Remaining Jews (or Brahmins) by choice ...
From time to time I have an exchange of views with Paolo Bancale, director of the magazine "Non Credo", with whom I have been collaborating for years on various issues concerning secular spirituality. In some issues various articles of mine have been published on the Jewish "problem", examined with a secular approach. I say "secular" in a total sense, since I have often noticed that many critics of Christianity or Islam define themselves as "secular", while in the end it turns out - by their own admission - that they belong to the Jewish community. So their critique of other religions is a bit hairy.
In the course of my existence I have met several Jews, with whom I have made friends, usually these friends have shown a great open-mindedness and often did not hesitate to define themselves as free spiritual seekers, and perhaps "atheists" or at least "agnostics", therefore from intellectual point of view they could be defined as "secular". The fact is that adherence to Judaism does not simply depend on a philosophical-elective religious choice, in the sense of thought, and therefore open to all. Judaism is essentially an ethnic-cultural recognition, which is handed down among the members of the Jewish people, that is, those born to a family or a Jewish woman. The Jewish people and Judaism are therefore an inseparable whole (regardless of whether or not they believe in the ancestral religion).
As is the case for example in Hindu Brahmanism, where doctrinally Brahmins may belong to various sects of the Sanatana Dharma, they may be Vishnuites, Shaivites, Shaktas and even atheistic nihilists but they actually continue to maintain the Brahmin genetic tradition (by marrying and reproducing only among Brahmins).
And then when does a Jew stop belonging to Judaism or a Brahmin to his caste, in addition to elective intellectual renunciation?
The answer is simple: the moment in which he also abandons the genetic tradition of marriage and reproduction within his "ethnicity" or caste. As there is no longer ancestry-descent, the genetic characteristics are reshuffled and gradually the ancestral traces dispersed together with the cultural ones.
Certainly some dominant psychophysical characteristics remain for a while. But the sense of belonging to the ethnic group disappears. In a certain sense this renunciation of the "gens" is what the ancient Romans did, who being originally Etruscans, Sabines, Faliscians and Latins, etc. they renounced their "genetic family" to recognize themselves in the new Roman citizenship.
But the example of the Romans is not to be considered "universal" and definitive since they rejected the previous tribal origins but did not merge with "humanity" in the broad sense. They only changed the sense of identity. So it goes without saying that a true "secularism" must take place in totally reuniting with the "Human", leaving aside any other identification with religions, ethnic groups, races or if you prefer.
This was exactly my case. In fact my paternal grandparents were both of Jewish origin, the "original" one, not the Ashkenazi one, which is composed of Turkmen converted in the year 1000 (and which logically is not of Semitic origin), but during the Fascism they renounced to their identity, perhaps to save their skin or for similar reasons. Their children, including my father, married kind women, breaking the genetic continuity, and I in turn continued on this path of distancing. From which it can be said that my Jewish ancestry is null. As mentioned above, only some psychophysical characteristics remain: the big and slightly pointed nose, the speculative intelligence and other little things that I am not going to mention.
Well, why am I telling you all this? Here I return to a specific issue of the magazine Non Credo in which there were even three letters from readers evidently of Jewish family, in particular I refer to the reader Sarah Ancona, who wrote to the editor Paolo Bancale: "In the last two issues of Non Credo and also in previous issues, we speak of Jews, but not of Judaism as a religion, which would be in the normal theme of the magazine, but rather as a people. To put these interventions in their category, I would like to ask you what is your opinion on the thorny story of that people?"
The manager answered exhaustively but "indirectly" I also wanted to answer Mrs. Sarah Ancona. An answer that also wants to be an invitation to dissolve in Humanity to which we all belong indiscriminately. Beyond any ethnic component. Recognizing ourselves therefore in the common matrix of the human species and erasing all vestiges of "race", which among other things, also from the scientific and anthropological point of view, has no consistency. In fact, genetics has established that there is only one human species and the so-called "races" do not exist, being nothing more than the result of an adaptation of human populations that have evolved in certain environments and climates.
Paolo D'Arpini
In the course of my existence I have met several Jews, with whom I have made friends, usually these friends have shown a great open-mindedness and often did not hesitate to define themselves as free spiritual seekers, and perhaps "atheists" or at least "agnostics", therefore from intellectual point of view they could be defined as "secular". The fact is that adherence to Judaism does not simply depend on a philosophical-elective religious choice, in the sense of thought, and therefore open to all. Judaism is essentially an ethnic-cultural recognition, which is handed down among the members of the Jewish people, that is, those born to a family or a Jewish woman. The Jewish people and Judaism are therefore an inseparable whole (regardless of whether or not they believe in the ancestral religion).
As is the case for example in Hindu Brahmanism, where doctrinally Brahmins may belong to various sects of the Sanatana Dharma, they may be Vishnuites, Shaivites, Shaktas and even atheistic nihilists but they actually continue to maintain the Brahmin genetic tradition (by marrying and reproducing only among Brahmins).
And then when does a Jew stop belonging to Judaism or a Brahmin to his caste, in addition to elective intellectual renunciation?
The answer is simple: the moment in which he also abandons the genetic tradition of marriage and reproduction within his "ethnicity" or caste. As there is no longer ancestry-descent, the genetic characteristics are reshuffled and gradually the ancestral traces dispersed together with the cultural ones.
Certainly some dominant psychophysical characteristics remain for a while. But the sense of belonging to the ethnic group disappears. In a certain sense this renunciation of the "gens" is what the ancient Romans did, who being originally Etruscans, Sabines, Faliscians and Latins, etc. they renounced their "genetic family" to recognize themselves in the new Roman citizenship.
But the example of the Romans is not to be considered "universal" and definitive since they rejected the previous tribal origins but did not merge with "humanity" in the broad sense. They only changed the sense of identity. So it goes without saying that a true "secularism" must take place in totally reuniting with the "Human", leaving aside any other identification with religions, ethnic groups, races or if you prefer.
This was exactly my case. In fact my paternal grandparents were both of Jewish origin, the "original" one, not the Ashkenazi one, which is composed of Turkmen converted in the year 1000 (and which logically is not of Semitic origin), but during the Fascism they renounced to their identity, perhaps to save their skin or for similar reasons. Their children, including my father, married kind women, breaking the genetic continuity, and I in turn continued on this path of distancing. From which it can be said that my Jewish ancestry is null. As mentioned above, only some psychophysical characteristics remain: the big and slightly pointed nose, the speculative intelligence and other little things that I am not going to mention.
Well, why am I telling you all this? Here I return to a specific issue of the magazine Non Credo in which there were even three letters from readers evidently of Jewish family, in particular I refer to the reader Sarah Ancona, who wrote to the editor Paolo Bancale: "In the last two issues of Non Credo and also in previous issues, we speak of Jews, but not of Judaism as a religion, which would be in the normal theme of the magazine, but rather as a people. To put these interventions in their category, I would like to ask you what is your opinion on the thorny story of that people?"
The manager answered exhaustively but "indirectly" I also wanted to answer Mrs. Sarah Ancona. An answer that also wants to be an invitation to dissolve in Humanity to which we all belong indiscriminately. Beyond any ethnic component. Recognizing ourselves therefore in the common matrix of the human species and erasing all vestiges of "race", which among other things, also from the scientific and anthropological point of view, has no consistency. In fact, genetics has established that there is only one human species and the so-called "races" do not exist, being nothing more than the result of an adaptation of human populations that have evolved in certain environments and climates.
Paolo D'Arpini