Who is a Jew? by Rebecca Ruth Gould
A response to Rebecca Goulds article
Rebecca, this is a very detailed description of your and your family’s Jewish background. You seem to highlight this in order to legitimise your anti Semitic stand. There has always been a significant number of Jews who turned their back on their origins and religion — sometimes voluntary, sometimes forced (during the times of the conquest by Muslims in the 7th century, the rule of the Caliphates, during the Christian crusades and occupation of Palestine, by various Popes and various Monarchs during the second millennium. Being Jewish always turned out to become eventually a burden restricting professions, ownership of land, free movement. In many cases it also became a potential threat to one’s life as Pogroms took place in many places across Europe, but also in the Middle East, for hundreds of years.
During the 19th century and the Emancipation which formed the cultural and political life in many European countries, Jews were awarded in some countries equal rights, most importantly the right to study at universities and become doctors, lawyers and work in formerly restricted areas. In the Europe’s East, where your family came from, many young Jews left their Shtetles and families in the 19th century, moved into the cities and started studying at universities or formed businesses.
As a result, many young Jews saw their Jewish religion as a handicap to integration in a non Jewish society which could be easily overcome. Some converted, as your grandfather and your father did; others followed the new Marxist philosophy, became what we later called Socialists and Communists, driven by their own experience as a suppressed and underprivileged group, the same way as they saw the suppression and exploitation of workers in the factories of the Industrial Revolution.
Others, in the light of a history of persecution and violence against them, started to become interested in the idea of a Jewish homeland, culminating in Herzl’s book Der Judenstaat, published at the end of the 19th century. These young Zionists were also not driven by religion; many of them saw the Jewish religion as restrictive to their desire to live in a Jewish state and fulfill roles like citizens in other states — being political leaders, being soldiers, being workers in agriculture and factories. Many of the immigrants to Palestine in the 19th and early 20th century, especially from Poland and Russia, were not religious at all. Their interest was to develop an environment in which they could live unrestricted and safe, basically in the same way as others lived in their countries.
After the end of the second world war, many Jews who had survived, especially those who had little affinity with their religion, reacted to the Holocaust by formally converting to Christian religions or by hiding their origins. Like your family, they changed their name, often didn’t tell their children about their family’s background, and in some cases even becoming followers of anti Semitic movements and parties, last not least to make a point by that denying their origins.
All this has nothing to do with the Palistinian freedom or their statehood. As you know, there was never a Palestinian State. Israel and Judea were conquered by different peoples for the last 1,700 years (since the conquest by the Assyrians). The Kingdom of Israel and Judea was at the cross road between Europe, Asia and Africa and consequently found itself frequently at war with powerful empires reaching from the Egyptians and Nubians to the Ottomans expanding their empires.
Whilst Jews were restricted to visit or live in Jerusalem after the revolt of Bar Kochba against Rome in the early second century, Jews always lived in the area of Israel and Judea in a number of villages and cities, often in cities with a Roman and Greek population. There has never been a period where Jews were not living in what Rome eventually called Palestine and what we call today Israel.
In describing your relationship with Jews and Israel you are inferring that a genocide was or is taking place. I would like to encourage you to lookup UN population statistics for the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza — there is not only no sign of genocide since Israel became independent in 1948 but we find very healthy population growth. Palestinian population grew between 1967 (the time Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza) very fast; In the last twenty years Palestinian population growth was amongst the 30 fastest growing population in the world. Genocide manifests itself in the indiscriminate killing of an ethnic or religious group. This has never happened, nor is it happening now.
A final word, given your background it might be more intelligent to spend a little time understanding your roots and the reason why Jews played such a magnificant role in science, art, literature, medicine, philosophy as well as in various political movements. There is a lot to learn from that and might help you to overcome your feeling of anti Semitism.
