Genocide is an integral part of Jewish faith: convince me

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Anyway, one should bear in mind that Judaism exists on a spectrum. Some are violently Zionist. Others advocate strongly for the peaceful dismantling of the Jewish state.

Reading the Biblical fairy tales isn't necessarily going to make anyone violent, any more than playing certain video games will necessarily turn anyone into a mass killer.

Anyway, one should bear in mind that Judaism exists on a spectrum. Some are violently Zionist. Others advocate strongly for the peaceful dismantling of the Jewish state.

Reading the Biblical fairy tales isn't necessarily going to make anyone violent, any more than playing certain video games will necessarily turn anyone into a mass killer.

How do we take people seriously who simultaneously don't believe in god, but also believe god gave them Israel?

People normally don’t worship video games.

Convince me otherwise

(And yes, holy war /slavery / forced conversion is part of Islam too, which is very inspired from Judaism as a whole but that's another topic, so no whataboutism please)

It's not surprising to see many Jews are very unempathetic for what is going on in Gaza.

After all, genocide is part of Judaism.

Judaism teaches that God is willing to destroy all Jews' enemies, elederly, children and women alike in many instances:

- The Flood: killing all the unbelievers and the wicked.

- Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: God destroys these cities for their wickedness.

- The Canaanite Conquest: God commands Israel to destroy several Canaanite nations during their conquest of the Promised Land.

- The Ten Plagues of Egypt: especially the one that killed every firstborn in Egypt, just for his people's sake.

- Amalekites: God commands Saul to destroy the Amalekites, including men, women, children, and animals.
- Midianites: Moses commands the Israelites to kill all Midianite men and later, all women and boys, sparing only virgin girls.

So it's very normal that many devout Jews, especially Israelis, that would just shrug about the genocide happening in Gaza, they may be even do it without much thinking about it; it's ingrained in the biblical upgringing.

So it's very normal that many devout Jews, especially Israelis, that would just shrug about the genocide happening in Gaza, they may be even do it without much thinking about it; it's ingrained in the biblical upgringing.
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If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

no whataboutism please).

Just revisiting this, I think you're right that ultimately the problem lays with Zionism as an ideology more than Judaism as a religion.

There's times I feel like the people around me get their understanding of world religions from the lowest common denominator. Y'all are far too ready to crap all over faith traditions--and it undermines y'alls ability to actually understand why things like genocide happen.

Yes, indeed, please show me a single religion that has not forcibly converted anyone or been used to justify genocide before tossing Judaism and Islam specifically under the bus.

Y'all realize there were like.....Jews? And Christians? All day every day in the Muslim world? Europeans and their descendants project their love of pogroms and forced conversions onto other cultures. Jews for centuries fled to the Muslim world to escape Christian for over a millennium. Until Zionism destroyed Jewish-Islamic relations, places like Istanbul, Thessalonica, and Alexandria were havens from Xians' anti-semitism. Hell, for centuries, in many parts of Europe, you could not even legally be a Jew. Consider the Spanish Reconquista and the resultant destruction of public Jewish culture on the Iberian peninsula for centuries afterward.


Contrary to the Israeli propaganda that you take at face value, Jews are not a hive mind and Zionism has been a divisive subject in the Jewish community for over a century.


Yes, indeed, please show me a single religion that has not been used to justify genocide before tossing Judaism specifically under the bus.

^and no, I would not consider what I just said whataboutism, because, again, you are singling out Judaism (and Abrahamic religions in general it seems?)


Y'all realize that the Abrahamic god is a synthesis of the Canaanite gods El and Yahweh? To oversimplify things: El is the benevolent ruler god, while Yahweh is the god of war. Keep in mind when you are reading the Torah, you are reading a compilation of disparate tales from the Bronze Age--they are going to reflect the values of the time. Did your people conquer others? Did your people slaughter other peoples? Then those myths which talk about those things are going to involve God. "We conquered with God's blessing" <- is such a ubiquitous sentiment in world religions that I don't know where to point to first. It also goes the other way. In such myths which recount defeats, conversely, defeat is attributed to disobeying God, having too little faith, having wicked/incompetent leaders, etc etc.
This even happens in historical narratives. Saladin, Kurdish Muslim commander who defeated Crusaders, earned a reputation in Europe as being honorable--not just because of whatever honor he had or didn't have, but because he defeated the Christian Crusaders, who, being on the "rightful" side, must, then, have been wicked/incompetent/unfaithful to have lost to heathens. The same goes the other way. When Muslims suffered defeats at the hands of the Eastern Roman Empire, this would sometimes result in the Roman emperors who defeated them being remembered similarly to Saladin for the Europeans: honorable and intelligent.

