Where do you think Jewish people come from?

[BlessedIsTheFruit]

Antisemitism is at full volume at the moment and I caveat this post with saying that I have absolutely no wish to make Jewish MNers feel uncomfortable but as an an atheist with no connection to Israel this really makes my blood boil.

I see so many SM posts about the Jews having 'colonized' Israel and Judea & Samaria, not having any claim to the land, not being indigenous and of course being 'Europeans settlers'.

They can't answer where they actually come from though so I thought anyone on here who shares their views might be able to give an answer and how they came to that conclusion.

I understand that Jews are an ethnicity with Judaism as their religion. Being Jewish is not a religion. Jews are still today spread out all over the world with the majority living in Israel and the US.

This has come into focus since the UK Government sanctions on Jewish businesses in Judea & Samaria recently with Jewish communities living there classed as 'illegal settlers'.

It's almost as if Jews and Judea have no connection at all.

So AIBU to ask where the Jews originated from if not from there?

I don't feel this belongs on the CITME board as although the war in Gaza has amplified beliefs, this not directly about that.

It’s bizarre isn’t it?

I come from that general area (but not Israel or Gaza specifically) and my family are Muslim though I am an atheist.

it seems to me indisputable that Jews originate from that land. The Al Aqsa mosque is built on top of the temple of Solomon - how on earth can Jews returning to their ancestral land (having survived an actual genocide) possibly be regarded as colonisers?

Well it’s an interesting question. There’s quite a few questions actually.

So interested in the responses too.

This has come into focus since the UK Government sanctions on Jewish businesses in Judea & Samaria recently with Jewish communities living there classed as 'illegal settlers'.
It's almost as if Jews and Judea have no connection at all.

You have lost me a bit at this point though.

My parents lived and thus I grew up in one of the richest postcodes in London. I am not owed a house there regardless that’s where I have come from.

So where someone’s from and living they are completely two different things. As is ‘settling’ pretty alien to most developed nations. Many would consider that just a fancy word for stealing.

If you already own it/ have a claim to it. Then you don’t need to settle it. So I am pretty sure we are all talking about the same thing here physically - many just have a different moral view on that.

The best evidence available so far is that homo sapiens originated somewhere in/near modern day Ethiopia. Everything past that is migration.

Sure, the Jewish people came from Judea/Israel. The problem is that the Jewish diaspora happened in AD70 and since then other people have lived there. We don’t normally go round allocating land on the basis of who lived there 2000 years ago, even if they were unfairly pushed out. The people whose ancestors lived in Israel 100 years ago feel that they have been unfairly pushed out. Who has more right to live there now?

Africa

Totally agree with Bloodysquirellls. I would hope that Jews born and resident in Europe consider themselves Europeans, not Israeli.

Any Jewish person has an automatic right to move to Israel and claim Israeli citizenship, and many do alongside their European citizenship. What is wrong with that?

Do some research.

How is that relevant? The question is about Jews.

I do wonder where some think the Israeli Jews should live? My friend's family was forced out of Iraq in the early 1900s. Aside from being in Israel for several generations now, there isn't an Iraq for them to return to, since they were unfairly pushed out of there too. They consider themselves Israeli. What's the answer?

Helpful

Isn't it perverse that with the consensus that colonisation caused profound damage to the world, and indigenous nations, that one of the most remarkable examples of decolonisation in modern history is condemned

Perhaps they would if an Austrian psychopath hadn’t murdered 6 million of them.

I wonder why Austria/Germany isnt held to account for the holocaust? Maybe some reparations are due?

Well, Jewish people may once have come from Judea, but many people now associate them with Ashkenazi Jews who came about through Levantine Jews moving along Roman trade routes from the ME up through Italy and into Western Europe (Germany, France) converting local women along the way. They were obviously generally then pushed East into Eastern and Central Europe and Russia.

So yeah they come from Europe as well as the Levant.

For some reason nobody pays attention to the Sephardic.

What after being subjected to the 20th century's worst pogrom?! Educate yourself love

I'm ethnically Indian but I don't have Indian citizenship. I can't live in India without a residence permit of some sort.

More importantly, I think you are conflating two issues quite disingenuously actually. I am sure you are aware that the sanctions are against illegal settlements in occupied territory. They are not against businesses operating in Israel.

It's all whataboutery. Mass starvation and bombing of civilian children is a genocide and needs to stop.

Right. There are a lot of people from a lot of places who have been dispossessed. There is no easy solution. Individuals can sometimes settle, but once you are talking about whole people groups, there’s a problem. That’s why there are wars.

Germany has been paying reparations.

So if Americans (not native Americans) decide to settle in the UK they should be allowed to because they were originally from here?

Germany has paid some

Where does anyone come from

Britain is a mish mash of many ethnicities

PP has rightly pointed out that it seems we all originally descended from Africa.

Ancient Egyptians were long in all the regions nearby many many thousands of years ago too.

Jewish people are not a single ethnicity, but the original (2000+ years ago) population was from the area around Jerusalem - that population did spread out and will have married locally so there’s no single ethnicity for all Jews. There are Jewish people all over the world in fact and of many different ethnicities. Ultra Orthodox Jews tend to have a very specific lineage, but I know quite a few converts to Reform Judaism

Germany has paid reparations for the holocaust, I just googled it:

By 2018, the German government had paid roughly $86.8 billion in restitution and compensation, and total disbursements have since surpassed €80 billion. 1, 2]

All over