I'm explaining some reasons why this tradition came to exist. And why we can change it with newer understanding and knowledge.
You're basically arguing that being Jewish is not an ethnicity, that anyone can be a Jew as long as they either convert or have a mother who identifies as a Jew.
But then-
2. Jews don't have a claim to Israel, since there's no proof that they are even related to the original tribe. One can argue that Israel simply belongs to people who practice Judaism, but that's would debunk the argument that the land once belonged to Israeli-Jews some thousand years ago.
This is not true that there would be no claim to Israel. We are the same people who the Romans threw out, and the same people who have been praying to return for 2000 years. This actually reflects the weakness in your racial theories of Jewish continuation. Because only through the Jewish religion does anyone have any clue that they are descended from Jews. If a Jew became completely secular or married out, and did not keep some kind of
tradition (Marranos did keep tradition of being Jews btw), that the family was Jewish, they were lost to the Jewish people forever. And perhaps some of their descendents are technically Jewish with a Jewish mother, but they become diluted out if they a. don't know and b. don't practice.
Your dad being observant in Soviet Union was a continuation of prior generations of the Jewish people. That is how you know because he was raised as a Jew and lived as one. If people don't, they never passed on any connection no matter what they look like or what they feel like.
3. Debunks the fact that Jews are a seperate ethnicity to gentiles.
Yes exactly. That is why racists are so wrong to attack Jews. We are not a separate "ethnicity." Gentiles also can perhaps be descended from Avraham and even have middle eastern facial features and skin tones. So what? Jewish nation is defined by something else and they were wrong on many levels for racially hating us. Because we weren't really a "race." We originally were Semitic but we moved around all over the place and intermingled... That is the whole point. It is the Jewish religion that kept us as a nation distinct from others. Not race.
So the fact that we have Goldbergs, Brodskys and Steinbergs with similar facial features, happening to be Jews, is a pure coincidence.
Right because the Goldbergs look so much like Yemenite Jews and Ethiopians right.
BTW another group I forgot to mention was Indian Jews. There were certain small populations of Jewish people in India that traced their ancestry back to at least Second Temple period. And guess what? They and their descendents look like Indians!
4. People with a Jewish father are "goy".
As I said before, you should not denigrate goyim. Neither should any Jews denigrate them. Judaism does NOT teach us to do that. There is nothing wrong with being born a goy. That is the way G-d made a person, so be it. They can be righteous like any person can be.
5. Debunks the fact that people with Ashkenazi parents can benefit from the Ashkenazi intelligence. Albeit can sound supremacist, it's been proven time and time again.
I don't believe in eugenics. I have seen some of the supposed "evidence" and I don't buy it.
Yes, many Jews have won nobel prizes. Jews are smart. Part of that is genetics but a big part of it is upbringing. People who are raised to be competitive, intellectually developed, and given a quality education can achieve such things.
Most child prodigies are Ashkenazi, the group with the highest IQ in Israel are Eastern European Ashkenazis, who also hold most power,
Part of this is because when the Sefaradim came, the Ashkenazi majority that was
already in power before they arrived, made sure that 1. Sefaradim would not get proper education, 2. Sefaradim would not gain political ascendancy or any power over the elite already running the show, 3. they tried to create a criminal underclass out of Sefaradim. Among other reasons. You clearly do not understand the persecution that Sefaradim went through when they arrived in Israel. Ben Gurion and his minions were behind these disgusting efforts.
If you want to shatter my definition of a Jew, you must seperate Ashkenazis from Jews, Sephardis from Jews and Mizrahi of Jews whom btw, all share a similar genetic trait linked back to ancient Israel (one of my arguments supporting Jewish owndership of Israel).
Why would I need to do that? Even by my definition, the Torah's definition of who is a Jew, there would be common ancestry involved. But those genetic studies are very flimsy if you know anything about genetics. I don't put too much stock into it. You can have genetic linkage between many variant groups of people because ultimately all humans are connected by DNA and genetics. What's the big deal about that?
When the zionist movement emerged, it wasn't based on complicated dna testing and scientific studies.
We were justified then, and we are justified now.
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