Re: [Marxism] Re: marxist difficulty in theorizing the nation?

[andrew c pollack <andypollack@xxxxxxxx>]

I agree with what Marvin and Louis said about the lack of identifying
characteristics of most Ashkenazi Jews today.  We're well on the way to
assimilation (although less quickly the more furious the pro-Israel
sentiment gets in some sectors).  But there's one interesting hangover
from the days of oppressed nationality status in Eastern Europe (and this
may be true of Sephardim/Mizrahi in the West too, I don't know): even
today in the U.S. the most assimilated Jew if asked for their ethnic
background would usually say "Russian Jew" or "Polish Jew" etc., never
Russian or Polish. The point being there's still a vestigial memory that
we weren't really Russian/Polish/etc. any more than Blacks in the US
felt/feel completely American.

Of course had the Soviet Union stayed healthy that could have changed...

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 22:19:34 -0400 "Marvin Gandall"
<marvgandall@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >From "Leon Trotsky" (sic):
>
> > Exactly what elements of a nationality did the
> > European Jews have that made them a nation?  And what
> > was lacking in the marxist definition of nation?
> -------------------------
> I think it could be argued that at one time East European Jews did
> constitute a nation by virtue of a common history, language
> (Yiddish),
> culture, ethnicity and residency in a more or less continguous
> territory.
> The Bosheviks recognized them as such. That nation was largely
> destroyed by
> the Holocaust. A related but more controversial notion, which the
> Spartacists used to advance, is that a Hebrew-speaking nation has
> formed in
> the Middle East which also has these attributes, and which therefore
> also
> has the right to self-determination and, presumably, statehood. (I
> still
> favour a unitary, secular, democratic Palestinian state with
> cultural
> guarantees for both the Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking communities.)
>
> Otherwise, it seems to me, what unites observant Jews around the
> world is
> religion, in the same way it unites practicing Catholics, Muslims,
> Buddhists
> and other denominations. I don't see,for example, how it could be
> argued
> that Norwegian and Yemeni Jews who neither speak the same language,
> occupy
> the same territory, share the same history, etc. can be construed
> as
> belonging to the same "nation".
>
> There has been more than a century of emigration by East European
> Jews. The
> first generation, like all immigrants, carried the national culture
> with
> them. But succeeding generations, progressively abandoned that
> culture,
> assimilated, intermarried, moved into mixed communities, and shares
> only a
> common ancestry. Ultimately, all humanity shares a common ancestry.
> I
> suppose if someone wants to still identify with that or any other
> religion
> and/or culture for reasons of nostalgia or to find a community to
> belong to,
> that is harmless enough and mostly a curiosity to me.
>
> Marv Gandall
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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