I finally read Flint's 1632 [Spoilers]
Pete McCutchen
Well, due in part to the number of discussions of the book here, as
well as to the fact that I liked his contribution to the recent Honor
Harrington anthology, I finally bought the Webscription for Flint's
_1632_ and gave it a read. Overall, I thought it was a fun book.
Flint's not going to make anybody forget Hemingway, but I thought his
prose was reasonably good, and, in one instance, well above average.
The book's actually quite a page-turner. (Well, since I read it on my
computer I clicked, rather than turned, but you get the idea.) I
thought about adding my thoughts to the already-ongoing Flint thread,
but that one seems to be bogged down with a discussion of Stirling's
ISOT, so I thought I'd start a new thread, instead. Note that there
are SPOILERS ahead.
A number of people have criticized the book on the grounds that the
characters are too anachronistic, and that Rebecca's father and other
kin would have objected to her marriage. The part about Rebecca's kin
didn't bother me that much -- she was, after all, marrying a VIP, and
this sort of objection is more easily overcome where one is marrying a
VIP. This is particularly true in light of the fact that the
reconstituted United States has an official policy of tolerating Jews
and even letting them be full citizens. It strikes me that Stearns'
offer would be quite attractive to her family, given the general
treatment of Jews then and there.
Nor do I have a problem with Alex Mackay wanting to marry the
cheerleader-turned-sniper, Julie Sims or the Gretchen/Jeff subplot.
Both romances struck me as quite reasonable.
Things I liked about the book:
1. Julie Sims. How can one not adore a nubile young cheerleader
turned sniper? Definitely my favorite character. In fact, if I were
the cover artist, I'd have featured her on the cover, clad in her
cheerleader outfit, holding a sniper rifle. Like the cover of _The
Guns of the South, except with a cheerleader instead of Lee. Not
quite accurate, as she never actually wears her cheerleader outfit
while shooting, but hey, artistic license. I can easily understand
Mackay's attraction to her. In fact, I was kind of hot for her,
myself. Though I'm not sure about his thing for knees. Knees?
2. While I'm on the subject, the love scene between Gretchen and Jeff
was very hot, IMHO. If sf doesn't pay off, Eric can write those
letters in Penthouse Forum, to make ends meet.
3. I liked the rah-rah Americanism, along with the anti-aristocratic
values. Eric will probably scream when he hears this, but his book
made me think of the upbeat vision of America as a city on a hill so
eloquently captured in the political speeches of Ronald Reagan. I
think that David Brin would approve as well. It actually reminds me of
the values that we as Americans share, almost regardless of where we
sit on the political spectrum. It's a very patriotic book, in a way
that ISOT really isn't. These guys are _Americans_; those
Nantucketers might as well be Canadians.
4. On the same topic, I liked his generally positive portrayal of
ordinary people. Plus, I just plain liked his West Virginians better
than the taciturn Yankees that Stirling seems to find so compelling.
They're more my kind of people. If my mom were into sf, I'd give the
book to her, as she's from West Virginia.
5. Nice mix of adventure elements. Generally, he handled the battle
scenes quite well, without making his characters military geniuses. I
particularly liked the siege of the school. (Though it would have
been better if they'd had some excuse for Julie to wear her
cheerleader outfit during the fight.)
Nonetheless, I do think that some of the criticisms of the book that
have been leveled hereabout have had some merit. I've avoided most
discussions of the book, as, prior to now, I hadn't read it, but it's
true that folks from 1632 seem to adjust to things pretty easily.
Personally, I'm willing to give Eric some slack here. The truth is
that, if a town from the United States were transported back in time
to Europe in 1632, the most likely scenario would be that everybody in
the town would freak out for a while, nothing much would get done, and
a ravening horde of peasants would overrun the town and burn all the
witches. Since that would be no fun, I'm willing to give Eric some
leeway.
Still, this is, ultimately, a political novel, and I think it's fair
to argue that Eric underestimates the cultural prerequisites necessary
for both a democratic state and a market economy. If you look around
the world, you'll see that merely establishing a democratic
constitution isn't enough. Look at the problems India had in its
first years of independence, or consider various decolonized countries
in Africa. Or consider how the former USSR has flailed around in
trying to establish a capitalist society.
People have to share certain fundamental values for either a
democratic polity or market economy to work. Those cultural
prerequisites simply weren't present in Europe in 1632. Religious
tolerance, for example, was a long time coming, and I'm not at all
convinced that everybody would just start tolerating Jews because the
Americans explained they should. While I have no doubt that the
people from a small town in West Virginia do have those values, I'm
not sure that they could enculturate that many outsiders in that short
a time. Particularly outsiders who grew up in Europe in 1632. I'd
definitely be against the "Fortress Amerika" view, but I might argue
for a longer naturalization period. Stearns was right to reject a
system that would make Americans permanent aristocrats, but I think
Flint underestimated the rapidity with which a stable democratic
polity could be established.
Oh, and I could have done without the "evil CEO" subplot, but it was,
mercifully, not a big part of the book. I was worried he'd try to pull
a William Walker, and I thought that would be a terrible direction to
take the book.
On balance, I liked it. If Eric writes a sequel, I'd definitely be
happy to read it.
--
Pete McCutchen
Rick
news:cgqj8tghjqkmk9fb0...@4ax.com...
> Oh, and I could have done without the "evil CEO" subplot, but it was,
> mercifully, not a big part of the book. I was worried he'd try to pull
> a William Walker, and I thought that would be a terrible direction to
> take the book.
Yeah, that was the only part of the book I didn't like...it made the guy too
much of a charicature. But it was a minor quibble. Like you, I very much
enjoyed the book.
Joe Slater
>A number of people have criticized the book on the grounds that the
>characters are too anachronistic, and that Rebecca's father and other
>kin would have objected to her marriage. The part about Rebecca's kin
>didn't bother me that much -- she was, after all, marrying a VIP, and
>this sort of objection is more easily overcome where one is marrying a
>VIP.
With all due respect: you're not Jewish, Eric isn't Jewish, and
neither of you can appreciate the cultural implications of this. When
this came around Eric was kind enough to explain that the family were
traders and could see the potential for profit here. I do not think
words exist to express my outrage; at the time I merely asked how much
profit it would take for him to sleep with his mother.
jds
--
A penguin, found by police wandering dazed and confused in suburban
Melbourne, was treated today for depression.
_The Age_, 2 February 2001
http://www.theage.com.au/frontpage/2001/02/02/FFXYM5B7PIC.html
JoatSimeon
>With all due respect: you're not Jewish, Eric isn't Jewish, and neither of you
can appreciate the cultural implications of this.
-- depends on which Jews, where, and when. Attitudes towards intermarriage
have varied widely.
-- S.M. Stirling
Bo Lindbergh
> Note that there are SPOILERS ahead.
> Things I liked about the book:
>
> 1. Julie Sims. How can one not adore a nubile young cheerleader
> turned sniper? Definitely my favorite character.
<conspiracy-theory class="silly">
Note the throwaway reference to skiing and the plans to get her to the
winter Olympics. This proves that she's another element (along with
king Gustav) inserted by Flint to sell the book to Swedes. (If you
don't understand what I'm talking about, point your web browser at
http://www.biathlonworld.com/cgi-bin/database/uk/Show/Biathlon.uk/Index
and see how often someone named "Forsberg" is mentioned....)
</conspiracy-theory>
> In fact, if I were the cover artist, I'd have featured her on the
> cover, clad in her cheerleader outfit, holding a sniper rifle. Like
> the cover of _The Guns of the South, except with a cheerleader instead
> of Lee. Not quite accurate, as she never actually wears her
> cheerleader outfit while shooting, but hey, artistic license.
Coming soon from Baen: _Chicks with Sniper Rifles_, edited by Esther
Friesner. :-)
/Bo Lindbergh (see X-From header field)
Pete McCutchen
Greenbaum) wrote:
>>-- depends on which Jews, where, and when. Attitudes towards intermarriage
>>have varied widely.
>
>In Germany in the 1630's, attitudes toward intermarriage were quite
>hardened and hostile.
Among whom? Among the Jews themselves, or among their non-Jewish
neighbors? Because, if the latter, it's not relevant, since Mike
Stearns doesn't share those attitudes. I do think, as I said in my
original uptake, that the natives were a bit too quick on the uptake
regarding this "religious tolerance" meme. That idea took a long time
to establish itself, and, even now, is not fully accepted by
everybody. I think that the new citizens of the "United States"
wouldn't be quite so quick to accept the notion.
--
Pete McCutchen
Bertil Jonell
Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>I do think, as I said in my
>original uptake, that the natives were a bit too quick on the uptake
>regarding this "religious tolerance" meme.
There is a great risk that their reaction will be "Tolerance? Ok,
we'll just beat them with sticks then instead of burning them at
the stake!" and "But you said that religious practices were allowed
only as long as they wern't breaking any laws! They are praying to
false gods! Surely that is against the law!"
And perhaps "It was self defence! If we hadn't killed them God
would have smitten us for allowing witches to live!"
>Pete McCutchen
-bertil-
--
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
exercise for your kill-file."
Bertil Jonell
Bo Lindbergh <d88...@bitbucket.nada.kth.se.invalid> wrote:
>This proves that she's another element (along with
>king Gustav) inserted by Flint to sell the book to Swedes.
I doubt any large portion of the sales will come from Sweden,
anything over 1000 copies going here would highly surprise me.
>/Bo Lindbergh (see X-From header field)
-bertil-
lal_truckee
>
>In article <cgqj8tghjqkmk9fb0...@4ax.com> Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>> Note that there are SPOILERS ahead.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> Things I liked about the book:
>>
>> 1. Julie Sims. How can one not adore a nubile young cheerleader
>> turned sniper? Definitely my favorite character.
>
><conspiracy-theory class="silly">
>
>Note the throwaway reference to skiing and the plans to get her to the
>winter Olympics. This proves that she's another element (along with
>king Gustav) inserted by Flint to sell the book to Swedes.
Nope. IMO, Biathlon, and Sims' skiing abilities, is another element inserted by
Flint to set up the inevitable sequels, leading to the never ending series
franchise. After all, there's Olympic target shooting, if all Flint needed was
an explanation of her shooting abilities. So watch for an improbable, dead of
winter, chased by bad guys, stop to shoot periodically, cross-country ski trip
as Sims delivers life saving medication to the King in, oh, about _1634_.
I actually enjoyed _1632_. But these inserted plot elements, just there for the
benifit of the future franchise, sure interrupted the plot, and the pleasure of
the read. I wish someone would rediscover the lost technique of writing
self-contained books.
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
In all fairness, idiots like this do exist, in real life. And hell,
somebody like H. Ross Perot, whose great wealth has not increased his
understanding of basic economics, might really argue for the "Fortress
Amerika" position. I can just hear him bleating on about the "giant
sucking sound" as cheap German workers begin taking American jobs.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
<joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>A number of people have criticized the book on the grounds that the
>>characters are too anachronistic, and that Rebecca's father and other
>>kin would have objected to her marriage. The part about Rebecca's kin
>>didn't bother me that much -- she was, after all, marrying a VIP, and
>>this sort of objection is more easily overcome where one is marrying a
>>VIP.
>
>With all due respect: you're not Jewish, Eric isn't Jewish, and
>neither of you can appreciate the cultural implications of this. When
Yes, I know that there are indeed Jews who get their knickers in a
knot about intermarriage. Even so, she's being asked to marry the
head of state of a new country that promises religious tolerance.
Given that scenario, acceptance of the marriage is not wholly
implausible. Particularly since he was, after all, a knight in
shining armor who rescued her from being raped and murdered. Being a
knight in shining armor is good for quite a few brownie points, I
assure you.
>this came around Eric was kind enough to explain that the family were
>traders and could see the potential for profit here. I do not think
>words exist to express my outrage; at the time I merely asked how much
>profit it would take for him to sleep with his mother.
You may wish to believe that the taboo against intermarriage was as
strong then as the taboo against mother-son incest is now, but I think
that's wishful thinking on your part.
--
Pete McCutchen
H. Torrance Griffin
>In a fit of divine composition, joats...@aol.com (JoatSimeon) inscribed
>in fleeting electrons:
>
>>>With all due respect: you're not Jewish, Eric isn't Jewish, and neither of
you
>>can appreciate the cultural implications of this.
>>
>>have varied widely.
>
>In Germany in the 1630's, attitudes toward intermarriage were quite
>hardened and hostile.
Among Askinazim or Sepharadim?
HTG (testing)
------------------------------------------------------------
Get your FREE web-based e-mail and newsgroup access at:
http://MailAndNews.com
Create a new mailbox, or access your existing IMAP4 or
POP3 mailbox from anywhere with just a web browser.
------------------------------------------------------------
@hotmail.com.invalid Eric D. Berge
<p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 14:44:34 GMT, dj...@cornell.edu (David Joseph
>Greenbaum) wrote:
>
>>>-- depends on which Jews, where, and when. Attitudes towards intermarriage
>>>have varied widely.
>>
>>In Germany in the 1630's, attitudes toward intermarriage were quite
>>hardened and hostile.
>
>Among whom? Among the Jews themselves
Yes.
Rabidly hostile, at that.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric D. Berge
(remove spaces for valid address)
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover
Breath's a ware that will not keep
Up, lad! When the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
- A.E.Housman, "Reveille"
------------------------------------------------------------------
H. Torrance Griffin
=====
>Note that there
>are SPOILERS ahead.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Things I liked about the book:
>
>1. Julie Sims. How can one not adore a nubile young cheerleader
>the cover artist, I'd have featured her on the cover, clad in her
>cheerleader outfit, holding a sniper rifle. Like the cover of _The
>Guns of the South, except with a cheerleader instead of Lee. Not
>quite accurate, as she never actually wears her cheerleader outfit
>Mackay's attraction to her. In fact, I was kind of hot for her,
>myself. Though I'm not sure about his thing for knees. Knees?
How often did you think he saw them before?
>Still, this is, ultimately, a political novel, and I think it's fair
>to argue that Eric underestimates the cultural prerequisites necessary
>for both a democratic state and a market economy. If you look around
>the world, you'll see that merely establishing a democratic
>constitution isn't enough. Look at the problems India had in its
>first years of independence, or consider various decolonized countries
>in Africa. Or consider how the former USSR has flailed around in
>trying to establish a capitalist society.
I think his point was that in 1632 the elites were either overtly advisarial
or gone. Something that cannot be said for the various "New Democracies" of
the past century
>Oh, and I could have done without the "evil CEO" subplot, but it was,
>mercifully, not a big part of the book. I was worried he'd try to pull
>a William Walker, and I thought that would be a terrible direction to
>take the book.
