The Jewish Question - Piece #1
Examining the intersectionality of the 3 faiths battling for control over "The Promised Land"
To read as a separate PDF (working references) - Click the Link :)
A Retrospect Preface: Crisis in the Middle East
This new war will have a lot of varying experts weighing in from their own backgrounds with amazing insight and historical understanding; from Dr Finkelstein to Chomsky & many others who have long been a voice on the matter as the same repeated tragedy continues to occur without change. I would like to share a journey through the historical context as I perform my own due diligence in trying to obtain a better understanding of how we got to where we are at today with this Israel-Palestine conflict, while connecting the general underlying theme that, to quote Christopher Hitchens, “Religion poisons everything”.
Framing the underlying theme in a generalized way: we have a piece of land that is vital for 3 distinct religious traditions. Islam, Judaism, Christianity – which all overlap each other in varying ways. Religious groups have fought over this piece of land for thousands of years historically, but it was not until the last century that the areas 500+ years of peace was disturbed. In 1850, neither Jews nor Arabs viewed themselves as members of an ethnic nationality, by 1950 that had flipped entirely thanks to the rise of Zionism within Judaism.
This is a war between 3 faiths & the divisions within them, not just politics. The struggle over this land has existed for over 2,000 years to varied extents. Contrary to what is likely a common assumption, Christianity has not historically held Jews and Judaism in positive regard. Jews rejected their Messiah, Jesus, and killed him. Jews were often held in contempt by Christian groups. Islam truly believes it is the last and final faith, the only one with a legitimate faith-based war system of Jihadism. & Jews think they are the chosen people of God…. ya bunch of impure Gentiles. These variances between the faiths causes strife.
These Monotheistic faiths all have their own motives, traditions, and theological explanations for why they do what they do; there is no separation in government and religious affairs, and the world you live in now is being dictated by religious ideology. From the Islamic communities across the world, to the Christian West, and to the Jewish communities globally.
I want to acknowledge that war has no absolute winner, and human suffering is not a positive thing. My heart goes out to victims on all sides, and I truly wish humanity could find a peaceful way to resolve conflict and establish fair systems that are not spiting losers of war. I am saddened my nation has contributed to getting us here, and despite my own negative attitudes towards religion at large, wish safety for all of those who are having to legitimately deal with this situation while I can afford to vent frustrations safely in front of my computer. What I am not going to do is shy away from inconvenient Truths or uncomfortable questions because we live in a society where any critical thought about Jews is antisemitic, Muslims is Islamophobic, and Christians its persecution. I am requesting an open mind & faith that my words are coming from an underlying position of love.
If I had to summarize a thesis outside of general historical analysis. My point would be that there is a long history of religious diversity in the area, and the land belongs to no single faith. The common argument that the Jewish people have always lived here is simply false; while there may have always been some small population of Jewish people who maintained traditions after a certain point BCE, the main population has been outside the land for almost two millennium. The 20th century’s attempt to resolve “The Jewish Question” has only made matters worse and should be reexamined for a more humane solution than has existed to date.
Most have not likely taken time to think of the actual difference between a system of government vs a system of religion & how the two interconnect in their own government, let alone places in the Middle East. Most assume the distinction is obvious, but the distinction is not often clear and presents a legitimate problem for most governments.
For the United States, separation of church & state was the primary issue for the Founding Fathers who while all coming from primarily Protestant backgrounds, all had varying faiths in that Protestant Tree; complicating matters further, members like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and Monroe became, like most 18th century thinkers - Deists – not Theists.1 Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason is the most poignant showing this.2
The Founding Fathers all agreed & understood that their religious belief systems needed to be kept out of the government due to the polarization of religious ideology, and the lack of agreement between faiths and denominations. North America had long been for those who sought freedom in religious practice from varying monarchs who mandated specific faith in their systems of government. Fun example being King Henry VII divorcing so many wives he had to literally separate from the Catholic branch because he got into a dispute with the reigning Pope due to the Catholic refusal of recognizing divorces during the time.3
What the founding fathers achieved is an amazing accomplishment, and while the system they set up has done a good job of not outright mandating a single religion, Christianity is the clear favorite child in the US with the majority population comprising Protestants. For most people across the globe, the beliefs they hold are a result of their religious ideology, which influences most areas of life, including the Statehood of Israel. One of my favorite examples of Christian led movements influencing our day-to-day life directly from Uncle Sam – income taxes. Religious Prohibition caused the government to implement an income tax on the people where it was running primarily off liquor taxes prior.4 Let alone if we want to get into more contentious areas like Abortion & Sexuality at large from abstinence/sex ed to homosexuality.
