The Jewish Conundrum in World History 9781618110350

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Alexander Militarev THE JEWISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

Reference Library of Jewish Intellectual History

THE JEWISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY Alexander M i l i t a re v

Boston 2010

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Militarev, A. IU. The Jewish conundrum in world history / Alexander Militarev. p. cm. — (Reference library of jewish intellectual history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-934843-43-7 (hardback) 1. Jews — Civilization. I. Title. DS112.M465 2010 909’.04924 — dc22 2010022359

Copyright © 2010 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved Book design by Ivan Grave On the cover: “Parting of the Red Sea”. Haggadah, 14th century. Reproduced by courtesy of the University Librarian and Director, The John Rylands University Library, The University of Manchester. Published by Academic Studies Press in 2010 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

To my most beloved: daughter Asya, granddaughter Sonya and son Mishen’ka — lest they lose touch with their roots

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CONTENTS List of illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Foreword and Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Crisis of Modern Jewry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Being Jewish: Religion or Nationality? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Jewish Identity in Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Jews and the Russian Intelligentsia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 “Universal Values” and Their Biblical Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anthropocentrism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Adamism” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Monotheism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Common Task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Life After Death and the Biblical “Agnosticism” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Foundation of Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Principle of Personal Responsibility and Freedom of Choice . . “Feel of History” and the Concept of Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Canon as the Foundation for “Cultural Construction” . . . . . . . . . . . . Cognition as a Value and Claims to “Theo-Parity” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Antinomy as a Tool of Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Categories of the Abstract and Absolute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

24 32 36 40 44 45 50 57 67 69 72 72 75 77

How Deep are the Biblical Roots and How Old are the Jews? . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 vii

Contents

The Unique Nature of the Jewish Phenomenon in History

.............

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Why the Jews? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Persecution of the Jews and Anti-Semitism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tradition of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Factor of Genetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Jewry as a Civilization and the Debatable Issue of Jewish Uniqueness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Diaspora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Myth of the Chosen People and Its Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Myth of the Eternal Exile and the Promised Land . . . . . . . . . . Common Semitic and Afrasian Cultural Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Random Factor: Etymopoesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

100 101 103 106 109 130 134 135 145 147

A Chain of Random Events or a Pattern of Historical Behavior? . . . . . . . . . 154 The Jews and the Strategy of the Species’ Survival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 A Chance Congruence of Factors or a Design of Mother Nature? . . . . . . . . 171 The Meaning of the Holocaust? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Anti-Semitism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Conclusion

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Appendix 1: Etymology of Selected Hebrew Terms Related to Intellectual/Spiritual Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Appendix 2: The Significance of Etymology for the Interpretation of Ancient Writings: From the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament . . . 212 Appendix 3: The Genealogical Tree of World Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 Conventional Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Appendix 4: The Genealogical Tree of Afrasian (Afroasiatic) Languages . . . 262 Transcription Signs and Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Bibliographic Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Genealogical Tree of World Languages compiled by the author basing on research and evaluation as of the early 3rd millennium by the Sergei Starostin Moscow School of Comparative Linguistics The Genealogical Tree of Afrasian (Afroasiatic) Languages compiled by Alexander Militarev mainly basing on Starostin’s method in lexicostatistics and glottochronology

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Foreword and Acknowledgements

FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book is an updated and extended version of my previous book in Russian on the same subject, entitled “Воплощенный миф (“Еврейская идея” в цивилизации)” (“A Myth Come True (“The Jewish Idea” in Civilization)”), The Natalis Press, Moscow, 2003. A reader not entirely unfamiliar to scientific pursuits and research will instantly realize after opening this book at any page that he/she is not really looking at a scientific work. That will become obvious due to one unmistakable sign: an inadequately limited number of references to specialized works. A scientific work pales into insignificance in their absence. Yet, any single individual will be hard put, when faced with the prospect of selecting, reading, evaluating and drawing upon heaps of specialized literature on all aspects of the entire range of problems debated herein — this is precisely why I opted for the genre of essay. Incompetence is still, however, quite out of place in a lighter genre as well. One alternative remained for me to resort to: harass specialists. Fortunately, liberal arts answering the exactitude of world class requirements have still survived in Russia — it is in Moscow where the main bulk of this book was composed — and there are still a few around to harass and then some. Friendly contacts with certain Israeli scientists have come in handy, too. I would like to express my heart-felt gratitude to all of my colleagues, friends and relations who for a dozen years have had to put up with reading draft versions and the definitive one, supplied me with materials and recommended what to read next, participated in debates at workshops and over a bottle of vodka: corrected, added, argued, swore at me, answered my questions on Egyptian, Assyrian, Indian, Chinese, Israeli, Russian studies, Jewish history, philosophy, Biblical studies, Hellenism, early Christianity, xi

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medieval studies, archeology, sociology, demographics, psychology, genetics.1 Let me emphasize: on a score of issues — both general and specific — there was plenty of debating and tearing one another to pieces going on. Consequently, the entire extent of risk and all responsibility for whether I construed all that I had heard correctly and in more general terms — for everything written on these pages — is solely mine. Let me specifically single out here: there are people very dear to me, who reject outright both my approach to the subject, my hypotheses and conclusions, and a stylistic “encasement” of this work: I approach their arguments with a full measure of respect in the light of my own doubts on the many issues I will refer to repeatedly. I am also grateful to the United Jewish Appeal Federation of New York who supported in 2000–2001 the project in Jewish identity and civilization I headed, with the grant that made the publication of the Russian version of this book possible as well as setting up fruitful workshops and discussions bearing on these subjects both in Moscow and Jerusalem. Those aspects of this book that refer to Biblical etymologies, Semitic and Afrasian (Afroasiatic) studies, history and prehistory of the ancient Near East were elaborated upon by me within the frames of several projects: Evolution of Human Languages, supported by the Santa Fe Institute; The Tower of Babel, supported by the Russian Jewish Congress, the Ariel Group and personally Dr. Evgueny Satanovsky; Featuring early Neolithic man and society in the Near East by the reconstructed common Afrasian lexicon after the Afrasian database, supported by the Russian Foundation for Sciences; and Semitic Etymological Dictionary, supported by the Russian Foundation for the Humanities. I am much thankful to all of the supporters. My gratitude also goes to those who helped me with the English translation at various stages of the work on it: Anatoly Kovalev, Gordon Sullivan, Sergei Gitman, Elena Yakovleva, Yakov Pechersky and, especially, Roman Borukhov whose highest professionalism and unselfish assistance made the preparation of this book for publication possible. I am also much thankful for friendly attitude and long patience to the team of Academic Studies Press: Igor and Kira Nemirovsky, Angela Levkina (make-up and a lot of improvements in the book) and Sara Libby Robinson for editing my text and having suggested to me the title of this book.

1

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The list of them adduced in the Russian version of this book is so long that I have opted not to reproduce it here.

PREFACE I am unaccustomed to composing essays like this one. I am, essentially, an etymologist working in comparative linguistics, a field which, although one of the humanities in its object, is closer in method to the hard sciences. General speculation and passionate polemic in the service of a favored Weltanschauung are rarely called for in papers devoted to individual etymologies or proto-language reconstruction. Such papers owe less to inspired thoughts or elegant phrasing than to thorough — and to the nonspecialist, thoroughly dull — argumentation sustained by hundreds of dictionaries and grammars regularly scanned and native speakers of various languages interviewed. Further, this field is much more specialized than “pure” humanities. Fundamental philosophical ideas and even famous tractates are not always authored by professional philosophers. Gifted artists occasionally proffer deep thoughts on art, and no one is surprised when a serious novelist produces striking literary criticism, or a scholar of general interests, some pointed insight into a particular historical controversy. But an amateur, or a historian, or a hermeneutist of a scriptural text, or even a linguist with a specialty other than historical and comparative linguistics coming up with an etymology1 or proto-language reconstruction would be inevitably wide of the mark: even his or her considerations about these matters have no more 1

A wide-spread temptation of inventing — and even sometimes publishing! — false etymologies or what is called Volksetymologie, or popular etymology (a phenomenon interesting in itself), is irresistible in many a naïve or otherwise prudent and intelligent people; my teacher Prof. Igor Diakonoff called it “the Siren of Semblance”. Even in linguistic works, including etymological dictionaries, what I call “scholarly mythetymologies” are fairly current — and very tenaciuos. xiii

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scientific value than a literary critic’s discourse on nuclear physics. Besides, the commitment required to contribute to such a discipline would seem to be total. No doubt it is with good reason that etymologists so rarely appear outside the dense thickets and demanding wilds of their own specialized journals and conference proceedings. Why then, you might ask, has this particular etymologist chosen to venture into the field of essay writing, despite a general uneasiness, and a specific anxiety about the effect that years of chasing down elusive proto-language roots have no doubt wrought upon his own literary abilities? And why, more particularly, has he chosen to venture into the “Jewish issue?” The genre of essay has been a constrained choice. A serious comprehensive up-to-date research taking into account all relevant literature on the Jewish or any other subject of similar breadth can be handled only by a large team of specialists in various fields of knowledge, while essay, is “a short literary composition on a single subject, usually presenting the personal view of the author”2 or, according to Aldous Huxley, “is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything, usually on a certain topic … the essay is a short piece, and it is therefore impossible to give all things full play within the limits of a single essay.” According to various definitions, this genre implies conciseness and may be fraught with: insufficient argumentation, overlooking of alternative interpretations and numerous nuances, quite important in certain cases; oversimplification of the most intricate problems; subjectivism, anachronism, and the neglect of historical facts; outdated commonplace notions picked up not from specialized scientific, but from popular scientific literature, vulgar in the eyes of professionals, or from encyclopedia never abreast of the newest scholarly achievements or, in recent years, from the Internet sources, arguably quite irresponsible; and even factual errors. In other words, blameworthy of all things that incite extreme irritation on the part of specialists which I fully share when running into something like this involving my professional field. This field, etymology and comparative study of Semitic and Afroasiatic (or Semito-Hamitic, or Afrasian — the latter name will be used in this book) languages, the one where I feel more or less confident, will also show up in the present composition representing a hard scholarly ingredient in this partly indiscriminate semi-amateurish salad. 2

xiv

According to The American Heritage College Dictionary.

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Any of the above peccancies (plus the fact that this essay is not a short piece, violating the above definitions) can be detected in the present composition by a qualified reader in spite of the author’s dozen year long efforts to get rid of them by consulting specialists in various fields, discussions at workshops and conferences, endless corrections, additions, and withdrawals. Nevertheless, after perennial musing and many a Hamletian doubt, I ventured upon publishing this composition first in Russian and now, its updated version, somewhat adapted for an English-speaking audience. What has been underscored earlier does not at all mean that I am not responsible for what I have written. An essay happens to be no more than genre-forced “watered down” and somewhat less accountable in its claims and conclusions narrative mode (too ticklish and risqué-laden is the Jewish subject — both scientifically, politically and religiously) as compared with a scholarly paper or monograph; however, underlying and paving the way to it is a kind of scientific research. In this book, just as in my professional works I allow myself to wander from the viewpoints and authorities-laiddown generally accepted opinions. I am convinced that any serious specialist is duty-bound to treat everything done before him/her in his research field, what his colleagues are busy doing concurrently with him, and — sure enough — the universally recognized authorities, with attention and due respect. However, all of this holds true for the intermediate, quest stages of research work. At the end of the day, what is of paramount importance for him ought to be not the fact of universal recognition or authoritativeness of this or that tenet per se — including those laid down by him earlier (even if — all the more so if — this tenet has become universally accepted, and he/she enjoys the status of authority), but only and solely the force of argumentation supporting the above: the extent of a problem’s elaboration, intelligibility and logical lucidity of exposition, and the correspondence of conclusions to facts. That is precisely why any non-trivial idea that is one’s own, any selfinduced conclusion laying claims to novelty ought to be subject to one’s own severe critical and skeptical test. The extent of doubting the correctness of one’s stance may vary — including assessing the hypothesis put forward as curious, though unlikely. All the doubts in one’s correctness referred to above and the counter-arguments against one’s attempts at proving the case as right — one would wish from my point of view to explicitly lay down and present for the audience’s judgment whether professional or student or the “general readership” kind. Their concealment is both unethical and impractical: well, one can “snow-job” or pull the wool over the eyes of xv

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the public — moreover — the scientific colleagues’ eyes for a certain while, but then somebody will come following in your own steps, somebody who will inevitably know more and think faster than you do: this “somebody” will go carefully into the gist of the matter — and bust! goes your authority like an air balloon, and your children or grandchildren will be ashamed of their ancestor. I set about writing this book taking precisely all of these considerations into account — and plead in advance for the readers’ forgiveness for constantly showing my doubts and vacillations displayed in importunate refrains, such as “on the one hand — on the other hand,” “it cannot be ruled out that,” “one may suggest,” and so on and so forth. As for the question “Why Jewish issue?” an intense preoccupation with the fact that I am Jewish is not, I must say at the outset, the answer. In my pantheon of self-identities, “Jewishness” does not occupy the first rung. I am far from indifferent to being Jewish (work on the present book helped me to realize why), but more important to me have always been both personal identity, and a sense of membership in a greater mankind. Like my parents and their parents — like, in fact, most of my Jewish friends and colleagues — I am as much a cosmopolite as a Jew. Besides, I identify myself as a member of the liberal Russian intelligentsia, generally speaking, a designation that at times in my life has meant more to me than that of Jew. (I find the voguish disdain for the intelligentsia in current-day Russia nearly as repulsive as anti-Semitism and xenophobia in general.) I feel a sense of kinship to any Jew belonging to the Russian intelligentsia wherever he lives in Moscow, Jerusalem or San Francisco. And a Russian of the same clan, with whom I share the Russian language, Russian culture (with such a conspicuous 20th century Jewish influx), humanistic worldview and common life of our and a few past generations, is more comprehensible and closer to me than, say, a Jewish American professor, though I have quite a few colleagues and pals in the American academia. At the same time, it is much more difficult for me to feel something greater than a common human bond towards a Chabadnik in Moscow, a Jewish broker in Manhattan, or a Jewish Moroccan butcher in Jerusalem, suggesting that, in everyday life, in “real time,” my choice of friends and companions is more linguistically, culturally, and socially than ethnically bounded. History and politics are a different matter. I feel a special association with the Jewish history,3 both legendary and well-attested — from Jacob 3

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Naturally, as nearly every Russian Jew, I am not indifferent to Russian history either.

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the patriarch to Janusz Korczak, from the first pogrom in Alexandria to Treblinka, from the Babylonian captivity to the ongoing war on Gaza. I think that even were I not a Jew, my professional and intellectual interests might well compel me to look into the questions dealt with in this essay. After all, it is not clanship that underlies my interest and research in the ethno-linguistic history of Afrasians, Semites, Sumerians, Berbers, Libyan Garamants, or aborigines of the Canary Islands. Several close friends and colleagues, Jews and non-Jews, whose judgment on both life and scholarly matters is important for me, warned me upon reading this text that it may be perceived as a partisan claim: “Jews are an exclusive people endowed with some outstanding merits or privileges in the face of other nations.” Indeed, someone may draw such a conclusion, which is, to put it straight, completely alien to me. What I really mean is quite a different thing. Let me try and explain this concisely. It seems to me quite obvious that for over two millennia the Jews have played (and continue to play, though not without lulls) an outstanding role — in disproportion to their relatively small number — in the shaping of the “Western” civilization — the most universal, progressive and advanced one, the leader in the humankind for the time being. By doing this, the Jews have made a great contribution to the elaboration of one of the possible strategies of the homo sapiens sapiens species’ survival and its consolidation on the planet. Can we be sure that this strategy — and not other ones, more isolationist, resource-saving, perhaps less conflictive — is the most efficient or infallible? Of course not. Can one measure — by what scale? — the advantages and achievements gained by this civilization and by this strategy (from which only part of humankind has benefited, at that) versus all the calamities accompanying what is called Progress: large-scale wars, genocides, ecological damages already inflicted and yet pending, the ruthless deprivation from so many people of consolatory hopes for the immortality of the soul, life after death, and “salvation”? What measurement should be used to portion out this balance of gains and losses with debits and credits on the accounts of other civilizations and local cultures — statistics? ethics? Whose ethics should it be? “Western”? Chinese? Hindu? Commonly consented? I do not have definite answers to these questions, and I am suspicious about those who do. However, the lot that befell me is to live in this chronotopos, in this time and place, in this civilization, and to grow up on its ethics and aesthetics. What I mean is of course the so-called European, Western, humanistic xvii

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civilization, not the Soviet one: Russian and World culture and literature, on which my cultural milieu was nourished usually taught good; as for the Soviet ideology, we repelled it or gradually wrung it out of ourselves. I cannot imagine my life in any other system of coordinates — either in modern cultural zones principally different from mine or anywhere in ancient or medieval epochs (though I would of course grasp at a chance of scanning all these zones in a time machine). That is how I see life there:4 lack of freedom (relative, relative, I’ve been told!) and minimal privacy; maximal dependence on the powers-that-be ever meddling into your life; barrack collectivism; mandatory-for-all ideology-mythology-religion. I’ve had enough of it under communists for nearly half a century, and it made me feel like spewing. Though my acquaintance with the Western World for the past twenty five years has brought me no small disillusion (while there are many more repulsive things for me in today’s Russia, to say nothing of the former Soviet Union), I stand fast on a slippery ground of “Western” civilization with its humane values — at least those proclaimed and verbally accepted. At this juncture I would like to explain my position, which lays claim neither to originality, nor any depth with respect to humanism, morals, religion, predilection of the human race and similar “lofty matters” — a position that might enable the reader to better comprehend the main ethos and the predominant goal of this book. With respect to religion I am an agnostic rather than anything else. The verb “to believe” suggests a certainty, an assurance. As to certainty over the fact of God’s existence or life after death — alas, it is not there in my case, although I grant you that much: it is definitely a more exuberant existence with faith and belief. Yet, I am prepared to “accept” and believe not in any God at all, or — rather — not in just any ideation of him. The thing is, working at a given passage in the Hebrew Bible I make myself, at the first stage, ignore both conscious and involuntary theological associations, the tenets of exegetic traditions and biblical criticism I am familiar with, as well as neglect the hazards of my anachronistic modernization of ancient thought or “reinventing the wheel”. Trying to look at the text with a “virgin” eye of an unbiased uncommitted present-day cultured reader I gather there are two opposite if interacting tendencies in the ideation of God suggesting either two main latently polemizing “schools of thought”, two worldviews 4

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With an exception of such rare “Eastern democracies” as India, of course, but its life-style and dominant religion and philosophy are too alien to me.

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“counterpointed” — deliberately rather than haphazardly — in the canon (which seems to me more likely) or a certain ambivalence in the Bible authors’ and redactors’ minds. One of these tendencies appears to me to contain the component of an Oriental despot of sorts — vain, totally authoritarian, demanding idolatry, verbose adulation and the obeisance of slaves, and, at the same time, selfsufficient, standing aloof of human perception of good and evil and not caring at all about man’s understanding of his actions. It is this image of God that, as I see it, dominates in the three “Abrahamic” religions developed, with all their differences, from the Hebrew Bible — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — in their orthodox, mainstream versions at least. And it is this image of God — rather than somewhat naive “scientific proof” of his nonexistence — that makes atheists of many a conscientious people, causes them to reject such a God and his ways of creating and running the world with its immeasurable suffering and evil. The other tendency more consonant with modern humanistic worldview — which it spawned to a considerable extent — is the image of the Creator as the personification of fatherly love, mercy, compassion and understanding, who restricts his own omnipotence by the ethical values he himself initiated (“… to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just” Gen 18:19). If one is to allow the existence of such a God,5 then the Maker may have allowed the creation — and belief in — this image of a super-boss as the only way to keep the human race delivered from evil in its infancy. He may have done it then with a view to watching humankind be progressively divorced from evil and increasing its conscious attitudes along with acquiring maturity — not obeying the decree of a high authority at all, but following its own free will — in full awareness of what the world’s Creator wishes and expects of it. Referring to humanism (an imprecise term suggesting just the homo species, yet we will use it with a broader implication — with reference to all of live nature) I invest it with the suggestion of the same basic things — kindness, compassion, etc. I hope (only hope — knowledge is inscrutable to me) that humankind has a simple enough pre-destination, at the minimum — to render the world more humane, kinder, better suited for the life of a human being and for other living beings, to alleviate suffering, 5

It is hardly worth my while to bother believing in a different one — it happens to be worthier to accept and resign oneself to the hopelessness of the world and individual human existence inexorably coming to an end with nihil, nada, nothingness. xix

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to delay death and, last but not least, to grant everyone an opportunity of benevolent creative activity.6 That is, as I see it, the nearest if not the ultimate goal and all the rest — religion, culture, art, science, progress, organization of the society are but means towards that end’s attainment. Any of those means is honorable and noble inasmuch as it paves the way for that declared goal. If it does not, but does not impede this progress, I approach it neutrally — let it be. If, however, it is an impediment, my attitude to it is downright bad and I wish it would go hang. When any of the means in question replaces the goal, becoming an end in itself, nothing good results. Religion becomes one continuous adulation and ritual and/or an egotistic transport ensuring one’s own personal “salvation,” nonchalant to the rest of the world in the best case scenario; the stance of aggressive fanaticism in the worst. In art, in literature, the didactic proclamation of any goals and their straight pursuance often happens to be aesthetically vulgar, yet if the author of any work does not set any humane goals at all (or the goals set are in-human) and they are not expressed — with any degree of latency — a work like that is unpalatable for me and in my observations does not leave an imprint in the culture for long. A scholar swept up by research gusto and aplomb and not worrying too much if the results of his work contribute to good or occasion harm may — given a certain set of circumstances — morph into a monster spawning golems. The organization of society, politics — is a particularly fine matter, a cause replete with all manner of dangerous temptations and risks — and very seldom successful. When it becomes an end in itself, Bolsheviks emerge taking upon themselves the task of treating a gravely diseased, yet still living patient, eventually resulting in his metamorphosis into a corpse with its consequent galvanization and transformation into a zombie. Returning to the issue of identities, there are two marked positions in it. The first position: for me, to belong to any outlined group of people (ethnic, religious, social, family, etc.) or even to humankind means little or nothing: I am responsible for my, and only my, actions. In other words, I do not need to exist as a part of the whole either synchronically, in my current life, or diachronically, in history. 6

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At this last point I anticipate an obvious objection: the results of a creative activity may be unpredictable and prove harmful. To that I can only answer: let us hope the humanity would become mature enough to settle this problem as it copes with the other ones.

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The second position: belonging to the Jews (Eskimos, Russian intelligentsia, Buddhists, Hohenzollerns’ or a village blacksmith’s family, all humankind) is meaningful for me; I feel inscribed in the history of the group or several groups I belong to, and of mankind as a whole and prepared to bear responsibility — nominal, of course — for this history, sharing with my group(s) and even the whole humankind both our virtual laurels and thorns, our merits and guilts. What I would like to stress, is that in respect of the second position, I am speaking neither of people over-preoccupied with their own or others’ national or ethnic identification who seem hopelessly boring to me (naturally, I make an exception for these feelings at the time of ethnic persecutions or threats to national safety) nor aggressive nationalists who are disgusting to me. I am speaking of those whose ethnicity or nationality is part of their self-identity, but not an exclusive or dominant one. I agree with the saying “When a person has nothing else to say about himself, he yells: I am Jewish! (or: I am French!)” but with one important reservation: there are extreme situations when this has to be pronounced. (“I am Jewish” were the last words of Daniel Pearl murdered by Moslem fanatics; see I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl, ed. by Judea and Ruth Pearl. Woodstock, 2004.) I respect the first position provided it is combined with personal ethics, but the second position is becoming closer to me with the years: with it, life is more interesting. Closer and more interesting for me are people far from indifferent to these matters: such as a German brought up on the national culture but burdened with a heaviest guilt complex for his country’s Nazi past even though his father and grandfather might not be personally involved in the Nazi’s crimes; a true Russian patriot despising anti-Semites and bitterly ashamed of the national disgrace — the penalty paid with Russian youngsters’ and Chechen kids’ lives for ambitions, avarice and the mediocrity of generals and politicos on both sides of the fence; an American justly proud of his country’s achievements and democracy but actively opposed to imperial self-assertion and arrogance periodically pervading her foreign policy. And I feel deep respect for an Israeli who has gone through the recent wars and is prepared to fight in the coming ones, but has not learned to indiscriminately hate Arabs (polls suggest 20 percent of Muslims, Arabs and even Palestinians accept Israel as a Jewish state — see Accepting Israel as the Jewish State by Daniel Pipes in Jewish Voice, May 14, 2010, p. 21), calls Palestinians “cousins” and forgets not that, however monstrous is Arabic xxi

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extremists’ terrorism (none the worse than any other one), Israel is no hosts of angels without guilt in the present confrontation.7 If I choose the second position, it would be appropriate, before speaking about the invaluable Jewish contribution to human culture and of the Jewish uniqueness and its possible causes, to remind the reader and myself of the most shameful episodes of Jewish history, of what I feel as a historical disgrace of the Jews, of my ancestry, and, in a sense, of my own. It will hardly be a discovery. What I mean here are certain biblical passages repelling any unprejudiced reader, such as an ideologically based — for the first time in history! — genocide of the conquered Canaanite peoples, described in the Book of Joshua; or an entranced enthusiasm with which the Book of Isaiah poetizes holocaust by “the sword of the Lord” of Edom, offspring of Esau, the “cousin” people of Jews (Isa 34:6); or a blood-thirsty call to an ancient Polizei so realistically echoed in the latest Jewish history: 7

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These are not imaginary types or the kind one only reads about. I have met some people of this kind myself. Let me recount one of such encounters. I was in Berlin early in the 90s and my German acquaintance introduced me to his friend, a German already quite advanced in years, with a rough-hewn bloodshot face with the looks of a classical “burger,” a habitué of Bavarian “suds parlors.” It was in such a “suds parlor” that we were sitting and the “red face” asked me emphatically all of a sudden: “Are you Jewish?” Being a Russian Jew used to this question often followed by an aggressive behavior and given that telltale look of the interlocutor I got a little tense inside. “I am. Why?” — “Your associations are all out on the surface” — the “red face,” who turned out to be a sociology professor replied with a smirk. “Want to hear a story?” — “Go ahead.” “My father was married to a Jewish woman in his first wedlock, then they got divorced and he married my mother-tobe. When the hunt for Jews and round-ups started, mother talked dad into hiding his first wife in a cellar in our house in Berlin, where she was ensconced till the end of the war. As a boy it was my duty to bring her food and take bedpans out for her while she helped me with homework on school subjects and, being a well-educated person, lectured me on infinite subjects. My father’s brother was a zealous nazi in a high rank, a prosecutor or something. Somehow he was aware of our “lodger” and kept kicking up rows with father whenever he came over, calling him now an enemy of the nation, now an irresponsible moron risking the life of his family for the sake of a Verfluchte Jude … Yet — incomprehensibly, he did not report her. When the war came to an end and there was hunger, our “guest” came out of the cellar and provided food for the entire family on the food stamps that she was entitled to as the victim of Nazism. My parents have long been dead and she had nobody in the world but me, so she lived under my roof till very old age. She was another mom, a mother figure to me. So, relax, I could not possibly be an antiSemite even if I wished to.”

Preface

“O Daughter of Babylon … happy is he who … seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks” (Ps 137:8).8 No intricate theological justifications of these atrocities — Judaic, Christian, Muslim — will convince me of the opposite. Arguments against this are self-evident, well-known and uncontestable. If it is possible to justify by the superior necessity (divine commandment, eventual benefit of the chastised themselves, etc.) actions of this nature against one category — I mean here not the criminals and villains that must be punished, but the “infants” irreparably spoilt from the vantage point of an advocate of such action by mere belonging (kindred, national, religious) to the chastised object — then why would it be impossible to justify with respect to others? If, for instance, an orthodox Jew that is denied any right to doubt a single word in the Torah, justifies the massacre of the “incorrigible” infants whose only blame is the fact of being born in Babylon wallowing in sin, then what is the difference in principle between his views and the views of an orthodox shahid who staunchly believes that the will of Allah is in eradicating the unfaithful or an Inquisitor, confident that the fire of autoda-fe will deliver the sinner burnt at stake from eternal fire-to-be — or a Nazi confident of the irreparable depravity of the entire “Jewish race”? What I mean here is a Jewish active hand in the medieval and later slave trade. Or the participation of the “New Christians,” los conversos, the converted Jews, in the persecution of unconverted Jews in Spain of the Inquisition epoch: I am referring neither to the wretched ones forced into Christianity under the fear of death, exile or simply loss of a relative wellbeing, nor to those whose change of faith was voluntary, disinterested and sincere — anyone has the right to choose his own truth — but to persecutors and torturers like Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, said to be of Jewish descent. What I mean is of course the notorious Jewish activity in the extremist revolutionary movement in Russia, in the very Bolshevik upheaval, and in the bloody Bacchanalia unleashed by the Cheka, Extraordinary Commission, and the NKVD, People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs: 8

All quotations (and abbreviations of the individual books with the exception of Ge for Genesis rendered below as Gen) from the Bible are after Zondervan The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV), copyright 2002 unless otherwise referred. I have finally chosen this version of the Scripture accepted in the Western World, not the Jewish one, because the present book is designed for any interested audience, not specifically for the Jewish one — part of which is familiar with the Book in its “Western” rather than traditional Jewish version and interpretation at that. xxiii

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the Jewish “quota” in these cannibalistic guilds was, as it would seem characteristic for the involvement of Jews in any cause — good or bad — disproportionately high. It is also participation of Jews, or, one may say, Germans of Jewish descent in Hitler’s military campaigns and even in the National-Socialist Party, and not only as rank-and-file members. One may object, of course, that such were the ancients mores and that murdering all prisoners captured in a battle (not only men, but women, elders and children, too) appears to have been a current practice everywhere in the ancient Near East; that a total massacre of the local population which allegedly accompanied the conquest of Canaan was more likely the customary bragging of ancient warriors. That such little respected professions as usury or the slave trade were often taken up by the Jews because of the ban on more “decent” occupations, such as farming or military service. That quite a few cases are known of the “New Christians” having hidden their brethren faithful Jews from the inquisitors risking their head not less than French, Ukrainian, or Polish Righteous among the Nations who hid Jews from the Nazis. That Jews in Russia were active in the liberal, social-democratic and constitutionalist movements as well while many of them were thrust into the revolution’s embrace by the idiotic and suicidal policy of the last czar of Russia and his governments. That many highly cultured and educated Germans took the bait of the Nazi propaganda — and for an army man, a disguised Jew, or a German with hidden Jewish roots, what was the alternative to holding the line? A death camp? However, at will, every wrong can be given explanation and every recreancy, justification. But we have endeavored here to call disgrace, not justifications, to account. Returning to the modern “Western” civilization: two ancient peoples stood at its cradle, Greeks and Jews, though, of course, they also had their progenitors. Who of the two contributed more to molding its present aspect, who has provided to a greater extent the direction for its further progress — Jews or Greeks — is a debatable issue. Later, many nations became party to its onward march, but it is these two that are responsible for the inchoate model. Where, to what destination, will this civilization’s locomotive deliver the human race — to universal well-being, a symbiosis with all living nature, dissemination throughout the Universe and creative comprehension of itself and the world? — To self-destruction by way of a global war, mass terrorism, overpopulation, famine or “greenhouse” effect? xxiv

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If the development follows the first route, it is a grand merci to everyone, as they say, — Greeks and Jews among others. Victors need never explain. What, however, if it does the second? Contemporary Greeks are “off the hook”: one is hard put trying to hold them responsible for anything: they have long moved out of the historical spot light, from the center stage to the wings of historical life, the son is not responsible for the father. — Not Jews, however: here they are, always “in the thick of it” in all kinds of developments. Well, in a sense Jews are responsible for this civilization, for its defeats and victories, for its future. Not just them alone, of course, but that does not cancel out their responsibility. Each individual must, nonetheless, have an entirely free and equally respected choice — to lift the responsibility off of oneself or to shoulder it. It is, probably, true of all human communities: committing no special anti-human acts since the end of the Second World War, contemporary German society could allow itself not to give a damn (many do just that) about the uncomfortable guilt anxiety for the crimes committed not even by their fathers, but grand- and great- grandfathers, but those who set the tone there don’t do it for some reason and try to cure others of this amnesia. As for the Jews, whenever I am reminded (or remind myself) of the Holocaust and the Jewish ordeal in general (actually one always latently remembers that and never quite forgets), I always feel like telling all this “role in civilization, mission, predestination” — or whatever else you would choose to call them go f… themselves! Quit, run away as an entire people, get the hell out, quietly “dive in one’s backwater” and live one’s own life avoiding involvement in anything, bothering nobody, saving nobody, out of everybody’s way. May the world live pretty much as it pleases, down with “tikkun olam” — setting the world straight! To live, that is, precisely the way Zionists invoked and organized — or tried to — life in the Jewish state. How I understand them in moments like this! The problem is — alas! — that it does not work out this way — whether we wish it or not, whether we embrace this historical destiny or it only makes our blood boil. It did not work out throughout the Jewish history, it does not happen now either — neither in the Diaspora, nor in Israel where initially it seemed like it might work out. I am no prophet, neither am I a futurologist, so I won’t stake my life on it, but I have in fact developed some analytical thinking facilities in the over-thirty-year course of doing research and they prompt to me ahoy, “that cat won’t jump” — shrink, cowl up, “sit it out” … And even take some time out to “play it cool” as an entire people for any length of time. No chance: they won’t let us. More xxv

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importantly: we won’t let ourselves. A historical awl in one virtual place. One question remains unanswered: who would stab with it there and what the heck for … ? What was this text written for? What do I want to communicate in writing it? For one thing, I would like to attract attention to the exceptionality of the Jewish phenomenon in human history once again and by doing so, show that many extraordinary paradoxical attributes and manifestations of this phenomenon are impossible to explain away through historical fortuitousness or exogenous factors alone. Looming behind them and showing occasionally through is an intrinsically indivisible process that is bound to have a set of reasons apparent on a macro-historical level. I, moreover, venture that this set of reasons may have an even more general explanation. It is not entirely hopeless to look for it on a metahistorical level as it is. What is implied here is a transgression beyond the boundaries of observable historical facts and processes (the historical level) — and even generalizations and hypothetical regularities (the macrohistorical level) — in a quest for parallels and answers to questions put forth by history in other areas of knowledge: evolution theory, ethology, genetics, sociobiology. From my point of view, the quest for meta-historical approaches to the historical process is not just promising, but — moreover — comprises the only serious alternative to explanations of a metaphysical or religious nature. It is never too late to capitulate to metaphysics, but one feels disinclined to do so: for me, metaphysical and meta-historical approaches differ in that the former soars above the natural laws and regularities already established or rejects accepting them altogether, while the latter cautiously transcends the framework of more or less known and described parts of the historical process so as to make an attempt to correlate them with the selfsame natural laws and regularities. Let me also note in parenthesis that in a purely existential aspect I may not be placated by the metaphysical or religious answer also because it is served to me like baby food, like a spoon of undifferentiated gruel — perhaps tasty, granted, but selected for me by someone else, orchestrated by a flourish “shut your eyes, open your mouth.” I, however, am — alas! — long a grown-up and ready to eat only with eyes open and only what I have chosen myself — even if it is a prison camp “nosh” or a pie with poison hemlock filling. The purpose of the given work — as follows from the above — is to arouse research interest in the Jewish subject matter highlighted in xxvi

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detail in both scientific and popular writings, but lacking, in my view, a sufficiently serious interpretational and systemic foundation answering the level of contemporary scientific consciousness. Apparently, it is only a representative inter-disciplinary and international team that is in a position to research this subject matter in all seriousness, that would comprise historians with expertise in different periods, social anthropologists, sociologists, demographers, mythologists, religions scholars, linguists, psychologists (ideally, there should be among them experts not in Jewish studies and related areas alone, but also those in other cultures — for comparative and typological analysis). If, however, we graduate to the level of what is suggested here as a meta-historical level, geneticists, zoologists, specialists in evolution theory, ethology and system theory, mathematicians, etc. will also be called for. What may the raison d’être of such a project be? It is called for in my opinion as the Jewish cultural and historical phenomenon as a whole and many of its particular elements specifically fail to fit in well — apparently much worse than any other — with the accepted scientific and plainly rational framework and scope of notions. If academia (and public opinion of the civilized world paying ever more heed to it) does not become concerned about — if not the solution to that conundrum, then at least putting it on the “day’s agenda” — then the science of a human species and all of our civilization as a whole may run the risk of ending up in a precarious situation of an army forging ahead with battles on a battlefield, yet leaving far behind in the rear a fortress that had not been stormed and conquered. If a project like this were to materialize, it could become a ballon d’essai for similar projects for investigating other ethno-cultural models — Russian, for instance, as an alternative to a purely ideological, political or metaphysical approach to the “Russian idea,” normally offered at a dilettante, pre-scientific level at that. In that sense the work contained herein is to be considered as a ground or — if you will — a provocation for a scholarly debate. A couple of other tasks that I set myself transcend the framework of scientific and popular science problems spectrum. Just like many individuals of my acquaintance in Russia as well as many different people in different countries living by latter-day humanitarian and liberal values, I am not spared the gnawing doubts over whether the national consciousness is rather more productive of benefit or harm — even in its mildest form compatible with universalistic, generally humanistic position. xxvii

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Obviously, there are quite a few “pro’s” and “con’s” here. Vastly different points of view on this score abounded in preceding epochs as well: everyone remembers a manifestly polemic appeal of Paul’s in Message to Colossians invoking them to free themselves of national separation: “Here there is no Greek or Jew … , barbarian, Scythian … ” (Col 3:11). In the course of these recent years, as I have said before, I have been swayed to perceiving ethno-cultural, national identity and the attendant historical heritage as a thing of value and I would like to share my notions with my readers on that score. As for the “Jewish question” specifically, then if the hypothesis outlined below regarding some particular Jewish function in the choice, production and realization of survival of the species strategy has any grounds for consideration, then the crisis of Jewish identity that is yet to be discussed later may yield losses, possibly fateful — not just for Jewry alone, but also for the entire species Homo sapiens. That happens to be a sufficient enough incentive for an open, wellconsidered discussion of both the Jewish subject and — in general terms — the ways of human civilization development, present-day results and comparative analysis thereof — the discussion not just in a narrower scientific aspect, but on a more extensive scale — in an interested general audience. I am of the opinion that for a discussion of the kind the beginning of the 3rd millennium is an entirely relevant occasion.

THE JEWISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

Introduction

INTRODUCTION An obscure semi-nomadic community that had formed by the last third of the 2nd mill. B.C.E., the Jews have gradually become one of the most prominent players on the stage of universal history. The intellectual revolution that had been growing in the minds of that nation’ intellectual elite for centuries bore fruit by the second half of the 1st mill. B.C.E. in the shape of the Bible, a collection of scriptures which obviously played a most significant part in the history of human civilization. The revolution in question is most commonly associated with one of its achievements, monotheism, i.e., a fundamentally new religious concept that, in this or that form, survived in the post-Biblical Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is monotheism that represents the main point of similarity between the three above religious systems, with the two latter having spread all over the world, defining new ways of development for a large segment of mankind. However, the significance of another achievement of this revolution — which, in my opinion, is no less important and from which, as I see it, monotheism might well derive — is perceived much more vaguely. I speak here of an entirely new model of the world that was delineated in some passages in the Prophets and other books of the Bible, but most systematically in the few opening chapters of Genesis (Bereshith), a model that can be termed anthropocentric or humane, because, for the first time in history, it has in its focus the Man, Homo sapiens sapiens, as a species purposefully set off from all other creatures populating both real and imaginary worlds. The idea of the one universal God who unites all human individuals and peoples, as opposed to local “gods of nations” dividing them and indifferent to the unity and special standing of humankind in the universe, corresponds to the entirely new concept of the humanity as a single whole, 1

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

or the Adam. It is only from this anthropocentric, “Adamic” world view that modern civilization (which can also be called Christian, Judeo-Christian, Mediterranean, European, Western: I deliberately avoid becoming involved in discussions about terminology), with its principles of humanism, human rights, human life as an absolute value, etc., could arise. The old prophets, sages and teachers of the Jewish people left us the two great books, the Bible and Talmud, either of which continues to influence world history and culture in its own way and to different degrees. In the course of their long history, the Jews have survived ancient Egypt, the kingdoms of Assyria, Babylonia and Persia, the Roman Empire, Arabic conquests, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the banishment from many European countries, the Jewish Pale, both the bloodless — limitations imposed on marriages and, ergo, childbirth — and the bloody genocide. The Jewish people persisted through the two millennia of persecution, banishment, humiliation, extortion, rights limitations and pogroms to which they were subjected in turn for their monotheism (by polytheistic heathens), for the wrong sort of monotheism (by other adepts of monotheism which they had created), and, finally, for “wrong” blood (by other fellow representatives of the jointly created civilization). Having literally risen from the ashes of the Holocaust, these people, the Phoenix of human history, created a state of its own that withstood all the wars it had to wage against a foe a hundred times as numerous. After practically losing Yiddish, the language spoken for a millennium by the largest and most advanced group of the Diaspora by the 20th century, the Jews of Israel started to speak the long-unspoken Hebrew. By the early 3rd millennium of the Christian era, or, according to the Jewish chronology, by the beginning of the last quarter of the 6th millennium, Israel grew from scratch into the most advanced and developed country of the Near East, while Jewish communities of most countries of the Diaspora are among the most prosperous and successful sections of the population. The phenomenal Jewish contribution to the 20th and early 21st century science and culture is quite out of proportion to the actual low percentage of Jewish population in the world. The long road down which the Jews trudged through epochs, fighting enormous odds, losing and succeeding, and finally achieving the ultimate victory of survival in the face of everything, seems to belong in mythology rather than in history. Ironically, it is at this, apparently most favorable — in spite of the ever-critical situation in Israel and a new pandemic of never-ending 2

Introduction

Judeophobia — moment of their history that the Jews face a dire crisis that is in its own way graver than all crises of the past. This is a crisis of identity, when the scientific outlook and, especially, modern values system begin to contradict the accustomed equation of Jews with Judaism as a religioustraditional phenomenon only and when, due to the general slackening, as compared with the preceding centuries, in the most civilized countries, of anti-Semitism — a factor that always both generated Jewish assimilation and drastically limited it — many people begin to find fewer motives and reasons to feel Jewish. In some paradoxical way, the Jewish contribution was decisive in creating early preconditions for and fairly important in the actual implementation of the new stage in the development of ideas incompatible with xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism and barely compatible with traditional religiosity. The identity crisis affects primarily the Jews of the Diaspora. However, it did not leave Israel wholly untouched, which manifests itself in the dangerous antagonism between different sections of the Israeli population — the consolidating factor of being Jewish is being periodically defeated by political, cultural and religious differences. The feeling of belonging to a common state, Israeli patriotism rekindled by the sensation of permanent menace, unites most — but by no means all — Israeli Jews. In this case, however, we must speak of an Israeli identity rather than the Jewish one; it is even conceivable that, in a not so remote future, an Israeli Jew would feel about his Jewish roots in the same way as an Italian-American feels about Italy, or even a modern Greek feels about ancient Hellas. The identity crisis is severely aggravated by a demographic one, i.e., the dramatic decrease in childbirth typical for the Western civilization of today. Besides, there is a positive growth of mixed marriages in that everincreasing “vanguard group” within which individualistic values become stronger, as behavioral motivation, than national and religious values. The crisis of the Diaspora can become one of the most striking of Jewish paradoxes — the most “velvet” genocide in history, a kind of a collective euthanasia, quiet and bloodless, protracted over several generations. Personally, no one would be harmed; nothing would happen against anyone’s will, and there would be no one to blame. This would merely signify suspension points put at the bottom of one of the longest, brightest and most interesting pages in human history that was never read to the end, the history of the Jews. One might argue that Israel is likely to endure, but that would be a different kind of history, it seems. 3

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A joke of the Soviet epoch told of the game of survival (fashioned as a series of soccer games) played by the Jews against many opponents: Egypt vs. The Jews (where is that Egypt now?), Babylon vs. The Jews (show me that Babylon on the map, then!), The Roman Empire vs. The Jews (halloo, Empire, where have you vanished?), The Inquisition vs. The Jews (what is left of those inquisitors?), Hitler vs. The Jews (how did Hitler end up?), etc., the last words of the joke being, “We came as far as the final at last.” This, of course, implied the final game The Soviet Power vs. The Jews, to hope to win which was possible only in view of all the previous games mentioned in the joke. However, another miracle happened, and the Jews, who had once contributed so much to the establishment of the Soviet regime, won the game with it. The only snag was that that was not the final yet. The final game is seemingly played by The Jews vs. Themselves, and its outcome is far from being obvious. There is a vast sea of literature written about the Jews by Jews themselves, as well as by objective and impartial non-Jewish scholars, or by anti-Semites. Can we add anything new and of some importance, without drowning in that sea?

4

The Cr isis of Modern Jewr y

THE CRISIS OF MODERN JEWRY The severe crisis experienced by the Jewry of today is obvious. Its aggravation came during a favorable epoch of Jewish history, when Israel enjoyed a spell of relative political and economic stability, when the position of Jewish communities within the U.S.A. and Europe was stable (in the U.S.A. it still is while in Europe it is much less so), when the ugliest manifestations of popular and, especially, state anti-Semitism in the Slav republics of the former U.S.S.R. were on the decline. The crisis in question has three principal causes. Firstly, a modern man who lives in the Diaspora and agrees with the “Western” humanistic and universal values (mainly rooted in the Hebrew Bible, of which this man usually has rather vague ideas) has less and less personal motivation for feeling Jewish in the traditional sense of the term. This is true of a large section of North American Jews and of the majority of the Jewish population in the former U.S.S.R. and Europe. In Israel, of course, the situation is special. There, the feeling of belonging to a single unity is much stronger, even among liberally oriented groups. However, the motivation seems strong not so much because of the feeling of Jewish identity as due to an Israeli identity, which is not quite the same, or even is quite different in some cases — and in future prospects.1 1

By the results of latest statistical surveys 52% individuals born in Israel identify themselves first and foremost as Israelites and only 22% — as Jews; among immigrants from other countries 34% identify themselves as Israelites and 27% — as Jews. The highest rate of self-identification as Jews is in evidence in olim from the former USSR: half the surveyed consider themselves Jews in the first place and only 20% identify themselves as Israelites. 5

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It is in Israel that the second cause of the crisis — the notorious Jewish discord — presents an urgent problem. This is the growing mutual misunderstanding and enmity that arise — especially at times when the outward threat to the country is at its lowest — between two major groups of the Israelis that we would conventionally call “traditionalists” and “nontraditionalists,” with much infighting going on within either, at that. The third cause, the demographic crisis whose main feature is a low birthrate, is a problem common to all economically and culturally advanced populations, but especially dangerous to the Jews of the Diaspora in view of increasing assimilation, considerable loss of Jewish identity, and high rate of mixed marriages. In Israel, the demographic situation is dramatically better — mostly owing to high birthrate among the most religious population groups, which is, however, fraught with the upsetting of political equilibrium and therefore further conflict. Turning to the first cause of the Jewish crisis, we get an impression that the non-traditional, liberally oriented Jews (primarily U.S. and E.U. citizens; let’s refer to them as Group A) have gotten into a sort of intellectual trap. If they agree that religion and observance are the indispensable attributes of being Jewish,2 then one of the possible logical steps on their part is to consider themselves not quite Jewish or not Jewish at all. Their attitude to religion (ranging from “mild” agnosticism to uncompromising atheism), as well as what they perceive as the conflict between the universal, humanitarian and cosmopolitan values and the traditional Jewish ones, primarily ethnocentrism, only makes them take that step more readily. Another possible move for them is to change their way of life, reverting to a “truly Jewish life” which implies keeping the Sabbath, celebrating numerous festivals, eating kosher food, etc. This “Jewish life,” implying the observation of customs and tradition, seems to be an even more important and indispensable part of being Jewish in the eyes of modern Jewish traditionalists (let’s refer to them as Group B) than, for instance, belief in the God of Israel, or that which is called “religious feeling.” However, it is this change of lifestyle that is least acceptable for the Group A representatives for both practical (for our hectic life, too much bother) and 2

6

For the US Jews, it is hard to disagree with this in view of the fact that “Jewish” is a religious category both in the official documents and in the stereotypical public opinion-Jewish and non-Jewish, though more and more people in America, Jews and non-Jews, realize that it is less and less so in real life. To me, a Russian Jew that I am, it looks like the Orwellian “double-think” fraught with a collapse.

The Cr isis of Modern Jewr y

motivation reasons: why bother if the desire to feel oneself Jewish — or to be considered Jewish by others — is not very strong. The very observation of the Jewish customs is, for the modern psyche, a profound anachronism; the famous, allowing no objection, argument of a Jewish believer, “For it is written … ”, is devoid of any meaning for a modern man: many kinds of things have been written, so what? On top of everything, we also have rampant individualism, both Weltanschauung and behavioral, especially common in the West — a standpoint that has little use for any collective values, including ethno-cultural. A third solution, which I feel is rather a palliative, is especially typical of U.S. Jewry. This is the conversion to non-traditional trends of Judaism: Conservative, Reform, etc., that are far less exacting in their demands of sticking to “proper Jewish life” or even not exacting at all. A palliative is, however, no more than a palliative: traditional Judaism does not acknowledge all these groups, and, despite their growth and relative attractiveness, they look more and more like a temporary measure for preserving Jewish self-identification. It seems that the U.S. Jews themselves are alarmed by this, feeling a growing anxiety about their relationship with children whose motivation to preserve their Jewish identity is even weaker, especially on the emotional plane: the older generation is still supported in its national sentiment by warm recollections of traditional Jewish grannies and grandfathers, whereas younger Jews have none of these and the memory of the Holocaust, once very much alive, and all the efforts to keep it that way notwithstanding — is on its way to regrettably becoming a chapter from a history textbook. Membership in a Jewish community, attending a local synagogue, and participating in charities remain the major features of Jewish life in America. We might also name such traditional values as good, sound family, attachment to children, setting great store by education, etc. that are still typical of Jews, but they equally distinguish, on a higher-than-average level, several other population groups in the U.S. The question is, would all that be enough to preserve Jewish identity in younger generation? For a secular Jew, an alternative to religion and tradition as determinants of identity consists in being Jewish biologically. However, this is a difficult solution for the liberal mentality. Such notions as “Jewish blood” tend to smack of racism, the least suspicion of which is a shameful stain on one’s reputation — specially in the American society. Besides, the high proportion of mixed marriages both in the West and in the former U.S.S.R. makes the biological criterion fairly vague. 7

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

The situation can hardly be repaired with the help of the “peoplehood” concept, “the word of the hour in the Jewish community” (see E. Brown and M. Galperin. The Case for Jewish Peoplehood. Can We Be One? Woodstock, 2009) — whatever attractive it may be. In Russia and the Ukraine, containing an overwhelming majority of the former Soviet Jews, the crisis in question assumes a somewhat different form. Out of the three above-mentioned constituents of the crisis, the third problem (the demographic crisis with its low childbirth and mixed marriages) applies to these countries and their Jewish population to the full extent, while the second one — the conflict between “traditional” and “nontraditional” Jews — is far less urgent owing to a very low percentage of the “traditionalists.”3 As for the first issue, being Jewish was viewed in the former Soviet Union by the powers-that-be, as well as by the population — Jewish and non-Jewish alike — as a matter of blood rather than religion. One of the possible ways to tackle the identity issue can be, for a secular American Jew, via the following syllogism: “Being Jewish is about religion and observance. I am neither religious nor observant/I am observant to a very moderate degree. Therefore I am not a Jew/a bad, defective, or hypocritical Jew.” It is especially hard to view oneself as a bad or defective something or a hypocrite for an American with his or her accustomed self-confidence, individualism, and love for personal freedom; perhaps, it is more logical to give up this annoying factor. An approach typical of many Russian Jews, who were raised either in the traditions of the proclaimed Soviet internationalism or in the atmosphere of the genuine cosmopolitism, could be described through another syllogism: “Being Jewish is about nationality. For me, anyone’s nationality is of no/ little importance. Therefore, it doesn’t matter/matters very little to me if I am a Jew or non-Jew.” An extended version of the last syllogism would be something like this: “My mother and/or father are Jewish, that is to say, I am Jewish/partly Jewish by birth. I am Russian as regards language and culture. 3

8

Thus, for instance, though the influence of a group of Lubavitch hassidim, headed by Berl Lazar, one of the two “Supreme Rabbis of Russia”, has increased in Russia of late (they have been spending no mean money on semi-indigent indigenous Jews which should be highly appreciated), it does not seem anything more than a temporary success: I perceive no great prospects for Jewish religious life in Russia — just like I don’t in Israel or the USA or Europe either: what one can just witness, perhaps, is some growth of affectionate disposition towards the moving ancient customs, a superficial if quite nice and not really burdensome game playing which also serves to set off one’s special identity.

Being Jew ish: Rel igion or National ity?

Therefore, it’s impossible to say/not important who I am (too much bother to sort it out, and anyway, there’s no real need).” However, recent public opinion polls dealing with the issue of Jewish identity show significant changes in the responses of many interviewees that can be summed up in the following “irregular” syllogism: “I am completely/partially Jewish by descent. I am Russian as regards language and culture. I have more Jewish than Russian traits in my psychological type/mentality/world view, though the latter are also present. Therefore I am a Russian Jew.” There is an interesting trend in Russia observed in the self-identification of children (regardless of age group) born of mixed marriages during the last twenty years: an increasingly larger portion of “half-castes” considers themselves Jews or, at least, incorporates the Jewish element in their identification pattern. This phenomenon partly compensates for demographic losses caused by emigration and even creates a certain potential for growth. In this connection, the current processes affecting the Jews of Russia deserve a more detailed consideration.

BEING JEWISH: RELIGION OR NATIONALITY? As it was already mentioned, for an overwhelming majority of Jews in Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union, Jewish status is a matter of blood, or ethnicity, but not religion. It is possible to argue that such a view of Jewish identity was instilled in the population as a result of Bolshevist policy, and that it is at variance with traditional Jewish values (but not with the Halakhic criterion!). However, it’s a fact that, for most Russian Jews, the equation “Jew by blood = Jew by religion” is as much of an anachronism as the “Russian = Orthodox” equation. Both equations are bound to cause much argument among some educated Jews and Russians who would point out that there are few believers among the Jews now (and even those few are not restricted to Judaism alone), and that not all Russians are Orthodox, whereas not all people of Orthodox faith are Russian. All in all, despite the obvious historical link between the two concepts, Jewish nationality and Judaism, as well as Russian nationality and Orthodox Christianity, both have become separate entities by now and are to be placed in different categories. On the other hand, all this means very little to the man in the street: for him, Russian is Orthodox, to this day. 9

Being Jew ish: Rel igion or National ity?

