why would the IDF have repeatedly given Gazans in specific buildings and neighborhoods advanced notice that they needed to evacuate to other areas for their own safety if Israel wanted to kill all Gazans?
Any dictionary can provide you with definitions for "indigenous".
You are trolling when you ask for a definition of Jew and of Israel.
Your Substack bio has you saying "Free Palestine".
Stop repeating the lie of Gaza genocide. 90 % of PA population are Hamas Terrorists, and they want Israel wiped out.
Palestine was promised to the Native Jews and Jews forced into the diaspora by the different occupiers for a Jewish homeland. Jews continued their uninterrupted presence in Judea, the native Jews, Mizrahi, lived under occupation, never free to self-rule, and lived as Dhimmi, 2nd class citizens. Mizrahi are Jews who have never left since the beginnings of Jewish people.
Arab violence stopped only the Jewish homeland from being established after WWI. The British caved to Arab violence.
Never existed before, all made up after WWI: Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, their right to self-determination is never questioned. All of them are benefiting from Zionism which in a nutshell means self determination.
Anyone born to a Jewish woman is Jewish as is anyone who chooses to be a Jew and join the Jewish people by a proper learning and conversion process. Israel is the name of the modern State, the Biblical northern Kingdom, and refers to the Land of israel as spoken of the 3300 year old document as the Torah. And refers to the name God gave to the third patriarch Jacob, father of the 12 tribes. Indigenous: Refers to ethnic groups who lived in a land before others came. But you already know that the Canaanite nations conquered The Land from the children of Shem. Then the Israelites defeated the Canaanites after God had promised the Land to them as an eternal heritage. Your point?
And the words in your profile are 100% correct .. ‘free palestine’ .. free palestine from Hamas, and free palestine from the madness and lunacy that the west has perpetuated for the palestinians as victims.
You would do well to educate yourself with this video link …
.. with Jew hate ever present through the centuries, and now at a meteoric level, you are just one of those haters .. i'm so pleased you are obsessed with the wonder of us Jews .. it poisons you to the core which is great
Your intent is obvious. And once you put the words out there to be received by others they're up for interpretation - you don't get to determine how they're received. No amount of hiding behind 'the notion of hermeneutics' as an abstract device from which to forge your weaponry will absolve you from that. Meaning is not fixed (although your intention may well be); it can change with a reader's perception. Also, for you to stick to your 'hermeneutics' makes you blind to all that does not, and cannot, fit into that circle. All up, for you, that's a pesky situation.
The engineered lie has become a powerful weapon, widely spread today by the far right, the left, Marxists, Islamists, academia, the media, and politicians.
The PLO Charter was drafted in Moscow in 1964. From the 1960s onward, Soviet Russia and Communist bloc countries worked closely with the PLO to redefine the Palestinian cause as a form of anti-imperialism—a framing that appealed directly to both the Left and the Islamic world. Consequently, international Leftists, Marxists, and Progressive Democrats have aligned against Western democracies to weaken capitalism and the Western way of life, while simultaneously propagating the narrative that the Jewish connection to Israel never existed or is irrelevant.
Why are you arguing with Eriksson about anything? For antisemites, bashing Jews and Israel is the build-up to an organism that never arrives. Spend your energy on being a proud Jew.
Vanessa, an excellent article showing the rich history of our people. Thank you
Some of us learn from the legacies of our parents' generation. In the aftermath of WWI most Jews were Bundists. It was the most popular ideology with Jews; it attracted Polish Patriots of Jewish religion. My mother and family were Bundists. They believed they could preserve their Jewish identity, heritage, traditions, culture, Yiddish as a Jewish national language and “coexist” with non-Jews anywhere in Europe. The Bund was a legal movement. However, the cruel fact remains that the Bund proved to be a failed ideology, mistakenly believing in coexistence and that Jews were safe in Europe.
"Why did Zionism emerge?"
Fundamental question. Most obvious answer is that it emerged because there was an Israel.
Beneath that is the peoplehood connection to a Promised Land. That is to say, fundamental to their identity as a people is their connection to a specific place — Israel.
Expressed as a mathematical equation, it would go something like this: God + Covenant (of which the Land, Israel, is an essential part) + People produces an enduring Peoplehood.
"Zionism was not born because Jews wanted to imitate European imperial powers. It was born because Jews had spent centuries learning that tolerated minorities could become persecuted minorities with terrifying speed."
Hence, Zionism is not a recent invention. It was born some 4,000 year ago. We need only read our perpetual yearning for it so eloquently expressed in Psalm 137 (circa 586 and 538 BCE), not to mention that yearning embedded in Tanach (the correct name for the Hebrew Bible), prayers, rituals, and biblical commentaries.
"The prayers are not only expressions of faith. They are records of longing, loss, gratitude, and return. Hebrew is not merely a religious language."
They are the repository of Jewish meaning and value as a people.