I think most people today undervalue the religious historical past our own nation contains; for example, evolutionary theory was banned in 1928 by Arkansas, only to be repealed in 1968 by the Supreme Court in Epperson v. Arkansas.5 Out of the fear of Communism spreading across the globe, the 1950’s was a death grip of overcompensating Christian breach of church and state. 1956 removed E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One) to “In God We Trust” – from a notion of collective spirit to a rigid statement. Which by the 60’s the culture went from I Love Lucy to Batman or Addams Family.
The Middle East at large has a much more rigid religious influence in their governing systems, including Israel. See Exhibit 1 at the end for a map of the religious diversity within area at large. Most governments in the Middle Eastern area directly tie their nation to a specific religion, or a step beyond and a specific denominational preference under a religion.
Retired Israeli Judge Menahem Alon made this statement, “The definition of the concept Jew, in this context, is: ‘He who was born to a Jewish mother, or converted, and does not belong to another religion’. This is the lawful definition in the State of Israel. And in my view this law is most essential. Otherwise, we have no Jewish nation!” Which is the entire point of Halakhah/Halacha6. Israel is a faith driven nation-state regardless of the Zionistic nationalism aspect & it permeates most aspects of their society.6
Iran is a Shia Muslim nation, only allowing Shia Muslims to be President. Syria is along with them, fighting as we speak to join territories. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni Islamic state with the Qur’an as its constitution. Lucky for the world, these two clash amongst themselves. The Saudi’s provide aid to the Sunni rebels in Syria, as does the United States since we are constantly providing Billions of dollars in arms deals between both presidents to the Saudi’s who send them to the rebels. $5 billion August 2022 for Biden. Trump defied Congress and sent $8 Billion in July 2019. Jordan, Yemen, or Afghanistan – does not matter where we choose the general area is populated with highly theocratic governments that dictate behaviors of day-to-day life.
An ironic example of the lack of separation of faith for the middle east at large is the recent peace treaty for the Arab-Jewish world was called The Abraham Accords. Why? Because there is no separation of religious ideology and government. The land we are fighting over, the “promised land”, is important in all 3 faith traditions. For those who are less familiar with the religious history, let me provide quick context. Abraham is a central figure for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Why? Because Abraham is the first major figure after Noah’s flood story starting in Genesis 12 & God chooses this man to make a pact, a covenant with.
The Abrahamic Covenant
Keeping this simple. The story characters are 1) Abraham and his wife, Sarai (Sarah) 2) Hagar who is Sarai’s slave 3) Isaac who is the son of Abraham/Sarai 4) Ishmael who is the son of Abraham/Hagar.
The main premise is that God makes a promise – a covenant – with Abraham. The issue lies between the offspring and the issue of an inheritance due to God making a promise of land in Gen 15. To complicate the matter further, God also makes a promise with Hagar (the slave) that her offspring will be both successful and at odds with his kin.
in Genesis 15 God promises Abraham that he will give him an heir after coming to him and hearing the complaints of Abraham being old and childless, promises him his descendants will number as many as the stars in the sky. God has Abraham sacrifice some animals to see a vision in his dreams of the future. 3 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years, 14 but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
In Genesis 16, the wife of Abraham got tired of waiting on God to become pregnant; she was 75 years old & had Abraham have an heir with a servant instead who successfully became pregnant. Relations sour with Sarai and Hagar after jealousy comes up; Sarai beats her slave and Hagar is saved by God but told Ishmael will be at odds with his kin in verse 12. “He shall be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall live at odds with all his kin.”
In Genesis 17, both Ishmael & Isaac are stated to be blessed by God with fruitful heirs and great nations. It is tradition that Ishmael had twelve sons, one of those named Kedar, who is traditionally the ancestor to the Prophet Muhammad. Genesis 17 is clear to give Isaac the nod though in terms of the “everlasting” covenant.
Genesis 17 also establishes the entire premise of all 3 faiths of a deity making a pact with humanity – that God will maintain his covenant with Abraham under conditions of the covenant. What are the covenant conditions you ask? Foreskin for blessings, even the slaves so you know he means business. In Gen 15 it’s sacrificing varying animals in sets of 3. In Gen 17 God wants foreskins for eternity; those are conditions of a psychopath, all I’m saying. 7 I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding, and I will be their God.”
