response 76 of 129:

May 11 18:40 UTC 2002

The people, the villagers starting to farm in "Palestine" 5000 years
ago, may have been the Habiru. The Canaanites were not indigenous to the
area but moved in later (late in the early or even middle bronze age).

Oval, I'm still waiting for you to clarify/prove your point.
If Zionism, is as you say, inherently religious, what makes it so?

response 78 of 129:

May 12 09:01 UTC 2002

My comments were perfectly clear -- but why do you quote Habiru?

response 80 of 129:

May 13 05:30 UTC 2002

Good grief, Marcus, it's not like I invented the theory that the Hebrews
originated from the Habiru. (It may never be proven, but one of the reasons
it has been advanced by researchers is due to the lack of evidence for the
exodus and historical anomolies in the stories of Joshua -- for example,
Jericho didn't have walls, they came tumbling down much earlier.)

Yes, *modern* Zionism is a 19th century movement. But the very fact that
you must use this adjective shows that it is just the latest iteration of
a movement that has existed, in one form or another, for 2000 years.

http://pnews.org/art/1art/ZionismInOurTime.shtml

        Dr. Nathan Birnbaum (who used the pen name, "Mathias Acher) was the
        first to use the term "Zionism", also in the late 1800s. Dr. Birnbaum,
        a philosopher, from Vienna became estranged from observant Judaism
        but did not assimilate. Instead he believed that Jews were an ethnic
        entity, a peoplehood and cultural movement. Jews had been returning
        to Israel since the dispersion[s]. Birnbaum merely gave it a name. 

(You may want to read more from this page, which includes an account of Jewish
life in the Holy Land during the middle ages by the famous historian Prof.
Howard Sachar.)

response 82 of 129:

May 15 05:31 UTC 2002

Odd that social scientists haven't come up with a term for "'culture of
people'".  Or not.

Of course, Jews have various cultures, so you really aren't on to anything,
you're just trying to deny that Jews are a people. Just as the Irish are a
people. Oddly, there's nothing I could ever do to "convert" to being Irish.

response 84 of 129:

May 16 01:30 UTC 2002

That would be analogous to becoming an Israeli citizen, and one needn't
convert to do so -- nor even be Jewish.

Let me spell it out for you: my Irish boyfriend can (if he chose to do so)
convert to Judaism and be considered a full equal. He doesn't have to leave
Michigan to do so. Yet there is nothing I can do to become a member of the
Irish nation short of moving to Ireland (which itself would require
paperwork).

There's nothing wrong with that, but the odd thing is that Oval is using
this to criticize Jews on the flimsy grounds that they require "conversion"
to do something that (best I know) no other people allow.

response 86 of 129:

May 16 20:10 UTC 2002

What does the fact that Jews will accept converts as full equals have to
do with Zionism?

There are two independent functions at work here.

1. Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people have the right to
   self-determination in the Jewish homeland of Zion (Israel).

My boyfriend is an Irish-Catholic Zionist.

I am an atheist and a Zionist.

2. The Jewish nation accepts "converts" as equals to those born as Jews.

(Instead of speaking in half sentences and half-truths, why don't you
spell out your case -- if you have one?)

response 88 of 129:

May 16 20:42 UTC 2002

I'm a little fuzzy on that, too.  I think Leeron is trying to argue that
the religion "Jewish" is different from the culture "Jewish", and
Zionism is about the latter.  They just happen to have the same word
associated with them.  In practice the line seems pretty blurred,
though, since (for example) Israeli immigration law apparently refers to
the religion.

response 90 of 129:

May 16 20:49 UTC 2002

Some people are Zionists for religious reasons. Others are not.

Ironically, some ultra-orthodox Jews are not Zionists because they
believe it is for the Messiah to re-establish the Jewish state (I'm
not sure just how this would work because there are lots of other
things that are supposed to happen then).

While I don't want to diminish the contributions of religious Zionists
to the founding and maintenance of the Jewish state, it is true that
much of the "sweat equity" that made it possible was provided by Jews
who were secular (those who did not depend upon God to provide).

Religious Jews were drawn to established centers (e.g. Jerusalem).
It was (primarily) secular Jews who headed into the wilderness, who
drained swamps in the north and made the desert bloom in the south.

(Perhaps the contribution of religious Zionists was proportional to
their numbers, I don't really have the data. But today only about 15%
of Israel's Jewish population is orthodox.)

response 92 of 129:

May 16 22:54 UTC 2002

If the U.S. passed a law giving automatic citizenship to white people
or people who had converted to Christianity, you wouldn't have a problem
with that?  'Cause I would.  I'd consider it racist and an establishment of
a state religion.

response 94 of 129:

May 17 18:32 UTC 2002

can there an atheist jew?

response 96 of 129:

May 17 20:52 UTC 2002

heh. then why's it judaism and not atheism? 

what the hell?

response 98 of 129:

May 17 21:53 UTC 2002

lol.

jeeezus!