From: adam@sparkle.uucp (Adam Shostack)
Subject: Re: A naive question about the law of return
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard University
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 16:59:09 GMT

In article <25850@castle.ed.ac.uk> egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson) writes:
>In article <1992Sep14.164635.712@das.harvard.edu> adam@endor.uucp (Adam Shostack) writes:
>=>[Adam]
>=>Nope.  It can be seen as a homeland for the Jews, a people evicted
>=>by the Romans, who have longed to return for 2,000 years.

>If one can become Jewish by conversion, then it cannot be the case that
>the Jews are 100% a people evicted byt the Romans.

>=>[Adam]
>=>The
>=>argument that Jews are converts is nonsense.  The number of converts
>=>in Christian Europe (from 400 to say 1700) to Judaism was probably
>=>close to zero.  Ditto for Islamic converts to Judaism in Arabia
>=>(800-1900).  The number of converts to Judaism during the
>=>enlightenment was probably also very low.  So when did this mass of
>=>people convert, so that you can claim most Jews are affiliated by
>=>choice, rather than by ancestry?

>You are setting up a straw man here. Nowhere have I claimed that a mass
>conversion had taken place. Presumably you do not deny that *some*
>conversion had taken place. My query related to those converts, whatever
>their number. Not all Jews are descendants of a people evicted by the 
>Romans. I was using an exception to prove a rule (sensu stricto).

(I don't think I'm setting up a straw man, I think you're grasping at 
straws to make this argument work.  I even helped you phrase your
initial question! :)

I claim that the number is so low as to be insignificant.  And, once
these people did convert, they married into the community, so that
their children were only 1/2 convert, their grandchildren 1/4, etc.
You're smart enough to figure out that a few genarations down the
line, they have almost no non-Jewish ancestors, and as such, are part
of the tribe that was kicked out by the Romans.

Also, some Jews, the Falashim, for example, were kicked out by the
Babylonians.  :)

>=>[Jeremy]
>=>>And to continue, supposing that the answer to the above question is in the
>=>>affirmative, can you suggest a basis on which we might decide which such
>=>>elective affiliations are worthy of this kind of treatment? 

>=>[Adam]
>=>I did not answer in the affirmative, but if I had, I would answer that
>=>as converts to Judaism were killed by Germans just as quickly as Jews
>=>whose ancestors were Jews, a homeland for Jews should be a homeland
>=>for those who are going to be killed for their Judaism.

>But then you would still have to supply a rationale for the victims of
>Nazism being accommodated in a Middle Esatern country. Should Israel also
>be a homeland for gypsies, homosexuals, the insane, Communists, and other
>groups persecuted by the Nazis?

The (very few) Jews who did convert were brought into the mainstream
of the comunity.  It is only rational that they should become refugees
along with the rest of the community if the community is forced out of
an area.  Or should they be forcibly split off because their ancestors
were converted?

>=>[Adam]
>=>Or should those people who have elected to become Jews be allowed to
>=>die if no country on Earth will allow them to enter, as happened in
>=>WW2?

>Indeed a disgraceful state of affairs, but not really a reason for the 
>Palestinians to pay for the choice of some people to elect to become Jews.

Again, I'd like to see documentation that a significant number of
people converted to Judaism at any point.  Even the Khazars apparently
did not convert en masse.  I think this whole discussion is a straw
man until I see evidence of large scale conversions.

(Even then, I would argue that some fraction of the converts to
Judaism were converts from Judiasm at one point or another, seeing as
conversions from Judiasm were occaisonally mandated by law or a mob,
whilst conversions to Judaism were rare.)

Adam

Adam Shostack 					adam@das.harvard.edu

What a terrible thing to have lost one's .sig.  Or not to have a .sig
at all.  How true that is.