9 God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. 13 Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
18 And Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmael might live in your sight!” 19 God said, “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. 20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you; I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. 21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year.” 7
Not only is Isaac the true heir to the Promised Land and chosen by God for the Christian and Jewish faiths, but Jesus is a descendent of Isaac according to Matthew 1’s lineage list as well, and so is King David – the greatest King in Israeli history. The area of the “promised land” is also important to Christianity for their end of the world theology. In book of Revelations, the end times will take place in Jerusalem & will fight “Old Babylon”. Jesus will ultimately rule over a New Jerusalem and New Earth.
In Islam, the covenant God made with Abraham regarding the Promised Land (Gen. 17:8) was forfeited by the Jewish people because of their disobedience to God (Surah 17.4). As a result, they suffered expulsion. God promised to restore them to the land, but only once (Surah 17.6). After they rejected Christ, they were expelled again, never to be restored. God then gave the kingdom promises to those more worthy and faithful—the descendants of Ishmael and their representatives, the Muslims (Surah 2.124; 3.25; 17.104).
Let alone if we want to really get into the theological weeds and start discussing the Christian & Jewish “prophecy” scriptures that state the Jews will return to the Promised Land. One example being Jeremiah 16:15 “but “As the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them.” For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their ancestors.”
Origin Story of The Hebrews – From Oral to Manuscripts
The Ancient Hebrews are not the Jews of today; what survives are the resulting traditions and practices that have progressed and survived over time, and these are much more loosely understood in historical context than our Christian or Islamic texts due to the nature of which the early Jewish thoughts were passed.
There are thousands of ancient manuscripts for Islam or Christianity. Thousands. It is much easier to get a clearer historical understanding in those and how they changed over time because we can physically observe the changes occur. From the Iron Age we have only a few references in passing to a state of Israel, so while we can validate existence no issue, we have little literary references of the Hebrew people outside of the Torah/Old Testament texts until a sizable time into the religion.
Judaism largely relied on Oral passing for most of its religious scholarship up until the destruction of the Jewish Temple by the Romans in 70CE. After the destruction of the temple, the consensus is that the fear of losing oral traditions due to persecution, writings became much more prevalent which is where we can eventually start to also note large differences between texts like the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text and the overall diversity of book preferences between Jewish sects.
With the Hebrew Bible, prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, our Hebrew text was almost entirely based on one (count them, one) complete manuscript from around the year 1000 CE (called Codex Leningradensis).8 To help that statement sink in Christianity’s oldest Codex we have dates to the 4th Century, Codex Sinaiticus.9 That’s 300-350ish years into its theological existence. Judaism took over 2000 years. The first edition of the entire Hebrew Bible was printed at Soncino (in Italy) in 1488 with punctuation and accents but without any commentary. The second complete Bible was printed in Naples in 1491/93 and the third in Brescia in 1494.10
We covered the beginning to the Jewish people’s story with God in Genesis 16. For the bulk of the Old Testament the Jewish people are fighting to first take and then to maintain the promised land or are in exile from it entirely. The ancient Hebrew are slaves to Egypt immediately in Exodus followed by Assyria & Babylon.
later during the times of Isaiah and Daniel, Greek & Roman Empires. Only for a brief period do the 12 Tribes of Israel enjoy their time in the Promised Land during the peak of King David’s reign and his son, King Solomon, who is traditionally held to have built the Temple of Jerusalem.
The first significant Jewish Diaspora was the result of the Babylonian Exile of 586 BCE. After the Babylonians conquered the kingdom of Judah, part of the Jewish population was deported into slavery. Although Cyrus the Great, the Persian conqueror of Babylonia, permitted the Jews to return to their homeland in 538 BCE, part of the Jewish community voluntarily remained behind. The largest, most significant, and culturally most creative Jewish Diaspora in early Jewish history flourished in the Greek intellectual capital of Alexandria, where in the 1st century BCE 40 percent of the population was Jewish. Around the 1st century CE an estimated 5,000,000 Jews lived outside Palestine, about four-fifths of them within the Roman Empire, but they looked to Palestine as the center of their religious and cultural life. Diaspora Jews thus far outnumbered the Jews in Palestine even before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.11
Thereafter, the chief centers of Judaism shifted from country to country (e.g., Babylonia, Persia, Spain, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, and the United States), and Jewish communities gradually adopted distinctive languages, rituals, and cultures, some submerging themselves in non-Jewish environments more completely than others.
