Everyone knows that nogoodnik Bolshevik Jews got the HMS Beagle out of hock and invented screw-off wine to foster the propagation of our superior genes outside the walls of the ghetto! Mixed marriage is a shanda. It leads to Spring Break Italy instead of Birthright Israel, to divorce, to second generation neoconservatism, and to angry grandparents!

Jewcy magazine is a disgrace and Joey Kurtzman is a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

No, perhaps only the end of the Jewish people in North America. There will however be a Jewish people alive and well in Israel and a few other places.

Remember Ashkenazy Jewry was a very tiny minority in 5th and 6th century Europe.

Besides, the problem isn't intermarriage it's the unwelcoming attitude of many Rabbis to the non Jewish spouses into Judaism many of whom would like to join the Jewish people.

The name of this blog should be named "Goycy" because it has nothing to do with Judiasm. Most of the "Jewcy" staff are Goys with some Jewish heritage and it shows. Intermarriage has created a Jewish nightmare with Gentiles, who celebrate Christmas and Easter, claiming to be Jews.
Intermarriage is accomplishing what Hilter couldn't; making the Jewish people extinct.

Actually, we have no connection to www.goycy.com.

"I believe that Conservative Jews say that tradition has a vote, not a veto."

I believe it is the reconstructionists. The Conservative Movement pretends to me much more religious than its membership would ever tolerate.

the halachically defined status of most American Jews is that of tinok ha nishba or child captured and raised up in an alien culture.  The fact that this 'capture' was partly self-inflicted, and that it does extend over generations, does not change the basic outline. 

People born Jews (more or less, depending on where you hold on the matrilineal-patrilineal thing) who essentially know nothing about their own heritage (or at least less than the crazy christians who actually read the bible regularly).  Raised in ignorance, with no cognizance much less experience of shabbat, tefillin, shavuot, or the beit ha migdash...  I was one too, I know how completely alien the world of assimilated American Jews is from real live experienced Jewish life.

I was priviliged and lucky, years ago, to be present in the Black Hills of south dakota at a gathering of AmerIndians from all over 'Turtle island' (the americas).  Among many beautiful ceremonies and speeches, they did a 're-adoption' ceremony, to ritually welcome back into whole identity all those Indians who had been taken away from their families, reservations, or land as children and raised in mission schools, forbidden from speaking their own languages or practicing their beliefs.  Many years later, many have come searching.  This ceremony wound up including many of the elders, even, as well as young people (the practice of child theft and reeducation continued til the 1980s in America, believe it or not).  Everyone there was blown away; not a dry eye in the prayer circle.

jews are so traumatized, in different ways, that we can't even figure out how to reach out and welcome back all these 'lost' jews with love.  I'm not saying it's easy, but there are models out there on how to do it, and god knows we need it, as this thread is well aware.

as Apter said, the problem isn't intermarriage itself. but most people can't seem to get that through their thick heads. the problem is not raising Jewish children, as well as the unwelcoming attitudes of Jewish parents/ grandparents, Rabbis, and communities towards people's choices in relationships. Jack Wertheimer, along with his other half Steve Bayme, is notorious for his negative viewpoints on the matter. i saw Steve Bayme speak at a lecture on intermarriage last year at the JCC. counteracting him was Paul Golin of the JOI (Jewish Outreach Institute) and in the middle was sociologist Bethamie Horowitz. the look on the audience's faces when Bayme spoke was clearly uncomfortable. true, many of these people were dealing with intermarriage in their families, which is hard enough. but listening to Bayme's delivery on the subject was far more difficult than what was going on in their personal lives. in fact, the majority of the audience sided with Golin's statement that the Jewish community needs to be more welcoming and that it can simultaneously encourage in-marriage and reach out to the intermarried at the same time.

while i identify myself as orthodox, i am also a historian with a fidelity to truth.  up until sometime during second temple Israel, Jewish identity could pass through the father just as easily as the mother, and usually did (the middle east was primarily patriarchal then).  Despite the prophet Ezra's exhortations, most of am yisrael still was perfectly happy to 'intermarry', and the larger jewish community didn't have a big issue with this as long as people joined the 'klal' in meaningful ways (bringing the sacrifices, etc.)