Apocalyptic flood narratives were common throughout the ancient Near East. The tale of Noah is simply the version of that narrative as it has been integrated into the rest of the Jewish mythos.

Parable! Has been interpreted many ways, but mainly that violent, wicked peoples bring about their own destruction.

See above about Yahweh. Does your religion's founding myth involve conquest? Then 99/100 times your myths are going to say it's because you had your (war) god's help. Such myths are also going to often be embellished to exaggerate your successes and downplay your defeats.
(Incidentally, archaeology has shown that Jews originally settled in Canaan peacefully, and that the conquest narrative is a later invention. I don't get out much, but in my experience most modern Jews see no issue with accepting this).

Yes? For his people's sake? To bring them out of slavery? And, again, the story is a parable. Most of the plagues are symbolic, mainly to contrast with the Egyptians' gods. Oh, your sun god is so great? Well our god just blotted out the sun with a tangible darkness. Oh, your Nile is sacred? You should not have filled it with the blood of the Hebrews' first-borns, so now the Nile is nothing but blood. The plague killing the first-born is meant explicitly as retribution for pharaoh's order to kill the first-born of the Hebrews--especially so, considering Moses was one such first-born who survived.

See above about Bronze Age conquest narratives.


By believing this you are essentially buying into the narrative of the Zionist state you are attempting to condemn. Israel is a nationalist-supremacist state built to privilege one ethno-religious group at the expense of others. Because Israel is explicitly for the benefit of Jews at the expense of others, then Jewish legends and myths are going to be used by the state in an attempt to justify whatever horrible thing the state is doing. Israel is far from alone in this. Christian states committing atrocities turned to Biblical examples to justify their actions. Same for Hindu states committing atrocities. And Muslim states, Buddhist, pagan... Which, again, is why you are missing the point by fixating on religion (which is what Israel wants you to do).

Religion is the PRETENSE for the state's need to oppress. State oppression and aggression come first, the rationalizing comes second. That rationalizing is going to be built within the confines of the accepted value system of the society within that state. This could be religion, capitalism, communism, etc etc etc.


Holy hell! Could we, as a society, move past such sophomoric pop sociology? Could we stop putting down faith traditions? Why the hell am I, the anti-Zionist agnostic commie, constantly having to go up to bat for Judaism? Because putting down religion is a tired, cheap way for some people to feel intellectual. Because people in my country and many others are willfully ignorant of history and other cultures. Because there is an amazing number of "critics" of Israel who repeat, verbatim, Zionist propaganda.

By believing this you are essentially buying into the narrative of the Zionist state you are attempting to condemn. Israel is a nationalist-supremacist state built to privilege one ethno-religious group at the expense of others. Because Israel is explicitly for the benefit of Jews at the expense of others, then Jewish legends and myths are going to be used by the state in an attempt to justify whatever horrible thing the state is doing. Israel is far from alone in this. Christian states committing atrocities turned to Biblical examples to justify their actions. Same for Hindu states committing atrocities. And Muslim states, Buddhist, pagan... Which, again, is why you are missing the point by fixating on religion (which is what Israel wants you to do).

Religion is the PRETENSE for the state's need to oppress. State oppression and aggression come first, the rationalizing comes second. That rationalizing is going to be built within the confines of the accepted value system of the society within that state. This could be religion, capitalism, communism, etc etc etc.


Holy hell! Could we, as a society, move past such sophomoric pop sociology? Could we stop putting down faith traditions? Why the hell am I, the anti-Zionist agnostic commie, constantly having to go up to bat for Judaism? Because putting down religion is a tired, cheap way for some people to feel intellectual. Because people in my country and many others are willfully ignorant of history and other cultures. Because there is an amazing number of "critics" of Israel who repeat, verbatim, Zionist propaganda.

I am not buying into anyone's narrative,you are projecting, but this Zionist narrative didn't come from the void, it's based on the Jewish religion (or at least a certain interpretation of it); and I don't think the religious people believe in those stories as "symbolic", they really believe that they occured.