Talk:Jews/Archive 6

message: Originally the article merely stated that "critics" refered to assimilation as a "Silent Holocaust", and it was not presented as a POV by an editor. Later it was expanded (and then  deleted) after a source was cited:
:"This phenomenon is known as "intermarriage"  and is the leading cause for the shrinkage of almost all Jewish populations in Western countries since World War II, it has been called the Silent Holocaust  by communal leaders such as Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald of the National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP)." 
Many Orthodox rabbis refer to assimilation as a type of "Holocaust". And obviously Orthodox rabbis and their followers are NOT speaking about the SUV's and whatnot. As for the world's almost two billion Christians, who would expect that they should know about "Jewish problems" when they are so busy being Christian? So it is natural that their concern is about the abortion "Holocaust" since that is what their clergy talks about and not about the Jewish World War II Holocaust. And since this is an article about Jews, it should follow, that when the word Holocaust is being used it firstly refers to the original Holocaust of the Jews (not SUVs etc), but can also refer to any national catastrophe that befalls the Jews as a people, and assimilation counts as a national (demographic) catastrophe. Hence, the phrase "Silent Holocaust" is logical, justified, and accurate according to the Orthodox leaders who make use of the term. IZAK 20:28, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You were not able to quote from the original source. You assert that intermarriage would be a Silent Holocaust. --Vasile 01:12, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: "There is a Holocaust taking place in America right now. We can't hear it, because there are no barking dogs; we can't see it because there are no goose-stepping Nazi soldiers and no concentration camps; we can't smell it because there are no gas chambers. But the net result is exactly the same. If we fail to act now, if we fail to share with our young Jews the beauty and meaningfulness of Jewish life and Jewish heritage, there will be few Jews left in the next generation who will even know that there ever was a Holocaust of European Jews. The "silent Holocaust" will have done its job. Hitler will have emerged victorious. (Ephraim Buchwald is the Director of the National Jewish Outreach Program. He is the Founding President of the Association for Jewish Outreach Professionals, and rabbi of the Beginners Service at Lincoln Square Synagogue in New York City.) Reprinted in updated form from The Los Angeles Times, April 28, 1992." 
That is taken from the NJOP website at http://www.njop.org/ I did NOT "make this up" and it deserves to be in a section on modern present-day intermarriage which, together with apostacy (converting to another religion), results in the phenomenon called "the vanishing Jew/s". IZAK 01:48, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  In the article, Ephraim Buchwald equivalated the failure "to share with our young Jews the beauty and meaningfulness of Jewish life and Jewish heritage" with "Silent Holocaust". Your personal assertation about intermarriage is not based on this article. --Vasile 04:52, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: "...But obsessing over the Holocaust is exacting a great price. It is killing America's Jews. According to the 1990 Council of Jewish Federations National Jewish Population Survey, record numbers of Jews are now walking away from Judaism. Two million American Jews no longer acknowledge being Jewish. One million American Jewish children are being raised as non-Jews, or with no religion at all. And 625,000 Jews or their children have converted out of Judaism. A recent Gallup organization survey of religions in America reported that while there seems to be a resurgence among Protestants and Catholics, Jews as a group are drifting away from their religion. There are many reasons for this wholesale abandonment of Jewish identity. Our grandparents hoped that America would be a melting pot for future generations; instead it has become a meltdown!"
When he says that One million American Jewish children are being raised as non-Jews he is talking about the RESULTS of assimilation and intermarriage, that is very clear (except to you for some reason). In other words, assimilation and intermarriage equals the One million American Jewish children [that] are being raised as non-Jews (because children come from MARRIAGES) which equals a silent Holocaust as 625,000 Jews or their children have converted out of Judaism. (1990 survey estimates). This is not hard to understand. IZAK 08:57, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: You are wrong; in this article, the sentence "One million American Jewish children are being raised as non-Jews, or with no religion at all" is not about intermarriage. --Vasile 14:47, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: The term "Holocaust" is "logical, justified, and accurate" to everyone who uses the term for whatever purpose they use.  Orthodox Rabbis also refer to abortion as the "Silent Holocaust" http://www.jewsformorality.org/israel_abortion.htm , and to conversion to Christianity as the "Silent Holocaust" http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/j4jlibrary/silent.html . So which "Silent Holocaust" are you talking about, the intermarriage one, the assimilation one, the abortion one, or the conversion to Christianity one? Jayjg 20:42, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: Maybe you need a Silent Holocaust article instead, then, explaining all the different ways in which Orthodox Rabbis have used the term, and (ideally) what they have in common. Jayjg 02:41, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: Yes, some people use the phrase to refer to intermarriage.  That was never in question.  Others use other phrases (e.g. "silent annihilation", "another Holocaust").  Other use it to refer to assimilation, Jews not bringing up their children in the Jewish faith, abortion of Israeli babies, Russian Jews converting to Christianity, etc.  As I said before, I think an article on the uses of the phrase "Silent Holocaust" would be a great idea; all the different ways Jews use it, all the different ways non-Jews use it, and the objections of others to the phrase. Jayjg 18:58, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: It's a start.  I'll try to work on it a little today. Jayjg 15:05, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original source of "Silent Holocaust" 

