Hi,
we’ve had a lot of posts on Islam, some on Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity…
I was wondering, why were/are jews a persecuted lot ??
Are all Jews originally from Israel ?
and any other info on Judaism 
" All the world is queer save thee and me;
and even thou, my friend, art a little queer " 
does that mean no one knows?
I was somewhat afraid to post to this thread knowing my limited knowledge but since no one posted, I thought this thread was different enough not to let it slide by. So please excuse this effort of mine and I 'll try not to get ambitious in this reply...
Let's take your questions in a better order than what you put forward...
Are all jews originally from Israel ?
Judaism considers Prophet Abraham (AS) and his wife Sarah as the founders and the first jew people. He had two sons. Isaac (ishaq) AS (from his wife Sarah) and Ishmael (ismael) AS (from his wife Hajrah). Isaac's son was Jacob (yaaqoob) and two of his sons were Joseph (yousuf) and Benjamin (bin-yamin). All of these messangers are also mentioned in Quran-e-Majeed and Bible. Another name of Isaac (or was it his son Jacob ?? this is one reason, I was hesitant to post, as this is a major issue, I am confused about for some reason) is "Israel" and his descendants/believers are called Bani-Israel. Judaism's roots lie in this group of people called bani-israel and the land of "kan'aan"
(now Palestine).
Jews believe that Jesus (pbuh) broke away from Judaism in trying to reform the religion. In fact the jews are still waiting for their "Massiah" as they don't consider Jesus in that light. More on that later.
Why were/are jews a persecuted lot ??
Few reasons,
*First of all, when Abraham started with his message of "One God", he was going against the commonly held beliefs. So early years of Judaism were obviously tough for jews. Allah treated them with many great prophets like David, Soloman, Moses etc.. and jews kept shuttling from periods of total despair to one of peace and prosperity and then back.
*Second, Christianity claimed that all the prophets which Jews held in regard brought the same message which Jesus did, but that jews got that distorted and furthermore refused to believed in Jesus. This is very similar to what Islam believed about jews and christianity. We, Muslims believe that deen-e-haneefa (Abraham's religion) was Islam and that Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) finally finished the need for any updates which kept happening in past with the coming of prophets. What it means is that, both Islam and Christianity claim that Judaism ceased to exist once these religions came up. This indirectly caused jews to felt persecuted. Quran mentions bani-Israel in a lot of detail; about how much Allah showered his blessings on these people and yet how disobedient they ended up being, asking moronic questions, going back on their words and even killing prophets at times. You can see similar views from christian viewpoint. As muslims we believe all this to be true, but few jews who may not read the whole Quran but those small portions (or those who heard about it second hand) may feel shortchanged.
any other info on Judaism
Some quick things.....
There is only one God in Judaism, unlike Christianity's Trinity. In that way it resembles Islam. It doesn't believe in the concept of original sin, again unlike christianity. It says, human beings are born without the burden of any sin and it's their actions which prove their worth. There's no Jesus like figure, who has absorbed sins of all jews. Like Islam, Judaism tells jews to ask for forgiveness on an individual basis.
Ok, until now it looks very much like what Islam says (after all, it did come from the same prophets , who we consider to be Muslim for their time)
Unlike both Islam and Christianity, there's no set concept of heaven and hell in Judaism. It doesn't focus too much on after life. There is no agreed upon belief about how God 'll reward (or punish) people when they die. Also unlike Islam and Christianity, Judaism doesn't believe that salvation lies only within this religion. It concentrates on ethical behaviours of individuals. In fact, it even allows you to join Judaism without actually becoming a jew. One of the example is banee-Noch (Nooh AS) sect, where a person announces that he believes on the God of Noch(Nooh), Abraham, Isac and Jacob and that he believes in the seven commandments which Noah had after the flood (I don't know them from memory neither I have a link I can paste here for those commandments)
One problem with Judaism has been the traditional resistence some of their groups had against conversion into Judaism. Sounds strange, but this is one of the reasons why this religion has had such poor propagation rates, and also why jews are so racially alike (in most cases)
Finally let me cut and paste the famous ten commandments which according to their belief Moses (AS) got from God...
"You shall have no other gods before Me."
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image - any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."
"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God."
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you."
"You shall not murder."
"You shall not commit adultery."
"You shall not steal."
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour."
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
Wish I could write more, but now my knowledge is getting shaky and I am getting tired..
Regards
[This message has been edited by deepblue (edited April 08, 1999).]
Thanx a lot Deepblue :)That was very informative!
