Judaism as a "Joinable Tribal Group" - Is "Mormonism" or "The Church" Something Similar?

[smac97]

I just came across this article: Is Holocaust Education Making Anti-Semitism Worse?

It includes the following comments:

Quote

The recent rise in American anti-Semitism is well documented. I could fill pages with FBI hate-crime statistics, or with a list of violent attacks from the past six years or even the past six months, or with the growing gallery of American public figures saying vile things about Jews. Or I could share stories you probably haven’t heard, such as one about a threatened attack on a Jewish school in Ohio in March 2022—where the would-be perpetrator was the school’s own security guard. But none of that would capture the vague sense of dread one encounters these days in the Jewish community, a dread unprecedented in my lifetime.

This is discouraging stuff.  We Latter-day Saints have seen a decent number of incidents involving vandalism and/or arson of our buildings in the last few years, but not "violent attacks" on our people.

Quote

I published a book in late 2021 about exploitations of Jewish history, with the deliberately provocative title People Love Dead Jews. The anti-Semitic hate mail arrived on cue. What I didn’t expect was the torrent of private stories I received from American Jews—online, in letters, but mostly in person, in places where I’ve spoken across America.

These people talked about bosses and colleagues who repeatedly ridiculed them with anti-Semitic “jokes,” friends who turned on them when they mentioned a son’s bar mitzvah or a trip to Israel, romantic partners who openly mocked their traditions, classmates who defaced their dorm rooms and pilloried them online, teachers and neighbors who parroted conspiratorial lies. I was surprised to learn how many people were getting pennies thrown at them in 21st-century America, an anti-Semitic taunt that I thought had died around 1952. These casual stories sickened me in their volume and their similarity, a catalog of small degradations. At a time when many people in other minority groups have become bold in publicizing the tiniest of slights, these American Jews instead expressed deep shame in sharing these stories with me, feeling that they had no right to complain. After all, as many of them told me, it wasn’t the Holocaust.

Again, we as Latter-day Saints get plenty of ridicule/jokes/mockery, excoriations, etc., but I don't think these are of the same scope and degree as our Jewish brothers and sisters.

Quote

But well-meaning people everywhere from statehouses to your local middle school have responded to this surging anti-Semitism by doubling down on Holocaust education. Before 2016, only seven states required Holocaust education in schools. In the past seven years, 18 more have passed Holocaust-education mandates. Public figures who make anti-Semitic statements are invited to tour Holocaust museums; schools respond to anti-Semitic incidents by hosting Holocaust speakers and implementing Holocaust lesson plans.

The bedrock assumption that has endured for nearly half a century is that learning about the Holocaust inoculates people against anti-Semitism. But it doesn’t.

Holocaust education remains essential for teaching historical facts in the face of denial and distortions. Yet over the past year, as I’ve visited Holocaust museums and spoken with educators around the country, I have come to the disturbing conclusion that Holocaust education is incapable of addressing contemporary anti-Semitism. In fact, in the total absence of any education about Jews alive today, teaching about the Holocaust might even be making anti-Semitism worse.

This is an interesting phenomenon.  I wonder if his thesis is accurate.

Here's the part I wanted to discuss in particular:

Quote

We finally moved to the museum’s opening gallery, featuring pictures of smiling prewar Jews. Here the docent began by saying, “Let’s establish facts. Is Judaism a religion or a nationality?”

My stomach sank. The question betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of Jewish identity—Jews predate the concepts of both religion and nationality. Jews are members of a type of social group that was common in the ancient Near East but is uncommon in the West today: a joinable tribal group with a shared history, homeland, and culture, of which a nonuniversalizing religion is but one feature. Millions of Jews identify as secular, which would be illogical if Judaism were merely a religion. But every non-Jewish society has tried to force Jews into whatever identity boxes it knows best—which is itself a quiet act of domination.

The entire article is worth a read.

