Posted: Mar 01, 2010 10:31 pm
A long and fascinating post - many thanks, it was clear, well written and a joy to read. 
Although in the UK, I'm very familiar indeed with may of the points raised as there's a Jewish wing to the family (secular and non-practising: culturally not religiously Jewish) and I've studied Judaism in, I think it's fair to say, some detail for the past decade or more.
Of course the big feature about Judaism is that culture/ethnicity and religion are seen as separable if not separate, which doesn't yet obtain for other religions. An atheist Jew isn't a contradiction in terms in the way that Christian atheist still is (despite the best efforts of the really radical ultra-liberal wing): because of the historical emphasis in Judaism on practice rather than belief, what you actually believe receives less attention that what you do (or, very often, are seen to do). Hence the widespread hypocrisy about driving to shul on Saturday morning but not being seen to do so and so forth. A Jew can be a Jew, and can still self-identify as such in cultural and ethnic terms, even though his stance vis a vis religion might make Christopher Hitchens look like a soppy wet bleeding heart. Sigmund Freud was about as militant an atheist as they come, but hugely proud of his Jewish heritage, and nobody would not call Freud Jewish whatever his attitude towards theism. This has never really caught on in the other Abrahamic faiths, at least anywhere near the same extent.
I hope you stick around: I'd love to chew the fat over this some more (and about guitars too!)
Although in the UK, I'm very familiar indeed with may of the points raised as there's a Jewish wing to the family (secular and non-practising: culturally not religiously Jewish) and I've studied Judaism in, I think it's fair to say, some detail for the past decade or more. Of course the big feature about Judaism is that culture/ethnicity and religion are seen as separable if not separate, which doesn't yet obtain for other religions. An atheist Jew isn't a contradiction in terms in the way that Christian atheist still is (despite the best efforts of the really radical ultra-liberal wing): because of the historical emphasis in Judaism on practice rather than belief, what you actually believe receives less attention that what you do (or, very often, are seen to do). Hence the widespread hypocrisy about driving to shul on Saturday morning but not being seen to do so and so forth. A Jew can be a Jew, and can still self-identify as such in cultural and ethnic terms, even though his stance vis a vis religion might make Christopher Hitchens look like a soppy wet bleeding heart. Sigmund Freud was about as militant an atheist as they come, but hugely proud of his Jewish heritage, and nobody would not call Freud Jewish whatever his attitude towards theism. This has never really caught on in the other Abrahamic faiths, at least anywhere near the same extent.
I hope you stick around: I'd love to chew the fat over this some more (and about guitars too!)