From Jewish Question to Jewish Problem – Prelude to Modern Woe
After the renaissance ended in the 17th century for the West – Europe had experienced the 1st industrial revolution and was in the middle of a second. The sciences were pushing the boundaries of everything in the modern world and out of the enlightenment came the “scientific racism” that minority groups in all societies have all seemingly been victims of at some point. Let me be clear, I am not blaming scientific understanding, I am noting an abuse and bastardization of such. While Racism and tribalism have existed forever, the concepts of scientific understanding like Species and Natural Selection came during this era and provided sophisticated ways to attack group differences.
If you belong to a group that is off the mainline path, you will likely experience negative behaviors because of such at some point. In-group out-group behavior – tribalism, exists in everything from friend groups to music tastes to more important aspects like belief systems and approaches to society. Those of Jewish faith are no different, and the issue goes back much longer than the framing of context I can take the time to provide in this short essay. From the beginning when I explained the covenant with Abraham, Jewish society has looked at itself separate from the rest of humanity, thus the entire point of Jewish law, which like a lot of religious groups, places a lot of specific approaches to life. A time relevant example of public discourse between Jewish sects was showcased in Jewish Chronicle, which is the oldest newspaper largely for Anglo-Jewish communities. During the first world war Russo-Jews and Anglo-Jews publicly debated how Jews should serve and rather it should be separate from other citizen groups.
The tradeoff of following one’s own rigid traditions is the oddity the group appears in the standard cultural norms for whatever society of comparison. The Hasidic Jews in New York are not going to date someone like me, and they have no desire to adapt to scientific progress in all areas, let alone general cultural changes. While today we may understand varying traditions and tolerance towards alternate concepts, the rise of nationalism in combination with the framing based on the science of evolution, that nationality could be scientifically defined and therefore compared – we would see the rise of a “science” driven campaign of genocide on the Jews from the Nazi regime.
The Jewish Question which started in the mid 18th century by philosophical Jews as a question of national identity, would result in the Jewish Problem by the early 20th century period after ever evolving debates and thoughts which involved the status of Jews in varying systems of life and government as it relates to assimilation and segregation. Our first modern historical document with the term “Jewish Question” is the Jewish Naturalization Act 1753 which was meant as a reward for the Jewish people of the UK for maintaining loyalty during a religious rebellion; the reward was to allow Jewish people to apply to become naturalized citizens. The people of the Empire revolted in protest, utilizing their Christian faith as the rationale in that accepting Jews as citizens would be an abandonment of Christianity.
Followed by La Question Juive after the French Revolution in 1789, and Germany by 1843 with Die Judenfrage. By the beginning of the 20th century. Chiming in on the subject from the Jewish perspective in 1896 was Theodor Herzl’s famous Der Judenstaat, which calls for creating a nation-state in the Ottoman controlled state of Palestine, although open to locations like Uganda. Herzl’s work is what starts a nationalistic movement within the Jew & Herzl’s goals of taking “The Jewish Question” out of other government’s hands and bring in other Jews to resolve this themselves. Intuitive, given Germany would end up drafting The Final Solution in reference to The Jewish Question and answered so by genocide. Rather ironic itself, Herzl and most of his peers during the early years had come from Vienna and Berlin where there were a lot of wealthy Jews living. This is why the common language of the Zionist movement was German until World War 1.
The Fall of The Ottoman Empire – Opportunities Taken
One of the most impactful historical aspects to grasping our current situation is in understanding the fall of the Ottoman Empire, which had existed as the head of Islam from the 14th century covering from Turkey to North Africa. The fall of this historic empire gave rise to the Arab world we are more familiar with today. The start of the 20th century was rough for the Ottoman Empire. In 1912 & 1913 it lost the Balkan Wars and the year prior had fought the Italo-Turkish War…and immediately following these wars comes World War 1. Losing all three on its way out the history books. See Figure 2 for some mapping references to understand the Empire’s historical significance in scale.
We tend to focus on World War II more than World War I. Largely due to our Christian bias towards the Jewish Holocaust, and the Zionism that the early 20th century embraced. 10 million lives are estimated to have been lost in the Bolshevik Revolution of which large genocidal slaughter occurred from 1918-1920. The Nazi Holocaust killed 6 million. It is not a competition of tragedy; both are equally grotesque, but my point is even in how our educational system approaches geopolitical sympathy – religion is an underlying bias source. We ignore the Russian tragedies in our educational systems due to the simple fact that humanizing cultures of the enemy would make propaganda less effective. This is not the place to dive into Stalin’s atheistic regime, but again, religion even in its anti-form is the source.