Wait til the next one ^_^
HTG
JoatSimeon
>But these inserted plot elements, just there for the benifit of the future
franchise,
-- actually, Eric didn't plan a sequel at all, and was rather surprised at the
demand for one.
-- S.M. Stirling
JoatSimeon
>In Germany in the 1630's, attitudes toward intermarriage were quite hardened
and hostile.
-- sigh. The family question don't come from Germany; they come from
Amsterdam, just lately.
They're Sephardic, they're Marranos (meaning they posed as Christians for a
while, a generation or so back), and the father had been "expelled" by the
rabbis of Amsterdam because he's a religious freethinker. (Rather like
Spinoza.)
-- S.M. Stirling
rak...@mindspring.com
hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:
>On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 15:37:10 GMT, Pete McCutchen
><p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 14:44:34 GMT, dj...@cornell.edu (David Joseph
>>Greenbaum) wrote:
>>
>>>>-- depends on which Jews, where, and when. Attitudes towards intermarriage
>>>>have varied widely.
>>>
>>>In Germany in the 1630's, attitudes toward intermarriage were quite
>>>hardened and hostile.
>>
>>Among whom? Among the Jews themselves
>
>Yes.
>
>Rabidly hostile, at that.
Among Sephardic Jews? I know that most Americans think of, er, I
can't spell the other branch's name, but they're the ones that most
people I know of think about when we hear that somebody is a Jew. I
got the impression that the cultures of the two branches were
significantly different.
Just me.
--
jabb...@hotmail.com
Yoritomo Jabbrwock * Mantis Clan Navigator *
Sailor * Mercenary * Kolat * Many references
Jeffrey C. Dege
>Greenbaum) wrote:
>
>>>-- depends on which Jews, where, and when. Attitudes towards intermarriage
>>>have varied widely.
>>
>>In Germany in the 1630's, attitudes toward intermarriage were quite
>>hardened and hostile.
>
>Among whom? Among the Jews themselves, or among their non-Jewish
>neighbors?
And among which Jews? It's full conceivable that the attitudes of the
Sephardim would have differed from their Ashkenazi cousins.
--
IF 2 + 2 .EQ. 5 THEN 5 = 4
Joe Slater
>>>>have varied widely.
>>On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 14:44:34 GMT, dj...@cornell.edu (David Joseph
>>Greenbaum) wrote:
>>>In Germany in the 1630's, attitudes toward intermarriage were quite
>>>hardened and hostile.
>On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 15:37:10 GMT, Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>Among whom? Among the Jews themselves, or among their non-Jewish
>>neighbors?
jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege) wrote:
>And among which Jews? It's full conceivable that the attitudes of the
>Sephardim would have differed from their Ashkenazi cousins.
Yes; Sephardim are less likely to intermarry. Even better: Sephardim
are, by and large, descendents of people booted out from Spain and
nearby countries for refusing to assimilate. The Spanish expulsion
took place in 1492, only 140 years before the time in which the book
is set.
Joe Slater
><joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>>With all due respect: you're not Jewish, Eric isn't Jewish, and
>>neither of you can appreciate the cultural implications of this. When
Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Yes, I know that there are indeed Jews who get their knickers in a
>knot about intermarriage. Even so, she's being asked to marry the
>head of state of a new country that promises religious tolerance.
>Given that scenario, acceptance of the marriage is not wholly
>implausible.
You just don't get it, Pete.
>>this came around Eric was kind enough to explain that the family were
>>traders and could see the potential for profit here. I do not think
>>words exist to express my outrage; at the time I merely asked how much
>>profit it would take for him to sleep with his mother.
>You may wish to believe that the taboo against intermarriage was as
>strong then as the taboo against mother-son incest is now, but I think
>that's wishful thinking on your part.
I don't know if you can quantify taboos, but they don't come down to a
matter of dollars and cents and it's amazingly, incredibly insulting
to suggest that they. It's even more insulting because, were I to be
the sort of person who characterises things unfairly, I could describe
Eric Flint's position as being "Jews will abandon their most basic
principles if you wave enough cash at them." His statement was very,
very close to that.
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>In article <mo0l8t08lflskdr6o...@4ax.com>,
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>I do think, as I said in my
>>original uptake, that the natives were a bit too quick on the uptake
>>regarding this "religious tolerance" meme.
>
> There is a great risk that their reaction will be "Tolerance? Ok,
>we'll just beat them with sticks then instead of burning them at
>the stake!" and "But you said that religious practices were allowed
>only as long as they wern't breaking any laws! They are praying to
>false gods! Surely that is against the law!"
> And perhaps "It was self defence! If we hadn't killed them God
>would have smitten us for allowing witches to live!"
Exactly my point. Blasphemy was still against the law in the United
States long after the First Amendment was ratified, although most
state constitutions contained an equivalent. It still is, in some
states, though such laws are not enforced and would not survive
constitutional scrutiny.
It's _hard_ to get people who take religion seriously to not try to
enforce their religion by means of law. It's _hard_ to get people to
give up being anti-semitic; it's _hard_ to get them to adopt the
naturalistic world-view to the extent that they'll say "laws against
witchcraft are silly because there aren't any witches." Hell, take a
look at the "West Memphis Three," who were, in the 20th century,
convicted based in part upon the testimony of an "expert" on the
"occult." In part of the nominally-civilized United States, we had a
witch trial, and we sent three boys who were almost certainly innocent
to prison based upon the results of that trial. And we've had over
two hundred years to get the idea of religious freedom.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
Greenbaum) wrote:
>In a fit of divine composition, rak...@mindspring.com inscribed
>in fleeting electrons:
>
>>Among Sephardic Jews?
>
>Yes. In Sephardic populations in Christian majority regions,
>intermarriage was virtually unknown. Even in the cosmopolitan
>Portuguese community in Amsterdam, intermarriage was
>extremely exceptional until the French Revolution.
I note the wiggle room you give yourself -- "virtually unknown" and
"extremely exceptional." Yes, it would certainly be _unusual_.
However, given both an unusual person (and Rebecca and her father are
clearly unusually bright and open to new ideas) and the right
circumstances, it doesn't seem wholly impossible.
Granted, it's something of a coincidence that Stearns runs into such
an unusual pair, but that's a different critique.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
<joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>Yes, I know that there are indeed Jews who get their knickers in a
>>knot about intermarriage. Even so, she's being asked to marry the
>>head of state of a new country that promises religious tolerance.
>>Given that scenario, acceptance of the marriage is not wholly
>>implausible.
>
>You just don't get it, Pete.
Perhaps not, but your extremely emotional reaction isn't getting you
very far.
>
>>>this came around Eric was kind enough to explain that the family were
>>>traders and could see the potential for profit here. I do not think
>>>words exist to express my outrage; at the time I merely asked how much
>>>profit it would take for him to sleep with his mother.
>
>>You may wish to believe that the taboo against intermarriage was as
>>strong then as the taboo against mother-son incest is now, but I think
>>that's wishful thinking on your part.
>
>I don't know if you can quantify taboos, but they don't come down to a
>matter of dollars and cents and it's amazingly, incredibly insulting
>to suggest that they. It's even more insulting because, were I to be
>the sort of person who characterises things unfairly, I could describe
>Eric Flint's position as being "Jews will abandon their most basic
>principles if you wave enough cash at them." His statement was very,
>very close to that.
I don't recall his comments being that bad, though I must admit that I
didn't read the whole thread, in part because I didn't want to spoil
myself.
Still, it's an observed fact about humans that taboos and restrictions
regarding who can marry whom will tend to break down as one moves up
the social ladder. I'm not saying that Jews are particularly unique
in this respect; I just think that they're human. Having your
daughter marry a head of state is lot easier to tolerate than having
your daughter marry a ditchdigger. Add to that the fact this family
is depicted as being a family of religious freethinkers _and_ "New
America" (or whatever you call it) is promising religious tolerance,
and you might very well have a deal.
And Mr. Greenbaum did admit that intermarriage, while rare, did happen
from time to time in certain communities.
Perhaps you should be critical because it went down so easily with the
rest of the family. But Rebecca herself and her father, I can easily
believe.
--
Pete McCutchen
Eflint46312
the character of Simpson in 1632. I don't personally think it's fair to call
him a "caricature," because there are in fact plenty of CEOs with his mentality
in the world. That said, there's no question he is depicted in a completely
one-dimensional manner.
The reason for that was simply due to space considerations. 1632 is already a
very long book -- at 180K words, more than 50% longer than the average SF novel
-- and, given the plot of 1632, there was really no reason to develop Simpson
any more than I did. He only appears on stage in a couple of chapters, after
all, early in the novel. From then on, his function is simply to serve as an
offstage foil for the hero. There was no point in developing a sub-plot around
him. The book already has plenty of sub-plots, and if you try to do everything
in a novel you wind up not doing anything well at all.
He will figure more prominently in the sequel (1633), and will be a less
one-dimensional figure.
Eric
PS. On another issue, I can assure everyone that I did not toss in Julie Sims'
training for the biathlon in order to lay the basis for a desperate ski chase
in a sequel. I wasn't planning a sequel at all, at that stage. The only
reason I tossed in the biathlon business was because it seemed a neat and
simple way to illustrate her shooting prowess. I could have used something
else, I suppose, but... I didn't. To be honest, I fail to see why the biathlon
is an "extraneous plot element" and something else (such as a shooting
competition) wouldn't be. Either one of them is simply a narrative device to
develop a character in the reader's mind.
Now that there _is_ going to be a sequel (at least two, actually), however, the
idea of a desperate ski chase... hm... well, maybe... :)
Pete McCutchen
>PS. On another issue, I can assure everyone that I did not toss in Julie Sims'
>training for the biathlon in order to lay the basis for a desperate ski chase
>in a sequel. I wasn't planning a sequel at all, at that stage. The only
>reason I tossed in the biathlon business was because it seemed a neat and
>simple way to illustrate her shooting prowess. I could have used something
>else, I suppose, but... I didn't. To be honest, I fail to see why the biathlon
>is an "extraneous plot element" and something else (such as a shooting
>competition) wouldn't be. Either one of them is simply a narrative device to
>develop a character in the reader's mind.
>
>Now that there _is_ going to be a sequel (at least two, actually), however, the
>idea of a desperate ski chase... hm... well, maybe... :)
Forget the ski chase -- I want her back in that cheerleader outfit!
--
Pete McCutchen
Jordan S. Bassior
>They're Sephardic, they're Marranos (meaning they posed as Christians for a
>while, a generation or so back), and the father had been "expelled" by the
>rabbis of Amsterdam because he's a religious freethinker. (Rather like
>Spinoza.)
And I think most of this gets mentioned in their first appearance on-stage,
just before the mercenaries jump their coach.
--
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
--
"To urge the preparation of defence is not to assert the imminence of war. On
the contrary, if war were imminent, preparations for defense would be too
late." (Churchill, 1934)
--
Jordan S. Bassior
>I don't know if you can quantify taboos, but they don't come down to a
>matter of dollars and cents and it's amazingly, incredibly insulting
>to suggest that they
Taboos come in differing degrees of severity. Most women would rather take a
dump in public than kill and eat their own babies, for instance.
J.B Moreno
> In a fit of divine composition, Pete McCutchen
> <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> inscribed in fleeting electrons:
>
> >>Yes. In Sephardic populations in Christian majority regions,
> >>intermarriage was virtually unknown. Even in the cosmopolitan
> >>Portuguese community in Amsterdam, intermarriage was
> >>extremely exceptional until the French Revolution.
> >
> >I note the wiggle room you give yourself -- "virtually unknown" and
> >"extremely exceptional."
>
> I don't have access to the resources that would allow me to quantify the
> number of mixed-marriages in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century.
> (They do exist) I won't commit to absolutes without complete certainty.
> I can pontificate for hours, tho, on the Jewish communities in Berlin
> and Frankfurt. Well, the one in Berlin didn't exist at the time of the
> story. Less than one intermarriage per decade in Frankfurt's community.
Which is quite enough to say that the intermarriage in 1632 could have
happened.
> Intermarriages *also* never happened at lower levels of class
> stratification. When they did happen, it was usually the marriage of a
> public apostate, an advocate against the local community, as it were, into
> a Christian family - it was strictly a extraordinarily rare, upperclass
> thing, as far as it went.
And this marriage is happening at the highest levels of both societies.
> Going further than this, marriage isolation was *mutual*. Betrothals
> were not love matches, but contracted engagements, in both the Jewish
> and the Christian communities. The forms by which marriages were
> arranged were *very* public. Community disapproval, therefore, had wide
> avenues of expression in preventing intermarriage.
In this case it wouldn't be mutual -- and Rebecca has left (presumably
permanently) her former community (which neither she nor her father
seems to have approved of in the first place).
> >Yes, it would certainly be _unusual_.
>
> Powerfully unusual. VERY VERY VERY unusual. Scandalous whenever it
> happened, with very loud echoing consequences down generations.
No one is doubting this.
> Certainly public mourning for the betrothed. Expulsion of the woman or
> man from the kehillah, certainly. And this shows another problem - civic
> identity for Jews came from their community, as provided by patent of a
> town council or a noble. If one was expelled from the Jewish community,
> one could lose the right to residency in a city, and certainly the legal
> protections provided by the noble authority. Bad.
What's a kehillah? As for the other stuff, she is moving into another
Jewish community, one which doesn't view it as a big deal.
> >However, given both an unusual person (and Rebecca and her father are
> >clearly unusually bright and open to new ideas) and the right
> >circumstances, it doesn't seem wholly impossible.
>
> You are so late 20th century, Pete.
Yeah, but so are half the characters.
> >Granted, it's something of a coincidence that Stearns runs into such
> >an unusual pair, but that's a different critique.
>
> There are liberties that an author can take for dramatic purpose. It
> isn't my work, so I no have no right to re-write the book. I'm not
> even mildly interested in reproving Flint over something that made
> the book fail the suspension of reality test for me. (Yes, magical
> science won't make me blink, but severe cultural incongruities make
> me convulse). It's reasonably fluffy RahhRahhAmerica milscific.
Well, somethings rock you out of SoR and somethings don't -- it'd
certainly be stupid of me to argue that it didn't.
As for Joe Slater: people have had sex with close family members before,
public acceptance of this has generally been tied to their social
standing. I'll accept that it (the marriage) would be as offensive as
incest if you'll acknowledge that things which are considered insane
even in the extremely wealthy are just eccentricities when done by the
head of state of one of the strongest nations around.
--
JBM
"Moebius strippers only show you their back side." -- Unknown
Martin
article <3n9l8tssqmscunb9e...@4ax.com> Pete
McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
I do not think he was evil, just extraordinary stupid.
BTW, the danger of contagious diseases that he had
mentioned is a very real one.
