Re: [Marxism] When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?

["C W Sedley" <cwsedley@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 11:09 AM, Pance Stojkovski <pance@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Really bad call. You were the first one to bring up the issue of "race".
> This thread, Marxism, and science have nothing to do with the racist concept
> of "race". "Nation" and "religion" have a material basis. "Race" is just a
> racist ideology.

If we're treating "race" and "nation" as totally separate concepts,
then to argue that a given nation was recently invented is pretty
banal. (The rhetorical juxtaposition of a Jewish Swede with a Jewish
Moroccan is surely an indicator that race is on people's mind as a
means to assess whether Jews make up a coherent nation.) What real
nation, with its allegedly real, concrete, sensible material basis,
has a membership that is coterminous with those who share a language,
culture, ethnicity, and geographic territory - the "essential
attributes of nationhood"? If Jews are disqualified from nationhood on
that basis, then what nation passes the test? And if it is found that
Jewish nationhood is lacking these foundations, would it be at all
politically relevant? If the Swedish businessman and the Moroccan
cabdriver consider themselves to be of the same nation, and linked
through that nation to the fortunes of Israel, what's to be said to
them - "speak Yiddish or go home"?

I'd agree with others that the research of the book is irrelevant (if
interesting); what matters is that it's apparently getting a
non-hostile reception within Israel itself. If Israeli Jews abandon
the concept of a Jewish nation/race/ethnicity/whatever and it's only
the diaspora and Christian Zionists left holding the bag of Jewish
essence, the resulting farce would be worthy of NBC's Thursday comedy
bloc.

Cheers

CWS

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