Therefore, it’s impossible to say/not important who I am (too much bother to sort it out, and anyway, there’s no real need).” However, recent public opinion polls dealing with the issue of Jewish identity show significant changes in the responses of many interviewees that can be summed up in the following “irregular” syllogism: “I am completely/partially Jewish by descent. I am Russian as regards language and culture. I have more Jewish than Russian traits in my psychological type/mentality/world view, though the latter are also present. Therefore I am a Russian Jew.” There is an interesting trend in Russia observed in the self-identification of children (regardless of age group) born of mixed marriages during the last twenty years: an increasingly larger portion of “half-castes” considers themselves Jews or, at least, incorporates the Jewish element in their identification pattern. This phenomenon partly compensates for demographic losses caused by emigration and even creates a certain potential for growth. In this connection, the current processes affecting the Jews of Russia deserve a more detailed consideration.

BEING JEWISH: RELIGION OR NATIONALITY? As it was already mentioned, for an overwhelming majority of Jews in Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union, Jewish status is a matter of blood, or ethnicity, but not religion. It is possible to argue that such a view of Jewish identity was instilled in the population as a result of Bolshevist policy, and that it is at variance with traditional Jewish values (but not with the Halakhic criterion!). However, it’s a fact that, for most Russian Jews, the equation “Jew by blood = Jew by religion” is as much of an anachronism as the “Russian = Orthodox” equation. Both equations are bound to cause much argument among some educated Jews and Russians who would point out that there are few believers among the Jews now (and even those few are not restricted to Judaism alone), and that not all Russians are Orthodox, whereas not all people of Orthodox faith are Russian. All in all, despite the obvious historical link between the two concepts, Jewish nationality and Judaism, as well as Russian nationality and Orthodox Christianity, both have become separate entities by now and are to be placed in different categories. On the other hand, all this means very little to the man in the street: for him, Russian is Orthodox, to this day. 9

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

The traditional Jews, similarly, do not accept the divergence between concepts “Jewish by blood” (or, rather, by Halakhah) and “Jewish by religion”: for them, a non-believer, non-observant, and even a convert born of a Jewish mother is still a Jew, though a bad one. Furthermore, many nontraditional — and even unbelieving — Israeli and U.S. Jews, as well as nonJewish Americans (except the most discriminating liberals), view the issue from the same angle. Verbally, of course, the situation might look different: people would tell you that, naturally, no Jew is necessarily an adherent of Judaism, but in the traditional ethnic subconscious (going hand-in-hand with the state-induced practice — and public opinion), both Jewish and non-Jewish, a Jew is a believer in Judaism. It is in a similar manner that even an educated Russian may make the typical slip of the tongue talking about Western and Eastern Christians whom he/she, prompted by his/her archaic ethno-religious subconscious, divides into Christians (meaning Orthodox Christians) and Catholics rather than into the Orthodox Christians and the Roman Catholic Christians, as he/she may have been taught at school (or may have not). This divergence between the conscious and the subconscious (we use the terms only loosely here) can be explained simply enough. History knows cases when an ethnic entity is either formed out of several originally different ethnic components on a common religious basis or, on the contrary, develops from a section of a once unified ethnic group that got separated for religious reasons. After a certain period of time, such a religious community grows into a “people,” a “nation” and begins to show in its functioning all the signs of a true ethnic entity.4 Therefore, in this crucial time of transition, traditional groups (normally people of older age) still see this entity as a religious unity, while innovative groups consider it ethnic, with those “betwixt and between” combining new ideas with the old ones that continue to exist in the cultural subconscious. The transformation of part of the Diaspora from a religious-ethnic unity into an ethnic one started in the late 18th c. (though not without precedents in Jewish history) in Western and Central Europe and dramatically accelerated today, when, due to modernization, more and more people deviate from traditional religious principles. It is hardly accidental that the Russian Jews, to a larger degree than any other group of the worldwide Diaspora, lead in this trend, feeling themselves 4

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In this process, prestigious pedigrees have always been easily forged — long before a need of written evidence arose — take, for example, some arabicized Berber tribes proud of their noble Yemenite genealogy.

Being Jew ish: Rel igion or National ity?

Jewish in an ethnic sense and out of religious context. For quite a number of reasons, including the Bolshevist-enforced modernization, the policy aimed at eliminating religious and national traditions (in the case of Jews, the Soviet authorities seem to have achieved an unqualified success), and a series of other historical factors, the Soviet Jews became the most welleducated section of the population in the U.S.S.R. (perhaps in the world) and show the highest level of urbanization. Let’s quote some figures: in 1979, 58 percent of adult Jews living in the Russian Federation had higher education; that figure goes up to 65 percent for Moscow in 1989 (as for the U.S. Jews, according to the statistics of 1990, only 53 percent of people aged 25 and older had higher education).5 Besides, as far back as in 1959, 95 percent of Soviet Jews lived in cities; according to the census of 1989, half the Soviet Jews lived in Moscow and Leningrad, and according to the census of 2002, 80% of Jews in the Russian Federation lived in Moscow (nearly 60%) and St. Petersburg (over 20%). Thus the essence of the problem seems to be clear: the Jewish people originally formed as a tribal unity, then consolidated as an entity based on common religious tradition, but in the 20th century, as that tradition began to erode, the trend toward transforming into a purely ethnic unity became stronger — especially in the U.S.S.R., where the process was most advanced. However, here we have to deal with another question: is there any objective factor that still makes the Jews of Russia (or the former U.S.S.R.) feel that they belong to a certain distinct unity? Let’s drop all the relevant terms with their distinctions for a time: people, nation, nationality, ethnicity, etc. If we suppose that, in Russia, the Jews are a unity of the same order as Russians, Tartars, Germans or the Gypsies, and not of the same order as Christians, Muslims or Buddhists, then what makes them such a unity? What does unite them, separating them from Russians? Could it be the language? No — it’s Russian, because Yiddish has already been forgotten nearly everywhere for three or four generations, while Hebrew is known by few, and as a foreign language at that. Could it be the territory? No — the Jews and the Russians inhabit the same land. Could it be the culture? No — the Jews and the Russians have a common culture. Could it be the racial type? To a certain extent, yes, though many Russian Jews belong to an average 5

Interestingly, according to surveys, the Jewish immigrants from the FSU have in average more years of education than American Jews or Americans in general, and 53% of them also have a degree from the U.S. higher education institutions (I owe this information to Dmitri Glinski). 11

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

European type, while the proportion of mixed marriages in the several recent generations is so high (from 60 to more than 80 percent for the Russian Jews) as to severely reduce the role of physical factor as a determining trait that unites them and divides them from Russians.6 Is it possible, then, that there are practically no Jews left in Russia and that there are Russians of Jewish descent instead7 — like Americans of Irish or Italian origin, like Austrians of Slavonic descent, etc.? And if one is to stop poking their inborn disability in their eyes — the illstarred Jewishness of theirs which they bear no guilt for, will they become like everyone else then: the “normal” Russian people?

JEWISH IDENTITY IN RUSSIA The issue of defining the terms “Jew,” “Jewish,” “Jewishness,” i.e., of establishing the so-called “Jewish identity” is interesting as regards its scholarly and cultural aspects, and from political and practical angle as well. It is also extremely far from being solved. Even in Israel, with its heterogeneous and multicultural Jewish populations, it presents a difficult case for solution. Of course, one can just ignore it for ideological reasons, referring to the traditional criterion of the Halakhah as the only possible approach, but that would not really make the problem non-existent. The solution of this question as a whole, and in Russia and the former Soviet republics in particular, obviously requires complex, interdisciplinary approaches. 6

7

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The talk is about visible physical traits betraying a Jew in the eyes of other Jews and non-Jews; the modern genetic means of determining — and revealing — one’s ancestral characteristics invisible to a plain eye is quite a different matter. It’s worth mentioning in passing that one can envisage that genetic tests for “ethnic diseases” to become more and more current everywhere as a way of prophylaxis and treatment of these diseases would create in the near future a radically different situation with ethnic identities, inter-ethnic relations and xenophobia (including AntiSemitism) both in Russia and the world. Imagine a prominent Russian or Iranian or Palestinian champion of Anti-Semitism learning about his/her Jewish roots — and the information about it somehow passed to his/her comrades-in-arms … It is precisely this way, with an insignificant exception, that the Russian-speaking Jews are perceived in America by the American Jews (not only because they are called “Russians” — just due to the language they speak — by everyone in America).

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

European type, while the proportion of mixed marriages in the several recent generations is so high (from 60 to more than 80 percent for the Russian Jews) as to severely reduce the role of physical factor as a determining trait that unites them and divides them from Russians.6 Is it possible, then, that there are practically no Jews left in Russia and that there are Russians of Jewish descent instead7 — like Americans of Irish or Italian origin, like Austrians of Slavonic descent, etc.? And if one is to stop poking their inborn disability in their eyes — the illstarred Jewishness of theirs which they bear no guilt for, will they become like everyone else then: the “normal” Russian people?

JEWISH IDENTITY IN RUSSIA The issue of defining the terms “Jew,” “Jewish,” “Jewishness,” i.e., of establishing the so-called “Jewish identity” is interesting as regards its scholarly and cultural aspects, and from political and practical angle as well. It is also extremely far from being solved. Even in Israel, with its heterogeneous and multicultural Jewish populations, it presents a difficult case for solution. Of course, one can just ignore it for ideological reasons, referring to the traditional criterion of the Halakhah as the only possible approach, but that would not really make the problem non-existent. The solution of this question as a whole, and in Russia and the former Soviet republics in particular, obviously requires complex, interdisciplinary approaches. 6

7

12

The talk is about visible physical traits betraying a Jew in the eyes of other Jews and non-Jews; the modern genetic means of determining — and revealing — one’s ancestral characteristics invisible to a plain eye is quite a different matter. It’s worth mentioning in passing that one can envisage that genetic tests for “ethnic diseases” to become more and more current everywhere as a way of prophylaxis and treatment of these diseases would create in the near future a radically different situation with ethnic identities, inter-ethnic relations and xenophobia (including AntiSemitism) both in Russia and the world. Imagine a prominent Russian or Iranian or Palestinian champion of Anti-Semitism learning about his/her Jewish roots — and the information about it somehow passed to his/her comrades-in-arms … It is precisely this way, with an insignificant exception, that the Russian-speaking Jews are perceived in America by the American Jews (not only because they are called “Russians” — just due to the language they speak — by everyone in America).

Jew ish Identity in Russia

Recently I have been asked to review a study on Russian and Ukrainian Jews conducted by the most serious and independent sociological center in Russia. The study protocol, research and analysis, however, were conducted by a respected Israeli institute that came to a conclusion that in Russian and Ukrainian Jews’ subjective views differing from the views accepted in the rest of the Jewish world, Judaism is not necessarily based even on ancestry, but rather on the very existence of Jewish identity. This highly formalistic and fantastic conclusion demonstrates how risky it is to tackle a live, not purely scholastic, problem if you do not live with it. To answer questions typical, say, for an American audience (like: “What is the proportion of Jews/non-Jews among the students of this or that center of Jewish studies in Moscow?”, “How many Jews live in Russia/the former U.S.S.R./Moscow/St. Petersburg?”, etc.), we have to realize what the word “Jew” really implies in Russia. I have counted eight criteria to choose from: 1. The official Soviet criterion: Jewish according to the record in the passport.8 2. The traditional (though not strict) ethnic Russian criterion: Jewish due to one’s father being Jewish. 3. The Jewish halakhic criterion: Jewish by virtue of having a Jewish mother (or else — for everyone who does not meet this criterion — exposure to the giyur, the ritual of conversion into Judaism). 4. The official Israeli criterion, in accordance with the Law of Return which gives the right of return to those born Jews (having a Jewish mother or maternal grandmother), those with Jewish ancestry (having a Jewish father or grandfather) and converts to Judaism (the Law of Return is currently subjected to heated discussion in Israel, which would possibly lead to adopting a stricter law). 8

The notorious passport “article #5.” For a Soviet (or ex-Soviet) citizen a passport per se — and for a Soviet Jew, the passport “article #5” in particular — is “culturally loaded” and has many historical, social and legal connotations not easy to explain to an American reader for whom it has no connotations as it has always been conceptually different and passport per se has never had the social significance that it had throughout the history of Russia and the Soviet Union especially. After the record of citizens’ nationality got canceled out, the passport criterion has gradually been losing its topicality even though in a number of other identifying papers that record is still in evidence and goes on being required in filling out certain types of questionnaires: the watchful eye has not gone blind yet. 13

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

5. The religious criterion: Jew as a person (born of Jewish mother, of course) observing the precepts of Judaism and Jewish tradition — “living a Jewish life.” 6. The outside Jewish criterion: Jew as identified so by other Jews. 7. The outside non-Jewish criterion (“exoidentification”): Jew as identified so by non-Jews. 8. The personal criterion: Jew by self-identification; normally implies having real or imaginary Jewish ancestry in the family. None of the above criteria, however, presents a sufficiently valid basis for statistics. On the one hand, for instance, a Jew who had a corresponding record in his or her passport might not comply with some other criteria (e.g., # 3, 5 or even 8, according to our classification), which is to say that he/she either does not consider him/herself Jewish or cannot make up his/ her mind in this matter (a case which can be called a “floating” personal criterion). On the other hand, a person who had a different record in the passport (usually “Russian”), might comply with any of the proposed criteria of being Jewish, including the strictest, traditional # 3 and 5. For all that, if we study the prospective trends of Jewish life in Russia, none of these criteria can be ignored. The following situation is fairly common: you do not consider yourself Jewish or simply do not care about it, but your non-Jewish milieu — neighbors, colleagues, strangers in the street and sometimes militant anti-Semites — now and then remind you that you are Jewish, often in a malevolent and even threatening way (the outside non-Jewish criterion). Such a situation often compels Jews to emigrate. Censuses of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods were based, to some extent, on the personal criterion: every respondent was to determine his or her nationality (children’s nationality was determined by the parents). The statistical data obtained in this way are far from being error-free. For example, respondents, especially of older and middle age, might never reveal their Jewish nationality because of the inbred habit not to trust the authorities or, for that matter, any stranger pestering you with questions concerning this far-from-innocent subject. Establishing Jewish antecedents according to the halakhic definition is also no easy task due to Russia’s turbulent 20th century history, especially if we look for a grandmother, with all the papers possibly missing and the archives in a mess or empty. For all technical difficulties of obtaining statistical data, the use of this criterion seems to be of little avail. The 14

Jews and the Russian Intell igentsia

limitation imposed on the definition of “Jew” by the Halakhah leaves fairly numerous population groups (hardly less than two million people in Russia and from several hundred thousand to half a million in Ukraine, I think) of mixed Jewish-Russian origin outside the scope of statistics. In Russia, these groups are especially prominent and influential among the intellectual and business circles in Moscow and St. Petersburg, though they are also present in many other cities and towns — including small ones — of Russia where they usually play an important part in local economic, social and cultural life. It is in these groups that resides the main potential for the development of the incipient Jewish communal life in Russia. The growth of Jewish activity and self-awareness during the “postassimilation” period of Jewish history in Russia has created a unique situation exactly opposite to that in the US. In Russia, mixed marriages of the past twenty years do not seem to contribute to the rate of assimilation. On the contrary, the number of children born of such marriages who consider themselves Jewish constantly increases. This trend inspires cautious optimism, though, due to the decreasing childbirth in Russia and the West and the crisis of Jewish identity everywhere, the general situation in the world and in Russia remains grave.

JEWS AND THE RUSSIAN INTELLIGENTSIA When I previously discussed the question of how Russian Jews can be characterized as an ethnic group differing from ethnic Russians without having any generally accepted qualities of a nation or even an ethnic group — no own language, not a separate territory, not a unique culture — I reserved one significant caveat. Yes, Jews and Russians share the same territory. However, the specific territory where most Jews live (what we call “the smaller motherland”) is shared only with those Russians who live in cities, primarily big ones, like Moscow and St. Petersburg (former Leningrad). It is true that the culture of Russians and Russian Jews is the same. Yet, this — again — calls for a reservation: if different social strata have different cultures, then most Russian Jews have a culture common with that of the one social group that enjoys the same educational and urbanization status, i.e., the Russian Intelligentsia. 15

Jews and the Russian Intell igentsia

limitation imposed on the definition of “Jew” by the Halakhah leaves fairly numerous population groups (hardly less than two million people in Russia and from several hundred thousand to half a million in Ukraine, I think) of mixed Jewish-Russian origin outside the scope of statistics. In Russia, these groups are especially prominent and influential among the intellectual and business circles in Moscow and St. Petersburg, though they are also present in many other cities and towns — including small ones — of Russia where they usually play an important part in local economic, social and cultural life. It is in these groups that resides the main potential for the development of the incipient Jewish communal life in Russia. The growth of Jewish activity and self-awareness during the “postassimilation” period of Jewish history in Russia has created a unique situation exactly opposite to that in the US. In Russia, mixed marriages of the past twenty years do not seem to contribute to the rate of assimilation. On the contrary, the number of children born of such marriages who consider themselves Jewish constantly increases. This trend inspires cautious optimism, though, due to the decreasing childbirth in Russia and the West and the crisis of Jewish identity everywhere, the general situation in the world and in Russia remains grave.

JEWS AND THE RUSSIAN INTELLIGENTSIA When I previously discussed the question of how Russian Jews can be characterized as an ethnic group differing from ethnic Russians without having any generally accepted qualities of a nation or even an ethnic group — no own language, not a separate territory, not a unique culture — I reserved one significant caveat. Yes, Jews and Russians share the same territory. However, the specific territory where most Jews live (what we call “the smaller motherland”) is shared only with those Russians who live in cities, primarily big ones, like Moscow and St. Petersburg (former Leningrad). It is true that the culture of Russians and Russian Jews is the same. Yet, this — again — calls for a reservation: if different social strata have different cultures, then most Russian Jews have a culture common with that of the one social group that enjoys the same educational and urbanization status, i.e., the Russian Intelligentsia. 15

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

Now let us discuss such a phenomenon as assimilation. It’s a universally recognized fact that in the Soviet Union, the assimilation of Jews was an intense process — a “physical” one, through mixed marriages, as well as a cultural one; we can only marvel that the assimilation has not yet been complete. Similar processes in ethnic histories are well known: lesser nations and ethnic groups, which do not have their own state or at least their own well-confined territory to live in, unfortunately, have a tendency to assimilate, losing their own identity, and from some point onwards, they, as a distinct entity, pass on to history’s casualty list. Now let us look at what happened to the Jews in the Soviet period from a different angle. “To assimilate,” when used as a transitive verb, requires not only the grammatical object, the object of assimilation, but also the subject. It is interesting, who in the Soviet Union was assimilating Jews. To start with, let us try to answer the question: which percent of the population did the intelligentsia make up, and what percent were Jews in the Russian Empire before the Revolution, and in the USSR before the mass emigrations at the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s? It is not a completely correct question, because as we have encountered, the definition of a Jew varies, and about the intelligentsia, even less can be said. There are irreconcilable arguments about what the intelligentsia is — and arguing about it has been the favorite pastime of the Russian intelligent. Nevertheless, there is such a thing as “intuitive knowledge.” It survives without strict scientific definitions, and applies commonly — although far from always — quite “operationally,” that is, matches up pretty well with reality. Try to give a consistent definition to the concepts of “human being,” “life,” “language,” and many others, such that at least one of your opponents agreed with you! However, in practice, everyone can distinguish a man from an animal, life from death, and language from other forms of communication. Similarly, an attentive observer — a Jew, an anti-Semite, or the shrewd neighbor — will more often than not recognize a Jew even without side-locks, a yarmulke, or a shtetl accent. In all likelihood, in the Soviet time, an intelligent individual in a line for food, on board a streetcar, or even at a fourchette party would be immediately picked out by a fellowintelligent, a tipsy jerk, and a KGB agent. But seriously, in all of the ambiguity of the different criteria for intelligentsia and intelligent, I submit one, which of course is also slippery: the intelligent in the old and modern Russia, and in the Soviet Union — is a person that consciously holds to the humanistic values. It can be argued 16

Jews and the Russian Intell igentsia

that such values need strict definitions, but everyone relevant in the present context had and still has at least an “intuitive” understanding of them. On both sides of the barricade, so to say. The Russian intelligentsia, which one can belong to without regard to nationality, is a flexible and not closed category. One can enter it, and one call fall out of it. Not a higher education, nor a learned profession, nor the highest academic degree guarantees the title of a “Russian intelligent,” which is never officially awarded to or by anyone. The forerunners to intelligentsia were the freethinkers of the eighteenth century, while it was formed during the nineteenth century from nobility, raznochintsy9, clergy, military, even merchants, even peasants. The group consisted not only of the metropolitan “highbrow ones” — writers, philosophers, professors. Many people were professionals that were becoming more common across the country: engineers, doctors, teachers, librarians, officers. The overwhelming majority could be agnostics or atheists — but hardly the militant ones — or the believers — but not the bigoted orthodox from any religion; “cosmopolitans,” and “patriots,” but not nationalists; those that liked a market economy, and the supporters of social programs, but hardly — if only temporary, while young10 — political extremists. The venerated figures or spiritual leaders of the group in different periods of history beginning from 19th century were people11 with such different positions and fates as Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, even Kropotkin12, but no Pobedonostsev13 or Nechayev14, and in the post-Stalinist 9 10

11

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Educated persons of non-noble origin. There is a Russian (probably borrowed from the West, I am not sure) political jokey saying: the one who was not leftist when young, is a scab, the one who did not become rightist (or, in our case, moderate) when old, is a fool. Most of the biographic data following below are quoted, with my minor editing, withdrawals and additions, from Wikipedia wherein — wherever I am competent to evaluate them — they are exact and tactfully exposed. Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (1842–1921), “the Anarchist Prince,” was a geographer and zoologist, a contributor to the “Encyclopedia Britannica” (Eleventh Edition) and one of Russia’s first and foremost advocates of anarchist communism. Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev (1827–1907) was a reactionary Russian statesman and adviser to three Tsars. He was the “gray cardinal” of imperial politics during the reign of his disciple Alexander III of Russia, holding the position of the Ober-Procurator of the Holy Synod, the highest position of the supervision of the Russian Orthodox Church by the state. Sergey Gennadiyevich Nechayev (1847–1882) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist associated with the Nihilist movement and known for his single-minded pursuit of revolution by any means necessary, including political violence. 17

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

era, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelshtam and Pasternak15, Solzhenitsyn16, Brodsky17, Vysotsky18, Galich19, Sakharov20, but not the reactionary writer Sholokhov21, sly Communist ideologist Chakovsky22, a Jew at that, a courtier 15

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19

20

21

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Anna Andreyevna Akhmatova (1889–1966) and Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (1892– 1941), two most acclaimed female Russian poets. Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam (1891–1938), one of the greatest Russian poets; a victim of Stalin’s regime, perished in the Gulag. Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890–1960), a Nobel Prize-winning celebrated Russian poet and writer (best known in the West he is for his epic novel “Doctor Zhivago”). Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), a prominent Russian novelist (Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970) and dissident. Through his writings he made the world aware of the Gulag, the Soviet Union’s forced labor camp system. While his contribution to the unmasking of the communist ideology is unrivalled, his world views (including on the Jewish issue) are highly controversial. Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (1940–1996), an outstanding Russian poet, a Nobel Prize for Literature winner (1987); after expulsion from the USSR (1972) lived in the USA. Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky (1938–1980), an iconic Soviet singer, songwriter, poet, and actor of mixed Jewish and Russian descent whose popularity was incredibly high with all the strata of Soviet society including “people in the street” — rivaling in that Pushkin and Esenin (Sergei Alexandrovich Esenin (1895–1925) was a talented lyrical poet of a peasant origin extremely popular with the “common people”; his son Alexander Esenin-Volpin born in 1924 of a Jewish mother, a prominent mathematician and political prisoner (for 14 years), was a leader of the human rights movement; emigrated to the USA in 1972); according to some surveys of public opinion in Russia, he is alternately named as “the 20th century cultic figure” Number One or Number Two, rivaling in that Juri Gagarin. Alexander Arkadievich Ginzburg, a pen-name Galich (1918–1977), an outstanding Russian poet and bard of Jewish origin, songwriter and performer of his songs ranging from brilliant satire conveying with much finesse the richness of the Russian “people-in-the-street” vernacular to penetratingly tragic laments over the victims of the Revolution and communist regime, Second World War, the Holocaust and simply of everyday Soviet life’s burdens and abominations. He was extremely popular with the intelligentsia in the 60–70-ies. In 1974 was forced to emigrate and in 1977 died in Paris either in an accident or, less likely, murdered by the KGB’s conspiracy. Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (1921–1989), an eminent Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and fearless human rights activist, an advocate of civil liberties and reforms in the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov (1905–1984), a Soviet Russian novelist and winner of the Stalin Prize (1926) for his novel “And Quiet Flows the Don” (probably plagiarized) and Nobel Prize in Literature (1965); his other and later novel, “The Virgin Land Raised” is mediocre and much inferior to “And Quiet Flows the Don”. A hard-core aggressive communist with a touch of anti-Semitism. Aleksandr Borisovich Chakovsky (1913–1994), a Soviet public figure and novelist, editor-in-chief of “Literaturnaya Gazeta” in 1962–1988. Swaying from a hard-

Jews and the Russian Intell igentsia

painter Glazunov23, or the once fashionable writer and nationalist-Bolshevik Limonov24. The group was far from always firmly standing on a “humanitarian platform,” it swayed to the left and right, when its marginal affiliates, and sometimes even its mouthpieces fell into Nietzschean ideology, terrorism, Bolshevism, Soviet ideology, chauvinism, nationalism, and religious fanaticism. However, such people were quickly dropped, that is — they purged themselves out, reasonably not trusting the intelligentsia (let us remember Lenin, coming from a typical provincial intelligentsia family, who called it dirty names). During Stalin’s rule, semi-destroyed, swollen from the influx from the “ordinary Soviet people,” the largest part of intelligentsia almost fatally caught the disease of conformism. But when the “mustached man-eater kicked the bucket,” it gradually became clear that it survived — like the Russian Jews! — and even learned how to suppress the bacillus of Soviet slavery in itself. It was Russian prose from the 19th to the 20th century, Russian religious philosophy of the end of the 19th to the 20th centuries, with its expatriate outgrowth, and the Russian poetry of the 20th century that reflected, with a width and strength unparalleled by any Western culture, the grievous and morbid sprouting from the traditional Christian mentality of the humanistic and universal values, that trickled down in small streams from their ancient Hebrew Biblical source.

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line to a “liberal-minded” Communist, he served as an unofficial cultural arbiter through his position in the powerful Soviet Writers’ Union. Called “Enforcer of Soviet Line on Writers” by New York Times. My late father (who had operated on him and to whom Chakovsky, as it often happens in such cases, was much attached) told me a curious story: once, being under the impression of one of Chakovsky’s ghastly public statements, he accused him, in a private conversation, of course, of villainy, to which Chakovsky replied: you do not understand! By behaving this way, I am holding back the anti-Semitism of the powers-that-be: I am their Courtier Jew-in-Chief! It’s hard to say whether he believed in earnest in his mission of the Soviet Jews’ savior or it was just an attemp to look better in my father’s eyes. Ilya Sergeyevich Glazunov (born in 1930), a contemporary Russian artist, a founder of the Russian “high realism” (I would rather call it “glossy realism”) artistic school. In the 1980s was associated with far-right “Pamyat” society and became known for his nationalist (“patriotic”) views. Awarded “For Service to the Motherland” decoration by the then President Putin. Eduard Veniaminovich Limonov (Savenko), born in 1943; a pert writer and the founder and leader of Russia’s unregistered “National Bolshevik Party”. 19

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

Having paid with a lot of blood, the young Russian intelligentsia, with all its tottering and swaggering, turned out to be perhaps the most persevering keeper and carrier of these values. Values, it would seem, that Jews had to relegate (it turned out later, they really had not) for the sake of self-preservation. Values that “authoritative”, mainstream Christianity once declared, but has never realized, concentrated on the otherworldly, or rather worldly — politics and the suppression of other thought. Values digested and then little by little discharged by enlightened Western society on the way to growing individualism and rational egoism. The fate of Soviet and “sub-Soviet” intelligentsia in the 20th century, squeezed in to seven decades, provides a tragic match with the Jewish fate in the Diaspora, stretched out for over twenty centuries. A match with pressure and chase: like in Christian Europe, where not only Jews were persecuted, intelligentsia, in fact, was never the only game under the Soviet regime (a substantial part of it had, unfortunately, taken an active part in creating it — just like a substantial part of the Jews), but always, like Jews, the juiciest one. A match with survival owing to the rulers’ want of “specialists.” A match with a belittled and fragile existence in the cultural Diaspora in the midst of the “worker-peasant” dominant population hounded upon intelligentsia — and upon Jews, of course — by the same powers-that-be who were reducing this population to wretchedness.25 A match with a notorious (or, shall we say, famed) unrequited love for “the common people”26 and Fatherland27. A match with bribery and debauchery of the worst part of its elite; exile or destruction of the best. It also matches 25

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My aunt’s colleague, a gifted Leningrad architect, a pureblood Russian and refined offspring of an aristocratic stock, complained to her in the seventies of the last century: Once you are a Russian intelligent, you always run a risk of being taken for a Jew in the street — and attacked. Let us remember if only narodniks, “the populists,” with their “going to the people” selfless mass movement in the 1870s Russia village: the young democratically and idealistically minded intellectuals, mostly students, were often beaten by the muchfavored peasants and reported by them to local police. This well-rewarding attachment (much more intensive than to the Promised Land) to one’s country of birth or even sojourn only — any country, Poland, Germany, Russia, her culture, nature, language — has been typical of many a secular Jew. There is a suggestive Russian joke about two new Russian — ethnic Russian — thugs sipping beer in a London pub. One asks: Why so downbeat today? What’s eating you? The other mumbles: nostalgia, dammit. — Shit! For what? — Well … for Mother Russia, you know, … birches … churches … — Fancy that! Ne’er would have thought you’re Jewish!

Jews and the Russian Intell igentsia

accusations of group egoism and conceit; of being “too smart” and having odd beliefs; of “breaking away from the soil”; of lack of patriotism and being “fifth column” of the West. So here, a loose question ad hoc: how much of such an intelligentsia existed in Russia at the dawn of the twentieth century, and how much now? This question I asked of many people that are used to answering for their own words. Everyone waved it off and grumbled, but, when I reminded them about “intuitive knowledge” and promised that they would not be held responsible nor quoted in my book, I got the response that: well, in the beginning of the twentieth century there were several hundred thousands, rather a million, but in the end — well, very roughly three to five million. Let us grade these exact figures taken from the air: during the course of the 20th century, this intelligentsia grew from a few hundred thousand or a million to several million people. It is true, if we orient ourselves to the voters that were for the liberal-democratic parties — of course, not the party of Zhirinovky is meant28 — then I would increase the number to seven or eight million, or otherwise, who, apart from intelligentsia and part of petty and middle-class proprietors, formed the lists of supporters of groups like “Vybor Rossii” (The Choice of Russia)29, “Yabloko” (The Apple)30, or 28

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Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky (born 1946 as Eidelstein of a Jewish father), an influential and scandalous Russian politician, founder and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), Vice-Chairman of the State Duma, and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Despite its name, the LDPR is an ultra-nationalist Russian party. The “Choice of Russia” was a Russian liberal political movement that was founded by then acting prime minister (1992), recently deceased Yegor Gaidar, the author of controversial economic reforms of 1992, which, nevertheless delivered the country from the imminent famine and, probably, chaos; in spite of certain political blunders, one of the brightest and rarely “transparent” figures in the obscure pantheon of Russian, to say nothing of Soviet, state and political leaders. In 1995, the party contested the election in a coalition of minor like-minded groups, forming the Democratic Choice of Russia — United Democrats. Later in 1990s, it evolved into the Union of Right Forces. The “Russian United Democratic Party Yabloko” (“Apple”) is a Russian socialdemocratic party. The party stands for the greater political freedom and civil liberties in Russia, for greater integration with the Western world and membership in the European Union. The party opposed president Yeltsin’s and his prime ministers’ policies, earning the reputation of a determined opposition movement that nevertheless was devoted to democratic reforms (in contrast, most of the opposition was communist and/or nationalist at that time). Similarly, it has continued to oppose Vladimir Putin for his increasing authoritarianism. Originally established as a public 21

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

“The Union of the Right Forces”31 (It is with little enthusiasm that I am uttering the names of these parties or movements, which I have never been a member of, as a lifelong independent, but unfortunately, there are no and have not been better ones in Post-Soviet Russia than these outright political losers). It is also clear that included in these millions are almost all, if not all the Russian Jews. There are of course official demographics about Jews. In the Russian Empire in 1914, there were 5.25 million Jews. In the Soviet Union in 1939, there were 3 million; after the annexation of western Ukraine, western Byelorussia, Baltic States, Bessarabia, and the influx of refugees from western Poland there were 5.4 million. As a result of the Holocaust and the war, the number of Jews dropped more than twice, and with a smaller birth-rate, continues to fall: in 1959 there were 2.26 million, 1970 had 2.15, 1979 — 1.81, 1989 — 1.45. In Russia, after massive emigration, at the end of 1993, there were less than 400 thousand left, and according to the 2002 census, 259 thousand. The figures from the USSR and post-Soviet Russia are based on the censuses, which I do not consider definitive: a lot of people of mixed origin, for various reasons, fall out. The last figure looks especially funny:32

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organization in 1993, it transformed into a political party in 2001. It contested the Russian legislative election with the following results (vote percent/seats in the Duma won): 1993 — 7.86/ 27; 1995 — 6.89/ 45; 1999 — 5.93/ 20; 2003 — 4.30/ 4; 2007 — 1.6/ 0 (when Yabloko lost its representation in the State Duma). In 2005, Yabloko-United Democrats, a coalition formed by Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, won 11% of the vote in the Moscow municipal elections. The “Union of Right Forces”, or SPS, was a Russian liberal democratic opposition party associated with free market reforms, privatization, and the legacy of the ‘Young Reformers’ of the 1990s. The Party is considered by most western media organs to be one of the few Russian parties that support western-style capitalism. SPS was established in 1999, following a merger of several smaller liberal parties, including Democratic Choice of Russia. In the Russian 1999 parliamentary elections, the Union of Right Forces won 8.6% of the vote and 32 seats in the Russian State Duma. The party won 0.96% of votes in the Russian legislative 2007 elections, far from breaking the 7% barrier, and thus no seats in the Duma. On October 1, 2008, Federal political council of the party voted to dissolve the party, with an eye on possible merger with Civilian Power and Democratic Party of Russia (newly cooked, very likely by the Government) to form a new liberal-democrat party called Right Cause. This figure incited me to coin up a joke, some overstatement: I know that many Jews, or, perhaps, fewer than that, — personally (I have recently read that the same joke was first coined by a delegate of one of the first Zionist congresses). The entire demographers’ approach to the issue of “counting the Jews” reminds me of another

Jews and the Russian Intell igentsia

I can only repeat my personal opinion, that Russia now holds not less than two million people that by wide criteria, or by their combination, as discussed previously, would count as Jews and that would most probably add themselves if other methods of selection had been used.33 Anyway, it is clear enough which socio-cultural group Jews mostly turned to in search of partners for the “mixed marriages” over the course of the twentieth century. Of course, the husbands Jewish ladies captured included Joe-theplumbers, Red Army commanders, Chiefs of the Politburo, and captivating Caucasian Dzhigits, while the Jewish men, as it happens to be, married in prewar time village Russians or Ukrainian beauties, and in postwar, sexappealing “limitedesses”34 or exotic Koreans. However, in general, it was another ethno-social layer into which Jews entered more and more, as they were becoming a more urban and educated group of the population (this is clearly shown in demographic dynamics). This layer was the Russian intelligentsia. Then a new question arrises: can one group of one to several millions assimilate another, of about the same size, if both groups are on the same cultural level and represent the same social medium? Then what happened in the Soviet Union to the Jews and the intelligentsia? My answer is — at the risk of appearing unpleasant to the “adherents and hoarders of purity of nation,” both Russian and Jewish: they mutually assimilated each other (still, of course, partially, not completely as yet — hey, come on! Lord forbid!) However, the issue here is not only in biological mixing; again I will emphasize: the Russian intelligentsia can hold an Armenian, and a Latvian, and a Tatar — it is “Russian” by ethnic identity of its major part and by attachment to the Russian culture, while the crucial criterion is the Russian language.

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old Jewish joke: — Rabinovich, you are a happy father of four kids, you wife is still young. Why don’t you make the fifth? — You know, I read somewhere that the global population is some three billion heads, some 600 thousand Chinese including. Means every fifth of the whole mess must be a Chinese. With my luck, what I am still lacking is a Chinese in the family! The problem of counting the Jews (“Satan … incited David to take a census on Israel” 1Ch 21:1) and getting equivocal results goes as far back as the Biblical episodes, described in 2 Sa 22 and 1Ch 21:1–8, 27:23–24. During the Soviet period, there were not enough workers in the cities, so people were brought in from the villages and smaller towns on a limited stay to work on projects. The female workers are mentioned here. 23

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

There was a rather unique “mating” of two cultural entities. Cultural assimilation could not be but in only one direction. In late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jews — those of them that aimed to leave the Pale to go to cities — came into Russian culture “blank,” torn from their religious tradition and from their own language, Yiddish, and with no skills of European or Russian, close to European, education. However, they came with another baggage — Jewish drive and energy, many centuries experience of survival, and the habit of the People of the Book to learning. Russian education and the Russian language were gained in record speed. The Jewish burst to Russian culture was streamlined and fruitful — both for Jews and for Russian culture. During the course of such assimilation a dynamic group formed which was part of — of course, without strict boundaries — the Russian intelligentsia, and is part, in post-Soviet Russia, of a nascent middle class. In it, few are interested in the difference between people of mixed — mostly Russian-Jewish — blood and halakhic or “whole” Jews. This group, although severely weakened in Russia because of massive emigration and brain drain, steps out with its cultural and energetic potential from other enclaves of the Russian population as well as from other groups of the Jewish Diaspora; its branches hold increasingly important positions not only among other Jewish communities in Israel, but already in America. There is a chance (a little one, to be realistic) that in Israel, America, Germany, and in other countries of the new Russian Jewish Diaspora, this group — its core at least — the fruit of Russian Jews and Russian intelligentsia, will keep the Russian language, Russian culture, a Jewish Russian identity, and will continue its historic existence as one of the most civilized and humanistically minded communities in the world.

“UNIVERSAL VALUES” AND THEIR BIBLICAL ROOTS Is there a way to overcome this identity crisis? Is there a values system that would at once suit the Jews to the extent of stimulating the growth of self-awareness (or, at least, of stopping its disintegration) and also correspond to the values accepted by civilized Western society? Can such a system contribute to achieving a certain degree of understanding between 24

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

There was a rather unique “mating” of two cultural entities. Cultural assimilation could not be but in only one direction. In late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jews — those of them that aimed to leave the Pale to go to cities — came into Russian culture “blank,” torn from their religious tradition and from their own language, Yiddish, and with no skills of European or Russian, close to European, education. However, they came with another baggage — Jewish drive and energy, many centuries experience of survival, and the habit of the People of the Book to learning. Russian education and the Russian language were gained in record speed. The Jewish burst to Russian culture was streamlined and fruitful — both for Jews and for Russian culture. During the course of such assimilation a dynamic group formed which was part of — of course, without strict boundaries — the Russian intelligentsia, and is part, in post-Soviet Russia, of a nascent middle class. In it, few are interested in the difference between people of mixed — mostly Russian-Jewish — blood and halakhic or “whole” Jews. This group, although severely weakened in Russia because of massive emigration and brain drain, steps out with its cultural and energetic potential from other enclaves of the Russian population as well as from other groups of the Jewish Diaspora; its branches hold increasingly important positions not only among other Jewish communities in Israel, but already in America. There is a chance (a little one, to be realistic) that in Israel, America, Germany, and in other countries of the new Russian Jewish Diaspora, this group — its core at least — the fruit of Russian Jews and Russian intelligentsia, will keep the Russian language, Russian culture, a Jewish Russian identity, and will continue its historic existence as one of the most civilized and humanistically minded communities in the world.

“UNIVERSAL VALUES” AND THEIR BIBLICAL ROOTS Is there a way to overcome this identity crisis? Is there a values system that would at once suit the Jews to the extent of stimulating the growth of self-awareness (or, at least, of stopping its disintegration) and also correspond to the values accepted by civilized Western society? Can such a system contribute to achieving a certain degree of understanding between 24

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

the secular liberal-thinking Jews and the traditionalists (at least, the most tolerant members of that group), the agnostics or non-believers and the believers? Can we find such values as would, for instance, enable the young American or Russian Jews to answer “yes” to the fatal question, “Do we really need all this?” To get somewhat closer to the answers, let’s try to determine what values and ideas are most basic for modern Western civilization. The most succinct adjectives here would be “universal” and “humanistic”: they indicate, on the one hand, the central role of the concept of mankind as a single whole and proclaim, on the other hand, the absolute value of human life and the idea of Man as the measure of all things. This idea might be called anthropocentric, or generic, because it establishes the priority, or the absolute value of the species Homo sapiens sapiens. The idea of progress is at once another central concept of the civilization process and its stimulus. According to it, human history is seen as forward movement in the course of which mankind — in spite of all tragic zigzagging and retreating — yet advances in the general direction of more affluent, safe and decent life, i.e., the species succeeds in surviving and consolidating its position in the surrounding world; a new element herein is the growing realization of a careful attitude to this world that is called for. It was in two cultural traditions that the prototype of such ideas is rooted — the ancient Greek and Hebrew. Here we will speak of the Biblical texts where a set of these ideas was first outlined — and, to a considerable degree, even formulated. The texts in question, namely the opening chapters of Genesis, are dated by most specialists to the period not earlier than the mid-first millennium B.C.E. There is no reason to believe that these concepts were borrowed by the Jews elsewhere, though it is quite likely that the notions in question stemmed from the rather earlier concepts and their evolution fell under the sway of the adjacent great Near Eastern cultures. We are going to discuss each of these ideas here, as well as the conclusions that they imply. Before considering briefly the ideas this set comprises — along with certain conclusions that these ideas suggest — I would like to remind the reader what has been referred to in the “Introduction” in connection with the genre specificity: one can find simplifications, common knowledge data and purely subjective interpretations of things. To wit: the use with respect to the Bible of such categories as ethics, the feel of history, the absolute, a conception — are sure to court a reproach in overestimation of “advanced level” of ancient thought, its anachronistic modernization, the transfer of our contemporary — at 25

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

that “Euro-centrist” — notions into another epoch and a different culture. Possibly, it would be rather more proper to place all similar terms in the inverted commas each time I use them. However, in the process of writing this text and keeping up a permanent argument-dialogue — both external (with readers and listeners of preliminary versions) and internal (with myself) — I perceive also the arguments in favor of a direct muster of such categories — and not just as of a meta-language device alone. The point is, while pouring over the reconstruction process of the basic and cultural proto-Semitic word stock35 dating back to a far more archaic epoch than Biblical36 I fell to approaching with wariness the widespread opinion that in antiquity, particularly the pre-historic (pre-written) era, human thinking was far more primitive. It seems to suggest also that it was incapable of shaping up abstract notions and the place of rational intellection, generalization, fragmentation of the surrounding world was filled by mythology. This opinion as a whole was also shared by I.M. Diakonoff, my teacher and senior co-author:37 One ought not to overestimate the force of a primeval man’s inducement to making sense of the world around him … the practical character of response to outside stimuli predominated … It was only the philosophers of a later period of antiquity that acquired the interest, leisure time, and the practical ability for rational, unemotional generalizations of the universe all around them … no philosophy is possible without generalization, and the primeval man — even already in possession of a lexical symbol system — was still lacking the linguistic (ergo — rational one, in general terms) apparatus for abstracting phenomena in their dynamics.38

This extract refers to “land-tillers and cattle breeders populating the Earth in the pre-urban … period between the 9th millennium B.C. and the 1st millennium A.D.” Diakonoff avers that “a conscious discrete thought (not 35

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In Militarev, A., & Kogan, L. Semitic Etymological Dictionary. Vol. I. Anatomy of Man and Animals (2000); Vol. II. Animal Names (2005). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster. (Other six or seven volumes hopefully to follow.) Further quoted as SED I and II. The Proto-Semitic period dates, by various estimations, between last third 5th and mid-4th millennia B.C.E. Igor Mikhailovich Diakonoff (Diakonov in Russian), 1915–1999, an eminent Russian historian of the ancient world, pre-historian and linguist, one of the founders and leading figures of Afrasian linguistics. Diakonov, I.M., Архаические мифы Востока и Запада (The Archaic Myths of The East and West). Moscow, 1990, p. 11 (translated from Russian).

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

an emotion) is equivalent to a word … whatever lacks in the language is accordingly absent from the consciousness either.”39 This is a very strong declaration, perhaps an overstatement; the reverse assertion “whatever lacks in the consciousness is accordingly absent from the language” is more evident and less contradictory, to my mind. It is evident that notions are expressed via terms, or words. Though the lexical meaning and even the sum of contextual meanings of a word merely point at the notion they designate and describe it without conveying the entire range and richness of everything it implies, the very existence of notional terms in the lexicon of a language — even of a long-dead one — indicates that the corresponding notions were also present in the culture of the human society that once spoke the language in question. This assertion is also true in regard to reconstructed languages (“protolanguages”) — common ancestors of extant and extinct languages, whose kinship is proved by the comparative and historical method in linguistics. If the same word is attested to in several languages with a common ancestor, and it is possible to rule out the possibility of borrowing by one cognate language from another or from a non-cognate language, then it was already present in the proto-language. This calls for a minor linguistic digression now. Ancient, classical, or biblical Hebrew, in which the major part of the Hebrew Bible is couched, belongs to the Semitic language family along with such languages as Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian); Eblaitic; Ugaritic; Aramaic ones (Judaic, Syrian, Mandaic et al.); Epigraphic South Arabian (Sabaic et al.); Arabic, extinct (classical Arabic, Andalusian Arabic et al.) and the extant (numerous Arabic dialects or, rather, languages spread in Asia and Africa including Maltese); Ethiopian, extant (Tigre; Tigrai, or Tigrinya; Amharic; Harari; Gurage dialects et al.) and the extinct (Ancient Ethiopic, or Geez); Modern South Arabian (Mehri, Harsusi, Jibbali, Soqotri). All of these languages go back to a single ancestor — the proto-Semitic language reconstructed on the basis of descendant languages comparison into which it started dividing in the course of the last third of the 5th — early 4th millennia B.C.E. The Semitic language family happens to be part of a larger SemitoHamitic, or Hamito-Semitic (the traditional names still used in European scholarship), or Afro-Asiatic/Afroasiatic (in use in the USA), or Afrasian (a more technical term adopted for better convenience by Russian linguists — the one to be used in this book) macro-family other branches 39

Ibid., p. 190, note 4. 27

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

of which are comprised by the following languages: ancient Egyptian and its direct successor — Coptic; Berber-Canarian;40 Chadic;41 Cushitic and Omotic.42 Proto-languages of all the branches listed above are the descendants and were at one time the dialects of their common ancestor — the ProtoAfrasian language the separation of which into these dialects is dated back to approximately mid-10th millennium B.C.E. Calculations have been performed by me by way of glottochronology method devised in the fifties of the 20th century by an American linguist Maurice Swadesh and radically improved and further elaborated by Sergei Starostin, a Moscow linguist.43 There now, the reconstructed word stock of the proto-Semitic and — to a lesser degree — of the proto-Afrasian language testifies to the ability of that “primeval man” to comprehend and generalize — the ability reflected in terms, words. It is only by knowledge and profound enough intellection of the surrounding world and the human nature that the presence in proto-Semitic lexicon of nearly two hundred terms — and not less than a hundred of protoAfrasian ones — from the semantic area of human and animal anatomy can be explained. And what else other than the ability to generalize and classify facts can explain the fact that while there are sets of etymologically related words denoting cat, leopard, lion or other animals of the feline family and sometimes the civet — and therefore “confusing” these particular animals, shifting the name of any one of them to another — in various Afrasian languages alongside other sets denoting by the related terms in various languages — and thus lexically confusing — dog, wolf, jackal, and fox of the 40

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Canarian are the extinct (presumably since the 17th century C.E.) languages of the Canary islands aborigines; the Berbers are the linguistic and biological descendants of ancient Libyans resident in Northern Africa and Sahara. Hausa and several hundred non-literate languages of Central and Western Africa. Beja, or Bedauye; Oromo (Galla), Somali, Sidamo, Welaitta, Yemsa, Kafa and dozens of others, non-written languages of Eastern Africa. Sergei Anatolievich Starostin (24.03.1953 — 30.09.2005), member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the American-Russian Project “Evolution of Human Languages”, one of the (if not the) most profound and productive linguists of our time, author of fundamental works in Altaic, North-Caucasian, Indo-European, SinoTibetan, Yenissean and Nostratic languages, Chinese and Japanese, basic principles of long-range comparison, new methods in lexicostatistics and glottohronology, etc., etc. His bold discoveries have practically revolutionized some of these fields.

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

canine family (in a couple of cases also hyena) these two sets are normally not confused with one another?44 The same can be said about sets of terms denoting equidae (donkey and horse)45 distinctly set apart from words denoting bull/cow, antelope and goat, ram lumping the hollow-horned ones together. And even when — it would seem — a confusion ensues to the effect of denoting in different descendant languages such vastly different animals as elephant and rhinoceros or elephant and hippopotamus with cognate words continuing the same proto-language term, it signifies their unification by some taxonomic attribute, most likely the pachydermous-ness — rather than inability of the ancient humans to tell them apart. To these linguistic arguments countering the primitive nature of an ancient human yet another one should be added — the one exemplified by rock paintings. I can only talk about the rock-carved images found in Sahara of neolithic period that I studied when I was writing together with I.M. Diakonoff the Afterwords and commentary to the book by Henry Lhote.46 The above images unquestionably qualify for one of the peaks of world representational art in a purely artistic, aesthetic aspect — may we also observe at this juncture many millennia before the time when, in established opinion, art got set apart as an independent occupation and pastime as well as an object for reflection. It also happens to be an amazing phenomenon with respect to human resource expenditure and technical materialization. Suffice it to mention that paints retain their brightness after eight or ten thousand years of exposition to the elements under the open sky — or the rock-wall panel of 120 square meters featuring a magnificent depiction of a herd of giraffes. When a copy of it was delivered to Paris by Henry Lhote and his team, André Malraux, a famous writer and art theorist, came to the conclusion upon seeing it, that pre-historic humans could not have painted 44

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Except for two cases uniting wolf, hyena and lion/leopard — obviously denoting any dangerous predator in Proto-Afrasian. Interestingly, out of a dozen Proto-Afrasian terms for equidae, half of them include camel; I cannot think of any feature that could associate such different animals as camel and donkey in the minds of Afrasian speakers (on the proto-branch level — Proto-Semitic or Proto-Cushitic, etc.) other than common function of serving as a beast of burden or riding animal, though pre-historians would hardly “buy” it — the 6th or 5th or even 4th millennium seems to be a too early date for domestication of beasts of burden, to say nothing of riding animals. Afterword and notes to the Russian edition of the book: Анри Лот “К другим Тассили. Новые открытия в Сахаре” (H. Lhote, “Vers d’autres Tassilis. Nouvelles decouvertes au Sahara”). Leningrad, pp. 190–208. 29

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figures that large and perfectly shaped without pre-considered composition carefully thought over and that in those times way back there already must have existed something like “art schools.”47 It is also a testimony to the richest and most complex human perception: among dozens of thousands of realistic and symbolic petroglyphic images one comes across the magicritual and cattle-breeding and hunting and battle and everyday life and even sexual and humorous scenes. Back to the language, however: is it at all possible to aver that such common Semitic — dated, as I said, to the late 5th — early 4th millennia B.C.E., i.e. at least a thousand years prior to the earliest written texts in Mesopotamia and Egypt — words as nouns “past times, ancient times” (*ḳVdm-,48 attested in all Semitic languages); *ʔaḫr- “future, later time” (in all Semitic languages except Ethiopian and Modern South Arabian); or verbs “to know” (*ydʕ; in all Semitic branches, with Afrasian cognates); “to think, to count” (*hb in Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopian and Modern South Arabian, with a cognate hsb “to reckon, count, calculate” in Egyptian of the Pyramid texts) signify “the practical character of response to outside stimuli” and may have appeared without the “linguistic apparatus … for abstracting phenomena”? Is it then not to the legal and ethical notions of the prehistoric people that the common Semitic words testify with semantics like *wrt  “to inherit, take possession of” (in all Semitic languages), *dyn “to judge” and, of the same root, *d–n- “justice, process, lawsuit; legal decision; sentence, etc.”, *dayyan- “judge” (all Semitic except modern South Arabian wherein they are Arabisms); *sdḳ “to be just, right, true, righteous” (everywhere except Akkadian), *rhm “to be merciful, compassionate, kind to so., have pity” (in all Semitic languages), *ḫṭʔ “to miss, fail, lack; mistake, err; do wrong, sin” (in all Semitic languages), *b(h)t̲ “to be ashamed” (in Akkadian, Ugaritic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and very likely Arabic wherein baht̲at- means “son of a whore”), *ḫpr “to be ashamed, timid, bashful” (in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Ethiopian) or *zny “to commit adultery, fornicate” with an apparently negative overtone in all the descendant languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopian and Modern South Arabian), along with verbs with a “neutral” meaning “to copulate, have sexual intercourse”, such 47

48

30

That copy had not gone on display as a large enough display space was not available in France then. The symbol * indicates that the term it precedes is a form in the proto-language reconstructed by comparison of akin forms in the related languages.

