400,000 or 2 million?

400,000 or 2 million? Jewish identity is –And I watch from far away so have no direct contact with this subject- An utterly complex and difficult to understand thing. For example in order to cement the legal justification for the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth current Jews had an insane in my view- interpretation of Leviticus 24 verses 10 to 16 which then produces a contrary to Torah edict that the blood line as to who is Jewish and who is not comes through the mother! Good night! But this spectacular piece of legal twisting is needed in order to have Jesus of Nazareth- thrown off a cliff was the first attempt in his own home town, but handed over to the Romans for crucifixion for the vague accusation of ‘wounding the name of God’… Which then produces the equally bizarre current Jewish fashion of never ever saying the word ‘Yahweh’ –Come on if you are Jewish rejoice with me and say it out loud; Yahweh Yahweh Yahweh- see you are still alive… You Can Do It! And Gen 4:4 Ex 14:13 say with me Salvation God- Yeshua Yahweh…. Yes looking from afar it seems to me that Jewish Identity is a very complex and screwed up subject. So my 1938 Year Book had as the number of Jews in Germany 400 thousand but was it really 2 million. We now look into this matter… ‘The angry young men of the SA, many of them the dregs of society, believed that they would soon step into all the economic and professional positions held by their Jewish neighbors. Through unending racial statues ousting Jews from professional and commercial life, relentless purges and persecution, unyielding programs and asset confiscation, systematic imprisonment and outright expulsion the SA would usurp the Jewish niche…. But Jewish life could only be extinguished if the Nazis could identify the Jews. Just which of Germany’s 60 million citizens were Jewish? And just what definition of ‘Jewish?’ German Jews were among the most assimilated of any in Europe. Nazi mythology accused Jews of being the alien factor in German society. But in truth, Jews had lived in Germany from the fourth century. As elsewhere in Europe during the middle ages what German Jews could do and say even their dress was regulated. Waves of persecution were frequent. Worse anti-Jewish mobs often organized hangings …even when left alone , German Jews could exist only in segregated ghettos subject to long lists of prohibitions. The pressure (This is a favorite Hebrew word of Moses in his prophecies I am currently translating) to escape Germany’s persecution created a very special kind of European Jew, one who had subordinated his Jewish identity to the larger Christian society around him. Assimilation became a desirable antidote especially among Jewish intellectuals during the enlightenment. When Napoleon conquered part of Germany in the early nineteenth century he granted Jewish emancipation (How people look at Napoleon at this time is a fascinating subject. My Bible ancestors studied the bible hard at this critical time because they saw in him- The Anti Christ! But that in turn woke up- especially when Napoleon went to Palestine and liberated Jerusalem- The Zionist belief of a literal return of Jews to Palestine…) But after Napoleon was defeated the harsh German status quo was restored. The taste of freedom however led affluent and intellectual Jewish classes to assimilate on masse… Many succumbed to the German pressure to convert to Christianity (Again this fits into our Plymouth Brethren story with Muller the German being first a missionary to Jews) German Jewry lost to apostasy many of its best commercial, political and intellectual leaders…. These German Jews developed a religious movement that was the fore runner of Reform Judaism (And I have no doubt what so ever that some Jews reading this blog with do greater things when it comes to rewriting and reformatting our Hebrew religion- Shalom!) Yet even many of this group ultimately converted to Christianity…. Between 1869 and 1871… Germany’s Jews once again seized the chance to become equals. They changed their surnames, adopted greater religious laxity through Reform Judaism and frequently married non Jews raising their children as Christians. Outright conversion was not uncommon. Many of Jewish ancestry did not even know it or care…. But the Reich believed otherwise. The Jewish nemesis was not one of religious practice but of bloodline. Nazis were determined to somehow identify those of Jewish descent and destroy them. P68-70 IBM and the Holocaust.- E Black