I am curious if it has any analog to the Latter-day Saint community, the social group.  The author summarizes "Jewish identity" as follows:

1. membership in "social group" that was common in the ancient Near East but is uncommon in the West today
2. a "tribal group" that is
3. "joinable" and has
4. a "shared history,"
5. a "shared ... homeland"
6. a "shared ... culture," and
7. a nonuniversalizing religion is but one feature.

How much of this has something in common with members of the Church?

How much of this has something in common with the more nebulous concept of "Mormonism"?

Thanks,

-Smac

 

[The Nehor]

I don’t buy the thesis. If holocaust education was a cover for anti-semitism holocaust denialism would be less of a thing.

Anti-semitism is suffering the same problem as a lot of forms of racism. We have examples of very bad things in the past. Now we have people who think they can’t be anti-Semitic because they don’t want to kill all the Jews and people who think they can’t be racist because they don’t use the N word or racial slurs in general. It lets racists feel more enlightened than previous racists and there is even a sense of violation to them when people demand equal rights. “

”Look, we ended slavery and passed civil rights legislation. You have it better than people before you so stop insisting on more equality and be grateful for what you have you ingrates.”

You get the same with anti-semitism. As long as you can pretend you are better than the Nazis anti-semitism is fine. You just replace “Jews” with “bankers” or “Soros” and everyone knows what you mean.

 

The real solution is real education about how racism works, how it is perpetuated, and the ways it impacts those who deal with it. Since we have people who see any attempt at discussing the issue as “making white people feel bad” and a lot of politicians passing laws to make sure we can’t have those discussions I am not optimistic.

[blackstrap]

No comparison here. To say there is, is to say being nipped by a chihuahua is like being mauled by a grizzly .

[The Nehor]

1 minute ago, blackstrap said:

No comparison here. To say there is, is to say being nipped by a chihuahua is like being mauled by a grizzly .

I would put it more like being bullied by a grizzly versus being mauled by a grizzly. The chihuahua makes it sound like you could easily deal with racism as easily as scaring off a small non-threatening dog.

[CV75]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I just came across this article: Is Holocaust Education Making Anti-Semitism Worse?

It includes the following comments:

This is discouraging stuff.  We Latter-day Saints have seen a decent number of incidents involving vandalism and/or arson of our buildings in the last few years, but not "violent attacks" on our people.

Again, we as Latter-day Saints get plenty of ridicule/jokes/mockery, excoriations, etc., but I don't think these are of the same scope and degree as our Jewish brothers and sisters.

This is an interesting phenomenon.  I wonder if his thesis is accurate.

Here's the part I wanted to discuss in particular:

The entire article is worth a read.

I am curious if it has any analog to the Latter-day Saint community, the social group.  The author summarizes "Jewish identity" as follows:

1. membership in "social group" that was common in the ancient Near East but is uncommon in the West today
2. a "tribal group" that is
3. "joinable" and has
4. a "shared history,"
5. a "shared ... homeland"
6. a "shared ... culture," and
7. a nonuniversalizing religion is but one feature.

How much of this has something in common with members of the Church?

How much of this has something in common with the more nebulous concept of "Mormonism"?

Thanks,

-Smac

 

I think that we are in such a polarized society that even the even-handed provoke the extremists. As far as public education goes, I see this as the result of removing civics from the curriculum and the classroom atmosphere.

I see the parallels with teaching about pioneers and contemporary anti-Mormonism as a very diluted tangent, mostly because the much shorter history (200 years) and lack of a global diaspora (New York isn’t viewed as the Mormon homeland, and Utah is a safe place for Church HQ). Be that as it may, items 1 – 7 might have some significance in the intermountain West since Church membership and concepts of “Mormonism” are more fleshed-out (e.g., cultural Mormon, TBM, Jack-, etc.) than in the rest of the USA or the world.

[Calm]

39 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I don’t buy the thesis. If holocaust education was a cover for anti-semitism holocaust denialism would be less of a thing.

Just from Smac’s quotes, I didn’t get that as the thesis, I got the impression that having only Holocaust education was a problem because the lack of education of current racism made it harder to identify racism of today since it is less extreme.  Focusing only on the Holocaust meant anything less than wanting to kill Jews could be interpreted as not racist.  His thesis as I understood it is it is not enough to teach the past, we need to teach the present.  Plus if you are going to teach about a people, teach it right.  