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

as *nyk (in Akkadian, Arabic, Ethiopian and Modern South Arabian; of Afrasian origin being attested in Egyptian, Berber, Chadic and Cushitic)? Neither do I bring myself to agree that the ancient ones always implied something simpler, more specific or principally different than what we imply in using such terms denoting those notions; it’s a different matter altogether that some of those meanings do actually go back to those simpler “proto-meanings” reconstructed on a chronologically more profound preproto-language level, and for yet others such “proto-meanings” have not been found, but one may suppose that they once were there.49 Thus, the word “soul” denoting a fairly complex concept ensconcing an entire system of notions that change and vary from culture to culture derives from mere “breath,” but the meaning “soul” is testified to in all Semitic languages, i.e. already in proto-Semitic language the word *napior *nap- featured that meaning and the heads of proto-Semites conjured up the corresponding notion. It may have differed from the much later Judaic, Christian and Muslim concepts only in certain nuances; what we all imply referring to “soul” has actually stemmed from the Biblical notion of it, which eventually evolved from an earlier still, proto-Semitic one. The common Semitic “mercy” in ancient texts in different Semitic languages harking back to the anatomical term “uterus, mother’s womb” (*rahm-/*rihm- attested in all Semitic languages and having cognates in Cushitic, i.e. of common Afrasian origin) signifies in general terms the same implication we invoke to suggest mercy, compassion, kindness, generosity, humane attitude, etc., and it is totally groundless to infer that proto-Semitic speakers had meant something substantially different — say, man-eating. If it is true of the language and mentality of a human individual existing six or seven, nay! twelve millennia ago, then it is even truer and more so with respect to an individual who lived at the time when Biblical texts were taking their shape, whose mentality as a whole was different from ours no more than the consciousness of a Siberian peasant or a Breton fisherman of the early 20th century, i.e. prior to the modernization epoch, is different from that of a latter-day intellectual. Modern terminology and the set of notions that I use in talking of the Bible hark partially precisely back to it and partially — to the antique and Hellenistic tradition. Is it all that important — come to think of it — that, 49

Prof. Diakonoff’s joke was that in the Sumerian language, the earliest written language ever known, “to think” had originally meant “to wamble” used of an upset stomach. 31

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say, in the 8th century B.C.E. the prophets started making pronouncements on the issues of ethics and morals not knowing what these substances were to be called? Or called them otherwise totally unaware that such matters would not be set apart exactly soon by the “real” philosophers-to-be as a separate set of tenets for reflection and area of research? Let us then take a closer look at the basic Biblical ideas that appeared innovative for their time and with time developed into fundamental values and concepts system of latter-day civilization.

Anthropocentrism It is the idea of Man as the crown of Creation and its principal end. Man is radically different from animals as a holder of the divine license to own the earth and everything that inhabits it (Gen 1:28). It is precisely the Man, Adam, that the Creator authorizes to give names to other living creatures (Gen 2:19). That right is an indicator of an exceptionally lofty status of Man, considering the magic-sacral role of a name in the ancients’ system of notions: it is not for nothing that in many other mythologies “naming” is the Gods’ privilege. Let’s adduce an example to demonstrate the revolutionary nature of such a view. If we were to ask a citizen of ancient Athens, the most advanced ancient democracy of the time that the texts discussed herein also belong to, to divide four creatures — a Hellene, a barbarian, a slave, and an ass — into two groups, he would almost certainly have drawn the dividing line between the Hellene and all the rest: Aristotle is said to instruct his disciple Alexander the Great that the king ought to care about the Hellenes as his friends and to treat barbarians as domestic animals. There is a remote possibility that the barbarian would have been placed in the same group as the Hellene: such a broad outlook would have been expected of Herodotus who had proclaimed as the goal of his “History” the glorification of both Hellenes’ and barbarians’ deeds. There is little doubt, however, that the slave together with the ass would have remained in the other group. In the Bible, however, Adam, the First Man (ergo, all his posterity, i. e. all the humankind) was created in God’s image and likeness; besides, man is called “God’s slave” which in itself is incompatible with excluding slaves from the category of people par excellence and their identification with animals (cf. also: “A wise servant will rule over a disgraceful son, and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers” Pr 17:2). 32

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What is the new import of this idea in actual fact and what is its importance for us? Let’s arrange an imaginary situation to demonstrate the radical difference between the anthropocentric (humanistic, universalistic) world view and everything resulting from it (ethics, legal concepts, etc.) on the one hand and certain particularistic principles on the other. Imagine a public, universal “Nuremberg Trial” somewhere in Berlin, New York, Moscow, or Jerusalem at which the most bloody evil-doers of modern human history are standing trial, many — alas! — posthumously. (By the way, I am sure that such a trial is necessary and that, some day, it will take place.) The dock is occupied by Talaat Pasha and other organizers of the Armenian massacre of 1915, Lenin and Stalin, Hitler and Mao Zedong, the cannibal emperor Bokassa and his neighbor Idi Amin, Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge regime, the terrorists Carlos, Baader and Meinhof, the heroes of the “Arabic street” Saddam Hussein, Osama bin-Laden and Sheikh Yassin, and other famous characters of this sort (let us note parenthetically that all of them are males). The whole of humankind is sitting petrified — “glued” to TV screens or computer monitors. The select few are the audience present in the courtroom to listen to the case being argued. We have just finished listening to a shocking account of the defendants’ crimes against humanity given by the prosecutor who, having adduced irrefutable evidence of their being guilty of genocide and other large-scale evil deeds demanded a death sentence for all of them. It is now for the defense to speak. Humane laws of human society allow the criminals the right to be defended at court: monsters they are, but still human monsters. The lawyer starts his speech in a somewhat unusual manner. He asks of the judge a permission to address everyone present at court with the following question: “Ladies and gentlemen, are there vegetarians among you? If so, I ask them to raise hands.” Since the trial is unprecedented and due to its social significance the judge allows this. Many dozen hands go up amidst the perplexed audience. “Now, may only those who abstain from meat because they are against killing animals on principle, and not for dietary reasons, raise your hands, please.” Hands go up again, albeit noticeably fewer this time. “As you can see,” proceeds the lawyer, “the overwhelming majority of those present are not against killing animals for food, while being against killing their own kind, Homo sapiens. I suppose that the ratio of the “dietary 33

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vegetarians” to the “humane vegetarians” in this courtroom reflects the actual public opinion prevailing in modern Western society. I can hardly be mistaken in assuming that most people adhering to Western values and having no objection to killing animals for purely practical reasons regard this phenomenon as a necessary evil. Many of us, though silently acquiescing to the slaughter of living beings, would never participate in it personally, and have a sincere pity for animals to be slaughtered. On the other hand, I doubt that we’ll be able to find many people objecting to pest control, i.e., the extermination of living creatures harmful to man — like rats, roaches, bugs, etc., or, say, rabid dogs, although we have to admit that all those creatures are quite innocent of being what they are, for Nature or the Maker has made them so.” “Let’s think about why we discriminate so radically between humans and animals. The answer is obvious to me: we do so because our Western civilization is based upon the Biblical anthropocentric world view, according to which Man radically differs from the other living creatures, and homicide, let alone genocide — mass murder of humans — is viewed as the most hideous of crimes. However, this is evidently but one of the possible world models or standpoints which is far from being shared by all human communities, now or in the past. Let’s call to mind some examples: the Hindu see in the killing of a cow a crime nearly more serious than the murder of a man; the Jains have the ahimsa (“non-hurting”) principle they extend even to poisonous insects. Just imagine the opinion that the most consistent Hindus and Jains must have of our own civilization engaged in mass bovicide (from Latin bos, bovis, “ox, cow”) as part of permanent zoocide which is a norm. Turning to my clients now, I muster the audacity to declare that each of them has his own viewpoint — not anthropocentric but more particularistic. Mr. Lenin is, for example, an exponent of a “proletarian-centriс” position, while Mr. Hitler, of “Aryan-centric” and Mr. bin-Laden, of “Islamo-centric” one. It means that the exceptional position reserved for us in the picture of things for Homo sapiens is allotted by Mr. Lenin not to all humans but to the exploited classes, primarily the proletariat, by Mr. Hitler, to the Aryan race, and Mr. bin-Laden, to the adepts of Islam — or to those of them whom he regards as true Moslems.” “According to the world view of each of my clients, there are two types of communities of such living beings that ought to be used to ensure the survival and prosperity of the most valuable groups of their choice, and also communities of such living beings that disturb this prosperity 34

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

(like rats and mosquitoes disturb ours). The exploitation — or, as you could put it, consumption of the communities of the former type and the elimination of the communities of the latter type are objectively conducive to the attainment of these lofty goals (from my clients’ point of view). In the case of Mr. Lenin, such communities are represented by the peasants, “intelligentsia” (type one) and exploiting classes (type two); in Mr. Hitler’s case, by non-Aryan nations (type one) and by the Jews, the Gypsies, homosexuals and mentally unsound persons (type two); while in Mr. binLaden’s case, by enemies of Islam, by the American imperialists and — a curious coincidence with Mr. Hitler — the Jews (type two) and by their Russian and other collaborationists (type one).” “It was this necessary evil, this difficult and thankless task — the task of disinfection, or pest control — that my clients were forced to assume. I assure you that they will go out of their way to assure us they did not sustain any animosity (sometimes — nay, even as a rule — they felt sincere pity) for the objects of their burdensome activity, not to mention the strong personal attachment they might have had to certain individuals until they were forced to make the tragic, though necessary decision. What is it, then, that the esteemed prosecutor accuses my clients of, choosing to pay heed in a case of this exceptional social significance — rather than to the multicultural experience of the entire mankind and the impartial voice of his conscience — to an overstated point of view once expressed in one bygone written artifact (and with any degree of lucidity in a few passages only: it is commonly known that rather than this, universalistic position — a totally particularistic, Hebrew-centric one predominates in the Bible!) and later consolidated in our civilization as a result of a series of historical fortuities. In fact, he charges them with thinking differently. Every action of theirs as much logically follows from their very special beliefs as our own extermination or consuming of many kinds of living creatures other than Homo sapiens follows from our anthropocentrism. I affirm that any of my clients is ready to embark upon an infinitely sophisticated and lengthy academic discussion with any opponent in order to make them understand each other better or even bring their respective points of view closer to each other. However, what has the penal code to do with it? Is it fitting for our civilization — with all its pluralism, tolerance and the striving to get to the true essence of things and the ultimate raison d’être — to condemn so grossly men to the loss of freedom it values so much or even to death — 35

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TO DEATH! — just for having a point of view different from ours? Do we not just exercise the right of the strong, the right of those who, by virtue of workings and vicissitudes of history we can’t comprehend yet, have become the ultimate winners (or think they have) imposing on everyone their view of things most complex, subtle and unsolvable as the only true one? Do we not pave the way for people like radical vegetarians or the Jains (let’s admit, inter parenthesis, that their view of these things is, ethically, more superior to ours, which restricts the principles of compassion, love and nonviolence to one kind only, though ours, I admit, presents a higher level in the evolution of ethics, as compared to the more particularistic position of my clients) who, should they attain the topmost position in human society, might bring all of us, the criminal meat-eaters and wicked flea-killers to a trial of universal proportions, demanding a death sentence — perhaps not for all, but surely for our spiritual leaders — philosophers, theologians, writers, leading scientists?” So much for our fictitious trial story. Let the reader find objections to these imaginary arguments and ponder the significance of the anthropocentric world model and the correlation between universalism and particularism both for mankind and for himself or herself.

“Adamism” There is something I would call “adamism”: the idea of human race based upon the understanding that all humans and all nations have a common origin. The concept in itself, being widespread in various mythologies, is not a Biblical innovation. However, the fact that it was postulated twice — in the myth of the first couple (Adam and Eve) and in the account of the postdiluvial humanity (Noah and his descendants) — as well as the carefully described genetic tree (Gen 10) and the Tower of Babel story (Gen 11: 1–9) with its idea of a language originally common to all humans attest to a great significance that the authors of these texts attached to the idea of human unity. If in the center of the world picture created in the opening chapters of Genesis there stands Man, then in other ancient cultures where the opposition Man — not-Man is meaningful in principle, in a picture like this normally figures not a generic Man and not a human race either, but a man of “one’s own” kind, “one’s own” culture. It is “we” — not “they” — who are exclusively, or par excellence, human beings. 36

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

According to Egyptian myths, Egypt was the land that had been created first and the Egyptian were the first-created people (let us note parenthetically that in the Biblical passages discussed herein the original birthplace of the humankind is not the “Promised Land,” not Canaan, while Abraham’s descendants are but one of the peoples, a late-in-the-day branch on the genetic tree of the tribes populating the Earth); for an ancient Egyptian all sorts of Libyans, Nubians, the “Asians” were foes, aliens or, at best, hired workers and mercenaries. The Chinese showed the same attitude to the barbarians living outside the “Central Empire.” The ancient Greeks were interested in neighboring peoples more than others; it seems that the idea of humanity as an entity different from the realm of gods, on the one hand, and the animal kingdom, on the other, had some significance for them. It is, nevertheless, obvious that this division was neither absolute nor the only conceivable for them as it was for the Jews — let us recall if only heroes born of the intercourse between gods and humans. One might argue that numerous Biblical texts contain the idea of the Jews as God’s chosen people that opposed them to other nations and has, in many respects, predetermined further evolution of Jewish ethno-religious consciousness. Obviously, this idea prevails over the idea of a single human race. The universalism/particularism opposition reflects the polemic intermittently dwindling and flaring anew, stemming from a contradiction among various social groups, ideologies and schools of thought represented in the ancient Hebrew society in the course of many generations, the polemic, that is, that went on throughout all the consecutive periods of Jewish history. This opposition seems to be distributed between two groups of Biblical texts that are attributed to the “priestly” and “royal” schools or ideological trends respectively.50 A dramatic lack of this polemic’s completion is conspicuously manifest in the following example. A famous episode from Mishnah goes: “This is why Adam was created alone. It is to teach us that … whosoever destroys a single soul … , Scripture imputes [guilt] to him as though he had destroyed a complete world; and whosoever preserves a single soul … , Scripture ascribes [merit] to him as though he had preserved a complete 50

It is interesting that universalistic motifs are associated with the author(s) supposedly belonging to the “priestly” group or school, whereas particularistic and ethnocentric trends are evident in the secular, “royal” group — is it not an evocation of sorts of the discourse on the “Jewish role, or mission in the world” among the religious Jews and secular Zionists? 37

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world … When a man mints a number of coins from a single die, they are all identical; but the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One blessed be He, minted every human being from the die of the primal Adam, and not one of them is like any other.”51 However, in some manuscripts the words “a single soul” are followed by “of Israel” which changes the meaning of the entire pronouncement totally and utterly. It is precisely this version that was used as the original source for Mishnah translation into English by J. Newsner, a famous early Rabbinical literature American specialist. Passionately contesting such a choice, Marvin Hope, another major American Bible expert and Assyrologist wrote in his article “Adam, Edom and Holocaust” shortly before his demise: … Adam/humanity was created singly (yəhi^di^ ) to teach you (and me) that whoever destroys a single soul Scripture charges as if he destroyed a world full, and whoever saves a single life Scripture credits as if he saved a world full. The latter is the motto which in Spielberg’s cinedrama Schindler’s List was engraved in the ring given by those whose lives Schindler had saved. ‘Who saves a single life saves a world entire’ is one of the noblest sayings in all human literature. Unfortunately, someone who did not believe all human life to be of equal value added twice the limitation ‘from Israel’, making Israelite lives all that matter. The phrase ‘from Israel’ sticks out like two sore thumbs and contradicts the continuing larger context, which goes on to elaborate the unity and community of the whole human family since the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be he, cast every human from the same mould (used) for the first Adam and yet no human is (exactly) like another. Accordingly, each one is obligated to say ‘for me the world was created’. This latter assertion may take the coveted ‘chutzpah prize’, but because anyone and everyone may say this, and some seem really to believe it, no one has more right than another to make such a claim, and hence it is meaningless except for the point that every life is precious. One might wish that Spielberg had taken more care at this point to make clear the context and import of the inscription in Schindler’s ring, for all humanity needs to understand and take this message to heart and to know that it applies to all life, not just human life, and is certainly not limited to Israelite lives. It is thus startling to read in J. Neusner’s recent translation of the Mishnah the concern limited to Israelite life with no note that this limitation (miyyisʹrʔl) is absent in some manuscripts, obviously 51

38

Mishnah 4.5, The Babylonian Talmud, Soncino English translation, translated by Jacob Shachter, University Press, Oxford, 1935, pg. 234, Sanhedrin 37a.

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the original reading since the interpolated restriction contradicts the repeated emphasis of the passage on the unity and equality of all humanity as a single species all made from the same mold.52 It is nonetheless of crucial importance that such an opposition emerges within humanity as one of the sequential acts of the drama that tells us of God’s relationship with all nations, the children and descendants of Adam. God concludes his first covenant with Noah and his posterity (Gen 9:9), i.e., with all mankind. The emergence of this mankind as a result of Creation and its further splitting explain the model of a single world inhabited by different related tribes and nations and fill it with meaning. This model prevails in modern anthropocentric civilization, without being the only possible one, of course. A debate used to be topical, in anthropology and genetics, between proponents of polygenesis and monogenesis of modern human races until the recent discoveries in genetics tipped the balance towards the universality of origins of all human populations inhabiting our planet.53 Besides, we must not forget that, regardless of how occasional and undeveloped were universalistic ideas in other Biblical texts and how marginal and unimportant they may seem for the further evolution of Jewish tradition, it was these ideas that were given the most prominent place in the process of shaping the Biblical canon. The fact that the entire complex of these ideas was placed in the opening chapters of the first book of the Hebrew Bible — i.e. was given the most “prestigious” place in the canon — is by no means accidental. Therefore the opinion heard by me during one of discussions to the effect that the universalistic ideas of the Bible inherited by Christianity reflect but the views of one of the many schools of Jewish thought of that epoch — most probably, of some obscure, “marginal” sect — seems unconvincing to me precisely due to their locum in the canon structure. In that case, it would be logical to assume that the compilers of the Biblical canon did not belong to the mainstream of religious thought either (also belonging to “marginals” or popularizing the views of same), which would seem preposterous even with the apparent reflection in the Bible of the strife of various schools and trends. 52

53

Pope, M.A., Adam, Edom and Holocaust. Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World. A Tribute to Cyrus H. Gordon. Sheffield, 1998, p. 203. On an alternative theory see fn. 215. Cf. also recent discoveries about Neanderthal genes in part of human population only. 39

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Monotheism Monotheism is an entirely new concept of the Deity and God-Man relationship which is inseparable from the two afore-mentioned ideas. Biblical monotheism may be described as anthropocentric by its very nature (as anthropocentrist supreme is Lord God himself). Ancient mythologies other than Biblical normally populate the universe with supernatural entities as well as humans and animals; gods live their own lives among their own kind treating humans like inferior creatures and sometimes playing games with their lives. In any case, humans are far from occupying a central place in that world (in Sumerian mythology, for instance, gods create man to work for their benefit). Conversely, the God of the Bible, upon completing the act of Creation, turns his attention exclusively to man, settling him, punishing him, fostering him, etc. Aside from man, God has no other partner, interlocutor, or object of activity. Other supernatural beings, the angels, are mere messengers running errands: in Hebrew malʔk̲ means “angel” and “messenger”; both meanings also occur in Aramaic including the earliest Old and Official (or Empire) Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopian and Modern South Arabian (wherein it must be an Arabism). This derived noun is a nomen agentis from the verbal root lʔk “to send a message or a messenger” occurring in Ugaritic, Arabic and Ethiopian; strangely, in biblical Hebrew (and all Aramaic dialects) only the derived nouns, and not the primary verb, occur which may point to the borrowing of this noun by Hebrew from another language (Aramaic? Ugaritic?). The exclusive role of man among all creation is highlighted by the distance separating him — and all creation in general — from the transcendent God, the Creator (true, peeping through the transcendence in question are some anthropomorphous traits left over from the former tribal patron-god): the distance that was pushed in the Biblical picture of the world to the farthest conceivable limit which is infinity. This exclusive role is even more obvious if we take a look at the relation between the “upper” and “lower” worlds as seen in non-Biblical religious and mythological systems: e.g., the Hindu system with its metempsychosis and vague distinctions between animals, humans and supernatural beings all of which are emanations of a single divine entity, or the classical Greek mythology with its “interbreeding” of gods and mortals resulting in the birth of heroes as some kind of intermediate creatures.54 54

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Cf. also Gen 6:1–4 fairly vaguely mentioning the “sons of God” who “went to the daughters of men and had children by them” the end result of which was the

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

Hebrew ʔl, ʔlah, plural ʔlh–m, “God” continues Proto-Semitic *ʔilwith a variant *ʔilh- (with no known Afrasian cognates) present in all the languages except Ethiopian and Modern South Arabian. Interestingly, unlike some other divine names common in Semitic-speaking area, which have a certain primary and simple meaning by which we can get the idea of the corresponding deity’s nature,55 this one has no other meaning than “God,” is, in all probability, not an interborrowing and looks like a candidate to the main Common Semitic deity or the generic term “God.” This amazing Biblical paradox — the transcendence of the Maker in relation to the world he created and the violation of this transcendence, his exclusive attitude toward man — is revealed in an important divergence from the apophatic principle of describing God: aside from general epithets, such as “great” (gdl), “almighty,” “hero” (gibbr), “holy” (ḳd), “living” (hay), etc., terms that really impart individual features to God refer to his attitude toward man in general and his chosen people in particular — “merciful” (hannn), “jealous” (ḳannʔ), “long-suffering” (ʔrk̲ ʔappayim, lit. “long of anger”), and the like. A relationship with humans also represents the only explicable motivation for God’s actions, as well as for his “repentance” that he performed some of those. Here are some examples: “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain” (Gen 6:6), “And the Lord was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Sa 15:35). Let’s also remember the flood story: “So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth” (Gen 6:13) and also: “The Lord … said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man … ” (Gen 8:21). The sentence that follows, however, presents a problem relevant for our topic and, therefore, worth discussing. The Hebrew original goes: k– ysr lb̲ h-ʔd̲m raʕ minnəʕurw — literally: “because (or even though) the inclination of man’s heart (is) evil from (or since, or because of) his youth … ”

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appearance of “the heroes of old, men of renown,” literally “men of the name.” In connection with this last phenomenon one may observe that the early Christians — as a Jewish sect addressing large, mostly Greek and Latin speaking, audiences — seem to have consciously sacrificed the principle of absolutely transcendent nature of the Deity, borrowing the Greek notion of hero born of a god and a mortal woman, albeit in an extremely transformed and spiritualized form. Like Hebrew Baʕal (Akkadian Belu), whose primary meaning is “lord, owner, master” (in all Semitic languages), or Hebrew Rp¯, whose primary meaning is “flame.” 41

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The key words for the interpretation of this passage are (1) k–, which can be translated both as “because,” “for” and “even though,”56 and (2) min, which corresponds to English “from,” “out of” (with a local meaning), “since,” “after” (with a temporal meaning), “because,” “in consequence of” (specifying the logical cause), etc.57 The King James Version’s translation of Gen 8:21, “And the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” — if from stands here for since and not because of — creates a logical problem: how can it be that the Lord promises or decides not to curse the ground any more because the man is evil from his youth? The NIV’s translation “Never again will I curse the ground because of man even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood” seems more consistent: the Lord decides not to curse the ground any more because of man in spite of his evil inclination from childhood. Both versions, however, do not seem to be in agreement with the whole context: while “for the man is evil” in the former, cannot be the cause of not cursing the ground any more (but should rather have been the cause of the reverse), “even though” in the latter, can neither account for the Lord’s radical change of strategy towards mankind. If one accepts either of the two interpretations, the only reasonable explanation of the Lord’s decision has to be looked for in the preceding passages: “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it” (Gen 8:20). And then: “The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: Never again will I curse the ground … ” (Gen 8:21). I have an impression, far-fetched perhaps, that both English version translators’ choice between two opportunities — of interpreting min as “from” in the temporal meaning “since” or as “because of, in consequence of” — was motivated not so much by philological considerations as by that very perception of God, ingrained in mainstream Christianity (as well as in orthodox Judaism and Islam), which I discussed in the Preface — as a vain Oriental despot demanding and enjoying idolatry (“smelled the pleasing aroma”). 56

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L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. I–III, Leiden-New York-Köln, 1994–1996; IV–V, Leiden-Boston-Köln, 1999–2000 (Revised by W. Baumgartner and J.J. Stamm), pp. 470–71. Further quoted as HALOT. Ibid. 597–8.

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

A translation of the passage in question that is more compatible with the “humane” image of God would be as follows: “ … as the inclination of man’s heart (is) evil because of his youth … ” — and of the whole verse 21: “The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: Never again will I curse the earth because of man as the inclination of man’s heart is evil in consequence of his youth.58 And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” It is by way of the prophets that the Almighty appeals to the chosen people and other peoples, admonishes, puts conditions forward, threatens awful retributions — not just for alien gods adoration at that, but also for inhuman, immoral in an entirely contemporary sense, understandable to us today — attitude to people. There and then he goes on to break his promises and solemn oaths to send those awful retributions down onto people explaining the lassitude by bouts of pity and compassion, trying to vindicate himself and arguing with Man. Here is what he has to say through Ezekiel’s mouthpiece: “Also with uplifted hand I swore to them in the desert that I would not bring them into the land I had given them … Yet I looked on them with pity and did not destroy them or put an end to them in the desert” (Eze 20:15–17). And elsewhere: “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord God. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?” (18:23). And with an entirely human, really Jewish intonation: “Yet the house of Israel says, “The way of the Lord is not just.” Are my ways unjust, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?” (18:29). Monotheism of the Bible is connected to the second notion — “Adamism,” or the unity of human race — by what I understand as the affirming of God’s status not so much as the one God but as the God of one single mankind, for all emphasis on his role as the God of his chosen people. Unlike postBiblical Jewish, Christian and Islamic doctrines, some Biblical texts, rather than deny the reality of other gods, imply it — sometimes in the words of 58

The reason for NIV’s having translated nəʕurw as “his childhood” is transparent: every (there is no word for "every" in the original) inclination of man’s heart is evil from its very origin implying original sin and sinfulness into which humans are born — a Christian doctrine shared neither by Judaism nor Islam. Actually, the term undoubtedly means “youth, time of youth” — not “childhood” — in all Biblical contexts (see HALOT 704) being a derived form from naʕar “lad, adolescent, young man” and also “fellow, servant, attendant” (ibid. 707), which is further confirmed by cognate words in Phoenician (nʕr “youth; young boy; servant”) and Ugaritic (nʕr “boy, lad; assistant, serving lad”). To me, it looks like a falsification of sorts — out of piety. The question is, what do the Heavens favor more: piety or honesty? 43

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“the LORD God of gods” (Jos 22:22)59 himself, cf.: “God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods. How long will ye judge unjustly? … I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes” (Ps 82:1–7).60 Let us note here that “true God” and “false gods” are named by the same word in the plural form — ʔlh–m; cf. also “All the nations may walk in the name of their gods; we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever” (Mic 4:5) and “The man has now become as one of us (kə-ʔahad mi-mmnn), knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:22). Here, however, all similarity ends: the universal and omnipotent Godabsolute, whom the creation cannot contain, has nothing whatever in common with local and virtually impotent puny gods.

Common Task The idea of a single aim, a common task that the Maker set mankind, is a novel notion for the ancient mentality. That which might be called the first stage of this task is expressed in the commandment, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28) and “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth” (9:7); cf.: “ … he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, … he did not created it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited … ” (Isa 45:18). The final stage of the divine plan regarding man has much to do with the mission of the “chosen people”: it is to lead all humanity, all nations to some common goal. “And I will make you into a great nation … ” says God to Abram, “and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 59

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In The King James Version’s translation in this case not theologically biased unlike NIV that seems to have tried to veil this motif by translating Hebrew ʔl ʔlh–m yəhw ʔl ʔlh–m as “God, the Lord.” The King James Version. Again, NIV is trying to cope with the inconvenience by placing “gods” within quotation marks and by the following commentary (which, to me, does not seem convincing but outright partisan): “In the language of the OT — and in accordance with the conceptual world of the ancient Near East — rulers and judges, as deputies of the heavenly King, could be given the honorific title “god” (p. 880, note to 82:1). This interpretation also presupposes the use of ʔdm in the meaning “ordinary men” (“you will die like mere men”) — which it does not have — as opposed to ʔlh–m referring to “rulers and judges”; one wonders how to explain another opposition — of “rulers and judges” to “every other ruler” (“ … you will fall like every other ruler” 82:7); all this appears illogical, forced and baseless to me.

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

(Gen 12:2–3) In the Book of Isaiah we also read: “In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established … and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Isa 2:2–3) And later, in the same book: “In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handwork, and Israel my inheritance.” (Isa 19:24–25) We find the same contentions in other prophets: “He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken” (Mic 4:3–4); “Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people.” (Zec 2:11) Taking the risk of another repetition, I am going to forestall the predictable objection: indeed, the above theme occurs in the Bible, yet not throughout its entirety, but rarely — predominantly as points made by certain prophets — and marks a rarefied dotted line in the post-Biblical rabbinical tradition, and indeed the “chosen people” itself gets, both in early and later texts, much more attention than the universally humanistic mission it has to complete and the humankind itself with its common goal. However, the unversalistic motif cannot be dismissed as accidental either; having once emerged, it never disappears, attaining more and more prominent place in the history of ideas.

Ethics The anthropocentric model of a single human race presupposes both generally human and personal ethics — and philanthropy as love and humane attitude of man to man — after the set example of the Creator’s attitude to man in general and to any man. From the thesis of Adam’s creation in divine image and likeness (Gen 1:26 and 9:6) the principle of the absolute value of a human personality is deduced, albeit in a generalized and symbolic aspect, — the prototype of humanistic morality-to-be. Biblical books, particularly prophetic ones, are shot through with a bare nerve of a moralizing sermon, a most high-voltage debate on moral issues. 45

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Such intense attention to ethical problems has no analogies in other ancient written monuments. As an eminent Assiriologist and historian of ancient Near East H. Tadmor and his co-author R. Nadel would write, … in the sermons of Amos and all of the following prophets (i.e. starting with the 8th century B.C.E. — A.M.) … social and ethical aspects become dominant in their world view and activity … The principle originally promulgated by Amos was not just novel with respect to Judea, but also went against the world outlook of all of Ancient East. The principle in question was about social justice and strict compliance with the law being the foundation of any state’s existence. The state where arbitrariness rules supreme — either king-induced or produced by the officialdom — in which the indigenous are oppressed by the rich or nobility has no right to exist and is inexorably bound to fall … The ideas of Amos were then taken on to further develop by Isaiah, Judea’s greatest prophet … Isaiah is convinced that the idea of universal peace will emanate from Jerusalem … In this view of the future, universal world outlook and the national consciousness of the prophet blended into one inseparable whole … he rejects point blank the exculpatory power of sacrificial rituals that the aristocracy violating the social injunctions of Torah pins hopes on and counter-poses to them — as the loftiest expression of true piety — observance of the laws of justice and humanism.61

Sure enough, one ought not to think of the Hebrew Bible as a kind of compendium of peaceable stories and lofty-moralistic discourses. In it — just like in other ancient monuments — there is much repulsive, cruel, naturalistically sadistic, archaically savage stuff. Let us recall if only Moses’ command to Levi’s sons in the name of God of Israel to slay for apostasy “each killing his brother and friend and neighbor” (Ex 32:27) or the disgusting episode with prophet Elisha who cursed — in the name of the Lord — “little children” who mocked him and called him “bald head” which resulted in two she-bears coming forth out of the wood and tearing “forty and two children of them” (2 Ki 2:23–24).62 61

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История еврейского народа (History of the Jewish People), ed. by Sh. Ettinger, Moscow, 2002, pp. 76–77 (translated from Russian). Here, too, The King James Version is quoted, while the NIV translators practically falsify the original by manipulating the words: putting “some youths” for “little children” (-nəʕr–m ḳəṭann–m, literally “and little youths/lads”, i.e. certainly “children”), again providing a sophisticated commentary with somewhat strained historical background re these youths’ ghastly behavior and its implications as if feeling uneasy — but trying deliberately to conceal it — about recognizing a death sentence of 42 children (with the youths it’s ok!) for such a hideous crime as calling a bald man a bald man.

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

What also comes to mind is the story of Job, the ample sufferer, who is easily consoled by the new children bestowed on him for the staunchness of his faith — forgetting all about the old ones abolished by the Almighty in a bet with Satan; curiously, by the way, in the comprehensive and sophisticated commentary of John Chrysostom on the Book of Job the discussion of such minor circumstances found no space. One might object, of course: “Many children were born and died soon thereafter then, there was no personal consciousness as yet to tell them all apart!”,63 but that would not be true — as it is said in Jeremiah: “ … Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more.” (Jer 31: 15) As it is underscored in the Introduction to the “History of the Jewish People” quoted above, … in the Biblical literature, just like in the creative work of other peoples of antiquity, there survived lots of evidence of … sorcery and magic, of human sacrifices, of cruel attitude to the vanquished enemy, of the humbled status of a woman and the like. A distinctive characteristic of the Bible, however, that sets it apart in comparison with other literary monuments of antiquity is the opposite trend brought out in bold relief, one of ever increasing humaneness, accentuating moral and social consciousness of the collective and a single individual. Its highest imperative is: “That which is altogether just shalt thou follow … ” (Deuteronomy XVI, 20). This trend discerns in the aspiration to justice the peak of moral relations between people — as well as between a single individual and the collective that individual lives among (p. 8).

And further: The Bible happens to be the source of creativity in the realm of ideas for the Jewish people, the most characteristic expression of which were the individual morality and socio-ethical laws … In Biblical legislation these principles laid the foundation for a ramified system, like the laws of Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, that is a mandatory day of rest; the laws of “shemitah” (debts absolution) and “jubilee” (the fiftieth year), the goal of which is return — upon passage of certain periods of time — to the original equality in possession of earthly property; edicts on slaves protection (setting a slave free after six years of service and issuance of remuneration to him); various kinds of benefits to the indigenous in the fruit of the field … ; equality before the law … ; just attitude and aid to a foreigner and 63

Let us recall a Gipsy from a Russian (or Russian Jewish as most of the jokes seem to be) joke looking his grubby children over: “Shall I wash these clean or make some new ones instead?” 47

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stranger … in opposition to discrimination of foreigners in the majority of ancient societies. It is not surprising that movements that struggled against social injustice in Europe in the Middle Ages and in the newer time drew inspiration from the Biblical sources and used Biblical shibboleths … The Bible also becomes a source of a particular world outlook that rejected the military power and political success — even if they resulted in the creation of a formidable empire and domination over enthralled peoples — as a criterion of historical justice in any way: conversely, it is the weak people enthralled by others that may be the exponent of the ideas of humanism and justice … These basic tenets were to provide a spiritual ideal for both the entire people as a collective and a single individual: that precisely in the epoch of Oriental despotic regimes when a common individual was considered just the work force element servicing the ruling class and could in no way have been an exponent of spiritual values. The idea of being chosen exceptional for the Jewish people weighing it down with overbearing responsibilities left its imprint on the entire Bible. It imparts a certain bias even to its historiographic parts. It is precisely this bias, however, that leads to Biblical historiographers appraising kings by their adherence to religious-moral principles rather than by military or political successes they scored. Thus, instead of deification of the kingdom and power universally accepted in Oriental despotisms the creators of the Bible erected the religious and moral criterion onto the pedestal of the loftiest ideal (pp. 8–10).

Ultimately, it is the introduction of these ideas per se into the inventory of culture that is paramount, even irrespective of many Biblical passages contradicting them — as well as the extent of persistence orchestrating their materialization in real life in the course of further history of both Judaism and Christianity with the latter’s value system initially derivative from ancient Biblical and further complemented by late-Hellenistic Greek and Roman notions of a single individual’s dignity and freedom of choice. All of this, clearly, does not mean that many lofty ethical principles that were promulgated by the Biblical prophets and preceptors had not been known to the ancient world. The history of Mesopotamia, for one, bears witness to both cruelty of morals, despotism of the rulers, cases of populace extermination that put up resistance against conquerors — and faith tolerance, peaceful side-by-side coexistence and blending of different ethnic groups, say Sumerians and Semitic Akkadians. In the earliest among known codes, “Ur-Nammu Laws” of a Sumerian king who ruled at the end of the 3rd millennium B.C.E. Ur-Nammu says this about himself: 48

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I did not give an orphan to a rich person, a widow — to a strong one … I did not give (tyrannical) orders. Enmity, violence … I abolished. Justice in the country I established.64

And the Egyptian “Book of the Dead” dated to the 15th century B.C.E. provides a list of eighty bad acts known to any Egyptian perpetration of which in the lifetime each deceased denied at postmortem judgment administered by omniscient and impartial gods. Moral norms that follow from that list do not differ in principle from the later Biblical ones. Here are some of the denied sins: — I was not covetous; I did not steal; — I have not killed everyone [or: I have not killed, not commanded to kill], I have not killed the “divine cattle” [=people]; — I have not increased the prescribed workload at the beginning of each day, I have done no orphan any harm on his property. — I have not robbed portions, not practised grain usury, I have only been interested in what is my own; — I have not lied, not scolded, I have not quarreled, sued, terrorised, spoken unnessesary words, raised my voise, nor spoken rashly. — I have not secretly listened to others, nor winked my eye at them, I have not puffed myself up or raised myself above my station, — I was not heated [or: ‘hot-mouthed’], not choleric, not violent, I have not turned a deaf ear to the words of truth. I have not denigrated anyone to their superiors. — I have inflicted no pain, I have not let others go hungry, I have not caused tears, I have done no one any harm.65

Nonetheless certain ethical principles of the Hebrew Bible are apparently innovative for the ancient world. Neither for the Egyptians who “Without recourse to revealed law … had succeeded in building a state and a society as fabled for their stability as for their wisdom, justice, and piety”,66 nor for the Babylonians with their advanced Laws of Hammurabi, nor for the Athenians with their democracy, nor even for the Romans with their developed 64

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Translated from the Russian translation from Sumerian by V.A. Jacobson, quoted by История древнего Востока (History of Ancient East. Texts and Documents) Moscow, 2002, p. 161. Quoted after: Assmann, I., The Mind of Egypt. History and Meaning in the Time of Pharaos. New York, 2002, pp. 165–166. Ibid., p. 162. 49

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law — at least till the turn of eras — was characteristic the view of savages from remote lands, barbarians and slaves as kinsmen, avowedly distant, yet descendant form the same ancestor with them and as legitimate individuals of full value graced with bearing the same ideal image with them.67 From the set of Biblical ethical concepts also eventually stem the ideas of social justice and philanthropy as a behavioral norm, the moral foundations of jurisprudence and critical attitude to authority — all the heritage that following different historical ways and in combination with Greek and Roman philosophical, ethical and legal innovations has persisted till our time and was laid at the foundation of the institutes of social protection and charity, doctrines of separation of powers, independent court, limitation of rights of the state and the “Declaration of Human Rights.”

Life After Death and the Biblical “Agnosticism” The main problem of man — just like of any living being — is one of survival, both as an individual and as a species. The second most important issue man is faced with is the prospect of death, one of individual existence discontinuation. That subject is, probably, not alien to animals either. Let me tell you an episode from real life. When our dog perished and his dead carcass stayed in the house for several hours, five cats living in the house, with whom his relations had been far from idyllic (he had been stern and unsentimental), kept circling around him as if in performance of a ritual of sorts, and then refused to take food for a couple of days thereafter. I am not inclined to ascribe anthropomorphous characteristics to cats, but the fact that they were cognizant of the dog’s death and reacted to it with unusual behavior was perfectly obvious. One can also recall a recent story that gained extensive popularity involving the gorilla Koko, a butt of biological tests, whose reaction to the death of her favorite cat was accompanied by a phrase conveyed by a succession of gestures the primatologists had taught her: the cat had departed where nobody returns from. Anyway, mankind has ever been concerned by this problem, to which the data of archeological burial sites point among other things, as do 67

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In Greece that kind of attitude starts noticeably changing only in the 3rd-2nd centuries B.C.E. in stoics for whom all the people — Greeks and barbarians, free and slaves alike — are the citizens of one cosmos, equal before the “universal law”.

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

petroglyphic images and mythology along with ancient written artifacts. The answer to the question of immortality particularly common in different cultures, mythologies and religions has been — and remains — a belief in the continuation of life after physical death. The forms of this imaginary life vary from reincarnations into any living and supernatural beings to impersonalized merger with a certain supreme substance, from inexpressible spiritual bliss in divine light — to combustion in infernal flame, from eking out a paltry existence as ethereal shadows — to an “improved” earthly existence orchestrated by entirely carnal blessings. Sure enough, already in antiquity there were certain individuals and entire schools of thought that denied beliefs in life after death. Skeptical attitude to traditional notions of posthumous life based on ritualistic providing for it was already expressed by an ancient Egyptian intellectual in the so-called “Harpist’s Song” (Song from the Tomb of King Intef, circa 2000 B.C.E.): The old kings slumber in their pyramids, Likewise the noble and the learned, but some Who builded tombs have now no place of rest, Although their deeds were great. Lo! I have heard the words Imhotep and Hordadaf spake. Their maxims men repeat — Where are their tombs? Long fallen — e’en their places are unknown, And they are now as though they ne’er had been. No soul comes back to tell us how he fares To soothe and comfort us ere we depart Whither he went betimes. But let our minds Forget of this and dwell on better things. Revel in pleasure while your life endures And deck your head with myrrh. Be richly clad In white and perfumed linen; like the gods Anointed be; and never weary grow In eager quest of what your heart desires Do as it prompts you — until that sad day Of lamentation comes, when hearts at rest Hear not the cry of mourners at the tomb, Which have no meaning to the silent dead. Then celebrate this festal time, nor pause For no man takes his riches to the grave; Yea, none returns again when he goes hence.68 68

Mackenzie, Donald. Egyptian Myth and Legend, 1907, p. 246f. 51

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The main idea of the Sumerian-Akkadian epic of Gilgamesh is one of inaccessibility of eternal life; the only individual on whom immortality had been bestowed was Ut-napishti, the witness of the world deluge. It is also possible to recall Epicure, the great Greek: there is no immortality and so death is nothing to us; when we exist death is not, and when death exists we are not. Yet people holding such views always had to be in the minority. In the course of his evolution Homo sapiens gradually departed from the relative simplicity of biological existence; spawned culture — the richest alternative, non-biological non-genetic channel of handing down information relayed from generation to generation; he then devised the finest system of interpersonal relations, attachments and obligations; formed a most complex self-consciousness, enabling everyone to consider oneself as an individual, consciously or subconsciously — even if that runs counter to the religious or world outlook doctrine one professes — the center of the universe, the accretion of everything that is dear to him in this world. It is hard for a human individual to reconcile himself to the idea of the inevitable and time-wise unpredictable discontinuation of his — or his dear and near’s — personal existence, particular and irreproducible, of the void that would gape in lieu of the place filled by him — and them — for the time being in this world going on living its indifferent life without him. Not many are consoled either by the idea of the surrogate of after-death being in the form of a short-lived memory of the people who used to know him and still go on living — or even in the longer-lived memories of the people aware of his existence, if he had been blessed with having performed something that left a mark in human memory — an illusory incentive for many a great exploit and crime alike. It is only in the nouveu temps, the time of skepticism and “belief in the proof,” the time of what we call “scientific thinking” that the number of people reconciling themselves to the idea of termination of personal being as the inescapable given or considering life after death unsupportable and hence highly unlikely has started growing. That — latter — position, agnosticism, “non-knowledge,” is now particularly common among the unbelieving, unreligious part of contemporary socium of a Western (including Russian) type. One may be an agnostic re a number of vastly different issues, but within the context discussed here an agnostic is someone who answers “don’t know” in reply to two questions: “Is there God (gods, supreme powers, extraterrestrial intelligence, etc.)?” and “Is there life after death (posthumous existence, soul immortality, metempsychosis — transmigration of souls, et al.)?” — just 52

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like an atheist is someone who in reply to the same two questions answers: “No (I know/believe there is not).”69 I think that the second of the two questions — how shall I put it in a more precise manner? — is the more fundamental, topical and historically more primordial of the two. I will lay down yet another heretical point at this juncture. I am not particularly convinced by the explanations known to me of how the notions of supernatural forces and beings were conceived. Thus, the “mythological school” theory of the 19th century — believed to be scientifically obsolete, but indestructible and impossible to expurgate from mass consciousness — held that spirits and gods personify natural forces, and the notions of them arose from the need of an archaic human being in an explanation of the natural phenomena of the “why does thunder roar?” type. I believe, however, that the human being was to have much more natural, specific and practical — even if incorrect from the positions of modern knowledge — answers to the questions of this kind, based on the rich life’s experience and survival “in nature,” and do without answers to other, less vital questions altogether. No more convincing are the “evolutionist” interpretations of the cult of gods as the continuation of the cult of ancestors; or deduction of that belief from magic or fear of the unknown; or Tylor’s animism with the spirits as embodiment of reasons; or Freud’s idea that “primitive men” came up with the animistic system by observing the phenomena of sleep and dreams and his speculations re the sublimation of father’s image in the image of God and of mother — in the image of goddess; or even Lévy-Bruhl’s sophisticated theory of pre-logical mentality with its “mystical participation”. One perceives a vicious circle in such theories: for the explanation of one kind of mysterious things others are drawn on — just as incomprehensible and improvable. One can, of course, spread one’s hands and declare that the mentality of our distant ancestors was so vastly different than ours, that to explain their motivations from the positions of common sense and contemporary logic is impossible. To me this position does not appear productive or even scientific. I am inclined precisely towards acknowledgement of pragmatic hard common sense in ancient and even primordial man that enabled him 69

Let me note here that the position of an agnostic appears to be more logical than atheist’s to me: I do not quite comprehend how one can claim with any degree of confidence, to know that God (or afterlife) does not exist; for me “I know that something is not” — is in essence but a euphemism for “I believe that something is not” or the gentler “I don’t believe there is,” but the argumentation supported by the verb “believe” has but little effect on me. 53

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to win in the toughest inter-species strife for survival. He must have had realistic enough notions of the world around that hardly left any potential for populating it — for no good reason — with supernatural beings and forces that nobody sober of mind had ever seen.70 On the contrary, the imaginary — or suggested — life after death that fails to lend itself either to visual observation or to experiential checkup ought to be the jurisdiction of precisely the entities unidentifiable in experienced reality, in the current time: deceased ancestors, spirits, mythical characters, demons and deities. Conceived of the reflections on death and after-death existence, notions of the supernatural — in certain human groups at least — evolved further in various ways filling out also other cultural niches in effect.71 There is an opinion that at the early stages of Homo sapiens evolution and until the present day also in the “archaic” cultures, the apparently manifest personal “existential” interest to discontinuation or extension of existence after death is not there, that death is perceived only as a disruption of a normal activity of the collective brought about by the supernatural causes evil play (harm-occasioning magic, taboo violation and the like). Even if this observation is true, I have a guarded attitude to direct projection to developed ancient proto-written and written cultures of the pictures of archaic, “primitive” communities put together on the basis of ethnographic data accumulated in the course of several recent centuries. I have grave doubts about the habitual idea of significant affinity of the archaic communities preserved intact up till the new and newest time like the Papuan, Australian or Bushmen that practically have not been subject to change in the course of dozens of thousand years — Lévi-Strauss’s “cold” cultures — with the most ancient dynamic cultures of the Proto-Afrasian, Proto-Semitic or Proto-Indo-European type that paved the way for — and staged — a whole succession of revolutionary leaps in human development, and further spawned both the great civilizations of antiquity like Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek or Indian, and the sufficiently advanced ancient cultures like Ugaritic, Phoenician, Hebrew, Hittite or Median — more or less corresponding to Lévi-Strauss’s “hot cultures”. 70

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I am writing this for the sake of those among the readers who have had no experience of socializing with wood-goblins, brownies, nymphs and devils. Apparently, this purely speculative hypothesis requires a serious scientific verification — and it is not for me, in no way an expert in these issues and mythology in general, to dabble in it; that said, yet to me it appears the most natural and logical explanation.

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

Reverting to the Bible: in contrast to the enthusiastic confidence defying blasphemous doubts in the answer “yes!” to the first question — about God — the entire aggregate of Biblical texts in actual fact fails to provide the answer to the second question — about the afterlife. It is inconceivable that it did not browbeat the authors of these texts that bring up nearly all aspects of material and spiritual life of an ancient man. It is all the more surprising because against the background of advanced notions of afterlife in the peoples around them — with whom ancient Jews had to be familiar, one would have expected open or at least latent polemic, an assertion of their particular convictions in counter-balance to “pagan” ones, just like in numerous other issues of faith, ethics, ritual, etc. However, nothing of the kind is evidenced by the Bible. The place where the deceased depart, the dead’s abode, most often referred to as əʔl is mentioned fairly often, over 60 times, but its description — meaningful to any extent — is absent. An impression is created that it denotes — rather than an elaborate picture of life beyond the grave — a somber poetic image, a popularly used, but “hackneyed” metaphor72 that has survived since distant times or has been influenced by other cultures. (The latter is not to be ruled out — considering that the notion of the world beyond the grave as an inferno, the somber Hades, the underworld of shadows is characteristic for both Egypt where the human souls “filtered off” by the posthumous court of Osiris end up, Mesopotamia, and ancient Hellas.) In one of the suggested etymologies of the term connecting it with the Hebrew verb ʔal “to ask, to question” a certain archaic layer of semantic notions of the realm beyond the grave as if comes looming through — that has to do with divination, contact with the souls of the dead, etc. That etymology in itself, however, looks like Volksetymologie, suggested by the commentators who grasped at the most similar root73 for lack of a better one. The likeliest etymological meaning of the Jewish əʔl that has nearly become a de-semanticized proper name — the meaning that has not survived in the biblical Hebrew itself and which I suggest on the grounds of parallels from other Semitic languages: “precipice, gully, waterbed of a current”, cf. Arabic sll-, plural form sawll- “a gully with steep slopes, the bottom of 72

73

Similarly, a frequent reference to the devil in any European or Russian vernacular does not evoke deep cultural associations in a modern man. All three root consonants coinciding, əʔl “the underworld” and ʔal “to ask” are obviously homonyms, i.e. looks-alike of different origin. 55

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a valley, the waterbed of a gully” and the South Ethiopian dialect Endegen et al. səwel “abyss, chasm, precipice.”74 This supposition is indirectly supported by another Jewish word with an entirely transparent connotation — br, a Biblical parallelism to əʔl translated as “Hades,” “underworld” and “grave:” “Yet into Hades (əʔl) thou have been expunged, into the depths of the inferno (br)” (Ex 14:15).75 Its other meaning in Hebrew: “reservoir with water (often a depression in a rock bed where rain water is accumulated)”; in other Semitic languages that root has the meaning of “pit, tank with water, well” and “grave,” possibly, “underworld”, too, and in the kindred Afrasian ones — “moat, ditch, pit” and, in some, “grave,” “to dig” and “to bury.”76 Yet another parallel to əʔl is a word combination nahl bəliyyaʕal — “currents of bale, malice” (2 Sa 22:5 and Ps 18:5); semantics of the second word are not quite clear, but the meaning of the first one — nahal — exactly coincides with the suggested meaning of əʔl: “moat, ditch, waterbed of a current.” Here is what Biblical Kohelet — Ecclesiastes77 — thinks about life and death: What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end … I also thought, “as for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: as one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?” (Ecc 3:9–22). 74

75 76

77

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Perhaps, also related are Arabic sayl- “a current”, sla “to flow (of water), carry off (of a current)”, Akkadian alu^ “to submerge, go underwater (especially in ordalia, a test by water)” and Jibbali sɛ~l “to flow down (into a river), pour (of a rain)”. The King James Version Bible. In all likelihood, it points to the burial method practiced since the Proto-Afrasian epoch. That book is considered a latter-day work and occupying a separate place in the Bible due to the author’s somewhat unusual perception of the world wherein Hellenistic influence is claimed by some scholars — not necessarily so, it seems to me.

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

The idea of resurrection, of being raised from the dead, is initially distinctly expressed only in the latter half of the latest Biblical book — of Daniel (2nd century B.C.E.) That idea, along with the notions of Paradise and Hades as posthumous abodes of the soul, not encountered in the Hebrew Bible, is developed already in the post-Biblical period — in apocalyptical and rabbinical literature. Is it possible to infer from all of the above that ancient Jews were the first “collective agnostics” re the issue of life after death, first at least in the Near East?78 If it is so, then another non-trivial parallel with world disposition of a contemporary “humanistic” man is perceivable here. Is that parallel a chance one? Has contemporary agnosticism developed irrespective of the pre-Christian Biblical notions or grown out of Hellenistic ideas taken in the Renaissance epoch? If there is continuity between the Hebrew Biblical and contemporary world disposition after all, then what historical ways may it have come about in the new and newest time “leapfrogging over” Christianity with its fundamental concept of eternal life and post-Biblical Judaism wherein obvious development of afterlife notions is perceivable? The answer to these questions remains an enigma to me. The enigma is especially curious in the light of yet another similar parallel — in laying down the foundation of ethics.

