'Jewish gene' theories make waves in Germany, go unnoticed in Israel
German politician Thilo Sarrazin and the Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai both believe in 'Jewish genes,' but only Sarrazin is castigated for his belief.
By Akiva EldarYesterday's Hebrew edition of Haaretz reported a remark by a German politician that sparked a political and public furor. The foreign and defense ministers, among others, sharply criticized the remark made by Thilo Sarrazin, a member of the German Social Democratic party and a board member of the German central bank.
What is the nature of the comment that is causing a stir in Germany? Here is a quote from Sarrazin's interview with the paper, Welt am Sonntag: "All Jews share a particular gene that makes them different from other peoples."
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| Photo by: Amos Biderman |
A Jewish gene? It is unbelievable that race theory continues to hold sway in Germany.
Now read the following pearl: "A convert, if he converts through the Orthodox, he has the Jewish gene. If he doesn't convert through the Orthodox, he doesn't have the Jewish gene. As simple as that." This quote is taken from an interview the interior minister of the Jewish State and the Shas party leader, Eli Yishai, gave to the editor of The Jerusalem Post, David Horovitz (August 8, 2010 ).
Basically, anyone who monitored Yishai's comments on foreign workers and their children need not fall off his chair. This is the place to note that Yishai, a member of the secret group of seven, refused on Sunday to say a thing about Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's comments about the Palestinian people.
A week earlier, the "Jewish gene" was proudly cited by singer and actor Yehoram Gaon. On his weekly radio program on Reshet Bet, he told listeners about a scientific study that shows that the Palestinians have "a Jewish gene" and some of them were even graced with the "Cohen gene."
Biologist and Machsom Watch activist Michaela Bahat wrote to the station's manager, Arieh Shaked, that "Judaism is not a genetic trait and no one has ever heard of a genetic trait of cohanim (priests ) - although there is a school (that is controversial ) which maintains that among Jews there are shared DNA sequences, but the use of 'genetics' for the purpose of establishing social or political positions is dangerous, just as any doctrine that tries to link blood and race to human rights is."
A synopsis of Gaon's response: "Take things in proportion. It's just a radio show, not a cabinet session, or even a biology class."
Jewish genetics is apparently a hot topic now because it turns out that John Hagee, the Evangelist preacher whose name recently made headlines as the one who funded Im Tirtzu and decided to withdraw his support for the organization, is an expert on Jewish genetics. In his book, "Who is a Jew?" Hagee claims that Hitler was a half-Jew and a descendant of Esau. In May 2008, at the height of the U.S. election campaign, a tape was distributed in which Hagee claimed that Hitler fulfilled the will of the Lord to bring the Jews back to the Land of Israel, in accordance with the Biblical prophecy. The Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, decided to disassociate himself from Hagee's public support.
A few weeks earlier Hagee was the guest of honor of the city of Ariel. The pro-settler news outlet Arutz Sheva described the "tribute ceremony" by Hagee's supporters in the sports hall named in his honor. "Hundreds of Ariel residents, led by city officials and Mayor Ron Nachman, were moved by the outpouring of love from the Christian friends of Israel and responded in kind with warm applause and embraces, which reached a peak with the singing of the Israeli and U.S. anthems."
During the gathering, Pastor Hagee delivered an aggressive and patriotic address supportive of the State of Israel and decrying the U.S. government's policy of pushing Israel to make security concessions to the Arabs that threaten its existence. "The Land of Israel is the country and the land of the Jews," Hagee said fervently. He earned loud applause when he declared: "We believe that the Jews are the chosen people, God's beloved, and that Jerusalem will be united forever and not divided, under Jewish sovereignty."
Needless to say, the guest did not disclose to his fans what would happen to those of their offspring who will refuse to accept Christianity after all the Jews settle in the Greater Land of Israel.
Nachman told Haaretz yesterday that he is not the only one who benefits from Hagee's generosity. According to him, Jewish federations, Israeli universities and well-known rabbis have been seeking funding from the generous preacher's coffers. Even President Shimon Peres, says Nachman, shook his hand warmly.
Freeze, what freeze?
The stories of residents of the Palestinian village al-Ghaniya in the heart of the West Bank reveal some of the bluff behind the temporary construction freeze. On December 11, 2009, two weeks after the freeze went into effect, a plan to build 200 housing units in the unauthorized Givat Habreikha outpost, near the settlement of Talmon, took effect, completely cutting off al-Ghaniya residents from their lands. A petition submitted by the residents, together with the Bimkom association and the Yesh Din organization, stated that even though the freeze permits continued work only on homes whose foundations were laid before the freeze was issued, since January a dozen new structures have been added to the 64 existing ones.