To send back the locals makes no sense - Grantville needs
them, but not to make any precautions for quarantine is not
bright.
>--
>
>Pete McCutchen
Best wishes
Martin
--
If I had had the money during the last ten days, I would have
been able to make a good deal on the stock exchange. The time has
now come when with wit and very little money one can really make a
killing in London.
Karl Marx, 1864
Martin
article <j7tl8t0tk6ngoah29...@4ax.com> Joe
Slater <joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>>On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 06:37:29 GMT, Joe Slater
>><joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>>>With all due respect: you're not Jewish, Eric isn't Jewish, and
>>>neither of you can appreciate the cultural implications of this. When
>
>Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>Yes, I know that there are indeed Jews who get their knickers in a
>>knot about intermarriage. Even so, she's being asked to marry the
>>head of state of a new country that promises religious tolerance.
>>Given that scenario, acceptance of the marriage is not wholly
>>implausible.
>
>You just don't get it, Pete.
ObBible:
Were Queen Esther and her family reviled and excommunicated
by the Jewish community?
>
>>>this came around Eric was kind enough to explain that the family were
>>>traders and could see the potential for profit here. I do not think
>>>words exist to express my outrage; at the time I merely asked how much
>>>profit it would take for him to sleep with his mother.
>
>>You may wish to believe that the taboo against intermarriage was as
>>strong then as the taboo against mother-son incest is now, but I think
>>that's wishful thinking on your part.
>
>I don't know if you can quantify taboos, but they don't come down to a
>matter of dollars and cents and it's amazingly, incredibly insulting
>to suggest that they. It's even more insulting because, were I to be
>the sort of person who characterises things unfairly, I could describe
>Eric Flint's position as being "Jews will abandon their most basic
>principles if you wave enough cash at them." His statement was very,
>very close to that.
>
>jds
>--
>A penguin, found by police wandering dazed and confused in suburban
>Melbourne, was treated today for depression.
>_The Age_, 2 February 2001
>http://www.theage.com.au/frontpage/2001/02/02/FFXYM5B7PIC.html
Martin
article <96f84f$1t8...@cit.cornell.edu> dj...@cornell.edu
(David Joseph Greenbaum) wrote:
>In a fit of divine composition, Pete McCutchen
><p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> inscribed in fleeting electrons:
>
>>>Yes. In Sephardic populations in Christian majority regions,
>>>intermarriage was virtually unknown. Even in the cosmopolitan
>>>Portuguese community in Amsterdam, intermarriage was
>>>extremely exceptional until the French Revolution.
>>
>>I note the wiggle room you give yourself -- "virtually unknown" and
>>"extremely exceptional."
>
>I don't have access to the resources that would allow me to quantify the
>number of mixed-marriages in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century.
>(They do exist) I won't commit to absolutes without complete certainty.
>I can pontificate for hours, tho, on the Jewish communities in Berlin
>and Frankfurt. Well, the one in Berlin didn't exist at the time of the
>story. Less than one intermarriage per decade in Frankfurt's community.
> Intermarriages *also* never happened at lower levels of class
>stratification. When they did happen, it was usually the marriage of a
>public apostate, an advocate against the local community, as it were,
>into a Christian family - it was strictly a extraordinarily rare,
>upperclass thing, as far as it went.
>
>Going further than this, marriage isolation was *mutual*. Betrothals
>were not love matches, but contracted engagements, in both the Jewish
>and the Christian communities. The forms by which marriages were
>arranged were *very* public. Community disapproval, therefore, had wide
>avenues of expression in preventing intermarriage.
>
>>Yes, it would certainly be _unusual_.
>
>Powerfully unusual. VERY VERY VERY unusual. Scandalous whenever it
>happened, with very loud echoing consequences down generations.
>Certainly public mourning for the betrothed. Expulsion of the woman or
>man from the kehillah, certainly. And this shows another problem -
>civic identity for Jews came from their community, as provided by patent
>of a town council or a noble. If one was expelled from the
>Jewish community, one could lose the right to residency in a city, and
>certainly the legal protections provided by the noble authority. Bad.
Rebecca's father had been already expelled from his
community (Amsterdam). At the time of the story, the family
has nothing to lose.
>
>>However, given both an unusual person (and Rebecca and her father are
>>clearly unusually bright and open to new ideas) and the right
>>circumstances, it doesn't seem wholly impossible.
>
>You are so late 20th century, Pete.
>
>>Granted, it's something of a coincidence that Stearns runs into such
>>an unusual pair, but that's a different critique.
>
>There are liberties that an author can take for dramatic purpose. It
>isn't my work, so I no have no right to re-write the book. I'm not
>even mildly interested in reproving Flint over something that made
>the book fail the suspension of reality test for me. (Yes, magical
>science won't make me blink, but severe cultural incongruities make
>me convulse). It's reasonably fluffy RahhRahhAmerica milscific.
>
>Dave G.
>--
>
>You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
>Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
>Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
>The hell where youth and laughter go. >-< Siegfried Sassoon
Jeffrey C. Dege
>>Certainly public mourning for the betrothed. Expulsion of the woman or
>>man from the kehillah, certainly. And this shows another problem -
>>civic identity for Jews came from their community, as provided by patent
>>of a town council or a noble. If one was expelled from the
>>Jewish community, one could lose the right to residency in a city, and
>>certainly the legal protections provided by the noble authority. Bad.
>
>Rebecca's father had been already expelled from his
>community (Amsterdam). At the time of the story, the family
>has nothing to lose.
Perhaps the odd thing here is not that Rebecca and her father, having
already been ostracized from the Jewish community, would take up with
the WVers, but that her extended family would be willing to accept them
after they had done so.
--
"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of
that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put
more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it
might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not
otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be
otherwise.'"
-- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland"
rak...@mindspring.com
Dege) wrote:
>On Thu, 15 Feb 2001 05:01:54 GMT, Martin <arti...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>>Certainly public mourning for the betrothed. Expulsion of the woman or
>>>man from the kehillah, certainly. And this shows another problem -
>>>civic identity for Jews came from their community, as provided by patent
>>>of a town council or a noble. If one was expelled from the
>>>Jewish community, one could lose the right to residency in a city, and
>>>certainly the legal protections provided by the noble authority. Bad.
>>
>>Rebecca's father had been already expelled from his
>>community (Amsterdam). At the time of the story, the family
>>has nothing to lose.
>
>Perhaps the odd thing here is not that Rebecca and her father, having
>already been ostracized from the Jewish community, would take up with
>the WVers, but that her extended family would be willing to accept them
>after they had done so.
Her extended family explicitly states that marriage outside the faith
is not a problem, and is an established precedent. At least, that
branch of it that comes from, er, is it the Byzantine or Ottoman
Empire at this point? Anyway, this may represent a factual error, but
it is clear evidence that Flint at least considered the problem.
J.B Moreno
> !Poof! have gone Abrabanel's bona-fides in every Community between the
> Rhine and the Vistula, North Sea and Mediterranean. He's a slack-faith
> freethinker who has married his apostate daughter to a non-Jew for
> personal gain. (This is the way it gets interpreted. No romantic love
> in the 17th century. Abrabanel chose this marriage, not his daughter.)
Since he's marrying her off to a head of state, one who will be
extremely accepting of Jews, might they not view it as marrying her off
for the benefit of the Jews?
After all, a place where they can worship freely and without fear, where
they are treated fairly and without prejudice, ought to be worth a lot.
Certainly a daughter.
Joe Slater
>>You just don't get it, Pete.
arti...@my-deja.com (Martin) wrote:
>ObBible:
>
>Were Queen Esther and her family reviled and excommunicated
>by the Jewish community?
Esther was raped; it wasn't voluntary. She hardly had a choice about
it. In the Bible her cousin, Mordechai, comforts her by saying "Maybe
you went through this ordeal so you would be in a position to save
your family."
Joe Slater
>Her extended family explicitly states that marriage outside the faith
>is not a problem, and is an established precedent. At least, that
>branch of it that comes from, er, is it the Byzantine or Ottoman
>Empire at this point? Anyway, this may represent a factual error, but
>it is clear evidence that Flint at least considered the problem.
"But professor, surely nothing can travel faster than light?"
- "Oh, it turned out that that was just a theory. Anyway, as I was
saying, the Murgatroyd Drive ..."
Bertil Jonell
Bertil Jonell <d9be...@dtek.chalmers.se> wrote:
>In article <96e4nq$g9v$1...@news.su.se>,
>Bo Lindbergh <d88...@bitbucket.nada.kth.se.invalid> wrote:
>>This proves that she's another element (along with
>>king Gustav) inserted by Flint to sell the book to Swedes.
>
> I doubt any large portion of the sales will come from Sweden,
>anything over 1000 copies going here would highly surprise me.
I better add: not because I think it is bad(1) but because SF
is a fringe market here, and semi-AH SF doubly so.
(1) My *only* beef with 1632 is that I think that GA is far far
to accepting towards democracy. He don't like nobles, sure,
but that is because he and his ancestors have spent enormous
amounts of blood and effort to establish an Absolute monarchy,
the concentration of all power in society (much of it previously
held by the nobles) in the monarch.
He is quite likley to think of Democracy as 'every Farmer a
Noble', and that will really make him blow his top, especially
since the concept of nationalism isn't there yet. Its really
an 'Out of Context Problem' for GA.
>-bertil-
-bertil-
--
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
exercise for your kill-file."
Joe Slater
>> !Poof! have gone Abrabanel's bona-fides in every Community between the
>> Rhine and the Vistula, North Sea and Mediterranean. He's a slack-faith
>> freethinker who has married his apostate daughter to a non-Jew for
>> personal gain. (This is the way it gets interpreted. No romantic love
>> in the 17th century. Abrabanel chose this marriage, not his daughter.)
pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) wrote:
>Since he's marrying her off to a head of state, one who will be
>extremely accepting of Jews, might they not view it as marrying her off
>for the benefit of the Jews?
>
>After all, a place where they can worship freely and without fear, where
>they are treated fairly and without prejudice, ought to be worth a lot.
>Certainly a daughter.
How much do you think Jews generally sell their daughters for?
JoatSimeon
>I could describe Eric Flint's position as being "Jews will abandon their most
basic
principles if you wave enough cash at them."
-- actually, it was more like "wealthy financiers care less about ethnic taboos
and more about money and power than most people".
Whether they're Jews, Muslims, Christians, or Buddhists.
Note the behavior of the Rothschilds in 19th-century Europe.
-- S.M. Stirling
Rick
news:ns5n8t4md047grlt4...@4ax.com...
> How much do you think Jews generally sell their daughters for?
>
Back in the 1600's? About as cheap as anyone else, I would imagine...which
wasn't that expensive.
Pete McCutchen
<joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) wrote:
>>Since he's marrying her off to a head of state, one who will be
>>extremely accepting of Jews, might they not view it as marrying her off
>>for the benefit of the Jews?
>>
>>After all, a place where they can worship freely and without fear, where
>>they are treated fairly and without prejudice, ought to be worth a lot.
>>Certainly a daughter.
>
>How much do you think Jews generally sell their daughters for?
It's not a "Jew" thing, Joe. There have been marriages which occurred
for reasons of state among non-Jews, in just about every human
culture, for thousands of years.
--
Pete McCutchen
Jordan S. Bassior
>rak...@mindspring.com wrote:
>>Her extended family explicitly states that marriage outside the faith
>>is not a problem, and is an established precedent. At least, that
>>branch of it that comes from, er, is it the Byzantine or Ottoman
>>Empire at this point? Anyway, this may represent a factual error, but
>>it is clear evidence that Flint at least considered the problem.
>
>"But professor, surely nothing can travel faster than light?"
>- "Oh, it turned out that that was just a theory. Anyway, as I was
>saying, the Murgatroyd Drive ..."
The cultural prohibition against out-group marriage is hardly as firm as the
speed of light limitation for material objects.
Jordan S. Bassior
>How much do you think Jews generally sell their daughters for?
In pre-industrial times, generally in return for a family alliance with someone
at least as wealthy or powerful as the family she came from. As did families of
all other faiths.
J.B Moreno
> >David Joseph Greenbaum <dj...@cornell.edu> wrote:
> >> !Poof! have gone Abrabanel's bona-fides in every Community between the
> >> Rhine and the Vistula, North Sea and Mediterranean. He's a slack-faith
> >> freethinker who has married his apostate daughter to a non-Jew for
> >> personal gain. (This is the way it gets interpreted. No romantic love
> >> in the 17th century. Abrabanel chose this marriage, not his daughter.)
>
> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) wrote:
> >Since he's marrying her off to a head of state, one who will be
> >extremely accepting of Jews, might they not view it as marrying
> >her off for the benefit of the Jews?
> >
> >After all, a place where they can worship freely and without fear, where
> >they are treated fairly and without prejudice, ought to be worth a lot.
> >Certainly a daughter.
>
> How much do you think Jews generally sell their daughters for?
I'll be generous and say it was twice the price that everyone else was
selling their daughters at -- i.e. dirt cheap.
(David just got done saying that marriage's were arranged, not done out
of love, so the question isn't whether her father intended to sell her,
the question is for how much and for whose benefit. I'm suggesting that
he tell them a believable lie [that he did it for the general benefit of
his people], instead of telling them the truth which they will not
believe).
BTW -- David, several people have made post which leads me to believe
that on several notable occasions Jews did marry into the Royalty of
various non-Jewish nations. Since you've studied the period, is that
correct, and if it is, why do you consider this any different?
J.B Moreno
> In a fit of divine composition, pl...@newsreaders.com
> (J.B Moreno) inscribed in fleeting electrons:
>
> >BTW -- David, several people have made post which leads me to believe
> >that on several notable occasions Jews did marry into the Royalty of
> >various non-Jewish nations. Since you've studied the period, is that
> >correct, and if it is, why do you consider this any different?
>
> Not this late, or this early, in Europe. Before the twelfth century, or
> at and after the end of the eighteenth, it certainly would be possible.
> In Muslim central Asia, certainly possible during this period. But not
> in the first half of the seventeenth century. Jews didn't have the
> social standing to marry into nobility, as they were (essentially)
> bondsmen of the sovereign.
This sounds as if the biggest problem wasn't Jewish rejection of
marrying into the nobility, but the nobility's rejecting the Jews.
Which would mean that this could be taken as a very strong statement
that Jews would be treated fairly in the new United States, and put in
that light (which is most likely how they would take it, as you say, no
love-matches) it seems to me it'd be acceptable to at least some of the
family (and the branch of the family that we saw in 1632 was from a
Muslim nation...).
