Jews have every right to hate Israel, just like anyone else. I personally don’t hate Israel per se, but I think it’s currently a murderous, racist, and fascist regime that doesn’t reflect any of my values. And I hate those things.
Israel, frankly, has nothing to do with my religion. Yes I’m Jewish, yes Israel is currently a Jewish state, but that has nothing to do with me, so my disgust for what Israel currently stands for has nothing to do with my religion or the religion of Israel. Basic stuff.
Judaism has a rich tradition of questioning everything. It is not considered heresy to question beliefs or authority, in fact it’s usually encouraged. You’ll find many many many Jews who openly identify as atheists (myself included), and yet most still absolutely consider themselves Jewish. This usually doesn’t bother anyone, Rabbis included. Atheists even hold a place of honor in some Jewish communities, because atheists get their morality from within themselves or other people, not from a fear of god.
All of that is to say that Trump doesn’t get to say what Jews love or hate. He clearly doesn’t understand the intricacies of an often contradictory and complex belief-system, and that’s fine, many of the Democrats he’s talking about have the same problems on the issue that he does.
I have an idea, let’s all just stop using religion for political purposes.
Yeah! It’s one of my favorite things about Judaism. You’ll notice a ton of qualifiers in front of my statements though, because we for sure have our fair share of crazy extremists. But comparatively I think our ratio of normal to crazy is maybe a little more reasonable.
A few things:
Jews have every right to hate Israel, just like anyone else. I personally don’t hate Israel per se, but I think it’s currently a murderous, racist, and fascist regime that doesn’t reflect any of my values. And I hate those things.
Israel, frankly, has nothing to do with my religion. Yes I’m Jewish, yes Israel is currently a Jewish state, but that has nothing to do with me, so my disgust for what Israel currently stands for has nothing to do with my religion or the religion of Israel. Basic stuff.
Judaism has a rich tradition of questioning everything. It is not considered heresy to question beliefs or authority, in fact it’s usually encouraged. You’ll find many many many Jews who openly identify as atheists (myself included), and yet most still absolutely consider themselves Jewish. This usually doesn’t bother anyone, Rabbis included. Atheists even hold a place of honor in some Jewish communities, because atheists get their morality from within themselves or other people, not from a fear of god.
All of that is to say that Trump doesn’t get to say what Jews love or hate. He clearly doesn’t understand the intricacies of an often contradictory and complex belief-system, and that’s fine, many of the Democrats he’s talking about have the same problems on the issue that he does.
I have an idea, let’s all just stop using religion for political purposes.
The question everything belief is very neat to see in a religion, from someone who comes from a predominantly Christian culture.
Yeah! It’s one of my favorite things about Judaism. You’ll notice a ton of qualifiers in front of my statements though, because we for sure have our fair share of crazy extremists. But comparatively I think our ratio of normal to crazy is maybe a little more reasonable.