Foundation of Ethics What are the grounds for an ethical position in life and ethical demeanor in a fairly common type of contemporary non-religious individual with a somewhat vague “generally humanistic world disposition”?79 A model of such an individual for me is my late mother who had worked over fifty years as a doctor — from a city borough and manufacturing plant physician — to the department chief doctor of one of the best polyclinics in Moscow. She was a wide-range therapist and close to infallible diagnostician. I remember her deep affliction on account of every incurable patient case 78

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In the world outlook of ancient Greeks, afterlife, though described in much greater detail, does not seem to play a particularly significant role, either. We are not referring here to the relatively small-numbered group of people seriously immersed in ethical-philosophic problems range. 57

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(which caused her to grumble her entire life that she should not have gone to study at the medical college: she should have studied languages instead), and how she could bolt from home in the dead of night at a telephone call: “Doctor, help, he is so poorly!” Home visits to her regular patients in her extra-hours were not part of her duties, but she took her Hippocratic oath seriously. Though for a long time — since my parents divorced and my grandfather died — mother was the only bread-winner in the family and was making “a job and three quarters,” she accepted remuneration for the frequent “private visits” quite unwillingly (only the taxi-fare money, if it was a night-time visit), seldom and if the people were total strangers to her and only if it was done insistently and at the same time — delicately, but there were always flowers and chocolates around the house, not exactly the indispensable necessities in our universal Soviet semi-poverty. Mother was not at all an angel, had not committed — to the best of my knowledge (however, who is to judge?) — any great exploits and, conversely, like the rest of us must have done certain deeds that she regretted later. Yet, she had lived a life of dignity in complete accordance with the ethical principles accepted in the milieu of liberal Russian (and, naturally, of the Russian Jewish) intelligentsia — the principles that I consider some of the most advanced in the humankind, particularly taking into account all the burdens and abominations of Soviet history. What is one to reply to people like my mother and millions of others like her to Dostoyevsky’s famous maxim “ if there is no God, then everything is permissible,” if they do not believe in God and in retribution beyond the grave or approach that with great doubt, yet tend to believe that it is not enough not to violate the criminal code, but the proper thing is to do good, help people, treat them and other living creatures well and try to behave just like that in their “everyday life”? Ask around among your acquaintances, dear reader, — among those you believe in good faith are nice, decent, un-egoistic people disposed towards altruism reasonably within their powers and other humane virtues of similar nature — but with no religious motivation, at that. If only — in your heart of hearts — you refer yourself to the same category as well, ask yourself the same question. Ask them and yourself about both — the motivation of people’s ethical behavior “in general” and about what makes them individually and you personally act in a certain way and not otherwise. You will be surprised, but having critically analyzed the replies you heard, you most likely will come to the conclusion that no convincing rational reply to the above has been given — either by you or by others. 58

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The replies that I could imagine or happened to have heard I tried to systematize, classifying them tentatively in some way — and parenthetically critically appraise them; it is obvious that I am not discovering America here, the list of possible answers and interpretations may be far from comprehensive, and this home-spun investigation may only justly cause a smirk on the face of a serious psychologist or sociologist. Nonetheless, the answers in question got grouped as follows: Evasive: (a good person refuses to talk about himself out of modesty). Naively metaphysical: “There is such a thing as conscience after all” (provocative questions: what kind of organ is that, where is it located in a human body? Does everyone have one? Where is it gone in villains? etc.) Naively ethical: “Well, behaving this way is good/right/human and to carry on another way is bad/wrong/not human (sincere and dignified, but declarative and proof-free — there is even nothing to say against it). Naively historical: “All the world’s religions teach good, the entire bulk of human experience does” (alas, a diametrically opposite conclusion may be drawn from human experience, too; religions teach, but the flocks fail to learn: let us look around: aren’t there a hundred times more religious people in the world than real kind ones? and have not religious wars, persecutions, fanaticism brought enough evil in their wake?) Naively psychological: “It is intrinsic for a human being to do good; evil, crimes are but a consequence of psychic or moral pathology” (yet, expert psychiatric analysis tends to fail to find any psychic maladies or even deviations in many criminals and “moral pathology” is nothing other than a “game of terms”; and where — given such a diagnosis not sanctioned by medical science and practice — lies the demarcation line between an evil deed perpetrated by psychopathological and one staged by a psychologically sound individual? serial murders — “single” murder? And genocide and political reprisals, and the “pyramid schemes” that impoverished lots of people — are these crimes committed by lunatics?). Naively rationalistic (especially typical of intelligent American youngsters): “A civilized society is organized (or, rather, ought to be organized) so that compliance with the accepted ethical norms be possessed of a rational motivation, namely yield a practical benefit (or even gain) not just to the milieu around and society in general, but also to the individual in compliance with those norms (oh, for that confidence in the rational organization of the society — even the American one, arguably the most rationally organized of all! Relative veracity of this position extends too far 59

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from all human actions, has well-defined boundaries and tends to be erratic and malfunction in the periods of instability and crises). Naively pragmatic: “If one is to treat people well, then they will pay you with the same coin … ” (to really believe so one must either have unique, absolutely lucky life’s experience — or be “somewhat feeble-minded”). Cynically pragmatic: “It is accepted practice in a decent society, that will, sure, provide for a positive repute” (a solid, rational motivation, but for one thing it fails to operate too well — forced, “extorted” nobleness may not be camouflaged by any actor’s affectation — and for another it is no good for any extreme situations: “for a positive repute” one does not share one’s uttermost with others and does not put his life at stake; if, however, one does, it means one’s motivation is but self-deception, and one is a better person than one thinks one is). Superficially emotional, often verbalized by young people: “To do good to people is fun and to harm people is no fun” (and what is to be done with the same extreme situations, when a good deed is replete with grave or even fatal consequences for the do-gooder himself and “fun” or “no fun” is then the least of his worries? and why it, conversely, appears natural or even gives pleasure to some people to “snatch” one’s own or somebody else’s, to torment or harass others, to “transgress”?). Deeply emotional: “It is hard, a shame to see how people (or animals) are suffering, it is so pitiable, something ought to be done” (a most worthy motivation, but also entirely irrational: why is another also ashamed or pitiful, but it never gets as far as “do the deed”, and yet a third is neither ashamed, nor filled with pity?) Deterministically genetic: “What a person has been born that he ends up being” (to a degree that is actually so, but, for one thing these days experts maintain that genes are responsible only about forty percent for personal traits of an individual — cf. in The Factor of Genetics section of the Chapter Why the Jews?, and for another, it is true about a human being in general, but how does one go about figuring out the role of genes in each particular case?) Deterministically cultural: “This is how my parents have brought me up, the cultural milieu I was growing in has shaped me, I am used since childhood years to a certain way of thinking and patterns of behavior (that, surely, is a weighty reason, but it may not explain everything, since it obviously underestimates the personality factor, the freedom of choice: there are quite a few people brought up in a “good family” who grew up scoundrels or ran with a bad company and became criminals or — the other way around — the people who did not get a good up-bringing, but chose quite a worthy life path). 60

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All these answers are given by people not particularly well-versed in ethics as a section of philosophy. Yet, an individual familiar with philosophy will, most likely, allude to Kant’s authority with his categorical moral imperative. Substantive for our discourse is, however, the following: Kant himself, capable of so convincingly substantiating his other tenets, that the measuring stick for contemporary scientific reasoning was in many respects supplied by him, considered the imperative in question neither subject to an explanation, nor lending itself to providing grounds for in principle. What, however, will a religious person reply? A Jew will, most likely, start with “for it is written,” refer to the behests, to the Torah as a whole; a Christian will say: so the Lord has ordered — if he remembers any by heart, he will also quote commandments, other selected places from the Scriptures; a Muslim will refer to the Quran, the prophet, Allah’s will. And all of this will be correct, but a reference to an authority, even supreme, is not a rational foundation, convincing for an individual who does not share your initial positions, for whom your supreme authority is alien and your God-inspired text is but a literary monument. Such a rational basing of ethics is nonetheless present in different traditional cultures and great religions of the world. Its essence is reducible to one thing only: hope for a retribution in the afterlife, strife for a better lot in future life or in the whirlpool of regenerations modified by death. The earliest of the fragmentary written testimonies to the belief in posthumous remuneration have reached us in the Egyptian inscriptions of the Old Kingdom epoch; in its classical form this concept has been known since no later than the 15-th century B.C.E.: For an Egyptian, two ideas had to be accorded axiomatic status if justice was to reign on earth: the immortality of the soul and the existence of a punishment or rewarding authority who decided on the fate of soul.80

Depending on the demeanor of the human individual in his earthly life, his relationship with other people and gods he is either doomed to eternal existence as a pale shadow in the realm of the dead or is rewarded with eternal life in the abode of gods while keeping intact his individual consciousness; having lost his case in the divine court, he disappears as a person, but having won it, he is preserved intact as a person.81 80 81

Assmann, Ian, op. cit., pp. 163–164. Ibid., p. 160. 61

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Naturally, an individual dreams about ending up in paradise, rather than hell; to acquire eternal bliss, rather than eternal torment; to improve rather than downgrade his karma. That is, perhaps, not the only incentive for the people believing in “life after death”, but yet a formidable one. As a motivation of these people’s behavior it is convincing and understandable even for a non-believer. A modern non-religious person, however, lacks such an incentive. An ancient Jew lacks it, too.82 The supreme authority — God — calls upon him through the prophets’ mouthpiece “to evade the evil and do good.” The authority of the call is, on the one hand, unequivocal and absolute, and on the other, sort of “optional”: we know from the Bible that despite all the promises and threats not at all everyone even in the “chosen people” abide by his behests, — quite few rather, otherwise the prophets would not have expended their powerful poetic and oratorical gift on admonitions and exposures. Yet, the talk is not about the authority — it is, rather, about the rational reasoning comprehensible for all, that adepts of other religions do have. Is retribution for deeds — both good and evil — promised in the Hebrew Bible? Yes, but in the lifetime! In their lifetime the wicked ones will be given their due according to their deserts, in his lifetime an upright man shall be rewarded for his righteousness. It is precisely the retribution for both Job, the omni-sufferer, who “died, old and full of years” (Job 42:17) and Ruth, the Moabite, whose vicissitudes are rewarded by “a happy end.” And even when the Lord “will execute judgment upon all men” and “will create new heavens and a new earth,” Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth.83

In other words: even there, in the “new earth,” under the “new heavens” — the analog of the New Testament Kingdom of Heaven — people are 82

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True, “competitors” to ancient Jews are here again ancient Greeks: the idea of posthumous retribution is not characteristic of them either (only very few heroes end up in Champs Elysees, Menelaus, for instance, but most likely, as next of kin to Zeus, celestial father of his wife Helen); Platonists would claim that virtue is good in that it introduces harmony and serenity into human soul and stoics believed that virtue is precious in — and of — itself, which greatly resembles the same Kantian imperative. Isa 66:16; 65:17; 65:20.

“Universal Values” and Their Bibl ical Roots

not promised immortality. Promised is only a long and happy life, when a hundred-year-old will die not a helpless senile wreck from infirmity and diseases, but full of vim and vigor, “full of years”! Does this not bear resemblance to the efforts of the civilized world not devoid of success — to ensure healthy old age and the hopes of modern man, not quite groundless, for the successes of medicine and genetics in extending a human life of full value to at least a hundred years? How does a Biblical parent explain to his son why it is good to be a moral person and bad — to be an immoral one? That is because … the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the land and the unfaithful will be torn from it. My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity … Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man … Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones … then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.84

What is promised the righteous and threatens the dishonorable? Yet if you devote your heart to him and … if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then you will lift up your face without shame; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by … Life will be brighter than noonday … You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety. You will lie down, with no one to make you afraid, and many will court your favor. But the eyes of the wicked will fail … their hope will become a dying gasp.85

Here is another typical fragment of a moral sermon (preached by Eliphaz the Temanite unjustly exposing Job, but it is immaterial in this context): … Is not your wickedness great? And not your sins endless? You … stripped men of their clothing, leaving them naked. You gave no water to the weary and you withheld food from the hungry … And you sent widows away empty-handed and broke the strength of the fatherless. That is why snares are all around you, why sudden peril terrifies you … Will you keep to the 84 85

Pr 2:21–22; 3:1–10. Job 11:13–20. 63

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old path that evil men have trod? They were carried off before their time, their foundations washed away by a flood … The righteous see their ruin and rejoice: the innocent mock them, saying, Surely our foes are destroyed, and fire devours their wealth.86

And in another place: The lowly he sets on high, and those who mourn are lifted to safety. He thwarts the plans of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success … So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth … From six calamities he will rescue you; in seven no harm will befall you. In famine he will ransom you from death, and in battle from the stroke of the sword.87

Bringing this impressive and imaginative poetry that all similar biblical texts are imbued with down to earth, let us now boil it all down to the “dry book-keeping balance.” The righteous man is promised: protection from all life’s squabbling and woes; well-being, success in all endeavors; “favor and a good name in the sight of God and man”; mental equilibrium and physical well-being; finally — a long life. Evil-doers, on the contrary, will exist in long-lived fear and disarray; all the troubles will be brought down on him. Now let us glance at all this not from the point of view of the subject of a moral sermon, the owner of highly spiritual mentality, whose calling and duty is to teach people good and piety and warn against evil, but from the point of view of that sermon’s object possessed of “everyday” sober, pragmatic mentality, that — let me repeat here — the ancient man was endowed with in no lesser degree than modern one: did he take these promises and threats literally? Did he believe in their realization and that that would be an unequivocal consequence of his behavior? I am afraid, not. An ancient Egyptian believed in a just posthumous judgment that defined either the reward or the retribution for his lifetime behavior. A Christian and a Muslim believe in Eden and Hades, a Hindu and a Buddhist — in karma and reincarnation; all of them believe that what falls to their lot in the future life depends on their behavior in this one. Yet, it is easy to believe, if there is no way to check. It is more difficult to believe in something that can be checked out and that is not exactly borne out by your life’s experience — and it is applicable to the ancient man just like it is to us. The realization of life’s bitter truth, a sane outlook on the world forces its way here and there 86 87

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Ibid. 22:5–20. Ibid. 5:11–20.

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through the moralizing pathos of biblical texts contingent upon the lofty moral mission of their authors. Here is what Job has to answer his denouncers: If I have denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, if I have kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless — but from my youth I reared him as would a father, and from my birth I guided the widow … If I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing, or a needy man without a garment … If I have raised my hand against the fatherless … , then let mine arm fall from the shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint. For I dreaded destruction from God, and for fear of his splendor I could not do such things.88

In the story of Job justice triumphed, and the righteous man got rewards according to his deserts. Yet, Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills … Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning. If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed your children.89

Paraphrasing (and simplifying, of course) this lament in our modern language: in theory, everything is wonderful — God is good to Israel and to the righteous and pure. Not to me, however, though I am pure and innocent — to the wicked, yes. And I cannot even complain — it would be regarded as an abuse of my people (sacrilege, state treason, whatever). And in Ecclesiastes: Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed — and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors — and they have no comforter. And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.90 88 89 90

Ibid. 31:16–23. Ps 73:1–5, 13–15. Ecc 4: 1–3. 65

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So it is not about “myself” as in the previous passage — it’s about man in general. That happens to have the ring of the words of a sufferer from the socalled “Babylonian Theodicy,” an Akkadian poem dating back to the 11th century B.C.E.: Dear success are those who do not seek God Weakened and fell into decay praying to the goddess. Since childhood, I followed the will of God, Prostrate in prayer, searching for the goddess. [But] I was attracted the yoke of a non-profit service (70) Persecuted righteous one, that honored the will of God. Filled with gold casket villain (270).91

Thus, a good biblical person knew the commandments and the law, heeded to the moral sermon and acted accordingly (the wicked one knew, heeded or did not heed, but did not act it out — or acted precisely the wrong way round). — Act he did, though he guessed that the reward he would receive neither in this, nor in the future life, which did not provide any unequivocal indication if it is there or not at all. All of these promises he was to perceive as good wishes (or wishful thinking), ritual incantations or poetic allegories, of sorts, but not at all as a pledge of any kind of compensation for the hard toil on the field of the good.92 What has he toiled for then? For the fear of Lord? Well, “for the fear” one — at best — will not do the evil deeds for which Almighty’s right hand may chastise in this life yet (and may, as life’s experience amply shows, not chastise), like a modern man refrains from committing criminal acts warned against in the Criminal Code for fear of the chastising right hand of the Law. But good … done for fear? Without a reward, without a retribution? 91 92

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Translation taken from: Lambert, W. G., Babylonian Wisdom Literature, Oxford, 1959. In anticipation of a natural enough objection that I am making an effort to put together a cohesive picture “snatching” quotations from different books of the Bible written in different times and by different authors — I am answering: yes, it is, indeed, so; yet in keeping with my notions (which are, surely, contestable) the Biblical canon is couched purposefully and consistently enough for such a voluminous and heterogeneous text and so early a period in history to reflect — adequately to an utmost possible extent — a most complex and diverse realm of concepts of its authors and editors rather than be considered a chaotic scrap dump of elements haphazardly heaped together.

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Perhaps, out of love for God, of deep faith in God’s word, out of mercy, love for one’s neighbor, not for fear, but for clear conscience? Yes, certainly. Certainly, yes. Now we have eventually found the foundation for ethics in an ancient Jew. Except it is as irrational, idealistic, profitless and — proof-free. Similar to the pathetic, unconvincing starryeyed patter of an idealistic good contemporary man not believing in retribution and not expecting it. Like the categorical imperative. And nothing better the humankind has devised as yet.

The Principle of Personal Responsibility and Freedom of Choice In the majority of biblical texts — just like in all of the ancient literature of the Near East the principle of collective and patrimonial responsibility predominates: … I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.93

The principle of personal responsibility, however, is already in evidence, making its first steps, the earliest available testimony to which is a place from the Book of prophet Jeremiah, who lived in the 7th — early 6th centuries B.C.E.: In those days people will no longer say, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ Instead everyone will die for his own sin; whoever eats sour grapes — his own teeth will be set on edge.”94

The same tenor is also continued in Ezekiel: The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.95 93 94 95

Ex 20:5–6 and Dt 5:9–10. Jer 31: 29–30; cf. also Eze 18:2–3. Eze 18:20; similar in Dt 24:16. 67

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So decisive in other ancient cultures, such factors as the weird, predestination, prediction, damnation or incantation, vicissitudes of fate at the whim of supreme powers not motivated by one’s behavior or not motivated by anything at all — usually do not play any role in the life of biblical personages. In the Bible, there are several terms translated into various languages and quoted in the dictionaries as “fate,” but actually they convey somewhat different notions — share, lot, chance, future, misfortune, punishment — but not exactly what underlies the notion of fate in Western culture taking from ancient Greeks. However exorbitant or disproportionate and inhuman the retribution might be, it seldom befalls totally innocent victims like in the case of Achan, for whose sin not only he himself was murdered, but his sons and daughters were as well — of whose guilt no mention is made — and even the cattle that belonged to him (Jos 7:24–25). In the episode with Korah, “well-known community leaders … who … came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron” (Nu 16:2–3), those for whom “the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them with all their households” (16:31–32), were, after all, his accomplices; the children of Levi slay at Moses’s order “each killing his brother and friend and neighbor” (Ex 32:27) for having made themselves a golden calf to worship together with Aaron. Divine retribution is often a consequence of the personal choice of the person being punished (an exception that comes to mind is innocent Job’s sufferings, but he “received his reward,” and that book is somewhat unique). Even when it comes down upon the entire people for the sins of that people’s spiritual or political leader, one may perceive personal responsibility beyond the collective one. As in the case of Elijah who came out against the king and the people (“Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets.”96) a human individual usually has a choice at the expense of well-being, expulsion, life itself to go against the flow, to become one of “fifty righteous people in the city”97 or of the “seven thousand in Israel — all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal.”98 The idea of motivated retribution and — ideally at least — of the freedom of choice is a formidable step forward as compared with the ancient principle of collective responsibility that is in no way, shape or form based 96 97 98

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I K 18:22. Gen 18:24. I K 19:18.

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on the real common guilt and leaves no choice to the object of retribution “for company.” That principle follows, for instance, from the incantations completing the laws of Babylonian king Hammurabi (1792–1750 B.C.E.) who — entreating with the king-to-be against any change or distortion of his edicts or replacement of his name on the tablet of laws with his own name — promises horrid retributions not just to this king, but also to all of his people: “Let the great gods of heaven and earth … curse him, his seed, his country, his soldiers, his people and his army … ”99

“Feel of History” and the Concept of Progress It is precisely in the Bible that the phenomenon is provided testimony for — that might be called the birth of the “feel of history.” The talk here is not so much about the genesis of history as a field of knowledge, but rather about the experienced sensation of existence within both linear and historical time for the first time being taken account of and recorded precisely in Hebrew. The ancient cultures known to us perceived time as a cyclical phenomenon related to the natural and biological rhythms, day and night interchange, the alternation of the months, seasons and of longer time periods — the succession contingent on the observable change in the position of the moon, the sun, of the planets, zodiacal constellations, and other luminaries. The above is also indicated by some of the terms, denoting the notions of time, duration, eternity, derived from the roots with semantic meaning of “circle,” “round,” “to go around,” “to turn,” or “to rotate.” Thus, there is a common Semitic term *dawr- meaning “time, lifetime,” “era,” “eternity,” and “descent, generation” attested to in all Semitic languages which is almost certainly derived from common Semitic *dwr(with a variant *drdr) “to turn, rotate, surround, go around.” Yet another example is the Ancient Egyptian tr “time, moment,” akin to common Semitic noun *tawr- “turn, row, sequence, period” and verb *twr “to turn, repeat, go around” both having cognates in Berber, Chadic and Cushitic, all going back to, and justifying the reconstruction of, the Proto-Afrasian *tV(w)r- “to turn, go round; range,” *tawr- “range, row, order; moment, time,” wherein the notions of time and going around or turning are practically inseparable. 99

Driver G., Miles J.C. The Babylonian laws. 1–2. Oxford, 1955–1956. 69

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Moreover, the perception of past and future times by ancient Semites is “inverted”: the past is ahead, in front of us while the future is behind which is clearly seen from the objective evidence of the language: common Semitic *ḳVdm- “past, earlier times, ancient times” (in all Semitic except Modern South Arabian where the term for ‘ancient’ is borrowed from Arabic) is derived from *ḳudm- “front, front part; in front of,” *ḳdm “to go in front of, precede” (in all Semitic languages), while common Semitic *ʔaḫr- “future, later time” (in all Semitic) is derived from *ʔḫr “to be, go behind; delay, be late”, *ʔaḫar- “back, last, rear part; behind” (in all Semitic). True, in the Hellenistic period in Greeks and later in Romans these notions start going through a change, an idea of development from the lower to higher takes shape, one of advancement from primeval savagery towards civilization; yet time-wise the priority seems to belong to the Hebrews, even though both issues — one about whether such notions developed in Hebrews and Greeks concurrently and independently from each other or, conversely, mutual penetration of these concepts was in evidence, the other about whether they have eventually reached the present day handed down to us by Hebrews or Greeks — remain in a confused tangle. Whatever the case may be, in the Bible, history is perceived as a drama of the relationship of a human being with the Creator. That drama happens to have an opening, a beginning (creation of the world and man); a succession of consecutive acts still inside the “mythical time,” “the sacred history” (the Fall of Man, the expulsion from Paradise, the Flood, the scattering of the Tower of Babel builders); egress into “historical time” — complete with acute realization of no-less-unique nature and significance of historic events for the entire drama (let us refer here to at least the Exodus from Egypt or the building of the first and second temples) than those of the mythological events; and finally, the anticipated eschatological ending: the coming of Israel — or all nations led by Israel — to God. Such scenarios created the perception of historical time as not a repeated circle of movement in rounds, but of a linear process, its development imbued with profound sacral meaning. The past, the “yesterday,” is something principally different from the present “today,” where the latter is rooted in and partially determined by the former. Partially but not at all completely: given the freedom of choice between good and evil a human individual holds sway over the present and the nearest future — let us at least recall the history of the Israelite and Judean kingdoms, upward flights 70

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and downfalls of which were accounted for by the chronicler qualifying as the moral — or immoral — demeanor of the king and the people. The future “tomorrow” is, however, also quite different: it is determined by the goal set, the way traveled, but also by the behavior freely chosen in the present — due to last how much longer yet there is no telling. Out of such perception of history, yet again in combination with Hellenistic ideas of development from the lower to the loftier, from barbarity to culture, the concept of historical progress is characterized precisely for what modern civilization has brought forth. It is significant to note at this juncture that the biblical narrative, particularly — which is natural — its historical parts, also contains an embryo of the future historical science. It is full of references to sources, overt and concealed quotations taken from them, analysis and estimates of some or other historical events and the demeanor of certain persons, futurological prognostications, recommendations, and cautionary warnings (“prophecies”). All of this — in this measure at least — is not to be found in either ancient Egyptian or Mesopotamian or Greek literature, nor is it there even in the works of Herodotus, the “father of history.” Here is what Alexander Rofe, an Israeli historian writes in his book S–p_ry h-nəb̲–ʔ–m (“Writings of the Prophets”)100: The Israeli historiography originally emerges approximately two generations after the establishment of monarchy, in the heyday of Solomon’s kingdom. It must be then that the full history of King David’s reign was created comprising the major part of the material featured in I Samuel 27 through 2 Kings 2. A shorter account known … under the heading “the narration of succession to the throne” … in 2 Samuel 7–20 and I Kings 1–2 … , lays bare numerous traits characteristic for historiography: an account of political events, a realistic — rather than metaphysical — description of what happened, a cohesive narrative connecting the events with a cause-consequence relationship … In that text one can also point out a certain measure of historical criticism: the absence of the practice typical for the Bible of representing the same episode in two or more versions — as if the talk was of dissimilar events … Contemporary researchers qualify this history of king David’s reign as the beginning of ancient historiography that emerged approximately five centuries before Herodotus.101 100 101

Jerusalem, 1983. pp. 83–84. 71

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Canon as the Foundation for “Cultural Construction” Yet another Biblical innovation was an action that set out to select and edit assorted texts, a whole library in actual fact, featuring a set of genres common for the bulk of ancient written literature — cosmogonic and etiological myths, family chronicles and historical legends, epics, lyrical poetry, economic and legal documents, etc., bringing them all together into a compendium of sorts and assigning an unusually high value status to the compendium in question. This action may be regarded as the invention of a canon or the Scripture as the foundation of culture upon which the entire ensuing cultural process is destined to be more or less consciously built. The issue of canonization time, or at least of the composition of each of the Bible’s sections, is debatable, the discord among experts’ opinions ranging from the period of Babylonian captivity (6th century B.C.E.) for the Pentateuch and the beginning of the Hellenisic period (year 323 B.C.E.) for the prophetic canon to the first centuries C.E. for the entire Bible. In favor of the late canonization, besides other evidence, an argument is provided of the context variance in the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch and apocryphal works — variant readings particularly significant in the Qumran scrolls. On the chronology issue the question of the Hebrews’ priority in creating the canon is entirely dependent — against the background of similarly complex problems of dating the Chinese and Indian canonic texts (see below in the section The Jewry as a Civilization and the Debatable Issue of Jewish Uniqueness of the Chapter Why the Jews?). An opinion is in existence that the canonic principle of written monuments organization had been there in ancient Near East much earlier — it is suggested that the famous library of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria (669–626 B.C.E.) had been organized in accordance with this principle already in the 7th century B.C.E. It is nonetheless obvious that the principle per se that was destined to play such a significant role in the further progress of culture has been inherited by Christianity and Islam from the Hebrew Bible canon’s creators.

Cognition as a Value and Claims to “Theo-Parity” Biblical attitudes towards cognition as the supreme value mastering which leads to “equality with God,” “being as gods” is represented in the symbol of the tree of cognition of good and evil. God forewarns Adam 72

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against partaking of its fruit, for “when you eat of it you will surely die” (Gen 2:17). The serpent tempts Eve: “You will not surely die … For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (3:4–5). After the fruit is eaten the forecast is confirmed from the mouth of the Almighty: “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand, and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever” (3:22). If in this episode the original humans violate the Creator’s command as if through inexperience and inability to think things out, then the story of building a city “with a tower that reaches to the heavens” demonstrates the conscious aspiration of humanity in its youth to break away from parental control, to achieve independence, construct their separate identity (“name”): … let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.102

God reacts to this challenge approximately the way he does to the first violation of the ban: If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.103

One can, however, hear not so much a censure in such a reaction as a statement of a sentiment that all these willful actions and intentions run counter the supreme master plan as far as humans are concerned — namely, their dispersion and population of the earth and the limitation of their life span: Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”104

The motif known well in mythology, one of “hijacking” by humans or for humans from gods of the fruits of eternal youth, fire, various abilities, knick-knacks and knowledge, etc., acquires a special aspect here. 102 103 104

Gen 11:4. Ibid. 11:6. Ibid. 6:3. 73

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Mankind that already got to know good and evil is in a position to acquire perfect knowledge, immortality and — on a path towards unification, unity — unlimited potential for spontaneous action (“then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them”): the qualities bringing the humankind up to put it, in a sense, on a par with God (“you will be like God,” “The man has now become like one of us”). God is wary of such turn of events and hampers it by expelling the original couple from Eden and dispersing their descendants around the earth; however, when he really punishes the human race it is not for the claims to “theo-parity” at all, but for the evil, evil deeds.105 The subtext of this story shines through. The divine plan about human beings was initially characterized by some wavering, or to put it more scientifically: it was endowed by variance. Adam may have received both knowledge and immortality all at once: otherwise it is impossible to figure out what was the idea of planting in paradise two trees bearing such unpalatable and dangerous fruit and causing humankind to fall into such misfortune and trouble. In the course of the experiment it turned out that a human being is not ready for such an eventuality. An impression is created that the author (authors?) of the biblical text, shy of advertising the sacrilegious idea106 of man’s perfect knowledge, immortality and unlimited possibilities, reserves for it the opportunity to get back yet — even though somewhat later, towards the end of the suggested path. And even of “theo-parity,” otherwise the “anthropo-deity,” so vividly described — and anathematized as the claim of Antichrist — in the late 19th-20th century Russian religious philosophy. 105

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(Cf. the motives for the extermination of human race by deluge in Gen 6:5, 11.) These words in Hebrew — raʕ and hms — mean the same as in English, i.e. in the long run, evil, bad attitude of man to man. On the other hand, why sacrilegious? If God is our Father (“But you are our father” Isa 63:16), educator (“I reared children and brought them up” Isa 1:2), and the pattern to follow (“Have mercy because God is merciful” says Epistle of Aristeas [Andrews H., The Apocrypha and Pseudoepigrapha. Oxford,1913. Vol. 2, paragraph 208] written, according to most scholars, in the 2nd century B.C.E.; cp. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” later repeated in Lk 6:36) then one is to expect that a child aiming to get a nail in the eye of a neighbor playing next to him in a sandbox will be flogged by him or will end up removed from the sandbox altogether, and a child arguing with father and displaying superfluous independence will end up being shaken a warning — and caring — finger at. Let us again recall Job reproaching God of injustice and demanding arbitration tribunal between himself and Him — and not punished or even reproached for such a sacrilegious challenge.

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It is not inconceivable that by the author’s design and the entailing concept of divine anthropocentricity the Creator does not deny Adam the Man, or the humankind, a prospect and the privilege — when he grows up to graduate to maturity — of rising from the status of “God’s slave” to that of “God’s friend” or even “God’s son” to become a worthy interlocutor and collaborator — an “anthropo-deity.” Vice versa even: it seems that God created him precisely towards that end.

Antinomy as a Tool of Cognition As one more component of the new system of ideas, it is possible to mention what may be described as the process by which cognition becomes a value in itself, with antinomy chosen as its tool. What the discourse was about in the previous section, the image of a coveted-forbidden fruit, for instance, appears to be an apparent antinomy. The Bible has quite a few similar antinomies. From the beginning, the very attitude of Man to his Maker, contains an element of contradiction, opposition, and rebellion; the Almighty’s reaction is described now as a “naturally” ireful response (anger followed by punishment), now as quite out-of-the-ordinary benevolent attention to the motivation and arguments of his opponent: remember his bargaining with Abraham over the necessary number of righteous men in Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 18:23–32), his argument with Lot about Zoar (19:18–22), his reaction to Sarah’s quizzical disbelief regarding the promised pregnancy (18:10–15), and his reply to the complaints of Job. Of course, similar motifs occur in other ancient writings, but it seems to be only in the Bible that antinomy is first employed as a way to see the world and to comprehend it. Antinomy and paradox become the prevalent methods of thought in the Talmud — a book that, ironically, came to symbolize uncritical dogmatism in common opinion. In actual fact, however, the prevailing tone of the Talmud is that of argument with any authority and on any issue, of critical all-round analysis of any statement or opinion. The Haggadah (the non-legal part of the Talmud) contains an episode in which, while engaged in argument over some particular matter, the great Rabbi Eliezer addresses the divine authority directly, and a voice from the heavens confirms that he is right. This by no means disturbs his opponents 75

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who declare: “Since the giving of the Torah, we heed no voices from heaven” — in any other tradition this would be a blasphemy. The reaction that Talmudic writers ascribe to the “source of the voice” is striking. According to the Prophet Elijah (ʔliyyh), the Most High God laughed, saying, “My children have defeated me, my children have defeated me!” The skepticism of the Talmud, its anti-dogmatic and polemical nature, the various, often directly opposite viewpoints, at times irreconcilable but normally not deadly inimical, perceived as if the debate itself were the most natural way of getting at the gist of things — all this is closely akin to the modern scientific and critical way of thinking. According to experts in ancient Near Eastern texts, the Talmud is one of the most difficult as regards its translation and interpretation. This difficulty can be to a large degree attributed to the specific nature of the Semitic (in this case, Hebrew and Aramaic) languages, which rests on the structure of the consonantal root and the ensuing associative relationship between consonantal roots of similar composition. This relationship — in the Bible it was employed as a text-forming technique that was perceived by native speakers of Hebrew as the revealing of profound spiritual realities concealed in the language (see below) — becomes in the Talmud a play on words, a pun, something like a deliberate linguistic game, a comprehensive intellectual exercise. Owing to the most complex superstructure pervaded with this philological game (references, cross-references, digressions, critical commentary on commentary, “multi-layered subtext,” explicit and implicit quotations) the early rabbinical literature inclusive of the Talmud became a paragon of “inter-textual discourse” purportedly so much in tune with the Post-modernist perception of the world. As of now, it is difficult to decide whether we deal here with the “impersonal” cultural continuity or whether the acquaintance with Talmudic texts had a direct impact on some of the founders and leading exponents of modern scientific thought, on the one hand, and on some representatives of Post-modernist culture, on the other.107 Whatever the true answer might be, the ostensibly not so conspicuous role of the Talmud becomes revealed every day more in the on-going cultural process.

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We must not forget the role of Jewish intellectuals in the shaping of either phenomenon.

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The Categories of the Abstract and Absolute What is implied here is the emergence of a set of notions which, together with the achievements of Greek thought, contributed to the shaping of theology, philosophy, and later even the basics of scientific thought. One of such notions is the Biblical concept of “amorphism,” “formlessness” of God; the other, a “negative” way of describing him which gave rise to apophatic, or negative, theology, both Christian (Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximum the Confessor, et al.) and Jewish (Moses Maimonides, the Rambam) and, later, the apophatic method in philosophy and science, which describes the object not through a number of its definable traits but through the negative statements towards its description. Unlike anthropomorphic and zoomorphic characters of other known mythologies, the “living God” has no visible image or form — he is amorphous in principle, the notion reflected in the second commandment (Ex 20:4) laying a ban upon depicting God. In Biblical Hebrew, “image” (as in Gen 1:26) is slm, two other meanings of this term being “statue” and “idol.” That the word’s meaning of a figurative, plastic, first and foremost, representation of an animate object was primary in respect to the metaphoric “image” follows from parallels in other Semitic languages: Akkadian salmu “statue, figurine (used in magic), relief, drawing; likeness,” Ugaritic slm, Sabaic slm and zlm “statue, image,” Aramaic salm “statue, image, idol,” Arabic sanam“idol” (considered a loan from Aramaic) and zalam- “figure, form (seen in the distance),” Jibbali seʹlɛʹm “a dummy given to a she-camel to suckle in place of her colt.” The meaning “figure, statue, idol” of the Proto-Semitic noun *salam- or *ṯ̣alam- deduced from these related forms, indicates the evolution of the concept of imageless God — evolution beginning from a tribal idol. Nor has the God of the Tanakh — or can have — any “biography,” any history of his origin. Such an idea of God’s unknowability is indicative of another step from concrete to abstract thought and, perhaps, anticipates a turn-to-be of modern science from a somewhat naive confidence in its unlimited cognitive abilities to a more cautious agnosticism in certain issues. Still another related step in this direction is represented by the emergence of the idea of the absolute as an important category of the future philosophical method of thought: the God of the Bible embodies the 77

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principle of absolute freedom of divine acts (like the creation of the world) without having the usual mythological motivation — with the partial exception of God’s attitude to man (see above).

HOW DEEP ARE THE BIBLICAL ROOTS AND HOW OLD ARE THE JEWS? Thus, some of the ideas that evolved later on into fundamental principles and notions of latter-day civilization are first attested to in the Hebrew Bible in the period of recording it in writing, i.e. in the middle 1st millennium B.C.E. or later. Do they in turn derive from some notions of a still earlier epoch? One of the difficulties of getting an answer to this question lies in the fact that it was only in the opening books of Genesis that the most fundamental of these ideas (monotheism, Man as the center and crown of the universe, his creation in God’s image, the humankind’s unity and mission, etc. — see above) were expounded in a form resembling a single concept — or a prototype of such. Some of these notions occur under this or that guise in other books of the Bible, but rarely enough and as if en passant which causes doubt regarding the early provenance or wide popularity of the corresponding Genesis texts (which must have been oral then) among the Hebrews before the Captivity. According to the views prevailing in modern Biblical studies, universalistic and ethical ideas of these texts took their shape during the Babylonian Captivity, or perhaps even in the post-Captivity time, i.e., no earlier than the mid-1st millennium B.C.E. Some of these concepts are attested to in the post-biblical rabbinic literature. Analyzing the Epistle of Aristeas (see above) D. Flusser, a prominent Israeli expert in early Christianity and the rabbinic literature avers that many rabbinical fragments integrated into this composition evidence that already in the 2nd century B.C.E. there existed a concept among the Jews of Palestine asserting the necessity of love for all humans, both righteous and sinful — a kind of boundless mercy. The requirement to be “merciful progeny of the merciful” stemmed from the notion of the Almighty as the humane and merciful God — therefore, a believer in God should strive to imitate Him in humanity and mercy. Flusser finds the same idea in the Testament of Benjamin (the last of the “Testaments of 12 Patriarchs,” one 78

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principle of absolute freedom of divine acts (like the creation of the world) without having the usual mythological motivation — with the partial exception of God’s attitude to man (see above).

HOW DEEP ARE THE BIBLICAL ROOTS AND HOW OLD ARE THE JEWS? Thus, some of the ideas that evolved later on into fundamental principles and notions of latter-day civilization are first attested to in the Hebrew Bible in the period of recording it in writing, i.e. in the middle 1st millennium B.C.E. or later. Do they in turn derive from some notions of a still earlier epoch? One of the difficulties of getting an answer to this question lies in the fact that it was only in the opening books of Genesis that the most fundamental of these ideas (monotheism, Man as the center and crown of the universe, his creation in God’s image, the humankind’s unity and mission, etc. — see above) were expounded in a form resembling a single concept — or a prototype of such. Some of these notions occur under this or that guise in other books of the Bible, but rarely enough and as if en passant which causes doubt regarding the early provenance or wide popularity of the corresponding Genesis texts (which must have been oral then) among the Hebrews before the Captivity. According to the views prevailing in modern Biblical studies, universalistic and ethical ideas of these texts took their shape during the Babylonian Captivity, or perhaps even in the post-Captivity time, i.e., no earlier than the mid-1st millennium B.C.E. Some of these concepts are attested to in the post-biblical rabbinic literature. Analyzing the Epistle of Aristeas (see above) D. Flusser, a prominent Israeli expert in early Christianity and the rabbinic literature avers that many rabbinical fragments integrated into this composition evidence that already in the 2nd century B.C.E. there existed a concept among the Jews of Palestine asserting the necessity of love for all humans, both righteous and sinful — a kind of boundless mercy. The requirement to be “merciful progeny of the merciful” stemmed from the notion of the Almighty as the humane and merciful God — therefore, a believer in God should strive to imitate Him in humanity and mercy. Flusser finds the same idea in the Testament of Benjamin (the last of the “Testaments of 12 Patriarchs,” one 78

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of the apocrypha of the 2nd or 1st century B.C.E.): a good man must be merciful toward all people making no distinction between the good and the evil ones. One can also remember here the idea that, by killing a single person, you destroy an entire universe, which derives from the Biblical thesis that man was created in God’s image — rather than from the tenets of later Hellenistic ethics becoming more and more familiar to the Jews. The widespread opinion, in any case, holds that similar ideas as a system were not in demand until the emergence of Christianity. However, there are some grounds for believing that the Biblical notions we discuss here were, to a certain degree, integrated into the Jewish oral tradition of a much earlier period, sometime in the 2nd millennium B.C.E. Some of those were probably influenced, in various periods, by the highly developed neighboring cultures — Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hittite, Ugaritic — though direct analogues can be rarely proved. According to the opinion that goes back as far as Voltaire (and later supported by Freud in his “Moses and Monotheism”), these ideas were borrowed by the Hebrews from Egypt. This implies primarily to monotheism as having hypothetical roots in the religious reform of Akhenaton (second quarter of the 14th century B.C.E.). Today, many experts in ancient Near Eastern cultures have a different point of view, according to which quite a few Biblical themes and concepts derive from Mesopotamia and Ugarit. Without going into detail including the debates raging for decades about the issue of Biblical monotheism (that appeared in its familiar form relatively late), we intend to discuss here one aspect only. Borrowing an entire system of thought, rather than individual artifacts or cultural innovations, usually involves borrowing terminology to match. This adopted vocabulary includes direct lexical borrowings, loan translations, and also “indirect” cultural influence and some cases of popular etymology that are much harder to detect. There are mass and single cases of borrowing. However, even most complicated cases can be traced, provided the languages in question — the “recipient language” and the linguistic family it belongs to, on the one hand, and the “donor language,” on the other — are mastered by the comparative method well enough. I find neither Egyptian nor Sumerian, nor later Iranian borrowings108 in the lexical stratum referring to the innovative ideas from the sphere of 108

There is an opinion that Biblical Judaism might have been influenced by Zoroastrianism, which finds no linguistic confirmation, however. 79

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spiritual and intellectual culture, ethics, social justice, etc.,109 though loanwords from these languages are, of course, present in other sections of the Biblical lexicon, for instance, pertaining to the economy, social practices, politics, or everyday life. On the contrary, most if not all of these Hebrew terms have cognate words in other Semitic and, sometimes, even more distantly related Afrasian languages, which implies that they belong to the lexicon inherited from much earlier times. These are such terms as “God”: Hebrew ʔl, ʔlh, plural ʔlh–m from Proto- Semitic *ʔil-, ʔilh- id.; “angel’: Hebrew malʔk̲ “messenger; messenger of God, angel” from Proto-West Semitic *malʔak- “messenger; angel” from *lʔk “to send” from Afrasian *laʔakʷ- “to send”; ‘man, mankind’: Hebrew ʔdm “mankind, people; individual man; Adam” from Proto-Semitic or Proto-West Semitic *ʔadam- “man; people; mankind”; “to create”: Hebrew brʔ (also attested in Aramaic, Sabaic and Arabic) and ḳny (ḳn “Creator”) from Proto-Semitic *ḳny “to create (of gods)” (attested in Phoenician, Ugaritic and Arabic; also related is Soqotri ḳanin-hin “the Lord” which allows to qualify this root as Proto-Semitic); “soul; life; living being”: Hebrew np from Proto-Semitic *nap(i)- “soul; vitality, life; person, personality; self”; “to love, take pity on someone”: Hebrew rhm from ProtoSemitic *rhm “to be merciful, compassionate, kind to so., have pity”; “to be in the right, be right, be just”: Hebrew sdḳ from Proto-Semitic (except Akkadian) *sdḳ “to be just, right, true, righteous”; “to be holy”: Hebrew ḳd from Proto-Semitic *ḳd “to be clean, holy; consecrate”; “priest”: Hebrew khn from Proto-Semitic *kahin- “priest, fortune-teller; adult, clever, cheat”, *khn “to have second sight, prophesy”; “to do wrong, sin”: Hebrew hṭʔ (also “to miss (a mark); to wrong (morally), offend; be culpable”) from Proto-Semitic *ḫṭʔ “to miss, fail, lack; mistake, err; do wrong, sin”, etc. What does the reconstruction of numerous Proto-Semitic terms pertaining to the sphere of spiritual and intellectual culture of the 5th-4th 109

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This is also true, in general, of Akkadian and Ugaritic borrowings, though it is more difficult to tell cognate words inherited from the common ancestor language from direct lexical loans and, especially, indirect influences in a cultural lexicon of closely enough related languages belonging to the same geographical and cultural zone at that; there is at least one example of a plausible Akkadian loan-word in the Biblical Hebrew terminology in question (namely Shabbat), according to one of the proposed etymologies. Things are still more complicated with loanwords from Aramaic, though in a vast majority of cases Semitists have learned to tell them from common Hebrew (or Canaanite)-Aramaic lexica using various criteria.

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millennia B.C.E. and found in many records, including the Hebrew Bible, written in various Semitic languages several millennia later indicate? On the one hand, it attests to a sufficiently well-developed notional system of the earliest Semites, on the other, it shows that the tradition of using the same cultural terms (and, ergo, similar notional systems) was never interrupted, up to the moment when they became committed to writing, e.g., in the Bible. There is another important, albeit indirect, piece of evidence pointing to a great antiquity of many Biblical ideas that seem to have taken root sometime well before the writing of the Bible. We speak of one of the most fundamental (and, alas, one of the least studied) features typical of the world view, thought patterns and culture of ancient man — a play on words. He saw in words and in associations between similarly sounding words a kind of “compressed” reality that was put there by supernatural forces, a reality that can be extracted from there and, using certain methods like magic or ritual, incorporated in the actual, visible reality. A particular attraction for the ancient man was “mystery of a name.” According to Igor Diakonoff, It is well known that in the Ancient Orient naming was an essential part of the act of creation: as long as its name was non-existent, a creature was … non-existent or not alive.110

The strong interest that the ancient Hebrews, as well as other Semitic peoples, seem to show in homonymous, or simply similar-sounding, roots has the additional explanation in the specific structure of the Semitic root. Thorough investigation of this similarity was, in all probability, equivalent to penetrating the mystery of the word — the word whereby the Universe was created by God (or gods). Extracting this mystery which was concealed in the language, actualizing it in a text, unfolding it in a myth, crystallizing it into a concept were experienced by ancient authors as magical or sacred acts.111 110 111

I. Diakonoff. Father Adam. Archiv für Orientforschung, 19, 1982, pp. 16–24, 18. Such ideas were first developed, and most interesting observations concerning this fascinating subject made, to the best of my knowledge, by my grandfather Solomon S. Maizel, a Moscow linguist and Middle East scholar in his unpublished work “Semitic Mythology in the Light of Allothesis and Metathesis” initially written as a chapter of a draft doctoral thesis (disrupted by the death of Solomon Maisel in 1952 and published over 30 years later by the present author — complete with a foreword, supplements and emendation of the text — see S.S. Maisel. The Ways of Semitic Languages Root Stock Development, Moscow, 1983), but retrieved thereupon by Maisel from both the typewritten version of the thesis and the table of contents. 81

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I call this phenomenon “etymopoesis,” i.e., “invention of etymologies,” or “the fashioning/creation of the true meaning” (from Greek etymon “the true meaning (of a word)” and poisis “creation, making”) to distinguish it from a related but different phenomenon known as “popular etymology.” Etymopoetic technique widely occurs in the Hebrew Bible, where it is often used to explain what seemed to the ancient “etymopoet” the true meaning of names of certain characters. There are but two well-known examples of this: (1) “Adam named his wife Eve (Haww), because she would become the mother of all the living (hy)”;112 (2) “After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel (ba-ʕaḳb̲); so he was named Jacob (Yaʕaḳb̲)”.113 However, as a special analysis reveals, what really takes place is often exactly the opposite: proper names are primary: prior to having been incorporated in this or that text they had existed in some earlier oral tradition, while the compilers (authors, editors) of Biblical texts strove to explain these names, which compelled them to invent circumstances capable of providing such an explanation. The author by no means regarded this as a fabrication or fantasy intended to achieve some preset goal in his narrative: for him, this was the revelation of the sacred mysteries of the word, something like decoding concealed meanings. Thus, there are reasons to believe that the names Esau (ʕŝw) and Jacob (Yaʕaḳb̲) of our second example originate from certain more archaic texts (cf. the two names for “quail” in Arabic — yaʕsb- and yaʕḳb- — that show a striking similarity to our names), and that the entire “heel-holding” episode was invented to provide an etymology for the name of Jacob. Another typical case is an explanation of the name Moses (M…) in Ex 2:10: “She named him Moses saying, ‘I drew him out of the water.’” ( … wa-tiḳrʔ əm M… wa-tʔmr k– min ha-mmayim mə–tih). M… is explained from the verb my “to draw out” attested to in the Hebrew Bible in two more contexts only114 — in all three cases followed by the words “from the water” (mi-mmayim). The name M… is considered by most scholars a Hebrew rendering of Egyptian msy “to bear (a child)” or ms “child”;115 anyway, it is obviously primary in relation to the extremely rare 112 113 114 115

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Gen 3:20. Ibid. 25:26. 2S 22:17 and Ps 18:17. Cf. also Takács, G., Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, Vol. Three. LeidenBoston, 2008.

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verb my, whose meaning “to draw out” is luckily transparent due to the clear stereotypic context (“from the water”).116 As for the plot involving the double deception of Esau by Jacob who obtained both the primogeniture and the paternal blessing it may have been suggested to the text’s creators by the verbal root ʕḳb “to betray” with the same root homonymous of ʕḳḇ “heel” (cf. also ʕḳḇ̲ “deceitful, sly”): “Esau said, ‘Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me (wa-yyaʕḳəb̲-nn–) these two times: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!’” (Gen 27:36).117 Coming back to discussing the time at which the earliest Genesis texts in question were created, we have to pay some attention to one — even subtler — point. The invention of episodes and circumstances explaining the characters’ names was stimulated not only by similarity of corresponding words in Hebrew (the native language of the Biblical writers) but also by their likeness in other Semitic languages. Here are a few examples of such similarly sounding words in Hebrew and Arabic. While the fact that the name of Abel (Hb̲l) killed by his brother Cain finds a perfect correspondence in the Arabic verb habila “to lose a son (said of a mother)” might possibly be explained away as a chance coincidence, the name Yaʕaḳb̲118 has such Arabic parallels as to leave little room for the chance coincidence hypothesis: ʕaḳb- “worthy heir” (with the same root consonants), and still another metathetic noun in Arabic — bḳiʕat“clever, cunning man.” There is one more Arabic word with metathesis in relation to the name Jacob: the verb ʕabiḳa “to be permeated with the smell of something, to emit fragrance.” All these Arabic parallels show suspicious correspondences to the Biblical story of Jacob, the youngest son who obtained the blessing of his father by cunning and became his rightful heir, at which the father said, “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord 116

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Cp. Arabic msy “to draw out, pull out” and “to wipe off (with one’s hand)” and Aramaic: Syrian mʔ “to gather, remove”, Judaic mʔ “to wash”, Mandaic my “to wash (hands in water)” and “stretch (one’s hand)”; we have here either a common Proto-West Semitic verb with a rather unusually complex meaning — some like “to put something into water and take it out” or two homonymous verbs — “to put into water, wash” and “to draw out, remove”, having possibly influenced each other at that. Cf also a Hebrew verb with a metathesis — another sequence of the same root consonants — ḳbʕ “to rob” or “to betray” (which of the two meanings is true is an object of discussion in literature). With root consonants — on whose similarity such associations are normally built — ʕ, ḳ and b. 83

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has blessed.”119 Finally, such Arabic words as miʕḳab- (with the same three root consonants ʕḳb) “experienced shepherd, herdsman” and baḳaʕ (with metathesis) “speckled, piebald, black-and-white coloring of skin/hair (of cattle)” surprisingly correlate with the story of the “speckled and spotted cattle” that Jacob took away from Laban using unorthodox livestock techniques.120 If all these parallels are not accidental (which is improbable), if the author was borrowing the associations he used in his narrative from Arabic lexicon, then he must have known Arabic! Similar parallels between Biblical texts and Aramaic quoted by Maizel imply that the author knew something of this language too. However, to hypothesize the existence of a polyglot writer who knew Arabic that by the mid-1st millennium B.C.E. had diverged from Hebrew so significantly as to become mutually incomprehensible (this does not apply to Aramaic, a language genetically closer to Hebrew, and that the Hebrews could have known due to cultural contact) would be a bit too revolutionary. An alternative, and more probable, explanation involves dating the emergence of these texts to an earlier epoch, when the languages in question still remained mutually comprehensible dialects. The “texts” must have been, of course, oral then. Since the common linguistic ancestor of Hebrew and Arabic split sometime in the first third — middle 3rd millennium B.C.E., the period we speak of must date back to the first third or the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C.E. (and no later) when these two languages were separated only by about a millennium of independent development. That is approximately the period in years that separate, for example, Spanish from Portuguese or Yiddish from German; partial intelligibility among related languages is normally lost outside this time framework — like between such West Germanic languages as English and German separated by nearly two millennia of independent development or between Spanish and Rumanian whose common ancestor, Proto-Romance (historically, what is called vulgar Latin) had branched approximately by the middle 1st millennium C.E. Having once touched the subject of chronology, it would be appropriate for us to discuss the sufficiently complicated and ambiguous issue of what time the historical beginnings of the Jews might be dated to. If we take the ethno-linguistic criterion for our point of departure (“people is language”), then the history of the Jews proper is to be counted from that conventional moment when Hebrew, as known to us by its extant written records, separated 119 120

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Gen 27:27. Ibid. 30: 32–42. All these examples are borrowed from the above-mentioned work by S. S. Maizel.