I found some more info from a faq on jews from rtfm.mit.edu/pub/faqs !
thanx once more ;)
ok
NYAhmadi, you are mixing the term 'zionist' with 'jew'. In Pakistan you'll feel a lot of negative energy being directed to the 'saihoonee (urdu word for zionists) saazishain". However most people do make a distinction between jews and zionists. As to the newspaper/politicians' claims of "jews behind crises/war" are concerned, once again, they are actually " 'Israel/Mossad' behind crises/war" allegations. That's more of a political issue rather than being a blanket statement against jews.
I am not gonna talk about politics here.
Queer, thanks for reading that awfully long post of mine and for providing the link to a FAQ. By the way, did you notice the MIT machine name ? It's 'rtfm'. Do you know where it comes from ? It's a tongue in cheek abbreviation of something.
Regards
ok
NYAhmadi, you said,
It is very common to refer to an "undesirable" person as "Yahudi" in our nation. It is sad that this kind of sentiments exist, even when it is "meant" to refer to "Zionism".
Well, if it's indeed "meant" to refer zionism, then what's the problem ? That was exactly my point.
Before replying to this statement of mine, read it at least three times. I am not in the habit of putting forward very long and labourius arguments.
And don't worry about my bullet proof vest. Just make sure you have yours ready.
Finally, you don't know how fortunate you are that I am restricted by the moderation rules here (if the Admin is reading this, she knows exactly what I am talking about)
Regards
ok
NYAhmadi said,
I don't expect that from People like you. I mean people who insult others by telling them to read their posts 3 times. If it doesn't make sense the first time. It never does.<
That's your problem. Not mine.
Deepblue:
NY Ahmadi doesn’t know what a Zionist is:
“…the Zionist Movement (which I don’t know what movement you are talking about)” (Posted in Politics, February 25th, 1999, in response to one of my posts)
He likes to claim to be an expert on matters, which he obviously has no knowledge about. His narrow views fuel his anger and contempt for Pakistani’s and Muslims and are clearly reflected in his posts. He is a borderline bigot and doesn’t realize it.
He contends that we generalize about Pakistani’s in order to demonstrate that generalizing about Jew’s is wrong. This is the circular logic he professes. We label all Pakistani’s Jew haters, so that they will stop labeling Jews worthy of hate.
He is also a shit stirrer. You see, there is no use of posting a message in this thread, which will create conflict. Yet he feels it necessary. He pretends to be a great upholder of “freedom” and “justice”, he is quick to label others “backward”. Yet he doesn’t realize his own hypocrisy makes him look foolish.
In this post he attempts to stray off topic and in the process defeat the very purpose of the post - that purpose being learning and gaining constructive knowledge.
You see, in this post you have Queer (a Hindu), asking a question pertaining to Jews, to learn about their religion, you than have yourself deepblue (a Muslim) providing information to the best of your knowledge, than comes NY Ahmadi (an Agnostic) ruining the whole process of learning, by instigating a conflict (for no other purpose it seems than to create conflict) through the ignorance, which he professes to be knowledge.
Propagating hate to curb hate isn’t a very worthwhile exercise. To say that Pakistani’s feel that Jew’s are greedy, conspirator[s], untrustworthy, lowlife[s], and animal[s]" is not only ignorant it is also irresponsible. To generalize about Pakistani’s in this manner in order to counter Pakistani’s who generalize about Jews is idiocy. Any Jew reading this post, or interacting with NY Ahmadi, may be naive enough to believe him - this would only create feelings of resentment and further perpetuate hate.
If NY Ahmadi has a problem with the way the Pakistani “media” depicts Jews in Pakistan, or the way the “government” utilizes Israel as a scapegoat for their own problems, or the way certain segments of Pakistani’s label Jews “greedy” - that would be understandable. It would even be commendable for him to speak up and stop the cycle of racism (in a separate thread). But he either has a problem communicating himself without insulting others, or he likes to stir shit, with little knowledge about what he is saying and the consequential repercussions. I think it is the latter, the mere fact that he would go out of his way to post such blatant generalizations in a post, which is entirely unrelated demonstrates this well enough.
Achtung 
“Ancient rivalries and modern conflicts have so accentuated differences as to completely obscure the shared theological roots and vision of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. Both sides have focused solely on and reinforced differences, and have polarized rather than united these three great interrelated monotheistic traditions.”
John L. Esposito
[This message has been edited by Achtung (edited April 08, 1999).]
ok
Dear Deepblue,
U seem to be a trivia guru :)I know what rtfm is - "read that f*ing manual" !
But did u know that it had a polite expansion "read that **forgotten manual "? ;)
I think i like Ur style ;) U should make a pretty good moderator!
And so nice to know that Admin is a "she" ;)
Achtung,
The quote at the end of Ur post says a lot! :)
NYahmedi,
thanx for telling me about the opinion on jews in pak :)
Does anyone know if polish jews are originally from Israel?
