Reply #2: This is one of the most off the wall articles I've seen in some [View All]

[Colorado Blue]

time.

1. Jerusalem has always been in the same place. Currently it is in the same place as it was when it was founded, give or take a bit for continental drift, shift or shimmy:)

2. Jews are amenable to accepting converts with a sincere desire to become Jewish. We just don't go door to door pestering people to convert. Nor do we damn people to eternal suffering if they don't convert, we don't refer to people as various animals if they aren't Jewish, we don't call non Jews "infidels" and we DO encourage free thinking and free will.

3. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the descriptions of the Jews meeting with the Egyptians and the Greeks. The Egyptians had Jewish advisors but also enslaved us. The Greeks and the Jews have had a long and productive philosophical history together, though we certainly aren't pagan and Christian dogma, over the centuries, damned us and rendered us outsiders, often mocked and humiliated in Greek puppet comedies. I suggest a close reading of Lawrence Durrell's works on Greece for some examples. Modern Greek antisemitism has taken on a darker edge, for example with the brilliant and inspired composer Theodorakis, who wrote a stunning suite about the concentration camp Mauthausen, apparently turning on the Jewish people in recent years.

This is profoundly ironic since Christianity could in fact be seen as a melding of the two traditions.

Finally, I'm not sure that "Take your god and shove it" was in the lexicon of the day, however I'm sure the erudite creator of this lovely little rant has some historical document to which we can refer.

4. Suggesting that people don't like Jews because Jews have insisted on maintaining their own culture and religion is interesting. What does this say about human nature? Conformity is certainly a desirable trait in primitive or totalitarian societies and certainly, people who don't adapt the God du Jour are going to cast doubt on the almightyness of whatever almighty may have been in question at the time.

I'm not sure what secrets the not-so-exclusive god of the Jews might be hiding, since He is mighty talkative, judging from the length of His prophets' contributions:)

Ahem. The reader will forgive this little jest.

5. The rest of this diatribe is so silly, so bigoted, and so historically out of whack with reality that I really have no desire to comment further.

Why has this piece of hooey been posted on a serious progressive website? Maybe it's all just a seriously flawed joke. But I agree with the sentiment that people should start trying to work things out instead of resorting to blowing themselves - and others - to smithereens.