[...continued]

Since the majority of Israelis are Jews and since the core of Judaism is the Sabbath, a "Jewish state" for me means, first and foremost, a place where people have the maximum freedom to observe the Sabbath and enjoy its spirit, where nobody needs to worry about losing their job for refusing to work or open their businesses on Saturdays, where no one can be summoned to court on Saturdays or told by council to move their parked car due to roadworks, where higher standards apply on that day for preventing noise-pollution, etc.

Israel is the best environment for those who keep the Sabbath. While some other Jewish laws and customs are also supported, the Sabbath and the Hebrew calendar are at the center of what makes Israel Jewish.

Let me state it boldly: if you, a Jew, do not observe the Sabbath, then indeed you have no need for a Jewish state.

I agree that non-Jews should not be second-class citizens, but if they want to live in Israel, then they need to accept that the public calendar there is not the Western calendar, not the Muslim calendar, not the Chinese calendar, not the Mayan calendar, but the Hebrew calendar, that the closest to the Western "weekend" is Friday-Saturday while Sunday is a normal working/school day.

Regardless of one's religious beliefs, one cannot expect to work at the office or be served at a department when it is closed because the majority wants it closed, or to mow their lawn noisily when families stroll peacefully in the streets, conversing and greeting each other on their way to/from synagogue.

Similarly India has some characteristics of a "Hindu state" because Indian law recognizes what is so central to Hinduism - the Sannyas (renunciate) stage of life, whereby those who renounced the world are legally considered "civily dead" to which different laws apply.

Dear Yuyutsu,

It's good to hear from you. I would like to see Wednesday as the Sabbath.

David

Dear David,

«I would like to see Wednesday as the Sabbath.»

Great, then you should be able to gather some like-minded people, converge on (buy up) some town or village and form there your own independent state where Wednesdays are the official day of rest and weeks start on Thursdays!

mhaze- Thanks for your analysis- 2300 year old gossip is still juicy.
My knowledge of this period is spotty- and I may be completely off track- but it appears that perhaps the semitic peoples may have been the ones that attacked European's first. It could have happened either way. My understanding is that the semitic peoples loosely correlate with the twelve Old Testament Biblical tribes. I appears that the semitic tribes were part of the Persian empire that attacked Europe.

Maybe the military strategy of Rome- which was an extension of the Greek empire in a sense- was to 'dominate' the Middle East so that the other powers of the region didn't ally against Rome namely Punjab's, Egyptians, etc. Part of the way it appears to achieve this was by taxation- but it struggled to dominate the vast territory that Alexander had 300 years before.

In a sense one could say that for the Hebrew's Christianity was a way to subvert the hated Roman's after 70AD- it'd be difficult to get evidence for this. The Roman's probably would have eventually seen a monotheistic god as more suitable- I suppose- even without Hebrew influence- but perhaps it would have taken a less destructive form.

Perhaps the semitic tribes also displaced Punjabi and Aryan territory after Hatshepsut (1479 – 16 January 1458 BC).

Maybe it's all in my imagination.

It's funny how the majority of antisemites are presently to be found on the left whinge of politics.

The UK Labour were rife with it and to some extent so is Aus Labor and greens.

shadow minister,

To be critical of Israel's policies and actions
does not equate to being antiSemitic. Palestinians
are Semites too.