After the Civil Administration did nothing to halt the illegal construction on their lands, the petitioners claim, they turned a few months ago to the High Court of Justice. Justice Neal Hendel refused to issue an injunction. He accepted the state's position whereby in any case there is a general freeze. The village residents were not amused. They know that even a Supreme Court order has no impact on their neighbors. A petition submitted against the construction of a school in Talmon without a permit won a temporary injunction, and the work there continued until the Civil Administration approved the building and the High Court canceled the injunction. The High Court will hear the petitions next week.
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Well, I don't know the whole comment by Thilo Sarrazin to know what his intentions were, but obviously Eli Yishai has no idea what a "gene" is if he thinks converts automatically get it.
All real jews , except converts and offspring of intermarried jews ; who are not real jews , share the same genetic pool.
Every ethnic group around the world has its own special set of genes which makes it different from the other groups. That is how evolution made us and how genetics works. Why do you react so agressively against the facts of life?
By the way, the Chasidic work - the Tanya - also says the Jewish soul is different . Sort of having the cake and eating it, too. One minute, you want to be considered different; the next, criticizing anyone who agrees with you.
"murder gene" becomes involved.
it is truely bizarre to see how jews can be shocked by their own racial theories when non jews come to use their words !. "Jews are a superior race, which do no mix, and should show their genomic identity to have full rights over palestinians lands" !!!.
There's one problem with Sarrazin,sometimes he say things they're not neccessary like a theory about the existence of a jewish gene.Maybe there exists a specific gene for different cultures,but this doesn't matter,every person has to be treated in the same way,this says the basic law of Germany and that's how it is.Germany became a very liberal country and i really like this fact.But there are problems...there are immigrants who don't want to be part of the German society.It is also not neccessary to discuss about if this people are turkish,arabs,etc.If i would move to another country i would definitely learn the language,get a job there,have friends in this foreign country.This is the respect i owe this people.And it should be allowed -also in Germany- to discuss about immigration.In other -seen as very liberal countries- like the USA it would be no problem to start a discussion about criminal immigrants or immigrants who aren't interested to learn the language,who aren't interested to get a job or whatever,but here this is impossible.
don't know of a "Jewish gene", but an undelying trait of German anti-semitism seems to prevail....
Increddible! Du t this theory there can't be many Jews since no convertites are a "real" Jew because of the absence of "Jewish genes". Judaism is a religioin you can convert to. Judaism is no a race or gene pool and you cant convert to a different gene pool. If that is true there is no specific"Jewis gene". What is the purpose with this theory? To divide Jews from eachother?
he seems to think it is something so mobile that it can be transferred by the kiss & blessing of the correct rabbi... that would precipitate a revolution in the science of genetics...
... "genetic engineering", one of the foremost break-throughs in advanced genetics... but even that cannot be undertaken by the ultra-conservative Ovadia Yosef (unless he is employed on the side by the Weismann Institute of Science)...
There are paternal and maternal lineage markers in everyone's DNA - not really "genes." The dominant lineage markers of Jews throughout today's world indicate Middle Eastern origin, despite many centuries of dispersion. Kohanim, the Jewish Priestly family, have these markers in the highest percentage because to be a Kohen requires unbroken paternal lineage from Biblical times. But Jewish is not a genetic definition as converts bring other DNA into the community. Spiritually, "Jewish Genes'' are the inborn nature of a Jew to seek God.
Dear friends, I fear, the causa Sarrazin has not pretty much to do with "jewish genes", whether there are some or not, but with his critizising muslim immigration to Germany. You might have noticed, that this immigrants do gain quite a lot of influence here and in other European countries - besides, not in favor of Israel. You do remember anti-Israeli ralliies of muslims durign Cast Lead? Calling Sarrazin antisemitic is nonsense but for obvious reason the ultimate weapon of politics. Herzliche Grüße, Burkhart
Sarrazin's book is also about the inferiority of islam and the negative effect on German society. But OK, he has the right to express his opinion. It's very human to fear other cultures. If it wasn't there was no continuous struggle in the Middle-East.
How can anyone disagree with the issue regarding Jewish genes, the gene is called the Levi Strauss Jean
that is the best comment I ever heard, hopefully all Shas menbers wear jeans insted of the old polish uniform
Not quite sure why this is a big deal. Saying that an ethnic group has a common genetic pattern is stating the obvious and nothing more. That is like saying that Japanese, Hindus, or Native Americans share genetic patterns. Europe and the liberal West want to turn Judaism into a "western religion" like Protestantism that can be picked and chosen, but at its core, Judaism is an ethnicity - something we are born into and born with. Unlike Eli Yishai's ignorant comments, converts (which are fully welcome) do not get any gene, and non orthodox converts are just the same. Any time you have a language/ culture/ religious group living together, marrying together and inhabiting a specific geographic region, they will continue passing on specific gene traits and only through intermarriage (which is frequent) and conversion (which is not infrequent) non- "Jewish" genes will be introduced. Also, many Palestinians have "Jewish" or "Cohn" genes because geographically / historically, they are the closest neighbors/ cousins to Jews, and its safe to assume that many Jews over the past hundreds of years or even before living in Israel and then Palestine / Ottoman empire converted to Christianity and or Islam and now live as Palestinians here in Israel. Lets take unhostile comments into proportion - if they weren't said in malice or to evoke hatred, lets not turn them into such.