> Even wealthy "court" Jews very rarely were confirmed as civic equals of
> Christians - I think the first one to be so recognized was Samuel
> Oppenheimer in Vienna at the end of the seventeenth century. There were
> many other ways to extort wealth from a Jew than to marry his daughters.
But this is the reverse of that -- what else could they (the WV's) do
that would be seen as a commitment to treating them (the Jews) as civic
equals?
Martin Bonham
> Yeah. So? The Abrabanel girl is turning public apostate. *That* is
> what intermarriage means. It's like putting a swastika armband on
> and throwing shit at an American flag in front of a school on
Memorial
> Day. Intermarriage, until the very late decades of the eighteenth
> century, was a means of cutting oneself completely off from the
Community -
> because the shock and outrage of members of the Community would
> proceed to demand expulsion.
[snip]
> !Poof! have gone Abrabanel's bona-fides in every Community between
> the Rhine and the Vistula, North Sea and Mediterranean. He's a
> slack-faith freethinker who has married his apostate daughter to a
non-Jew for
> personal gain. (This is the way it gets interpreted. No romantic
> love in the 17th century. Abrabanel chose this marriage, not his
> daughter.)
I am sure that this is a very dumb question, but my knowledge here
basically stops at the level of "children of a Jewish women are
(automatically?) Jewish"
I haven't reread _1632_ for about a year so I may be missing details,
but I don't recall any requirement that she had to convert to another
faith.
What happens if some or all of their children are brought up in the
Jewish Faith?
Apologies in advance if this question is also insulting.
Martin.
--
Martin Bonham, Auckland, (Aotearoa) New Zealand.
Home of the America's Cup
Jordan S. Bassior
Jews than 17th century Christians. We're clean, usually nonviolent save in self
defense, and respectful towards women. Which makes the marriage easier.
Joe Slater
><mj...@REMOVETHISinternet.co.nz.invalid> inscribed in fleeting electrons:
>>What happens if some or all of their children are brought up in the
>>Jewish Faith?
dj...@cornell.edu (David Joseph Greenbaum) wrote:
>Since the offspring from such a union are not recognized as coming from
>a legal marriage, they are mamzerim - bastards.
This isn't correct. They're not mamzerim; mamzerim are the product of
adultery, incest, and I think that's it.
Karen Lofstrom
: Since he's marrying her off to a head of state, one who will be
: extremely accepting of Jews, might they not view it as marrying her off
: for the benefit of the Jews?
I seem to recall a celebrated Jewish concubine named Esther, married to a
non-Jew.
--
Karen Lofstrom SCIENTOLOGIST BAIT lofs...@lava.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------
OT7-48 1. Find some plants, trees, etc., and communicate to them
individually until you know they received your communication.
Karen Lofstrom
: Esther was raped; it wasn't voluntary. She hardly had a choice about
: it. In the Bible her cousin, Mordechai, comforts her by saying "Maybe
: you went through this ordeal so you would be in a position to save
: your family."
I just finished rereading Esther. I must say, that's a very interesting
gloss on the document. With nothing to support it :)
The translation in my New English Bible runs: "Who knows whether it is not
for such a time as this that you have come to royal estate?" Does not
suggest rape at all, nor does anything else in the text.
If Joe is putting forward a traditional Jewish interpretation, it strikes
me as rabbinical retconning in support of a no-intermarriage policy.
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why not? I pay taxes. I live free of uranium. -- Bill Bill
Joe Slater
>: Esther was raped; it wasn't voluntary. She hardly had a choice about
>: it. In the Bible her cousin, Mordechai, comforts her by saying "Maybe
>: you went through this ordeal so you would be in a position to save
>: your family."
Karen Lofstrom <lofs...@lava.net> wrote:
>I just finished rereading Esther. I must say, that's a very interesting
>gloss on the document. With nothing to support it :)
The king strips the monarchy from his first wife. He demands that all
the virgins of the kingdom come to him. They spend one night with him,
then become his concubines. When it was Esther's turn the king decided
to make her his new queen.
Now, that's not courtship. It's not a free marriage. I think I'm
justified in calling it rape.
Stevie Gamble
pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) writes:
>Joe Slater <joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>
>> >David Joseph Greenbaum <dj...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>> >> !Poof! have gone Abrabanel's bona-fides in every Community between the
>> >> Rhine and the Vistula, North Sea and Mediterranean. He's a slack-faith
>> >> freethinker who has married his apostate daughter to a non-Jew for
>> >> personal gain. (This is the way it gets interpreted. No romantic love
>> >> in the 17th century. Abrabanel chose this marriage, not his daughter.)
>>
>> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) wrote:
>> >Since he's marrying her off to a head of state, one who will be
>> >extremely accepting of Jews, might they not view it as marrying
>> >her off for the benefit of the Jews?
>> >
>> >After all, a place where they can worship freely and without fear, where
>> >they are treated fairly and without prejudice, ought to be worth a lot.
>> >Certainly a daughter.
>>
>> How much do you think Jews generally sell their daughters for?
>
>I'll be generous and say it was twice the price that everyone else was
>selling their daughters at -- i.e. dirt cheap.
No. Your conviction that women were treated at that time as no better than
cattle, and sometimes worse, is true in some cases, but it is not so in all
cases.
>(David just got done saying that marriage's were arranged, not done out
>of love, so the question isn't whether her father intended to sell her,
>the question is for how much and for whose benefit.
No. The fact that a marriage is arranged does not exclude the possibility of
the parties loving each other; consider Ford's Tis a Pity She's a Whore,
written around this time though set somewhat earlier ( there are, for example,
no references to firearms in the play. ) The heroine's father introduces her to
a number of suitable suitors (g), and tells her, and others, that he wishes
her to have love in her marriage, since he is wealthy enough not to have to
seek a rich brideprice. The patriarchal structure of society at that time is
reflected in the conviction that she must have a husband, not that she must be
sold.
--
Stevie Gamble
'Only those with no memory insist on their originality.'
Coco Chanel
Pete McCutchen
<joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>Karen Lofstrom <lofs...@lava.net> wrote:
>>I just finished rereading Esther. I must say, that's a very interesting
>>gloss on the document. With nothing to support it :)
>
>The king strips the monarchy from his first wife. He demands that all
>the virgins of the kingdom come to him. They spend one night with him,
>then become his concubines. When it was Esther's turn the king decided
>to make her his new queen.
>
>Now, that's not courtship. It's not a free marriage. I think I'm
>justified in calling it rape.
By our standards, sure. But there's a lot of stuff in the Bible that
looks bad, by our standards. Consider (obsf), having kids torn apart
by bears for making fun of an old guy for being bald. What sort of
villain would do that?
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
Greenbaum) wrote:
>In a fit of divine composition, pl...@newsreaders.com
>(J.B Moreno) inscribed in fleeting electrons:
>
>>BTW -- David, several people have made post which leads me to believe
>>that on several notable occasions Jews did marry into the Royalty of
>>various non-Jewish nations. Since you've studied the period, is that
>>correct, and if it is, why do you consider this any different?
>
>Not this late, or this early, in Europe. Before the twelfth century, or
>at and after the end of the eighteenth, it certainly would be possible.
>In Muslim central Asia, certainly possible during this period. But not
>in the first half of the seventeenth century. Jews didn't have the
>social standing to marry into nobility, as they were (essentially)
Not to be overly blunt, but that wasn't a reason Jews wouldn't marry
royalty -- it's a reason royalty wouldn't marry Jews. In this case,
that rationale doesn't apply, as Mike Stearns isn't interested in her
"social standing." He's got the "romantic love" meme, and he loves
her.
>bondsmen of the sovereign. Even wealthy "court" Jews very rarely were
>confirmed as civic equals of Christians - I think the first one to be so
>recognized was Samuel Oppenheimer in Vienna at the end of the
>seventeenth century. There were many other ways to extort wealth from a
>Jew than to marry his daughters.
And you don't think that Jews would be interested in a state which
confirmed them as the civic equals of Christians?
If you were to object on the grounds that the German immigrants to
"New America," or whatever it's called, won't just accept the notion
of giving Jews equality, well, I'll agree with that suggestion. But
all the information which you're providing about this period suggests
that Rebecca's family would jump at the chance to marry the head of
this new polity.
--
Pete McCutchen
J.B Moreno
> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) writes:
> >Joe Slater <joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
-snip-
> >> How much do you think Jews generally sell their daughters for?
> >
> >I'll be generous and say it was twice the price that everyone else was
> >selling their daughters at -- i.e. dirt cheap.
>
> No. Your conviction that women were treated at that time as no better than
> cattle, and sometimes worse, is true in some cases, but it is not so in all
> cases.
You misstate my conviction -- it isn't that women were treated no better
than cattle, it is that people (both male and female) were treated no
better than cattle (or at least not much better).
> >(David just got done saying that marriage's were arranged, not done out
> >of love, so the question isn't whether her father intended to sell her,
> >the question is for how much and for whose benefit.
>
> No. The fact that a marriage is arranged does not exclude the possibility
> of the parties loving each other; consider Ford's Tis a Pity She's a
> Whore, written around this time though set somewhat earlier ( there are,
> for example, no references to firearms in the play. ) The heroine's father
> introduces her to a number of suitable suitors (g), and tells her, and
> others, that he wishes her to have love in her marriage, since he is
> wealthy enough not to have to seek a rich brideprice. The patriarchal
> structure of society at that time is reflected in the conviction that she
> must have a husband, not that she must be sold.
So, there's nothing that he wants that her marriage can get him, so he
leaves it up to her. This doesn't contradict what I said, in fact it
reinforces it since it says that if there WAS something that he wanted
that her marriage could be used to acquire, that he could and presumably
would, use her to do so. Not that this means that he's a monster, he'd
still want her to be happy, but love wasn't considered a prerequisite
for happiness in a marriage.
And if you think I'm thinking of strictly a brideprice then again you're
mistaken -- sons and daughters are the perfect way to seal business
alliances, just as they are for national treaties. Which makes sense in
situations where there is very little recourse to double dealing. They
are both hostages and promises of good faith.
J.B Moreno
> In a fit of divine composition, pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) inscribed
> in fleeting electrons:
>
> >This sounds as if the biggest problem wasn't Jewish rejection of
> >marrying into the nobility, but the nobility's rejecting the Jews.
>
> Don't make the error of weighting factors, here. I was explaining why
> nobility marrying into the Jewish population was unthinkable for the
> noble population. The restrictions going the other way were even more
> forbidding.
OK, but the restrictions from the nobility are not really relevant in
this situation -- it's not a bunch of 17th century aristocrats who
believe their own hype.
> >Which would mean that this could be taken as a very strong statement
> >that Jews would be treated fairly in the new United States, and put in
> >that light (which is most likely how they would take it, as you say, no
> >love-matches) it seems to me it'd be acceptable to at least some of the
> >family (and the branch of the family that we saw in 1632 was from a
> >Muslim nation...).
>
> Doesn't mean that intermarriage becomes acceptable. Jews were being
> very well treated in Spain under the western Caliphate - but rates of
> intermarriage (for the communities we have information on) were just as
> low in the ninth century as they were in Iran in the nineteenth.
I don't think the question is how generally acceptable it would be, but
rather how large the objections would be, and whether it is believable
that certain specific individuals would be accepting.
> >> Even wealthy "court" Jews very rarely were confirmed as civic equals of
> >> Christians - I think the first one to be so recognized was Samuel
> >> Oppenheimer in Vienna at the end of the seventeenth century. There were
> >> many other ways to extort wealth from a Jew than to marry his daughters.
> >
> >But this is the reverse of that -- what else could they (the WV's) do
> >that would be seen as a commitment to treating them (the Jews) as civic
> >equals?
>
> Full civil rights, residential freedom, occupational freedom, etc. would
> say a lot more to a bunch of post-Gaonic maggiddim about West Virginian
> benevolence to Jews than intermarriage would. Really.
But you've got to demonstrate those over a period of time, just saying
"hey we're the good guys, come over and live the good life" could be
viewed with a bit of scepticism.
Pete McCutchen
Greenbaum) wrote:
>>But this is the reverse of that -- what else could they (the WV's) do
>>that would be seen as a commitment to treating them (the Jews) as civic
>>equals?
>
>Full civil rights, residential freedom, occupational freedom, etc. would
>say a lot more to a bunch of post-Gaonic maggiddim about West Virginian
>benevolence to Jews than intermarriage would. Really.
They're getting that, too, David.
Let me ask you this. Do you object to Rebecca herself marrying him?
Or to her father accepting it? Or to the larger extended family
accepting it? Because, even if everything you've said is true, I
don't really have a problem with the first two.
--
Pete McCutchen
Mark Atwood
>
> Let me ask you this. Do you object to Rebecca herself marrying him?
> Or to her father accepting it? Or to the larger extended family
> accepting it? Because, even if everything you've said is true, I
> don't really have a problem with the first two.
It sounds to me of first reading more like he objects not because he
doesn't believe that it could happen that way, but that he doesn't
like the idea that it may.
A subtle difference, but a real one.
--
Mark Atwood | I'm wearing black only until I find something darker.
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Stevie Gamble
pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) writes:
>Stevie Gamble <smg...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) writes:
>> >Joe Slater <joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>-snip-
>> >> How much do you think Jews generally sell their daughters for?
>> >
>> >I'll be generous and say it was twice the price that everyone else was
>> >selling their daughters at -- i.e. dirt cheap.
>>
>> No. Your conviction that women were treated at that time as no better than
>> cattle, and sometimes worse, is true in some cases, but it is not so in all
>> cases.
>
>You misstate my conviction -- it isn't that women were treated no better
>than cattle, it is that people (both male and female) were treated no
>better than cattle (or at least not much better).
Actually, you have now changed your assertions, which is fine by me; it does
not, however, change the fact that you originally asserted that *all* women
were sold dirt cheap.
>> >(David just got done saying that marriage's were arranged, not done out
>> >of love, so the question isn't whether her father intended to sell her,
>> >the question is for how much and for whose benefit.
>>
>> No. The fact that a marriage is arranged does not exclude the possibility
>> of the parties loving each other; consider Ford's Tis a Pity She's a
>> Whore, written around this time though set somewhat earlier ( there are,
>> for example, no references to firearms in the play. ) The heroine's father
>> introduces her to a number of suitable suitors (g), and tells her, and
>> others, that he wishes her to have love in her marriage, since he is
>> wealthy enough not to have to seek a rich brideprice. The patriarchal
>> structure of society at that time is reflected in the conviction that she
>> must have a husband, not that she must be sold.
>
>So, there's nothing that he wants that her marriage can get him, so he
>leaves it up to her.
Actually, there may have been any number of things which he wanted, and which
he could have pursued via a specific marriage; he chose not to. He loved her. I
think you might find it helpful to read the play.