How Deep are the Bibl ical Roots and How Old are the Jews?

from those Semitic languages that were closest to it genetically. If so, then the situation can be reconstructed as follows. The closest relative of Hebrew was Phoenician; both languages being members of the Canaanite group within the Semitic family.121 The Aramaic language (or the Aramaic linguistic group) is a cognate language closest to the Canaanite group, next closest is Ugaritic and next Arabic and Ethiopian Semitic languages. According to my estimate done using two independent methods — glottochronology and etymostatistics developed by Starostin (see above) — Hebrew and Phoenician separated ca. the 13th century B.C.E.,122 proto-Canaanite and proto-Aramaic separated in the early 2nd millennium B.C.E.,123 the common ancestor of Canaanite and Aramaic (what I call ProtoSouth Levantine) seems to have separated from Ugaritic a little earlier — at the turn of 3rd and 2nd millennium, and the common ancestor of all the above-listed languages (what I call Proto-Levantine), from proto-Arabic prior to the middle of the 3rd millennium. Therefore, following the principle of the separation of languages and sticking to the above chronology, we get the 13th century as the approximate time when the separate Jewish (or Hebrew speakers’) history started.124 This is the date post quae non, the one “not after which” the Hebrew history begins. What is, then, the time ante quae non, “not prior to which” — i.e. its earliest dating possible? The answer would depend upon how the known historical facts and the chronology, accepted by most specialists — never by all — correlate with the legends of the Hebrews’ (or their ancestors’) migration from “Ur of the Chaldeans” in Lower Mesopotamia via Haran in Northern Syria to Canaan, 121

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Including several other languages besides, which preserved very poorly and which, therefore, we do not take into account here. The presumably earliest, originally oral, Biblical text (The Song of Deborah) and the earliest Phoenician inscriptions are also dated by contemporary scholars to the late 2nd mill. B.C.E. This date does not contradict the traditional Biblical chronology, according to which the two clans got separated in the early 21st century B.C.E. — that of Abram the Hebrew (Gen 14:13) who moved to Canaan and that of Bethuel the Aramean (25:20) who was staying in Haran. It would be natural to suppose that, after a few generations, the language the former spoke can be qualified as Proto-Canaanite and the latter, as Proto-Aramaic. Interestingly, the first mention of the name Israel in an ancient Egyptian text, the so called Merneptah Stele also known as the Israel Stele, is dated to the late 13th century (1209/1208). The title “Israel Stele” may be misleading, though, because the stele only makes a brief mention of Israel and Canaan (cp. Wikipedia,The Merneptah Stele). 85

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their 430-year long sojourn in Egypt and their exodus from it. The question is, whether tenable dates can be deduced from juxtaposing such independent sources as archaeological findings and written texts from Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan and Egypt with the “inner” biblical chronology.125 In theory, Terah could have left Ur, together with other Amorite nomadic herders during the “Dark Age” of the Akkadian Empire prior to or soon after its collapse ca. 2083 B.C.E. from the invasion of Gutians or/and rapidly increasing aridity. This presumption is fairly in keeping with the Bible dates. If the gradual separation of Abram’s clan and his Aramaic kin (say, in the period between Abram’s move from Haran to Canaan and the adoption by Jacob126 of his new anthroponym-ethnonym Israel) reflects the historical process of the Proto-South Levantine127 branching off into Proto125

126 127

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Cf.: “After Terah had lived 70 year, he became the father of Abram … ” Gen 11:26, “In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel … he began to build the temple of the Lord” 1 K 6:1 (the years of Solomon’s reign are calculated fairly exactly by historians using independent sources), etc. Who was still called “a wandering Aramean” (ʔaramm– ʔb̲d̲ ) in Dt 26:5. Which, I hypothesize, was called Aramaic — the name retained by the Aramaic language group proper and, if this hypothesis is true, replaced by other autolinguonyms by the Canaanite-speakers. (One of the peoples presumably speaking Aramaic, Chaldeans, whose dynasty ruled over Neo-Babylonian Empire in 625–539 B.C.E. and who was well known to the Hebrews at least since then, is not mentioned in the genealogies of Genesis [cf. HALOT 502], the significant fact not to be neglected while discussing the time of committing this book to writing.) This hypothesis, if true, would have resolved the difficulty discussed by I. Diakonoff: “ … in a general way ʔaramm– meant simply “nomad” without reference to the language of the tribe; thus ʔaramm– ʔb̲d̲ “a wandering nomad” is said of the ancestor of the Hebrews who first settled in Egypt, i.e. either Joseph or Jacob (Dt 26:5), although nobody could have supposed that the Hebrews’ ancestors ever spoke Aramaic. This is another example of how the name of a tribal eponym might be transferred from one tribal group to another, depending upon the historical circumstances” (Father Adam, pp. 19–20). It must have been, of course, not the Aramaic historically attested in writing that the Hebrews’ ancestors spoke but the common ancestor language of Aramaic and Canaanite (Proto-South Levantine) likely called Aramaic; the toponym A-ra-meKI referring to an area in the Middle Euphrates is attested to in an Assyrian inscription as early as in the 23rd c. B.C.E. In favor of this hypothesis also speaks the Egyptian (from the Old Kingdom on) name for “Asians”, Egypt’s western neighbors — ʕȵm in all probability rendering Semitic ʔaram — either with metathesis (while Egyptian ȵ regularly corresponds to Semitic ʔ and Egyptian m, to Semitic m, Egyptian ʕ in certain cases reflects Semitic and Afrasian *r — see EDE I, 280–82) or with a change — as the result of dissimilation — of ȵ (pronounced as a glottal stop [ʔ]) into ʕ in Egyptian in the vicinity of another ȵ [ʔ] which, in this case, would convey the uvular r regularly corresponding to Semitic and Afrasian r (see below).

How Deep are the Bibl ical Roots and How Old are the Jews?

Aramaic and Proto-Canaanite dialects — then the beginning of the Hebrew history should be dated by that period (roughly the first quarter of the 2nd millennium B.C.E., more precisely — and less reliably — 18th century). In this case, however, the inevitable question arises about the position of other Canaanite dialects, Phoenician first of all; it implies that the speakers of all Canaanite dialects should be considered progeny of the biblical patriarchs, while the speakers of Phoenician (from which, as I said above, Hebrew must have separated circa the 13th century, i.e. after the biblical Exodus) are to be looked at as one of the “lost tribes of Israel,” which is difficult to prove or disprove. As for the correlation of Biblical narrative with historical facts, scholars’ opinions vary radically. I.Finkelstein and N.A.Silberman state in their muchdiscussed book, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology has always played a crucial role in the debates about the composition and historical reliability of the Bible. At first, archaeology seemed to refute the more radical critics’ contention that the Bible was a rather late composition, and that much of it is unreliable historically. From the end of the nineteenth century, as the modern exploration of the land of the Bible got underway, a series of spectacular discoveries and decades of steady archaeological excavation and interpretation suggested to many that the Bible’s accounts were basically trustworthy in regard to the main outlines of the story of ancient Israel. Thus it seemed that even if the biblical text was set down in writing long after the events it describes, it must have been based on a substantial body of accurately preserved memories.128

Expressing opposite views, Prof. Z. Herzog of the Archaeology Faculty at the University of Tel Aviv asserted:129 Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs’ acts are legendary, the Israelites did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, they did not conquer the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon, nor of the source of belief in the God of Israel. These facts have been known for years, but Israel is a stubborn people and nobody wants to hear about it. 128

129

I.Finkelstein and N.A.Silberman. The Bible Unearthed. Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York-London-TorontoSydney-Singapore, 2002. In his article “Deconstructing the Walls of Jericho” (Ha’aretz, 29 October 1999). 87

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As I have stressed more than once, the main goal of the present book is not to supply answers but rather to outline a scope of pertinent questions and, wherever possible, offer new approaches, one of them from the standpoint suggested by my main professional field, comparative linguistics. While I can hardly add anything of importance to purely archaeological debates, I will try and interfere with two sets of linguistic evidence into the controversy about whether the Israelites as a large enough ethnic community did or did not sojourn in Egypt for a long enough period of time. One of these sets refers to Hebrew loanwords in Egyptian. While the well-studied fact of a few dozens Egyptian loanwords in Hebrew can be easily accounted for by Egyptian influence on the population of Canaan (to which the Egyptian sources often referred as an Egyptian province) during the second half of the 2nd and the first half of the 1st mil. B.C.E., a few hundred Hebraisms (or Canaanisms) in Egyptian present a difficult historical problem. Let us have a look at a few selected loanwords, both certain and presumed:130 Egyptian (Middle Kingdom) ȷḳr “trustworthy, skillfull, excellent, pleasing, etc.” — Hebrew yḳr “scarce, precious, valuable, noble” (from Proto-Semitic *wḳr, also in Akkadian and Ugaritic). Egyptian (Middle Kingdom) ȷȵḳ “leech; greens, vegetables” — Hebrew yrḳ “greens, vegetables” (from Proto-Semitic *warḳ- “leaf, greens” < *wrḳ “to be green, yellow”). Egyptian (Middle Kingdom, literary texts) ḳdm “Eastern land” — Hebrew ḳd̲m “the east” (also Ugaritic ḳdm “the Levant, the East (?), from ProtoSemitic *ḳVdm- “front”). Egyptian (18th Dynasty, reign of Thutmose III, 1479–1425) msty. wt “small galley propelled by oars, a many-oared boat” — Hebrew mṭ “rudder” (in Eze 27:6–29), Post-Biblical Hebrew and Judaic Aramaic 130

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It is, of course, difficult sometimes to tell a loanword from a generically common term, but even when the fact of borrowing does not undoubtedly follow from the form of the Egyptian word (like in ssm.t “horse” — cf. Hebrew plural ss–m) or its semantics (like ḳdm “Eastern land,” cf. Hebrew ḳdm “East” from “front part”) or historical circumstances (no horses and chariots attested to in Egypt before the 18th Dynasty), the very fact of the late fixation as in most examples quoted below — in the New Kingdom period — of the Egyptian term and its absence in the earlier texts versus, say, an inherited Hebrew term with a sound Semitic etymology gives enough grounds for assuming borrowing into Egyptian.

How Deep are the Bibl ical Roots and How Old are the Jews?

mṭ “oar; a light ship” (from Semitic *wṭ “to beat, stir, row”, cf. EDE III 589–90). Egyptian (18th Dynasty) ym “sea” — Hebrew ym “lake, sea” (from Proto-West Semitic *yamm-). Egyptian (18th Dynasty) mktr/ mgdr/ mkdr “tower, fortress” — Hebrew migdal “tower” from Proto-West Semitic (also in Ugaritic) *migdal- “tower” (EDE III 673–674). Egyptian (18th Dynasty) kȵm “vineyard, garden; grapevine” — Hebrew krm “vineyard” (from Proto-Semitic including Ugaritic). Egyptian (18th-20th Dynasty) rmnn “Lebanon” — Hebrew ləb̲nn “Lebanon” (also Phoenician and Aramaic; Ugaritic lbnm). Egyptian (18th Dynasty) mtn “to give, present”, mtn.w “gift, reward, recompense (for making an object)” — Hebrew mattn, mattn “gift, present” (also Phoenician and Aramaic as well as Ugaritic mtn — all from ntn “to give”), a derived deverbal noun with a clear Semitic origin. Egyptian (18th Dynasty) pḫȵ or pḫ “trap, snare (for birds)” — Hebrew pah “trapping net, used by fowlers” (also Aramaic and Arabic; Ugaritic debatable). Egyptian (18th Dynasty) hdm.w “footstool” — Hebrew had̲m (and Ugaritic hdm) “footstool (of God, of the king)”. Egyptian (18th Dynasty) msktw “armlet (of gold or leather)” — Hebrew mokt (hapax, only in Job 38:31) “bracelet, fetter” (also Arabic masakat“bracelet or anklet, armband”; cf. EDE III 587). Egyptian (18th Dynasty) ssm.t “horse” — Hebrew ss, plural ss–m “horse” (common Semitic; the Egyptian term is clearly a loanword with a typical Canaanite language group — and Ugaritic — plural suffix -m). Egyptian (18th Dynasty) ȷbr “stallion” — Hebrew ʔabb–r “stallion” (and “bull”, both regarded as metaphors from “strong, powerful” which is debatable; also Ugaritic ibr “horse” and “bull”). Egyptian (from 18th Dynasty) mrkb.t “chariot” — Hebrew mrkb̲ “chariot” (the same form and meaning also in Ugaritic and Aramaic). Egyptian (New Kingdom) ʕgr.t “cart” — Hebrew ʕag̲l “wagon, cart” (also in Phoenician and Aramaic). Now let us forget for a moment about the Biblical story of the Hebrews in Egypt and their exodus from it and pose a few questions. Question one: can these loanwords be explained in the same way as the Egyptian loanwords in Hebrew — by many centuries of contacts in Canaan? Normally in ethno-cultural contacts, the more advanced partner — which the 89

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Egyptians undoubtedly were — donates terms reflecting his higher cultural or technological level to the culturally inferior community — which the Hebrews in Canaan seem to have been, at least in the eyes of the Egyptian conquerors: in the “Stele of Israel,” the name “Israel” is provided with the hieroglyph determinative sign for “foreign people” used by the Egyptians to signify “Nomads” without a fixed city-state, thus implying that ysrỉr “Israel” was in the late 13th century the ethnonym for a semi-nomadic or rural population.131 The 18th Dynasty in Egypt when most of the presumably Hebrew borrowings listed above occurred is dated to the period from 1550 to 1292 B.C.E., i.e. prior to the “Stele of Israel” and it is only logical to reason that the Hebrews of Canaan (or their direct ancestors) had not been substantially more advanced by the early 13th century than their descendents in the late 13th century. What kinds of words do dominant nations in general and conquerors in particular normally borrow from the conquered lands and dominated populations? Some terms referring to local specifics — flora, fauna, names of deities, social ranks and titles, household items, clothes, quaint customs and beliefs, etc.; their usage is often limited by sources describing these lands and peoples. Though this kind of loanwords from Hebrew abound in later Egyptian texts,132 it is not the case with the above examples: why should the language of the great dominant empire borrow such terms as “trustworthy, excellent” or “vegetables” or “sea” or “tower, fortress” or “gift” from the non-literate vernacular of some conquered and defeated semi-nomads?133 And, still stranger, why a whole set of terms related to horses and chariots? 131 132

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Wikipedia, The Merneptah Stele. I have asked several specialists about the reasons for this impressive number of Hebraisms in later Egyptian, but I cannot say I am satisfied with the answers like “Well, the contacts with Egypt were intensive in the 2nd and the first half of the 1st mill. B.C.E. and Canaan was a fairly advanced country.” So what? Was Canaan — and the Hebrews in particular — that advanced that Hebraisms (or Canaanisms) in Egyptian seem to outnumber ten times Egyptisms in classical Hebrew? In the “Israel Stele,” the line mentioning Israel is grouped together with three other defeated states in Canaan (Gezer, Yanoam and Ashkelon) in a single stanza. The line referring to Merneptah’s Canaanite campaign reads: Canaan is captive with all woe. Ashkelon is conquered, Gezer seized, Yanoam made nonexistent; Israel is wasted, bare of seed. The phrase “wasted, bare of seed” is formulaic, and often used of defeated nations. It implies that the store of grain of the nation in question has been destroyed, which would result in a famine the following year, incapacitating them as a military threat to Egypt. (Wikipedia, The Merneptah Stele).

How Deep are the Bibl ical Roots and How Old are the Jews?

Chariots and horse-driven carts are thought to have been introduced to Egypt, together with the horse, in the early 17th century by the Hyksos,134 apparently leaving no borrowed lexica different from the quoted examples in the Egyptian language of that period which is surprising per se. Since there had not been native Egyptian names for either horse or chariot prior to their appearance in Egypt, should we admit that these two remained nameless (or their names were later expurgated from all Egyptian written sources) until at a certain lucky moment during the 18th Dynasty the Egyptian conquerors clapped their eye on the Canaan horses and chariots, memorized their local names and carefully delivered them to their native land — to bless the Egyptian horses and chariots with Jewish (or, not so compromising, with Canaanite) names? Let’s try it another way. All of these loanwords are not from Hebrew but from some closely related Canaanite dialect spoken by some quite advanced people who generously donated a lot of cultural terms to Egyptians and then disappeared leaving no vestiges. Another piece of guesswork: some — but certainly not all — of these terms were borrowed from Ugaritic (note the Ugaritic cognates to most of the above Hebrew words). In theory this is possible but very unlikely. And the last possibility: the Hyksos were this Canaanite people or they were the Hebrews (the earliest version of the secret anonymous Jews’ story); they ruled the eastern part of the Lower Egypt for over a hundred years and their language could have naturally been the source of cultural borrowings. There is much controversy among specialists about the origin of the Hyksos, the main suggestions ranging from the Hurrian135 speaking migrants with a strong Indo-Arian ethnic component to the Hebrews or some other Canaanite or West Semitic people. While I am not qualified to comment upon pros and cons of the Hurrian version, the Canaanite one meets with the same objection as the one mentioned in the previous paragraph plus the strange absence of the enigmatic Hyksos language’s loanwords in Egyptian written sources before the 18th Dynasty which started with the driving of the Hyksos away from Egypt. As for the Hebrews’ version supported by Josephus Flavius and being in certain agreement with the Biblical story, the 134

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Driven away from Egypt by Ahmose I, the first pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty; ruled in 1550–1525 (some sources give 1580 or 1570 as the first year of his rule). Hurrian and closely related Urartian languages are, according to I.Diakonoff and S.Starostin (Hurro-Urartian as an Eastern Caucasian Language. Mnchen, 1986), an ancient branch of the North Caucasian linguistic family. 91

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big question remains: how come the glorious fact of having ruled over part of Egypt for five or six generations was overlooked and not glorified by the authors of that story? The analysis of West Semitic loanwords in the 18th Dynasty Egyptian — and there are still a few similar loanwords in the Middle Kingdom texts and plenty in the 19th Dynasty texts — rather speaks for their Canaanite, or proto-Hebrew, origin. This purely linguistic evidence better fits into — or, more cautiously, less than other thinkable explanations contradicts to — the longtime Israelites’ sojourn in Egypt in the capacity of an “exceedingly numerous” and influential enough minority with whom “the land was filled” (Ex 1:7) prior to “coming to power in Egypt” of “a new king, who did not know about Joseph” (1:8). It would be only logical to suppose that this king may have been one of the first pharaohs of the new, 19th Dynasty, namely, Ramses I (1292–1290 or 1314–1312) or Seti I (1290–1279 or 1312–1301) or the great Ramses II (1279–1212 or 1301–1234), who should have felt free of the previous dynasty’s obligations and attachments — as it so often happens in history. The second linguistic evidence I promised to adduce is about the “Rhotic consonant” (sometimes known as “French language R”), a guttural or uvular pronunciation of r,136 or, in a plain language, the famous — or notorious — Jewish “burring,” an object of a Judeophobe’s neighing joy. This peculiar phonetic trait whose origin is rather obscure137 occurs in a limited number of world languages or some of their dialects — French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German, Sorbian,138 Danish, Swedesh and Norwegian. In Yiddish, a Middle High German language and the historical vernacular of Ashkenazi Jews, “burring” is naturally considered a German feature. Allow me an extensive quotation from Wikipedia: Though … Eliezer ben Yehuda based his Standard Hebrew on the Sephardic dialect originally spoken in Spain, and therefore recommended an alveolar

136 137

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See a comprehensive and highly professional entry “Guttural R” in Wikipedia. Thus, as to the Continental West Germanic, “many Low Franconian and Low Saxon varieties adopted a uvular rhotic … many Central German varieties also adopted a uvular rhotic. The development of a uvular rhotic in these regions is not entirely understood, but a common theory is that these languages adopted a uvular rhotic because of French influence, though the reason for uvular rhotic in modern European French is not itself well understood. (Wikipedia. Guttural R). A West Slavic language spoken in Eastern Germany.

How Deep are the Bibl ical Roots and How Old are the Jews?

R (not “burring” — A.M.) … the first waves of Jews to resettle in the Holy Land were Northern Ashkenazi, they came to speak Standard Hebrew with their preferred uvular articulation as found in Yiddish or modern standard German, and it gradually became the most prestigious pronunciation for the language. The modern State of Israel has Jews whose ancestors came from all over the world, but nearly all of them today speak Hebrew with a uvular R because of its modern prestige and historical elite status. Many Jewish immigrants to Israel spoke Arabic in their countries of origin, and pronounced the Hebrew rhotic as an alveolar trill … Under pressure to assimilate, many of them began pronouncing their Hebrew rhotic as a voiced uvular fricative.

And about Arabic: While most dialects of Arabic retain the Classical pronunciation of rʔ as an alveolar trill … or tap [r], a few dialects use a uvular trill ([R]). These include: • The dialect of Mosul in Iraq • The Christian dialect in Baghdad • The Jewish dialect in Algiers • The dialect of Fes in Morocco

And about Hebrew: In Hebrew, the classical pronunciation associated with the consonant … re^ was an alveolar flap … [r], and was grammatically treated as an ungeminable phoneme of the language. In most dialects of Hebrew among the Jewish Diaspora, it remained a flap or a trill ([r]). However, some Ashkenazi dialects as preserved among Jews in Northern Europe carried a uvular rhotic … That was because many (but not all) native dialects of Yiddish were spoken that way, and their liturgical Hebrew carried the same pronunciation. An apparently unrelated uvular rhotic is believed to have appeared in Tiberian Hebrew … ”

And in the entry “Tiberian vocalization”: Tiberian Hebrew designates the canonical yet extinct pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh and related documents. This traditional medieval pronunciation was committed to writing by Masoretic scholars based in the Jewish community of Tiberias in the period ca. 750–950 CE.

Now, the entry “Dagesh”: Dagesh Hazak … ( … “strong dot” — i.e. gemination dagesh … ) may be placed in almost any letter, this indicated a gemination (doubling) 93

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of that letter in pronunciation in forms of Hebrew earlier than modern Hebrew … The following letters, the gutturals, almost never have a dagesh: aleph … , he … , chet … , ayin … , resh.

What does the last quotation imply? That in the Masoretic Bible the consonant r was generally not subject to doubling sharing this peculiarity with four guttural consonants — ʔ, h, ʕ and h. I see the only explanation to this: r was pronounced as a guttural, or “burring” R.139 Obviously, neither this fact nor the same guttural pronunciation of R in four Arabic dialects (especially mind The Jewish dialect in Algiers) can be explained by the Yiddish influence. This conclusion leads me to the following hypothesis revising the whole “burring” issue: the guttural pronunciation of r goes as far back as Biblical Hebrew (or at least some of the ancient Hebrew dialects). It was inherited by the part of the Jewish Diaspora which carried this feature to the new “Jewish languages” in Europe (France, Germany, Spain, Portugal) and some of the Arabic dialects spoken by the Jews in Iraq and North Africa. Perhaps, it is even not coincidental that the same feature occurs in some of the “non-Jewish” languages of the classical areas of the medieval and later Jewish Diaspora in Europe — French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch, but this question is outside my competence. What is within my competence is the question of the origin of the presumed guttural pronunciation of r in classical Hebrew. It goes without saying that this pronunciation trait can be either inherited from the earlier stage of a language or be accounted for by the influence of another language, i.e. borrowed. In no living Semitic language (with the exception of the above mentioned Arabic dialects wherein this trait can be ascribed to the Jewish influence140) r is known to have a guttural pronunciation; similarly, not a single ancient Semitic language except biblical Hebrew has ever 139

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It is only natural that the Masoretic Philologists (and they were Philologists with a capital letter), either still speaking the Tiberian dialect — half millennium later than the latest date to which specialists ascribe the death of spoken Hebrew — or, more likely, preserving in generations the traditional local way of reciting the Scriptures, based their notation of the Biblical text on their native dialect. However, I suspect that it was not a dialectal Tiberian trait brought to the text edited in the 8–9th centuries C.E., but rather a phonetic feature of the language in which the Hebrew Bible had been created many centuries earlier. I see the most plausible explanation in the islamization — forced or voluntary — of certain Jewish groups preserving guttural r who eventually assimilated completely.

How Deep are the Bibl ical Roots and How Old are the Jews?

been, to my knowledge, suspected of such a pronunciation which means that it was not a common Semitic feature and thus could not be inherited by Hebrew. Then the only explanation to look for is influence. The question is, from what language? Now, what are the implications of the “burring tale” for the subject in question — the controversial Jewish sojourn in Egypt? Let us make another digression and dwell upon one peculiar trait of Egyptian phonology and hieroglyphic. In ancient Egyptian, the consonant r was conveyed by two different hieroglyphic signs: one depicting mouth and transliterated as r conveys r and l (there is no special hieroglyph for l), the other depicting vulture and traditionally represented in the Egyptological notation as ȵ (the “double aleph”) conveys r, l and the glottal stop ʔ ; this is confirmed by a lot of generic parallels from Semitic and other Afrasian languages,141 Coptic reflexes written in Greek letters of Egyptian words, Akkadian rendering in cuneiform syllabograms of Egyptian words, etc. Omitting the most difficult problem of Egyptian l irrelevant in the present context, I tend to see the most tenable explanation of the unusual fact of rendering two such different sounds as ʔ and r by one and the same hieroglyph in the assumption that there were two r-phonemes or, rather, two positional variants of the same r-phoneme in Egyptian — one, alveolar vibrant [r], the other, guttural, or uvular, or “burring” [R] conveyed by the same hieroglyphic sign as the glottal stop. If this assumption holds water (I hope it does), it remains to put two and two together to fathom who the ancient Jews could pick up the “burring” from. However, such things as pronunciation novelties are not “picked up” by one language community from another incidentally, in passing: they require close contacts uninterrupted in generations and are better explained by cohabitation of the two language communities in question implying mixed marriages or sexual unions and bilingualism of their posterity, with the donor one more numerous or influential or prestigious than the recipient one (more likely but not necessarily so, with males belonging to the former and females, to the latter). With all the “buts” and doubts in every point: ideally, it matches the long-time Jewish sojourn in Egypt, does it not?

141

See EDE I 273–5. 95

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THE UNIQUE NATURE OF THE JEWISH PHENOMENON IN HISTORY Aside from the above-mentioned innovative ideas of the Hebrew Bible, we could name a number of other specific traits of the Jewish ethnocultural type — and also the ways they became actualized in the course of history — many of which may occur individually in other ethnic cultures and civilizations, but present an extremely unusual phenomenon as a complex. I would like to make another digression here, for a few observations regarding the modern humanities, in which I again lay no claim to originality or depth. It seems that at the turn of the new millennium and still during its first decade, the humanities — as well as social sciences that began to separate from them as early as in the 19th century — as regards their theoretical, methodological and interpretational aspects experience a certain crisis. This crisis is a normal and expected one, such as regularly recurs on a new plane at the end of another period of massive data accumulation. The present crisis is caused by the enormous bulk of factual information, owing to various factors emerging over the past few decades: high tech, the improvement of world communication systems, the “computer revolution,” the Internet and the creation of a single information field with its vast resources,142 unrestricted (or less restricted) access to all information sources and subjects that used to be off limits as classified in some formerly totalitarian countries where totalitarianism collapsed, and the development of the system of foundations and grants acquisition. This information was acquired by scholars who have their hands full with collecting and arranging it, and therefore have little opportunity to interpret it adequately. At its current stage, science develops within boundaries of strict positivism, revealing a very guarded attitude to any explanatory schemata and global theories.143 Any attempt to explain phenomena by their unique nature meets an equally skeptical reception: since everything has to be 142

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Among which I would like to mention “Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia” as a comprehensive and, as a whole, reliable enough resource — at least, not less so than any published encyclopedia I have come across. Its authors’ anonymity, deliberate volunteerism and lack of censorship would be an ideal combination to have resulted in the outright irresponsibility and carelessness of the presented materials — that it has not is, for me, a striking fact and a rare credit to our civilization. I do not include post-modernist trends in the humanities into the discussed topic: I do not perceive them as strictly scientific and thus relevant in the present context.

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classified, it takes much more effort and strong arguments to prove that any given phenomenon is unique than merely to state that it is common and show its similarity to other phenomena. In my opinion, this period of data accumulation and systematization gradually comes to an end as regards the humanities (I am no judge of natural and “hard” sciences but, supposedly, the above statement refers to them too), and the next stage of evolution that normally follows the data accumulation is ripening latently. A period when more large-scale and complicated problems would be formulated, a time of another boom in theoretical and explanatory models, of growth of interdisciplinary research and, consequently, of important discoveries is at hand. I can substantiate this assessment with examples from my own domain: comparative-historical linguistics. Until quite recently, it was not accepted in learned circles to talk in earnest about the origin of language families, to say nothing of macro-families, especially to the effect that all the languages of the world derive from a single protolanguage, though from the standpoint of logic and common sense such an assumption is quite natural. This subject was outside the range of science. It was usually taken up by half-amateurs and romantics among scholars, and their argumentation, though at times sound, was never taken seriously, partly out of general skeptical agnosticism about the whole subject, partly — and first and foremost — because of the inferior technique and quality of the data they adduced: a person of thought soaring sky-high, a master of broad stroke could not possibly be bothered messing with details (of which scholarship in general, and etymology resp. comparative linguistics, in particular, inevitably mainly consists.) The same period of time witnessed major advances in comparative historical linguistics, a discipline based on the principles developed in the late 19th century by the school of Neogrammarians who studied primarily Indo-European languages. That authoritative, positivist branch of study succeeded in accumulation and arrangement of a huge amount of linguistic information. So when a few individual scholars highly qualified in their particular fields of study took up the problem of the origin of language families, the attitude of the linguistic scholarly scene toward them was extremely guarded and skeptical for quite a while, especially on the part of many Western colleagues.144 144

Partly because, for many years now, the main world center of those studies is Moscow, Russia, whose streets, as every Westerner knows, were recently roamed by wild bears and mafiosi with Kalashnikovs at the ready. 97

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However, the problem began to yield to scholarly analysis, and said attitude is slowly beginning to change. The extremely complex and unwieldy — but nonetheless perfectly tangible — work of reconstructing the protolanguages of principal families and macro-families is being performed right now. At this stage, we have a sufficiently clear idea of what exactly to do and how to move toward the point of the “proto-linguogenesis,” to the very first fork on the genetic tree of the world languages — in other words, to the protolanguage of mankind. Another global interdisciplinary subject, currently coming to the fore from the more “shady” areas of research and getting increasingly prominent place, is the correlation of features of the prehistoric (preliterate) human societies that became known from archaeological excavations and from the reconstructed lexicon of protolanguages. Comparing these two large groups of data enables scholars to identify the nameless creators of well-studied archaeological cultures with the speakers of this or that protolanguage and — with the help of molecular genetics — with the biological ancestors of contemporary peoples. Currently these, even quite recently semi-taboo, subjects elicit prestigious international conferences and research papers see publications in serious “solid” scientific periodicals and publishing houses.145 Coming back to our main topic, the Jews, we have to admit that to speak of the Jewish (or, for that matter, any other) phenomenon as a unique one is currently out of fashion. This contradicts the accepted scholarly style. I think, nevertheless, that such a view of these things is not permanent. A scholar intending to tackle such macro-historical issues as the Jewish (or any other) ethno-cultural model would be fully justified in doing so provided he is guided in his work by those fundamental principles that are the only possible and true ones for any science: a strictly rational and exact approach to facts studied and an unbiased critical appraisal of any interpretation, hypothesis or theory, both established and newly proposed, including one’s own. I likewise see nothing seditious in the interest taken in meta-historical issues, in the 145

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It suffices to mention the conferences organized by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge and its director, the eminent archaeologist lord Colin Renfrew, and those organized by the Santa Fe Institute (NM) under the auspices of the Nobel Prize winner Murray Gell-Mann within the frame of the American-Russian Project “Evolution of Human Languages” headed by the outstanding Russian linguist Sergei Starostin (see above) until his premature demise; at the fountainhead of those forums two Moscow conferences organized by the present author (in 1984 and 1989) under the heading “Linguistic Reconstruction and Prehistory of the East” have left their imprint.

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search for parallels and even in interpreting historical and cultural processes in terms of the more methodologically advanced natural and exact sciences, once the above fundamental principles are strictly adhered to. This search has but one alternative, which is the surrender to the incognizability of the subject of study (the universe, human nature, world history, Jewish phenomenon, whatever), to the determining role of chance or to a religious credo. Let’s return once more to the two principal features of the Jewish ethno-cultural phenomenon that are unusual and unique. One of them is the matchless ability of the Jews to survive over the course of history. On the one hand, this ability manifests itself in their unparalleled flexibility, adaptability to any situation, the skill of surviving under the most severe conditions and succeeding in circumstances least favorable for them. One of the many examples of the above observation is the restriction imposed in medieval and modern Europe on Jewish participation in any activities except trade, crafts, usury and the “free professions,” that resulted in the Jews of many countries obtaining leadership in these spheres developing into the world market, technology, banking, and arts and sciences crucial for the progress of human civilization. On the other hand, this ability to survive manifests itself in the uncommonly persistent attachment of the Jews to their identity — whatever changes this identity would undergo. This can be illustrated by the correlation between language and ethno-cultural identity. Adoption by an ethnic group of a new language — such cases are well documented in history — normally entails changing identification models and disrupting cultural traditions. These are followed either by absorption of the languageborrowing group by the community whose language is adopted or by the forming of a new ethno-cultural unity. This happened to a good number of peoples in the past: the Sumerians switched to the Semitic Akkadian language and gradually became Akkadians; the Akkadians switched to Aramaic and became Arameans; the Egyptians who adopted Islam and, consequently, the Arabic language became Egyptian Arabs; part of North African Berbers in the same manner became Maghreb Arabs; many Greeks of Asia Minor became Turks; the Baltic Prussians became Eastern Germans, etc., etc. In a sense, people is language. The case of the Jews is entirely different. Neither their adoption of Aramaic in Mesopotamia and Palestine, nor their switching to Greek, Spanish (Ladino), Georgian, Arabic, Iranian languages, Middle High German (Yiddish), Polish, Russian, and other languages in the Diaspora turned the Jews into Arameans, Greeks, Arabs, Poles, etc. Naturally, we 99

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mean here the core of the people that preserved their self-identification, not its “outside” assimilated sections — however large they could be at times. The second of the unique Jewish traits is their innovative activity going far beyond the ethnic boundaries and aimed, either subjectively or objectively, at the solution of tasks common to all humanity. We can mention the three highest peaks of this activity. These are (1) the forming of the system of anthropocentric and universalistic ideas contained in the Hebrew Bible; (2) the initiation of Christianity (and, to some extent — though I’m still not quite clear what — Islam) as a world religion; (3) the unique contribution to the civilization process of the contemporary epoch. The ratio of leading Jewish scholars, including the Nobel prize winners, in all spheres of sciences (modern physics being but one example) and technology, philosophers and social thinkers, spiritual leaders dominating the minds of millions, major figures of culture and art is incredibly high compared to the insignificant overall Jewish population of the world. Of course, many of those prominent figures are not recognized as Jewish by the Halakhah, and very few of them can be counted as adherents — at least, the fervent ones — of Judaism as a religion. Not all of them would unhesitatingly identify themselves as Jews. In other words, in addition to non-recognition of part of them as Jews by the traditionalists, practically anyone might feel some doubt as to the degree to which Marx, Freud, Niels Bohr, Pasternak or Derrida comply with the criteria of “being Jewish.” And still, the ratio of (at least partly) ethnic Jewish figures who made a valuable contribution to human culture is many times bigger than what is termed “mathematical expectation” in statistics — the expected value or the mean of a random variable. This, like any factual piece of statistics, must have its causes and be capable — and worthy — of explanation.

WHY THE JEWS? One of the principal questions is why have the Jews, a small tribe lost in its insignificance against the backdrop of the great ancient Near Eastern civilizations, put forward the revolutionary ideas we discuss? Another, more general question: what are the possible explanations of Jewish historical “success” contrasting with the fading to obscurity, decline and fall of many well-known civilizations and cultures, great and small? 100

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mean here the core of the people that preserved their self-identification, not its “outside” assimilated sections — however large they could be at times. The second of the unique Jewish traits is their innovative activity going far beyond the ethnic boundaries and aimed, either subjectively or objectively, at the solution of tasks common to all humanity. We can mention the three highest peaks of this activity. These are (1) the forming of the system of anthropocentric and universalistic ideas contained in the Hebrew Bible; (2) the initiation of Christianity (and, to some extent — though I’m still not quite clear what — Islam) as a world religion; (3) the unique contribution to the civilization process of the contemporary epoch. The ratio of leading Jewish scholars, including the Nobel prize winners, in all spheres of sciences (modern physics being but one example) and technology, philosophers and social thinkers, spiritual leaders dominating the minds of millions, major figures of culture and art is incredibly high compared to the insignificant overall Jewish population of the world. Of course, many of those prominent figures are not recognized as Jewish by the Halakhah, and very few of them can be counted as adherents — at least, the fervent ones — of Judaism as a religion. Not all of them would unhesitatingly identify themselves as Jews. In other words, in addition to non-recognition of part of them as Jews by the traditionalists, practically anyone might feel some doubt as to the degree to which Marx, Freud, Niels Bohr, Pasternak or Derrida comply with the criteria of “being Jewish.” And still, the ratio of (at least partly) ethnic Jewish figures who made a valuable contribution to human culture is many times bigger than what is termed “mathematical expectation” in statistics — the expected value or the mean of a random variable. This, like any factual piece of statistics, must have its causes and be capable — and worthy — of explanation.

WHY THE JEWS? One of the principal questions is why have the Jews, a small tribe lost in its insignificance against the backdrop of the great ancient Near Eastern civilizations, put forward the revolutionary ideas we discuss? Another, more general question: what are the possible explanations of Jewish historical “success” contrasting with the fading to obscurity, decline and fall of many well-known civilizations and cultures, great and small? 100

Why the Jews?

At the very outset we discard the two explanations, either of which would have made the whole further discussion, and even more so any research of the issue, pointless: by the metaphysical or supernatural reasons — you can take it or leave it but you cannot argue against it — and the one that refers to a chance combination of factors which for some reason act sporadically, but consistently enough, throughout the history of the Jews (of course, to rule out a considerable element of chance here would be stupid). We intend to discuss explanations that allow of rational analysis. Perhaps the causes we speak of influenced each other and superimposed onto each other in the course of history.

Persecution of the Jews and Anti-Semitism Toynbee’s challenge-and-response theory seems to have found a proof in the Jewish experience: having, at some point of their history, become a persecuted people, they developed a counteraction reflex which manifests itself in their ability to survive through epochs. Excellent examples of this are controlling the Jewish population growth and the peculiar primogeniture right system (when all sons of a family except the eldest one had no right of inheritance and marriage) practiced in Germany in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as the recruitment and the Pale in the 19th century Russia. These limitations and oppression resulted in the adoption by German and Russian Jews of the “make it big or perish” rule and, as a consequence, contributed to the ever-increasing social and cultural activity of the Jews that grew, in the 20th century, into the real boom. The above cause of the Jewish hyper-activity is plainly observable and obviously presents one of the principal points in explaining the Jewish phenomenon. It seems, however, that the limitations and persecution cannot be the only explanation. We have already offered the arguments to prove that one of the most important contributions of the Jews into the universal civilization was developing a system of universalistic ideas in Genesis and elsewhere in the Bible, the process that must have started if not completed prior to the beginning of the persecution era. If these notions were spawned only in the period of captivity and don’t date back to an earlier time, it is not entirely clear how these particular historical circumstances could have been instrumental in bringing them about: it would seem that the threat of a people’s dispersal, of loss of their religion and their identity should have pushed their spiritual leaders to incline towards isolationism, to induce 101

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their people to total concentration on “their own” ignoring the “bother” about the “universally human” (which would have been natural given precisely their resistance to assimilation, embracing a foreign culture). Moreover, neither the sack of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians (732 and 722 B.C.E.), nor the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Babylonians (586 B.C.E.) can be, strictly speaking, defined as the beginning of intentional persecution of the Jews. These conquests and the ensuing forcible resettling of significant Jewish populations to Mesopotamia are mere examples of the normal policy practiced by ancient Near Eastern despotic rulers of states, beginning with Tiglatpalassar III, in regard to many other peoples of the area. Was it by accident that, from among all those peoples, only one, the Jews, rose to the challenge, survived and came to occupy a distinct niche in history? Signs of negative attitudes toward Jews, the symptoms of the future anti-Semitism, or Judeophobia, became noticeable no earlier than the 3rd2nd cc. B.C.E.146 — in other words, about three centuries after the Babylonian Captivity and one of the early (though not the earliest, as it seems) waves of the Jewish diaspora in Egypt during the Persian conquests of the 6th c. B.C.E. “Inception of anti-Semitism” does not follow the initial “brush” of the Hellenistic world with Jews by accident at all — given their unusual beliefs and customs mentioned for the first time by Greek authors Theophrastus (372–288/7 years B.C.E.) and Hekataeus (second half of the 4th — early 3rd cc. B.C.E.) — rather sympathetically than not. The earliest of the known, purposeful persecutions of Jews — persecutions rather more qualifying for the Toynbee pattern — was Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ attempt to hellenize Jews and rename the Jerusalem temple as Zeus of Olympus’ sanctuary in 167 B.C.E. that led to the Maccabees’ uprising. The first mass pogroms of Jews came to pass in Alexandria in the years 38 and 117 C.E. These signs are contemporaneous — which is no mere coincidence — with the period when the Jewish monotheism began to spread in the early Hellenistic world and when the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures translated by Jews in Alexandria, appeared. As for the “classical” anti-Semitism, there is the widespread opinion (especially popular among Russian Jews) that if it had not been for anti146

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The first document believed to have contained certain anti-Jewish sentiments is a work of an Egyptian priest Manetho in the first half of the 3rd century B.C.E. that has come to us related by Joseph Flavius.

Why the Jews?

Semitism, the Jews would have long ago forgotten that they are Jews. Laying a cover of scientific veneer on the entire issue: the permanent exoidentification of the Jews accompanied by negative connotations maintains Jewish self-identification. In other words, the Jews paradoxically owe their survival to anti-Semitism. This explanation, which echoes the previous one (i.e., persecution), doubtless contains a kernel of truth. It is not by coincidence that given the theoretical incompatibility of Judeophobia (having appreciably and gradually abated after the Holocaust) with Western humanistic values — the crisis of Jewish identity is at its worst in Europe and the United States where anti-Semitism has, until recently, been on the decline.147 It is not that simple, however: there is no direct linear sequence here. There are counter-arguments: e.g., in Russia and the Ukraine, the end of the state-directed anti-Semitism — or camouflaging it in much more “civilized” and latent forms — evoked in the course of two recent decades an unprecedented rise of Jewish self-awareness and cultural activity. To be able to explain certain traits of the Jewish pattern (or “model”) and Jewish history by anti-Semitism, one has to realize first to what degree specific features of anti-Semitism are dependent on the specifics of the Jewish pattern, or even defined by them (see the Chapter Anti-Semitism below). On the other hand, it is not quite clear what parameters of antiSemitism derive from its specifically anti-Jewish (as regards both race, culture and religion) nature and what from general xenophobia, one of the manifestations of which it ultimately exemplifies. In any case, getting answers to all these questions involves thorough scientific research both of the history of the Jews and their position in the modern world. As it is, these questions are being formulated on the plane of “common” consciousness and rhetorical demagogy, so that it would be somewhat premature or even irrational to picture anti-Semitism as the principal factor defining Jewish behavior in the course of history.

Tradition of the Book The ancient tradition of reading and studying the Tanakh, which later became to a large degree supplanted by the Talmud (the whole complex is traditionally referred to as the Torah) and the nearly total literacy 147

Will this crisis abate under the reverse sway of the wave of latter-day anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiments in Europe — and now in the United States as well already, though less conspicuously — is difficult to prophesy as yet. 103

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among Jewish men throughout many generations doubtless claims to be an important, not to say one of the main, factors contributing to Jewish achievements in many different walks of life. Attention to the symbolism of the letter, word play, antinomic and paradoxical nature of many Biblical texts (and, still to a larger degree, of Talmudic texts), profound, or even superficial, knowledge of the tradition of commentary, the skill of discussion and argument over hair-splitting legal or textual details (many of which look strange or preposterous to the modern psyche), to say nothing of the conversance in such a treasury of texts per se — all of this refined the mind and perfected the art of polemics. In other words, it formed that kind of thought pattern which gave a wide range of opportunities to those Jews who ventured beyond the narrow confines of the Jewish world, contributing to their success in the spheres of business, politics, philosophy, literature, medicine and science. Jewish achievements in all these spheres of activity during the recent hundred and something years can in all probability be attributed to the above factor. The great role of the Jews in the fields having no direct association with the tradition of literacy and reading (e.g., performance of music or cinema, some sports such as boxing or fencing) is harder to explain. It would be interesting to make a statistically accurate analysis of those spheres of activity in which the Jews of different periods (and, possibly, of different countries and cultural areas of the Jewish Diaspora and, recently, Israel) succeeded/not succeeded and then try to see how it bears, among other things, on Jewish literacy. To do this, we’ll have to make representative samples from among different categories of “people of success” from different periods (of course, the data for more recent periods would be more complete than for older ones): famous political and public figures, successful businessmen, outstanding scholars, prominent cultural and artistic figures. This might include Nobel Prize winners and winners in prestigious musical contests and cinematic festivals, politicians and journalists of the year, leading athletes, etc. In accordance with the broadest criteria, we find the proportion of Jews and people of other nationalities within each of these “nominations.”148 Then we should establish the ratio of successful Jews to the total Jewish population in the world and given cultural area and similar ratio for each non-Jewish group represented in our sample. It would also be interesting to establish the ratio of the successful 148

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Certain methodological complications are bound to emerge; e.g., what group a person who is half-Jewish and half-French is to be put in? In two?

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group not to the overall Jewish population of the world/the Diaspora but to the number of Jews employed in that sphere from which the sample is being taken, comparing resultant proportion to similar ratios for other, nonJewish, groups. Using such techniques, we’ll be able to demarcate the areas of activity in which the proportion of successful Jews exceeds/does not exceed the expected statistical probability and to establish a relevant number of standard deviations that would indicate that the obtained figures are not accidental. We can make a guess in advance that, e.g., the ratio of successful Jews in physics, music performance and the movie industry would go up whereas in mathematics, painting, and singing performances it would probably not. How can such a research help answer the question of the “book” factor? The thing is, one of the relevant problems is the well-known fact that Jewish literacy was always exclusively a male feature; women normally did not study the Torah.149 Therefore, to study the “book factor” properly we must make our representative samples separately among men and among women. If in the areas of statistically significant “Jewish success” this success will extend to men only, with Jewish women showing average figures comparable to those shown by non-Jewish women, then we will be able to postulate the “male book tradition” as a decisive underlying factor of Jewish success. If so, this is a very remarkable phenomenon, for in many cases this factor continues to function several generations after this specifically Jewish tradition of the separate male education ceased to be observed and was supplanted, in case of non-orthodox Jews at least, by conventional systems of formal education and professional training used in the Western countries of the Diaspora. On the other hand, if the success level of Jewish women in certain spheres will also turn out to be relevantly higher than the average level shown by their non-Jewish counterparts, then the Jewish achievement is common to both sexes and is to be attributed to some other factors in addition to what is called here the tradition of the Book. Thus the issue of the literary tradition and its role can be solved by means of the methodologically more simple research we have just described, as compared with the problem of other hypothetical factors of Jewish success that are either too evasive as regards choosing a proper scientific approach or require much more considerable research effort. 149

Bruria, Rabbi Meir’s wife and one of few female personages in the Talmud being the often-quoted exception. 105

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The Factor of Genetics Putting aside the considerations of political correctness, shared by the present author in general but not so much in scientific matters (and not at all in, say, treating terrorists, a fashion in our over-civilized world) — in my opinion, no scholarly discussion should be taboo — we could theorize that the Jewish specifics may derive from certain genetic traits. Contemporary genetics estimates the genes’ contribution in shaping up personality traits at somewhere circa 40%; if that estimate finds any confirmation in fact, all we have to do is wonder — and be impressed — by the precision of that science’s quantitative methods that provide an answer to the question of correlation between the inherited and acquired personality traits that, for centuries, have been the “bone of contention” among philosophers, writers — and in recent time also anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, educators. As geneticists would have us believe, genes affect the emotional characteristics of an individual, intellect, and choice of behavioral strategy.150 Genes, culture, historical and geographic conditions — each of these factors151 is capable of inexorably determining the destiny of an individual and even allow its prognostication with a certain degree of probability. Yet, the above factors merely make one’s life path more or less likely — ending up in a whimsical twist by slapping these factors together, plus multiplied by a chance factor, or the best we make of it given our present level of knowledge of the world around us. It seems entirely likely that all of the above is also true with a measure of correction factored in — about the destiny of entire ethnic communities. Yet, if the genetic peculiarities of a people may — and even must — play a certain role in its historical destiny, the feedback is also in evidence: a people’s historical uniqueness stimulates the formation of this or that set of genetic characteristics and national peculiarities. This historical specificity may be indicated by the population frequencies of various alleles — variants of genes. Changes in the alleles frequencies may occasionally happen stochastically (the so called “genetic drift”), irrespective of the individuals’ characteristics, as a result of natural cataclysms, for 150

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Should one, for instance, display active impulsive response to a dangerous situation — or conversely, check oneself and retire into oneself in wait? Let’s say as an incurable inherited disease; bringing up a child in a criminal environment; inevitable war or genocide; inescapable natural disaster or calamity.

Why the Jews?

instance — and then they fail to affect the adaptability of the consecutive generations, their capacity for resistance against untoward factors from which the previous generation died out. However, if individuals possessed of certain qualities do survive, then in the next generation the incidence of these qualities may increase, i.e. the point here is the “survival of the fittest,” of sorts, under the impact of historical, social, and cultural factors. Jews’ genetics (like that of other nations) has not been studied to a degree sufficient to claim with any confidence that their history has been under the impact of some specific genetic peculiarities or — conversely, that their particular historical path has been instrumental in molding certain specifically Jewish genetic characteristics. Geneticists promise that along with data accrual replies to these questions will become a possibility — and in quite the foreseeable future at that. Given the presently available level of knowledge, however, the following is patently evident. If it is true that Jews — owing to numerous relocations, diaspora, and persecutions — has lived through a considerable length of their history in rather faster and more frequently changing cultural and geographical environments than many other peoples — then their specific character must owe to a kaleidoscopic change in adaptation strategies or the devising of some permanent strategy that would be relevant for any cases of abrupt changes. All of this must find reflection in the value system, mythology, religion, social structures — the entire range of systems of cultural information communication. Those individuals who were unable to implement that strategy either died out leaving no (or leaving vanishingly small) posterity or got assimilated to the extent beyond which their descendants no longer consider themselves Jewish or plainly know nothing about their Jewish roots. It is precisely following this pattern that the selection of certain alleles bearing on the required behavioral strategies may have done its “forty per cent bit” in contributing it to adaptation. Yet another conjectural factor instrumental in subjecting Jews to a most severe selection is their considerable and repeated fluctuations in population numbers — both the reduction thereof as a result of mass persecutions and assimilation and the increase resultant from less obvious and wellresearched historical processes. The above factor was also destined to have had an impact on the Jews’ genetic characteristics and, in turn, held sway over their behavioral strategy. During recent years, genes have been identified that bear on such psychological peculiarities as levels of anxiety and propensity for spells of 107

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a depressed state, novelty seeking, and an aptitude for learning (specifically, mastering reading skills). I am not sure if research of these genes has been done in Jews specifically, but it would not come as a surprise at all that such a study would reveal a high level of seeking — and capacity for — innovations, and the mutations frequency depleting, for instance, reading capability would register a fairly low value — possibly utterly low (cf. the previous section). Jews, just like a number of other peoples, have so far been studied by several genetic characteristics only. The most interesting results have been yielded by the characteristic of Y-chromosome variety, i.e. down the masculine heredity line. This characteristic has nothing particularly specific except for the characteristic of Y-chromosome in Jewish priests, cohens (kohanim). Here the early religious tradition and custom152 had the effect of nearly all of the currently living and examined cohens and their descendants being related, traceable back to one common ancestor. Interestingly, the genetic dating of that cohens’ common ancestor’s life time corresponding with the known description of same for the legendary Aaron, is more or less coincidental with supposed Biblical chronology (or — to put it more cautiously — does not contradict it). Even though it is still little known what biological human qualities apart from a few — not too many — diseases bear on the Y-chromosome, the genetic peculiarity of this chromosome referred to earlier (“modal haplotype”) in cohens would not seem to have any adaptive significance: it is just a tag, a “genetic last name” making next-of-kin identification possible. In research done on this subject, a conclusion has been drawn that the available genetic data on cohens and certain other groups of Jews indicate different rates for different groups, but generally a low (in the case of cohens — very low) level of Jews blending with the peoples around them. However, the high probability of various non-Jewish groups being converted to Judaism at different points of Jewish history,153 which seems to imply intermarriages at that – as well as the obvious variety of anthropological types among Jews even within each of the Diaspora groups – cannot be ignored.154 152

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Only a cohen’s son was able to make a cohen, and cohens often lived in closelygrouped clusters, so they usually married right inside their milieu. Otherwise it is hard to explain the conspicuous “splash” in numbers of Jews at the turn of eras (another expansion — of Ashkenazi population — from 50,000 in the early 15th century to 5,000,000 in the early 19th century remains enigmatic). See the recent data on the subject in G. Atzmon et al. Abraham’s Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic

Why the Jews?

If one is to look for only a partial explanation of Jewish specificity in the genetics of the “nucleus” of the Jewish population, averring cohens to represent it, then this calls for a historical-sociological study that would either support or refute the hypothesis stemming from here — claiming that Jewish achievements owe it only (or for the most part) to cohens and their descendants. However, here a contradiction is discernible as well: if cohens got married in the course of a long succession of generations predominantly inside their narrow group, the likely result of an in-breeding of this kind should have been a degeneration — rather than the preservation and multiplication of traits like giftedness, high adaptability, etc. Finally, the presence of a certain set of dominant genes in the “original” Jewish population is theoretically also a possibility, programmed to be handed down to posterity in “mixed” marriages, even though geneticists claim that for the majority of genes that are possible to dwell on in this discourse so far the so-called incomplete dominance is characteristic, i.e. a dominant trait as such is not all that essential. In conclusion of this section one would do well to emphasize that considerations given above are not pure figments of imagination fantasized by a liberal arts scholar ad-libbing on biological subjects, but are based on consultations with geneticists. However, all these considerations paraphrased by a dilettante can be of little value: what we need here — as in any other scholarly matter — is the direct opinion of professionals.

The Jewry as a Civilization and the Debatable Issue of Jewish Uniqueness As I have explained in the Preface the book’s genre does not elicit any in-depth scholarly research. It is in essence but a cursory (“slapdash”) review of the pivotal problems to do, in my opinion, with the Jewish phenomenon in human history and an attempt to envisage the paths and approaches to this phenomenon’s systemic research and reliance on contemporary sciences’ methods. However, I wish to dwell on the subject matter of this section in somewhat greater detail for a number of reasons. For one thing, the answer to the question of the uniqueness of the Jewish historical phenomenon is important for me entirely on principle. Clusters with Shared Middle Eastern Ancestry. The American Journal of Human Genetics, Vol. 86, Issue 6, 850–59, 03 June 2010. 109

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Though I am inclined to answer this question positively, yet I naturally lack a full measure of confidence in doing so: an answer in the affirmative breeds many new questions, quite difficult to answer again, and in general terms, as I have underscored earlier, an allegation of some phenomenon’s uniqueness in the context of latter-day science is not exactly “trendy” and is in itself a challenge, of sorts. Secondly, I was fascinated by the prospect of subjecting M.Chlenov’s hypothesis to analysis as the only attempt known to me to provide a more or less aggregate and unequivocal solution to the “Jewish conundrum” in the framework of scientific and rationalistic approach — rather than a religious or “ideologized” one — to figure out to what extent (if at all) such a solution was cogent for me (it turned out not to be the case). Thirdly, the response to “Chlenov’s challenge” provided me with an interesting opportunity to play the game of “compare and appraise” — i.e. take a look at the Jewish story in comparison with other cultural and historical phenomena. I have certainly done it on a very superficial, quasiscientific level with possible mistakes sneaking in — let me once again underscore the fact that I am no expert in the majority of the subjects brought up in this book (although I seriously doubt the existence of any experts of that versatility anywhere on the face of Earth). Even though I tried and sought the expert advice of specialists in their respective fields on the entire range of these subjects, yet any serious scholar will admit that to be an expert in “one’s own” sphere or base judgments on specialists in other areas’ verdict155 are two vastly different things. I would not feature this polemic with Chlenov’s theory that has been published — to the best of my knowledge — only in Russian in the book intended for an audience reading in English but for the hope (possibly misplaced) that the issues discussed in this section and transcending the framework of purely Jewish range of problems156 may whet the curiosity of a reader interested in contemplating a broader range of issues concerning human civilization. The concept of Jewry as a civilization was expounded by the Russian ethnologist and leading expert on the whole range of disciplines bearing 155

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These judgments obtained from two different ones occasionally fail to jibe and dovetail — as it regrettably happens sometimes in the medical profession. Like many others brought to bear here: isn’t it the business of the “essay” genre to set one at liberty rather than feel constrained by the obligation to keep within the protocol of the stricter genres — like a monographic research, for instance?

