A World Without Jews (Wiki Edition)

[georgephillip]

In the forlorn hope of exploring why so many innocent Jews have perished at the hands of tyrants over the centuries, and why their spiritual and genetic descendants inflict Arab Palestinians today with some of the same miseries Jews experienced in times past, A World Without Jews written by Dagobert D. Runes is the first English translation of Karl Marx's On the Jewish Question which in turn was Marx's reply to Bruno Baur's The Jewish Question.

First a word about Runes, who, according to the all-knowing Wiki, "was a colleague and friend to Albert Einstein"

"Runes published an English translation of Marx's On the Jewish Question under the title A World without Jews... As the title of Rune's book sounded antisemitic, it had extremely limited circulation in the English-speaking world..."

"Dagobert Runes moved to the United States with his wife Mary Gronich-Runes..."His mother was murdered in an anti-Semitic riot following the Holocaust; almost his entire family and their circle of friends were killed in the Holocaust."

As I understand Bruno's argument, Jews were unable to achieve political emancipation because of an unwillingness to abandon "their particular religious consciousness..."

"Marx contradicted Bauer's view, that the nature of the Jewish religion prevent Judaism's assimilation. Instead he focused on the specific social and economic role of the Jewish group in Europe which, according to him, was lost when capitalism, the material basis for Judaism, assimilated the European societies as a whole.[6]"

Assimilation, or the lack thereof, seems a likely starting point of understanding why Jews alternate throughout history as victims and abusers.

 

[georgephillip]

Marx may have been embarrassed by his Jewishness and used Jews as a "yardstick of evil."
Some of his critics make the claim that "for Marx Jews were the embodiment of capitalism and the representation of all its evils."
Certainly Marx would question current profit paradigms on the West Bank:

"Israeli banks provide the financial infrastructure for all activities of companies, governmental agencies and individuals in the continuing occupation of Palestine and the Syrian Golan Heights.

"The services provided by the banks support and sustain these activities.

"Additionally, as this report shows, it is evident that the banks are well aware of the types and whereabouts of the activity that is being carried out with their financial assistance.

"Our research has identified six categories of involvement of Israeli banks in the occupation. There is solid evidence of the involvement of most of the major Israeli commercial banks in these categories..."

Financing the Israeli Occupation | Who Profits

 

[Connery]

Moved to proper forum

 

[waltky]

Considering all the science and technological advances made by Jews...

... we'd still be tryin' to figure out how to beat polio.

 

[georgephillip]

There's no doubt in my mind about the disproportionate number of geniuses produced by Jews,
That said...over thousands of years and thousands of miles a small percentage of Jews have consistently engaged in behavior that's gotten millions of other Jews displaced or worse.

"Jewish assimilation refers to the cultural assimilation and social integration of Jews in their surrounding culture, a continuous process over centuries both in non-Western and Western societies (but for a great span of time around the early modern period concerning the latter, and a few major events of state-sponsored antisemitism after it). "Before emancipation Jews had traditionally been a separate nation with their own culture."

There appears to be a religious meme in Israel today that seeks to convince Jews they are a superior race and that entitles them to treat others, mainly Arabs, as less than human. Conservative Arabs have the same disdain for Jews, but lack the cultural firepower to carry out their prejudices.