An American Financial Problem

Now let me focus on an American problem. We are facing a difficult financial problem.
We have a great pragmatic president, but unfortunately the idealogues in Congress are not willing to compromise. A reasonable compromise would be a balance between raising taxes and cutting spending. The Democratic Senate has even proposed a bill without tax raises to mollify the Republicans, but that is not good enough for the Tea Party Kids.

Who is a Hebrew?

There is some controversy as to who is a Jew. The word Jew of course refers to someone who observes the Jewish religion, but it also refers to a person who is born Jewish and does not observe another religion but also does not necessarily observe the Jewish religion. Most likely his or her ancestors at some time did observe the Jewish religion. It is not a matter of race. If you look at Jews, you will see a racial variation from blonde blue eyed northern European appearing Jews to brown eyed Mediterranean appearing Jews to African Jews from Ethiopia and Indian Jews who look like all the other people in India. What we have in common is a history and some connection to the Jewish religion, whether in the present or in a previous time or generation. Strictly speaking, the Jewish religion says that having a Jewish mother makes one a Jew. Certainly Orthodox Judaism follows that rule and probably Conservative Judaism. I don't know that we all follow that rule so strictly.
At one time it was not as much of an issue as it is today. It was mainly a matter of religion and was rightly in the realm of the rabbis. However, a change occurred with the rise of nationalism in Europe when Jews were now regarded as different not just because of religion. In this atmosphere, came modern Zionism in the late 19th Century. Most of the founders of the Zionist movement like Theodore Herzl were not necessarily religious, but were reacting to a nationalistic European anti-semitism. In fact many Orthodox Jews opposed Zionism in its early days, saying that the rebirth of a Jewish Israel would only come in the time of the Messiah.
Now with the existence of the State of Israel, who is a Jew has become a political issue, because the original purpose of Zionism was to create a haven for Jews who needed to excape persecution elsewhere. Therefore a Jew who arrives in Israel can become an instant citizen. Now in the negotiations over a future division between Israel and a future Palestinian state, the Palestinians insist on immigration  of descendants of Arabs who left Israel in 1948 into the State of Israel, but that would shift the demography of Israel so that it might eventually become an Arab state rather than a Jewish state. So now Israel's Prime minister insists that Israel be recognized by the Arabs as a Jewish state. This is one of the sticking points in reaching a settlement. There is also a problem with this in that 20% of the population in Israel is Arab, mostly Moslem. Forcing them to call their country a Jewish state puts them in a dilemma between loyalty to their country, their language, and their religion.
Let me propose a way out of this dilemma for everyone concerned. The heart of the problem is in the fuzziness between the definition of Jewish as a religion and as a people. Let us leave the word Jewish as the Jewish religion and use the word Hebrew to refer to us as a people both in Israel and here in the Diaspora. Let Hebrew refer to people who are Jewish by religion or have a Hebrew history or Hebrew descent or speak Hebrew as their language or are citizens of the State of Israel whatever their religion or lack of religion. Jewish is the religion and Hebrew is secular. It might be semantics here in the Diaspora, but in Israel it would take the matter of Hebrew nationalism away from the rabbis and give it to the secular Israeli government where it belongs.
Defining the secular side of Jewishness as Hebrew would strengthen Israel in many ways. There would be no reason to deport the children of migrant workers who grow up as Gentile Hebrews as well as migrant workers themselves who want to take on the Hebrew language and culture as their own. This would help to turn the demographic clock in favor of Hebrews, making the Arab demography less threatening. Immigration is the life blood of a nation, and massive Jewish immigration just isn't happening anymore. It would strengthen Israel in its negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs by throwing the ball into their court and by putting Israel in a position where Israel will survive as a Hebrew nation whether Palestine becomes a separate state, a part of the Hebrew state, or something in between. Anything will work as long as each person has an opportunity to be a first class participating citizen of his or her country.
As for those who say that this idea would diminish or endanger the Jewish religion, my answer is to have faith in our religion. I am sure it would stand up to any competitor in a free exchange of ideas. It has withstood 2 millenia of persecution, not to mention the Holocaust, and we are still here.

Why Judaism?

I am a follower of the Jewish religion, particularly the Conservative movement in Judaism as it is practiced in the U.S.A. I don't pretend to have arrived at this belief with complete objectivity. I grew up in this tradition and am comfortable with it. One of the differences between Judaism and most of the other Western monotheistic religions is that it is not a universal religion in the way that Christianity and Islam are. Judaism, beginning its evolution in a time when all the other religions were polytheistic, viewed its mission as bringing monotheism to the world, not necessarily Judaism. Judaism considers itself the way that the Jewish people worship God rather than a universal way for everyone. That is why Judaism does not go out of its way to convert Gentiles and why we are so few (13 million) compared to the major religions of the world. In a sense Christianity and Islam are the success of our mission, but we Jews want to remain Jews because that is who we are.

Why is God? Why is Religion?

There is an ongoing debate about the existence of God. Is there a God? And if so, What or Who is God? Actually, there is no universal definition of God, so if one wants to believe in God, one can take whatever one actually believes and say that is God. Conversely, if one desires to be an atheist, one can define God in such a way that excludes God from whatever the atheist believes. However, I think the more important question is not whether or not God exists, but rather why is there God. Belief in one or more deities has existed in various civilizations, both sophisticated and primitive, no matter what extent of isolation, since prehistoric times. Why? Let us imagine a prehistoric person living in a time when language has begun, and people can now talk to each other about what has gone on in the past (history) and plan for the future. There are now stories of ancestors who no longer exist. Life is temporary, unpredictable, chaotic. Now people can begin to realize that their time of life is limited. The same can be said nowadays for small children who suddenly discover the same fact. It is frightening. One needs a way of making sense out of the temporary nature of existence, some permanence, some order out of chaos. So, the answer for early people was often a belief in the sun or the moon or some mythologic greater than human gods or eventually one almost abstract God. They all served the purpose of giving meaning to a seemingly otherwise meaningless existence.
Unfortunately, like any institutions, people eventually began to find secondary gains in religions. People believed their own religion to be "the true religion." People felt the need for others to believe in "the true religion" even if it meant killing or harming other people to force them to believe correctly. Religion often became entangled with government and politics. This misuse of religion is actually contrary to the original purpose of religion to give meaning to life, to make life more tolerable. I believe strongly in the separation of church and state. Although religion can have a negative effect on government by imposing the ideas of a particular religion on people who do not necessarily follow that religion, more importantly government can have a negative effect on religion, diluting its real purpose of giving meaning to life by involving it in pursuits unrelated to that purpose.

A Brief History of Israelites, Hebrews, and Jews

According to the Bible, the first monotheist was Abraham. He passed on his belief to his son Isaac, who passed it on to his son Jacob who received the name Israel. Whether you believe they were actual historical people or mythologic characters, those men are considered the patriarchs of our people.
According to the Bible, the Israelites (incidentally, the English language has 2 words, Israelites for the ancient people and Israelis for the citizens of modern Israel, but in Hebrew it is one word) migrated into Egypt to escape a famine. The government of Egypt was friendly to them at that time. A later government was unfriendly to the Israelites. Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt to a period of wandering in the desert to the land east of the Jordan River (the location of modern day Jordan), and ultimately, after the death of Moses, the Israelites migrated westward across the Jordan into Canaan (the land situated between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean). The historians tell us that a people from Asia called the Hyksos entered Egypt and ruled the country or part of it for a period of time, and were then driven out of Egypt by the native Egyptians. So the Biblical and historical accounts of those events are somewhat compatible. What is important as far as our names are concerned is that word Hebrew means crossing over. To the Canaanites, the Hebrews were the people who came from across the Jordan River.
The Hebrews eventually formed the Kingdom of Israel which consisted of various territories inhabited by the various tribes of Israel. Later the kingdom split into two, the northern kingdom which retained the name Israel and the southern kingdom which took the name of its most prominent tribe, Judah (Judaea). The northern Kingdom of Israel was later conquered by Assyria and its people disappeared. The Kingdom of Judah was later conquered by the Babylonians, but some Jews returned after Babylonia was defeated by the Persians and formed the new Kingdom of Judaea until it was conquered by Rome with the ultimate dispersal of Jews into the diaspora for the past 2000 years. The present state of Israel was declared in 1948 following a period of migration of Jews into the territory mainly beginning in the late 19th Century.
So, the name Israelite (Israeli) dates back to around the time of our ancestors entering, living in, or leaving Egypt, Hebrew dates back to the entrance of our people into the land of Israel after the death of Moses, and Jew dates back to the time of the kingdom of Judah (Judaea). The Jewish religion evolved over the various periods described above, but Judaism as we now know it might be said to date from the time of the Kingdom of Judaea.