Only in the wake of the brutality of Rome, which used rape as a policy, did matrilineal descent become established as the only certain way to determine jewish birth identity (you can figure out why).  it was also around this time that the process we've come to know as 'conversion' became more solidified; before, anyone who wanted to come live among us and join our ways was welcome.

I'd advocate a return to these much more laid-back policies ON HALACHIC grounds.  We'd need a sanhedrin to do it, and it's not likely, but it IS possible WiTHIN THE FRAMEWORK of the halachic tradition, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

"...cultural influences are more polluted than our bloodlines"

"...the decline in ethnic identity among American Jews"

Hmmmmm....seems like an infamous dictator of the 1930s and 40s used similar language about "polluted bloodlines" and "ethnic identities"; so which is it? Are Jews a race/ethnicity or a religion? Since we all know the answer, why do so many Jews continue to deny the ethnic component of Jewry and try to pass it off as "just a religion" when the majority of Jews are in fact atheists?

Why do Jews (even modern and very assimilated Jews like you) consider an infusion of Gentile blood to be "pollution," especially when it is helping the mediate and control some of the Jewish genetic diseases caused from many-many centuries of strict inbreeding?

I wouldn't worry too much about Jewish intermarriage...there are still many Jewish baby factories left in the world making up for all of the worldly (straying) Jews; just witness the phenomenally sickening birth rates of the ultra-Orthodox communities in the U.S.

For instance, in Kiryas Joel, NY [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryas_Joel%2C_New_York]...QUOTE: "In 1990, there were 7,400 people in Kiryas Joel; in 2000, 13,100, nearly doubling the population. In 2005, the population had risen to 18,300, a rate of growth suggesting it will double again in the ten years between 2000 and 2010." (also note that most if not all of these families live strictly on U.S. govt. welfare)

Reconstructing Eastern European ghetto walls in 21st Century America because of the 'unclean' Gentile world...ah, you gotta love that universal Jewish love!

The root problem of judaism's demise is unbelief in jewish doctrine. Most jews do not believe in the god of the torah -- the old man in the sky. If they did, they would go to synagogue and live more jewishly. Its that simple. Also, adherence to most jewish traditions are incompatible with modern living (i.e., sabbath observance, kashrut). When modern living is sprinkled with a little jewishness here and there (i.e. reform judaism) well its so insignificant its not worth considering it when making any life decisions (like marriage).

in chassidut and kabbalah, god is much cooler than an old man in the sky

even if the "cool god" of kabbala or chassidism became mainstream, most secular jews would not be motivated to live an observant jewish life. because you need to actually believe in this god in order for him to motivate you to practice your religion. the issue is not whether god is cool, uncool, good, or bad -- its whether you actually believe in him or not. I think faith actually makes a difference. if you don't believe all the stuff the torah is saying about god, if you dont truly believe there is one just and perfect god who created the earth, etc., well then only guilt and or nostalgia will motivate you to live jewishly, and thats not strong enough motivation for most.

Down with race - with all races. Postrace here we come (and even better still after that - post human).

Intermarraige might not be great for Judaism, but is amazing for humankind.

You wrote, "I believe that Conservative Jews say that tradition has a vote, not a veto."

Actually, that was Mordecai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism.

What's the use of having a high-IQ
population if along with that, you get individuals who are
plagued by astronomically high rates of genetic diseases, or,
at the very least, carriers?

(I am thinking of a friend of mine, both of whose parents died
of pancreatic cancer....can you imagine how he must be
feeling with that spade of Damocles hanging over his head?

All identity is socially constructed, including Jewish identity. I think that it is both healthy and normal to be having this discussion. In past periods, Jews were more flexible about accepting difference. Lets not paint ourselves into a corner. Or maybe we should we start using the absurd Nuremberg law term "mischling" ("half-breed") for people who are 1/2, 1/4, or 1/8 Jewish... We need to get real.