message: Really, I have not made this up. The usage of the phrase "Silent Holocaust" as refering to intermarriage/s is actually quite common, both among scholars and lay people (even anti-Semites know about it!) as can be seen from the following links:
#http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/IntermarriageWhyNot.htm "More than 50% of the Jewish People today are intermarrying, in some places it is as high as 90%.....Intermarriage has created a silent holocaust in this generation..."
#http://www.whymarryjewish.com/j2k.html "...Unlike the persecution that the Jewish people have endured by the hands of others for over 3,000 years, Jews on this continent now face a "silent holocaust" stemming from within their very own communities and their very own households..."
#http://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/191/Q1/  "There have been many other arguments offered against intermarriage, below is a summary of some of the most famous. 1. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, 12 million were left afterwards. Today there are only 13 million Jews in the world. Where are the rest that by natural increase should number close to 20 million? The answer is that the silent holocaust of assimilation has caused them to disappear as Jews."
#http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=108396 "What is Wrong with Intermarriage?...This is all the more true after the Holocaust. Intermarriage is, in a sense, an act of treason to our people for, instead of bringing new Jews into the world by marrying a Jewish wife, one would be contributing to the decimation of our people and the “Final Solution” that Hitler and his followers began and nearly accomplished. The horrific rates of intermarriage today constitute a silent annihilation of our people..."
#http://www.duke.org/library/race/bobjones.html Even the Jew-hating David Duke of the KKK knows about it (and wouldn't he love to do the "real thing" to Jews!) when he quotes Rabbi Norman Lamm of YU and the head of Hadassah: "In 1989 Carol Diament was the National Director of Jewish Education at Hadassah, the Woman's Zionist Organization of America (and she may still hold that position). She was quoted as saying ". . . we [the Jews] are not imparting to our children the responsibility to marry Jews...the greatest threat of all to the future of Diaspora Jewry is intermarriage.' 2 Norman Lamm, president of (Modern Orthodox) Yeshiva University has said that intermarriage between Jews and non- Jews will result in "another Holocaust." Herewith: "With a diminishing [Jewish] birth rate, an intermarriage rate exceeding 40%, Jewish illiteracy gaining ascendance daily--who says that the Holocaust is over? . . . The monster has assumed a different and more benign form." 3. (Quoted in Peter Novick, THE HOLOCAUST IN AMERICAN LIFE (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), p.185.). 
One can go on and search for many more times it's used. So it's quite clear that the notion of a Silent Holocaust being the result of intermarriage is open knowledge and acknowledged and known to many people out there. IZAK 09:36, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, some people use the phrase to refer to intermarriage.  That was never in question.  Others use other phrases (e.g. "silent annihilation", "another Holocaust").  Other use it to refer to assimilation, Jews not bringing up their children in the Jewish faith, abortion of Israeli babies, Russian Jews converting to Christianity, etc.  As I said before, I think an article on the uses of the phrase "Silent Holocaust" would be a great idea; all the different ways Jews use it, all the different ways non-Jews use it, and the objections of others to the phrase. Jayjg 18:58, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: It's a start.  I'll try to work on it a little today. Jayjg 15:05, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Some more sources

message: I'm moving this paragraph, a mix of fact and opinion, to the talk page for revision or deletion. I'm surprised it's been left as long as it has...
:As a matter of fact, Jews were persecuted over the whole Christian world since Christianity defined himself as a different religion and became the religon of the State. The intensity of persecution varried but it has been never stopped in these ca 1700 years; the modern antisemitism -- although is somewhat different -- is also essentialy rooted in the antijudaism of the Christian Churches.
:While there certainly are fringe groups that preach hatred, the majority of Christians today view Judaism as a sister faith. Pollinator 18:09, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)
::I think the paragraph should return with an added paragraph, to the nature of:
:::Since World War II and the creation of the modern state of Israel, many Christian groups, especially in the U.S., have rethought their relations to the Jewish faith and to Jews. Some Christian groups, particularly those considering themselves "born-again," even express a special affinity to Jews and Israel.
::The historical attitudes are not erased so easily. When the Pope expresses concern about the Church's relations with Muslims (vis a vis Israel), when European nations in general feel a special affinity with the Palestinian cause and consistently chastise Israel, when anti-Semitism is again rising in Europe, are we witnessing a new phenomenon based on the actions of Israel or an extension of thousand-year-old sentiments. -- Cecropia | Talk 19:02, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Bias removal

message: Some time ago we were advised that this article contained too main external links.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jew/Archive_2#Too_many_external_links
So please do not repeat the errror of too many links just because there is confusion over Chabad links. There should be only one link  to mainstream Chabad, which is already a great privelege here, considering it was not cut with other links long ago. IZAK 20:13, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Excessive links 

message: Remember that there is already a section on the reform views later on, the traditional views refer to orthodox (and conservative). By no means do orthodox count the matrilieal descendants from a line that was not originally (i.e. orthodoxly) Jewish to be Jews. I.E. the descendants of a woman who converted to Reform Judaism will not be counted as Jewish in the traditional sense at all. Why is Jayig reverting this? Also why not mention that legally jewish Messianic Jews are still considered Jews though in apostasy according to the orthodox view (just like legally jewish Reform Jews) to highlinght how different Reform Jews are from the Orthodox with regards to treating Judaism as a set of beliefs instead of a nationhood?Zestauferov 17:09, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Since a woman who did not convert is not a Jew (by anyone's definition), the existing definition excludes her and her children.  Your change adds nothing except confusion. Please remember, this definition is given in the Traditional Jewish Views section.  Jayjg 19:56, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: Exactly. Jayjg 16:49, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Traditional Jewish views

message: Can the regulars here take a look at Jewish left? I think it might be vaguely anti-Semitic gunk. jengod 21:40, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)
How did you arrive at that cnclusion from the sentence? It is dreadfully stubbish though.Zestauferov 23:29, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've edited from its previous version, which was at best POV, at worst anti-semitic. Jayjg 20:21, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Jewish Left