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Post by Drooperdoo on Feb 14, 2005 18:04:15 GMT -5
Solomon, As I said earlier, you're using "Ashkenazic" and "European Jew" interchangeably--and they're not. You list Einstein as an Ashkenazic Jew: He's not. He's a German Jew who's clearly Sephardic: Olive skin, frizzy black hair, brown eyes. He's classically Sephardic-Jewish. His family--like Karl Marx's--entered Germany from Spain, not from Eastern Europe. So you can take Einstein off your list, as well as a bunch of others on the list. This reminds me of a Jewish girl I knew. Her family were in South America from Spain, they spoke Ladino in the home. When asked about her origin, she incorrectly said "Ashkenazic Jew," mistakeningly thinking that "European" = "Askenazic". They were European alright--but Sephardic. NOT Askenazic. Ashkenazim are only the Eastern-European Jews, of whom she was not descended.
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Post by Solomon on Feb 14, 2005 18:14:21 GMT -5
Just because a Jew is olive skinned doesn't mean he's Sephardic. The Ashkenazim have preserved most of their Middle Eastern features.
Einstein was most definitely an Ashkenazi. Oded Fehr is also Ashkenazic, look it up, he's a German-Jew.
As a Sephardi, even I recognize the countless Ashkenazi contributions to Western society.
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Post by Melnorme on Feb 14, 2005 18:19:11 GMT -5
Solomon, As I said earlier, you're using "Ashkenazic" and "European Jew" interchangeably--and they're not. You list Einstein as an Ashkenazic Jew: He's not. He's a German Jew who's clearly Sephardic: Olive skin, frizzy black hair, brown eyes. He's classically Sephardic-Jewish. You're inventing this. 'Sephardic' isn't a racial term ; Einstein was an Ashkenazi Jew, everybody knows this. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews
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Post by Solomon on Feb 14, 2005 18:20:59 GMT -5
Ashkenazim are only the Eastern-European Jews, of whom she was not descended. If you consider Germany Eastern Europe, then yes. "Ashkenaz" is literally Hebrew for Germany. As you already pointed out, there was tension between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, meaning that mixing probably didn't occur. There's no reason to assume every successful Jew has to be Sephardic. Ashkenazim comprise 70% of the global Jewish population.
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Post by Melnorme on Feb 14, 2005 18:24:01 GMT -5
Elias Canetti was also sephardic. Here's one you won't like : WSJ 'open borders conservative' James Taranto, 1/4 Turkish Sephardi ( that's where he gets the Italian surname ).
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Post by eufrenio on Feb 14, 2005 18:37:07 GMT -5
He´s part of the open borders conspiracy? Where´s Wintermute when you need him! Anyway, the Canetti surname is really "Cañete". His Bulgarian family spoke ladino, but he eventually became a great writer in german. His auto-biography is fascinating.
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Post by molika on Feb 14, 2005 18:56:25 GMT -5
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Post by Drooperdoo on Feb 14, 2005 19:00:37 GMT -5
The terms "Ashkenazic" and "Sephardic" are curious. There's little debate that when Jews in the Bible mentioned "Sepharad" they meant "Spain". The precise location of the "Ashkenazic" homeland is another matter. Only in the modern age has it been assumed to mean "Germany". Many, however, think it originally referred to the Khazar kingdom to the south of Germany. Others think it was located in the Ukraine. Being in Germany in no way makes one, ipso facto, "Askenazic". The original Jewish communities there were NOT from Eastern Europe. The flood of millions of Jews into Germany only happened in the 19th Century [due to Russian oppression]. Before then the Jewish communities in Germany were very small, modest--and overwhelmingly traced their ancestry to Spain, not Poland. Jeff Goldblum, Oded Fehr, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx [whose family name was Mordechai] are survivals from pre-Eastern European flood. They look like any Mediterranean--which Woody Allen doesn't. There's a reason why Woody Allen doesn't look like them. It's like looking at a Swede and a Sicilian and pretending they're from the same gene-pool; they're not. And neither are Einstein and Woody Allen. While I agree that the Eastern European Jews are not all Woody Allen look-a-likes [and that there are considerable numbers of dark "Semitic-looking" Jews in the east (like actor Alan Arkin or Peter Falk)] on the whole the base of the community is Turko-Slavic . . . quite at variance with Western European Jews, who originated in Spain.
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Post by Melnorme on Feb 14, 2005 19:07:10 GMT -5
Being in Germany in no way makes one, ipso facto, "Askenazic". The original Jewish communities there were NOT from Eastern Europe. That's right. They were from Germany! Read about the misfortunes of their ancestors : www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1096jews.htmlNow you're talking nonsense. There were never millions of Jews in Germany. There were 500,000 before WW2. Most of them had lived there for centuries, although there was a small recent influx from Eastern Europe.
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Post by Drooperdoo on Feb 14, 2005 19:15:35 GMT -5
Melnorme, I can always count on you to catch me when I slip. Yes, I said "millions of Jews flooded out of Eastern Europe" due to Russian oppression . . . implying that they all stayed in Germany. No, you're right: Germany's largest Jewish population was about 550,000 or so. The rest of the Eastern Europeans kept going, though--into Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands and England. (That was the reason for Benjamin Disraeli's anxiety.) And in fact two of the leading suspects for the Jack-the-Ripper killings were two Polish Jews--one named Cohen and the other Kosminsky. So, yes, MILLIONS flooded out of Eastern Europe--and not all stayed in Germany. You're right. I didn't mean to imply that. Secondly, I was just reading up on the "Sephardic Diaspora" and genetics. During the reading, it mentioned that the Jewish community in Antwerp was so large [after the Spanish expulsion] that they started calling it New Jerusalem. PS--A great example of a "dark" Eastern European Jew would be TV's Jon Stewart from the "Daily Show". His real name is Jon Stewart Liebowitz. That's as Polish as it comes! --And he's "swarthy," short and looks classically "Mediterranean". --Just a concession to my estimable opponents.
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Post by Melnorme on Feb 14, 2005 19:16:58 GMT -5
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Post by mike2 on Feb 14, 2005 19:27:44 GMT -5
Yeah, Jon Stewart is very Mediterranean looking. I would have no problem picturing him in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.
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Post by Drooperdoo on Feb 14, 2005 19:27:54 GMT -5
Melnorme, Are we insane then to wonder why the Woody Allen/Alan Dershowitz type looks nothing like, say, Jeff Goldblum? What do you think accounts for the difference?
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Post by mike2 on Feb 14, 2005 19:30:24 GMT -5
I think the difference is the amount of non-Jewish European blood absorbed. I suppose we all can agree that many Ashkenazi fit the Mediterranean bill and many others do not.
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Post by Drooperdoo on Feb 14, 2005 19:39:45 GMT -5
Mike, I work in a publishing house and one of the manuscripts that I read was from a Polish woman, who was writing about her life during WWII. In the course of her manuscript, she said that Jews had a hard time precisely because they "stood out". According to Carleton Coon, Poland has one of Europe's highest blondism rates--in certain areas equal to (or surpassing) Scandinivia. In the woman's manuscript, she said that the Jews were generally "dark". This holds water when one looks at Jon Stewart and realizes that he's probably more representative of the Polish Jews than, say, Woody Allen. --Although it DOES makes you wonder how the "Woody" type survived for so long.
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