How can anyone accuse America of kiling Jewish identity? Hundreds of thousands have given their lives so that we can live in this country in peace and serenity. The fact that fewer and fewer people choose to live a consciously Jewish life according to the definition of previous generations, should lead us to ask how we can make leading a Jewish life more positive, or more appealing. Instead, the voice which dominates is the voice of the "restrictionists".

Only if Judaism and the Jewish people meet the challenge of freedom and liberty, does it stand a chance of survival in America. If Judaism can only survive in times of oppression, then the masses will continue to "walk".

Judaism has been destroyed by its detractors. It split the world jewery into 2 camps that, as someone who was born Jewish, I have difficulty identifying with either. The engineers of the post holocaust solution were very smart. The people who hated the jews so much they had to kill them forced them to leave their homes for Israel where a whole new group who didn't used to hate Jews really want to destroy Israel. I'm not saying that life was peaches and cream in the Dar al Islam but they never systematically murdered us. Now we are CONCENTRATED in a small swath of land and have become a war like people on the one hand and an apathetic Americanized secular on the other, neither of which I want any part of. It saddens me to think that in the end the holocaust was successful.

"Now we are CONCENTRATED in a small swath of land and have become a war like people on the one hand and an apathetic Americanized secular on the other [...]"

You speak of secular society like it's some kind of cultural castration.

I want to agree with you, but I also have come to believe that God IS in the world.  And that these traumatic events-- the shoah, american assimiliation, and Israeli existential insecurity-- are all part of god's plan, are all playing out of various karmas, of lessons we need to learn. 

Writing this to you from Jerusalem, where I work at a job sending and teaching Israeli and American teenagers on month-long Outward-Bound type trips across Israel, with environmental and jewish/torah education hands-on in the wilderness, I don't feel that the holocaust was successful.  I give thanks every day for the blessing, even the miracle, that I can live here as a Jew with a kepa and my head held high, and help fix the world in these ways.  Come visit, please.  The spirit of living here far outweighs any of the doubts.

The real question is why intermarriage is a problem in the first place. Why do so many Jews marry outside of the tribe?

I know many Jews both male and female who simply do not want to marry other Jews. They would prefer to marry non Jews and harbor seemingly anti-semitic attitudes towards their fellow Jews.

"Why do so many Jews marry outside of the tribe?"

It's so cute when you guys confuse your ideology with some sort of null hypothesis.

Without the American assimilition of Jews, we would still be a minority spread all over the planet subject to genocide every other year.

It's not steping away from Judaism that's gonna kill us. We always come back at some point, stronger.

I do not believe you can have the faith and have no doubts your whole life. But you will be back anyway and most importantly, you will always think as a Jew. Whoever you're marrying and wherever you live.

I am not against inter-religious marriage, I am even a product of one .... but I think the heart of the matter is as you mention, many jews (excluding most orthodox jews) don't want to marry other jews. I live in the NYC area and I know VERY FEW jews that are married to other jews. I have met many jewish men that seem to go out of their way to insult jewish women as soon as they meet me without knowing I'm jewish. Jewish people can be the worst in carrying stereotypes of themselves and I find jewish men are some of the worst offenders when it comes to stereotypes of jewish women. I think it sad that there are some stats out there that jewish women over 30 have a high rate of not getting married. Parents need to better instill pride in their jewish children this I think would be more beneficial then the you better marry jewish.

the comment that Jews would rather marry non-Jews because they have some latent anti-semitism. . .

of course we do. It's what is drilled into our heads constantly. I have friends who actually say to me "I'm not anti-semitic, but you're acting like a Jew" and that statement is invariably followed by a criticism. And then my Jewish friends just leave out the first part of the statement.