"They heard that Jewish national identity was invented, that Jewish ties to Israel were religious mythology, and that the conflict began in 1948 — or perhaps in 1967."
How does that look when we substitute the word "Palestinian" for Jewish and "Palestine" for Israel?
Would our Progressives (the Red-Green-AltR Axis) mobbing the streets, the Dons commanding professorial lecturns, the advocacy news, social, and entertainment Media claim "Palestinian national identity was invented, that Palestinian ties to Palestine were religious mythology, and that the conflict began in 1948 — or perhaps in 1967?"
How does history, archeology, International Law, Customary International Law, and the UN Charter support or refute the validity of Jewish or "Palestinian" claims? Inquiring minds want to know.
"A Jewish identity built on knowledge" survives the onslaught of propaganda intended to delegitimize it preparatory to eliminating that identity and everything associated with it.
"the ability to distinguish between concern for Palestinians and indifference to Jewish survival"
Begs the question of what constitutes Palestinian? Does it fulfill conventional sociological and ethnological definitions of a People?
Does it describe an indigenous peoples displaced by conquering, colonial, settler, apartheidist, genocidist invaders? Is it a political identity manufactured in 1968?
"The question stops being merely, 'Do I have to do [these religious rituals]?' It becomes, 'What will be lost if no one does?'"
And, for the individual, "What do I lose if I want to live a life filled with meaningfulness and purpose rather than conformity to social expectations of breed, work, retire, die?"
"We are required to understand that when a generation fails to receive and transmit its inheritance, something irreplaceable can vanish."
Yes, it is called extinction.
I don't know what goes on in Jewish day schools, or in the Hebrew schools for after school Judaism. I can't recall any particular Zionism in the Hebrew schools I attended fifty years ago.
Some of us asked for instruction in conversational Hebrew.....there was little to no discussion of Jewish history outside of the Bible or even Holocaust. So has anything improved since I attended Hebrew School. If you have children enrolled in any kind of Jewish program what do they learn? Do they discuss the "occupation" or now "the genocide" Are they encouraged to join Birth Right tours or told it's indoctrination? I don't know what goes on in any Jewish education setting ...worst of all is Jewish studies at the university level. I don't trust a lot of what they indoctrinate the kids in pro Palestine narrative anti Zionism.
Thank you for this article. I totally agree!
I would like to see a Jewish philanthropist step up to fund Jewish day school education for every child who wants it. In these economically challenged times, young families cannot afford the rising costs of a day school education.
You cannot defend what you do not love. And you cannot love what you do not know. Jewish education begins and continues throughout our lives with learning and knowing Torah and the mitzvot. We make Judaism our own when we do those mitzvot. The written Torah and the oral Torah together are our people's constitution. You are correct, Judaism is a belief in God, a legal system to maintain a moral and civilized society, and a people, a nation. A way of life. That's why we are still here, while all those empires that tried to destroy us are gone. Our story begins in the Five Books of Moses. That's same five books that little children and old scholars study. The same story we read over and over but in which we constantly discover new ideas.
With due respect, Vanessa, and understanding that you mean well, I have to say that I don't think Jews need a lecture on how to be a good Jew. I don't like the appellation 'a good Jew' because it immediately imposes judgement, and judgement of this kind a human being can do without. Also, I don't think that after October 7 Jews are asking themselves this question at all. They're asking many questions, I'm sure, such as why does hatred of Jews still exist throughout the world as it does, rising and exploding at every opportunity.
My being Jewish has never been ONLY since Oct 7th.
I was born a Jew, both Parents Family's migrated here to leave persecution in Russia, Austria and Morocco
I was always taught the Fundsmental importance of Istarl to us, as a People, since without, we are NOTHING.....
The Stories were still Fresh from my Parents.
My mother's family was Orthodox in Williamsburg my Father a Reformed College boy from Seagate.
Oct 7th tore a piece of my heart, my soul.
I was always taught we, Jews are 1, a People bound through Blood.
If they hit a Jew, we taught as a Team, never to worry, I was there.
If they killed a Jew, you killed 20 of them.
Im still absorbing what is happening here in America.
My decisions aren't yet finalized.
Your description of what Jews know is surprising. Perhaps it is so with the next generation (I am 51), but not so with mine or in my country (Canada). The idea of knowing that Purim has costumes and Chanukah has candles without knowing the context and the Biblical history is preposterous. These are two holidays with a shared insert into the Birkat Hamazon but they couldn't be more different in their origins.
You presumably mean "Purim" has costumes, not "Putin", but Putin probably does also have costumes.
Thank you, I have now edited the post. Autocorrect struck again.
Alas. You seem not only to have missed the point of Vanessa Berg's piece altogether, but have demonstrated the very problem she is cautioning against:
She specially writes that "there is no single..political ideology..that defines Jewish goodness" and asks if we "are trying to understand Jewish disagreements (and if we are)trying to connect to actual Jewish people and communities or ONLY (caps mine) to Jewish opinions?"
