From: shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff)
Subject: Re: PLEASE!  I need your help!  Help me keep this love alive!
Organization: Univ. of MD, Baltimore County
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 12:49:47 GMT

In article <22564@venera.isi.edu> arens@ISI.EDU (Yigal Arens) writes:
>In article <1992Oct5.092457.16485@umbc3.umbc.edu> shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff) writes:
>>
>> I wasn't suggesting morality at all.  The essence of the biological
>> analogy follows Dawkins, and runs as follows:
>>
>>    If there is one single property that must be important for a 
>>    gene to be successful, it is that the gene must do whatever
>>    is necessary to ensure its own reproduction.  Genes (at least
>>    successful ones) are reproduction machines.
>>
>>    By analogy, if there is one important feature of a successful
>>    (that is, surviving) religion (or any other social movement),
>>    it is its ability to ensure its own reproduction.
>>
>> There is no claim for morality, either explicit or implicit.  But it
>> does answer the  question of why Judaism opposes intermarriage; if
>> Judaism didn't, there would be no Judaism.
>
>Not quite -- because you have yet to demonstrate that intermarriage
>decreases "the reproduction" of Judaism (even accepting your definition
>of it) compared to the population that does not intermarry.  Where do
>you think those people who are the first in their line to intermarry are
>coming from?  Are they all Orthodox Jews who simply go mad one day?

You keep coming back to Orthodoxy.  Do you believe that only Orthodox
Jews oppose intermarriage?

Does intermarriage compromise Jewish survival?  Sociologists agree that
is does.  Check it out.  Are you seriously arguing that the grandchildren
of an intermarried couple are likely to identify themselves as Jews?

>Have you already forgotten that the Jewish woman in Mr. Webb's life is
>in love with him as well? 

Have you forgotten that she has apparently shown some ambivalence?


>And just to follow your "analogy" a little further -- I wonder: Suppose
>it could be shown that absence of intermarriage is actually
>*detrimental* to reproduction by, say, contributing to the isolation of
>Jews in society and increasing the probability of pogroms, a holocaust,
>etc.  Well, suppose one could show that.  According to your reasoning,
>Mr. Shimoff, Judaism should then *embrace* intermarriage.  Would you?
>If this "theory" is true, it may very well be the case that if
>intermarriage were encouraged through the ages there would be *more*
>Jews around today!

Neat suggestion.  Solve the problem of antiSemitism, pogroms, the
Holocaust, etc. by having Judaism disappear.  If Jews all assimilated and
could no longer be identified, there would be no more antiSemitism.

>You are living in a dream world, Mr. Shimoff.  Your brand of Judaism is
>far more restrictive in its acceptance of conversions and intermarriage
>than most anyone else -- but you've ended up a tiny minority within a
>tiny minority religion in the world.

What brand of Judaism?  So far as I can tell, my position is accepted
(or at least acceptable) to _all_ modern movements within Judaism.
Does the fact that we are a minority indicate that we are wrong?

>This "genetic" argument isn't worth the bits it's conveyed through.  If
>we took it seriously, history would make it appear more likely that the
>customs you support are *threatening* so-called Jewish reproduction than
>that they are supporting it.

What it comes down to is that you seem to be arguing that the best
way to ensure Jewish survival is for all Jews to intermarry.  Am I
missing something?



-- 
Eliot Shimoff                  |    n   n   n
   shimoff@umbc3.umbc.edu      |   X + Y = Z .  Easy to prove no solutions
Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu ...  |   for n greater than 2.  Darn.  Can't fit
Better luck next year!         |   it into this little .sig file.  Oh well.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish