What Does it Mean to be a Jew?

Most Jews alive today are Ashkenazic. We’re known for our high average IQ and civic mindedness. Though we have our flaws, we rarely assault, rape, murder, loot or vandalize the property of others. Instead, we subvert our host societies and facilitate the import of savages – who then proceed to do all the above. We (too many of us) outsource the dysfunction. But that’s a topic for other posts.

In some ways, we’re more White than non-Jewish Whites. Our average income is higher, and we tend to behave ourselves better, at least at the street level.

My opinion has always been that this state of affairs does not define us as a people; it’s more like a snapshot in our long history. We were not always a high-IQ, well-behaved, people. In ancient times, we were probably average IQ for the Middle East. We fought dirty against the Hellenized Syrians and the Romans. Had there been bombs back then, we would have had our share of suicide bombers. Polygamy, child-marriage and the death penalty for things like blasphemy or desecrating the Sabbath were considered acceptable.

In short, we had a lot in common with modern-day traditional Muslim Arabs – though our treatment of women and animals was probably better.

The good traits we’re now known for are a result of our long exile in Europe, where we absorbed some of the best qualities of Western European civilization and improved upon them (notwithstanding the flaws I enumerated above). Hence, we became “White,” at least in the eyes of some.

The point of this post is to address a disagreement I have with a friend on X:

I should clarify that I did not mean that ALL Arabs would make good converts; they would need to meet high standards. Obviously, if too many Arabs converted, the result would be very bad.

The conversation continued to include the opinion that Afrikaners make good converts to Judaism:

Perhaps they do – but if our standard for what makes a good Jew is based on a good work-ethic, high IQ and civic-mindedness, then how, exactly, are Jews a distinct people? It looks like Litvak MD is implying that a good Jew is simply a good White person who happens to practice Judaism. In other words, we’re not an ethnic group at all, but just a religion for good White people.

I reject this idea. If this were the case, then we’d have no claim to the Land of Israel. We’d have no racial/ethnic continuity either, because good White people outnumber us by orders of magnitude. If enough of them converted, we’d cease to exist as a people.

Litvak MD also claims that Mizrahi Jews are “a drag.” Perhaps – if we measure the value of a Jew merely by his economic impact on the State of Israel or by how “good of a White person” he is.

Here I must suspend reality for a moment in order to make a point. “Mizrahi Jews” (with the partial exception of Yemenites) hardly even exist in Israel anymore. Their distinctive culture is gone (not counting weddings, a few holidays, funerals and a few dishes). Their traditional dress, languages and many of their religious traditions have all but disappeared. I’ve already written about how the younger generation of “Mizrahi” Jews are ignorant of their own traditions…

… but let’s pretend that they do still exist. They represent an important part of Jewish heritage. Yemenite Jews, specifically, maintain traditions that have long been forgotten in other Jewish communities. In my opinion, Jewishness must be connected to the past. It must represent a continuity to what defined us 2,000 years ago, even if it’s not exactly the same – nor should we WANT it to be the same. Without continuity, and a strong link to the past, being Jewish would simply be a fad. In my opinion, we can reject the more primitive aspects of what it meant to be a Jew in Roman times, but we should still embrace a more tamed version of these traditions as part of our heritage. From this perspective, many traditional Arabs would make good Jews; they have more in common with ancient Jews than do many modern Jews. I don’t think they should need to have a high IQ to qualify.

Hypothetically, if a group of ancient Jews materialized in front of us, would we reject them as Jews because their average IQ is 80? I would hope not. Would we consider modern high-IQ, law-abiding, industrious Afrikaners to be more “Jewish” than the time-travelling ancient Hebrews?

What is good for our society, our economy, or our academic reputation is not always what’s good for our ethnic continuity. Put another way, if it were more economically/socially/academically advantageous to move all Israeli Jews to Madagascar, should we do it? Of course not; the Land of Israel is our historic home. We want that connection to our history and our heritage, whether it’s the more practical solution or not. Life is not strictly about economics or even high IQ; it’s also about intangibles. The links to our past have value in their own right.

In this regard, Mizrahi Jews are not “a drag,” and neither are 80-IQ good quality Arab converts.