Interesting blast from the past but not surprising.

If Zionism is an outgrowth of nineteenth century European theories of nationalism, it would be unusual for people (Sephardim) living in an empire (Ottoman) in which nationalism was not an important political idea to be interested in the machinations of European powers.

N.B.  Nor would religious Jews, generally, have been interested in the Balfour Declaration.  "Next year in Jerusalem" is a hope and not an expectancy and its coming is dependent upon God's will and not the actions of humans.  Indeed, purposeful human actions seeking to turn the hope into a reality may be considered presumptuous and sinful.

If I'm not mistaken, most American Jews are not that interested in Zionism.

Maybe, mayb not.  But it really only matters about as much as how interested Irish-Americans are in Ireland, Greek-Americans to Greece, etc.

Imposing judgement on the ethnic origins of nation-states based upon comparisons to a political product of the Enlightenment (and a little Manifest Destiny for good measure) like the USA is at least somewhat specious.

If there were no Israeli state both Israelis and Palestinians would find ways to cooperate with each other.

If, if, if....  Such certainty remains underwhelming.

 Iraqi Jews are not Sephardim.

Ellen in her posts above persists in referring to the Jew of Iraq as Sephardic.

I should probably be quiet, since I am not Jewish, but the professor in me won't  allow me to let this pass.

"Sephard" is a Hebrew term for Spain.  The Sephardim were once Spanish Jews.

Abraham was an Iraqi and Iraqi Jews trace their roots right back to Abraham.    They are central to old Jewish history.

 After the fall of Jerusalem (about 219 BC)  Babylon became the focus of Judaism and remained so for more than a thousand years.

 I work regularly in Iraq and one of my best pals is a woman Iraqi Jewish Lawyer in Baghdad.  She would be mortified to be called Sephardic.  She sees herself - rightly- as a daughter of Abraham.

As she  regularly reminds me, the categories "Sephardim"and "Ashkenazim" are, to an Iraqi Jew,  modern distinctions  reflecting "recent" European History and of little significance  in the grander  sweep of Judaism.

Professor John Stuart Blackton

While technically correct, today the word Sephardim has taken a much wider meaning and includes Jewish Communities in North Africa, Iraq (Babylon), Syria, Greece, Turkey and most Jews who are not Ashkenazim.

And since we're discussing reactions to a modern policy a modern language is appropriate.

 Ellen writes that  I am "technically" right that Iraqi Jews are not Sephardim.  But asserts that she is actually right because "today" the word Sephardim (which means SPanish) has taken on a much wider meaning.

Ellen, the paramount rule about what groups are called is that they decide what they call themselves.  Jews in Iraq do not call themselves Sephardim.

"Indian" may have taken on a wider meaning (for some) to encompass Native Americans.  But that does not make Native Americans "Indians".

I know about this particular instance.  I go to Iraq  regularly.  I have Iraqi Jewish friends there who stayed on after the 1950 diaspora.   We discuss this stuff. Just as Navaho Americans aren't Indians, Iraqi Jews aren't Sephardim.

Ellen,  I  am inclined to doubt that you have ever been to Iraq.  I  would, therefore, be inclined  to doubt that you have sat with Iraqi Jewish friends in Baghdad discussing, in Arabic, how they see themselves. 

 However, these are only intuitions.  I may be wrong about your familiarity with contemporary Iraq.

Please correct me, Ellen, if you actually do havefirst-hand knowledge of  life in contemporaty Iraq.

Professor John Stuart Blackton

I don't know, Perfesser; I'm not sure a few tete-a-tetes over cups of sweet tea with an Iraqi lawyer (a former exile?) and a quick misreading (again, what was that date of the "fall of Jerusalem"?) of Wikipedia's latest entry on the subject makes you an expert.

As a word and a location, Sepharad long predates the existence of Spain (Obadiah 20).  Today, the word Sephardi as used in Israel is a replacement for the terms Arab or Oriental Jew.

As Rabbi Marc Angel of Sephardic House says, Sephardic applies to "almost any Jew who is not Ashkenazi. Although there are wide cultural divergences within the Sephardic world, common liturgy and religious customs constitute underlying factors of unity."  And see, Commentary (May 1983), "Jewish History and the Sephardim" ("Sephardim-a term referring to Jews from the lands along the Mediterranean littoral and the Middle East, including the Muslim countries").

In the event my original comment had to do with the reaction of your "small Iraqi [Mesopotamian?] Jewish community" in Baghdad to its 1917 reception of the news of the Balfour Declaration.  And my point was that that community's lack of enthusiasm would be expected since it had little contact with or interest in the Ashkenazi Zionist enterprise.

Ellen

 Zionism in its modern guise was not an Eastern European movement at all.  Herzl was an Austrian journalist who was horrified by the anti-Semitism in France.  It was seeing the anti-semitism in the heart of civilized Europe that spurned him to create the Zionist movment. (I note that Wikipedia calls this into question without otherwise explaining Herzl's actions) It was in London where he was anointed head of the movement.

I believe Tevye's grandchildren would wait until after Stalin's and Hitler's mass murder of Jews before really getting interested in Zionism.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I may be unduly swayed by Slezkine's arguments.

Daniel,

Pinsker, Lilienblum and the Hovevei Tzion movement were already way ahead of Herzl, whose contribution to the growth of Zionism nevertheless should not be minimized either.  While Herzl didn't really introduce Zionism to Western European Jewry (Moses Hess wrote "Rome and Jerusalem" nearly 35 years before Herzl's "The Jewish State"), he did unite the disparate elements of the emerging movement and instrumentally focused its practical energies in the Zionist Congress.

The many, many "Falls of Jerusalem"

 Mea culpa.  There was no “Fall of Jerusalem”  in 219AD.

I thought the Maccabees oust the Greeks not the Egyptians. This was post Alexander the Great.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

                       Greeks v Egyptians

       Dan, first thanks for adding the East Jerusalem '48 item (I suspect that a roomful of historians could add at least a half dozen more "falls" to my illustrative list.

       As for the Macabees and who  it was that they ousted, that call  is all bound up in that tangle of Hellenistic Egypt and the Ptolemies. 

       Post Alexandrine Egypt and Greece had become inter-twined both in terms of governance and culture. 

       Ptolemy I was ethnically Greek, but quite Eyptianized.  The later Ptolemies gradually moved from using Egyptian language and observing Egyptian customs to speaking Greek and behaving more Hellenically.

       I suspect that a real expert on Graeco-Roman Egypt would probably lean towards calling the initial "fall" to Ptolemy a fall to the Egyptians and the next "fall" to the Macabees taking place when the Ptolomaic balance was more Greek. 

       So, yes,  Dan, I think your call is probably right. 

       My personal bet for the next "fall" is rooted in the demographic trends in Isreal and the WB. 

       If I had to bet $5 on the outcome of these trends, I would bet that sometime around 2025  Jerusalem will experience the consequences of the Arab revanche du berceau .  

       But looking back is always easier than accurately prognosticating, so there may well be something quite different that happens next to Jerusalem.

       Nothing about the last two thousand  years, however, would suggest that Jerusalem will continue as-is  for a prolongued period. 

       There are costs and benefits associated with being a true cultural crossroads, and Jerusalem has experience most of them!

       The current  "Accidental Empire" will, no doubt, spawn more "accidents".  Set against all the accidents of Jerusalem's past this one is interesting, but perhaps not monumental.

Professor John Stuart Blackton

I think you boys are a bit confused.

You cannot assume that because Ptolemy Soter captured Jerusalem in 320 BCE, the Ptolemys held it (or Judea, or Samaria, etc.) 156 years later.  And of course, they didn't.