Where do you think Jewish people come from?

I don’t for one second believe that ‘millions’ of ‘Arabs’ and ‘their distant cousins’ want to kill me or other Jews. I would like to think a good future would include everyone being able to live freely wherever they want to. Such a future can only come about gradually, and why shouldn’t Israel become the role model for peace and tolerance? We have the best military in the Middle East and the backing of the most powerful country in the world. The problem is there is no political will for equality and freedom from Bibi and the parties he depends on to stay in power. They are more interested in expansionism, ethnic cleansing and keeping the Israelis in Israel in a constant state of fear to justify continuous war. It’s one of the many reasons I will likely not return to Israel in my lifetime. I feel like where we are now is pre1985 in terms of any hope of peace and amity in the Middle East. And maybe it will never happen. The only times it did was when the entire region was part of a larger empire and even then various peoples would rebel or revolt, including my ancestors in 135AD against the Romans.

Several history books. It’s kind of obvious when you have dozens of battles between invaders and defenders that this isn’t merely a political takeover.

Here is a short history online, just to show how easy it is to find this information:
https://www.history.org.uk/primary/resource/3865/anglo-saxons-a-brief-history?srsltid=AU7gw4W1t5wEQXOQywrKoOYrBAMZ8wk0GjKmR90NWEGWdZ8N9ZLlU_0p

It’s in the language- The word for foreigner and enemy was Seax in southern Briton, Sassenachs in Scotland and Saesneg in Wales ( the last two still endure) the modern day name of ‘Saxon’ comes from the distinctive short sword these multiple tribes carried.

It’s written in the DNA as well that the populations with the highest % Briton DNA are in the west & north.

Don’t forget that the Anglo-Saxons had a habit of enslaving Romano-British (Briton) women and once they had children those were then anchors keeping them from fleeing west or north. So the whole ‘some stayed’ and ‘adopted the Germanic language and culture’ and the population ‘integrated’ was done by conquest not by peaceful means. There were several battles as the Anglo Saxon invasion occurred slowly over decades until the Anglo Saxons established kingdoms in what would become England (land of the Angles).

There was no genocide but enslavement. However, all the landowners- from kings down to farmers were killed, expelled or enslaved. It wasn’t until the Norman conquest of the Anglo Saxons that slavery was gradually replaced with serfdom.

I don’t trust Erdogan either. The question was about legal equality enshrined in law of a country. As a Jewish woman, I am well aware that laws don’t mean a person is actually equal socially, economically or politically in practice. This doesn’t just affect women and minority religions or ethnicities but also other marginalised people - disabled, gay/lesbian/bi, etc

@Newbutoldfather I feel just the same as you.

Well it’s actually more like 7 million Arabs in the region as there are already 2 million living in Israel. And how exactly do you see this working out if a country invites millions of people who want to kill them - and their distant cousins in the diaspora - to live, work and VOTE in their country?

And out of curiosity, would this imaginary future also see millions of Jews being allowed to live freely in Iran and Afghanistan and Egypt and etc etc etc. Not that I’d guess we’d want to, but does this theory of yours go both ways or is it just Israel who needs to change?

I think we’ve moved on from your OP as the thread has progressed!

But actually it is the only really salient point - that everyone is human

I'm not understanding....to recap

1. I said that it's a pity the Jews and Palestinians can't be equals and share one country, like Jews and everyone else do in the UK and America.
2. Someone replied that Jews have never been well-treated where they are a minority.
3. I replied, how would Jews ever be a minority in Israel, since there are approx 7m of them but only 5m Palestinians?
4. You replied that the German Jews thought they had the same rights as everyone else.
5. But the point that I'M discussing is my original one, that Jews would never be a minority in Israel. They were a minority in Germany, making up only about 1 percent of the population in the Thirties. Of course, this made it easy to persecute them. But as regards my original point, I don't see why the two factions can't just live in the same country as equals, which means being able to live wherever they want in said country.

Do you have a source for that? Because all the history I've read - and I just double-checked - says that the two populations merged, in a complex process of political takeover, cultural assimilation, and gradual integration. Nothing I've ever read says that Anglo-Saxons tried to expel the Romano-British from their own land.

I have to say, I wouldn’t trust a Turkey with Erdogan at the helm. He has been chipping away at Ataturk’s secular state. Allegations of corruption, bribery, fraud, money laundering and cronyism not alien to him, and to his APK regime.