>This doesn't contradict what I said, in fact it
>reinforces it since it says that if there WAS something that he wanted
>that her marriage could be used to acquire, that he could and presumably
>would, use her to do so.
No. See above. You are contradicting yourself at an unusual rate; one moment
there's no doubt whatsoever that her father's selling her, the only questions
are the terms of the sale, and the next moment the fact that he isn't selling
her proves that he was selling her. I begin to suspect that your sig is doing
strange things to your thought processes; the Jewel of Judgement speeds one up,
whereas the Moebius stripper returns one to one's starting point in an
extremely convoluted fashion...
> Not that this means that he's a monster, he'd
>still want her to be happy, but love wasn't considered a prerequisite
>for happiness in a marriage.
Actually, the father thought that love *was* a prerequisite for happiness in a
marriage; that is why I have cited that particular play written at the time
that Eric Flint set his book. A playwright writing in the 1630s on precisely
that point is better authority on it than you writing in the year 2001.
>And if you think I'm thinking of strictly a brideprice then again you're
>mistaken -- sons and daughters are the perfect way to seal business
>alliances, just as they are for national treaties. Which makes sense in
>situations where there is very little recourse to double dealing. They
>are both hostages and promises of good faith.
I think we are back to the Moebius strip here; my reference to the brideprice
comes from Ford's play. General assertions don't displace specific evidence.
Jordan S. Bassior
>Actually, you have now changed your assertions, which is fine by me; it does
>not, however, change the fact that you originally asserted that *all* women
>were sold dirt cheap.
They were by _our_ standards. Incidentally, Rebecca is being "sold" to a man
whom she loves, in order to ally her family and by extension all the Jews of
Europe with the most economically and militarily dynamic new power on the
horizon, gaining them a secure sanctuary against oppression. That's hardly
"dirt cheap".
Eric D. Berge
<htgr...@MailAndNews.com> wrote:
>>===== Original Message From dj...@cornell.edu (David Joseph Greenbaum) =====
>>In a fit of divine composition, joats...@aol.com (JoatSimeon) inscribed
>>in fleeting electrons:
>>
>>>>With all due respect: you're not Jewish, Eric isn't Jewish, and neither of
>you
>>>can appreciate the cultural implications of this.
>>>
>>>-- depends on which Jews, where, and when. Attitudes towards intermarriage
>>>have varied widely.
>>
>>In Germany in the 1630's, attitudes toward intermarriage were quite
>>hardened and hostile.
>
>Among Askinazim or Sepharadim?
^^^^
"and"
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Berge
(remove _ for address)
Therefore since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
o_ \ > And train for ill and not for good.
<| ' ,_|
___/_>____o)____ - A.E. Housman, "A Shropshire Lad"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric D. Berge
>J.B Moreno <pl...@newsreaders.com> wrote:
>
>: Since he's marrying her off to a head of state, one who will be
>: extremely accepting of Jews, might they not view it as marrying her off
>: for the benefit of the Jews?
>
>I seem to recall a celebrated Jewish concubine named Esther, married to a
>non-Jew.
...by force.
Bad example.
J.B Moreno
> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) writes:
>
> >Stevie Gamble <smg...@aol.com> wrote:
> >
> >> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) writes:
> >> >Joe Slater <joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
> >-snip-
> >> >> How much do you think Jews generally sell their daughters for?
> >> >
> >> >I'll be generous and say it was twice the price that everyone else was
> >> >selling their daughters at -- i.e. dirt cheap.
> >>
> >> No. Your conviction that women were treated at that time as no better than
> >> cattle, and sometimes worse, is true in some cases, but it is not so in all
> >> cases.
> >
> >You misstate my conviction -- it isn't that women were treated no better
> >than cattle, it is that people (both male and female) were treated no
> >better than cattle (or at least not much better).
>
> Actually, you have now changed your assertions, which is fine by me; it does
> not, however, change the fact that you originally asserted that *all* women
> were sold dirt cheap.
That was a general statement, meant to respond to the implication that I
thought that the Jews were greedy-evil-daughter-pimps. As with any
general statement there are going to be exceptions: for instance, some
of the men were probably having too much fun raping their daughters to
sell them.
> >> >(David just got done saying that marriage's were arranged, not done
> >> >out of love, so the question isn't whether her father intended to sell
> >> >her, the question is for how much and for whose benefit.
> >>
> >> No. The fact that a marriage is arranged does not exclude the
> >> possibility of the parties loving each other; consider Ford's Tis a
> >> Pity She's a Whore, written around this time though set somewhat
> >> earlier ( there are, for example, no references to firearms in the
> >> play. ) The heroine's father introduces her to a number of suitable
> >> suitors (g), and tells her, and others, that he wishes her to have
> >> love in her marriage, since he is wealthy enough not to have to seek a
> >> rich brideprice. The patriarchal structure of society at that time is
> >> reflected in the conviction that she must have a husband, not that she
> >> must be sold.
> >
> >So, there's nothing that he wants that her marriage can get him, so he
> >leaves it up to her.
>
> Actually, there may have been any number of things which he wanted, and
> which he could have pursued via a specific marriage; he chose not to. He
> loved her.
You say that he goes around telling people that he doesn't have to sell
her because he is wealthy enough not to need the brideprice, which
indicates that he thinks he would sell her if he DID need it.
> I think you might find it helpful to read the play.
You know if it's online anywhere?
> >This doesn't contradict what I said, in fact it reinforces it since it
> >says that if there WAS something that he wanted that her marriage could
> >be used to acquire, that he could and presumably would, use her to do so.
>
> No. See above. You are contradicting yourself at an unusual rate; one
> moment there's no doubt whatsoever that her father's selling her, the only
> questions are the terms of the sale, and the next moment the fact that he
> isn't selling her proves that he was selling her. I begin to suspect that
> your sig is doing strange things to your thought processes;
I'd have to say that is effecting YOUR thought processes -- I never say
that he is selling her (I haven't read the story, I don't know what he
does). Perhaps you are confusing my comment upon what you said about
the play with my comments upon how the marriage in 1632 would be viewed?
> >Not that this means that he's a monster, he'd still want her to be happy,
> >but love wasn't considered a prerequisite for happiness in a marriage.
>
> Actually, the father thought that love *was* a prerequisite for happiness
> in a marriage; that is why I have cited that particular play written at
> the time that Eric Flint set his book. A playwright writing in the 1630s
> on precisely that point is better authority on it than you writing in the
> year 2001.
Ah, well change that to "not that people would have thought him a
monster because of it, as love wasn't considered a prerequisite for
happiness in a marriage".
> >And if you think I'm thinking of strictly a brideprice then again you're
> >mistaken -- sons and daughters are the perfect way to seal business
> >alliances, just as they are for national treaties. Which makes sense in
> >situations where there is very little recourse to double dealing. They
> >are both hostages and promises of good faith.
>
> I think we are back to the Moebius strip here; my reference to the
> brideprice comes from Ford's play. General assertions don't displace
> specific evidence.
Yeah, there are always people with one crazy view or another.
Personally I think that romantic love just about guarantees UNhappiness
in a marriage.
Karen Lofstrom
: The king strips the monarchy from his first wife. He demands that all
: the virgins of the kingdom come to him. They spend one night with him,
: then become his concubines. When it was Esther's turn the king decided
: to make her his new queen.
Not ALL the virgins in his empire! My translation reads, "Let beautiful
young virgins be sought out for your majesty; and let your majesty
appoint commissioners in all the provinces of your kingdom to bring all
these beautiful young virgins into the women's quarters in Susa the
capital city."
The king only wants the creme de la creme, not ALL the virgins.
There's nothing there that indicates that they're being forced. Nor that
they're coming willingly, I admit. However, the material that follows,
about how Esther was immediately seen to be particularly beautiful and
well-behaved, and how she was given special preferential treatment, and
how the king immmediately fell in love with her ... sheesh, that's the
stuff of beauty contests, of fairy tales. It's like Cinderella, with the
prince inviting all the eligible young women to the ball and finding his
true love.
: Now, that's not courtship. It's not a free marriage. I think I'm
: justified in calling it rape.
IF someone were writing this story today, from a brutally realistic point
of view, I imagine that she'd depict 95% of the virgins as being thrilled
at being chosen. Competing to be chosen. Their chance at the big time!
Their only route to wealth and power! Even if they don't become queen,
they get to spend the rest of their life in pampered luxury. 5% would be
sullen and miserable, but forced to go through with it because their
families insist, out of desire for influence or fear of reprisals (but
then this might be the case if the girls were being pushed into any
arranged marriage).
But everyone involved would have seen the king's beauty contest as a
completely *ordinary* course of events. If the king can commandeer men for
the armies, or use forced labor to build roads and monuments, what's a few
virgins here and there?
Sure, it's unfair. It's completely contrary to the Bill of Rights
and the British Constitution and UN human rights treaties ... but then so
is the "happy ending", in which the Jews are allowed to run amuck and
slaughter anyone they damn well please. Which made me shudder. This is the
OTHER side of unrestrained royal power. If you're on the receiving end,
you suffer. But if you have the king's favor, you can make your enemies
suffer -- in the same unfair way.
It seems to me that whoever wrote Esther had no problem with unrestrained
royal power, whether it's commandeering virgins or letting a minority
treat other citizens unfairly. Nor did the author have any problem with a
nice Jewish girl marrying a gentile. Bringing those particular concerns to
the story is the work of later times.
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole."
-- Evelyn Waugh
Jeffrey C. Dege
>>>
>>>In Germany in the 1630's, attitudes toward intermarriage were quite
>>>hardened and hostile.
>>
>>Among Askinazim or Sepharadim?
> ^^^^
>"and"
Perhaps. But on rereading 1632 just now, I noticed something. On page
352 Don Francisco Nasi, the cousin from Istanbul, says, "We Turkish
Sephardim, you know, are quite accustomed to marrying outside the faith."
Were the attitudes of the Jews in Turkey different from those in Germany?
--
Bicameralism is [...] conducive to gridlock. But there are 6 billion people
on this planet and about 5.7 billion of them would be better off if they
lived under governments more susceptible to gridlock. Gridlock is not
an American problem, it is an American achievement.
- George Will
Eflint46312
nothing sillier than an author trying to argue "for" his writings. But since
the wrangle over the "legitimacy" of my portrayal of the Jews in the novel --
their willingness to marry gentiles, to be precise -- has now gone on for some
time, I thought I'd make a few comments.
The first is that the novel depicts Sephardic Jews, not Jews in general. The
Sephardim, at the time of the novel, were a shattered community uprooted from
Iberia and dispersed across all of Europe, North Africa, the Levant and Turkey.
The notion some people seem to have that such a community would retain
uniformity of belief and practice is... bizarre. Frankly, it says more, I
think, about their own wishes than about historical reality.
The fact is that the Sephardim were _never_ as "fanatical" about their faith as
the Ashkenazim. It is a well-known historic fact that approximately half of
the Sephardic Jews in Spain itself converted to Christianity under the hammer
of the Inquisition and the Dominican-led pogroms. The "conversion" was forced,
to be sure. But the fact that 50% of the Sephardim were willing to do it
rather than face exile, martyrdom or pogroms is significant. The Askenazim
were also often persecuted, but there is no comparable instance of mass
conversion -- faked and forced as it may have been -- among Ashkenazim.
Why the difference? I don't think there's any mystery to it at all. For
centuries -- since Roman times -- the Sephardic tradition had been one of
cultural assimilation, not exclusivism. They were also, throughout the middle
ages and into the early modern period, probably the most cosmopolitan people in
Europe. And also one of the most well-traveled. About as different a cultural
background as could be imagined, other than being part of Judaism, to the
Ashkenazim in eastern Europe.
Throughout history, whether for good or ill, cosmopolitanism and cultural
assimilationism invariably undermines rigid customs and notions of what
constitutes "proper practice." That has been true for every society I can
think of. Why should the Jews of Iberia be any different?
After the Spanish expulsion, the Sephardim existed in many "grades" of
adherence to the faith. There were some who never budged at all, others who
became genuine Christian converts -- some ex-Sephardim became prominent figures
in the Inquisition -- and others in every imaginable stage in between. Many
continued to try to practice their faith secretly, without having any clear
idea exactly what the rituals and customs were.
To believe that such a community would react uniformly to _anything_ is sheer
nonsense. Appealing to the existing marital records of Jews in a few cities in
Holland and Germany, as one of my critics has done, is laughable. Why in the
world does he think those records are accurate in the first place? Even
_modern_ records using modern statistical methods can't be relied on without
careful scrutiny -- much less the records of a handful of scattered communities
almost four centuries ago. Especially since the people compiling the records
would have had a vested interest in ignoring those who didn't fit neatly into
their categories.
Did intermarriage between Sephardic Jews and non-Jews occur? Of course it did
-- that was exactly what got the Inquisition so nervous about the "Judaizers."
The supposedly "iron wall" between Jews and Christians was no wall at all, in
the real world. The interpenetration of "Jewish blood" in Spanish society was
extensive. Ignatius Loyola himself used to point out that he had Jewish
ancestry. In his case, it was something he pointed to with pride in order to
emphasize that his opposition to Judaism was religious and not racial.
As for the _specific_characters in the novel, Rebecca and her father, they are
not Jews anyway in the sense of "practicing" Jews. It was established at the
very beginning of their introduction that Balthazar had been expelled for
heresy by the Amsterdam Jewish community. So what's the problem? Are we
supposed to believe that NON-practicing Jews would retain the same aversion to
inter-marriage as (supposedly) "all Jews" do? That's so silly it defies
description. Especially when the marital partner in question brings every
conceivable practical advantage (ranging from simple survival to participation
in a grand and glorious enterprise) and happens to make the heroine's heart go
pitter-patter to boot.
The one criticism which could be made is that the relatively favorable reaction
of the rest of the Abrabanel family as portrayed in the novel is unrealistic.
I can only shrug my shoulders. It was made very clear in the novel that the
Abrabanels -- especially the ones from Istanbul, Venice and Vienna who appear
toward the end of the book -- were from the very upper crust of Sephardic
society. VERY cosmopolitan, VERY sophisticated, and VERY well versed in the
political complexities of European and Mediterranean society. The idea that
such people would react _exactly_ the same way as Ashkenazim in a small ghetto
somewhere in Poland is... ridiculous. Throughout history -- as a number of
other people have pointed out (Steve Stirling for one, that I recall, and I
think also Pete McCutchen) -- the elites of societies have always had a lot
more leeway when it comes to marital practices than commoners.
Take a look, for instance, at the extremely high rate of intermarriage between
Catholics and Protestants during this same era -- a period of ferocious
religious wars -- on the level of royalty. You'll probably find as many
"mixed" marriages as "non-mixed" ones. Granted, marriage between Catholics and
Protestants isn't the same thing as marriage between Jews and gentiles. But it
doesn't exist on a different planet, either.
