Posted on 01/21/2006 4:33:39 PM PST by Nasty McPhilthy
Stockholm Syndrome?
Not quite. His family led an open Jewish existence. They fled, shortly after the above mentioned Almoravides came to power. I'm not familiar with any trial he was put on -- and I just checked on-line on a few sites that went into enough detail that I think they would have mentioned it.
Further he didn't just live in Egypt. He was appointed physician to the Vizier of Egypt, who basically ruled there for Saladin.
There is a legend that may or may not be true that King Richard the Lion-Hearted, in the Holy Land for the Crusades, heard of Maimonides fame and offered him the position of royal physician. Maimonides turned him down, choosing to remain in Muslim Egypt, rather than go to Christian England.
Considering that that was about the time that all the Jews of York were massacred, there may have been a good reason behind that decision. And though I doubt Maimonides had any foreknowledge of it, about a century later, the Jews would be thrown of England.
"The author seems unaware that most American Jews do not place a high priority on Israel."
You just made the author's point. American Jews could care less about Israel and follow blindly the liberal herd that is anti-Israel, ant-American and pro-Arab.
RASHI lived more than 200 years before RAMBAM. RASHI was French BTW.
RAMBAM was born in Spain, afterwards lived in Egypt. His family never "secretly" observed Judaism, they were always open about it.
Don't know where you get your information.
Insightful post. It matches and supplements what I have been told by other conservative Jews.
Your analysis is very good regarding Eastern European Jews who emigrated to the US between 1890-1918. That is really a very small time frame, even though it accounts for a large percentage of Jewish migration.
My husband's family, although Ashkenazim, migrated during that same period, but from the Holy Land. That would make them original "Palestinians."
Jews who migrated from the Soviet Union 1970's and later, are decidedly ANTI-Communist.
My son and his family currently live in Moscow. While this by no means represents any "reverse migration" back to Russia, it does represent a paradigm shift for Russian Jewry: the Jewish Establishment in Russia is entirely traditional-Orthodox. The secularists completely gave up on it once Russian aliyah to Israel slowed down after the fall of the Soviet Empire.
A status symbol? Methinks that you should spend some time drilling down into the Old Testament.
When the Messiah appears all Jews will step away from Marxism and go back to Torah.
...*siiiiiiighhhhhhhh*...
RASHI 1040-1105
RAMBAM 1135-1204
In other words RAMBAM was born 30 years after RASHI died. In the context of discussing the "Middle Ages," I think this makes them virtual contemporaries.
I said RASHI lived in France. Maybe I should have said "Christian France," as opposed to "Islamic Spain, Morocco and Egypt."
His family never "secretly" observed Judaism, they were always open about it.
From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
Before Moses reached his 13th birthday, his peaceful world was suddenly disturbed by the ravages of war and persecution. ... The Almohads who captured Cordoba in 1148 [left] the Jewish community with the grim alternative of submitting to Islam or leaving the city. The Maimons temporized by practicing their Judaism in the privacy of their own homes while disguising their ways in public as far as possible to appear like Muslims. ... When the double life proved too irksome to maintain in Cordoba, the Maimon family left the city in about 1159 to settle in Fez, Morocco. Although it was also under Almohed rule, Fez was presumably more promising than Cordoba because there the Maimons would be strangers and their disguise would be more likely to go undetected. ... Fez proved to be no more than a short respite however. In 1165 Rabbi Judah ibn Shoshan, with whom Moses had studied, was arrested as a practicing Jew and was found guilty and executed. ... [They moved to Palestine and then to Egypt.] ... There Jews were free to practice their faith openly, though any Jew who had once submitted to Islam courted death if he relapsed to Judaism. Moses himself was once accused of being a renegade Muslim, but he was able to prove that he had never really adopted the faith of Islam and was so exonerated. [ML/NJ transcription from printed copy, so whatever typos are included are mine.]RASHI made wine.
Don't know where you get your information.
I get it from lots of places, but like I said above this comes from the Encyclopedia Britannica.
ML/NJ
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Actually, it goes back to the 1930s in America. And in Europe before that, to the early 19th century (specifically Napoleon, whom Jews supported because he legally emancipated them). Prior to the 1930s in America, most Jews were Republicans (just check the party affiliation of Jews who won office before the New Deal). After the New Deal, Jews (especially in the Northeast) began supporting the Democrat's vision of soft left ideology, and strong foreign policy abroad. And it became a cultural thing after that. The Jewish community has a strong cohesive factor that a lot of people often ignore.
Since Reagan, however, the Orthodox and Modern Orthodox, and lot of Conservatives and also young Jews have been moving towards the Republican party and generally to the right. For reasons that aren't exactly clear to the rest of the more soft-left parts of the community, but would certainly be understood and appreciated by FReepers. ;)
Actually, young Jews have been moving in large numbers to the Republican party. Also the Orthodox and Modern Orthodox, what with those deliciously high birthrates (7+ and 4+ children per household, on average, respectively). I've heard the only Republican since the 1930s who actually beat the Democrats for the Jewish vote was Reagan (and he only won something like 38%, because the others were split between the Democrats, and presumably a third party). But there's a regular 25% which is solid conservative now and growing, and probably another 10-15% swing vote, and that's growing.
So, we're not smart enough to think on our own...you saying it's GENETIC???? ROFLMAO!!!!
Most of the liberal Jews want more rights for the Palistianians (and Hamas), and some of them said that the Jewish state should have been built in Germany!
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