Jews in a culture will naturally assimilate both the good and the bad. And the bad is, I fear, the everpresent self-loathing of the oppressed minority

i live in a part of NYC that has a fairly large Orthodox population, and i find that they are more enjoyable to communicate with than some non-Orthodox Jews. it's probably because they don't carry the baggage that less observant Jewish men and women possess when it comes to dating, but then again they don't have much choice in who they date (unless they're Modern Orthodox). of all the Jewish friends i have, only one of them is currently dating another Jew. and she may not even be with him that much longer since he's moving to the other side of the country in September and will be in grad school for the next 5 years (i think she knows that the end is most likely near, so she's not going to get too upset about it if it happens). the rest are either in relationships with non-Jews or are single and bitter.

Anon (11:39 am) has a point. parents should instill pride into their children, not dictate that they better marry Jewish or else. Jews should want to date and marry other Jews, not be pressured into it because people tell them to do so.

As someone who is part Jewish it has never been important to me to identify with the culture or race, or any culture or any race. But I become a Jew when I see Jews being oppressed or discriminated against. And that's the only time it is relevant for me to be a Jew.

...proves Kevin Macdonald is right about many Jews and certainly Judaism!

Galut!! galut galut galut.

Of COURSE Jews in America want to intermarry.  Being a Jew in america is a recipe to be a headcase l'hatchila (from the beginning).  All the Jewish girls I dated in America were headcases.  Hell, I was a headcase.  It comes with the territory-- identities at cross purposes, trauma, self-depreciation.  The culture of Seinfeldian effacement of being Jewish.  If you're actively proud of being Jewish in America, you manifestly don't belong-- something most secular Jews sense instinctively, and avoid Hillels and NCSY's and 'Jewish' events like the plague.  I sure did.

 Being Jewish only really makes sense in Israel.  In the homeland.  Men and women who hold their heads up high, who 'hold' wherever they damn well please because they can and without any shame, and who have a sense of self-esteem that is sorely lacking in exile Jewish populations.  And intermarriage in Israel is very low-- and those who do marry, usually marry 'in'-- the goy usually converts to Judaism to live in Israel, for a variety of reasons (some positive and some not). 

 I look at things a little differently, although I am like many at the Jewcy website, a product of one Jewish parent, and in my case my father, which makes me not qualify based on Old Covenant or orthodox requirments. [I digress for a moment. I believe in predestination, in the truth that few people are called to be Christians, while most have deceived themselves by relying on a sense of guilt that does not save. Only a conviction of unbelief saves.]

In Romans chapter 11 Paul is saying that the Jews were hardened from hearing the gospel while the elect Gentiles were saved. This plan was to reestablish Jews as being called at a later date. That time is NOW. Therefore, my view is that anyone descended from Old Covenant Israel, or anyone who has a connection to the Jewish people, whether it be by birth, conversion, etc, could be part if this last day gathering of elect Jews in Christ. Paul in Romans chapter 11 is not specific about who would qualify, but he relied on the power of God to determine this. He did not require an endless geneology for the last day Jews and he did not say that Old Covenant restrictions as to who qualified to be a Jew applied at all. I am proof that these restrictions of Ezra, for example, do not apply at all.

Paul is saying what I believe to be the truth, that the elect Jews come from a large umbrella of descendents and converts. And it is not up to us to define those, but is up to God only. Messianic Jews are not hearing these truths about election and the law of Christ, because they want Torah more than Christ. So I continue to look elsewhere and communicate elsewhere. 

Gary D Anderson

http://bgamall.stumbleupon.com

Yep, and the furthering of Paul's reasoning can be that you need to get rid of the Jews that won't convert, a reading that has underpinned many an anti-Semite's discourse (particularly in mid-20th France, as George Steiner has often noted). In the words of Alain, "Tout homme persécute s'il ne peut convertir." -"Any man persecutes if he cannot convert [the other]."

