A Litmus Test for Jewish Anti-Zionists

While there were people religiously Jewish in Poland, there was not a single ethnic group associated with the Jewish religion in Poland. People that might as a matter of religion belong to the Jewish religious community could be ethnically Ashkenazi from originally Yiddish speaking groups (there was the beginning of a linguistic shift to Russian in the 19th century) or ethnically Tatar from originally Turkic speaking groups.

Yiddishists worked hard to create the concept of a Jewish (i.e. Yiddish) ethnicity and rejected any connection to religiously Jewish groups that did not speak Yiddish. It is fairly easy to find comments in the late 19th century and early 20th century from Yiddishists like Israel Abrahams to the effect "Zee zenen nit yidn vi mir -- they (non-Ashkenazi Jews) are not Jews (Yidn) like us."

Zionists parasitized the efforts of Yiddishists to create a Yiddish ethnicity by reinterpreting the Ashkenazi (Yiddish) ethnic group as the pan-Judaic ethnonational group that was descended from Palestinian Judeans and Galileans of the Greco-Roman period and that still had legitimate claim to Palestine. Before the theft of Palestine from the native Palestinian population, Zionist Ashkenazim had no interest in non-Ashkenazi Jews except occasionally for propaganda purposes. Norman Stillman documents the behavior and attitudes of Zionist Ashkenazim toward non-Ashkenazi Jews in The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times.

After the theft, the Zionist leadership realized that they had not enough manpower to hold stolen Palestine and would need an ersatz native collaborator class to make up for the lack of ethnic Ashkenazi settler colonists. Zionists created conditions for the transfer of Jewish Arabs and Persians to Palestine and then subjected them to humiliation and disdain that a genuine indigenous native collaborator class would have experienced. I have spent several hours listening to IBA tapes from the 50s and 60s. The bigotry and racism that dominant ethnic Ashkenazim in stolen Palestine were willing to express at that time period is quite astounding unless one keeps in mind that ethnic Ashkenazim were no less prejudiced than other Central and Eastern European ethnic groups of that time period.

When ethnic Ashkenazim use the term "Jew" they mean ethnic Ashkenazi. In the USA where practically all the people that might use the term Jew to describe themselve in the religious, Yiddishist or Zionist sense are ethnic Ashkenazim, the issue is not too important except that racist Ashkenazim use the etymological connection of Jew to Judea to justify the theft of Palestine from the native population. Treating such a claim to be legitimate is logically equivalent to believing that Irish would have the right to seize Rome from the native population because many Irish are practicing Roman Catholics, and all Irish are therefore really Romans with absolute title to Rome.

The issue is not academic because many ethnic Ashkenazim in the USA claim to be anti-Zionist, join anti-Zionist groups, and then precede to render those groups completely non-functional.

Therefore, I suggest a simple litmus test for any self-identifying Jew of Ashkenazi ethnicity that wants to join anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian groups.

He must state the following.

1) There is no Jewish people, which is a concept of Zionist myth and ideology. I am of ethnic Ashkenazi background.

2) No Jews in any modern sense resided in Palestine in Greco-Roman times. The Palestinian population of that time period consisted of Judeans, Galileans, Idumeans, Samarians, Nabateans, Greeks and other groups with no demonstrable ancestral connection to modern ethnic Ashkenazim or other modern Jewish groups except perhaps some communities of Syro-Palestinian Arabophone Jews.

3) The Zionist colonizers of Palestine constitute a criminal population of thieves and interlopers. Either they make full restitution to the native Palestinian population (including restoration of residence and property rights) and fully acknowledge their crimes and the crimes of Zionism, or they must be removed from Palestine.

4) The only population in the modern world with any significant probability of descent from ancient Palestinian Israelite, Ephraimite, Judahite, Judean, Samarian, Galilean or Idumean populations are the modern Palestinians.

If a self-identifying Jew refuses to assent to any of the above statements, he is accepting Zionist ideology in all or in part and cannot legitimately be part of any genuinely anti-Zionist group, and if accepted as a member, he would probably disrupt it.

Joachim Martillo Sphere: Related Content