He carried out a purge of those judges, prosecutors, police chiefs who were involved in investigating the corruption and allegations of financial, and organised crime.

I reckon Erdogan would turn on a pin against any group of people he suspected at any time wasn’t enough pro-Erdogan.

Mind you, that probably makes everyone equally a possible target of his wrath.

I don’t feel it’s imminent. I also don’t feel it’s impossible in my lifetime. It goes in waves and we are due another one. But I am sure I don’t want to be Anne Frank’s parents - who ignored everything for way too long and then had no options left.

@SpuytenDuyvil and @NullaEffugium ,

I can’t see myself or any of my close family suffering a pogrom in London, and being forced to run to Israel. I am not sure the danger would be obvious until it was too late anyway.

However, I still see a value in having a strong independent Jewish state. On the other hand, an independent Jewish state should encapsulate the generous Jewish tradition of hospitality to all.

While I respect how you feel in regards to your nationality as a Jewish American, as well as how your father felt, I don’t think you can extrapolate that to all we Jewish people? I certainly don’t feel that there is no place to go or fear that the UK is going to suddenly start a resettlement progrom for Jews to deepest darkest Devon.

How nice of them to "take steps" to allow us to have equal rights. And as far as living in the diaspora goes and there being no place to go, my father always said that as American as I feel is exactly how German they felt. See the historical record to see how that turned out.

Excluding Middle Eastern countries with no Jewish residents but would guarantee equal rights (ie Oman) currently the UAE, Lebanon, Cyprus & Turkey have equal rights for Jews. Syria last year announced equal rights for Jews and is taking steps to institutionalise it.

Thats what the German Jews thought as well

@sickofsixseven ,

‘In Israel, a Muslim israeli citizen has the same rights as a Jewish israeli citizen’

That was certainly true for many years, but I am not quite sure it is true any more. There is the 2018 law, land allocation for Arabs is limited and state more funding flows to Jewish parts than Arab parts.

It is still better than for Jews in the rest of the Middle East, though.

In Israel, a Muslim israeli citizen has the same rights as a Jewish israeli citizen. Feel free to name another country in the middle east where jews and Muslims have equal rights. I'm sure there aren't any but maybe you know better?

Are you trying to say that all israeli jews should just move to America? because thats a bit stupid and is never going to happen.

The question was about that part of the world. So the Middle East. Jews have been second class citizens in the Middle East for thousands of years, and still continue to be so outside of Israel to this day. You should really read up on it, it's mind-boggling.

And Jews would straight away become a minority in a one state solution. There are 5.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, almost 2 million already in Israel. So a one state solution is only appropriate if you believe that Jews do not deserve self-determination.

But how would Jews be a minority in Israel? They number about 7 million whereas the Palestinians are about 5 million.

And yes, I can provide examples. Any Jewish person living in the developed world has the same rights as non-Jewish people. Which is not to say that they don't suffer from anti-Semitism; of course they do, sadly.

The best country for Jewish people after Israel is probably America. They have flourished there. (But still have to contend with anti-Semitism, unfortunately.) However, in theory, they have the same rights as everyone else.

That is splitting hairs to nth degree, and to an absurd level. With Londinium reducing over time into London; one is just a sort of de-Romanised/ shorter version of the other.

As you say, it is just the modern spelling. It is not a different name per se, or unrecognisable.

That is silly. You can’t say something doesn’t exist until the name has today’s spelling in a latinised alphabet to count because then Israel never existed until 1948.
Reality is that Israel as יִשְׂרָאֵל existed (Yisr’ael) since 1500BC

I meant called London, with the modern spelling.

We are talking about names here.

Oh, sorry for cross posting.

Eh? Wasn’t Londinium established (and named) by the Romans in and around 50 AD? That’s not the medieval period. I think that is even before the Jewish people were massacred, enslaved and displaced from their homeland by the Romans.

They find historical artifacts and buried ruins from ‘Londinium’ every so often; things like the Temple of Mithras (from around 200AD), and it seemed to have been rededicated to Bacchus around a century later. London (or Londinium) goes quite a way back.

Edited just to add; You can see what a stretch the Roman Empire covered. They were terribly busy bees, were the Romans.

Interesting how London (Londinium) existed when the 2nd Temple still stood in Jerusalem.