Yes, Eriksson has a problem to be pitied.
Pitied? He is a troll to be scorned and ignored.
Do not feed trolls!
Yes, Erickson is Prize Prick
He does this elsewhere on social media alas
I am sure you didn’t miss the points so well written .. you just have a rhythm of hate which you need to voice.
His Substack profile concludes with "Free Palestine".
Oy...
What exactly is that "current political ideology"?
In your original comment you referred to "any dubious nationalist commitments."
What "dubious nationalist commitments"?
That Jews are indigenous to Israel and that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people?
I don’t think the point of this article is to encourage Jews to blindly repeat blood libels as if they are facts. But that seems to be what Ericsson is doing. This person is masquerading as a person with questions, but is actually using the platform to asset libelous conclusions as fact. It makes me question this individual’s motivations.
The population in Gaza has increased by many thousands since October 2023. If Israel is attempting to commit genocide, it is doing a really poor job of it. Why would a nation intent on committing genocide make sure that all children in Gaza receive polio and other vaccinations? Why would such a nation permit many thousands of truckloads of tents, food, fuel, clothing, medical supplies and other things the civilian population needs to enter Gaza after those supplies transit Israeli territory? Why would the IDF have repeatedly given Gazans in specific buildings and neighborhoods advanced notice that they needed to evacuate to other areas for their own safety if Israel wanted to kill all Gazans?
Any dictionary can provide you with definitions for "indigenous".
You are trolling when you ask for a definition of Jew and of Israel.
Your Substack bio has you saying "Free Palestine".
Please define Palestine.
Please define free.
Just kidding.
Your comments are a waste of pixels.
Genocide? You know the definition and have undeniable proof? What you do have is an ignorance of ancient and modern history, and antisemitic leaning.
Stop repeating the lie of Gaza genocide. 90 % of PA population are Hamas Terrorists, and they want Israel wiped out.
Palestine was promised to the Native Jews and Jews forced into the diaspora by the different occupiers for a Jewish homeland. Jews continued their uninterrupted presence in Judea, the native Jews, Mizrahi, lived under occupation, never free to self-rule, and lived as Dhimmi, 2nd class citizens. Mizrahi are Jews who have never left since the beginnings of Jewish people.
Arab violence stopped only the Jewish homeland from being established after WWI. The British caved to Arab violence.
Never existed before, all made up after WWI: Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, their right to self-determination is never questioned. All of them are benefiting from Zionism which in a nutshell means self determination.
Anyone born to a Jewish woman is Jewish as is anyone who chooses to be a Jew and join the Jewish people by a proper learning and conversion process. Israel is the name of the modern State, the Biblical northern Kingdom, and refers to the Land of israel as spoken of the 3300 year old document as the Torah. And refers to the name God gave to the third patriarch Jacob, father of the 12 tribes. Indigenous: Refers to ethnic groups who lived in a land before others came. But you already know that the Canaanite nations conquered The Land from the children of Shem. Then the Israelites defeated the Canaanites after God had promised the Land to them as an eternal heritage. Your point?
And the words in your profile are 100% correct .. ‘free palestine’ .. free palestine from Hamas, and free palestine from the madness and lunacy that the west has perpetuated for the palestinians as victims.
You would do well to educate yourself with this video link …
https://youtu.be/8m6ux-IeNo4?is=C0GaxUQPLoe_3fqP
Oh, dear, it's you again.
.. with Jew hate ever present through the centuries, and now at a meteoric level, you are just one of those haters .. i'm so pleased you are obsessed with the wonder of us Jews .. it poisons you to the core which is great
You've come out from under with this comment. Zionists: the new euphemism for Jews.
Your intent is obvious. And once you put the words out there to be received by others they're up for interpretation - you don't get to determine how they're received. No amount of hiding behind 'the notion of hermeneutics' as an abstract device from which to forge your weaponry will absolve you from that. Meaning is not fixed (although your intention may well be); it can change with a reader's perception. Also, for you to stick to your 'hermeneutics' makes you blind to all that does not, and cannot, fit into that circle. All up, for you, that's a pesky situation.
"authorial intent." Not hard to tell your intent. It stands out like a search light on a moonless night. But it's a LOT less friendly. Or useful.
The engineered lie has become a powerful weapon, widely spread today by the far right, the left, Marxists, Islamists, academia, the media, and politicians.
The PLO Charter was drafted in Moscow in 1964. From the 1960s onward, Soviet Russia and Communist bloc countries worked closely with the PLO to redefine the Palestinian cause as a form of anti-imperialism—a framing that appealed directly to both the Left and the Islamic world. Consequently, international Leftists, Marxists, and Progressive Democrats have aligned against Western democracies to weaken capitalism and the Western way of life, while simultaneously propagating the narrative that the Jewish connection to Israel never existed or is irrelevant.