Back on topic, World War 1 has arguably had more influence on society today than the former. Quick recap for everyone. For World War 1 lasted from July 1914 – Nov 1918 and involved two sides: The Central Powers vs The Allied Powers. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria comprises the Central Powers. Russia, France, Britain, Italy makes up the Allied Powers. Italy did betray The Central Powers after the Treaty of London in 1915, joining the Allies.
The Allies were anticipating a short war and victory within months of fighting. They were not ready for a long-term war and after a year of fighting, decided their only way to win would be to attack the weakest link in the Central Powers – the Ottoman Empire. Western nations play a strong game of subterfuge & knew they had to utilize shadow tactics to help secure a military victory on the ground as Germany was winning on multiple fronts of combat.
With the Treaty of London in 1915, Britain is negotiating part of the Ottoman empire in a post-war victory scenario to Italy to get them to turn from the Central Powers, join the Allies, and attack Germany. At the same time, the French and British were supporting Hussein bin Ali, whose family took care of the Islamic holy sites due to being a descendant of Mohammed. The British liked his pedigree and gave him support for a rebellion in hopes of distracting the Ottoman Empire with the uprisings from Arab nationalists who were dreaming of overthrowing the Ottoman Caliphate and restoring the Arab Dynasties of old. To accomplish such a task would require Western aid – so Hussein bin Ali also stood much to gain.
Thus, the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence began in 1916. The Arab’s revolted against the Ottoman Empire in hopes of obtaining territory. Unfortunately for Hussein bin Ali, Sykes-Pico Agreement was taking place behind the Arab’s back and essentially was a multi-year back and forth of Western Allies negotiating the land-split internally between the Ottoman Empire.
In 1917, the UK also issued the Balfour Declaration after receiving a letter in October that the Bolshevik Revolution was being led by Jewish leaders. The letter was written by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild, a wealthy and prominent leader in the British Jewish community whose family essentially ran Western banking. Chaim Weizmann spent his time working with the French side of the Rothschild family to secure the British family side’s support.
The Balfour Declaration Is the primary root causes of the modern conflict today. This Declaration gave the Zionists support for a national home for the Jewish people, as the UK government had been working with Zionists since the start of the war and Zionist Cabinet Member Herbert Samuel decided to push Zionists to make their move internationally. A mistake by the British in strategy was that the Bolshevik Jews that were in Russia were anti-Zionist & anti-capitalists.12 After winning their revolution and gaining control of the governmental archives, the revolutionary leaders exposed the diplomatic secrets that had been happening by writing a letter denouncing Zionism a capitalist ploy and withdrew Russia from the war entirely. This had multiple effects of importance costing the West on multiple fronts.13
The Arab people world was obviously not happy and now the people in the West, especially the United States, started to have a hard shift of tone towards the war’s cause. Garrison Villard and Herbert Croly were both liberals who ran the Nation and New Republic Magazines – they immediately ran with the Russian publications, turning on Woodrow Wilson whom they had supported, and questioned the motives of France and England.
This aspect of the fallen empires producing a lot of material from their governments which showed the dirty secrets of the war shaped most of the public opinion towards it. Pravda in 1917, Austrian Red Book finalized in 191814, Un Livre Noir in 192115, Die Grosse Politik (a Forty Volume set completed in 1927 backed by the guarantee no documents of importance had been omitted or concealed) – compared to what the British & French, it left a lot to be desired in the public eye. To be fair to the Western powers, winners of war are not usually expected to be as transparent as what was happening.
With the manipulative decision making open for years before the West tried to engage, this gave Germany the excuse of shifting accountability. As one 1930’s author put it in The Origins of the World War, "revealed the reckless diplomacy by which Austria dragged Germany into a World War which Austria did not want, but which she was willing to risk in her determination to put an end to the danger which menaced her from the side of Serbia.”
The West affirmed the Belfour Declaration in 1926 after the war ended, performing a continued back and forth policy upsetting both sides further. In May 1939 the British government altered its policy in a White Paper recommending a limit of 75,000 further immigrants and an end to immigration by 1944, unless the resident Palestinian Arabs of the region consented to further immigration. Zionists condemned the new policy, accusing Britain of favoring the Arabs. I could spend an entire article writing about the settlement period between the end of World War I, start of World War II, and post 1948. From the Arab uprisings in 1929 to the footage we still hold in the Spielberg Jewish Library of the early propaganda regarding the former “desolation” by “poor farming peasants” and how the Jews are going to bring science and modern life to their promised land that is currently housed by “aliens”. For the sake of time and, I will move forward through the turbulent era between the world wars in which the West backed the Jewish settlers, resulting in a fragile peace that has had routine occurrences.