 Francois, Luther wanted to get rid of the Jews. Paul was a Jew. Big difference. I reject Catholic/Protestant attempts to ressurrect the Old Covenant theocracy. There is a new covenant, and with the change of covenant and priesthood came a change of law. Heb ch 7. For Paul, the kingdom of Christ was not affiliated with any nation. That is following Christ who said His kingdom was not of this world, who rejected the offer to be made king of Israel because he had not yet offered the perfect sacrifice.

Gary Anderson

http://bgamall.stumbleupon.com

I dont understand it all in the end. What difference does it make if someone is jewish or not anyways?
when and why does this issue become all important to take over the world ideas?
it is for this reason that i have grown weary of my religion and wish to forget about it after 51 years.

who needs these problems in the world over who gets to live or die over religion?
it is at best old and pointless in my mind. something for people to fight about and disagree over and kill over.

i am going to seek out a new religion, or make my own......

several times, from spain to germany to the farthest reaches of south america (during the inquisition), jews who thought they had escaped their judaism were tracked down and persecuted or worse. but hey, give that escaping thing a shot...

"Even though I am ......, I deeply love and totally and completely accept and respect myself." Tap using acupressure on the acupuncture points. It works. You can read more about it doing a google search.

Most of the Christian circles I have transited think it is witchery; hence, it works.

Dear Friends at Jewcy:

This is Robin Margolis, the Coordinator of the Half-Jewish Network, an international organization for adult children and other descendants of intermarriage.

Normally I enjoy reading articles on the Jewcy website and visit it regularly. But I was very upset by the dialogue essays between Mr. Kurtzman of Jewcy and Professor Wetheimer of the JTS.

I know that Jewcy has adult children of intermarriage on staff and is generally friendly to us. I am certain that your dialogue with Professor Wertheimer is intended to be welcoming to us and it has many interesting and provocative ideas.

But please, please don't call adult children and other descendants of intermarriage "Jewish-American mongrels" and "Frankenjews" or refer to us as having "polluted" bloodlines. I know that you intended these terms as joking metaphors, but they may have effects that you did not intend. Let me explain.

I have been advocating for adult children and other descendants of intermarriage for over 20 years, and have been called all kinds of names -- "half-breed," "mamzer," "fruit of a sin" -- so it is very painful to see a progressive website like Jewcy, which has adult children of intermarriage on its staff, referring to us in this manner.

There is a pattern of negative labeling directed at adult children and other descendants of intermarriage within the Jewish community that is very damaging to us psychologically.

One recent Jewish sociological study referred to us as a future "black hole event horizon" that will destroy American Judaism, and another current Jewish sociological study described us as "shadow Jews," lingering ghosts on the outskirts of the Jewish community. A recent forum posting in an Israeli online newspaper regarding adult children of intermarriage referred to us with bitter contempt as "mixed monkeys." I see this type of comment about us all the time in Jewish publications.

So your joking metaphors -- totally unintentionally, I am certain -- unwittingly sent a message to the Jewish community that it is OK to continue speaking of us in very negative terms. And I am absolutely sure that you did not intend this.

Second, while I share your belief that Judaism must reinvent itself for the modern era if it wishes to survive, and found many of your ideas in that realm intriguing and valuable, I would respectfully implore you not to represent Jewcy's views as being those of the majority of adult children of intermarriage, if I understood you correctly.

If you visit the message board on my website, you will see postings from adult children of intermarriage (and grandchildren and great-grandchildren as well) from all over the world, representing a very wide range of views on Judaism.

Few of them would endorse your call for the end of the Jewish peoplehood. Their primary complaint is that they are part of the Jewish people -- a part that is often badly treated by their fellow Jews.

Many of them would just like to be regular shul-going Jews, and find themselves pushed out or kept on the periphery of fearful Jewish communities obssessed with bloodlines.

I respectfully suggest that Professor Wertheimer doesn't yet understand us. He calls for us to choose one peoplehood and one religion. I would strongly suggest that he start talking to a large number of adult children and grandchildren of intermarriage, and learn more about us. We will always be bi-cultural or bi-ethnic, but that does not prevent those of us who wish to live as Jews from being committed Jews with ethnically and religiously diverse extended families.