But I think the main thing about this whole controversy that puzzles me is the
obsession with it in the first place. 1632, as is generally true of most of my
novels, is "romanticized." It does not pretend to be a "naturalistic" novel in
the sense of Emile Zola. It's an _adventure_ story, for pity's sake, and like
all adventure stories it "tilts the scales." You want to know what a
"realistic" alternate history would read like? Well, it's simple. A small
town gets transported back into time. Not having excellent leadership, they
fumble around not knowing what to do. Pretty soon they are devastated by
disease and then overrun by mercenaries. Most of them die, the few survivors
leave not much of a trace. Page 50. End of novel.
Are we having fun yet?
Sheesh. EVERYBODY in 1632 is romanticized. Ranging from Mike Stearns to
Richelieu and Wallenstein -- ALL of them are "bigger than life." So why choke
on Rebecca and Balthazar? Quite frankly, I think Gretchen is more romanticized
than they are -- and happens, by the way, to be my personal favorite character
in the book.
Yet... almost _all_ of the controversy revolves around the "Jewish question."
Why? Well, to speak frankly, I think it's simply because that's an issue that
gets some people all riled up because it upsets their own notions of what the
world _ought_ to be like.
In the end, I find myself scratching my head over the criticism. Because as
near as I can figure out, I seem to be accused of being some kind of
"anti-Semite" because I portrayed the Jewish characters too favorably. "Too
favorably," at least, to anyone who doesn't think that rigid marital
exclusivity is a virtue. Which most people -- including me -- don't.
Eric
J.B Moreno
> In the end, I find myself scratching my head over the criticism. Because as
> near as I can figure out, I seem to be accused of being some kind of
> "anti-Semite" because I portrayed the Jewish characters too favorably. "Too
> favorably," at least, to anyone who doesn't think that rigid marital
> exclusivity is a virtue. Which most people -- including me -- don't.
That depends upon which person is criticizing you -- Dave G. says he
found it unbeievable from a historical prospective, and that this is his
area of study and so it ruined the WSoD, making it unreadable for him.
OTOH, where Joe Slater is coming from I haven't a clue.
Stevie Gamble
Indeed; your conviction that all men, of whatever background, sold their
daughters, with the exception of those who wished to carry on raping them,
leaves the discussion with no place to go. You have no evidence for this, and
you clearly are not going to try and find evidence for it; wisely since you
could spend infinity searching for the non-existent.
>> >> >(David just got done saying that marriage's were arranged, not done
>> >> >out of love, so the question isn't whether her father intended to sell
>> >> >her, the question is for how much and for whose benefit.
>> >>
>> >> No. The fact that a marriage is arranged does not exclude the
>> >> possibility of the parties loving each other; consider Ford's Tis a
>> >> Pity She's a Whore, written around this time though set somewhat
>> >> earlier ( there are, for example, no references to firearms in the
>> >> play. ) The heroine's father introduces her to a number of suitable
>> >> suitors (g), and tells her, and others, that he wishes her to have
>> >> love in her marriage, since he is wealthy enough not to have to seek a
>> >> rich brideprice. The patriarchal structure of society at that time is
>> >> reflected in the conviction that she must have a husband, not that she
>> >> must be sold.
>> >
>> >So, there's nothing that he wants that her marriage can get him, so he
>> >leaves it up to her.
>>
>> Actually, there may have been any number of things which he wanted, and
>> which he could have pursued via a specific marriage; he chose not to. He
>> loved her.
>
>You say that he goes around telling people that he doesn't have to sell
>her because he is wealthy enough not to need the brideprice, which
>indicates that he thinks he would sell her if he DID need it.
No. I said nothing about him selling her; that comes from your bizarre
conviction that all women were sold, or raped, by their fathers, not from
anything that I have said. You are wildly distorting the meaning of the term
bride price:
'money or goods given to a bride's family by that of the bridegroom, esp. in
tribal societies'.
in order to buttress your fantasy, but it remains fantasy, not fact.
>> I think you might find it helpful to read the play.
>
>You know if it's online anywhere?
I don't think so, but there are, I believe, a couple of editions in print; even
better if you could actually see the play.
>> >This doesn't contradict what I said, in fact it reinforces it since it
>> >says that if there WAS something that he wanted that her marriage could
>> >be used to acquire, that he could and presumably would, use her to do so.
>>
>> No. See above. You are contradicting yourself at an unusual rate; one
>> moment there's no doubt whatsoever that her father's selling her, the only
>> questions are the terms of the sale, and the next moment the fact that he
>> isn't selling her proves that he was selling her. I begin to suspect that
>> your sig is doing strange things to your thought processes;
>
>I'd have to say that is effecting YOUR thought processes -- I never say
>that he is selling her (I haven't read the story, I don't know what he
>does). Perhaps you are confusing my comment upon what you said about
>the play with my comments upon how the marriage in 1632 would be viewed?
You said that *all* women were sold, since modified to all women apart from the
ones being retained so that they could continue to be raped by their fathers.
My thought processes, in responding to your comments, are based on your
comments.
>> >Not that this means that he's a monster, he'd still want her to be happy,
>> >but love wasn't considered a prerequisite for happiness in a marriage.
>>
>> Actually, the father thought that love *was* a prerequisite for happiness
>> in a marriage; that is why I have cited that particular play written at
>> the time that Eric Flint set his book. A playwright writing in the 1630s
>> on precisely that point is better authority on it than you writing in the
>> year 2001.
>
>Ah, well change that to "not that people would have thought him a
>monster because of it, as love wasn't considered a prerequisite for
>happiness in a marriage".
Well, it can be changed to that, but it would still be wrong. By that time some
people did consider that love was a prerequisite for happiness in marriage. You
have a wildly romanticised view of history; there are far more shades of grey,
and far more variations in belief and behaviour than are dreamed of in your
philosophy...
>> >And if you think I'm thinking of strictly a brideprice then again you're
>> >mistaken -- sons and daughters are the perfect way to seal business
>> >alliances, just as they are for national treaties. Which makes sense in
>> >situations where there is very little recourse to double dealing. They
>> >are both hostages and promises of good faith.
>>
>> I think we are back to the Moebius strip here; my reference to the
>> brideprice comes from Ford's play. General assertions don't displace
>> specific evidence.
>
>Yeah, there are always people with one crazy view or another.
>Personally I think that romantic love just about guarantees UNhappiness
>in a marriage.
An interesting comment, but one I must abjure in accordance with my pledge...
Joe Slater
>> In the end, I find myself scratching my head over the criticism. Because as
>> near as I can figure out, I seem to be accused of being some kind of
>> "anti-Semite" because I portrayed the Jewish characters too favorably. "Too
>> favorably," at least, to anyone who doesn't think that rigid marital
>> exclusivity is a virtue. Which most people -- including me -- don't.
pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B Moreno) wrote:
>That depends upon which person is criticizing you -- Dave G. says he
>found it unbeievable from a historical prospective, and that this is his
>area of study and so it ruined the WSoD, making it unreadable for him.
>
>OTOH, where Joe Slater is coming from I haven't a clue.
Australia.
I find it irritating because it's stupid; nothing irritates me as much
as stupidity. An intermarriage like that would have been a Big Deal
and have had Major Consequences. Jewish history is one of my favorite
subjects and I really dislike it being blithely dismissed with "Well,
I said he was a freethinker," or "Well, it could have happened". If
something like that happened it would literally have had consequences
across Europe. In fact a good novel *could* have been made out of it;
it's a pity that Eric is the wrong person to conceive it.
Then I have a secondary nit: given that it's such a significant
matter, I find it insulting that people people ascribe the abandonment
of Jewish principle for Jewish profit. I'm sure it happens among Jews
as much as anyone else, but when it's shown *particularly* happening
to Jews, as opposed to other people, it carries a whole lot of
historical baggage with it. Once again, a good novel could have been
made out of it, but Eric is not the sort of person who could carry it
off.
Joe Slater
>But on rereading 1632 just now, I noticed something. On page
>352 Don Francisco Nasi, the cousin from Istanbul, says, "We Turkish
>Sephardim, you know, are quite accustomed to marrying outside the faith."
>
>Were the attitudes of the Jews in Turkey different from those in Germany?
Nope. This is an example of a bad author covering his ass, much like
my previous example:
"But professor, nothing can go faster than light!"
- "Oh, that was only a theory ..."
It's a shoddy way of dismissing objections without providing a real
rationale. If Turkish Jews had been accustomed to intermarry there
wouldn't have *been* any Turkish Jews.
Charlie Stross
as <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> declared:
>>In a fit of divine composition, rak...@mindspring.com inscribed
>>in fleeting electrons:
>>
>>>Among Sephardic Jews?
>>
>>Yes. In Sephardic populations in Christian majority regions,
>>intermarriage was virtually unknown. Even in the cosmopolitan
>>Portuguese community in Amsterdam, intermarriage was
>>extremely exceptional until the French Revolution.
>
>I note the wiggle room you give yourself -- "virtually unknown" and
>"extremely exceptional." Yes, it would certainly be _unusual_.
>However, given both an unusual person (and Rebecca and her father are
>clearly unusually bright and open to new ideas) and the right
>circumstances, it doesn't seem wholly impossible.
>
>Granted, it's something of a coincidence that Stearns runs into such
>an unusual pair, but that's a different critique.
Pete, in Judaism it is only very recently that the phobia against
inter-marriage has dropped sufficiently for it to be remotely acceptable.
Current-generation example: I am one of three siblings. My brother and
sister are both married to non-Jews, and I'm living (long-term) with a
non-Jew. But in my parents' generation, marrying out was enough to get
you cut off from the community. Your relatives wouldn't talk to you, you'd
probably be kicked out of the synagogue, and so on. It was a scandal.
If you want to understand this, bear in mind that Jewish communities
existed almost always *as a tiny minority within a larger community*.
Those Jewish communities that didn't have incredibly strong anti-
miscegination taboos dissolved into the wider community in a matter of
two or three generations.
As it is, here in the UK where 50% of Jews are marrying out at present,
it has been predicted that the Jewish population will drop from the
current 450,000 to around 50,000 by 2080 -- and maybe to zero, because
the remaining 50,000 will mostly be ultra-orthodox and prone to emigration
to Israel for religious reasons.
(I can't account for why the taboo dropped off so abruptly, but I would
guess that certain factors that influenced it included the holocaust
and the foundation of the state of Israel. Instead of a fierce focus on
keeping it in the community, an expression of Jewish identity could be
made by emigrating. Those who were most committed to community tended
to be the ones who left, weaking ties among the ones who remained behind.
Meanwhile, don't underestimate the religious significance of the holocaust;
It's been described as the most important event in Jewish history since
the destruction of the third temple, and I don't think that's an
understatement. What are the theological implications for God's Chosen
People if someone tries to systematically exterminate them and God stays
silent? Some had their belief shaken to its roots. Many more substituted
a nationalist sense of identity for a religious one, emphasizing self-
defense over the traditional way of life.)
I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't confuse the Jews you know with
the people who'd have been around in 1632. It's like confusing a pre-
Reformation Catholic with a post-Vatican-2 Catholic.
-- Charlie
Charlie Stross
as <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> declared:
>>this came around Eric was kind enough to explain that the family were
>>traders and could see the potential for profit here. I do not think
>>words exist to express my outrage; at the time I merely asked how much
>>profit it would take for him to sleep with his mother.
>
>You may wish to believe that the taboo against intermarriage was as
>strong then as the taboo against mother-son incest is now, but I think
>that's wishful thinking on your part.
It's actually a very accurate description of the strength of the
exogamy taboo. In Christian terms we're talking an excommunication-
grade sin with overtones of treason against the community. What more
do you want?
-- Charlie
Joe Slater
>: The king strips the monarchy from his first wife. He demands that all
>: the virgins of the kingdom come to him. They spend one night with him,
>: then become his concubines. When it was Esther's turn the king decided
>: to make her his new queen.
Karen Lofstrom <lofs...@lava.net> wrote:
>Not ALL the virgins in his empire! My translation reads, "Let beautiful
>young virgins be sought out for your majesty; and let your majesty
>appoint commissioners in all the provinces of your kingdom to bring all
>these beautiful young virgins into the women's quarters in Susa the
>capital city."
I assure you that the text says "All the beautiful young virgins",
both in the original Hebrew and the King James' translation.
>However, the material that follows,
>about how Esther was immediately seen to be particularly beautiful and
>well-behaved, and how she was given special preferential treatment, and
>how the king immmediately fell in love with her ... sheesh, that's the
>stuff of beauty contests, of fairy tales. It's like Cinderella, with the
>prince inviting all the eligible young women to the ball and finding his
>true love.
In _Cinderella_ the losers weren't made concubines and locked in a
harem, but that's what happened to the losers in _Esther_; the text
says so. The fact that Esther is taken against her will is integral to
the story; you don't *start* Cinderella with the girl marrying the
prince; you start with her father dying and the girl being forced to
sleep in the fireplace. _Esther_ starts with a capture and rape, and
finishes in triumph.
Joe Slater
>>You may wish to believe that the taboo against intermarriage was as
>>strong then as the taboo against mother-son incest is now, but I think
>>that's wishful thinking on your part.
cha...@nospam.antipope.org (Charlie Stross) wrote:
>It's actually a very accurate description of the strength of the
>exogamy taboo. In Christian terms we're talking an excommunication-
>grade sin with overtones of treason against the community. What more
>do you want?
If I may, m'lud, I would like to intruduce into evidence the USAn film
_Fiddler on the Roof_, based upon a story by a Mr Sholom Aleichem. No,
really.
Briefly, the story concerns Tevya, a milkman with three daughters, for
whom he wants to make good marriages. The first daughter falls in love
with a pleasant incompetent and he reluctantly allows the marriage to
go ahead. The second falls in love with a revolutionary (the film is
set in late Tsarist Russia). Once again, Tevye reluctantly lets the
marriage go ahead. The third falls in love with a non-Jew - and he
puts his foot down; the marriage goes ahead; and the daughter is
excommunicated.
The non-Jewish son-in-law learns of a plot to attack the village and
conveys the news to Tevye. Note that the daughter can't approach Tevye
directly; she is no longer his daughter. The news helps the villagers
survive. Afterwards the village is dispersed and Tevye's family breaks
up, in a very touching scene - but the third daughter is only there on
the edge; she's not part of it; her story was over when she married
the non-Jew. There is no rapprochement with the third daughter; we
have no hint as to her fate other than the obvious one: she married a
non-Jew.
