Friends have asked what I thought of Helen Thomas and her plan (video) to dispose of the unwanted Jews in Israel by sending them “home” to Poland, Germany, and America (three countries she specifically mentioned). I surveyed a few articles on the subject and did some searching within Google News and found no evidence that any professional journalist identified the main flaw with Helen Thomas’s statement: the Jews of Israel did not come from Poland, Germany, or America. As the Europeans were very successful in their efforts to kill their Jewish neighbors, very few survived to emigrate to Israel. The largest demographic group within Israel is Jews whose parents came from Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Morocco, Iran, Iraq, Syria, etc. It seems unlikely that these countries would want to welcome back the children of Jews that they kicked out decades ago.
Is it too much to ask professional journalists to check Wikipedia before writing a story?
A) Your last paragraph is a rhetorical question, right? Because we all know it is too much.
B) IIRC, something in the neighborhood of half the Jews in Israel are from Muslim countries, or their immediate ancestors were. But half is more than enough for your point to be valid: You’ve got to have some pretty weird thought processes to look at somebody born in Israel, whose ancestors lived in Yemen or Iraq for the last two thousand years, and honestly consider him Polish.
People who dislike Israel either don’t know about all this, or else angrily change the subject when you mention it, because it does kind of screw up their narrative in a couple of ways. Fortunately for them, they don’t have to worry about being confronted with it very often, because, as you note, journalists don’t know it either.
Another article on Wikipedia contradicts your assessment of the Ashklenazi-Sephardi breakdown in the Israeli population:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel
It states:
“About 35% of all Israeli Jews are recently (first or second generation) descended from European Jews, while 25% are descended from Jews who immigrated from Arab countries, Iran, Turkey and Central Asia. In addition, 45.6 thousands (0.8%) are, or are descended from Indian Jews, and 106.9 thousands (1.9%) – from Ethiopian Jews”
It’s unclear where the remaining 37% came from. America? Russia? The original Jewish population that was already there during British mandate Palestine?
In any case, well over 2/3 of Israelis have no connection whatsoever with Poland or Germany. As for America, it can be said it is the true promised land for the Jewish people, as they flourished here as nowhere else, but I would assume Ms Thomas would not exactly welcome an influx of people she despises to our shores.
Fazal: The most populous portions of Russia are, I believe, west of the Ural Mountains and therefore technically “European”. I think that most people would divide Israeli Jewish ancestry by “from Arab countries”, “from Russia”, and “from Central/Western Europe”. If divided in this way, I think that the Jews whose families fled Arab/Muslim countries constitute the largest group (see this Wikipedia article where the estimate is that “roughly half of Israeli Jews are of Mizrahi [Arab] origin”). This Wikipedia article estimates that there were as many as one million Jews who were expelled or fled from Arab countries in the mid-20th Century.
I guess Ms. Thomas could go over to Israel and try to sort people by ancestry and then put them on the appropriate ship or plane for deportation. I’m sure that there are plenty of American Indians who would welcome her (or any other post-1492 immigrant or descendant thereof) departure from the U.S.!
Helen Thomas came from Kentucky, USA (she was born there to a family of Lebanese immigrants).
2/3 of present-day Jewish immigrants to Israel (people not born in Israel, or olim) are from Europe and Americas. Technically speaking, only they could “‘go back where they came from”.
I was hoping to hear what you thought about Carly Fiorina and a majority of her republican voters believing that Ms. Fiorina is qualified to do anything, especially be a senator.
Hmm… the Israelis have been much more successful on the U.S. stock market than HP was during Ms. Fiorina’s tenure as CEO. So perhaps there is a chance to trade her. We can send Ms. Fiorina to Israel and accept some Jews in exchange!