Thank you for hearing me out.
Cordially,
Robin Margolis
www.half-jewish.net

Thank you for your thoughts, Robin, and I sincerely regret the hurt feelings. Let me process this for a day or so, and then I'll respond here in this comment thread.

I'm looking forward to Joey's response to Robin's heartfelt message. My gut reaction is that you can be be bisexual, biracial and bi-lots of things, but you can't be bi-religious if one of the religions is Judaism. For those "half-Jews" there is always conversion (under the auspices of whatever community you chose) if you really want to be a Jew, so what is the religious problem? Obviously there may be significant practical problems because a lot of people don't practice what they preach when it comes to converts, but that's a problem of people not religion.

Dear Joey:

Thank you for hearing me out. I very much appreciate your patience.

Other than the "labeling" issue, I was very interested in the dialogues between you and Professor Wertheimer and read all of them very closely.

I share your view -- if I understand you correctly -- that descendants of intermarriage will be the majority of American Jews in the very near future -- I estimate between the years 2030 and 2040 -- I believe that they will also be the majority of U.K. Jews at that time, and perhaps elsewhere in the Diaspora as well.

So I was happy to see your thoughts about the issues that are raised by such a dramatic future transformation of the American and U.K. Jewish culture -- I share many of your concerns.

Cordially,
Robin
www.half-jewish.net

This is a reply to the person who posted, saying, essentially, that the children of intermarriage could just convert to Judaism, so what is our problem?

My dear friend, I wish it were that easy. I urge you to visit the Half-Jewish Network website at:

www.half-jewish.net

and read the messages on our message board. Many of us would like to live as Jews -- albeit we will always be Jews with strong emotional ties to our "other" Christian or Muslim or Hindu, etc., family and our "other" culture --

but we are subjected to a great deal of social and religious discrimination within the Diaspora and Israel. We are also legally discriminated against in Israel. See the "Israel" link on our website.

It is very hard to be a "Jew" when many Jewish communities keep telling you that you are not a Jew, or that your conversion wasn't good enough for their group, or you're considered a "Jew" by one shul or secular organization and not another --

If you review the link on my website "Who Is A Jew?" you will see that there are multiple conflicting definitions of "who is a Jew?" throughout history, and they cannot be reconciled with each other.

So conversion is not the silver bullet answer to our problems. We must dismantle the entire built-in system of exclusion and discrimination against us.

It is my earnest hope that when we become the majority of American and U.K. Jews between the years 2030 and 2040, that we create -- as I think in some sense Joey Kurtzman would like -- a kinder, gentler Judaism, that looks more at people's Jewish hearts and actions, and not so much at their bloodlines.

Cordially,
Robin Margolis
www.half-jewish.net

Joey, like many in the “Who-and-What-and-Why-is-a-Jew” debate, you have confused two concepts: Jewish ethnicity and Judaism, or Jewish religion. The former has to do with peoplehood, which you wrongly think has ended (at least not yet). The latter has to do with a system of belief and practice originating in the Torah and developed and codified in later Rabbinic commentary.

At one time, all members of the Jewish ethnic group practiced Judaism to a significant degree. Since the Enlightenment, there has been a dissociation of the two, and, in Israel and the U. S., increasingly so. But, while secular Jews in Israel will continue as a Jewish people—the ethnic group—this is less likely to be the case in the U. S.

The pressing question with regard to the American situation is whether or not Jewish peoplehood here makes any sense or has any viability, in the long run, without Judaism, even in so attenuated a form as Reform. This is because while the Jewish religion is a fount of ethics and values, along with the rituals that sustain commitment to those ethics and values and the very survival of the group that carries and fosters them, the Jewish ethnic group is not an independent carrier of ethics and values of any significance. The proper comparison here would be with the Italian or Irish or German ethnic groups in the U. S. They too are not carriers of any significant ethics or values. Thus, there is little reason for members of those ethnic groups to maintain their ethnic group. And, as you know, they pretty much don’t.