Ummm.... maybe Haaretz needs a science editor? I don't agree with the German minister's gest with his remarks but there ARE dna Jewish gene markers. You can go to any dna testing place and get a test for those Jewish markers if you wish. So yeah, there are Jewish genes in the strictist sense.
The big question is, if this holds up to the degree that anyone with these markers will be able to return? Do not let ourself be confused here...what is more important?
This topic is another example of how oolitical correctness may oppose indisputable facts. DNA shows scientifically that there are Jewish genes, and even priestly "Cohane" genes. In fact, the unbelievable ability of the Jewish people to survive and thrive against all odds, like no other people in history, is undoubtedly partially the result of a good pool of genes. Some explanations indicate that in the middle ages, smart Christians usually became priests or monks, and did not propagate. Smart Jews married well and had a lot of children. Multiply this effect over hundreds of years, and you get a marked difference. Jews also experienced, to a certain degree, Darwinian improvement by the most cunning and resourceful Jews surviving pogroms, etc. Although cultural influences are obviously significant, such as the Jewish stress on learning and the Jewish esteem given intellectual rather than physical pursuits, the "nature versus nurture" issue shows pure inherited talent when you see such a staggering number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners in abstract fields like physics and mathematics. Jews could be motivated by belief that they are the divinely "chosen" people, but tons of effort wouldn't be enough to create the staggeringly disproportionate positive contribution Jews have made to civilization in so many fields like medicine, law, psychology, sociology, movies, entertainment, business, teaching, literature, music, philosophy, philanthropy, jurisprudence,etc. We need not detail the Jewish gift of monotheism, and intricate morality and ethics. Israel is being attacked by a world-wide effort to deligitimize her, deny her right to defend herself, boycott her trade and professionals, and divestment of any Israeli product, service or aset. The necessary response is to fight those evil efforts. One need not apologize for being pro-Israel, and one need not apologize for being Jewish--or for Jewish talent, whether the talent is from nature or nurture. I am a smart Ashkenazi Jew, and I'm proud of it. I am a Zionist, and proud of it.
Jews in the diaspora had not other way of survival other than essentially culture related fields. If you want a true comparison, you should take Israel, and extrapolate where Israel would be today, without the Diapora's help. But history may test this in another manner. Palestinians, and Arabs in general, start to have a big diapora too. They too are kept apart from central positions of control in Europe or the USA. They also will perceive culturally related fields, as an important open route to success. We will know the results in the future. Meanwhile, some Muslim journalists, already start to say Arabs should not accuse Israel for all their misfortunes. Is the the canary telling an Islamic renaissance? Time will tell.
You are full of idees reçues based on the 19th c. social Darwinism and scientism, roughly recycled to fit your feel-good overview of the "Jewish" messianic element in the "Universal" history, all in 320 words. Of course, the fact that back then precisely these ideas used to serve as foundation for the ontological anti-semitism doesn't make you less proud of espousing them. Your "contribution to civilization" theory and "gift of monotheism" is a vastly simplified inversion of Hegel's scenario of history. Perhaps the fact that this historicist inversion of Hellenic-based view of history is advocated by a legion of other scientifically illiterate Jewish commentators and that it dates back to the 19th c. proto-Zionists Graetz, Krochmal and Hess somewhat attenuates your breathtaking ignorance: you are surely not alone. You have no clue of what scientific implications the recent studies of the CMH allow for, and apparently have no idea of the identity political stakes behind the studies and groups of Skorecki & Co. The scientification of "Jewish" material or spiritual essence started before the contemporary genetics - look up for Ruppin's 'Sociology of Jews' or the pre-WWII Zionist programs eugenics. One is simply left dumbfound at your inferences like Jewish phylogenetic experience of pogroms. There's nothing more vulnerable to pogroms than the insular religious mentality and shtetl mode of life, supported by the outside subsidies, that still marks 18th-century-like Jewish communities surviving in Israel in the form of Meah Shearim. Nor it is clear why this phylogenetic "experience" did not preserve the Jews from massive perishing during the Holocaust. You might be a proud Jew and Zionist, but many Jews, Zionists and Israelis I know would blush reading such string of "scientific" facts chained together with nothing but oozing compensatory idea of Jewish supremacy. Perhaps you think that the profit pursuit of the town-dwelling Jewish bourgeois at the peak of Industrial epoch should somehow support or justify the territorialist politics of today's State of Israel, but for an educated person it's just not smart enough.
so let us behave in a human manner and be tolerant towards people with a differant religion or race !
