Reform Judaism and Spines

My Judaism Class this week was on the Holocaust. I didn't want to go. The Holocaust has been so overplayed that it disgust. It has taken too much importance in Jewish and recent history. I could go on for the next 500 years detailing the many terrible things that befell the Jews before Hitler was born. We could worry about the fact that the muslims want to murder the Jews in Israel now. Instead, we'll talk about the Holocaust.

The Rabbi was somewhat sympathetic to my feeling about the Holocaust, though she had other reasons for wanting to de-emphasize the Holocaust. She thinks by emphasizing our historic suffering, we attract more sufferings. While it sounds ridiculous, she does a have small point. Certain postures tend to invite attack more than others, but still Jew obsessing over their suffering has been a relative small reason for Jewish suffering. Christians hunting for scapegoats and Muslims loving to murder the infidel have been the major historical for Jewish suffering. The rabbi went on to claim that our historic suffering have made us more likely to be the oppressors. This was an invitation for some people in the Judaism to hint that Israel is now a bully. I have problems with converts to Judaism being taught that Israel's policy are evil. After the second use of the word bully. I spoke up and said that I strongly supported the policies of the Israel government, though of course in retrospect that are many policies that I don't approve of. I was just thinking of the policies relative to the surrounding populations.

We continued followed the idea of not basing Jewish identity on past suffering, but basing it on positive contributions. A leftist wimp brought up a Jew who helped fund Negro schools in the South in the 1950's as an example of the positive contrabution of the Jews. I was slow to respond, but if I had had the time I would have said he had entirely the wrong Jews. We need to say that the Jewish bankers provided the greatest contribution in terms of improving people's material condition. Europeans would still be peasents living in huts if it hadn't been for the services the Jewish bankers provided. And we really shouldn't forget Uziel Gal, creator of the Uzi, which has provided necessary self-defense for many a person.