Am I missing something from the article?

[CV75]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

I would put it more like being bullied by a grizzly versus being mauled by a grizzly. The chihuahua makes it sound like you could easily deal with racism as easily as scaring off a small non-threatening dog.

On the other hand, regarding the requirements for conversion, tithing is more painful than the ritual circumcision.

[JustAnAustralian]

59 minutes ago, CV75 said:

On the other hand, regarding the requirements for conversion, tithing is more painful than the ritual circumcision.

Are we talking current circumcision methods, or Zipporah's sharp stone method?

[Calm]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

n the other hand, regarding the requirements for conversion, tithing is more painful than the ritual circumcision.

How many people cry when handing over tithing?

Are you missing a “not”?

[blackstrap]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The chihuahua makes it sound like you could easily deal with racism

I was thinking the mormon experience compared to the jewish experience. 

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, blackstrap said:

I was thinking the mormon experience compared to the jewish experience. 

Ah, yeah, that is probably more accurate for most church members right now though it varies a lot based on where in the world you are.

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, CV75 said:

On the other hand, regarding the requirements for conversion, tithing is more painful than the ritual circumcision.

Are you sure you are paying tithing correctly?

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

Just from Smac’s quotes, I didn’t get that as the thesis, I got the impression that having only Holocaust education was a problem because the lack of education of current racism made it harder to identify racism of today since it is less extreme.  Focusing only on the Holocaust meant anything less than wanting to kill Jews could be interpreted as not racist.  His thesis as I understood it is it is not enough to teach the past, we need to teach the present.  Plus if you are going to teach about a people, teach it right.  

Am I missing something from the article?

No, I am partially agreeing with the article but I don’t think teaching the holocaust is the problem. I think teaching it and the present forms of racism common in the culture together would work better.

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

No, I am partially agreeing with the article but I don’t think teaching the holocaust is the problem. I think teaching it and the present forms of racism common in the culture together would work better.

Agreed. We need both and more teaching of the history and development of racism that exists in the here and now, realistically, avoiding the extremes (meaning teaching the extremes exist, but avoiding using them as the standard for teaching what is appropriate behaviour), though agreeing what is realistic is hard, but the process itself reveals a lot of how racism manages to survive.

[The Nehor]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Agreed. We need both and more teaching of the history and development of racism that exists in the here and now, realistically, avoiding the extremes (meaning teaching the extremes exist, but avoiding using them as the standard for teaching what is appropriate behaviour), though agreeing what is realistic is hard, but the process itself reveals a lot of how racism manages to survive.

Well, the extremes are a good example of how bad it has been and can get again. The lesson of the holocaust was supposed to be “never again” but there has been a resurgence of “maybe Hitler had the right idea” in recent years.

[Hamilton Porter]

American Jews have a stellar track record of protecting other marginalized groups. They've been at the forefront of every social movement. Latter-day Saints...err.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

American Jews have a stellar track record of protecting other marginalized groups. They've been at the forefront of every social movement. Latter-day Saints...err.

Okay, I give up. Which parts are sarcastic? All of it?

[CV75]

12 hours ago, Calm said:

How many people cry when handing over tithing?

Are you missing a “not”?

The anticipation is worse, so I think some see it more as "an ounce of prevention..."

8 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Are you sure you are paying tithing correctly?

Paper cuts!

[The Nehor]

6 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Paper cuts!

Which I will now gratuitously pour lemon juice on it.

[CV75]

7 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Which I will now gratuitously pour lemon juice on it.

..and salt. This mohel will get no tip! Well, on second thought, he can keep it.

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, CV75 said:

..and salt. This mohel will get no tip! Well, on second thought, he can keep it.

Lot’s wife had the right idea. If you are a pillar of salt salt in your wound doesn’t hurt.

One day…..

 

Edited April 4, 2023 by The Nehor