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Heh, I have to say that, when I read your post, it made me think of Leonard Nimoy's Spock saying "Live long and prosper."
Nimoy was the one who introduced it to the series...He said that he saw the hand sign executed by a Rabbi giving the blessing at the bema when he was a kid an looked up when everyone was supposed to have their heads bowed...I think that you can find his telling of this on YouTube...
Wherever there was a Christian majority you would find anti-Semitism and this in a time any wise person would join a church even if they didn't believe in God, that's what people did to excel in society and Jew was a bad word across alot of America.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lieneke
The Spanish Inquisition ensured that people became Catholic. The alternative was off with the head. Of course people joined Catholic Churches even though they didn't believe the story. The Netherlands allowed Jewish people who were fleeing Spain during the Inquisition to settle there. Some escaped with their heads and their religion.
[Removed examples of ethnic terms which may be considered derogatory -- Rachel NewYork]... all sorts of bad history. The Irish are a special category, like the Kennedys.
Antisemitism isn't exclusive to the Catholic Church. It's just that Catholicism has a longer history than that of other branches of Christianity. And antisemitism isn't exclusive to Christianity, either. But (as Hannibal pointed out) there was a time in the U.S. when many immigrant Jews felt a need to change their names in order to find acceptance in the broader, Christian majority society in which they lived. Thankfully, that trend has changed and Jews today are choosing not to hide their Jewishness (even in the face of lingering antisemitism).
I'm so sorry for your own situation, Lieneke, in which your father kept his Jewishness from you. Are you seeking to return to Judaism? You may have mentioned this before on the forum, and I apologize for not remembering. I wish you peace, whatever your path in life.
Nimoy was the one who introduced it to the series...He said that he saw the hand sign executed by a Rabbi giving the blessing at the bema when he was a kid an looked up when everyone was supposed to have their heads bowed...I think that you can find his telling of this on YouTube...
'Live long and prosper' is translated, if that is the correct word, from the Vulcan language phrase 'dif-tor heh smusma', which was so uttered in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The phrase echoes the Hebrew 'Shalom aleichem' and the Arabic 'Salaam alaykum', which roughly translate as 'peace be upon you'.
The Spanish Inquisition ensured that people became Catholic. The alternative was off with the head. Of course people joined Catholic Churches even though they didn't believe the story. The Netherlands allowed Jewish people who were fleeing Spain during the Inquisition to settle there. Some escaped with their heads and their religion.
[Removed examples of ethnic terms which may be considered derogatory -- Rachel NewYork]... all sorts of bad history. The Irish are a special category, like the Kennedys.
I am of Dutch descent and visited Amsterdam a few years ago. I was surprised to learn that for a long period, Jews were welcome but Catholicism was illegal. Catholics had to worship in secret.
The Dutch West India Company also allowed a group of Sephardic Jews fleeing the remnants of the Inquisition in Brazil into New Amsterdam in 1654. Their congregation still exists in New York City.
Antisemitism isn't exclusive to the Catholic Church. It's just that Catholicism has a longer history than that of other branches of Christianity. And antisemitism isn't exclusive to Christianity, either. But (as Hannibal pointed out) there was a time in the U.S. when many immigrant Jews felt a need to change their names in order to find acceptance in the broader, Christian majority society in which they lived. Thankfully, that trend has changed and Jews today are choosing not to hide their Jewishness (even in the face of lingering antisemitism).
I'm so sorry for your own situation, Lieneke, in which your father kept his Jewishness from you. Are you seeking to return to Judaism? You may have mentioned this before on the forum, and I apologize for not remembering. I wish you peace, whatever your path in life.
Yup. I met a man at work once who had my English last name, which is often also used as a first or middle name. He was Jewish. He said his grandfather saw what was happening in Germany in the early Thirties and packed up his family and moved to the USA. He dropped his Jewish-sounding last name and took a bland-sounding English last name when he got here, just in case what was happening in Germany spread here.
On one of those Who Do You Think You Are genealogy shows, actress Rashida Jones looked into her maternal history. She is the daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton. Peggy Lipton suspected her mother was Jewish, but she never knew for sure. Her mother claimed to come from Ireland. Well, she did, and that's the first time I ever heard that there was this long-established Jewish population in Dublin. Her mother came from Jews in Dublin who had come there from Latvia to escape Russian persecution. Most of the Jews in her grandfather's village were eventually murdered. It was an interesting and tragic story.