So, bottom line: What do you want to preserve, if anything? Jewish ethics and values? Then you will have to do some heavy lifting and find out what Judaism, the religion, has to offer, so that as a member of the Jewish ethnic group you can practise those ethics and values and engage in ritual affirmations of them in one or another of the four conventional religious streams, as they are called.

Or, maybe you would like to found a new branch of Judaism to give Jews like yourself a new religious option by which to sustain and pass on to the next generation the ethics and values that can be identified as traditionally Jewish, e. g., having a source in Torah and in Rabbinics.

But remember that the price of “doing” religion in any form (we’re not talking philosophy here) is some kind of non-rational belief and conduct, e.g., belief in God (in some form or other) and a set of rituals (symbolic acts with emotional resonance) that are the necessary glue to keep people bound together in their commitment to the group and its survival and the survival of its ethics and values. Like it or not, endogamy is one of those rituals, indeed, among the most important.

Now, maybe traditional Jewish ethics and values and rituals are not what you care to enact or sustain for the future. In which case, rest easy; you are still a member of the Jewish ethnic group, but you are moving toward a dilution of the Jewish religious component to the degree that a tipping point may be (possibly has already been) reached that will seriously deplete the size of the group and its viability. That is, since there is little Jewish religion to sustain the Jewish ethnic group, the boundary of the ethnic group becomes so permeable that passing out of it entirely is as easy as finding a bagel on the New York upper west side. Thus, while you still retain some (is it sentimental?) connection to the Jewish ethnic group, your (potentially) Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, atheist, etc., grandchildren will have only a dim awareness that one of their forebears was “Jewish,” whatever that was.

Good luck in finding your path in Jewishness. May it be one that preserves the Jewish group and its ethics and values rather than condemning it to disappearance.

Theodore D. Kemper

Many Hebrews became quite Canaaninte during first temple times... Babylon welcomed Jews and we assimilated there... many of us spread throughout the Greek and then the Roman worlds, and Hellenized and Romanized... some of the periods and places of Islam, esp. Spain after Averroes, influenced many Jews to convert willingly.  And in Christian Europe at several points we had at least the illusion that we could assimilate and be accepted.

 nothing new under the sun....

 For the record, the religion that calls itself Christianity that seeks to fuse church and state and establish persecution and theocracy is a FALSE religion and is against the will of God. The true Christian religion, true Christianity, and there is one, is not a theocracy of this world, but is a nation that is spiritual and sparce, apart from the Catholic/Protestant evils that bring shame upon the truth. From Constantine/Augustine to George Bush 2, religion in the name of war and persecution will be met with the most severe eternal judgement.

But this true religion is the BEGINNING of the Jewish people. (Rom ch 11)http://www.newcovenanttheology.com/doctrine.html 

Gary D Anderson

http://bgamall.stumbleupon.com

 Christmas and Easter is a theocratic, Protestant/Catholic invention. In the New Covenant, the idea of holy days serves no purpose, because the Covenant is a spiritual one not aligned with a physical nation. Therefore, the true rest of God, ie the sabbath of the New Covenant is not a day, but is Christ himself! Hebrews ch 3.  

Gary D Anderson

http://bgamall.stumbleupon.com

Is the most retarded writer on the internet.

Robin, belated reply here.

"Most retarded writer on the internet"!! Most extreme superlative imaginable! 

Hasnt the end of Jewish peoplehood already been tried in the ovens of Auschwitz. Not only were the nazis nearly successful, but the surviving Jews have been blamed for violating the Kyoto accords with Jewish ash

Retarded people are loving and kind-hearted and don't hate anyone. Joey, on the other hand, is an anti-semitic pig who wants to destroy Judaism. His partner in crime, Robin Margolis, was raised Christian and now wants to define what Judaism should be. You're a joke! Real Jews don't take Gentiles, wannabe Jews, seriously. Shouldn't you get an early start on Christimas shopping already?