ADMIRING RELIGIOUS JEWS

ADMIRATION

ON QUORA Do you admire the strength that religious Jews, as mentioned by Ari Frenkel, have in representing themselves in an environment that's so hostile towards them?

Shlomoh Sherman

That strength is admirable and stems from a spiritual and emotional connection to the Jewish People and to the TORAH of Israel. There are several things that are unique about the Jewish People, and unique does not mean a sense of superiority to other people. I think the thing that most infuses Jews with that religious strength is the fact that we are contemporary with all of recorded history, a history which goes back to Abraham, a man who was Sumerian. Sumer is the oldest recorded civilization, and our history goes back to the Sumerian city Ur, of which Abraham was a citizen.

We have gone through many evolutions - Sumerian, Hebrew, Israelite, Jew. That history has been glorious, as can be seen by reading the holy book that we have given the world. At the same time, that history has been painful.

We were subordinate to the Empires of Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Rome, Germany, and Russia. Administrators in many of these Empires sought to exterminate us. And yet, all of these Empires have collapsed and disappeared. But we remain, a people whose long history saw us as people without a land, without a unified language, without a military.

Common sense dictates that we should be gone from the earth. But we remain. No other people who have experienced what we have experienced could survive. But we remain.

Today, a worldwide hatred toward us has arisen. And for what? Because once again, we have a Land, a sacred language, and an army. We have been accused of many dreadful things, but none so awful as our continued existence.

As one Israeli said, many decades ago: If only we didn't have to deal every day with the hatred against us, especially on the part of our geographic neighbors, we would have already come up with a cure for cancer.