Deepblue,
by the way, is "saihonee" the same as "sayyonee" in one of the JUNOON songs? (sorry if this is an extremely foolish question...my mother tongue isn't urdu or even hindi or punjabi ...)
*
" All the world is queer save thee and me;
and even thou, my friend, art a little queer " ;)
Remember N Y Ahmadi, You said that I am an Israili Agent (in your threads “true identities revealed”) and now you are complaining about the same thing.
Anywayz, I think that this is not appropriate to use Judasim as symbol of those things which you mentioned. This is prejudice and hatered which is strictly prohibited by islam.
LOVE FOR ALL, HATRED FOR NONE.
MIRZA YASIR
[email protected]
Homepages
mirzayasir.paklinks.com
pafcollchaklala.paklinks.com
Homeopathy Message Board
This is a message board which I created. Here you can post your diseases along with your symptoms and get a homeopathic prescription in 2-3 days. Its Free! Its amazing! Try it.
http://mirzahomeomain.paklinks.com
ok
NY Ahmadi,
How do you know what Queer was thinking when he wrote this post. I think he was sincerely asking for knowledge. If he wanted to know what Pakistani's thought about Jews I'm sure he would have simply asked - "what do Pakistani's think about Jews?" Everyone isn't underhanded you know. He rather mentioned that, we here in the religious forum, have discussed Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, but not Jews. And he was hoping for some information (I'm sure he was looking for unbiased factual information) about Jews. The way he worded his question demonstrates that he was asking for facts not opinions.
Secondly stop generalizing.
NY Ahmadi wrote: "What I told him was how I think that most Pakistanis (not all) feel [that Jews are greedy,conspirators, untrustworthy, lowlifes, and animals]"
You sound like a bigot. This is like saying:
1) "what I told him was how I think most Jews (not all) feel" - that Arabs are despicable terrorists.
2) "what I told him was how I think most whites (not all) feel" - that blacks cannot be trusted and are theifs.
3) "what I told him was how I think most Germans (not all) feel" - that gypsies should be thrown out of their country cause they don't work and live off welfare.
4) "what I told him was how I think most Canadians (not all) feel" - that Aboriginal peoples abuse alcohol and should be thrown in jail.
These statements don't lead us anywhere. Learn from what Mirza Yasir wrote - "Love for all - Hatred for none". Weather you realize it or not, your still promoting hate. What your trying to prove by relating stories regarding ignorant religious clerics in Pakistan is beyond me. Why not promote similarities between different groups, instead of reinforcing differences?
Achtung ;)
Alright folks, let me summarise this thread so there's no danger of repeating things which have been already said and understood.
Queer man, thanks for bringing up the topic. It went a bit haywire but that's how things work. I actually did not know the politer version of 'rtfm' but then I am not polite :) I'll also advise you to take NYAhmadi's comment with a grain of salt (wait, make it a bucket of salt). In fact I'd say, unless it's a fact, doubt everyone's opinions - mine or anyone else's
Achtung, I know how easily things can be sidetracked. But although this topic got mutated early on, the mutation was still not a bad topic. Especially considering queer who isn't a Pakistani, it's good to be discussing what Pakistanis think about some matters. NYAhmadi made some comments. I counter argued. You described your views. No one is putting a gun to queer's head to believe whatever he (or she) reads here. However I think, NYAhmadi could have started a different thread here or in some other forum. Thanks for your comments, though. Hope that you'll return after you lose your internet account.
NYAhmadi, there's no point in repeating the same thing. It makes people skip your posts even though you may have something new buried in there.
Also, you may have seen Pakistanis thinking of jews as 'lowlife, animals' (in your words), my experience was different. I too spent a lot of my life there (and unlike you, I DO call it a life) I still spend a lot of time there, and I must say you are simply 'overstating' your opinion and by few light years.
So we disagree, let's leave it at that. You may want to repeat your opinions again but I won't. Please don't drag on with the same issue, it'll make this thread too long for no reason.
Oh and finally, queer, 'sayyonee' and 'saihoonee' can't be more different :) "sayyonee" is a term a woman may use (in a movie, mind you.. haven't heard anywhere else) for her lover.. 'sayhoonee' - pronounced, 'say' as in said, 'hoo' as in hoot and, 'nee' as in knee - means zionist.
Sorry for this long post.
[This message has been edited by deepblue (edited April 09, 1999).]
Deepblue,
thanx for the "sayyonee" part !
And what was that about losing my internet account?
:)
[This message has been edited by queer (edited April 09, 1999).]
Man, it sounded like a threat! Actually, Achtung commented in another thread, that he'd be leaving this place in a month or two. College schedules, you know.. I hope he comes back.