Why the Jews?

on the Jews, M. A. Chlenov, in a series of lectures and in his paper “The Jewry in the System of Civilizations.”157 All the quotations cited below are from that paper. Chlenov’s concept is one of the extremely rare attempts at approaching the question of “Jewish uniqueness” and of explaining the Jewish phenomenon as a whole by incorporating it into the notional system of modern science. A scholar lacks a clear understanding — Chlenov points out with full justification — of what to do about something unique; should he just describe it with a helpless shrug, or should he perhaps try to invent the correct paradigm for the description of this supposedly unique thing, finding such a series of phenomena in which the phenomenon in question would not appear “the odd man out”? Society, like nature, brooks neither a vacuum nor any singularity. Anything unique calls for scientific interpretation (p. 41). He writes further: What then to do about this Jewish uniqueness? Is Jewry to be ranked with other ethnic entities with which they … have almost nothing in common? Or should we view it as a mere religion, and see in the Jews a sort of confessional group? But Jewish self-identification based on the idea of the ‘Jewish people’ (or `am-Yisra’el) precludes this … The notion of civilization is the most acceptable means of describing this phenomenon; it enables us to discuss, on the socio-anthropological plane, a Jewish civilization rather than the Jewish people (pp. 42–43).

Recognizing the vague and ambiguous nature of the very term “civilization,” Chlenov constructs a paradigm of his own, which is based on the works of his forerunners: the “extra-scientific, purely theological” concept of Mordechai Kaplan158 (who treats Judaism as an emanation of the Divine Absolute spread throughout the Cosmos and inducing man to fulfill his predestined purpose) and the “non-operational” by Chlenov’ characteristic definition of civilization by S. Eisenstadt.159

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Диаспоры. Hезависимый научный журнал (The Diasporas. An Independent Scholarly Journal, issue 1, Moscow, 1999). M. Kaplan, Judaism As Civilization. Contemporary Jewish Thought. A Reader. Ed. by S. Noveck. Washington D.C., 1963. S.N. Eisenstadt. Jewish Civilization. The Jewish Historical Experience in a Comparative Perspective. Albany, 1992. P. 1. 111

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Chlenov defines civilization as: A macro-cultural model forming historically on the basis of a specific complex of cultural texts, traditionally fixed in writing, [a model] that defines the limits within which forms of cultural and social expression of human communities belonging to it may vary (p. 46).

He points out then, Civilizations meeting this definition are not very numerous in human history. Excluding Classical antiquity and the ancient Near East, we have the following good examples of what I, following most researchers, call a civilization: the Christian civilization (its Western and Eastern versions perhaps to be treated separately), the Islamic, Indian and Chinese civilizations (p. 47).

Let’s quote another statement of Chlenov, crucially important for him: Unlike many other authors, I intentionally emphasize the interrelation between civilization and written culture (p. 46).

Chlenov picks out six universal parameters that, obviously, define the above-mentioned historical civilizations: 1. More prolonged existence, as compared to ethnic unities (the author gives no definition of the latter term; we are going to treat it as selfexplanatory, just like the term “ethnos” used below in the same sense). 2. Significant, in comparison with ethnic unities, influence on the development of human culture as a whole. 3. The presence of a meta-language of civilization, which does not serve the means of everyday speech communication. 4. Poly-ethnicity (multiethnic composition) as a form of historical adaptation. 5. Tendency toward pan-ecumenism, i.e., toward spreading over those parts of inhabited territory that are at present culturally identifiable. 6. Trend toward proselytism, i.e., the striving to absorb representatives of other civilizations, as well as human communities outside any civilization. Let’s see how these universal parameters relate to the examples of civilizations chosen by Chlenov, adding to them, in the capacity of 112

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a control group, Mesopotamian,160 Egyptian and Classical ancient GraecoRoman civilizations. Chlenov does not include these three universally recognized civilizations in his list for an obvious reason: none of them possesses a clearly marked complex of cultural texts in the author’s sense of the term, i.e., a canon or something functionally analogous to it. It is not quite so obvious why Chlenov included the Buddhist civilization in the Indian one (which follows from his including into the latter the Buddhist Cambodia and Laos), instead of allotting it a position of its own. I think that the Buddhist civilization should be treated as a distinct one; it diverges from Indian proper, i.e., Hindu, civilization nearly in every respect (see below). The first point to cause objections is the universal parameter #1, the more prolonged existence of civilization in comparison with that of ethnic groups. The thing is that we know more or less everything there is to know about the time of existence of civilizations,161 whereas we know little or nothing about how long various ethnic unities — or ethnic groups, or ethnic cultures — have been in existence. It seems obvious that, according to the universal parameter #3 and to Chlenov’s definition of civilization, the span of a civilization’s life should be reckoned from the moment at which its macro-cultural “model,” based on the complex of cultural texts committed to writing becomes fully formed, while the language of these texts ceases to be the means of communication, i.e., dies as a “living,” extant language. Since both processes — the shaping of the macro-cultural model and the dying of the language — are often protracted, the issue of chronological limits of a civilization is, as a rule, not easy to solve, and tends to cause much discussion. In this connection, I’d like to introduce another chronological parameter that makes civilizations appear “older,” namely, the time of writing down that which Chlenov refers to as the complex of cultural texts. This time is, in most cases, recorded more precisely and reliably than the debatable moment of the emergence of a civilization, which, according to Chlenov, must be dated somewhat later. Despite the lapse between the two events, the moment of committing the cultural texts to writing should be taken into account as a useful starting point from which to trace a civilizations’ origins. 160

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Where there is the alternative of discussing separately Sumerian culture and Akkadian culture that superseded it. That the chronological limits may in each concrete case be conventional and open to controversy is another matter. 113

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Taking all of this into account, we are going to discuss the chronological limits of each civilization now. All civilizations selected by Chlenov have one thing in common: they continue to exist to this day, which, strictly speaking, casts some doubt upon the “trivial fact that every civilization … comes at certain point of time into existence (a statement no one can refute — A. M.) and vanishes sometime in a different historical epoch” (p. 46). One might, of course, speak with some degree of probability of the current crisis (p. 53) and decline of any of the civilizations in question, or of its transformation into an ethnic culture162 — developments postulated by Chlenov with regard to the Jewish civilization. However, this would be a mere estimation prognosis; you can hardly fix the date of death of a living man, no matter how old and decrepit he is. Therefore the author’s statement that civilizations exist “for several thousand years” (p. 48) seems unfounded in the light of the examples chosen by himself. On the other hand, two of the three ancient civilizations (Mesopotamian and Egyptian) I have added to Chlenov’s list, do fully comply with his chronological criterion, but fail to fall within other parameters. In this connection, let’s discuss those ancient civilizations of whose final demise there can be no doubt. The beginnings of the Egyptian civilization can be conventionally dated to the time of the invention of hieroglyphics, i.e., the early 3rd mil. B.C.E., and its end either to the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great (332 B.C.E.) when the land began to be hellenized or to Egypt’s annexation by Rome (30 B.C.E.) The Mesopotamian civilization, if we refrain from subdividing it into the Sumerian and Assyro-Babylonian ones, can be dated between the late 4th (or early 3rd) millennium B.C.E., when the first written artifacts in Sumerian language and cuneiform script appear and the turn of the eras — the time of dying away of the cuneiform writing tradition and the Late Babylonian dialect. Thus the two great “written” Near Eastern cultures both existed for about three thousand years, which agrees with Chlenov’s estimate. On the other hand, this is not quite true in regard to the Graeco-Roman civilization, whose period of existence hardly exceeds a single millennium; even if, otherwise, we consider the written Grecian culture, i.e., pre-Christian and Christian periods combined, we get no more that two-odd thousand years — from the beginning of Greek literature (mid 9th century B.C.E.) to the fall of the Byzantine empire (mid 15th century C.E.) — after which, if we are to follow 162

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Chlenov’s pattern regarding the Jews, the Grecian civilization transforms into an ethnic culture. However, the problem is, as we stated before, that none of the three dead civilizations possesses the most important universal parameter of Chlenov’s definition: their rich literary traditions contain nothing that would play the role of a body of cultural texts upon which the macro-cultural model of a civilization can be built. The author understands the notion “cultural text” in broad terms; it includes in his opinion “various ideological manifestations of sufficiently general nature.” According to him, however, “cultural texts are exemplified most often by various collections of sacred scriptures or analogous holy writings,” though “in some cases the function of cultural texts is performed by secularized codes of rules and general principles of understanding the world” (p. 46). Such a broad understanding of the complex of cultural texts is, however, restricted by the necessity of placing this body of texts within comparatively narrow temporal limits: otherwise it would be impossible to locate that relatively short period of time during which civilizations emerge.163 This restriction also applies to the vital universal parameter (in Chlenov’s work, #3) of the transformation of the living language of cultural texts into the meta-language of the civilization they belong to. None of the three ancient civilizations (Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Classical world) brought forth anything even remotely comparable in its role to the Bible in Judaism or the Qur’an in Islam. Moreover, in none of them do we observe a decently compact body of texts that would fit even the broader definition of Chlenov. It remains to add that the Sumerian language that became extinct sometime in the beginning or the middle of the 2nd mil. B.C.E. ideally fills the role of the “meta-language of [the Mesopotamian] civilization,” whereas Egypt did not seem to have such dead language. As for the Classical world, this role, in the Roman period, was only partially played by Classical Greek. Let’s come back to the subject of chronology, though. Christianity and Islam present no problem in this respect, if we set the time of the creation of their cultural texts as a starting point: the duration of their existence is respectively about 1,950 and 1,400 years. The time of the emergence of the “meta-languages” — or, more exactly, the point at which the living 163

Let’s imagine that, in addition to the Old and New Testaments, we have to include in the cultural texts of the Christian civilization, works of medieval Church Fathers in the capacity of “various ideological manifestations of sufficiently general nature”. 115

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languages, in which this or that cultural text had been written, transformed into what Chlenov terms meta-languages — is harder to establish: it turns out that the same cultural text is sometimes written in more than one metalanguage. In the case of Islam we have a clear picture: it uses classical Arabic, a language of well-known chronology. As for Christianity, as soon as we begin to consider its meta-language,164 it becomes evident that the Christian civilization has no single meta-language. In other words, one of the most vital parameters of a civilization (perhaps the most important for Chlenov) is absent in Christianity, which therefore immediately starts to split into lesser “subcivilizations.” Indeed, in the case of Eastern Christianity we have the Greek koine of the New Testament,165 the meta-language of Western Christianity is the Latin of the Vulgate (the late 4th C. E.), and for Protestantism, which derives from it, this is — at least for a part of Protestants — the German of Luther’s translation of the Bible. Besides, there is a very considerable mass of Slavs constituting, after the fall of the Byzantine empire, the main ethnic component of Eastern Christianity and using Church Slavonic (its early samples dating to the 10th and 11th cc. C. E.) in this capacity. We must also not forget more peripheral — but nonetheless important enough, especially at earlier stages of Christianity — areas of the Christian civilization, such as Syrian, Arabic, Ethiopian, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian; starting with various periods of the 1st mil. C.E., all of them have their own “candidate” for the post of meta-language. The origins of the Indian civilization should be technically dated to the 3rd c. B.C.E., the time of the earliest texts that were written in the Brahmi script. By that time the ancient languages of India — Vedic and Sanskrit of the Vedas (supposedly the early 1st mil. B.C.E.), Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads (the 6th–5th cc. B.C.E.) all of which comprise the body of cultural texts (though oral) as understood by Chlenov — had been dead for two or three centuries and therefore fully qualified as meta-languages. In accordance with our above-mentioned criteria, we must date the Buddhist civilization to the 1st c. B.C.E., the time when the Buddhist canon was put in writing in Sri Lanka (Ceylon). The Pali language of these texts ceased to be spoken from the 3rd c. B.C.E. and therefore complies with 164

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Its “cultural texts” present no problem — these are primarily the books of the New Testament and then of the Old Testament. As well as the somewhat artificial Greek of the Septuagint, the Old Testament of the Eastern Christians.

Why the Jews?

Chlenov’s definition of a meta-language, a function it performs only for a portion of the Buddhist area — in Sri Lanka and several countries of South East Asia. Other than that, the Buddhist canon survived for the most part in Chinese and Tibetan translations. Therefore, as regards meta-language, the situation here rather resembles the one existing in Christianity. The beginning of written culture in China has several possible datings: (a) the early 1st mil. B.C.E., when the Shu Ching (Book of History), the Shih Ching (Book of Songs) and the I Ching (Book of Changes) — the books destroyed in the 3rd c. B.C.E. — were, as it seems, first put in writing; (b) the 2nd c. B.C.E., from which extant copies of the above texts and the Confucian canon survive; (c) the 3rd — 4th cc. C.E., when Old Chinese, the language of all these texts is no longer understandable as a spoken tongue and can be classified as a meta-language. Lastly, the Jewish civilization develops, according to Chlenov, from the Jewish ethnic culture sometime between mid-1st mil. B.C.E. and mid-1st mil. C.E. (p. 52). Let’s now compare these dates with several others, relating not to civilizations, but to “ethnic unities or cultures.” Modern Tuaregs of the Sahara, in spite of their rather superficial conversion to Islam166 still resemble in most respects their ancestors, the ancient Libyans. The Berber languages, with Tuareg representing their Southern branch, continue ancient Libyan languages. The Tuareg way of life and everyday habits hardly differ, or at least hardly differed until quite recently, from those described by Herodotus in the 5th c. B.C.E. The Libyans are first mentioned in Egyptian texts of the early 3rd millennium B.C.E.167 We can therefore assume that the Tuareg (and the Libyo-Berber in general) ethnic unity has five thousand years of history attested in written sources behind it.168 Another such case is exemplified by the inhabitants of the island of Socotra (or Soqotra) and the peoples of Mehri and Jibbali in South Arabia. Their common ancestor language — Proto-South Semitic, in my 166 167

168

For instance, they approve of premarital women’s sex. Under the names t̲mh (likely to be read [kimh]) and t̲hnwy.w (likely to be read [kihnu]). Which is not only much more than any of Chlenov’s “historical civilizations” has but, interestingly, more than any other people of those who have survived to the present day with a long and uninterrupted attested history, including such champions of historical longevity as Chinese, Indians or Jews — if, of course, we rely on the mentioned criteria. 117

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classification — branched off from Proto-Semitic about the last third of the 5th mil. B.C.E., according to glottochronological calculations. During some six millennia that have since elapsed, their life must have been going on without any major changes169 so that there is little room for doubt that the speakers of that common ancestor language at its early stages are basically the same ethnic community as the Soqotri, Mehri and Jibbali speakers of today (or, otherwise, of a thousand years ago — before their conversion to Islam). Many of the traditional human groups to be classified by Chlenov as ethnic unities as opposed to civilizations have a similarly uninterrupted history. Their cultural type and way of life remain almost unchanged until they come into close contact with modern civilization, and they speak languages continuing those spoken by their ancestors from time immemorial. Slicing time into periods, classifying languages, peoples, cultures, etc. is done by scholars, while people continue to live in the endless sequence of generations without bothering to know that some future Mr. Clever will establish that their actual generation lived in the mid-5th mil. B.C.E., spoke Proto-Indo-European and their remote descendants in the late 3rd mil. B.C.E. were going to be, e.g., Proto-Indo-Iranians. Now, civilizations are quite different: their emergence is marked by cardinal — sometimes gradual, sometimes abrupt (e.g., during the lifetime of a single generation) — changes in the life of human communities, when the old historical epoch comes to a close giving way to a new one. That’s why civilizations have a beginning170 and can be in principle dated, whereas the history of “ethnic unities” seldom has obviously distinct (from our perspective) points of starting and ending, unless its course undergoes conspicuous dramatic changes. The latter might include conquests, natural cataclysms, a change of language or religion, migrations, spreading into a diaspora, and other similar events that have to leave enough traces to enable us to postulate the end of this or that “ethnos,” the death of this or that language, the end of this or that culture, and the birth of a new community. Vestiges such as these are seldom found in ancient history. Let’s sum up all these chronological considerations, putting them in the form of a table: 169

170

118

If we suppose that their conversion to Islam was such a major change, let this period be reduced to five millennia to consider it finished a millennium and something ago. And sometimes, an end — or are expected, logically, to have it though nobody knows when.

Why the Jews?

[Table 1. Chronology of Civilizations] No. Civilization

Beginning

End

Duration (years)

1 Christian

The 1st c. C.E.

—

Ca. 1,950

2 Islamic

The 7th c. C.E.

—

Ca. 1,400

3 Indian

The 3rd c. B.C.E.

—

2,300

4 Buddhist

The 3rd or 1st c. B.C.E.

—

Over 2,000

5 Chinese

Early 1st mil. B.C.E. or between 2nd c. B.C.E. and 3rd-4th c. C.E.

—

Ca. 3,000 or 1,600–2,200

6 Mesopotamian

Turn of 4th-3rd mil. B.C.E. (the emergence of Sumerian writing) or early 2nd mil. B.C.E. (Sumerian becomes the meta-language of Mesopotamian civilization)

The turn of the eras

3,000 or ca. 2,000

7 Egyptian

Early 3rd mil. B.C.E.

The 4th or 1st c. B.C.E..

3,000 or 2,500

8 Greco-Roman

Early 1st mil. B.C.E.

The 5th c. C.E. (or 15th c., including the Byzantine empire)

over 2,300 or over 1,200

9 Jewish

Mid-1st mil. B.C.E — mid-1st mil. C.E. (according to Chlenov)

—

From 2,500 to 1,500

Let’s discuss the rest of Chlenov’s criteria of civilizations, starting with their multi-ethnic nature or “poly-ethnicity.” Whether the Jews are monoethnic or poly-ethnic (the view maintained by Chlenov) is rather a matter of convention than a moot point, and as such more or less irrelevant. That it is so not only because there is no single authoritative definition of an “ethnos” (ethnic community) that would at once be all-embracing and academically precise, but also because it is in the case of the Jews that “working” definitions currently used in anthropology and social sciences do not work. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and the Graeco-Roman civilization are beyond any doubt multi-ethnic. The Egyptian civilization is equally beyond any doubt mono-ethnic, though one can find in it, as in any other civilization, certain outside elements in the form of the Libyans, inhabitants of the reign of Meroe, Nubians, “Asians”, etc. The Mesopotamian civilization is technically multi-ethnic, though we have to make a reservation to the effect that it was created by two ethnic groups, the Sumerians and the Semitic Akkadians, in the course of two historical stages that were partly sequential and partly 119

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coincided in time: the “Sumerian” stage lasted from the turn of 4th and 3rd mil. B.C.E. to the early 2nd mil. B.C.E., and the “Akkadian” from some point after mid-3rd mil. B.C.E. to the turn of the eras (keeping in mind, though, that Mesopotamia was always “a melting pot” of various ethnic groups). The Indian and Chinese civilizations are more difficult to analyze. Both are markedly local by nature. Each of them tended to spread beyond its proper territory almost exclusively in the form of Buddhism. “And yet, for Christian, Islamic and Indian worlds, poly-ethnicity is natural, accepted and non-controversial,” maintains Chlenov (p. 51). We can apply this statement to the Indian civilization only after incorporating Buddhism in it, which Chlenov does, though such a solution seems unsatisfactory to me. The fact that Chlenov failed to include the Chinese world in this group probably implies his uncertainty about the issue. In another passage, the author states that, in his view, the Chinese civilization is similar to the Jewish one in being “quasi-ethnic”, and points out that, In actual fact, the Chinese are divided into a good number of communities, which could be objectively regarded as distinct ethnic groups, but are classified by the Chinese as intra-ethnic subdivisions (p. 52).

The weak point of this argument is, in my opinion, in the adverb “objectively”: as I have already said there is no valid definition of “ethnos”, but even from the “natural” and “accepted” point of view the question of the Chinese ethnicity is rather debatable. Chlenov justly sees the most important criterion of poly-ethnicity in language. He states that the Jewish poly-ethnicity emerges during the second half of the 1st mil. B.C.E. “with the start of Babylonian Aramaic-speaking diaspora and the Greek-speaking diaspora of Alexandria” (p. 52). Let’s see how this criterion applies to the Chinese. Differences between the most genetically distant Chinese dialects (Bay, Min and, say, Mandarin) are roughly of the same proportions as differences between various modern Romance languages or Slavic or Turkic languages or, say, English and German whose speakers are never regarded as a single ethnic group — either the “Romance” or the “Slavic” or the “Turkic” or the “West Germanic” one. On the other hand, the same degree of remoteness of different living Arabic languages from each other171 prevented no one from treating them as dialects 171

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Protolanguages of each of the above six groups — Chinese, Romance, Slavic, Turkic, West Germanic and Arabic — split roughly some 2,000–1,600 years ago, according to glottochronology.

Why the Jews?

of the single Arabic language and, at least until recently, from regarding all Arabs as one people.172 As for other peoples, they “break up into new ethnic entities, as it was with the British who colonized North America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand” (p. 50); though we must not forget that this division — which led to the emergence of different “versions” of English — started only several centuries ago, a negligibly short time for linguistic divergence (the forming of new languages from the common ancestor). Judging from Chlenov’s interpretation of Jewish and Chinese civilizations as “quasi-ethnic,” he is not inclined to consider self-identification an important criterion in determining mono- or multi-ethnic nature of a civilization. For me, it is nearly the most vital one. The above examples show that the definitions “the same people” or “different peoples” are not given on some objective grounds, but are rather assigned to each concrete people depending on the actual historical situation, which includes political factors — primarily, self-identification of the people in question at this or that point of history as well as its identification by outsiders (“exoidentification”) which, in most — but not all — cases, coincides with the people in question’s self-identification and is also of some significance. To illustrate the point, let’s picture public, or even academic, response to a hypothetical school announcing its discovery of a universal objective scale, according to which the Jews, the Chinese and the Arabs are multi-ethnic formations, whereas the English-speaking inhabitants of Britain, North America and Australia (or, say, the Russians, the Ukrainians and the Byelorussians of today)173 are objectively the same people. By their self-identification, the Chinese are apparently one people. The Indians seem to present a less certain case: on the one hand, their ethnic self-identification, at least until recently, has not been as solid as Chinese, on the other hand, the overwhelming Hindu majority of India is firmly united by a powerful religious (or, rather, ritual-emotional) bond and by common everyday practices. As for the degree to which the most genetically distant of the living Indo-Aryan languages (such as, e.g., Sinhalese, Nepali, 172

173

Though practically all modern Arabic nations — the Egyptians being the most conspicuous example — tend to have a distinct separate self-identity, while the claim to belong to one “Arabic people” is rather part of rhetoric depending on the concrete political situation. Or, still better, the French and Italians whose languages belong to the Central Romance group that started branching some 11–12 hundred years ago. 121

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Marathi, Bengali and Hindi) differ, it is comparable to that of Chinese dialects, or slightly higher. Let’s now sort out the three remaining universal parameters that are closely related to each other. Speaking of proselytism, I’d prefer to subdivide it into two types: subject-initiated, or donor, and object-initiated, or recipient. The former type manifests itself both in the form of aggression, involving coercive — often to the point of physical extermination of the unwilling — conversion of the “infidel” to one’s faith, and in missionary activity. Both forms are typical for Christianity and Islam, and the second one seems typical for Buddhism. There is also that which I would call Kulturtrger activity (i.e., spreading or upholding civilization), a strategy typical primarily for the Graeco-Roman civilization, which implies the vigorous spreading of a definite level and type of culture (first of all, political and material) rather than the imposing of a strictly defined ideological system and way of life, as is the case with religious civilizations. All these forms of proselytism have one common characteristic: they are determined by the more or less pronounced initiative on the part of the subject originating the whole process, the giving party, the “donor.” In the latter type of proselytism the initiative belongs, either entirely or for the most part, to the object — the receiving party, the “recipient.” Apart from the cultural influence of the Mesopotamian civilization on neighboring peoples (first of all, it is the spread of cuneiform writing all around the West Asia), I would place in the object-initiated category historical relationship of the Jews with the gerim (comers from outside settling among the Jews) and with the “Judaicized” — those groups that were converted to Judaism in different periods and regions. This relationship is characterized not so much by intentional propagation of faith and conversion as by an example that is more or less — not without certain impediments and restrictions — open to imitation.174 Besides, from a certain angle, the entire Jewish literature of the Hellenistic epoch was, to a considerable degree, religious propagation. It is not yet clear whether the earliest version of the Jewish Bible known to us, the Septuagint, a Greek translation made by Jews in Alexandria was intended for the exclusive use of the Greek-speaking Jewish audience or for the local Greek-speaking non-Jewish audience as 174

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Of course, this is only a dominating tendency: we cannot omit such a fact as mass compulsory conversion of Idumeans and Itureans to Judaism during the rule of the Hasmoneans in the 2nd c. B.C.E.

Why the Jews?

well. The answer depends on whether we take as true the information of Aristeas (often referred to as Pseudo-Aristeas) in his Epistle (or Letter) to Philocrates about seventy two Jewish translators who were allegedly requested from Jerusalem by the king of Egypt Ptolemy II Philadelphus urged by the librarian of Alexandria. If it is so, the king’s expectations of the Greek audience’s interest to the Book would be quite tenable: he would hardly care about the enlightenment of the local Greek-speaking Jews. Though most of modern scholars regard the whole story of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures as fictitious and the letter as a forgery, some of its detail are verisimilar and even revealing (thus it contains the first mention of the city and the library of Alexandria) — and, after all, there is the Greek translation, the Septuagint! According to many scholars, the “Letter of Aristeas” is a text typical of Jewish apologetics, aiming at selfdefense and propaganda, and directed to the Greeks (Tcherikover); having an apologetic and propagandist tendency (Tramontano), striving to convert Greek speaking Gentiles to Judaism (Pheiffer); propaganda for Judaism among the Gentiles (Schürer).175 Anyway, we must point out that, though on the whole intentional proselytism is not typical for Judaism, at certain points in history, its effect has been comparable in its scope to analogous activities by Christians and Muslims. As for the Chinese (with its Buddhist component excluded) and Egyptian civilizations, they are, as I see it, devoid of any kind of proselytism or, at most, manifest the second type in its slightest form. The same is true of Hinduism — according to a well-known Hindu maxim, you can’t become a Hindu, you can only be born one. Chlenov’s criterion of “significant, in comparison with ethnic unities, influence on the development of human culture as a whole” is the most “evaluative” one — and the most evasive. I would distinguish here the same two types of influence: (a) subject-initiated (or simply “active”), when the subject exerting influence consciously or “intuitively” affects the whole mankind or its significantly representative section and takes an active part in the shaping of universal human culture, and (b) object-initiated (“passive”, “spontaneous”), when the initiators of cultural innovation accomplish purely local tasks, doing so for their own purposes and having no use for, or idea of, the concepts of one humanity, universal culture and the like. It seems natural that the enormous influence that Graeco-Roman, 175

Cp. Wikipedia, Letter of Aristeas. 123

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Christian, Islamic176 and Jewish civilizations deliberately exert or once exerted on universal culture should be classified as of the former type, while the significantly lesser influence of Chinese and Indian civilizations (which is of the same scope as that of local “ethnic cultures”), of the latter. However, saying so I play the game here, and in some other instances, to the rules proposed by Chlenov, which obviously require further substantial elaboration. As we consider the second universal parameter of Chlenov, a number of questions immediately arise. What is meant by “the development of human culture as a whole”? Is it the sum total of all known cultures of the Earth? Or perhaps just the part of that whole comprising the “Western civilization,” increasingly predominant in the modern world? Should we include here those historical cultural systems that have made, at different points of history, vital contributions to this civilization, and then either disintegrated (like Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Graeco-Roman civilizations) or ceased to influence its progress in any noticeable way (like Islam)? On the other hand, what is to be included in the idea of “culture”? Is it primarily material culture with its advance of technology and, later, of science? Should the contribution of each of these historical entities be estimated according to the number and importance of innovations and inventions that it produced and that subsequently spread all over the world? What measure should be used to establish the relative degree of Chinese influence (early printing, gunpowder, silk, porcelain) or Mesopotamian impact (earliest cities, irrigation technology, astronomy, cuneiform writing) on human culture at large? How to determine the scope of influence of the important, if prehistoric, Natufian and Post-Natufian Mesolithic and Early Neolithic archaeological cultures of the Levant whose representatives (they can be described at least as an ethnic community) created the first nuclear area of agriculture — and, likely, also animal husbandry — spreading these revolutionary innovations over the greater part of the globe? How to fathom the universal significance of the alphabet invented and propagated by a relatively small ethnic community (Phoenicians), yet rivaling in importance the influence of some civilizations discussed here? 176

124

The Islamic Golden Age, or the Islamic Renaissance, is traditionally dated from the 8th to 13th centuries A.D., but has been extended to at least the 15th century by recent scholarship. During this period, artists, engineers, scholars, poets, philosophers, geographers and traders in the Islamic world contributed to agriculture, the arts, economics, industry, law, literature, navigation, philosophy, sciences, sociology, and technology, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding inventions and innovations of their own (Wikipedia, Islamic Golden Age).

Why the Jews?

Must “culture as a whole” incorporate such components as legal and political culture, the evolution of society and the state? If so, more importance ought to be attached to the role of ancient Rome. Should we broaden the definition of culture to the point of taking into account the role of various national and ethnic entities in the modern geopolitical process? If we do so, then we must reconsider the overall influence of such entities and states as Muslim peoples, India, and China. At last, how are we to tackle intellectual culture, influences in the sphere of the evolution of ideas, philosophy, and religion? It is obvious that, e.g., India’s influence in this domain — starting from the 19th century when the West begins to show evergrowing interest in its spiritual cultural legacy — is much greater than its role in the development of material culture. The last criterion, pan-ecumenism (i.e., the physical spread of a culture’s representatives), remains to be discussed. The Christians, the Muslims and the Graeco-Romans unambiguously represent pan-ecumenical civilizations. The same, to a large extent, applies to Buddhism, though the area of its dissemination is much smaller (being limited to South and East Asia which is perhaps not accidental). Chinese and Indian civilizations are, on the contrary, local and not pan-ecumenical at all — that is, again, if we exclude the Buddhist component and the recent migrations. Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations were also located within more or less confined territories. The Jews, as always, present particular problems. Let’s resort to quoting Chlenov: Pan-ecumenism is highly typical of the Jewry; it manifests itself constantly, starting from the emergence of the Diaspora in mid-1st mil. B.C. This feature is so inherent in the Jewish people that any proof of its existence is to be thought redundant. It would suffice … to refer to the “victimizing” or sacrificial essence of the Jewish golus (the Yiddish version of the Hebrew glt̲ “exile” — A. M.) as an endless chain of banishment and disgrace … Pan-ecumenism, however, is an attribute of a civilization, not of a people. Let’s remember, for instance, the undoubted territorial confinement, even isolation of the Jewish people prior to the Babylonian exile of mid-1st mil. B.C. This period witnessed no slightest migrations or territorial expansions, let alone pan-ecumenism. Nevertheless, we know cases of territorial expansionism by other peoples. In these cases, they, as a rule, either preserve their territory intact (e.g., the Russians in their eastward movement) or break up into new ethnic formations (e.g., the British who colonized North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand). On the other hand, the spread of a civilization does not necessarily lead to division and change of ethnic structure (pp. 50–51). 125

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I can’t quite agree with the thesis concerning the Jewish territorial isolationism supposedly existing prior to mid-1st mil. B.C.E., i.e., before the moment when the Jewish civilization emerged (according to Chlenov). Aside from the “Egyptian Captivity” (a fact that was nor proved by other sources than the Bible, neither refuted), we have the following facts speaking against total isolation of the Jews: one may well refer to dozen thousands of Samaritans displaced and relocated by Assyrians after the fall of Israeli capital in 722 B.C.E. throughout Northern Mesopotamia and Media, to recruitment of Jewish mercenaries in Egypt under pharaoh Psammetichus I (mid- 7th c. B.C.E.); the foundation of a Jewish military settlement in Elephantine, Upper Egypt (early 6th c. B.C.E.). Cp. also Isaiah (11:11–12): In that day the Lord will reach out his hand … to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. He … will gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.

Even if this text should be dated to the Post-Captivity period (which has not been substantially proved), i.e. not before the late 6th century B.C.E., it apparently refers to the previously formed Jewish Diaspora that, if small in number, had spread to the confines of the ecumene, the known part of the inhabited world. The opposition of the nature of expansion “by other peoples” (that is, ethnic communities) to that of the spread of civilizations is also debatable: a classic example of an ethnic diaspora that did not lead to the splitting of a people into new ethnic units is presented by the Armenians (and, to some extent, by the Gypsies). Besides, Chlenov seems to somewhat contradict himself by maintaining, on the one hand, that expansion of a civilization does not inevitably lead to division and modification of the ethnic structure of its representatives and, on the other, that after transforming from an ethnic community into a civilization, Jewry became multi-ethnic. If this be really the case, then the “not necessarily” reservation must bear on none other than the Jews. In other words, one must concede that the Jews are unique at least in this respect, which is obviously not what Chlenov implies above. Curiously enough, such inconsistencies seem to reflect the “subconscious,” and quite understandable uncertainty of Chlenov regarding the 126

Why the Jews?

issue of whether the Jews are mono-ethnic or poly-ethnic.177 This uncertainty underlies his mutually contradictory statements about pan-ecumenism as an inherent feature of the Jewish people and about pan-ecumenism as an attribute of a civilization, not a people. However, the principal contradiction in the whole matter of panecumenism lies elsewhere. The fifth universal parameter of civilization is formulated by Chlenov as “tendency toward pan-ecumenism.” The term “tendency” does not necessarily imply deliberate intention, but the parallelism between the fifth and the sixth (“trend toward proselytism, i.e., the striving to absorb … ”; p. 48) universal parameters as well as the phrase “expansion of a civilization” used synonymously with “pan-ecumenism” (p. 50) implies such an interpretation. Intentional expansion is typical for those civilizations that, from my point of view, can be classified as pan-ecumenical.178 However, this would mean that either pan-ecumenism — viewed as tendency toward spreading and intentional expansion — completely fails to comply with Chlenov’s idea of the Jews179 or that the Jews devised their own way to be pan-ecumenical occurring in none of the above-mentioned civilizations but resembling that of “ethnic communities.” It seems that, to remove such a contradiction, we’ll have to sacrifice one of the three theses: (a) the Jewish pan-ecumenism as an attribute of civilization; (b) the Jewish Diaspora as an “endless chain of banishment”; (c) the absence of unique features in the Jews (at least, in this respect). Paradoxically, and even to the detriment of my own theory of the Jewish uniqueness, I am inclined to doubt that the Jewish Diaspora was from the very start and always forced. I rather think that it was an integral part of the Jewish historical strategy, which will be discussed below. Let’s now digress from these difficult and entangled issues and present Chlenov’s criteria of civilization (after removing the duration parameter and adding “a specific complex of cultural texts” from the definition of a civilization by Chlenov) and their distribution in our extended list of the candidates for “civilizationship” in the shape of a matrix. The “+” and 177

178

179

Cf. his reference to the fact that “in 1988, I managed to persuade [the Publishers] to publish an encyclopedic entry that opened with the words ‘The Jews are a people …’ ” (p. 38). But if we are to view as such Chinese and Indian civilizations, leaving the Buddhist component — in accordance with Chlenov — included, then their expansion beyond their original boundaries is, likewise, not forced. Which fully corresponds to the Jewish self-awareness, according to which the Diaspora is golus, galut, coercive banishment from the homeland. 127

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“-” symbols reflect my estimates and not those of Chlenov; the sequences “+/-” and “-/+” indicate my uncertainty regarding issues in question (to be scored as 0.5). [Table 2. Сivilizational parameters] Universal parameters Civilization

Specific Metacomplex of language cultural texts

PolyPanProselytism ethnicity ecumenism

Significant influence on universal human culture

Christian

+

-/+

+

+

+

+

Islamic

+

+

+

+

+

+

Indian

+

+

+

-

-

-

Buddhist

+

-/+

+

+/-

+

-

Chinese

+

+

-

-

-/+

-/+

Mesopotamian

-

+

+

-

-

+

Egyptian

-

-

-

-

-

-/+

Greco-Roman

-

-/+

+

+

+/-

+

Jewish

+

+

-/+

+

-/+

+

According to the above matrix, all of the nine cultural unities fall into the following groups: 1. Civilizations having the complete or almost complete set of attributes (five to six scores): Islamic (six “+” marks = 6 scores), Christian (five “+” marks and one “+/-” mark = 5.5 scores), Jewish (four “+” marks and two “-/+” marks = 5 scores). 2. Civilizations having four scores: Buddhist and Graeco-Roman (both having three “+” marks, one “+/-” and one “-/+” mark). 3. Civilizations having three scores: Indian, Mesopotamian (three “+” marks) and Chinese (two “+” marks and two “-/+” marks). 4. Civilization having a half score (one “-/+” mark): Egyptian. Summing it all up, it seems that only three antropocentric civilizations, which can be placed under the common epithet “Abrahamic” fully meet Chlenov’s definition of civilization (in my interpretation, of course open to dispute, of their correspondence to his parameters). Finally, let us try and see how several ethnic, cultural and religious entities hardly claiming the status of a civilization for themselves in the sense of the term proposed by Chlenov qualify for the same set of attributes. 128

Why the Jews?

[Table 3. Parameters of communities not to be considered civilizations, according to Chlenov’s principles] Ethnic, cultural, Complex Metaor religious of specific language entity cultural texts

Polyethnicity

Panecumenism

Proselytism

Cultural influence

+

-

(Alphabetic script)

-

-

-

-

-

+ Phoenician

-

-

-

Ethiopian (Christian)

+

+

(Bible in Geez)

(Geez/Old Ethiopic)

(Amharic, Tigrai, and Gurage peoples)

+

+ Armenian

Afrasianspeaking PostNatufians and their descendants Zoroastrian

(liturgical literature in Grabar)

+ (Grabar)

-

+ (Diaspora)

+ -

+ (Avesta)

+

(split into ProtoSemites, ProtoEgyptians, and others)

(spread all over Near East and North Africa)

(Middle Persian)

+

+/-

+/-

-

-

+

+

+

-

-

+ -

(first farmers and the most advanced culture at that period on the planet)

+

+ Manichaean

(Manichaean canon)

With Zoroastrianism and Manichaeanism having four scores (same as Buddhist and Graeco-Roman civilizations) and Ethiopian, Armenian and Post-Natufian having three (same as Indian, Mesopotamian and Chinese civilizations), it appears obvious that, on the one hand, the various features of civilization listed in Chlenov’s classification sometimes apply to ethnic, cultural or confessional entities not to be qualified as civilizations and, on the other hand, far from all criteria of civilization can be applied to the examples of civilizations Chlenov himself proposed, like Indian or Chinese — the examples, at first glance, asking to belong there. As for the Jews, listing their unusual features and admitting that they are somewhat unique among both other nations and other religious communities 129

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(p. 37), Chlenov makes one of his main conclusions: “the Jewry in its pure form does not fit into the paradigm of a normal ethnic community” (p. 38). While it is with difficulty and not without horror that I bring myself to try and visualize Jewry “in its pure form” I nonetheless am in total agreement with this conclusion. Yet in total contradiction to even more overbearingly main conclusion of the author — re Jewry as a civilization that in accordance with his concept is to cancel out the problem of Jews’ uniqueness — I would complement the above conclusion of Chlenov with another one of my invention: “the Jewry either in pure or in “impure” form does not fit into the paradigm of a normal civilization either — and of any normal community for that matter.”

The Diaspora Living in the Diaspora for over two and a half thousand years (if one starts counting from the Babylonian Captivity), which roughly corresponds — come to think of it! — to some hundred generations, is one of the most salient features of the Jewish phenomenon that has inevitably affected the shaping of the ethno-cultural type of the Jews and the specifics of their historical path. The Jews, however, are not the only people that lived — and still live — in a diaspora. Entire ethnic communities, and their parts, living in a “scattered” state have a number of common features that make them different from “non-diaspora” communities. How does one recognize those Jewish peculiarities that are common to all peoples living in a diaspora from those that are typical exclusively for the Jewish Diaspora? Here, as with the previously discussed issues, there is a need for large-scale research of the typology and specifics of different diasporas (incidentally, it is this subject that, riding the tide of growing public interest, is currently undergoing a research boom). However, the general theoretical foundations of “diasporistics,” or even the terminology seem to still be at an incipient stage, and are quite inadequate for answering the above questions. Let’s discuss this problem in detail. What is a diaspora? On closer examination, it becomes evident that the term, as it is commonly used, is devoid of any “universal content” and is not, strictly speaking, a term. All sketchy definitions of diaspora I have come across are either incomplete, inconsistent and vague or based — mostly or exclusively — on the notions associated with the Jewish Diaspora. Dictionaries and encyclopedias 130

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have entries entitled “Diaspora” with occasional references to the Gypsy, Armenian and later diasporas, or sometimes, to the Christian diaspora (metaphorically implying the scattering of the “New Israel”). But it is the Jewish Diaspora, the Diaspora par excellence, that comes first and foremost. Let’s have a few typical examples: (1) Diaspora n. the dispersed Jews after the Babylonian Captivity || their dispersion [Gk fr. diaspeirein, to scatter] (New Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language, Danbury, CT, 1993)

(2) Di·as·po·ra NOUN: 1. The dispersion of Jews outside of Israel from the sixth century B.C., when they were exiled to Babylonia, until the present time. 2. Often diaspora The body of Jews or Jewish communities outside Palestine or modern Israel. 3. diaspora a. A dispersion of a people from their original homeland. b. The community formed by such a people (The American Heritage Dictionary)

(3) diaspora 1 capitalized a: the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile b: the area outside Palestine settled by Jews c: the Jews living outside Palestine or modern Israel 2 a: the movement, migration, or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland b: people settled far from their ancestral homelands c: the place where these people live (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

(4) A diaspora … is any movement of a population sharing common ethnic identity. While refugees may or may not ultimately settle in a new geographic location, the term diaspora refers to a permanently displaced and relocated collective. (Wikipedia. Diaspora) 131

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Obviously, these are not precise definitions which would enable us to distinguish a diaspora from a variety of migrations occurring in different human communities, and from such resettling groups themselves. I would suggest the following working definition: The term “diaspora” describes both the process of the scattering of an entire human community or of two or more of its parts and the body of more than one human subgroups which (1) derive (or claim to derive) from such a community; (2) live outside their historical homeland on a territory already populated by other ethnic communities; (3) represent a population minority; (4) do not belong to the dominant population group; (5) share the idea of their common origin, common past, beliefs, “historical fate,” etc. (I call this notion “diaspora consciousness”). None of these criteria, taken separately, is sufficient to define diaspora. For example: while dispersed Jewish and Armenian populations doubtless have their “diaspora consciousness” (the case of the Gypsies is not as clear), cannot other groups — like the descendants of the Spanish colonizers now living in Mexico, Peru or Uruguay or the descendants of the Eastern Slavs (currently Russians, Ukrainians and Byelorussians) that once settled the East European Plain — be aware of their common origin and past and perhaps common “historical fate”?180 Haven’t they dispersed over lands inhabited by other ethnic communities: in the former case, by Indian (Native American) tribes, in the latter, by Baltic and Finno-Ugric tribes? Nonetheless, the term “diaspora” cannot be applied in either case as not complying with criteria 3 (both cases do not represent a population minority) and 4 (they belong to the dominant population group). Another example: the term “diaspora” 180

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One of the problems of “diaspora consciousness” is that it is hard to detect it in the past, especially with non-literate peoples (like the Gypsies), and even in the present. A typical example is provided by the Berbers (though they are a non-diasporic minority): all, or most, Berber groups inhabiting countries of North Africa, Sahara and Sahel (an area in North-Central Africa south of the Sahara desert) are now aware of their common linguistic and historical origin, though this awareness takes fairly quaint forms. What is not clear is how they came by that knowledge — by maintaining for three millennia an uninterrupted “ethnic memory” or via the comparatively recent acquaintance of the Berber intellectual elite with European Berber studies (including the present author’s ones), which is more likely.

Why the Jews?

could not be applied to the Dutch settlers of South Africa as they do not comply with criteria 4 (belonging, until recently at least, to the dominant population group). What features are then typical for the Jewish Diaspora? What makes it similar to other analogous phenomena (like the Armenian and Gypsy dispersals), and to what degree is this similarity true? What makes it possible to extend the use of the term “diaspora” to later or modern migrations of other peoples (the Chinese moving to South-East Asia, the Russians to Europe and the States, the Indians to Africa, North America and Britain, the Africans to Europe and America, etc.) and to other groups (national, religious and “trade” minorities, “foreigners”, “outsiders”, etc.)? Laying no claim to completeness or precision, I’ll make an attempt to reveal the most typical features common to Jewish Diaspora groups of different regions and periods (in diasporic Jewish groups in the contemporary Western world some of these features, of course, are becoming history or already belong to the past) — at least those lying on the surface: 1. Being a minority. 2. Marked corporative proclivity. 3. Compulsory labor and occupational restrictions. 4. Incomplete civil rights. 5. Restrictions on changing social status, primarily affecting access to membership in higher estates, land-owning and military career. 6. Isolation, normally deliberate, from other population groups, manifesting itself in: 6.1. a negative attitude toward apostasy, i.e., to forced or voluntary conversion to another religion; 6.2. a taboo on mixed marriages; 6.3. living within a small, restricted area, a ghetto. 7. Trends toward assimilation, manifesting themselves in: 7.1. apostasy involving almost exclusively conversion to the religion of the dominant population group; 7.2. violation of the taboo on mixed marriages concluded principally with members of the dominant population group; 7.3. a craving for leaving the ghetto, the territory of one’s Diaspora group; 7.4. an eager and thorough mastering of language and culture of the dominant population group; 133

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7.5. a vigorous infiltration into the most prestigious fields of activity outside their living areas and traditional spheres of activity. 8. “Diaspora consciousness”: the awareness of commonality with kindred Diaspora groups, including: 8.1. common origin; 8.2. common cultural and, in certain cases, “sacred” history; 8.3. originally common territory (the “Homeland”); 8.4. common language prior to the dispersion; 8.5. equating the dispersal with exile; 8.6. equating the dispersal/banishment with Divine punishment; 8.7. the dream of returning to the historical homeland; 8.8. viewing themselves as “aliens” and “newcomers” among the autochthonous groups. It is obvious that some of these features are typical for the Jewish Diaspora only and some for other diaspora and non-diaspora minorities. It goes without saying that they cannot be applied to all Jewish Diaspora groups and even less so to all historical epochs, including the present. All this is no more than a rough working draft, hopefully a suggestive stimulus and a starting point for someone’s future research — as well as another demonstration of “Jewish paradoxes”.

The Myth of the Chosen People and Its Mission Perhaps the Jewish way can be explained as follows. The myth of the Jews as God’s chosen people formed almost haphazardly (e.g., Moses was spreading some obscure Egyptian ideas among Jewish slaves) at the early stages of Jewish history and influenced the shaping of ethno-religious consciousness that determined the behavior of Jewish people for ages to come. (An explanation half-jokingly suggested by A. B. Kovelman.) In my opinion, this explanation is not to be completely discarded, though it obviously needs some explaining in its turn. Let’s try deriving from it, in a most sketchy way, the principal Biblical innovations. As we can see, the idea of the chosen nation took its shape, for some unknown reasons, in the midst of Jewish people. The idea of “choosing” necessarily implies the chooser (subject), the chosen thing (object) and a number of objects from which to choose. The “best” possible choice obviously takes place when the most authoritative chooser chooses from the largest possible 134

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number of objects. Hence the naturally following — but truly revolutionary to the archaic psyche — Jewish innovation, viz.: (a) the range of objects available for choice was widened to the utmost, resulting in the idea of a single humanity consisting of different nations, and (b) the search of the one subject of ultimate authority led to the notion of the one transcendent Deity of that humanity. These two postulates (the single humanity and the one most high Deity) logically following from the idea of the chosen people might well be, to a varying degree of probability, the starting points for other Biblical innovations we have already discussed. It is common knowledge that the Jewish idea of the chosen people is unique for the ancient world. The peoples who created great civilizations of antiquity — Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese — did have the feeling of cultural superiority, but no more than that. The very fact that the myth of the chosen people emerged among the Jews and not elsewhere requires explaining. The perception of one’s nation as the chosen people (ʕam səgull — see the etymology of səgull in Appendix 1 #2.5) is related to the myth that Israel’s mission is to save mankind — cf. “ … and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Gen 12:3; cf. also Isa 49 and 2:2–3; Mic 4:1–3; etc.). The latter myth appears, in comparison with the myth of the chosen people, much less significant. Besides, it occurs in Biblical texts much more rarely; everything else that is true of the entire body of the Hebrew universalistic ideas — a part of which it represents — applies to it as well. Nevertheless, this line of Jewish thought continues uninterrupted into the post-Biblical period: the idea that the redemption (gəʕull) of Israel will be the saving of the entire world is present both in the Haggadah and the Kabbalah. The weak link in this apparently coherent chain of reasoning is that, as it was stressed elsewhere, no traces of the idea of the chosen people and its universal mission are observable in either the Egyptian or any other ancient literature. Therefore, one has to look for this idea’s genesis on the very same Jewish ground.

The Myth of the Eternal Exile and the Promised Land Another important myth that contributed to the shaping of the Jewish cultural type does not follow directly from the myths of the chosen people and its mission. We speak here of the Jews’ perception of themselves as the eternal exiles (until the coming of the Messiah-Mashiah, according 135

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to later, post-Bible concepts) and of the related notions of the Diaspora, galut, as an eternal banishment, with persecution and oppression as due punishment of God testing and educating his people in this way (“victim’s consciousness”). The faith in an ultimately favorable outcome and return to the Promised Land makes it easier for the Jews to bear this path of woe. The epithet “unique” used in regard to the Jews must have made the reader sick and tired; however, it seems appropriate in this case as well. The Bible pays extremely close attention to where and how the Jews come and go, attaching much significance to the migrations themselves: suffice it to mention Terah and his stock’s migration from Ur of the Chaldeans to Haran, the Lord’s order to Abram to set out for Canaan (Gen 11:31, 12:1–2), and the Exodus from Egypt. The historical homeland enjoys a very high status in the Biblical values system — a fact easily explained, at first glance, by the “diaspora consciousness” of the people subjected to the banishment from their Motherland. However, there are grounds to believe that not all of the Diaspora waves from Palestine were forced. As for the earliest forced replacements of the Jews, the conditions under which the former inhabitants of the Kingdom of Israel found themselves in North Mesopotamia and Media where they were driven by the Assyrian invaders (732 and 722 B.C.E.) proved, given those times (if one is to believe the scanty historical evidence), sufficiently mild, sometimes even favorable. The same goes for the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judea resettled in Central and Southern Mesopotamia181 subsequent to the sacks of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (597 and 586 B.C.E.). Thus, in Assyria, the Israeli exiles “received parcels of land and the majority of them went in for farming. Part of them went into crafts. Some individuals who belonged to the higher, ruling strata in Israel had been extended administrative offices.”182 Settlers relocated from Judea at the beginning of the 6th century B.C.E. ended up in a similar situation. It is not quite clear how these re-settlings — which were coercive, but quite normal for the time and the place in which they were happening — could have led to the emergence of such a violently outcast-flavored “diaspora consciousness” (of course, the counter-argument that no information of other deported communities’ consciousness has reached us is always at hand). 181

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According to some estimates, only 10% of the total population of Judea were deported. История еврейского народа (op. cit. — see footnote 71), pp. 76–77.

Why the Jews?

