1720indians/jews/1-20-15
1021 words
Jews and Indians
While reading Kent Nerburn’s wonderful book,
“Neither Wolf nor Dog” about the relationship of Indians to Whites I realized
how much Jews and Indians have in common. They are both victims of Christian
imperialism. In the case of the Jews, the oppression began long before the
so-called “discovery” of the Americas.
Of course, North and South America didn’t have to be
“discovered” for the people who already lived here knew where they were. The
Christian oppression of Jews began long before Columbus
with Constantine, the Roman emperor who was reputed to have converted on his
deathbed, making Christianity the official religion of the Roman
empire.
Until then the Roman policy was
to tolerate all religions as long as people paid their taxes. Ten percent of
the empire was then Jewish. But with the development of Christianity as an
offshoot of Judaism, the Christian Scriptures were in competition with Jews.
Oddly, in spite of origins in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Book Of John of Christian Scripture is anti-Judaism. How
anti-Judaism became anti-Jewish and Anti-Semitism may be the subject for another
historical discussion.
What did happen with the
establishment of the Christian church of the Roman
Empire in the fourth century was the establishment of
strict anti-Jewish laws. No new synagogues could be established and no new
graveyards. Anyone who was not born Jewish could not be circumcised on pain of
death. Intermarriage was against the law. This put an end to Jewish conversions
of gentiles.
Other religions were also
suppressed, churches being built on the locations of pagan temples. The only
religion to be tolerated was Christianity.
Whether this contributed to the
decline and fall of the empire after the Jewish rebellion in 76 AD and the
siege of Mosada which necessitated the withdrawal of Hadrian’s forces from Britain may be
a subject of debate. Certainly Hadrian's army being called back to Rome abandoned Britain to the Vikings who came later.
Later Jewish children were
occasionally kidnapped and converted. In the Middle Ages Jews, who were not
permitted to own land or join a guild, were confined to ghettos, the Jewish version of a
Reservation. In Russia that
reservation was the Pale of Settlement.
Later, in the fifteen century,
the Spanish Catholic Inquisition gave Jews the options: convert, leave the
country, or be put to death. If a so-called Converso, or Maranno (pig Jew) were
to secretly practice Judaism, the penalty was torture and death.
Having conquered Europe, the
Christian imperialists turned to new lands. Columbus came
to the so-called New World with
two agendas: gold and conversion of native peoples to Christianity. Catholic
priests, speaking Spanish or Latin, demanded instant conversion of the Santa
Domingo native peoples who, if they did not immediately accept Jesus as their savior were
put to death torn apart by dogs. Only a handful survived by hiding in a cave.
Many Jews fled the Inquisition
to Mexico and New
Mexico where some crypto-Jews still
identify themselves as Jews though they do not practice Judaism. The
Inquisition officially ended in 1992, five hundred years after it began.
So what do the Jews have in
common with the Indians?
After the fall of the Second Temple and
Mosada, the Jews were evicted from their land into the Diaspora, the spreading
out. Fleeing from one country to another, they were periodically expelled, from
England, France, and Germany. In
Russia Jews were restricted to a special reservation called the Pale of
Settlement, but were subject to Pogroms.
Yet, unlike most Indians who
were converted to Christianity and forbidden to practice their own religion or
speak their naïve language, Jews managed to retain their religion and their
language, Yiddish for the Ashkenazi and Ladano for those Spanish and Portuguese
Jews to fled mainly to Turkey.
The Indians were also forcibly
evicted from their lands and kept in reservations. In America the
Christian oppression with Indian schools was parallel to the fifteen century
Inquisition, except the Jews were able to escape. The Indians did not, their
children kidnapped and forced to attend Missionary schools. Yet both Indians
and Jews are tribal people. A code word for Jews is “MOT” member of the
tribe.
The strongest connection between Jews and
Indians is being victims of Christian imperialism. Even today, so-called Jews
for Jesus try to appeal to unwitting Jews. More insidious Christian evangelists
hope that all Jews should move to Israel, a
plan that may be to make the United States Judenrein (cleansed of Jews) but
also to bring on the prophesied Armageddon, after which the Jews who are not
killed will accept Jesus and become Christians.
Just as Indians were portrayed
in Western movies as whooping savages, in Mexico at
Easter celebrations Jews are dressed as clowns, fools for not accepting Jesus.
I guess that’s what they get for not being white or Christian.
Assimilation is still the greatest threat to both
Indians and Jews, which brings up the issue of race. A white man cannot become
an Indian, but can a Jew become a Christian? Martin Luther thought that if the
Catholic Church were reformed the Jews would convert. They did not. He was furious
and wrote an anti-Jewish tract, ”On the Jews and their Lies.” His reasoning was
that since Jews did not become Christians, they must be a race. That’s the
origin of the myth that Jews, who actually come in all colors, are a race.
Hitler, who was raised Catholic and went to parochial school, planned to
obliterate the Jewish race, and murdered six million in his attempt.
The parallel to Hitler's program of extermination was the American whites' distribution of smallpox infected blankets to the Indians, a form of biological warfare.
The Indian
tragedy is that, deprived of their land and dislocated, discouraged from
speaking their own languages and worshipping in the old ways, they have become
demoralized, often alcoholic, subject to domestic violence. The Jews have fared
better, integrating into white society, but the specter of the Holocaust hangs
over all their heads. There is a new de-facto out migration as Jews leave France to
avoid anti-Semitism, this time from a different imperialistic movement: Islam.
At least for the time being, the Jews have a homeland to return to.
Islam, which
once occupied Europe to the gates of Vienna, is
again on the rise. ISIS beheads those who do
not accept their version of Islam. What goes around comes around. History repeats itself.