By the beginning of World War II, the history of the 19th and 20th century’s Jewish Question combined with the aftermath of the fall of the Ottoman Empire had placed a target on the Jewish people.16 After the Holocaust, American liberal Protestants argued that America had a moral humanitarian duty to support Israel. Christian anti-Semitism had helped bring about the Holocaust, that was the mainline sentiment, and so Christians must help make amends. This led to the theological rationales that we are familiar with today as the Christian death grip became real in the 1950’s as a reaction to world communism.17
The Fervent Embrace is a great book by Caitlin Carenen which details the establishment of the ACPC as a liberal Protestant Zionist organization dedicated to political lobbying for a Jewish homeland. Comprised of members of the United States Congress (Harry Truman served as a member during his Senate years), ministers, theologians, and influential lay leaders, the ACPC viewed itself as a corrective to the perceived centuries of Christian injustices inflicted on Jews.18 In contrast to the liberal Protestant constituency of the ACPC, which reflected the slowly changing attitudes toward Jews among mainline Protestants, evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants, who had retreated from politics after the 1925 Scopes Trial, viewed the debate for a Jewish national home as religiously significant but remained on the political sidelines in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Creation of Israel
The rise and success of Zionism by the end of the 19th century paved the way to achieving the end goals by the mid-20th century thanks to persistent lobbying, and a little luck. I am not going to list or detail the tit for tat violent massacres between groups that started battling each other in Palestine as Zionism rooted itself from the late 1800’s to 1948. There is more than enough material that can be located online, but one underrated source I would like to highlight is The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive which can be located on the Youtube Channel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The channel maintains the old Zionist Propaganda footage of Pre-State, Communities, and Post 1948 and it speaks for itself. Zionists saw the land as farmed by Palestinian peasants and wasted for years, but no longer now that the Zionist Jews were there to restore the land to former glory and bring modern science. “A Day in Degania” as well as overall attitudes of the Jewish thought during the period.
Zionism was not the only player in the game for the notion of wanting a Jewish homeland during the period, and it took time to become the dominant group. Society of Jews was one of the more prevalent groups of which Zionists eventually gained their approval thanks to Herzl’s cunning foresight. Herzl knew for Zionism to succeed he needed both existing Jewish groups and non-Jewish backers too, he needed the European Powers and the West. Herzl’s book The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question, catching the attention of the international Jewish movements at large. So, the First Zionist Congress in 1897 was held, which in short generalization, decided the overall approach of Zionism for garnering support; now they just needed luck and persistence.
The Jewish National Fund 1901 and the Palestine Foundation Fund (Keren Hayesod) 1902 were created by Zionism for the colonization of Palestine. Both still exist and have websites supporting the same goals; in a nutshell, people are sponsored or helped to come to Israel and start farming and colonize the land settler by settler. This policy saw the dramatic increase of foreign-born Jews into Palestine before the World Wars had even started.
In 1881 a group of German and English Jews sent a representative to negotiate with the Ottoman government to build a railway from Smyrna to Bagdad; the goal being to settle Jewish populations among the railways. I am assuming the Ottoman rulers readily sensed the danger, and in November 1881 declared: “[Jewish] immigrants will be able to settle as scattered groups throughout Turkey, excluding Palestine. They “Must submit to all the laws of the Empire and become Ottoman subjects.”19 Within the first few years we see conflict developing between the existing population and the foreign-born immigrants arriving to colonize a land in the name of their faith.20
The luck is that the West wanted to Colonize Asia & the Middle East and having a foothold there is important. As Truman even admitted in blunt terms during a speech anyone can find at the Harry S Truman Library on Youtube that the Zionists wanted all of Palestine on a silver plate from the US and Britain and he did want to “find them a home” after Britain’s disaster over promising from WWI.
One ironic “lucky” contributor to the formation of Israel is that Germany was one of the leading European nations for sending Jews & Money to Palestine. While the Nazi party was not in support of Zionism in any real sense – they were all for getting Jews the hell out of Germany. The Haavara Agreement is often argued between those who want to overextend the relationship between Nazi Germany and Zionism but also those who want to deny the factual connection that the two have regardless of what happens later. Zionism was the only authorized Jewish organization in Germany, the “cooperation” of the two saved 53,000 Jews.
Ancestry Vs Race vs Nationality – Let’s Get Uncomfortable
I will lead with a quote from Alain F Corcos, a 98 year old Holocaust survivor who also happens to be a biologist.