Now, this story was not written by a religious traditionalist. Sholom
Aleichemwas a left-wing, secular intellectual. But he *couldn't* write
about an intermarriage in any terms other than the ones he used,
because to do otherwise would have been utterly false - and Sholom
Aleichem was a great writer with an intimate knowledge of his subject.
Josh Kaderlan
>
>The first is that the novel depicts Sephardic Jews, not Jews in general. The
>Sephardim, at the time of the novel, were a shattered community uprooted from
>Iberia and dispersed across all of Europe, North Africa, the Levant and Turkey.
>The notion some people seem to have that such a community would retain
>uniformity of belief and practice is... bizarre. Frankly, it says more, I
>think, about their own wishes than about historical reality.
Forget whether or not the notion is bizarre. The question is, is it
*true*? Based on the evidence we have, does it fit the facts? On the one
hand, we have two people who have both grown up as Jews, and who have
studied Jewish history; on the other hand, we have a gentile who may or
may not have studied Jewish history. If you weren't the gentile in
question, who would *you* believe?
>The one criticism which could be made is that the relatively favorable reaction
>of the rest of the Abrabanel family as portrayed in the novel is unrealistic.
>I can only shrug my shoulders. It was made very clear in the novel that the
>Abrabanels -- especially the ones from Istanbul, Venice and Vienna who appear
>toward the end of the book -- were from the very upper crust of Sephardic
>society. VERY cosmopolitan, VERY sophisticated, and VERY well versed in the
>political complexities of European and Mediterranean society. The idea that
>such people would react _exactly_ the same way as Ashkenazim in a small ghetto
>somewhere in Poland is... ridiculous. Throughout history -- as a number of
>other people have pointed out (Steve Stirling for one, that I recall, and I
>think also Pete McCutchen) -- the elites of societies have always had a lot
>more leeway when it comes to marital practices than commoners.
This paragraph has a number of logical flaws. First, no one has to my
knowledge suggested that the family in question would react *exactly* the
way a family from the shtetl would. Second, no matter how clearly the
novel may state that the family in question is from the very upper crust
of Sephardic society, that doesn't mean much if the *historical* very
upper crust didn't act in manner consistent with the family's behavior.
To suggest otherwise, simply because *other* cultures gave the elite more
leeway than commoners, is ahistorical. Third, the notion that the elites
have always had more leeway itself doesn't mean much in isolation, as even
so there may have been limits to acceptable behavior.
>Take a look, for instance, at the extremely high rate of intermarriage between
>Catholics and Protestants during this same era -- a period of ferocious
>religious wars -- on the level of royalty. You'll probably find as many
>"mixed" marriages as "non-mixed" ones. Granted, marriage between Catholics and
>Protestants isn't the same thing as marriage between Jews and gentiles. But it
>doesn't exist on a different planet, either.
It's not even *remotely* the same.
>But I think the main thing about this whole controversy that puzzles me is the
>obsession with it in the first place. 1632, as is generally true of most of my
>novels, is "romanticized." It does not pretend to be a "naturalistic" novel in
>the sense of Emile Zola. It's an _adventure_ story, for pity's sake, and like
>all adventure stories it "tilts the scales." You want to know what a
>"realistic" alternate history would read like? Well, it's simple. A small
>town gets transported back into time. Not having excellent leadership, they
>fumble around not knowing what to do. Pretty soon they are devastated by
>disease and then overrun by mercenaries. Most of them die, the few survivors
>leave not much of a trace. Page 50. End of novel.
>
>Are we having fun yet?
There's romanticized, and then there's plain false to fact.
>Yet... almost _all_ of the controversy revolves around the "Jewish question."
>Why? Well, to speak frankly, I think it's simply because that's an issue that
>gets some people all riled up because it upsets their own notions of what the
>world _ought_ to be like.
Why not take their arguments at face value, and argue the facts or their
interpretations?
>In the end, I find myself scratching my head over the criticism. Because as
>near as I can figure out, I seem to be accused of being some kind of
>"anti-Semite" because I portrayed the Jewish characters too favorably.
Now this is plain bullshit. Nobody's called you an anti-Semite.
>"Too favorably," at least, to anyone who doesn't think that rigid marital
>exclusivity is a virtue. Which most people -- including me -- don't.
And this is bullshit, too. Neither Dave nor Joe has said *anything* about
rigid marital exclusivity being a virtue.
-Josh
Eric D. Berge
wrote:
>In article <20010217054729...@ng-fe1.aol.com>, Eflint46312 wrote:
>>
>>The first is that the novel depicts Sephardic Jews, not Jews in general. The
>>Sephardim, at the time of the novel, were a shattered community uprooted from
>>Iberia and dispersed across all of Europe, North Africa, the Levant and Turkey.
>>The notion some people seem to have that such a community would retain
>>uniformity of belief and practice is... bizarre. Frankly, it says more, I
>>think, about their own wishes than about historical reality.
>
>Forget whether or not the notion is bizarre. The question is, is it
>*true*? Based on the evidence we have, does it fit the facts? On the one
>hand, we have two people who have both grown up as Jews, and who have
>studied Jewish history;
Three. I'm keeping (mostly) out of it because I've been around the
same block with Flint twice before, and I'm bored of trying to reason
with him.
> on the other hand, we have a gentile who may or
>may not have studied Jewish history. If you weren't the gentile in
>question, who would *you* believe?
Well put.
Jeffrey C. Dege
>
>Now, this story was not written by a religious traditionalist. Sholom
>Aleichemwas a left-wing, secular intellectual. But he *couldn't* write
>about an intermarriage in any terms other than the ones he used,
>because to do otherwise would have been utterly false - and Sholom
>Aleichem was a great writer with an intimate knowledge of his subject.
Yes, but the story was about the Ashkenazi - and provides no insight at
all as to whether the Turkish Sephardim were more open to intermarriage.
--
It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of
a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit
by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders
in those who would gain by the new ones.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513
Jordan S. Bassior
>Current-generation example: I am one of three siblings. My brother and
>sister are both married to non-Jews, and I'm living (long-term) with a
>non-Jew. But in my parents' generation, marrying out was enough to get
>you cut off from the community. Your relatives wouldn't talk to you, you'd
>probably be kicked out of the synagogue, and so on. It was a scandal.
And no doubt, in the situation given in _1632_, ALL the Jews would have nobly
and scornfully rejected Rebecca's marriage, _and the tremendously valuable
alliance that came with it_, standing on principle?
Note: whichever Jews choose to accept the marriage gain a tremendous
diplomatic, economic, and technological lead on the other Jews, and wind up
dominating international Jewish society -- unless all other Jews choose to
reject _those_ Jews, and so in.
IMO you'd get two factions of Jews, one of which would accept and one reject
the alliance. The ones which accepted it would become immensely important in
the future; those who rejected it would be increasingly marginalized.
Jordan S. Bassior
>I find it irritating because it's stupid; nothing irritates me as much
>as stupidity. An intermarriage like that would have been a Big Deal
>and have had Major Consequences.
It was and it did. Good ones, mostly.
>I find it insulting that people people ascribe the abandonment
>of Jewish principle for Jewish profit. I'm sure it happens among Jews
>as much as anyone else, but when it's shown *particularly* happening
>to Jews, as opposed to other people, it carries a whole lot of
>historical baggage with it.
You're being seriously absurd, in the context of _1632_, and of the characters
involved.
Jordan S. Bassior
>Yes, but the story was about the Ashkenazi - and provides no insight at
>all as to whether the Turkish Sephardim were more open to intermarriage.
Not only that, it was about a backwater village.
Joe Slater
>>Now, this story was not written by a religious traditionalist. Sholom
>>Aleichemwas a left-wing, secular intellectual. But he *couldn't* write
>>about an intermarriage in any terms other than the ones he used,
>>because to do otherwise would have been utterly false - and Sholom
>>Aleichem was a great writer with an intimate knowledge of his subject.
jd...@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege) wrote:
>Yes, but the story was about the Ashkenazi - and provides no insight at
>all as to whether the Turkish Sephardim were more open to intermarriage.
That's a weird red herring that someone - I think it was Eric Himself
- threw into the mix. Ashkenazim and Sephardim were actually a lot
more similar 400 years ago than they were 100 years ago, and neither
lot tolerated intermarriage. I mean, we've established that Jews
*generally* don't go in for intermarriage, particularly before the
last century or so, right? Has Eric got any evidence to justify his
assertions that there were all these upper-class Jews from a
particular group, at a particular time who were running about
practicing exogamy?
There's all sorts of things that just aren't right about Eric's
depiction. To start with, Jewish intellectuals of the time weren't
into agnosticism; they were into Kabbala. A Jewish intellectual would
be much more likely to be a mystic than to be a free-thinker; that's a
development which wouldn't come about for 150 years. This applies
*especially* to Sephardim, who never went through the European
Enlightenment.
The funny thing is that just a generation later, 1665, rumors that the
Messiah had arrived hit Europe (and *particularly* the Sephardi parts)
causing mass hysteria, people selling their homes and so forth. The
story would have been a lot more realistic if this had been the result
of the time traveller's intrusion. It was a time of profound
religiosity, not secularism.
Joe Slater
>>The first is that the novel depicts Sephardic Jews, not Jews in general. The
>>Sephardim, at the time of the novel, were a shattered community uprooted from
>>Iberia and dispersed across all of Europe, North Africa, the Levant and Turkey.
>>The notion some people seem to have that such a community would retain
>>uniformity of belief and practice is... bizarre. Frankly, it says more, I
>>think, about their own wishes than about historical reality.
j...@zer0.org (Josh Kaderlan) wrote:
>Forget whether or not the notion is bizarre. The question is, is it
>*true*?
The funny thing is that it's precisely at this time that it was more
true than at any other. To start with, when you have mass movements of
people you actually have a normalising force. Secondly, this was only
a couple of generations after the publication of the Shulkhan Arukh,
the book which even today is the normative work on Jewish law. This
book was written, incidentally, by a Sephardi rabbi, R' Yosef Karo.
And where did this rabbi start his work? Why, in Turkey.
Of course, this ignores the really fundamental thing: intermarriage is
a Very Big Deal Indeed. It's not like some obscure difference in
liturgy. You just couldn't have two communities disagreeing on it.
JoatSimeon
a) if it was all the virgins in the Persian Empire, the Padishah must have been
a VERY busy man.
Since the Persian Empire had a population in the tens of millions, at least.
Say, 100,000 beautiful virgins, minimum?
So it was probably the "most beautiful".
To be sure, this is a folk-tale we're talking about.
b) of course Esther had no choice in the matter.
This is the ancient Orient we're talking about. Girls married who they were
told to marry, generally speaking and with rare exceptions.
Solomon had a thousand concubines. You think they all showed up at the palace
asking to be interviewed for the job?
For that matter, do you think they were all nice Jewish girls?
-- S.M. Stirling
Eric D. Berge
<joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
I was thinking about citing this as an example that everyone was
familiar with, but since you have already, I'll just add the
following:
If anyone has the opportunity to do so, compare the treatment of the
same Sholom Aleichem stories (which I haven't read) in the 1939
(non-musical) Yiddish-language film version, "Tevye The Milkman",
starring Maurice Schwartz and Leon Liebgold, in which the daughter
also marries one of the local Ukrainian lads - the family is shown
sitting Shiva (ritual morning; equivalent to holding a wake) for her,
following which her mother takes to her bed and literally dies of
grief.
No singing about "Does she love him?"; no soul-searching about whether
it's OK or not.
And let me add my voice to the chorus of those who have already
dismissed the "Sephardim, not Ashkenazim" argument as completely and
utterly bogus.
Rick
news:a7tt8totrmk8h9nk8...@4ax.com...
> Then I have a secondary nit: given that it's such a significant
> matter, I find it insulting that people people ascribe the abandonment
> of Jewish principle for Jewish profit.
That's your personal problem then: everyone who has commented on it has said
that they believe that a good number of people of all backgrounds and races
put profit over principle.
David Joseph Greenbaum
fleeting electrons:
[snip]
>The first is that the novel depicts Sephardic Jews, not Jews in
>general. The Sephardim, at the time of the novel, were a shattered
>community uprooted from Iberia and dispersed across all of Europe,
>North Africa, the Levant and Turkey.
This is true.
[snip]
>The fact is that the Sephardim were _never_ as "fanatical" about their faith as
>the Ashkenazim. It is a well-known historic fact that approximately half of
>the Sephardic Jews in Spain itself converted to Christianity under the hammer
>of the Inquisition and the Dominican-led pogroms. The "conversion" was forced,
>to be sure. But the fact that 50% of the Sephardim were willing to do it
>rather than face exile, martyrdom or pogroms is significant. The Askenazim
>were also often persecuted, but there is no comparable instance of mass
>conversion -- faked and forced as it may have been -- among Ashkenazim.
Straw man argument. The forced conversions that took place in Christian Spain in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had as their *goal* the conversion of the
Jews. In Germany, no such widespread religious coercion took place - it was
mostly expulsion or annihilation. cf the destruction of the Rhenish Jewish
communities during the twelfth century.
And about "fanaticism" of faith - the "strength" of the faith of Sephardic Jews
was no weaker in the aggregate than that of Ashkenazic Jews. In both communities
you had a range of observance, from that in name only, to extreme religiosity.
What I have been saying is that this factor *does* *not* *matter* with regards
to intermarriage.
>Why the difference? I don't think there's any mystery to it at all. For
>centuries -- since Roman times -- the Sephardic tradition had been one of
>cultural assimilation, not exclusivism. They were also, throughout the middle
>ages and into the early modern period, probably the most cosmopolitan people in
>Europe. And also one of the most well-traveled. About as different a cultural
>background as could be imagined, other than being part of Judaism, to the
>Ashkenazim in eastern Europe.
and you have bought into one of the subtle propaganda myths that Sephardim spread
about themselves - that they were intellectually superior to the Ashkenazim.
Frankly, after 1300, it's bullshit. There was considerable interest in and
adoption of various elements of Catholic scholasticism in Ashkenazic intellectual
circles after 1300 - interest in Aristotle and Christian rhetoric, et cetera. The
first printed translations of Aristotle into Hebrew took place in Frankfurt, in fact,
at the end of the sixteenth century. Various subtle details of religious observance
like eating beans on Passover and pronunciation of Hebrew, yes, those were different.
But minor differences in practice, or even lapses in religious observance, had
little to do with the Jewish taboo on exogamy.
>Throughout history, whether for good or ill, cosmopolitanism and cultural
>assimilationism invariably undermines rigid customs and notions of what
>constitutes "proper practice." That has been true for every society I can
>think of. Why should the Jews of Iberia be any different?
Because you're thinking of one kind of cosmopolitanism that really doesn't
map to the analogue you're trying to describe. Hint: the degree of social
intermixing between ethnic communities that we experience today is really
quite radical compared to the historical norm.