That consciousness seems to already be manifest in the early prophets, Amos and Isaiah (“For I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all nations … ” Am 9:9), who lived in Judea in the 8th century B.C.E. Isaiah prophesied after the fall of Samaria whereas Amos had — most likely — prophesied before that event. Yet, if one is to accept even the latest, post-Babylonian captivity dates of the Tanakh creation in its entirety or to admit all the debated episodes and spots — in Isaiah, among others — as the post-captivity insertions, how is one to explain where the notions of banishment to the “four quarters of the earth” (“ … he will gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth” Isa 11:12) come from even, say, in the 5th century B.C.E., if the Jews had been banished to only one of them — Eastern, to Mesopotamia? In contemporary Bible studies, it would seem that the “rejuvenating” approach to dating texts is prevalent. That is a natural enough reaction to the straightforward acceptance as claimed of the authorship of the legendary, semi-legendary and even historical personages: David’s psalms were all written by King David, the Proverbs — by King Solomon alone and the book of Isaiah — by prophet Isaiah (or were recorded later, but in full accordance with the oral tradition). Skepticism of this sort in the majority of specific and sufficiently proven cases is apparently justified. However, there are also some counter-arguments to this. One of them is of a general nature, based on hard common sense. A number of events, facts, and plainly the scenes of everyday life, morals and customs, etc. described in the Bible and subject to verification by independent historical sources, archeological and ethnographic data — indicates a “long memory of the people,” a fairly lengthy period in the course of which the oral tradition is preserved intact. Let me refer to just one instance: Oleg D. Berlev, the late St. Petersburg Egyptologist, a great connoisseur of Egyptian literature, history and, especially, its economy, told me that in the Biblical story of Joseph, the picture of life in Egypt as a whole looks similar enough for the Middle Kingdom epoch (that ended in the 16th century B.C.E.) even to some minute details. Could the Jewish authors of the 6th or 5th centuries B.C.E. have written that history having no detailed and intact legend dating back at least a millennium to rely on — granted that the contemporary Egypt they might be familiar with was a country quite different from the one described in the Bible? Also, does this not mean that some other similar facts and notions looking sufficiently similar, although not confirmed by other sources, could have taken place? 137

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A more specific argument is based in the following. Many arguments in favor of the later dating of some texts or other are based on the analysis of their poetics and language, specifically, on the choice and repetitiveness of their vocabulary. Aspiration to a certain extent of various sources unification, their feasible agreement among themselves and the creation of integral mythology, history and ideology was dictated to authors and editors of the Babylonian captivity and post-captivity period by the tasks they were faced with: to rally the people, to countervail the temptations of assimilation, to confirm the right of Jews to their “historical Motherland,” to motivate them to return to Canaan, for the erection of the temple, etc. The result of such unification, by the logic of things, should have become the use in various contexts of the same collocations, set-phrases, terms — even though the Bible in the opinion of specialists is an “advanced” enough type of literature with its cultivated style characterized, among other things, by the tendency towards re-phrasing the quotations and lexical variety. Whatever the case might be, it appears to me that using in diverse texts of various terms for the description of the same event or phenomenon — in this particular instance the talk is about the “dispersion” of Jews — bespeaks not just the stylistic refinements of late-day compilers, but also betrays a certain “lack of coordination,” testifying rather to the authenticity of these texts preserved intact from various sources in the oral communication since earlier times. Let us see how the Diaspora-formed mentality is reflected in the language. As to the origin of the Greek term diaspora, it is derived from the verb diaspeirein “disperse, spill, give away, dissipate,” comprising a prefix dia- and a verb speirein “sow, strew, plant seed.” The noun diaspora is initially testified to in Septuagint precisely in the meaning “dispersion of Jews among pagans”; later on this word is mentioned in Plutarch, Philo and still later Christian authors. In modern Hebrew “diaspora” in the sense of “Jewish diaspora” per se is conveyed by the traditional term galut. It is used in different Jewish communities of the world communicating in different languages and has a well-defined and expressed negative connotation. This noun has two meanings — “exile” and “exiles, the exiled” and it derives from — like its variant form gl — from the verb gl “to go into exile.” The Greek equivalents of Hebrew glt̲ and gl in the Septuagint are apoikesia, “emigration”; metoikesia, “deportation”; aichmalosia, “captivity”; but not diaspora. The original meaning “exile” of galut and the choice of its Greek equivalents made by the Alexandria Jewish translators present a linguistic, 138

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and therefore objective and weighty evidence, of Jewish vision of their Diaspora as a forced and tragic phenomenon. Historical implications of the terms “to exile,” “exile,” and “exiles” seem at first sight to be of relatively late origin. Therefore it would be natural to assume that these terms formed in the Biblical Hebrew, having developed from simpler meanings of the verb gl, which also means “to leave, disappear” and “to uncover, lay bare.” In the most authoritative and newest dictionary of Biblical Hebrew — “The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament,”183 all these meanings are united under one and the same heading and in the same entry as if related. This is hardly the case, however. The verb *gly “to go into exile” is attested to in nearly all Semitic languages; i.e., it can be reconstructed as early as on the Proto-Semitic level, though certain peculiarities of its distribution among languages allow for the possibility that the meaning — and, hence, the historical phenomenon — in question developed at a later date, in the Proto-West Semitic, yet, in any case, no later than the first third of the 3rd mil. B.C.E. On the whole, the subject of dispersal is one of the dominant motifs of the Hebrew Bible. There are several more terms that, aside from the verb gly and its derivatives, are used to render related notions. Two of those, the verbs nps and pws, mean “to scatter, disperse.” The former verb, nps, occurs in three different contexts: “ … when you rise up, the nations scatter” (Isa 33:3); “Saul replied, ‘When I saw that the men were scattering … ’ ” (1 Sa 13:11); “Those were the three sons of Noah: and from them came the people who were scattered over the earth.” (Gen 9:19) The latter, pws, is more frequent. Here are several samples of its use: “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth’ ” (11:4); “So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth” (11:8); “Later the Canaanite clans scattered … ” (10:18); “And I will disperse the Egyptians among the nations” (Eze 29:12); “He will … gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.” (Isa 11:12) While in the last verse, “scattered” renders the Hebrew nəp¯ust _ , feminine plural of the Passive Participle derived from pws, the word “exiles” translates the masculine plural form of the Participle of the verb ndh in the Passive meaning “to be scattered (said of animals and people).” It is 183

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different forms of this verb — and not the forms of gly, pws and nps — that are rendered in three passages of the Septuagint by the Greek word diaspora.184 Here are the passages in question: “ … Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back” (Dt 30:4); “ … even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name” (Neh 1:9); “The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel” (Ps 147:2). The other Hebrew verb rendered in a few cases in the Septuagint (mostly in Ezekiel) by the Greek diaspeirein is zr (of the root zry) “to scatter, winnow,” e.g.: “I will scatter you among the nations … ” (Lev 26:33). In all the above mentioned verbs (except gly with the primary meaning “to go into exile” confirmed by the same meaning in other Semitic reconstructible, therefore, already in the ancestor language) the meanings “to scatter,” “to disperse” and the like when applied to people are secondary and metaphorical — attested in Hebrew alone. Thus, pwṣ goes back to Proto-Semitic *py “to overflow” (one of the meanings of Hebrew pwṣ and the main meaning of Arabic fyd, Mehri fəyẑ and Jibbali fɛẑ̲; here also belongs Aramaic Syrian pyʕ “to dissolve, wash away”) with derived meanings “to scatter, disperse” in Hebrew pws and “to spread” in Aramaic Judaic pʕpʕ (said of odor) and Mehri fyẑ (said of disease, evil talk). Hebrew ndh, with its meanings “to be scattered (of animals)” (nif.) and “to drive away, scatter (animals)” (hif.) continues Proto-Semitic *ndh “to be out to pasture, be scattered (of animals)” (Akkadian nadu^ and nadaʔu “to put animals out to pasture”, Arabic ndh in two derived verbal forms “to scatter over the meadow (of sheep)”) and “scatter, drive, push” (in Akkadian, Aramaic185 and Ethiopian). The main meaning of Hebrew zry is “to scatter, winnow” from ProtoSemitic *d̲ry “to scatter, spread (seed), winnow.” Various forms of another verb, pzr (with no reliable cognates in other Semitic languages), meaning “to be scattered, dispersed” apply to the people of Israel in one context in Joel (4:2) and Esther (3:8), to enemies in 184

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Aside from this, diaspora is used in the Septuagint as the translation of several other Hebrew words unrelated to the notion of dispersal; it seems that we deal here with extremely free and, perhaps, even incorrect translation. In Judaic Aramaic, the meaning “to be in exile” is obviously secondary, developed under the influence of the Hebrew verb.

Why the Jews?

Psalms 89:11, and to sheep and bones elsewhere; it is also attested to in the meaning “to distribute freely, lavish.” Finally, a very interesting case is Amos 9:9, where derived forms of the verb nwʕ translated in HALOT as “to tremble” and “to roam around” are used. Here is the verse: k– hinn ʔnk̲– məsaww… wa-hniʕt̲– b̲ə-k̲ol ha-ggyim ʔt̲ bt̲ yirʔl ka-ʔr yinnaʕ ba-kkəb̲r wə-lʔ yippl sərr ʔrs

As it contains two more rare and obscure terms, there are a few different versions of its translation into various languages. Let us compare two of them in English. One is the classical “The King James Version”: For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.

The other is “New International Version” (NIV): For I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground.

This is how it is commented in NIV: sieve. Separates the wheat from small stones and other refuse gathered with it when scooped up from the ground. not a pebble will reach. Only the grain drops through, the refuse being screened out to be discarded.

Both translations stress the same motif in question (the latter one more clearly than the former) — dispersion of the Jews among all the nations. This motif is of particular significance here since the ninth verse of the ninth chapter seems not to be as suspect of later insertion by modern Bible scholars as many other passages of Amos. Therefore, this evidence of the “dispersal notion” seems to be the earliest one (dated to the mid-8th century). I am unaware of what the NIV version choice of words was based on and whether etymological considerations played any role in it; anyway, I’ll adduce mine. The Hebrew nwʕ has the following cognates in other Semitic languages: Judaic Aramaic nwʕ “to move about” and nʕnʕ “to shake,” Arabic nwʕ “to shake a tree branch with much force (said of wind),” nyʕ “to bend, vibrate (of a tree branch under the wind),” nʕy “to scatter, disperse (of 141

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camels)” and “to scamper to and fro (said of an animal under the rider who has lost control,” nʕnʕ “to sway” and “to move away, detach,” Tigrai nʕaw “to move here and there.” From these examples varying in form and semantics, two main meanings — likely to have been associated in the ancient Semites’ language consciousness186 — are reconstructible: “to shake” and “to move about, roam, wander.” Therefore, instead of “(I will) sift” (in “The King James Version”) the second verb in Amos 9:9 was justly translated in NIV — fully in accordance with the contextual meanings attested to in the Bible and with the etymology — as “(I will) shake,” but there is an untranslatable undertone “I will make it roam” (hniʕt̲– is a causative verbal stem). Another debatable word, a typical hapax legomenon, attested to in the whole corpus of the Bible, only in Amos 9:9 is kəb̲r correctly translated by both Versions as “sieve”; the meaning is strangely not confirmed by any external parallels in the Hebrew etymological dictionaries187 which is highly desirable in such cases. In effect, such parallels do exist: besides the word’s occurrence in post-Biblical Hebrew in the meaning “a large round vessel, a basket used as a sieve” there are Ugaritic kbrt “sieve” and Ethiopian: Geez kabaro “woven basket” and metathetic karabo id. and Amharic krbo “basket.” The suggested meanings of the third debatable term in Amos 9:9, sərr,188 are “the least grain” in The King James Version and “pebble” in NIV; while the former is baseless, the latter relies on its post-Biblical Hebrew and Judaic Aramaic (the evidence of this language greatly influenced by Hebrew is of little significance when not supported by akin terms in other Aramaic languages) cognate sərr “pebble, flint.” The interpretation of a rare term having no established etymology at that is inevitably conjectural; in the present case, however, the kindred words if few can be found: they are Mehri swər and Harsusi seʹwwer “stone, pebble” (probably also Syrian sr and Arabic sirrat- “dust”) from Proto-Semitic *sVrVr- ⁓ *sawVr-.189 186 187

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Like Russian шататься meaning both “to shake” and “to move about, wander”. HALOT quotes with a question mark the Arabic girbl-, kind of sieve, which is phonetically improbable. Also occurring only in 2 Sa 17:13 in an obscure context; while the Septuagint renders it as lithos “stone” and Vulgate as lapillus “small stone” or “pebble”, the NIV translates it otherwise. The assertion of HALOT that Hebrew sərr is a by-form of sɔr “flint” is less probable as the latter continues a different Proto-Semitic root *ṯ ̣u/ir- ‘flint, rock’.

Why the Jews?

In view of all these meanings, I would suggest the following translation of the discussed passage different from the above ones: … I will make the people of Israel shake among all the nations like what is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will fall out on the ground.

Then, we have a live and comprehensible metaphor: the Lord will shake like in a sieve, make the people of Israel roam among all other nations, but not a single pebble will fall out. It is with pebbles, and not grain or corn (there is no word for either of them in this passage) that the people of Israel seem to be compared; however, it will not eventually be lost (fall to the ground) — cf. the previous verse (Am 9:8): “ … yet I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob … ” As it has been stressed before more than once, nearly all of the cited passages indicate that the dispersal was understood as punishment. Therefore, returning to our analysis of the “Diaspora consciousness,” we can state that viewing the Diaspora as a forced and undesirable (though it was, in a sense, well-deserved — as God’s punishment for the collective transgressions of the people) event, as banishment from the Promised Land was always a vital part of that consciousness for the Jews. It is obvious that such a perception of the Jewish Diaspora was borrowed by the neighboring cultures — the pre-Christian heathen ones and especially Christianity and Islam — from the Jews themselves. The subject of exile and banishment is projected in the Bible onto the “prehistoric” past of the human race as well: the first galut was Adam’s banishment from Eden and the first diaspora was the dispersal of the builders of the Tower of Babel. We have to observe once more, however, that the implied interpretation of these events contains a certain ambiguity: on the one hand, they are God’s punishment for disobedience (of Adam and Eve) and “nonauthorized activities” (the building of the tower), on the other, they present an immediate, and apparently “orchestrated,” opportunity to set about fulfilling God’s task: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). He says the same to Noah and his sons (9:1). Created in Adam and Eve and renewed in Noah and his posterity — the humankind is called upon to populate Earth, to fill it out and to be in charge of it. How could they do it without scattering and dispersing? One gets the impression that the dispersal, the Diaspora was not always restricted in the Jews’ “ethnic consciousness” and historical behavior to 143

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galut, i.e., enforced exile. Its other aspect is a way of fulfilling their mission in the world — religious, mythological or really historical depending on the angle we see it from. Another component of the Jewish “diaspora consciousness” is the idea of a return to the Promised Land (or the “land of the forefathers,” the “historical homeland,” etc.), which is one of the central concepts of the entire Jewish history. In the post-Bible period it is expressed (only on coins of the first Jewish uprising where it is written gʔlt meaning “deliverance, liberation”) via the Hebrew noun gəʔull occurring in the Tanakh with the legal meaning “right and obligation of repurchase” deriving from the verb gʔal “to redeem,” which occurs in different books of the Bible both as a legal term and in the meaning “to redeem, claim for oneself” (said of God mainly in regard to the people of Israel). In different epochs and in different Jewish communities, manifestations of this idea ranged from a metaphysical concept to a political actuality, when the Biblical prophecy came true in the form of the state of Israel and the aliyah. Perhaps it is the conviction of the secular and the non-Orthodox majority of Israelis that the return from the exile is a fait accompli (for many Orthodox Jews, the gəʔull is still a prophecy which will be fulfilled only with the coming of the Mashiah) that has taken the tragic edge off the idea of the Diaspora and led to the emergence of two new terms with the same meaning in modern Hebrew. Both terms — təps and pəzr — have been derived from the verbs that also occur in the Bible; the former, from the verb pws and the latter, from the verb pzr (see above). It seems that the both are used by modern Hebrew speakers as fairly neutral words lacking any dramatic implications. The attachment that various ancient peoples felt for their homelands, and for the lands they inhabited in general, was a perfectly usual phenomenon. (E.g., the Egyptians perceived themselves as the people living on the banks of the Nile; Egypt was for them the first-created land, the first terra firma created by Atum.) Besides, the Jews were far from being the only people that had to move — sometimes unwillingly — out of their original territory. From the earliest stages of its existence, the genus Homo sapiens is constantly on the move — the spread of cognate languages and archeological cultures, sometimes over enormous distances, bears witness to that. Migration and resettling of various peoples of antiquity was taking place in different forms — suffice it to remember the Greeks or the Phoenicians — but there is no evidence indicating that, in the case of the Jews, these forms were in any way unique prior to the 1st century C.E. 144

Why the Jews?

It is obvious that the complex of notions that any historical community has regarding itself and its place in the scheme of things is formed under the influence of various geographical, social, historical and genetic conditions. Expressed as a part of a mythological or religious frame of reference, these notions may assume disguised and metaphorical forms that, no matter how fantastic or bizarre to the modern psyche, cannot but have direct relation to the actualities of the life of that community. The goal of a researcher is to establish the exact nature of that relation. Our old question remains unanswered: what were those special conditions and abnormal developments that made Jewish life prior to or at the time of committing the Bible to writing so different from the life of neighboring peoples as to bring forth the myths (concepts, notions, whatever) of the Jews as the chosen people, of the exile and of the ultimate return to the Promised Land — the myths that have no visible parallel elsewhere? You could answer that evasively, of course: this happened by a strange conjunction of some random factors some of which are well-known while of some of which we know little or nothing at all, etc., etc. But even if we accept such an answer, we still won’t be able to answer two more questions. One: Why then it was on the Jews that these myths had such a strong impact as to determine their values system and historical behavior for ages to come? Two: is it not odd that Jews (and, it seems, Jews only) managed to turn their myths into reality?

Common Semitic and Afrasian Cultural Legacy As was said before, the Semitic group of languages, of which Hebrew is part, is in turn a member of the Afrasian (a.k.a. Afro-Asiatic and SemitoHamitic) macro-family. Proto-Afrasian, the language from which all Afrasian languages derive, existed, according to my estimate, until the 10th mil. B.C.E., when it began to split into descendant, or “daughter,” languages. It is to this period that the reconstructed Proto-Afrasian lexicon is dated. This lexicon can give us some idea of where and how ancient Afrasians lived twelve thousand years ago. Ample evidence indicates that the area inhabited by proto-Afrasians “superimposes” onto that of the so-called Natufian and Post-Natufian archeological cultures that existed prior to and approximately at the same time in the Levant with a presumed center in what is now Israel, partly 145

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Lebanon and Syria, and was one of the two earliest food-producing cultures of the Earth (the other was in the Zagros mountains separating Iraq and Iran; today it is viewed by most archaeologists as derived from the PostNatufian culture). There are a large number of reconstructed Proto-Afrasian terms proving that the speakers of that language were early farmers and animal breeders. These are words like “to till soil,” “arable land, field,” “hoe,” “sickle,” “to sow,” “wheat,” “barley,” “beans, leguminous,” “goat,” “sheep,” “cow” (the animals were clearly domesticated, since wild ungulates typically have distinct names),190 “donkey,” “camel” (both, perhaps, domesticated), “rope (as part of harness),” “fodder, forage” and so forth. Various groups speaking languages deriving from Proto-Afrasian (protoSemites, proto-Egyptians, proto-Chado-Berbers, proto-Omotic and protoCushitic speakers) spread further — mainly along those routes by which archeological cultures and single artifacts from the Eastern Mediterranean were spreading to Mesopotamia, Arabia and East and North Africa (where they got, according to the recent archaeological data, likely via Cyprus). This speaks in favor of identifying Afrasians as the creators of the Natufian and Post-Natufian cultures. The reconstructed Proto-Afrasian lexicon indicates the existence of a culture that was highly advanced for its time and not significantly inferior to the much later proto-civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt that were in many ways its inheritors. The traditional view of our Mesolithic and Neolithic ancestors as savages that occurs in scholarly literature to this day can no longer be supported in the light of linguistic evidence. For example, the opinion that promiscuity, indiscriminate sexual relations, prevailed during the epoch in question prior to the emergence of marriage contradicts the evidence of Proto-Afrasian terms implying the existence of the institution of marriage (there are, for instance, words for “in-law” and even “co-wife”) and a complex system of kinship by blood and marriage. Words like “rich,” “chief,” “master,” and “dependant/ servant/slave” attest to sufficiently developed social relations. There are also reconstructed terms that shed light on various notions and beliefs of Afrasians, their relations with the world of spirits and many other aspects. The Proto-Afrasian culture — which, in all probability, can be equated with Natufian — was, beyond doubt, the most advanced one of the Mesolithic 190

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While there are, of course, mixed terms denoting domesticated animals in some languages and wild ones in others, which I do not qualify as proofs of domestication; I am guided by the same principle re wild and domesticated cereals as well.

Why the Jews?

and early Neolithic; it is no wonder that later its “heirs,” the Egyptians and Semites, created the most advanced cultures of their time. Judging by the lexicon of Proto-Semitic, the culture of the human community that spoke it in the late 5th — early 4th mil. was also highly developed for that time both materially and intellectually — and, by various considerations, should be located in the same territory of ancient Canaan and modern Israel.191 This territory is characterized by a rarest combination of the most diverse geological, geographical and climatic conditions within a rather small area which gave the local population the unique opportunities for both hunting a large variety of highland and lowland wild hoofed mammals and domesticating the most adaptable of them; for intensive collecting wild crops, legumes, and fruits and for domesticating some of them; for fishing; for manufacturing tools and weapons; for building various types of dwelling, etc. etc. By all accounts, this territory continued to function as a sort of cultural fountainhead originating highly developed cultures that grew one into another, superseded one another, but still managed to preserve a certain succession, a certain continuity of development. Despite all local migrations, ethnic mixtures and changes of language for many millennia affecting the bulk of the area’s population involved in creating and accumulating cultural skills, generations mainly succeeded each other in an un-interrupted manner. It seems likely that the Jews happened by lucky chance to live in that “cultural garden” and to become cultural (and — at least partially — genetic?) “heirs apparent” to the Afrasian Natufians, and later to the proto-Semites.192 They have also inconceivably survived in this capacity throughout history.

The Random Factor: Etymopoesis As I said, I don’t believe that the Jewish phenomenon can be explained by a mere conjunction of random factors, though an element of randomness appears quite probable. I will attempt here to illustrate 191

192

One of them being a composition of animal names list reconstructed for common Semitic (see SED II and Appendix 2, pp. 225–6). A great variety of environmental Proto-Semitic terms also, rather than not, point to this area. In view of the fact that all other Afrasian-speaking and nearly all other Semiticspeaking communities gradually migrated from this presumably original habitat to Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia and Africa. 147

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one such random factor using the example of etymopoesis (or “popular etymology”). As regards the Bible, this phenomenon can be described as an effort on the part of the author(s) or editor(s) to reveal sacred meaning hidden beneath similar sounding words (this similarity is, as a rule, purely accidental, involving complete or partial homonymy) by explaining it using a mythical etymology devised specially for the occasion (for more detail, see pp. 81–82). One of relevant examples is the phonetic similarity between the terms for such significant notions of the Jewish world as “exile, banishment” (glt) in the meaning “Jewish Diaspora” and geula “redemption” (gəʔull) — see above. The former noun derives from the verb gl (root: gly), the latter from the verb gʔal (root: gʔl). It was Semitic consonantal roots conveying generalized meanings, rather than concrete words that presented perfect material for etymopoesis. The difference between gly and gʔl, as regards their consonantal composition, is insignificant: in Hebrew as in all Semitic languages, y and ʔ often correspond to one another in different related variants of the same root. In this concrete case, however, the roots are not related; they are partial homonyms sounding alike by sheer coincidence. Cf. the two distinct etymologies: 1. Common Semitic *gly “to exile, be deported, shifted”: Hebrew gly “to go into exile” (glt “exile; exiles”); Aramaic: Syriac gly id. (glt “captivity, exile,”gl–l “captive, exile”), Mandaic gla id.; Arabic ly id. (al “exile, emigration,” liyat- “banishment, captivity far from one’s motherland; contribution”193); Ethiopian: Geez ta-galgala (stem reduplicated) “to go into captivity, be taken into exile,” Tigrai gll “to move away from a place”, Amharic glggl “to separate two people who are coming to blows”; Akkadian galu^ “to be deported, banished” (considered an Aramaic loanword); Jibbali egoʹli “to shift (animals) from one place to another,” guʹtli “to shift (from a place), change (a religion)”. 2. Hebrew gʔl “to redeem, buy back, recover, reclaim as one’s own,” the original meaning most likely having been “to return” — cf. Arabic ʔl “to circle; to go away and then return”; both possibly derived from common Semitic and Afrasian biconsonantal root *gl “to be round, go around, etc.”

193

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While ʔal-lt- “captivity of the Jews” must be a borrowing of Hebrew glt.

Why the Jews?

Of course, it is impossible to supply undoubted proof that one of the mythical explanations (most likely, that of the “redemption” — “return”) developed under the influence of the other (“exile”) owing to the chance homonymy that must have impressed the Biblical writers. It is fairly probable, however, that this was the case. Another example that bears on the etymology of the name Adam is, in my opinion, much more convincing.194 Let’s try answering the question: What are the principal components that comprise the Biblical idea of mankind? They would obviously include the sum of human beings inhabiting the created world; their common origin and the kinship between them; their common task or mission of inhabiting the earth; and, finally, the creation of Adam in God’s image and after his likeness. Let’s examine how these notions are reflected in the language, in words. (1) The name of the Man/mankind is in Hebrew ʔdm. The word has a certain collective shade of meaning; being formally used in singular, it sometimes agrees with verbs in plural and is interchangeable with plural pronouns: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man (naʕasʹ… ʔdm) in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule (wə-yird) …’ ” (Gen 1:26); “God created man... man and female he created them (br ʔtm).” (1:27) The semantics of the collective Hebrew noun ʔdm referring to mankind as a sum of humans goes back to the pre-Hebrew, Common Semitic phase. This is demonstrated by the range of meanings of this word in other Semitic languages: Phoenician ʔdm “man”; Ugaritic ʔdm “man; man (collective noun), mankind, people” (ab adm “the father of mankind”, of the god Ilu, etymologically the same name as Hebrew ʔlh–m “god” and Arabic ʔallh“Allah”); Epigraphic South Arabian: Sabaic ʔdm, ʔdwmt, ʔdym (collective noun) “vassals, subjects; servants, devotees (of a deity)” (i.e. “someone’s people”), Qatabanian ʔdm “men, people; subjects, vassals (of a king, etc.)”; Modern Arabic: Hadramawt ʔawdim “people, mankind,” Dat̲–na ʔawdim “man” (both — pluralia tantum from the unattested singular form *ʔdam-); Ethiopian: Tigre ʔaddam (coll.) “men, people” (the Tigre example does not look like an Arabism); probably Akkadian adntu (pluralis tantum) “world (as to extend and inhabitants)” contextually translated as “mankind” is < *ʔadmtu and thus related. On the basis of the above data, the noun *ʔadam- can be reconstructed that would mean in Common Semitic “a community of men” and something like “the human race.” 194

In more detail see Appendix 2, example #8. 149

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(2) The Biblical idea of mankind has one more fundamental principle: it is a single whole, being united by the fact of common origin that was confirmed twice (by God’s covenants with the “first couple,” Adam and Eve, and with Noah), in other words, by kinship. Unlike an IndoEuropean, whose idea of kinship implies blood (cf. “blood relationship,” “consanguineous,” etc.), an ancient Hebrew saw the embodiment of kinship primarily in the flesh. Thus, Judah instructs his brothers regarding Joseph (Gen 37:27): “ … and not lay our hands on him; after all he is our brother, our own flesh and blood”; we find only “our flesh” (bərn) in the Hebrew original — “blood” is added for an English reader who may not guess that “flesh” here means consanguinity. However, the idea of blood also plays a part in the concept of kinship — cf. the expression gʔl ha-ddm “revenger for one’s kin” (the King James Version: “the revenger(s) of blood,” lit. “redeemer of the blood” 2 Sa 14:11 et passim). The normal Hebrew word for “blood” is dm, though there is, perhaps, a variant form *ʔadm occurring in Dt 32:43 in the form ʔadmt “his blood” (another, more accepted translation: “his land”). Anyway, in Common Semitic we have the main form *dam(m)- and the derived form *ʔadam- which has the prefix ʔa- and is much rarer in all those Semitic languages where it occurs, both meaning “blood” and going back to Common Afrasian *dam- (Berber *i-damm-ən, plural “blood”; Egyptian dmȵ, verb related to the blood in the heart; West Chadic *dam- “blood”, etc.). (3) The idea of mankind also includes the notion of the inhabited world, the Earth. “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it”, says the Lord to Adam (Gen 1:28). He says the same to Noah and his sons. Created in Adam and Eve and renewed in Noah and his descendants, humanity is expected to settle the whole earth, to replenish it. In this context, the Hebrew word commonly used for “earth, ground” is ʔrs, though ʔadm occurs as well; e.g., “ … but streams came up from the earth (min-h-ʔrs) and watered the whole surface of the ground (kol pən h-ʔadm)” (ibid. 2:6) or “As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth (ʕal h-ʔadm) … ” (1 Sa 20:31). The term ʔadm is translated in the latest edition of “The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament” as “earth, arable ground with water and plants” with a note: “orig. the red tilled soil.” (This note reflects a tradition of etymologizing ʔadm “earth” from ʔdm “red”.) The only formal difference between ʔadm “earth” and ʔdm “man” is the feminine suffix -; furthermore, in several Biblical passages occurs the variant stem ʔdm “earth,” which fully coincides with ʔdm “man.” 150

Why the Jews?

The Biblical man (ʔdm) is also bound to the earth (ʔadm) by another, inner, bond: he is made of it. To be exact, the Maker made (yisr, lit. “modeled, shaped”) the animals out of the ground; as for man, he was formed of ʕpr min-h-ʔadm — “the dust of the ground” (Gen 2:7). A closer analysis, however, shows that Hebrew ʔadm “earth” and ʔdm “red” are homonyms — they are not related as each of them has a reliable Semitic and Afrasian etymology of its own. While the latter continues Semitic and Afrasian *ʔdm “(to be) red” (perhaps eventually related to *dam- “blood”), the latter goes back to Semitic *daym(-m)⁓ *damdam- ⁓ *ʔadam(-at)- “(the entire) earth, the earth’s surface, land” and further, with prefixed ʔa-, to Afrasian *(ʔa-)day/wm- with the same spectrum of meanings as in Proto-Semitic — a notion which includes inhabited and non-inhabited area, cultivated ground/field and uncultivated ground/desert”: Phoenician (Punic) ʔdmt “earth, country”; Aramaic: Judaic ʔadamt “earth”; Arabic ʔad–m- “earth; the entire visible space in the earth and heaven,” ʔ–dmat- “hard soil without stones; the earth’s surface”; Geez ʔadym “area, region, bordering cities, district, province, etc.”; likely also Akkadian dadm “the inhabited world (settlements and inhabitants)”; Egyptian dmy “town, quarter, abode, vicinity”; East Chadic: Mokilko doome “field”; East Cushitic: Kambatta udmaʔa “desert”, etc. A combined analysis of all these meanings leads us to the conclusion that they developed from the common meaning “earth (as locality or territory),” and not from “earth, soil (as substance).” Therefore the probability of genetic, etymological connections of the Semitic words for “earth”, including Hebrew ʔadm, with the root *ʔdm “(to be) red,” including Hebrew ʔdm “red”, is quite slim — even in spite of the fact that the soil in quite a few areas of Canaan/Palestine/Israel is reddish, indeed.195 (4) Creation of Adam in God’s image and after his likeness (Gen 5:1; 1:26). “Likeness” is rendered by Hebrew noun dəmt meaning “likeness, appearance, sample, outline, form” with the root dmy based on the same two “stable” consonants, dm, as all the terms analyzed above. It has the following parallels in other Semitic: Aramaic: Official, Palmyrian dmʔ “to be like, comparable, equal,” Old, Official dmw “conformity, singularity; statue,” Judaic dmʔ/y “to be like,” 195

Which may account for a possible “contamination” — a secondary association of the two similarly sounding words with compatible meanings — in the ancient speakers’ (and modern scholars’) heads. 151

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dəmt() “resemblance, image, esp. man’s divine image,” Syrian dəm “to be like,” dəmt “resemblance, image, form, example,” dmy “similarity, image, figure, form,” Mandaic dma “to be (a)like, resemble,” dmu, dmut(a) “likeness, archetype, kind, shape, form, portrait, picture”; Arabic ʔadm“model, example, pattern to follow” (dumyat- “figure, statue; marble; idol; pretty woman” is, perhaps, borrowed from or influenced by Aramaic); Tigre dumat “uncertain outlines of a figure or of an object” (possibly an Arabism), etc. It is possible to reconstruct a Hebrew-Aramaic (Proto-South Levantine, in our classification) verb *dmy/ʔ “to be like, resemble” and, combined with the Arabic ʔadm-, a Proto-West Semitic noun *ʔa-dVm(-Vt)- “likeness, resemblance, image, sample.” It has a fairly likely Afrasian parallel in Berber *(H)udVm- “face, appearance, figure”196 obviously akin to certain Cushitic and Omotic forms197 which gives us grounds to reconstruct Proto-Afrasian *(ʔa-)dam(-at)- “appearance, face, figure, image” to develop into “likeness, resemblance, image” in Semitic. The formal, phonetic, similarity, based on the biconsonantal root dm, between these Hebrew terms — ʔdm “mankind, man,” ʔdm “earth,” dm (with a presumed variant stem ʔadm) “blood” and dəmt “likeness” — is obvious. It is likewise obvious that the similarity of these forms could not pass unnoticed by the Jewish tradition of commentary and the European etymological tradition. Quite naturally, it was exploited by various authors many times over. Biblical texts demonstrate a close connection among all these terms as regards their associations and content, which presents ample material for surmise, especially in view of their similarity — both in form and content — to another Hebrew term ʔdm “dark red, maroon (of blood, grape juice, skin, etc.).” The variant with reduplicated stem, ʔadamdam, means “bright red, reddish.” Here are some of the popular interpretations. Blood is naturally associated with the red color and its name derives from that color (with the variant explanation of “red” deriving from “blood”); the reddish-brown color of the earth has obviously given it its name. The name Adam (“man”) derives from the word “earth/ground” because he was formed out of this substance. (The theme of man being made of clay/ground is common enough in various mythologies of the world; cf. parallels like Latin homo “man” — humus 196

197

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Ahaggar, etc. udəm “face,” Tawllemmet, etc. udəm “face, appearance, figure”, Adghaq a-damum “idol.” North Omotic: Kullo dimmo “face,” Wolane deemuwa “forehead” and East Cushitic: Hadiya, Kambatta deemma “eyebrow,” etc.

Why the Jews?

“earth.”) Another possible explanation of the name Adam is its origin from the red color; this finds proof in several analogous cases of ethnonyms being derived from the names of colors, including red (e.g., the Egyptians called themselves km.t, a name derived from km “black”). All these quite plausible interpretations of the terms in question apparently imply that their phonetic similarity is more than mere chance. However, a more serious analysis shows that quite the opposite is true. The four Hebrew words we talk about are no more than homonyms. As we have demonstrated, each of the Hebrew words in question has a sound — and entirely distinct — Semitic, and even Afrasian, etymology. This means that it is impossible for any of them to have derived from any of the remaining ones.198 Now let’s formulate our question in this manner: is it a chance coincidence that all the four words that are related as regards their content, being the constituents of the Biblical idea of “man, mankind,”199 show both phonetic likeness and semantic association? There are two possible answers to this question. Answer one: yes, the phonetic similarity between the four words in question is accidental and has nothing to do with the notions they express, and the entire situation has been overlooked or ignored by the authors/compilers/editors of corresponding Biblical texts. Anyone who studied the texts of the Hebrew Bible professionally would hardly find such an answer satisfactory, given the special attention paid by the Biblical authors (and by native speakers of Semitic tongues at large) to likenesses among different roots and word play. Answer two: the situation is not accidental. This leaves us two possible explanations. The first one is that we deal with a semantic shift that, due to the development of meaning, resulted in deriving one of our three words (leaving dəmt “likeness” apart) from another (for instance, according to the possibility we have already discussed, the name ʔdm “Adam, man,” derives from ʔadm “earth,” while the latter in its turn develops from the words “red”/”blood”). However, such an explanation is at variance with the already established fact that the three words are mere homonyms that 198

199

Speaking of “blood,” it is possible for the word to be related to the verb “to be red” at the pre-Proto-Afrasian stage, but this matters little to us here. Two of them, “man” and “earth,” are directly compared in the texts, with “blood” as a qualifying item of kinship presenting a logical addition; the forth, dəmt, features one of the (if not the) most significant and distinctive characteristics, from the viewpoint of the Biblical author(s), of Adam the humankind — his creation in God’s likeness. 153

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have originally and independently existed in Hebrew, being inherited from a much older stage of Semitic languages. This is where logic leads us to the only remaining explanation: the entire idea whose constituents were the notions expressed by all the terms in question was brought forth by a chance phonetic similarity, homonymy — in other words, by a situation when the four terms for such basic and allimportant notions as “man(kind),” “earth,” “blood,” and “likeness” happened to sound alike in one single language, Hebrew. But mythological consciousness has no use for randomness: the mystery of phonetic likeness had to be explained and its hidden meaning, revealed. Thus a chance word play could have given rise to the idea of humanity as shaped in the Bible, that later developed into one of the most fundamental ideological constructs of civilization.

A CHAIN OF RANDOM EVENTS OR A PATTERN OF HISTORICAL BEHAVIOR? Still, the question remains: was it by chance that the ancient Jews made such a substantial contribution to the development of the most dynamic of the future civilizations. Was that fact an isolated case in the Jewish history? The principal argument that is normally adduced is that all these Hebrew ideas spread all over the world and gained considerable influence, primarily through Christianity. Does it not imply that — having brought forth all these principles (or, more exactly, their “germs”), having induced the birth of such global universalistic religions as Christianity and Islam and having made its invaluable contribution to human history — the Hebrew culture “shut itself off,” becoming an isolated local culture that, like many others of this kind, has very little influence on further development of the universal civilization? In an attempt to answer this question, we intend to make a brief overview of the entire phenomenon of Jewish history with the goal of revealing more unusual features and qualities that might bear on the discussed Jewish contribution to human history. The most obvious of these qualities is that the Jews are nearly the absolute winners in the game of historical life longevity in combination with a considerable contribution to universal human culture. They are 154

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

have originally and independently existed in Hebrew, being inherited from a much older stage of Semitic languages. This is where logic leads us to the only remaining explanation: the entire idea whose constituents were the notions expressed by all the terms in question was brought forth by a chance phonetic similarity, homonymy — in other words, by a situation when the four terms for such basic and allimportant notions as “man(kind),” “earth,” “blood,” and “likeness” happened to sound alike in one single language, Hebrew. But mythological consciousness has no use for randomness: the mystery of phonetic likeness had to be explained and its hidden meaning, revealed. Thus a chance word play could have given rise to the idea of humanity as shaped in the Bible, that later developed into one of the most fundamental ideological constructs of civilization.

A CHAIN OF RANDOM EVENTS OR A PATTERN OF HISTORICAL BEHAVIOR? Still, the question remains: was it by chance that the ancient Jews made such a substantial contribution to the development of the most dynamic of the future civilizations. Was that fact an isolated case in the Jewish history? The principal argument that is normally adduced is that all these Hebrew ideas spread all over the world and gained considerable influence, primarily through Christianity. Does it not imply that — having brought forth all these principles (or, more exactly, their “germs”), having induced the birth of such global universalistic religions as Christianity and Islam and having made its invaluable contribution to human history — the Hebrew culture “shut itself off,” becoming an isolated local culture that, like many others of this kind, has very little influence on further development of the universal civilization? In an attempt to answer this question, we intend to make a brief overview of the entire phenomenon of Jewish history with the goal of revealing more unusual features and qualities that might bear on the discussed Jewish contribution to human history. The most obvious of these qualities is that the Jews are nearly the absolute winners in the game of historical life longevity in combination with a considerable contribution to universal human culture. They are 154

A Chain of Random Events or a Pattern of Histor ical Behav ior?

among those few peoples that became known in antiquity and managed to survive to this day preserving their ethno-cultural identity uninterrupted. Other similar cases are very rare: the Chinese, the Indians, the Romans (who became Italians), the Greeks, and the Persians, (the last two or even three nations being included here with serious reservations), Chinese and Indians being quite the multitudinous peoples — whichever way you look at it, populating “fenced in” territories, that is it after all. Speaking of the unique Jewish experience of survival under extreme historical conditions, it would be appropriate to discuss a more general problem of what the prime mover controlling the whole vital activity of living organisms and their communities is. Answering broadly, this is obviously the striving to survive. In the case of human communities (ethnic, cultural, religious, etc.) it is suitable to suggest a certain strategy of survival, while it is not at all clear to what extent it can be instinctive, manifest on the level of “ethnic subconscious,” and to what — rational, even though it is logical to believe that the element of rationality increases in the course of the civilization process. It is quite an exciting, though more difficult, task to look for that strategy — and its possible flaws — in peoples and cultures extinct or devoid of their identity, replacing it with another one. It may be more fruitful, however, to try and establish the nature of this survival strategy in “successful” communities among whom the Jews present the most promising object of study. And indeed, is it possible to attribute the Jewish vitality and historical longevity exclusively to a mere collection of outside factors and random events? Or should we rather look for something special in the very mode of the Jewish functioning in history, some permanent or recurrent principles and techniques of behavior that would indicate a definite, steady pattern of behavior, a survival strategy, and that would make it possible to reconstruct the Jewish ethno-cultural model? Searching for the answers, we immediately face the phenomenally paradoxical Jewish behavior in history. Below, we list these main paradoxes. The extreme conservatism and attachment to the traditions goes hand in hand with a most marked trend toward innovation that can be observed starting from the Biblical epoch. Jewish ethnic isolationism and particularism (Judaism is the only one of significant religions that is inseparable from the ethnic factor) exist alongside the great role the Jews played first in creating the Biblical idea of the single human race and the one God thereof and then in contributing to the emergence of such universalistic religions as Christianity and, to a certain degree, Islam. 155

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Finally, their contribution to the civilization process of the recent epoch is also disproportionately substantial. Thus we have, on the one hand, these remarkable and contrasting features typical for Jews’ behavior through various periods of their long existence in history and, on the other, the fact of their successful survival. This leads us to the conclusion that it was these features that formed the basis for the collective survival strategy of the Jews. This hypothesis finds proof in many other facts. If we take it as a basis for our argumentation, then Jewish ethnocentrism, traditionalism and particularism may be defined as centripetal trends, and universalism and innovation as centrifugal trends; the entire pattern of Jewish historical behavior can then be conventionally described as some kind of dynamic equilibrium of centrifugal and centripetal forces. A curious fact: about 80 years ago, some of these terms were used by the famous historian of Jewry, Shimon Dubnov, who wrote: “During various epochs, in certain sections of the Jewish society the centrifugal force was beginning, under the influence of universal cultural movements, to prevail over the centripetal force; the attraction of the periphery toward universal human culture over the attraction toward the original national culture. This was the case in Palestine, at the time of Phoenician and then AssyroBabylonian cultural domination, in the whole Western Asia and Egypt under the domination of Graeco-Roman culture, in the epoch of Arabic Renaissance in the East and in Spain. After several centuries of extreme isolation, the Jews of the West have yielded to the influence of the 18thcentury European Enlightenment and its ideology of cosmopolitism. ‘From the national to the universal!’ became the slogan of the day.”200 Having started to shape under the influence of some of the above factors, this model of behavior proved the most flexible, and therefore the optimum one for successful survival. Each of its constituents could become dominant during this or that period of Jewish history. The centripetal trend obviously prevailed in medieval times, while the centrifugal trend was, and is, dominant in the contemporary epoch; it is important to stress that the both seem equally necessary for the stable functioning of the model as a whole. The isolated ethno-religious “core” would almost inevitably have been doomed to cultural stagnation, while Jewish populations of the Diaspora would have degenerated were it not for the periodical expulsion by the 200

156

S. M. Dubnov. Новейшая история еврейского народа (Contemporary History of the Jewish People), 2nd edn.,Vol. 1, Petrograd, 1919, pp. 46f.

A Chain of Random Events or a Pattern of Histor ical Behav ior?

Jewish community of some of its members who were willy-nilly bound to spread Jewish modes of thought and standards of behavior in the world of the “Gentiles.” In this hypothetical case, survival of the Jews as an ethnic community would have been unlikely; at best they would have to be content with the role of an unimportant local culture playing no part in the development of the mainstream civilization — a sort of a billiard ball stuck in the pocket or, as Ephraim Speiser, a great connoisseur of the ancient Near East and an insightful historical thinker, put it, “at best only a footnote to history.”201 We must make an important reservation here: the “ejection” or “expulsion” of certain members from the Jewish community can only be considered efficient from the viewpoint of the general survival strategy of the Jews if those who left the community (at least part of them) would not just dissolve in the surrounding populations, but begin to play a significant role in the cultures of the latter. (The question of “to what degree and for how many generations the assimilated Jews manage to preserve this or that form of Jewish self-identity” is of great interest, as well as to what extent the non-Jewish milieu continues to identify them as Jews.) On the other hand, excessive prevalence of the centrifugal trend and erosion of the Jewish “core” would have led to complete if gradual assimilation of the Jews among the populations dominant in this or that zone of the Diaspora. The conclusion drawn from this reasoning, no matter how paradoxical and even shocking that may sound would be as follows: both partial assimilation (involving the preservation in some form of Jewish self-identity) and complete assimilation of a part of the Jewish population (involving the preservation in some form of a Jewish mode of thought and standards of behavior even if for a limited period) are, in all likelihood, an organic constituent of the Jewish model. In other words, this is a component of the survival machinery — don’t let us forget that it also includes the accomplishing of the “mission” of the Jews — not only of the assimilated periphery but the “core” itself. As we have demonstrated more than once, notions and concepts can, on a deep level, be expressed and reflected in a language, and sometimes can be even shaped by it. In the biblical language, the interaction of centrifugal and centripetal forces constituting the Jewish model is paralleled by and, in a sense, corresponds to the opposition of two main terms meaning “people” — ʕam and gy. 201

E. Speiser. Oriental and Biblical Studies. Philadelphia, 1967, p. 170. 157

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Hebrew ʕam “people” in reference to the people of Israel occurs in the Bible hundreds of times, and dozens of times, in reference to other peoples, non-Jews. This word is well attested in other Semitic languages — Phoenician, Aramaic, Sabaic, Arabic — continuing Proto-West Semitic *ʕamm- “people; gathering, multitude of people; general populace, common people”. The Hebrew ʕam “people” entirely coincides phonetically with ʕam “(paternal) relationship, clan, kin” going back to Proto-Semitic *ʕamm- “paternal uncle, male agnate; ancestor.” This coincidence is hardly accidental — the semantics “people” most likely evolved from the latter meanings. Even if these two terms had been not generically akin homonyms, the very fact of their complete if accidental similarity could not but affect the notion of ʕam “people” giving it certain overtones stemming from the meanings “uncle, kin, ancestor.” Hebrew gy “people, nation” (Post-Biblical gayyt̲ “gentile status”),202 on the contrary, occurs in the Bible hundreds of times in reference to nonJews, and dozens of times in reference to the people of Israel. The only parallel usually quoted is from Epigraphic South Arabian, but, in fact, there are enough (Phoenician gw “community”; Aramaic: Syrian gaww “community; monks’ communal dwelling,” Mandaic giuiata “congregation, company of people”; Sabaic gw-m, gwy “community group”; Arabic wyin- “encampment; military tent camp”; Ethiopian: Geez ge “territory,” Amharic, Argobba ge “country, town,” Harari g “the city of Harar, city”, etc.) to be traced to Proto-West Semitic *gaw(V)y- “community group sharing a common territory”. We may assume then that the original (etymological) meaning of Hebrew gy was close to the Proto-West Semitic one, i.e. “people, population sharing a common territory (community not based on consanguineous connections).” Let us see whether such a meaning is confirmed by extra-linguistic evidence. That is what Speiser says about the difference between these terms: … against the slender minority of passages that do correlate ʕm (mistakenly for ʕam — A.M.) with gy, the overwhelming majority indicate a clear and manifold distinction between the two nouns … when Israel is spoken of as God’s people, the forms employed are ʕamm–, ʕammək̲, or ʕamm, but never gy with possesive suffix. In fact, ʕm is found hundreds of times with pronominal endings, as against only seven with gy, each in connection with land.203 202

203

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It is with this semantics that the term goy meaning “a non-Jewish person, a Gentile” passed into many languages. Ibid. 162.

A Chain of Random Events or a Pattern of Histor ical Behav ior?

Asserting that “One begins to see now that the rendering “people” and “nation” are not one-to-one correlatives of ʕm and gy,” he again stresses “the affinity of gy to land”204 and “kinship connotation of ʕm” and concludes: ʕm was essentially a term denoting close family connections, and hence secondarily the extended family, that is, people in the sense of a larger, but fundamentally consanguineous, body … In contrast, there is not the least hint of personal ties under the concept of gy. The noun labels large conglomerates held together, so to speak, from without rather than from within.205

Speiser’s interpretation is confirmed in later studies: The individual Israelite may not have had his clan foremost in his mind; yet it is through his clan that he found his social, juridical, and religious identity. Certainly in the early period the nation did not play that role. The people with whom the individual identified himself were not his compatriots; his people (ʕƒm) were primarily the members of his clan.206

The usage in the Bible of the two terms discussed has a fairly conceptual character. That is how Speiser describes it: It thus becomes clear that where the Bible juxtaposes ʕm and gy, it does so deliberately and for purposes of subtle distinction … The main difference lies in the suggestion of blood ties … On the other hand, gy comes rather close to the modern definition of “nation”. In any case, the gap between Hebrew ʕm and gy is greater than that between our “people” and “nation”.207

Further on, comparing the Hebrew society with the Mesopotamian one, Speiser comments: … in Mesopotamian society man was fitted into a pattern that differed sharply from the biblical, and with it from other West-Semitic groups. The main emphasis in Mesopotamia rested on the political unit and its 204 205 206

207

Ibid., footnote 6. Ibid. 163. K. van der Toorn. Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel. Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life. Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East. Vol. VII. Leiden-New York-Köln, 1996, 203. Further quoted as Toorn. Speiser 164–5. 159

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administrative subdivisions. The overriding factor had come to be the state,208 regardless of ethnic composition, indeed a structure composed of diverse ethnic elements. The family played a part, inevitably, but its autonomy was severely restricted by political and economic considerations. Though blood was thicker than water, bread and taxes rated still higher. That is why adoption, which tends to loosen blood ties, became such a prominent factor in Mesopotamian society; contrariwise, the institution of the levirate, which stands guard over blood relationship, never took hold in Mesopotamia proper. And the ultimate component of the Mesopotamian community was the citizen rather than individual as such.209

In the light of the above evidence, Speiser poses a question “whether Israel was an ʕm or a gy” and his answer is “Israel was both”. This conclusion “yields further significant disclosures”:210 According to the biblical record, the history of ancient Israel begins with Abraham’s migration from Mesopotamia … we are concerned with the wording of the call that led to the migration. It contains the promise … (Gen 12:2) “I will make you into a great nation.” The term in question is gy, not ʕm; and rightly so. For Abraham was an ʕm to begin with, in the primary sense of the word, so long as he had a nephew named Lot. There is nothing casual or accidental about this phraseology. It is consistent, invariable, and exclusive. The reason … behind the patriarch’s departure from Mesopotamia and the Israelites’ liberation from Egypt was that Israel might be a nation. The ʕm had been in Egypt for centuries anyway, where its numbers are stated to have become very large (Ex 1:9). Yet we are told also on many occasions … that, in terms of God’s own connection with the people, Israel was his ʕm. It was chosen and treated as such. But to carry out God’s purpose, as that purpose is expressed by the Bible as a whole, the ʕm was not enough; what was needed was the added status and stability of nationhood in a land specifically designated for that purpose. 208

209 210

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That in recent years, first and foremost with the progress in Mari studies, the picture has turned out to be more complicated can be well seen from Daniel E. Fleming’s Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors (Cambridge, 2004). As Fleming puts it: Syria-Mesopotamia offers us the particular gift of some of the earliest known writings … This writing shows us a complex interaction of many different social and political players, including large entities ruled by kings, alliances that acted as a single polity, tribal groups of varying scale and character, and the unit centered at a single settled site called the “town”. (p. XII) Speiser 166–7. Ibid. 169.

A Chain of Random Events or a Pattern of Histor ical Behav ior?

With this last affirmation … we touch on one of the very roots of the biblical process. The essence of that process was the undeviating quest for a worthy way of life, “the way of Yahweh,” in the words of Gen 18:19. To be successful, that quest could not be confined to the care of an obsolescent nomadic society. It required the medium of an up-to-date civilization, a medium that could not function short of the institution of nationhood. But such an institution alone is but an empty form unless animated by the human element. As a historic process, therefore, a process that made world history, Israel can be understood only as both an ʕm and a gy. One without the other would be at best only a footnote to history.211

There is another little studied factor, viz. the supposed replenishment of the Jewish community through the joining proselytes and the return of some of the assimilated Jews or their descendants. The widespread view that proselytism is not typical for Judaism and that the numerically significant assimilation of the Jews — aside from the cases of forced conversion to Christianity and Islam — is an exclusively recent phenomenon seems to require reconsidering (see above). The process of Jewish assimilation is attested to at a sufficiently early date. It is obvious that among the population of Mesopotamia a significant part of the Israeli kingdom’s ex-inhabitants driven there by Assyrians and relocated by the Babylonians were dissolved. A certain percentage of Hellenized Jewish population of Egypt and Rome, that staked a full-fledged citizenship and economic parity above the “fathers’ faith” could not have failed to get assimilated. An obvious and substantial “drain” occurred in connection with the spread of early Christianity. However, it is not ruled out that both the introduction of Christianity and the participation, active or passive, in the emergence of Islam six centuries later are in some way related to the Jewish survival “strategy.” (We put the term in quotes because it is hard to determine to what degree this pattern of behavior was pursued consciously; a “strategy” of the survival of an animal group would be perhaps a more exact analogy here; see below.) According to the parameters described earlier, which we consider fundamental, the three “Adamic,” or “Abrahamic” monotheistic religions, with all their differences, even irreconcilable ones, belong in a sense within the frame of a single cultural type distinctly opposed to all others. Differences between monotheistic and polytheistic world outlooks and ways of life are enormous. One of the main distinctions is that polytheism is religiously tolerant of heterodox polytheistic groups. The intolerance of 211

Ibid. 169–70. 161

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foreign gods shown by monotheism, the refusal of its adherents to worship them appears to have been one of the principal causes of early persecution of both Jews and Christians, especially the most zealous ones. As can be easily imagined, Roman authorities of the Imperial epoch, with their fairly earthly pragmatism, lip service to and moderate equanimity toward religious issues, saw in both Jews and Christians uncivilized and not very intelligent fanatics persistently shoving their unpalatable, boring and therefore unchallenged religious preferences — not exactly interesting for anyone and therefore uncontested — in everyone’s teeth. In other words, people who cannot enjoy life with its values and pleasures and prevent others from doing so. What they would not tolerate was the attitude of these fanatics toward authority, i.e. themselves, with its claim of sacredness. As these views were spreading wider and the influence the Jews and, later, Christians exerted on both the upper and lower classes of the Roman population increased, the authorities had to recur to severe restrictions and persecution. The troublemakers were accused, among other things, of atheism — a charge far more serious than heterodoxy in the eyes of common citizens still living within the framework of traditional values. Rome of the early 1st millennium C.E. indeed had many items of value. Even with all the atrocities of ancient — and Roman with all its notorious corruption — history, this was the island of safety, law, order, hygiene and the quite rare for that time relative well-being of citizens212 in the roaring ocean of barbarism. So it was not accidental that the main zone of the ancient Jewish Diaspora was in the Empire: of all the lands inhabited by Gentiles, Rome offered the best chance of survival and even success. However, the roaring breakers of the barbarian sea were already beginning to assail the yet unassailable shores of the great isle, and the more keen of hearing already heard the growing boom of the subterranean faults fraught with an imminent earthquake. Less than a couple of dozens generations will pass, and the urbs aeterna will fall. It is rather fruitless to speculate about what would have happened if, shortly after the fall of the Empire, the ocumene had not divided into the Christian (even two main and several minor) and Muslim spheres, leaving the place to the polytheistic heathendom it was before. History cannot be analyzed after the manner of a game of chess or a musical play — perhaps because it has not been played to the end yet, and, hopefully, never will be. 212

162

Even the slaves here had a somewhat better life than outside the Empire; however cruel the rules of the game were, they were proclaimed, well-known and normally observed.

