So Ahmadinejad is Jewish. So yesterday, readers of the UK Telegraph and a few silly blogs (such as this one) were told that Ahmadinejad was born a Jew. "Who cares?" asks Goldberg. And without missing a beat, he proceeds to squeeze Ahmadinejad’s life-story into the old bottle of self-hatred.
Highly problematic. Here's why:
“Once a Jew, always a Jew” is not (only) an anti-semitic canard, but rather a textual fact that has long shaped the history of Jewish-Christian relations (and distinctions). Where Christians have been primarily defined by their beliefs in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Jews have been defined by their (conscious or unconscious) belief in the truth (or reality) of particular lines from the Talmud, composed in 2nd-5th centuries. Once the "matrilineal principle" was adopted-- that is, once the Rabbis ruled that a child born of a Jewish mother (regardless of the patrilineage) was automatically Jewish-- the question emerged... what if this child sins? What if this child believes in the resurrection of J.C.? And later: what if this child believes that Islamic Law takes precedence over Jewish Law? The Rabbis write,
An Israelite, even if he sins, remains an Israelite [one remains a part of a Jewish or Israelite people whether or not one adheres to the Torah, subscribes to its major precepts or affiliates with the community].While the rabbis were taking a stand on genealogy as the main factor in defining the community, Christian writers were developing a new form of community-definition, one based primarily on "belief" (as opposed to kinship and land).
Most Jews are probably not aware of these ancient texts, but many many Jews define who's a Jew based on genealogy (rather than beliefs or practices).
It is apparently unthinkable--at least for Goldberg, but again, I'm quite sure he's not alone--that a person who is born a Jew (such as Ahmadinejad) may no longer see himself as a Jew, and (for all intents and purposes) may no longer be Jewish.
It is admittedly challenging to see the case of Ahmahdinejad outside the realm of self-hatred. But we must at least entertain the notion that an individual may absolutely believe that he can become non-Jewish and that Jewish law no longer applies to him. It is not international law or natural law or even common sense that defines Ahmahdinejad Jewish; it is Jewish law. Every community defines itself in different ways, but people who know Jews (Jews and anyone else that has any sort of feeling about Jews) often have such a strong belief in the genealogical definition of Jewishness that it is unthinkable that there could be any other way of dividing the world into “us” and “them.”
Jewish self-hatred has become such a catch-all term. But it doesn’t necessarily allow us to understand or even dissipate the tensions invoked by the question of “who’s a Jew.” If an individual converts away from Judaism, she may wish to understand herself as part of another community; she may no longer see her self as Jewish. She may develop a hatred of Jews (a not uncommon circumstance), but it is highly problematic to persist in calling her Jewish as if this is uncontested reality. (There are, I think, contexts in which her genealogy would be irrelevant.) The reality is that even if Christians (or Muslims or Buddhists or Germans or Japanese or Koreans) accept her as one of them, most Jews (or rather Jewish law and history) will continue to regard her as a Jew.
Which brings me to a joke of sorts:
A Jew expresses negative views of other Jews, and so his friend (or a journalist) remarks: “Oh! He’s such a self-hating Jew.”
To which the Jew replies: “I don’t hate myself. I just hate all those other Jews!”
POSTSCRIPT: This blog-entry should really begin with the following: "So Ahmadinejad was Jewish.... And now...?"
"An Israelite, even if he sins...": from Daniel Boyarin, "The Christian Invention of Judaism: The Theodosian Empire and the Rabbinic Refusal of Religion." Representations, No. 85 (Winter, 2004), pp. 22. See also Shaye Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness (University of California Press, 1999).
The joke: I heard this from Anthony Coleman, who apparently heard it from another musician, who apparently heard it from his wife (who will remain unnamed for now). I thought this story was quite hilarious, but apparently some people (including my mother) are offended by it. Why?
Posts