Europe denies the true reason for the Holocaust. This is the basic religious European deicide accusation toward Jews. Facing this would mean a total religious reformation, of which Europe is not capable today. Thus, other explanations for the Holocaust are promoted in Europe. Mainly the Nazi party taking over a democratic Germany, and racism. This explains the over sensitivity to any form of racism in Europe. A normal attitude toward racism is that genetic differences indeed exist, but all mankind should be treated under the same criteria. But in Europan sensitivity it is not even permitted to say people are different. This will not resolve the basic European problem, namely when a kid ask his parents "we learned at church that Pontius Pilatus crucified Jesus but Jews are to blame, how can this be?", what to they answer.
"Facing this would mean a total religious reformation, of which Europe is not capable today." For Europeans to undergo some "total religious reformation", first they would need to undergo a religious formation. To think that in European schools they teach about Jewish deicide, you must be quite spectacularly out of touch with reality. You must also get some clue on Nazi ideology, in which Christianity was associated with the mentality of slaves, which is why the Nazi ideologues were searching for some pagan beliefs - "Teutonic" or esoteric "Eastern". Today, the place where the "Jewish deicide" argument has indeed generalizing political use and fetishist attention is Israel. And often in schools, to be sure.
Yes, we are all aware of the fact that there is a common genetic connection of the Jewish race. The problem is not "being oh-so politically correct" but that Sarrazin was making the comment not as an innocent scientific observation, but as a precursor to a racial slur.
Jewish eugenics? And what after?
Well, ask all those talking about "sub humans" and what to do with them.
... dissertation Sachlav Stoler-Liss who revealed the "scientific" ideas of the Mandatory Zionist leaders and physicians, the chapter of Zionist intellectual history promptly blocked-out after the WWII. Eugenic ideas and laws were common in many countries, especially in Germany and the USA, but it was in Germany and ... the Mandatory Zionist Palestine that the connection was made between health, eugenics and nationalism. If you read Yiddish or Hebrew, look up for the utopia Yerushalayim haBenuya, written by Boris Schatz, "the head of the Israeli art" in 1918, in which he describes the complete racial betterment of the Jewish race in the avant garde of the global eugenic project.
If Jews have a specific gene that makes them 'uncommon' then it is no doubt superior to whatever the Germans possess. Perhaps the Germans misidentified the ' Master Race' because they were too busy committing genocide on them?
This may well be right - partially. The medieval pogroms following pestilentia have often been executed because people have been so dump and unclean, versus jews with all their knowledge and cleaning have not had so many dead ones among them. So they could be accused of being spared because they were in contact with the evil itself.
We are as Jewish as Moshe himself. Our blood is his blood, though our practice needs much work as did the early Israelite's. Given that Rabbinical (Pharisee) Judaism is but one school of Judaism, it is not within their purview to decided the matter of who is a Jew and certainly not who has Jewish blood among Judaism,s converts. What Arrogance!!!
Either you are a born jew or you are a convert. Until you marry a jew your are nothing but a convert. We are a race.
Yes we are a race but Oriv your comments are not nice "nothing but a convert" we are supposed to treat converts with a great deal of respect.
Sonnay Etaami like the russians invading the country being fake jews spreading some sort of ortodox christianity with "jewish" customs?
..., at least in the country you describe as being invaded. The Russian citizens of Israel have inscription "Russian" in the "nationality" clause of their Israeli passports.
Enough with the new facts already.
Enough with the new facts already.
Not in a biological sense, I refer to my offsprings as lacking the Jewish gene if they dont love learning and are not charitable. However an antisemite might find a different interpretation
thilo is a real jewish racist in the 21. century.
Something very important:Not everybody here in Germany believes in this stupid stuff that Sarrazin told about race theory!I'm 24 years old and live in Germany,I can't believe what i hear,it scares me!
Did you even read the article?
didn't talk about races but cultures.He talked about the moslem who refuse to integrate themself in the German society and that a higher percentage of the moslems do not work compared with other groups of immigrants what as you probably know the truth is
Sounds like you could be talking abut the Haredims in Israel aswell who refuse to integrate themself in the Israeli society and that a higher percentage of the Haredims do not work compared with other groups of immigrants.. ohh, right they don't work at all
I don't know the Haredim good enough to judge them.But there is great difference between the Moslems in Germany and Haredim in Israel.They are your own people,right? The Haredim do not see themself as immigrants.Just because the Haredim do not work that doesn't mean every lazy guy has a right to come and live in Israel on welfare,too!
Of course there are "Jewish Genes". Even Hitler had them (besides his African ones, like Obama obviously has).