In the case of Peggy Lipton's mother, hiding her Jewishness likely had to do with the fact that she had aspirations to be an actress and thought that being Jewish would get in the way. As it turned out, she never got too far in her wannabe career, but her daughter and granddaughter did.
'Live long and prosper' is translated, if that is the correct word, from the Vulcan language phrase 'dif-tor heh smusma', which was so uttered in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The phrase echoes the Hebrew 'Shalom aleichem' and the Arabic 'Salaam alaykum', which roughly translate as 'peace be upon you'.
Yup. I met a man at work once who had my English last name, which is often also used as a first or middle name. He was Jewish. He said his grandfather saw what was happening in Germany in the early Thirties and packed up his family and moved to the USA. He dropped his Jewish-sounding last name and took a bland-sounding English last name when he got here, just in case what was happening in Germany spread here.
On one of those Who Do You Think You Are genealogy shows, actress Rashida Jones looked into her maternal history. She is the daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton. Peggy Lipton suspected her mother was Jewish, but she never knew for sure. Her mother claimed to come from Ireland. Well, she did, and that's the first time I ever heard that there was this long-established Jewish population in Dublin. Her mother came from Jews in Dublin who had come there from Latvia to escape Russian persecution. Most of the Jews in her grandfather's village were eventually murdered. It was an interesting and tragic story.
In the case of Peggy Lipton's mother, hiding her Jewishness likely had to do with the fact that she had aspirations to be an actress and thought that being Jewish would get in the way. As it turned out, she never got too far in her wannabe career, but her daughter and granddaughter did.
Isn't our Richard of Jewish-Irish descent? Maybe I'm remembering wrong? *shouts out to Richard*
Antisemitism isn't exclusive to the Catholic Church. It's just that Catholicism has a longer history than that of other branches of Christianity. And antisemitism isn't exclusive to Christianity, either. But (as Hannibal pointed out) there was a time in the U.S. when many immigrant Jews felt a need to change their names in order to find acceptance in the broader, Christian majority society in which they lived. Thankfully, that trend has changed and Jews today are choosing not to hide their Jewishness (even in the face of lingering antisemitism).
I'm so sorry for your own situation, Lieneke, in which your father kept his Jewishness from you. Are you seeking to return to Judaism? You may have mentioned this before on the forum, and I apologize for not remembering. I wish you peace, whatever your path in life.
Thank you! It's been quite a confusing experience. My father passed away in 1986 and it wasn't until 2 years ago that I met second and third cousins. I always knew that my cousins on that side of the family were Jewish but I never questioned it. Meeting second and third cousins was the eye opener, especially since some are Orthodox Jews. Reflecting back over the years, I don't know why I didn't put two and two together sooner. I know that my grandmother buried the family photo albums in the backyard during WW2, and that an uncle was taken away by the Germans, but the stories were fragments out of context.
As for my own beliefs, I have always had a sense of a God. I did not baptize my own children, giving them the same option to choose their own beliefs when they were old enough to make the decision. I'm not sure where to go from here regarding religion.
Thank you! It's been quite a confusing experience. My father passed away in 1986 and it wasn't until 2 years ago that I met second and third cousins. I always knew that my cousins on that side of the family were Jewish but I never questioned it. Meeting second and third cousins was the eye opener, especially since some are Orthodox Jews. Reflecting back over the years, I don't know why I didn't put two and two together sooner. I know that my grandmother buried the family photo albums in the backyard during WW2, and that an uncle was taken away by the Germans, but the stories were fragments out of context.
As for my own beliefs, I have always had a sense of a God. I did not baptize my own children, giving them the same option to choose their own beliefs when they were old enough to make the decision. I'm not sure where to go from here regarding religion.
To have lost so much family history is heart-breaking, along with the horror of losing family in the way your uncle was taken away. I'm at least glad you were able to finally find your distant cousins. And, of course, consider yourself at home here with us on this forum!
I am of Dutch descent and visited Amsterdam a few years ago. I was surprised to learn that for a long period, Jews were welcome but Catholicism was illegal. Catholics had to worship in secret.
The Dutch West India Company also allowed a group of Sephardic Jews fleeing the remnants of the Inquisition in Brazil into New Amsterdam in 1654. Their congregation still exists in New York City.
I wonder if the reason that my father's family survived WW2 is that they moved to the NL around 1911. They were part of the Dutch East Indies Company in Batavia, having settled in there in roughly 1814 or 1816. There were no birth records for three generations of the family in the NL, so perhaps they could deny their religion during the WW2 German occupation.
It's very interesting to search for answers to questions that I never thought to ask when my parents were alive.
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