“To be a race Jews would have to have been isolated from other populations. However, they never avoided crossbreeding and converted many non-Jews. In other words, from Day One Jews have married non-Jews, and therefore there is no way to genetically characterize them as a race. Nevertheless, many people find it difficult to accept the ideas that Judaism is not hereditary, but a religion, and that Jews who abandon the Jewish faith, whether they adopt another religion or none at all, are no longer Jews.” – Alain F Corcos “The Myth of the Jewish Race.”
Humans need categorization to get through life and make sense of information. Yet not all categories are hard truths of biology or reality. Race is a complicated example. There are genuine benefits to trying to establish common overlaps between populations/groups & at the same time there are disadvantages and errors when doing so as well. Academia shifted long ago to ancestry over race for valid reasons.
After Darwin wrote the Origin of Species in 1859, we have maintained the same ultimate finale for the Linnaean classification system – species. This classification system is what establishes empiric criterion for discrimination between members…for most species that is reproduction capability. Race has no accepted criteria to differentially classify races or establish a sub-species delineation.
Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man is one of the go academic pieces for breaking down biological determinism. To quote a brief part, “It holds that shared behavioral norms, and the social and eco-nomic differences between human groups – primarily races, classes, and sexes – arise from inherited, inborn distinctions and that society, in this sense, is an accurate reflection of biology.” (Gould, 1981, p. 20).
Finding underlying biological markers between human populations has been difficult in any practical sense.21 Medical literature is gapped with sex data let alone ancestry, and we don’t want to even get into the replication crisis for the field at large.22 Even before DNA – most biologists who studied heredity and crossbreeding knew that the racial categorization that was increasingly utilize is flawed, but creating a system to replace the pop cultural system has been difficult just like notions of “the Ego” continue to exist despite long being abandoned academically. The average person on the street is not keeping up with academia.
We share 98% the same DNA structure as a Chimpanzee…the small differences in genetic makeup are what make us unique & we are infants in our scientific understanding of the genome as it relates to groups outside of small general areas of overlap within the variability. There are no ways to currently delineate subgroups in such a manner as most of the historical meaning of race would denote or what most lay humans associate to the word.
Most of us do not know our ancestry within a few hundred years, let alone thousands. I am lucky enough I can date my Patriarchal Candler heritage back to the 17th century when my family came over from Ireland after participating in Cromwell’s army committing genocide upon the Irish. My ancestor Daniel Candler fell in love with an Irish girl and was kicked out of the family for marrying her, moved to the US. Based on the Candler surname all I can really guess before that period is that we were somewhat important during the Middle Ages for being Candle Makers most likely. The surname Candler is first found in London where the first listings of the family were found in the Hundredorum Rolls of 1273: Reginald le Chandeler; and Mathew le Candeler. The same rolls listed another family but in the Latin form of the name: William Candelarius. I have nothing before that, and nothing of real value in between the gaps. What knowledge I have provides me little of my actual ancestry in any reasonable sense of specific nature or understanding, just like everyone else with the same general ancestral understandings.
Nations rise and fall & crossbreeding between groups is a constant occurrence. Thinking this out for oneself should easily allow even the sternest traditionalist to understand how absurd a “race” is at face value. Humans are eager to find identity in everything though, so of course everyone feels pride in their ancestry without really being able to describe it in much specific detail or length. Between the ancestry issue and throwing in what one does with a concept of nationality and pride amplifies the confusing notions of identity, of which none of these identity variables have a bearing on the reality of the genetic component.
I understand the strategic purpose of trying to establish an identity of a nation state since one did exist thousands of years ago, but let’s be real. The modern Jewish people are no more a “race” as are Americans who are a breeding pot of immigrants as well. This is not meant to step on identity, as I value cultural heritage at large, but nationality is a 19th century philosophical concept. There’s a reason the Ethiopian Jews were welcomed into Israel in the 80’s – and it certainly was not DNA or a “Jew” gene.23 It was faith. Of which they later were forced to do a conversion process thanks to conflicts in some of their ways from state’s approval.
