Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

You got downvoted for some reason, but that's a totally legit thing to say in my opinion.

However, the problem of Jewish assimilation in Europe was much more complicated than you might imagine. Prior to the United States, not many places in history really let Jews assimilate. A notable example is China, where Jews moved over the last few thousand years only to always vanish due to assimilation. Non-religious Jews (ie. those willing to assimilate) are vanishing in the United States, too, because the local population is not particularly intolerant of assimilation.

In Europe, however, assimilation was largely not an option, even for Jews willing to assimilate, and even after WWII. This very topic is what spurred Theodore Herzl to become a Zionist, after initially rejecting it for many years. There's a whole book about it: Theodor Herzl: From Assimilation to Zionism [1], but if you search the web you can find plenty of information about it.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Theodor-Herzl-Assimilation-Zionism-Li...



I like your response, and I will take a look at that book since you're probably the first Jew who's tried to argue with me in good faith on this matter.

But to respond to what I can, yeah, exactly. Your great-great uncle could try to assimilate in a non-Jewish country and hope they trust him, which they may or may not given the history of organized Judaism, or he could colonize Palestine and screw them over. He chose the latter, now some people (not me, I'm not Palestinian) hate him for it. Given human history he certainly knew there would be attempts at further expansion in the future, so they hate him for that, too. Why is any of this surprising? I feel like if you believe your great-great uncle deserves a pass you must believe that Palestinians were either uneducated or grossly immoral and bigoted for wanting to keep their land because that would have meant possible death for Jews. And if you do believe that then that could be a really interesting discussion.

Overall though it just seems easier to me to accept that he screwed someone over to get something good. My ancestors have done that plenty of times.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: