Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
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From: adam@endor.uucp (Adam Shostack)
Subject: Re: Israel: An Apartheid state.
Message-ID: <1993May12.013527.21904@das.harvard.edu>
Sender: usenet@das.harvard.edu (Network News)
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard University
References: <1smbma$8mr@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> <1993May10.211316.28455@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1smllm$m06@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu>
Date: Wed, 12 May 1993 01:35:27 GMT
Lines: 38

In article <1smllm$m06@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> aap@wam.umd.edu (Alberto Adolfo Pinkas) writes:
>In article <1993May10.211316.28455@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> adams@bellini.berkeley.edu (Adam L. Schwartz) writes:
>>In article <1smbma$8mr@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> aap@wam.umd.edu (Alberto Adolfo Pinkas) writes:

>>I'm not sure about this but I hope the answer is that you can't apply under
>>the law of return.  By conversion, you've elected not to be a part of the
>>Jewish nation.

>Which was my point. By converting to another religion I do not loose
>my cultural identity, I just loose my religious identification.

	I disagree.  By converting to another religion, you certainly
do change your cultural identity, and lose that part of you which was
Jewish.


>>At the moment you converted, you officially anounced to the world
>>that *you* do not consider yourself to be part of the Jewish Nation.
>>So, why should the Jewish Nation consider you to be a member?

>To be a part or not of the Jeish Nation is defined by my culture and not
>by my religion. Actually, if I am an atheist, which is in fact like 
>converting into a non-Jewish in terms of religion, I am still considered as
>part of the Jewish Nation.

	No, there is a serious cultural and religios difference
between renouncing the jewish god and accepting a new one.  "Thou
shall have no other gods before me."  Conversion is a violation of
this, atheism you might be able to wiggle around with.

Adam



Adam Shostack 				       adam@das.harvard.edu

"If we had a budget big enough for drugs and sexual favors, we sure
wouldn't waste them on members of Congress..."   -John Perry Barlow