>After the Spanish expulsion, the Sephardim existed in many "grades" of
>adherence to the faith. There were some who never budged at all, others who
>became genuine Christian converts -- some ex-Sephardim became prominent figures
>in the Inquisition -- and others in every imaginable stage in between. Many
>continued to try to practice their faith secretly, without having any clear
>idea exactly what the rituals and customs were.
All of this is true.
>To believe that such a community would react uniformly to _anything_ is sheer
>nonsense. Appealing to the existing marital records of Jews in a few cities in
>Holland and Germany, as one of my critics has done, is laughable. Why in the
>world does he think those records are accurate in the first place? Even
>_modern_ records using modern statistical methods can't be relied on without
>careful scrutiny -- much less the records of a handful of scattered communities
>almost four centuries ago. Especially since the people compiling the records
>would have had a vested interest in ignoring those who didn't fit neatly into
>their categories.
The taboo against intermarriage outside of the Sephardic community was so strong
that 150 years after the founding of the Amsterdam Sephardic colony, observers
and chroniclers of that community were exclaiming about the fact that it very rarely
intermarried with *ASHKENAZIM*! Even in the converso community after 1492, marital
exclusivity *within* the converso community was a powerful phenomenon.
There is also sufficient testimony that at least some conversos of
the fifteenth century were secretly practicing Jewish marriage customs.
Thus Solomon b. Solomon Duran (grandson of Simon b. Shemach Duran who fled
Majorca in 1391) of North Africa wrote concerning conversos in Valencia who
were said to bring two Jews to their homes as witnesses to a marriage, and
before them "the husband gives _qidushin_" to the wife...
In the previously discussed responsum of his grandfather concerning
the marriage of conversos, mention is made of those who entered into a
marriage according to Jewish Law but before converso (not Jewish) witnesses
_as is their custom_....
This preference of conversos for their "own kind":is attested to in
another responsum of his grandson Sumon about a conversa in Valencia who
"left her infgant son and her husband and climbed out of the window and went
to a place which is today Jewish, and said that she wished to marry a
pentitent Jew like herself." Very significant also is his statement,
written shortly after the Expulsion: "there is an established presumption
that _none_ of the _anüsim_ [unwilling converts] marry Gentile women,
and this is known to be their practise generation after generation from the
time of the 'decree' [Expulsion] until today... every Anüs who comes to
repent, just as we presume that his father was a Jew so we presume about his
mother that she was not a Gentile ... and even though some of them have been
intermingled with Gentiles and take wives of their daughters, only a _very
few_ do so."
[p. 70, _Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from
Spain_. Norman Roth, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison
1995]
>In the end, I find myself scratching my head over the criticism. Because as
>near as I can figure out, I seem to be accused of being some kind of
>"anti-Semite" because I portrayed the Jewish characters too favorably. "Too
>favorably," at least, to anyone who doesn't think that rigid marital
>exclusivity is a virtue. Which most people -- including me -- don't.
I have never accused you of this. Mr. Flint, what you do in your fictional
universes is your business - I have have never denied you this. But:your
portrayal of the Abravanels doesn't ring right with *me*. Jews who intermarried
were considered meshullam, _apostates_ by Sephardic and Ashkenaz Jews. There were
traditions of marital exclusivity within the Sephardic community itself, excluding
even Ashkenazim. I object to some specifics of your extra-novel characterizations
of Sephardic Jewish culture and marriage customs as just plain contrary to fact.
Some sources:
_Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain_.
Norman Roth, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1995.
_Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World: 1391-1648_.
Benjamin R. Gimpel, ed. Columbia University Press, NY 1997.
_The Sephardi Heritage vol. II: The Western Sephardim_.
Richard Barnett, Walter Schwab, eds. Gibraltar Books LTD,
(Grendon, Northants) 1989.
Enough of this. I have a paper to write.
Dave G.
--
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go. >-< Siegfried Sassoon
Karen Lofstrom
:>Not ALL the virgins in his empire! My translation reads, "Let beautiful
:>young virgins be sought out for your majesty; and let your majesty
:>appoint commissioners in all the provinces of your kingdom to bring all
:>these beautiful young virgins into the women's quarters in Susa the
:>capital city."
: I assure you that the text says "All the beautiful young virgins",
: both in the original Hebrew and the King James' translation.
It says it in the second part of the sentence, not in the first. In which
case the "all" refers to the virgins selected, not ALL the virgins in the
Persian empire. The idea that all the virgins in an empire spanning such
vast distances could be recruited, transported, and supported -- it's
patently absurd.
I would regard the New English Bible as a sound translation -- sounder
than the King James Version. I bought it because it was the one they were
using at the Chicago Theological Seminary, where the students do learn
Greek and Hebrew and fuss about the exact connotations of word choice.
They need a good trot, as we used to call translations when I was studying
Greek.
: In _Cinderella_ the losers weren't made concubines and locked in a
: harem, but that's what happened to the losers in _Esther_; the text
: says so. The fact that Esther is taken against her will is integral to
: the story; you don't *start* Cinderella with the girl marrying the
: prince; you start with her father dying and the girl being forced to
: sleep in the fireplace. _Esther_ starts with a capture and rape, and
: finishes in triumph.
Except there's not a WORD in there relating to capture, rape, the presumed
misery of the victim, etc.
I'll end the exchange here, since there's clearly no point in arguing with
you if you put ideological considerations above a straight-forward reading
of the text. "I don't like what it says, so it must say something
completely different."
BTW, I hope that I have the scholarly integrity to take exactly this
attitude towards Buddhist texts, given that I'm a Buddhist. Call me on it
if I don't :)
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
---------------------------------------------------------------------
*harumph*
@hotmail.com.invalid Eric D. Berge
<e_db...@attglobal.net.invalid> wrote:
>If anyone has the opportunity to do so, compare the treatment of the
>same Sholom Aleichem stories (which I haven't read) in the 1939
>(non-musical) Yiddish-language film version, "Tevye The Milkman",
>starring Maurice Schwartz and Leon Liebgold,
To correct myself, the movie is "Tevye"; the original stories are the
"T. The Milkman" stories.
BTW, there is also a late 60s Israeli version, which I haven't seen.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric D. Berge
(remove spaces for valid address)
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover
Breath's a ware that will not keep
Up, lad! When the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
- A.E.Housman, "Reveille"
------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Slater
>: I assure you that the text says "All the beautiful young virgins",
>: both in the original Hebrew and the King James' translation.
Karen Lofstrom <lofs...@lava.net> wrote:
>It says it in the second part of the sentence, not in the first. In which
>case the "all" refers to the virgins selected, not ALL the virgins in the
>Persian empire. The idea that all the virgins in an empire spanning such
>vast distances could be recruited, transported, and supported -- it's
>patently absurd.
Well. Musta been a miracle then. But it does say "all the *beautiful*
young virgins". There'd be no point in sending real dogs, and in any
event the king was only going to sleep with one virgin per night.
>I would regard the New English Bible as a sound translation -- sounder
>than the King James Version.
I mentioned the KJV because I have it on the desktop. I was using the
Hebrew:
"Yivakshu lamelekh naarot betulot tovot mareh",
Let the king have sought for him young beautiful virgins,
"vayafkod hamelekh pekidim bekol medinot malkhuto",
and let the king appoint officers in all the states of his
kingdom,
"vayivketzu kol naara betula tova mareh",
and let them gather each young virgin of good appearance,
"el shushan habira el bet hanashim",
to the harem in the capital, Shushan.
>: In _Cinderella_ the losers weren't made concubines and locked in a
>: harem, but that's what happened to the losers in _Esther_; the text
>: says so. The fact that Esther is taken against her will is integral to
>: the story; you don't *start* Cinderella with the girl marrying the
>: prince; you start with her father dying and the girl being forced to
>: sleep in the fireplace. _Esther_ starts with a capture and rape, and
>: finishes in triumph.
>Except there's not a WORD in there relating to capture, rape, the presumed
>misery of the victim, etc.
As I demonstrate above: it wasn't a voluntary act.
>I'll end the exchange here, since there's clearly no point in arguing with
>you if you put ideological considerations above a straight-forward reading
>of the text. "I don't like what it says, so it must say something
>completely different."
Pot, kettle, black.
JoatSimeon
>As I demonstrate above: it wasn't a voluntary act.
-- and which marriages in that period and region were?
-- S.M. Stirling
Jason Bontrager
>
>
> Forget the ski chase -- I want her back in that cheerleader outfit!
> --
>
> Pete McCutchen
Pete, Pete, Pete...tsk. Where's your imagination? *Include* the
ski chase, while she's wearing a cheerleader outfit, and shooting
at the bad guys! (Now how do we get an exploding spaceship in
there?)
Jason B.
--
Please respond to the group if you must respond at all.
I will no longer be replying to personal emails from Usenet posters.
Eflint46312
>From: Jason Bontrager jas...@gslis.utexas.edu
>Date: 2/20/01 10:28 PM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: <3A9343EE...@gslis.utexas.edu>
>
>Pete McCutchen wrote:
>>
>>
>> Forget the ski chase -- I want her back in that cheerleader outfit!
>> --
>>
>> Pete McCutchen
>
>Pete, Pete, Pete...tsk. Where's your imagination? *Include* the
>ski chase, while she's wearing a cheerleader outfit, and shooting
>at the bad guys! (Now how do we get an exploding spaceship in
>there?)
>
>Jason B.
I've been trying to figure that out myself. Gotta have an exploding spaceship,
dammit...
Maybe while he's recupering from his wounds on his estates in Bohemia,
Wallenstein reads a copy of Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo stolen from the
school library. Doesn't realize it's fiction. Starts building his own rocket
ship...
(Hey, it's bound to explode.)
Eric
Mike Schilling
news:3A9343EE...@gslis.utexas.edu...
> Pete McCutchen wrote:
> >
> >
> > Forget the ski chase -- I want her back in that cheerleader outfit!
> > --
> >
> > Pete McCutchen
>
> Pete, Pete, Pete...tsk. Where's your imagination? *Include* the
> ski chase, while she's wearing a cheerleader outfit, and shooting
> at the bad guys! (Now how do we get an exploding spaceship in
> there?)
>
Ummm, a spaceship fight after two rival groups of aliens come to award
her an Osmium Medal? (the cheerleader outfit being required dress for
both the Aldeberan VII and Procyon III versions of the biathlon.)
Frank Ney
cha...@nospam.antipope.org (Charlie Stross) to write:
>Meanwhile, don't underestimate the religious significance of the holocaust;
>It's been described as the most important event in Jewish history since
>the destruction of the third temple, and I don't think that's an
>understatement. What are the theological implications for God's Chosen
>People if someone tries to systematically exterminate them and God stays
>silent? Some had their belief shaken to its roots. Many more substituted
>a nationalist sense of identity for a religious one, emphasizing self-
>defense over the traditional way of life.)
I didn't think there was a difference. "If some one comes to kill you, rise
up and kill him first" or something to that effect.
Not a jew, just a goy who likes to read "Ask The Rabbi."
Frank Ney N4ZHG WV/EMT-B LPWV NRA(L) ProvNRA GOA CCRKBA JPFO
--
"You don't expect governments to obey the law because of some
higher moral development. You expect them to obey the law because
they know that if they don't, those who aren't shot will be hanged."
-Michael Shirley
Just Say No to Gestapo Tactics http://www.freespeech.org/justsayno
Abuses by the BATF http://www.hamnet.net/~n4zhg/batfabus.html
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
Frank Ney
McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> to write:
>>Now, that's not courtship. It's not a free marriage. I think I'm
>>justified in calling it rape.
>
>By our standards, sure. But there's a lot of stuff in the Bible that
>looks bad, by our standards. Consider (obsf), having kids torn apart
>by bears for making fun of an old guy for being bald. What sort of
>villain would do that?
That was Yhwh, who was honked off at the dissing of his chosen prophet.
Jason Bontrager
>
> On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 15:59:33 GMT, an orbiting mind control
> laser caused Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net>
> to write:
>
> >By our standards, sure. But there's a lot of stuff in the Bible that
> >looks bad, by our standards. Consider (obsf), having kids torn apart
> >by bears for making fun of an old guy for being bald. What sort of
> >villain would do that?
>
> That was Yhwh, who was honked off at the dissing of his chosen prophet.
>
> Frank Ney
Well, that's all right then.
Jason B.
--
Please respond to the group if you must respond at all.
I will no longer be replying to personal emails from Usenet posters.
..
Pete McCutchen
<jas...@gslis.utexas.edu> wrote:
>> Forget the ski chase -- I want her back in that cheerleader outfit!
>> --
>>
>
>Pete, Pete, Pete...tsk. Where's your imagination? *Include* the
>ski chase, while she's wearing a cheerleader outfit, and shooting
>at the bad guys! (Now how do we get an exploding spaceship in
>there?)
That sounds like it would be a bit chilly.
Gee, she might need somebody to warm her up after the chase, no?
--
Pete McCutchen
Rick
news:fbpc9t0l5g3lcomrt...@4ax.com...
You volunteering? ;-)
Pete McCutchen
<joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>Then I have a secondary nit: given that it's such a significant
>matter, I find it insulting that people people ascribe the abandonment
>of Jewish principle for Jewish profit. I'm sure it happens among Jews
>as much as anyone else, but when it's shown *particularly* happening
>to Jews, as opposed to other people, it carries a whole lot of
>historical baggage with it. Once again, a good novel could have been
>made out of it, but Eric is not the sort of person who could carry it
>off.
Regardless of how you come out on the underlying issue -- and, I have
to say, even if you're right, I just plain don't care that much --
this is just silly. Eric's book doesn't show Jews as being
particularly rapacious or money-grubbing. Nor does it play into any
stereotypes -- well, except maybe that they're clean, but I gather
that Jews were more worried about cleanliness that those around them.
And that's hardly an invidious stereotype.
Whatever its other virtues or vices, _1632_ is very much a
pro-tolerance book.
--
Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>(1) My *only* beef with 1632 is that I think that GA is far far
> to accepting towards democracy. He don't like nobles, sure,
> but that is because he and his ancestors have spent enormous
> amounts of blood and effort to establish an Absolute monarchy,
> the concentration of all power in society (much of it previously
> held by the nobles) in the monarch.
> He is quite likley to think of Democracy as 'every Farmer a
> Noble', and that will really make him blow his top, especially
> since the concept of nationalism isn't there yet. Its really
> an 'Out of Context Problem' for GA.
But he's not adopting Democracy; he's merely establishing a
relationship with a preexisting Republic. That this may lead to the
death of real monarchy he does not yet see.
--
Pete McCutchen