To quote Dr Raphael Falk, Department of Genetics, Program for History and Philosophy of Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem located in Jerusalem.24
“Obviously, what kept Jews identity throughout the millennia have been their language, culture, tradition and religion. Thus, whatever their biological hereditary kinships, both the transgenerational vertical, and intra-generation horizontal relationships are secondary consequences. However, the increasing reliance on scientific reductionism in biological thinking of the last two centuries eventually culminated in turning the evidence of DNA sequences into the essence of the characterization of Jewishness rather than its consequence. Still, despite repeated efforts, there is no agreed upon criterion to identify Jews, and samples examined for the distribution of biological or molecular markers all depend on the preconceived biases of the investigators. Races, it is assumed, may differ in inherent properties that are evaluated differentially” - Raphael Falk
Concluding Thoughts
There could be much more written about every aspect of this issue from the Jewish side. I could spend pages detailing the early settlement period, the pre-48 years, the pre 67 war, the resulting conflicts in the 90’s and the 2004/2005 actions from the Israeli government that led to Hamas. The dynamics of the Orthodox Jewish communities, Arab-Jews, and Zionist differences. Treatment of Arab Jews by the elite Ashkenazi who mainly rule Israel. I simply do not have that bandwidth to nuance that finely, nor do I think the underlying theme changes during any portion of the historical aspect - Zionism is the critical element within Judaism that has resulted in this; yet without the religious roots underlying all Judaism, the state of Israel never would have existed again in the same form (it had to be the “Promised Land”).
This piece is written to tackle the Jewish aspect, and I am not trying to only blame any singular group by writing this piece. Palestine/Islam & Christian Zionsim will follow in later pieces with their own criticisms.
There are plenty of books one could read to have a much more thorough analysis and historical context, and I suggest any of the ones I referenced or as listed in my first paragraph - plenty of scholars like Noam Chomsky or Norman Finkelstein have vast amounts of interviews, talks, and publications directly relating to this subject from the Jewish perspective.
Exhibit 1 - Middle Eastern Religious Demographics25
Exhibit 2 - The Ottoman Empire
Viney, Donald Wayne. “American Deism, Christianity, and the Age of Reason.” American Journal of Theology & Philosophy 31, no. 2 (2010): 83–107.
Holmes, David L.. "The Founding Fathers, Deism, and Christianity". Encyclopedia Britannica, 21 Dec. 2006,
Grasso, Christopher. “Deist Monster: On Religious Common Sense in the Wake of the American Revolution.” The Journal of American History 95, no. 1 (2008): 43–68.
Bodreaux, Donald J, Alcohol, Prohibition, and the Revenuers
Arkansas Democrat Gazette, High Court Rules Against an Arkansas anti-Evolution Law
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Codex Sinaiticus." Encyclopedia Britannica, March 15, 2017.
Fredericksen, Linwood, et al . "Biblical literature". Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 Apr. 2023,
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Traverso, E. (2018). The Jewish question: history of a Marxist debate / by Enzo Traverso; translated by Bernard Gibbons. (B. Gibbons, Trans.). Brill.
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Baron, Salo W. “The Jewish Question in the Nineteenth Century.” The Journal of Modern History 10, no. 1 (1938): 51–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1898721
Weir, Todd H. “The Specter of ‘Godless Jewry’: Secularism and the ‘Jewish Question’ in Late Nineteenth-Century Germany.” Central European History 46, no. 4 (2013): 815–49.
Adler, Selig. “The War-Guilt Question and American Disillusionment, 1918-1928.” The Journal of Modern History 23, no. 1 (1951): 1–28.
Weiss, A. (2013). [Review of The Fervent Embrace: Liberal Protestants, Evangelicals, and Israel, by C. Carenen]. American Jewish History, 97(3), 321–323.
Havazzelet, xii, 41, September 1, 1882; cf. The Levant Herald, iii, 444, November 24, 1881.
Freas, E. E. (2010). OTTOMAN REFORM, ISLAM, AND PALESTINE’S PEASANTRY. The Arab Studies Journal, 18(1), 196–231.
Mandel, Neville J. “Ottoman Policy and Restrictions on Jewish Settlement in Palestine: 1881-1908: Part I.” Middle Eastern Studies 10, no. 3 (1974): 312–32
Elhaik E (2016) In Search of the jüdische Typus: A Proposed Benchmark to Test the Genetic Basis of Jewishness Challenges Notions of “Jewish Biomarkers”.
Marcus AW, Ebel ER and Friedman DA (2015) Commentary: Portuguese crypto-Jews: the genetic heritage of a complex history
Stupple, A., Singerman, D. & Celi, L.A. The reproducibility crisis in the age of digital medicine. npj Digit. Med. 2, 2 (2019).
Spielberg Jewish Archive, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ethopian Exodus, 1984
(Falk R (2015) Genetic markers cannot determine Jewish descent. Sec. Evolutionary and Population Genetics Volume 5 - 2014