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.

No, I don't mean that.

There are about 4.4 Mio stateless people world wide and they are stateless due to very specific circumstances, which are never good. I highly doubt the pp is among them. It's possible but just very unlikely. (And yes I got the number by googling.)

I don't condemn decolonisation in principle. I do, however, object very strongly to displacement of Palestinians.
Israel expanded their territory through military conflict. You cannot seriously suggest this is to be applauded.
And yes, I am Jewish and I am embarrassed for "my people"

So did you give up your British citizenship?

So you disagree with the creation of the state of Israel?

From which they were repeatedly expelled, often after or alongside a massacre.

Jews lived in England in the 11th and 12th centuries including in London, York and Norwich. They were invited by the Normans.At least 17 Norwich Jews were then murdered in 1190. DNA testing links them to modern Ashkenazi communities as Jews were expelled from England in the 13th century and went East. Jews were also expelled from cities and regions and whole countries in Europe. Or forcibly converted or killed. Jews were expelled from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Austria and forced to go East .. So they ended up in Lithuania, Poland, Russia and then faced pogroms there in the 19th century. My husband's great grandparents fled Russia aiming for New York but only got as far as Hull.

Incidentally red hair is found in Jewish communities, not linked to Vikings but due to a recessive gene in a community that is insular and doesn't tend to marry into local communities.

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'.

Are you saying what they’re doing is not illegal? Daniela Weiss, is that you?

I took one of those Ancestry tests for fun not long ago and quite a bit of British % came back, should I just go up and oust someone from their house here? Demand a passport? What about my Sephardic %? Does that mean I now can consider myself Jewish too?

Generation after generation of Muslim Arabs have lived in the West Bank and Gaza. Homes have been in their families for many many years. The settlers come and lay claim because thousands of years ago the land was supposedly promised to them so they remove the Muslims from their own homes and livelihoods and steal everything they own. What planet are you living on that you think that’s okay??

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

I really wish we could move beyond a polarised discussion of who really is entitled to that land versus you can't just kick people out of their homes. It gets us precisely nowhere.

Look, both Jews and the people we now call Palestians have lived in the area for aeons. Communities ebbed and flowed, people passed through, some stayed. The land passed through the hands of various colonisers. In the early 20th century more and more Jews arrived, fleeing pogroms, getting their children to safety as any of us would. As you would expect, this wave of immigration was met with some resentment and resistance.

After Hitler came to power, the trickle became a flood, with many more Jews desperate to get to Israel, Britain or the US - but not being allowed in. At the end of the war the pressure to find a home for European Jews became intense; those Jews who tried to return to their European homes found nothing left, and sometimes experienced further pogroms. The last displaced persons camps in Europe didnt shut till the early 50s; they were stuffed with European Jews.

Meanwhile the British were being bombarded by Jewish terrorists in Israel, and Britain was fed up. So it did what it (and the other Allied powers) were doing all over the world and drew lines on a map. Think Israel was unique in having its populations suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of an arbitrary line? Look at India/Pakistan, look at Eastern Europe, look at Africa.

Israel's neighbours instantly attacked it (and drove out their own Jews). Israel drove many Palestinians out of their own homes. It was all ugly, and I think we can all agree it shouldn't have happened in the way it did.

But arguing now about whether Israel has a right to exist seems utterly pointless to me. It does exist. The only way to stop it existing is through genocide.

It is equally pointless to pretend that Palestinians don't also have a valid claim to the land, and of course the human rights to safety, security, homes and means of work.

So yes, it's a mess. But we have to look forward. In both South Africa and Northern Ireland, progress was only possible once it was accepted that whoever lived there first, all inhabitants had the right to live safely. Scared people make bad choices.

Same old same old. Wait for the deletion.

Yes, and? Those statements do not contradict each other. Surely this doesn’t not need to be explained.

And the other problem is that their neighbours keep trying to kill them. It’s not exactly a simple situation.

No, that is not correct.

He would be ethnically African, though, although his nationality would be British. He might well be culturally African in some respects, too, depending on how recently his forbears left Africa. If only in the last generation or two, he might have African relatives and is more likely to have grown up in a home with African aspects, such as food and customs.

In my experience, people who are born and raised in one place, but whose family are from a different country, consider themselves to be partly that other nationality, regardless of passport. To what extent depends on if it's parents, grandparents, or further back who are from the other country.

Because “decolonisation” can’t come at the expense of the population that was already there in recent times.

So are you saying that if Jewish settlers withdrew from the West Bank, Israel would be at peace?

How did that work when they withdrew from Gaza in 2005?

So you do have a fixed nationality then.

I don't disagree with your idealism but you are not stateless. On the contrary. That little coloured booklet does define your nationality whether you agree with it or not. Also please understand that it's a sign of privilege to be this casual about your nationality. It's because you can claim nationality of quite a few useful countries that you don't have to care about it. If you genuinely were stateless it would very much be something that defines you as well because you'd basically be screwed.

Again, I don't disagree with your sentiment. I am not nationalistic but I'm a dual national and have limited citizenship of a third country and I know that I am incredibly lucky and privileged to be in this position.

As one of the Jewish MNers I'm more than a little horrified by this thread and don't even know where to begin with watching non-Jews debate my existence.

What is British if not a nationality?

I know that official forms lump "white British" together and call it an ethnicity, but it's not accurate. It's shorthand for British nationality and white ethnicity.

You don't hear people saying "My ethnicity is British," do you? You hear people saying "My nationality is British."

Yes

Jews have always been in Israel, Judea & Samaria.

Do you regard migrants who move to the UK, especially with no connection to here, as 'stealing land'?

The 'stealing houses' is terrorist propaganda btw.

Can you evidence that a house was ever 'stolen' from a Palestinian?

Excuse me did you reply to the wrong thread? We’re discussing the origin of Jews.

how do you get from Jews to mass starvation, genocide and bombing of innocent children?

I presume you’re referring to either the 96% of Jews murdered in Poland by the Nazis.

That’s genocide.

or maybe the 1200 festival goers massacred on October 7th.

i don’t think it is though so I’ll leave this as an aside:

3% of Gaza's population—mostly combatant men—died in the war they themselves started. That is not genocide.