The Jews and the Strategy of the Species’ Sur v ival

We can still assume that the Jews would have much slimmer chances of survival in that hypothetical world. Despite all the continual persecution of the Jews in Christendom and the Islamic world, despite all the oppression and humiliation inflicted on them by their “brothers in monotheism,” the destruction of the Jews as such was seldom viewed by Christian and Muslim authorities, either spiritual or secular, as something pleasing to God, or rightful. To both Christians and Muslims (of course, we speak here of the inflamed “spiritual” psyche rather than the common everyday attitude), the Jews were a sacred if “improper” people, a witness to and participant of the sacred history provoking a strange mixture of hatred, contempt and awe. This people can be subjected to persecution, extreme extortion, forced conversion and other forms of oppression, but no one can just erase them from the face of the earth. You “cannot” do it both because you are not allowed to and because it is impossible to achieve. The attitude of Christianity to the Jews, as formulated by Augustine, has also played its part in this: the pitiful life to which the Jews are reduced proves the rightness of Christianity, because God has turned away from the Jews — ergo, this proof has to be preserved. According to Muslims, the Jews, even though not the adherents of the “true faith,” still worship the same one God; they are yet ʔahl-ul-kitb, the people of the Book. The ardent Jews, with their intolerance of beliefs other than their own, their claim to the status of a chosen people, their values system that was fairly unusual for heathens, would have hardly found similar safeguards in a polytheistic world not bolted by the Roman state. Does it mean that, to the great delight of those who like to talk about a universal Jewish conspiracy, we are stating that the Jews created Christianity and were conducive to the inception of Islam in order to pave the way for their own survival?

THE JEWS AND THE STRATEGY OF THE SPECIES’ SURVIVAL We are coming to a matter still more controversial and hypothetical than anything discussed earlier. As we have already pointed out, it can be assumed that the main stimulus determining the functioning of any living being or a community of living beings is the striving to survive (though there must be certain exceptions open to discussion, e.g., suicide). In the course of history, 163

The Jews and the Strategy of the Species’ Sur v ival

We can still assume that the Jews would have much slimmer chances of survival in that hypothetical world. Despite all the continual persecution of the Jews in Christendom and the Islamic world, despite all the oppression and humiliation inflicted on them by their “brothers in monotheism,” the destruction of the Jews as such was seldom viewed by Christian and Muslim authorities, either spiritual or secular, as something pleasing to God, or rightful. To both Christians and Muslims (of course, we speak here of the inflamed “spiritual” psyche rather than the common everyday attitude), the Jews were a sacred if “improper” people, a witness to and participant of the sacred history provoking a strange mixture of hatred, contempt and awe. This people can be subjected to persecution, extreme extortion, forced conversion and other forms of oppression, but no one can just erase them from the face of the earth. You “cannot” do it both because you are not allowed to and because it is impossible to achieve. The attitude of Christianity to the Jews, as formulated by Augustine, has also played its part in this: the pitiful life to which the Jews are reduced proves the rightness of Christianity, because God has turned away from the Jews — ergo, this proof has to be preserved. According to Muslims, the Jews, even though not the adherents of the “true faith,” still worship the same one God; they are yet ʔahl-ul-kitb, the people of the Book. The ardent Jews, with their intolerance of beliefs other than their own, their claim to the status of a chosen people, their values system that was fairly unusual for heathens, would have hardly found similar safeguards in a polytheistic world not bolted by the Roman state. Does it mean that, to the great delight of those who like to talk about a universal Jewish conspiracy, we are stating that the Jews created Christianity and were conducive to the inception of Islam in order to pave the way for their own survival?

THE JEWS AND THE STRATEGY OF THE SPECIES’ SURVIVAL We are coming to a matter still more controversial and hypothetical than anything discussed earlier. As we have already pointed out, it can be assumed that the main stimulus determining the functioning of any living being or a community of living beings is the striving to survive (though there must be certain exceptions open to discussion, e.g., suicide). In the course of history, 163

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the human way of surviving has become increasingly intentional, an object of reflection, a part of culture. It was transforming into a survival strategy. This strategy manifests itself in what might be called axiological activity, involving the search for various values, their selection and elaboration, as well as the construction of complete system of values, i.e., axiology. Any human society, any culture has a values system, an axiology of its own. No matter how grotesque, fantastical, or irrational (from the standpoint of the modern Western observer) are the forms this axiology sometimes assumes — myth, magic, ritual — it always reflects and expresses this or that survival strategy. The latter, naturally, is based on practical experience and knowledge of the real world. Cognition, in the form of any accumulation of experience and its interpretation, is the tool of axiology; its function in regard to axiology is instrumental. The axiological source of the new anthropocentric, humanistic civilization is to a great extent to be found in the Bible, in the opening chapters of Genesis. The tree of knowledge of good and evil (not just the tree of knowledge!) can be interpreted as the allegory of axiology, not only of knowledge as such. Is it possible that the words “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:22) should be understood so: after eating of the tree, humans have got such an idea of good and evil (= system of values) as enables them to develop the only true strategy of the species’ survival, and even become immortal (“live forever”) after taking “also from the tree of life” (ibid.)? What is the essence of this strategy of survival of man as a species, then? The prominent Russian geneticist Vladimir Efroimson213 put forward 213

164

This is one of the “great Russian (or Russian-Jewish) lives” of the 20th century and as such deserves to be shortly presented here (see Wikipedia). V.P. Efroimson (1908– 1989) is one of the most prominent Russian geneticists, a former student of Nikolai Koltsov, who was among the geneticists that had to struggle against the persecution of genetics in the Soviet Union. In 1929 Efroimson was expelled from Moscow State University for his speach in defense of Serghei Chetverikov, the founder of population genetics. In 1932 he published six scientific works and discovered the formula of mutation rate in humans and in the same year was arrested for his participation in the “Free Philosophic Society.” In 1935 he was freed and soon made important discoveries in the silkworm genetics at the Trans-Caucasian Institute for Silkworm Growing. In 1937 he was expunged from the institute under the pretext of inefficiency of his works, the pure-bred lines of silkworms he had bred were killed and his book “Genetics of Silkworm” published by the USSR Academy of Sciences was destroyed. During World War II Efroimson fought in the army from August 1942 through November 1945 and was awarded military decorations. In February 1945 he reported to the Military Council of his Army about unacceptable excesses against

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the following concept of the evolution of the genus Homo sapiens (his article Родословная альтруизма [The Genealogy of Altruism] was first published in the Novy Mir magazine in 1971 — four years before E. O. Wilson’s Sociobiology popularizing similar ideas of this new and promising if controversial scientific discipline). Efroimson criticizes the widespread view about the inborn human egoism, which allegedly follows from the Darwinian theory of natural selection, the idea that everyone incapable of self-preservation ought to die out, making way for those who survive sticking at nothing, using all available means to destroy all foes and competitors. He refers to the Scottish anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith who stated that conditions provoking war — the division German civilians including the mass rape of German women. In 1946–1948 he worked for Kharkov State University wherein he obtained his “Doktor Nauk” (Doctor of Sciences) degree. In August 1948, after the infamous session at the Academy of Agricultural Sciences which finally destroyed scientific genetics Efroimson was stripped of his degree. In 1948 Efroimson wrote his report “On the Criminal Activities by Trofim Lysenko” with an elaborate analysis of the activities by that influential and sinister, pseudo-scientific figure. In 1949 Efroimson was sentenced for his “Libel against the Red Army” to seven years in Gulag. The formal reason for his arrest was his February 1945 report about the violence against German civilians although the real reason was probably his criticism of Lysenko. In 1956 after being freed from the camps he wrote reports to the Prosecutor General of the USSR “On the undermining of agriculture in the Soviet Union and the international authority of Soviet science” and “On the losses caused by pseudo-innovations in agricultural biology.” In 1956–1961 he worked as a librarian in the Library of Foreign Literature, Moscow; since 1961 he worked for the Mechnikov Institute of Vaccines and Serums. In 1962 his doctoral degree was returned to him. In 1965 he received a prestigious Mendel medal. In 1968 Efroimson became the head of the Genetics Department of Moscow Institute for Psychiatry. In 1976–1989 he was a consultant for the Institute of Developmental Biology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The main works of Efroimson were devoted to the broader area of genetics including: the effects of ionizing radiation, mechanism of carcinogenesis and radiation sickness, mechanism of immunity genetics, genetics of human pathologies, etc. He wrote the first Russian monograph on genetics, “The Introduction to Medical Genetics” (1964) — the book that triggered the revival of human genetics in the Soviet Union. He was the author of three monographs and over 100 scientific papers and the editor of many books on different issues of genetics. The last years he worked on the genetics of social behavior. With onset of Perestroyka, his results in all these areas were posthumously published in three books: “Geniality and Genetics,” “Pedagogical Genetics” (2003) and “Genetics of Ethics and Aesthetics” (1995). He is the author of many philosophical works including his “Origin of Altruism” (1971). Efroimson entered the annals of Russian science as an outstanding researcher, but also as an unblinking fighter for the truth, an uncompromising opponent of antiscientific directions in biology, an ardent advocate of genetics and the moral standard of a true scientist. 165

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of animals into social groups, the “right” of each group to its own territory, the development of the enmity complex aimed at defending those plots of land — had emerged on the earth long before man made his appearance. According to Keith, man has an inalienable, genetically programmed, passion for domination, property, weapons, killing and wars. Efroimson considers this reasoning only partially true and writes that it implies that “all ethical principles in man are generated by upbringing, faith and conviction; those are features that have to be acquired entirely anew by each individual in the course of his personal development under the influence of environment, in other words, [they are] not inborn. On the other hand, outbursts of mass violence are more than the mere result of the cultivation of cruelty; they are a reversion to animal instincts, to primeval, beastly properties that were being suppressed for ages, being nonetheless entirely natural.” Attacking these views, Efroimson demonstrates that “the enormous if contradictory potentials to do good, which are being constantly revealed in man, also have genetic nature; they are embedded in the genes owing to special biological factors that played an important part in the machinery of natural selection and in the process of evolution of our ancestors.” The author points out elements of altruism in animal behavior (care for the young, instances of mutual help among members of the same group/pack and so on), affirming that the gradual growth of altruistic principle, social behavior turned out to be the conditio sine qua non for the survival of the “unarmed bipedal ancestors of man who descended from the safe trees to the ground swarming with powerful predators” and the means of that survival during their further evolution. Efroimson quotes the following passage from “The Ethics” by P. Kropotkin: It is natural that, from among the very large number of hominid species with which man competed for survival, survived the one that possessed better developed feeling of mutual support, the one in which the preservation of the group prevailed over the preservation of an individual that could at times endanger the clan or the tribe.

Getting back to the Foundation of Ethics section in the Chapter “Universal Values” and Their Biblical Roots, in actual fact, I won’t be surprised, if science establishes that it is precisely the flippant-minded young with their fun who are the closest to the truth. It may very well turn out that good feelings and deeds, love for the near and distant ones, satisfaction induced by the duty fulfilled raise both the tone and immunity, serve as anti-depressants, strengthen the endocrine system, lower the level of toxic substances in the 166

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blood-stream, etc. Moreover, my colleague, a Moscow anthropologist, told me that a comparative medical examination of two groups of people had been undertaken in California not long ago — those with liberal, democratic views and those with pro-fascist, totalitarian ones — and the first group registered a much higher immunity level as a whole. If all of this does not happen to be wishful thinking, then one can suggest — following in Efroimson’s steps — the following process: at the dawn of the history of the human species, inside those enclaves of humanity that were successful in groping around for reliable survival strategy, based on consolidating feeling of mutual support, “altruism” — individuals endowed with these qualities proved the best survivors, and the ensuing generations produced an increased incidence of these qualities, i.e. they got consolidated on the genetic level. The organism also gradually adapted to the changes in question on the physiological level as well: in the better accommodated individuals the biochemical processes would progress not entirely as they did in the less accommodated ones; the correlation among behavior, genetic characteristics and psycho-physical condition of an individual was reinforced from generation to generation. Yet, a perilous question arises at this juncture. By a theory dominant in today’s genetics, all modern humans directly descended from two persons, although they lived thousands of years apart (most likely in East Africa). One is the so-called “mitochondrial Eve” who is our matrilineal most recent common ancestor generally estimated to have lived around two hundred thousand years ago. The other is “Y-chromosomal Adam,” the patrilineal most recent common ancestor for all living men roughly estimated to have lived less than one hundred thousand years ago.214 To the best of my understanding the following picture is implied. Two hundred thousand years ago of all the female segment of the entire human population existent at that moment only “Eve”’s progeny survived and a hundred years later — only “Adam”’s posterity out of its entire male segment. The descendants of these two cross-bred “great families” that migrated, as is suggested, out of Africa to Eastern Mediterranean area around 40–60,000 years ago settled consequently in an exodus out of that area all over the planet.215 The question of whether the results of adaptation 214 215

See Wikipedia, Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam. A competing modern theory, known as the Multiregional evolution hypothesis holds that the evolution of humanity from the beginning of the Pleistocene 2.5 million years BP to the present day has been within a single, continuous human species, evolving worldwide to modern Homo sapiens, in other words, that modern human 167

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and correlative processes dealt with here had enough of a chance and time to spring root and consolidate in the human kinds before the separation of the original community, ergo go to characterize the entire species Homo Sapiens Sapiens or consolidated their hold after it, ergo they characterize only a part of human populations; yet a third possibility seems to be: these processes never abated and go on to the present day and their results get unevenly distributed among the populations and even among separate individuals. The first version of an answer that would suit everyone as entirely kosher means that all the groups of human population gone before their separation through the stage of “altruization” and its consolidation on the genetic and psycho-physical level are equal from the point of view of genetic and psycho-physical predilection for the pattern of behavior that we consider moral; the third, less “politically correct” version would mean that different groups may be prone to such behavior to a different degree, but the situation is dynamic and open for amelioration. The worst of the three would be the second version of the answer which suggests that some groups are prone to this behavioral pattern rather more, others — rather less, the third — are not at all, but most importantly — that is not wont to change, for the process of consolidation is complete. From the above, an even more unsavory question stems — the one about whether some groups had ever been able to survive due to the strategy of mutual assistance, peaceful co-existence with the neighbors, curbing rapacious instincts, and others — conversely — by way of aggression, violence, etc., that, too, was to sink fast in the genes and the organism as a whole. In this case the situation is, certainly, not hopeless either, though hampered. Let us recall that genetics estimates the contribution of genes in shaping the personality traits on the level of 40%. If that is, indeed, so — then the “amelioration of morals” in groups and separate individuals genetically and psycho-physically not inclined to “moral” behavior or prone to “immoral”216 one will require much more strenuous efforts of humankind. The “genealogy” of altruism attests to its growth starting with smaller human units (families, clans) and then embracing increasingly larger groups:

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populations evolved in situ in various regions (e.g. Neandertals to Europeans in Europe, Homo Erectus to East Asians in Asia, Sumatran erectines to Indigeonous Australians in Australia). See Wikipedia, Multiregional evolution hypothesis. I am putting these terms in inverted commas, anticipating the objection that the notion of what is good and what is bad varies from society to society, from culture to culture, but I hope that the grounds for these notions are still common.

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tribes, nations, religious or state unions and, finally, mankind. The mainstream development of civilization of this planet seems to be hopefully heading in that direction; it is this process that shows an anti-entropy tendency opposing anti-universalistic, particularistic trends. Survival and further prosperity of man as a species depends, in all likelihood, on the ability of different states, religious confessions, vastly differing cultures and great and small peoples inhabiting the Earth to reach an agreement and create such a unity in diversity under which mankind, in pursuit of common interests and goals, would be able to safeguard the rights of both any non-criminal group or human community and any individual. The historical phenomenon of the Jews fits in this somewhat simplified picture with amazing snugness. The unusually great attention focused on the idea of a single human race, the universalism and innovative activity in combination with the rarely found, lasting for ages, adherence to their ethno-cultural identity as well as other above-mentioned features, not to mention the very fact of their living in the Diaspora,217 seem to indicate that the Jews turned out to be that “pioneer group” of the genus Homo sapiens which at a certain point undertook the task of developing one of the strategies of the species’ survival — a strategy that, after negotiating the complicated paths of history, became a prevalent one, being adopted by many other human groups, perhaps even by the majority of mankind. Why it had to be a small tribe occupying a quite unremarkable niche in the ancient world by mid 1st millennium B.C.E. (rather than one of the peoples who created the great civilizations and empires of antiquity, like Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians or Persians) that came forward with this universalistic axiology, is not quite clear. In this connection, speaking of the old “Athens and Jerusalem” argument — i.e., is the Hellenic or Hebrew constituent more important for modern Western civilization — I make so bold as to affirm that the Greek contribution to this civilization, from the Classical through the Late Hellenistic period, while having played an extremely important part in the evolution of cognition, including its such advanced forms as philosophy, science, arts, and aesthetics, is still much less significant than the Hebrew, Biblical component as regards its contribution to the system of basic values, ethics. 217

As I’ve tried to demonstrate elsewhere, not only a forced living in the Diaspora, but rather a deeply rooted “Diaspora mentality,” the perception of it as an inalienable and inevitable part of their historical “mission.” 169

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That which we refer to as the ratio between cognition and axiology as the survival strategy, could be demonstrated via human attitudes toward the supernatural. At the stage of borderline survival, man sought for patrons and protectors beyond the immediately perceived reality where he lived, among his ancestors or zoomorphic and anthropomorphic phantoms who were supposed to be more powerful than himself.218 As the human experience of surviving accumulates, the “altruistic” constituent of the species behavior — mutual help and support on larger and larger scale — is increasing and gains more importance. The necessity to survive is also gradually shaping a new survival strategy: many scattered human “packs” are merging together to form increasingly larger and better organized communities — tribes, peoples, states. This strategy has a new values system to match, including a new mythology. Family and tribal ancestors, puny tribal and local gods make way for more large-scale deities who protect larger human units. Entire pantheons of gods come into existence, and primitive magic is gradually replaced with intricate ritual systems. Finally humanity, represented by the ancient Hebrews and several Greek schools of thinking moving in parallel directions, become aware of its unity. Thus the range of “altruism” extends to embrace the whole species. A part of mankind begins to change its survival strategy. Kept intact, “crystalized” and unperturbed for ages in the canonical text of the Scriptures, universalistic ideas of the Bible gradually spread across the Hellenistic ocumene by the growing Jewish Diaspora and “Judaicized” gentiles and eventually find fertile ground for inculcation and rapid growth. The ground is that of the Roman empire, a state entity that erected itself “on the shoulders” of the ancient Greek civilization and unified under its rule numerous and vastly different ethnic and cultural communities presenting in a sense a model of one future humanity. That great formation was closer than any other to the adoption of the universalistic values system, one of whose main components is the idea of the protector, defender and authoritative guarantor of the new, the entire species axiology — the one God of all men. As mankind consolidates its position on the planet, the conditions for the survival of the species hopefully become more secure and the “altruistic”, humanistic component of the values system gains more and more weight 218

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On the hypothesis of the earliest notions of the supernatural having rooted in the reflection on death and possible postmortem existence see section Life After Death and the Biblical “Agnosticism” of Chapter “Universal Values” and Their Biblical Roots above.

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while concurrently scaling back the need for the supernatural patronizing, interceding force and accordingly — the necessity to believe in it. If some of the groups in the vanguard of the anthropocentric civilization keep religious beliefs, their faith will less and less feed on the fear of reality and the subconscious feeling of species weakness and helplessness;219 it will have different — more and more personal, creative, freely chosen — motivations.220

A CHANCE CONGRUENCE OF FACTORS OR A DESIGN OF MOTHER NATURE? Let’s now attempt to arrange the hypotheses, explanations and historical facts we discussed earlier in a sort of sequence, going on the assumption that the hypothesis concerning the non-accidental nature of Jewish historical experience is true. Is there some inner logic underlying not only individual links of this metaphorical chain but the chain as a whole? In other words, is there a chain? The starting point: at a certain stage of evolution, a new kind of living creature emerges: Homo sapiens sapiens. Judging by what is known of the general direction taken by evolution from simpler to more complex forms, it is possible to advance a cautious guess that nature (or, in religious terms, the Maker)221 has intended the species in question to dominate the Earth — maybe 219

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Of course, another overpowering and insurmountable motivation of religious belief will persist — the only natural fear of death. If our reasoning is not groundless, then there is hope that today, when we observe two trends — (a) the decline of religious consciousness in general and of the attraction of Jewish religious tradition in particular and (b) the growth of individualistic values — it is the realization (such realization, as it seems, is at variance with neither religious nor humanistic values) of the Jews’ role (“mission”) in the “world improvement” (tikkun olam) process that will perhaps become the basis for a rebirth of Jewish selfawareness and even for a rapprochement between different ideologies within the Jewry. In this context, the difference between God and nature is irrelevant. If there exists an ultimate intelligent power, it acts only through “nature”, i.e., the all-embracing system of laws created by said power. Acting differently — for instance, breaking the laws of nature by, say, working miracles — God would have violated the principle of freedom of human will (which he himself introduced; who else?), forcing man into faith and obedience through irrefutable evidence of his existence. (The Russian religious philosophy of the late 19th–20th centuries laid much focus on this controversial subject.) As for the controversy between religious and modern (“post-Judaism” and 171

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while concurrently scaling back the need for the supernatural patronizing, interceding force and accordingly — the necessity to believe in it. If some of the groups in the vanguard of the anthropocentric civilization keep religious beliefs, their faith will less and less feed on the fear of reality and the subconscious feeling of species weakness and helplessness;219 it will have different — more and more personal, creative, freely chosen — motivations.220

A CHANCE CONGRUENCE OF FACTORS OR A DESIGN OF MOTHER NATURE? Let’s now attempt to arrange the hypotheses, explanations and historical facts we discussed earlier in a sort of sequence, going on the assumption that the hypothesis concerning the non-accidental nature of Jewish historical experience is true. Is there some inner logic underlying not only individual links of this metaphorical chain but the chain as a whole? In other words, is there a chain? The starting point: at a certain stage of evolution, a new kind of living creature emerges: Homo sapiens sapiens. Judging by what is known of the general direction taken by evolution from simpler to more complex forms, it is possible to advance a cautious guess that nature (or, in religious terms, the Maker)221 has intended the species in question to dominate the Earth — maybe 219

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Of course, another overpowering and insurmountable motivation of religious belief will persist — the only natural fear of death. If our reasoning is not groundless, then there is hope that today, when we observe two trends — (a) the decline of religious consciousness in general and of the attraction of Jewish religious tradition in particular and (b) the growth of individualistic values — it is the realization (such realization, as it seems, is at variance with neither religious nor humanistic values) of the Jews’ role (“mission”) in the “world improvement” (tikkun olam) process that will perhaps become the basis for a rebirth of Jewish selfawareness and even for a rapprochement between different ideologies within the Jewry. In this context, the difference between God and nature is irrelevant. If there exists an ultimate intelligent power, it acts only through “nature”, i.e., the all-embracing system of laws created by said power. Acting differently — for instance, breaking the laws of nature by, say, working miracles — God would have violated the principle of freedom of human will (which he himself introduced; who else?), forcing man into faith and obedience through irrefutable evidence of his existence. (The Russian religious philosophy of the late 19th–20th centuries laid much focus on this controversial subject.) As for the controversy between religious and modern (“post-Judaism” and 171

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even not the Earth alone — as well as to achieve eventually a rational organization and preservation of the environment. Perhaps that’s why, after a long history of purely predatory exploitation of natural resources,222 mankind begins to think about environmental protection in earnest, taking practical steps in that direction. Man begins to actualize his historical purpose by spreading across the Earth in small separate groups speaking more and more divergent languages that become mutually incomprehensible. In his dire struggle for survival against other species, including ones very similar to him (like the Neanderthal man), that compete for domination in the universal contest run by Mother Nature, he is searching for an optimum strategy of survival. This strategy develops down the pathway of developing speech abilities and language structures, social consolidation, corporatism and altruism which transforms small individual groups, often in conflict with one another, into increasingly larger and more cohesive communities — the latter kind has better chances

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“post-Christian”) secular mentality in the “God or Nature” issue, it boils down to three principal points that distinguish the one from the other: personality, ideal and freedom. Unlike nature, God as represented in Judaism and Christianity is perceived by us as a person, regardless of our status as believers, agnostics or atheists. He is the embodiment of the ideal of man evolved by this historical civilization — an entity incorporating good, truth, mercy, love and fatherly justice. Lastly, he is absolutely free, “omnipotent” in his powers. It is these most important features of the divine image that give supplicants the hope that their prayers will be answered. Conversely, it would not occur to anyone to pray to what we refer to as nature, though we do ascribe to it certain actions not devoid of some consistency, inner logic and purpose. (Otherwise, how would the Teacher Science explain to us simple souls craving for his truths where did the evolution or biogenesis or the unthinkably sophisticated genome’s design come from? Perhaps they emerged “spontaneously,” but then is “spontaneous” not a synonym for nature?) Nature is impersonal, it has nothing to do with our notions of good, evil, justice and the like. Besides, its freedom and omnipotence are also restricted by the “laws of nature” the efficiency of which is proved not only by increasingly sophisticated methods of science, but also by common everyday experience. Religious mentality is expected to receive God’s miracles and retribution with equal readiness, though it might grumble or even revolt. The modern secular man expects no deliberate actions on the part of nature that are not “sanctioned” by science and which it is not able to explain. On the other hand, being on the receiving end of some nature’s inevitable foul “deed,” he has no right to complain; you can’t blame anyone for an earthquake or typhoon, except perhaps the weatherman. It is ascribed, probably not quite justly, only to our technologically advanced civilization; let’s remember though that the transformation of the Sahara into an arid desert, was caused¸ if we are to believe one of the existent explanations, by the irrational pasture cattle-grazing.

A Chance Congruence of Factors or a Design of Mother Nature?

of survival. The logical direction of this change is toward interaction, communication and, ideally, global unification. To achieve this, humans have to become aware that they constitute a single community, a single kind of living beings. Intuitively picked out and experientially reinforced ways of survival that were originally obtained through the trial and error method become implanted, according to Efroimson, both on the genetic and cultural planes. Greater success at surviving shown by this or that group manifests itself in better quality of life and faster population growth. We can judge how successful these ancient groups were largely by the current spread of their physical descendants (recent achievements of population genetics make this simpler now) and of the languages that derive from the proto-languages the groups in question once spoke. Quite naturally, we must look for cases of the more consistent development of survival strategy and the more noticeable vestiges of its success among the more advanced of the known pre-historical and ancient cultures. The speakers of Proto-Afrasian, as the likely creators of the Natufian and Post-Natufian archaeological cultures, whose descendants founded great ancient civilizations, seem to fit the bill perfectly. It is obvious that the Egyptians and the Semites were those two branches that, of all the direct linguistic descendants of the proto-Afrasians, carried on their cultural tradition. However, the Egyptian civilization, as well as most of those created by peoples speaking Semitic languages (Eblaite, Babylonian, Assyrian, Ugaritic, etc.) are long dead; they represent some of the greatest peaks of the particularistic, pre-universalistic stage in the development of mankind. The Hebrews (and the Greeks, in a way), on the contrary, introduced the universalistic stage. It is possible to understand why it was they — one of the peoples inheriting the great Common Semitic and Afrasian cultural tradition — that proved capable of such an achievement. What is less understandable is why they alone of all those “cultural heirs” did it, though searching for an answer doesn’t appear entirely hopeless. Certain facts might be worth remembering in this connection — e.g., let us remind ourselves at this juncture that both the geographical position and constant shifting around the Near East put the Jews in a position to maintain close contact with the great civilizations of the 2nd–1st millennia B.C.E. and to learn much from them, whereas the ancestors of other Semitic peoples that have survived to this day — Arabs, Ethiopians and the communities now speaking the extant languages of South Arabia — inhabited the periphery of the ancient cultural world. Speaking of the great civilizations as such, it seems that the feeling of self-sufficiency and cultural superiority typical for each of them (especially 173

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for Egypt, where these features preserved up to the latest stages of its history) prevented them from showing too much interest in foreign cultures and from perceiving themselves as part of a bigger human whole. Let’s now try to figure out what would be the course of action taken by a human community basing its historical behavior on the mythical notion of being a chosen people that has a mission — aimed at no less than the whole of mankind — to accomplish. In other words, how would a group, a part of the species that, in groping for survival has instinctively (or consciously?) made — or imagined to have made — a major breakthrough in the search for an optimum survival strategy, behave? Or, to put the question more exactly: how would nature itself “lead” that group in accordance with the vector of the evolutionary process?223 Let’s consider all possible ways of spreading and implanting this new strategy = axiology. They seem to be relatively few: — the creation of the axiology as such, its structuring, regularization, and giving it a sacred status (sacred teaching, revelation from high, canon, etc.); — the demonstration and propagation of new ideas; — the physical spreading of the propagators of these ideas with the aim of implanting them on the biggest possible territory and — by examples of their behavior or their success — attracting new followers; — the partial merging with or assimilation by other groups (“infiltration”); — the initiation of similar value systems/ axiologies adapted for other groups but preserving what the initiators think essential; — being continuously or sporadically in the focus of attention of the biggest possible number of other groups. The preservation of the “vanguard group” itself is, of course, the prerequisite, the indispensable condition of the success of the whole business. This condition is, in a sense, at variance with the mission of that group, since this historic work involves running high risk, whereas selfpreservation consciously aimed at the ultimate survival is best compatible with stability, cautious unobtrusiveness, inconspicuousness and the general “keeping oneself to oneself.” 223

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To note inter parentheses: when an animal species consolidates its position and attains a better status in the environment, this process must similarly have been started by a smaller group within the species and then extended in some way to the whole species.

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As noted above, no people but the Jews combine paradoxically in their historical behavior the two strategies: preserving the impregnable core of the nation (cf. in The Factor of Genetics section of the Chapter Why the Jews? the story of cohanim who turned out to be closely related by the Y-chromosome) and striving to accomplish their mythical (evolutionary?) mission. The latter trend is being actualized using all the methods we have just listed, and it is only to be expected that the milestones of this activity stand out as unique events and phenomena of human history. These — while not particularly numerous, it seems — include: — initiation, collection of all parts, editing and departmentalization of the Scriptures, i.e. the creation of the canon and “sacralization” of the axiology; — its “presentation” and propagation among gentiles (the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek); — the spread of the Jews via the Diaspora; — the occasional assimilation of parts (never the core!) of the community; — initiation of comparable axiologies adapted for the needs of other groups while keeping intact what the “initiating group” qualifies as the most substantive (monotheism, anthropocentrism, “adamism”, a concept of linear history, cognition as a value) — see Chapter “Universal Values” and Their Biblical Roots): setting Christianity going and a passive, perhaps, but significant role in initiating Islam; — innovative activity and sporadic vigorous involvement in various historical events and developments (a manifestation of the famous “Jewish energy”). If, starting from a certain moment in history, we apply this viewpoint to historical events that Jews were involved in making happen, they will strangely look more like a well-planned scenario rather than like an average statistically probable sequence of random episodes. The questions are: to what degree this activity started and continues as conscious on the collective and personal plane (meaning the named and nameless authors of the Biblical texts and ideas, the leaders and teachers of the people, etc.) and to what extent and when the Jews as an entire community realized their supposed historical mission? Or, resorting to a fashionable term: can we regard the most outstanding instances of their activity, both literary-ideological and socio-political, as “projects”? I rather think we can. 175

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For instance, what does the following remarkable fact testify to, if not the authors’ sophisticated logic and deep insight? The first chapter of Genesis gives us an almost exact, if simplified, picture of the emergence and evolution of the universe and the Earth as seen by modern science: (a) the creation of inanimate nature out of the “void” or “emptiness” (the famous Biblical th wa-b̲h);224 (b) the biogenesis and evolution of living forms from simpler to more and more complex, until it culminates in (c) the emergence of man. Only a thoroughly developed (for its epoch, of course) anthropocentric — and, at the same time, teleological, asserting purposeful evolution — perception could have given birth to such a logic of development, which progressed from the most distant (in relation to man) items of creation to the making of man himself as the culmination of the entire process. I see no other rational alternative to the purely religious explanation of the Biblical account of the Creation. Another example is represented by Christianity, which can also be regarded as a consciously planned project, an implementation of the ideas of a certain school and tradition. In this respect, Christianity is similar, in its historical “design” (of course, not from the point of view of their value), to such projects as, e.g., Communism or Nazism: the latter two also have a long 224

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The second verse of Bereshit, The Genesis: “wə-hʔrs hyt th wa-b̲h”, translated not quite adequately, “Now the earth was formless and empty” (Gen 1:2). The etymology of these rather obscure terms throws light on their primary meanings: 1. Hebrew th “wilderness, wasteland, desert; emptiness, nothing” (as in HALOT). The original meaning must be “desert” continuing Semitic *tVhw- “desert” related to the verb *tw/yh “to go astray, lose one’s way (in the desert), perish; be perplexed, afraid”: Ugaritic thw “steppe, desert”, Aramaic: Syrian twh “to be alarmed, startled”, Arabic t–h- “wilderness”, twh “to get lost (crossing the desert), wander about; be perplexed”, tyh “to wander about, get lost”; Ethiopian: Geez tayyhi “fearful, terrified”, Tigre twh “to wander about”. This common Semitic term, in its turn, continues Afrasian *thw/y “to lose one’s way, be lost, perish”: Egyptian thy “to go astray, transgress, trespass, err”; West Chadic: Hausa tawai, tawaiwai ‘being at a loss, perplexed (e.g. which road at a fork to follow)”, Bolewa twu “to stray from road” and East Cushitic: Dirasha taw-ad- “to get lost, perish”, etc. 2. Hebrew bh “emptiness, wasteness.” This somewhat abstract meaning goes back to Semitic *bahw- “cavity, void, gap” inherited by Arabic bahw- “chest or abdomen cavity”, bh-in “hollow, void”, etc. and Ethiopian: Tigrai bəhahu “fully open, ajar, gaping” continuing Afrasian *bahw- “pit, cavity, hole” yielding East Cushitic: Oromo boww “cliff, abyss, canyon, deep natural rift, gulley,” Darasa bwoʔaˋ “precipice, chasm, abyss” and South Cushitic *boho- “pit, hole.” A more exact translation of the verse based on etymological considerations would be: “And the earth was (a) desert and void.” The rendering of th as “formless” seems groundless.

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history of ideas behind them, as well as the apparent conscious will of those figures who put these ideas — when ripe and in demand — into practice. With certain reservations, this similarity might be extended to a number of historical events, like the conquests of Alexander the Great,225 Napoleon,226 etc. The propagation of the new principles, the adoption of the new strategy by a sufficiently large part of mankind requires certain historical conditions that were initially absent. So they begin to take shape. Novel ideas are not in demand in the world of mid-1st mil. B.C.E.; even the Jewish culture that had gradually worked out the new ideology through painstaking efforts and insights of its intellectual elite is only able to embrace and try putting into practice those of its aspects that are at least partially compatible with the prevalent notions of the epoch. Finally, after a torturous process of indoctrination that witnessed many relapses into paganism, the idea of monotheism takes root among the bulk of Jewish population. Every effort of spiritual leaders is directed at rallying the Jews around this idea, at preserving the people in the difficult situation when most Jews are scattered between Palestine and Mesopotamia, the Temple is destroyed, and they have no state of their own. Only the centripetal constituent of the model works under these conditions. The entire body of the recently developed ideas has to be safely preserved and conserved for the time being, which is eventually done by the 3rd–2nd cc. B.C.E., when we have the Scriptures in their final — or nearly final — form of a canon. This is not enough, however; the new ideas have to be spread abroad in a gradual, cautious manner. Given the current situation, this can be done in two ways. Firstly, through immediate communication, for example, by word of mouth: by the turn of eras, the larger and smaller Jewish communities disperse all over the Hellenistic ocumene and some beyond, covering larger areas than before. Jews living outside Palestine outnumbered those staying in Palestine by far; they were spread throughout Egypt, North Africa, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Greece, the Mediterranean islands, Italy, the Crimea and Caucasus, Persia and, probably, further eastward. Secondly, it is possible 225

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The pre-Hellenistic tradition devised a new value system, the ocumene “matured” to the level of imbibing it and Alexander — fostered and tutored by Aristotle personifying this value system to a considerable extent — took upon himself the mission of instilling it. A comparable situation: the new axiology, for which the way was paved by the Age of Enlightenment and the Great French revolution and the grand Napoleon’s scheme to instill it in the “backward” anachronistic world — the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Spain, etc. — to the benefit of its population. 177

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to make the Scriptures available for the neighboring peoples by translating them into Greek, the international language of the Hellenistic world. And so, a literary project stupendous in its scale is undertaken by certain Jews in Alexandria,227 who toiled away in the course of several generations of translators’ lifetimes — as a result of which the Hebrew Scriptures become the Greek Septuagint. Admittedly, this “broken” Greek is teeming with loan translations from Hebrew and a Greek must have had a hard time figuring it out; we may also admit that the end goal of the project was educating the Jews of Egypt who had increasing difficulties with understanding Hebrew (even if it had been undertaken at the edict of the Egyptian king, the profitable commission may hardly have been the only incentive for the Jewish translators). The result is in evidence in any case: the Hellenistic world was given an opportunity to get acquainted with the Jewish Scriptures. The time of the breakthrough is drawing near. Rome becomes a great empire, a model of a single world, despite all its diversity. It is multi-ethnic and religiously tolerant, although it has a fashion for a uniform culture and lifestyle — at least among the upper classes of the metropolis and provinces. Traditional local cults gradually lose their attraction, primarily in the eyes of the above-mentioned upper classes. The quality of life superior to that outside the empire also contributes to the development of universalistic mentality. However, it all seems to be happening in an ideological vacuum: there are no novel, “fresh” ideas to match the new mode of thought. The ground for the new axiology is prepared; it is time to sow the seeds. By the 1st c. C.E., Jewish ideas are sufficiently widespread in nonJewish milieu. According to various modern estimates, people identified as Jewish constituted 7 to 10 percent of the total population of the Roman Empire at the turn of common era. This makes four to six million people, compared to the estimated one million or even less living in Palestine at that time. This phenomenon can be explained most satisfactorily by mass conversions to Judaism. However, this is obviously not enough to make the universalistic survival strategy dominant in the Hellenistic world. It seems that the new values system is initially more popular with the elite than with the bulk of the heathen population. The Hebrew Scriptures are available only in a difficultto-read translation into a peculiar kind of Greek. They are much too long227

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The megapolis with the world’s largest Jewish (historians estimate it in the range from several hundred thousand to half a million people) and multitudinous Greek population.

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winded, much too overloaded with extraneous and uninteresting — especially for the Gentiles — themes and details; they are much too ethnocentric. While necessary for the consolidation of the Jewish population and for keeping it within the faith of Yahweh, the strict rules and precepts and the emphasis laid on the chosen status of the Jews are bound to repel the Gentiles. A new colorful “summary” of Biblical texts is now in demand; a summary free from all that is superfluous, obsolete and no longer of interest to both the Hellenistic world with its complete and partial new converts to Judaism and a significant part of the Jews, themselves powerfully influenced by the Hellenistic culture, especially in the Diaspora. These population groups might form a responsive audience of the old teaching updated and adapted to the new conditions. However, the text in question has to comply with a number of requirements to be popular. It ought to be written in the most understandable Greek. Its creators must take into account the novelty of monotheism for a polytheistic audience, the wavering attitude toward this issue on the part of the “Judaicized” milieu and the “Hellenized” Jewish periphery; they must make some concessions to the popular polytheistic concepts of the divine. Its purely Jewish constituent has to be made less pronounced, since it would be intended for everyone, definitely not for the Jewish “core.” On the other hand, the new Scripture must not reject the authority of the existing Biblical texts and the Law upon which the “core” firmly rests, though the possibility of conflict and schism is to be taken into account. However, of the two tasks — to preserve the core of the nation and to spread the doctrine further abroad — the former task is more or less complete at this stage: the people, on the whole, sticks to monotheism and observes the Law, the universal literacy among the Jews rests on the Book, the Second Temple is built anew. To accomplish the latter task, the centripetal component of the model has now to give way to the centrifugal one. The new text should by no means be composed as a narrative of the bygone times, an endless list of legal norms, rules and prohibitions, or as an abstruse treatise. Rather, it should be a popularly understood moral sermon accessible for a Lybian slave’s and Syrian land-tiller’s comprehension while comprising at the same time intimations of Biblical wisdom of the highest order — also capable of evoking interest in a Roman nobleman conversant in Greek philosophy. In this text, the ancient Hebrew prophets’ vigor and passion must revive. Finally, it must be a living testament to something happening at once here and now — and always, in eternity. The most important thing, though, is to respond to the expectation: by the middle of the 1st century C.E. both in the Hellenistic and in Hebrew milieu the expectation 179

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of large-scale sweeping changes is acutely tangible. Jews are expecting the Messiah. The oikumena population is awaiting the end of the world. What has this decisive “something” to be, then, to make the sermon successful? Is there anything else to conquer those spectacle-loving, miraclecraving pagan and half-Jewish masses with? That thick dough wants a pinch of leaven — a living myth, a handful of déja vu — never seen before yet, but vaguely familiar wondrous events surfacing from some “nooks and crannies” of the archaic subconscious, from the mythologized past, rumor of which is capable of setting off the avalanche of popular emotions. This is where the wandering Pharisee rabbi Jehoshua-Jesus from Nazareth comes in, in the background of multiple other Jewish preachers of that time. He comes in strong with his sermon put together in a precise ratio between keeping the old axiology intact and anticipation of a new expanded audience and orchestrated by a drama of personal destiny conceived and acted out as a work of a genius. Then, hot on the heels of these events, 20–30 years later, the “Letters of the apostle Paul” start spreading around, where the gist of the new teaching is expounded, and the brilliant polemicist, theorist and organizer Saul-Paul makes the new doctrine fully “marketable.” Together with other participants of the project he gets down to building the organizational network of the nascent movement all over the Roman world and some beyond. With the aim of using the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures, the most “universalistic,” panhuman (or allowing of being interpreted as such) individual passages are being picked out from the old texts: from the prophets — Isaiah, Hosea, Zachariah, from the Psalms, certain excerpts from Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Genesis, the Book of Jonah. The consolidation and development in Judaism of the trend represented by the Prophets (viz., the prevalence of ethics giving rise to what will be later known as the “universal values” and of the principles of social justice over a religious cult whose nature was much more hermetic and ethnocentric) is a very important manifestation of universalism. I, sure enough, am far from promulgating the idea that everything was acted out by a pre-arranged scenario. It is unwarrantable to doubt that Jesus was a historical personage and the Gospels, at their foundation, have quite real events and a real sermon delivered as a paragon of the most outstanding Biblical texts; it is hardly within the realm of the possible to invent something like this. Apparently, Jesus, who had the perception of self as of a long-expected Messiah, was one of the most talented Jewish preachers throughout the entire history, a profound connoisseur of the Scriptures and quite an inimitable personality. 180

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The idea of Messiah’s advent somewhat vaguely outlined in some of the prophets, in the book of Daniel, in Qumran literature, in the pseudo-epigraphs received a powerful impetus in the epoch of general expectation of the end of the world. By that time it had not acquired the canonized teaching status yet was already embraced and accepted by both the elite and the Jewish masses leaving many opportunities for theological and literary creativity rampant in minor and marginal schools and sects. The main difference of the new teaching with the canonical is the promulgation of Jesus’ divine nature,228 the one and only notion totally unacceptable for most Jews.229 It appears obvious that this teaching — its universal character notwithstanding — was intended for the Jews in the first place (“These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel,’ ” Mt 10:5–6), which is only natural at the first stage of the project. Yet, news of it could not have failed to spread about — the time and place for the entire drama’s culmination point had been selected unmistakably. For the celebration of the Pentecost festivals Jerusalem had played host to “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs … ” (Ac 2:9–11). Let us add to them “ … an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians”230 (ibid. 8:27) and we end up with nearly all of the inhabited world known circa that time, perhaps less India and China. Not surprising either is the fact that the four gospels and other New Testament texts were popularized in Greek translation,231 though the Jews 228 229

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In post-Biblical Judaism, the Mashiah is definitely described as a mortal man. There are many others, of course, like the Christian notions of Trinity, the original sin and atonement through the death of Jesus, etc. In fact, Candace [Kandaka] was the title of the queen of Meroe, a state situated to the north of the Blue Nile and White Nile confluence. It is presumed, though, to my knowledge, neither definitively proven nor refuted, that a certain text (or several such texts) in a West Semitic language — Aramaic or Hebrew — stands beyond the canonic Greek Gospels or at least their separate parts. It is believed that certain word collocations and expressions testify to that, uncommon or not quite common for the Greek koine of its time and possible to explain as Semitisms — loan translations from Aramaic or Hebrew. See in the Appendix my arguments in favor of the “proto-text” — rather in Hebrew than Aramaic — in my paper “The Significance of Etymology for the Interpretation of Ancient Writings: from the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament” (examples 9–11b). 181

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of Palestine, the more educated among whom had a command of Greek, yet spoke Aramaic in the 1st–2nd centuries C.E. And though the Jerusalem Christian community looks disapprovingly, it would seem, at the sermon of the gospel in the non-Jewish milieu and even the “Apostle to the Gentiles” — Paul himself seems to occasionally experience grave doubts on this score, but the seed has been planted: one of the most profound tectonic shifts in the course of world history has been set in motion. The shift, that is, easily deduced from the condition of Hellenistic culture, from “the geopolitical situation” in the world and distribution of forces in the Empire, social tension and intellectual fermentation, along with the combination of these and other circumstances, but for some reason accidentally (as we have seen repeatedly throughout Jewish history) initiated precisely by Jews in little provincial Palestine. The sermon of Jesus, judging by the synoptic gospels, to a much greater degree is based on the Biblical canon and the norms of Judaism generally accepted at the time than the teaching preached by Paul and his followers, who by virtue of their doings make the next, telling step in paving the way for Christianity to assume two and a half centuries down the road the status of a state religion of the Roman Empire and spread around half the world. At the initial stage of a slow-paced and limited spread of Christianity the part of Jews embracing it is very great. The problem of the role played by the Jewish Diaspora and proselytes of Judaism in spreading Christianity does not seem exhaustively studied so far, though, during the first two or three centuries of our era, it must have been enormous. At the early stages of Christianity, both its leaders and followers doubtless perceived themselves as adherents of Judaism and the solely rightful upholders of the Biblical tradition, in which they perfectly resembled other numerous and competing schools and trends of Judaism of that time. Roman authorities and nonChristians regarded early Christians in exactly the same way — as another Jewish sect. Moreover, other schools of Judaism viewed them up to a certain point as they viewed one another, i.e., as Jews and gerim, but improper ones. The Hellenization, or “de-Judaization” of Christianity speeded up in the second half of the 2nd century, when scholars who carried on the tradition of Classical ancient philosophy (Justin the Philosopher and other “apologetics”) became engaged in developing its ideology. However, the overtly Jewish component in Christianity seems to remain very significant until the Council of Nicaea (325). But even after it, in the late 4th century, the passionate anti-Jewish sermons of John Chrysostom, that were forerunners of Nazi propaganda, were intended for the “Judaicizing Christians” whom 182

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he condemned for observing Sabbath and Jewish holidays, pilgrimage to the sacred Jewish places, visiting the synagogues, turning to Jewish courts and circumcision. Even in the iconoclasm of the 8–9th centuries with all the fanciful intertwining of social and political interests of the time the reverberations of the same Judaic component are still tangible. Since then, the Jewish Diaspora proper is severely reduced as a result of assimilation processes (“Here there is no Greek or Jew”). The Jews ceased to be a prominent ethnic minority both in the Roman Empire and in adjacent lands. Subsequent to the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Second Temple, and another wave of dispersal, the Near Eastern Jewish core was reduced to several comparatively small communities. As Christianity was gradually paving the way for its triumphant march across the Old World, the Jews were to close ranks, lie low and lick their wounds; in short, to concentrate on survival. The centripetal component of the model works at full capacity again. The slackening of the universalistic, international if often undercurrent trend of the old doctrine, that was intercepted and modernized by the new Christian teaching, has to be compensated for by an internal Jewish revision and a new interpretation of the Scriptures, which quite naturally became more difficult to read and understand as regards both content and language. This challenge received an adequate response: the 2nd–7th cc. C.E. witnessed the emergence of the Jerusalem and Babylonian versions of the Talmud. These were entirely new texts combining the age-old Hebrew mentality with the late Hellenistic influences; in some aspects, they differ from the old Canon, according to many modern scholars, not less or even more than the New Testament of the Christians. The universalistic tendency shrinks, though it does not disappear altogether. The Talmud is a text addressed to the Jews, a brilliant collection of “exercises” for perfecting the mind, developing the antinomy of thought, the art of dialogue, and the skill of paradoxical argumentation. The unbroken tradition of common literacy among men was now concentrated on the Talmud: to read and study the Torah meant, first of all, to read the Talmud; as for the Tanakh (the complete text of the Hebrew Bible), it is now chiefly studied at special schools for rabbis. At the same time, the Diaspora, which had been seriously depleted by conversions to Christianity, began to consolidate and expand. The Jewish Diaspora of the early medieval epoch was different from that of the Hellenistic period: more impervious, closed to outside influences, less successful economically and more backward culturally. Given the fall of Rome and the general chaos, it was only natural that the Jews were pushed even further into the periphery of the cultural ocumene. 183

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Nevertheless, having gotten over these difficulties and having put on some weight, that people, the everlasting bouncy tumbler of world history, rolls over and starts waking from this temporary lethargy. Contact and understanding between small Jewish colonies gradually spreading from Britain to Yemen and from Morocco to China greatly contributed to the success of transnational trade. The evidence provided by Chrysostom at the end of the 4th century is of unique value: he claims that Jews, devoid of their home country and dispersed throughout the entire world, become the teachers of this world — successfully competing with Christians in doing so. Important changes that are yet to play a great role in Jewish and world history occur in the early 7th century: Muhammad comes up with the Qur’an and Islam begins its conquest of the Middle East and North Africa. The Jewish and Christian roots of Islam are quite obvious, if insufficiently studied:232 in many of its important tenets (strictest monotheism, the transcendence of God, etc.) Islam comes closer to — or departs less from — Biblical Judaism than does Christianity. At any rate, certain Jewish groups have doubtless merged with the Muslim majority of the Near East.233 Of course, Islam is also, in a sense, a step toward a single humanity. However, unlike Christianity whose influence mainly embraced the territory of the Roman Empire, Islam started as a form of “partial universalism” — universalism for the East, a region which, after the collapse of the great Near Eastern civilizations, became a cultural periphery and was much less ready to adopt the new axiology. For all that, Islam provided a powerful cultural impetus for this vast territory that lasted for several centuries. Muslim centers successfully competed with the capitals of Christendom. The Jews gained more than they lost as a result of that competition; they obtained a greater freedom to maneuver. Despite the ideological opposition of Judaism to the both greater religions, various limitations and sporadic persecution, the Diaspora expanded and its elites came to occupy a prominent, though invariably unstable, position in trade, finance (usury), crafts, and free professions (medicine, etc.). It seems that the role of Jewry 232

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In the linguistic aspect, besides well-studied Hebraisms in classical Arabic, usually referring to the Jews, there seem to be some unrevealed Hebraisms (e.g. such a key term as ha- “hajj” from hag — see Mil. Feast). This process seems to have played a part in the ethno-genesis of certain groups like the Palestinian Arabs who, according to recent genetic surveys, share certain specific genetic differences with the Jews suggesting they, with the advance of genetic techniques, might turn out to be genetically closer to the latter than they would be happy about.

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in the shaping of the world market during the late medieval epoch is not yet fully appreciated. Apparently due to now lost, now re-established contacts between Jewish communities all over the world234 it had to be, at the very least, hugely out of proportion to the actual ratio between the number of Jews and non-Jewish population. The Jews again stick their head out of the shell here and there, resuming their part of the world culture. Their position in the Diaspora and mastery of many languages (including Arabic and Latin) made them mediators between the worlds of Christianity and Islam. In the 11th–14th cc., an enormous number of works on medicine, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and other fields of knowledge were written in Arabic by both Jewish (e.g., Moses Maimonides) and Muslim authors who were translated into Hebrew. Certain works translated from Arabic into Hebrew, which had been earlier translated into Arabic directly from Greek or via Syrian Aramaic (including texts that are basic for Western philosophy and science — for instance, Aristotelian works235) present a major contribution to the reclaiming by Europe of the Classical ancient heritage. Many of these works were translated in the 13th– 16th cc. by Christian and Jewish translators from Hebrew into Latin, which was important for the shaping of the future Renaissance movement. Jewish poetry, philosophy, mysticism derived from the treasury of the Biblical and Talmudic tradition and enriched by Jews’ acquaintance with works in Arabic, Greek, Latin and, later, the new Romance and Germanic languages especially flourish in Spain, beginning to influence European culture. In the course of recent decades of years the role of Jewish kabbalistic teachings and Christian kabbalism that branched off it is getting progressively highlighted in the set of reading and even in the world outlook of a number of eminent figures, prime movers of Italian Renaissance. Favorable periods alternated with new ordeals — the crusades, the Inquisition, the forced conversion to Christianity and Islam, European religious wars … All these events, in combination with the decline of the Islamic world and the eventual expulsion of Muslims and Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, lead to the division, in the late 15th c., of the European Jews into two major, increasingly divergent cultural zones — Ashkenazic and Sephardic. Ashkenazic communities and small number of Sephardic 234

235

And, in all of them, due to mastering Hebrew to this or that extent, which provided for sufficient mutual understanding. Like Zerahyah’s Hebrew translation made in late 12th c. of Aristotle’s De Anima based on the lost Arabic translation. 185

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communities that joined them continued, on the whole, to grow and thrive (though this process was never stable), preserving certain contacts with Christian cultures of European countries, especially those strongly influenced by the Reformation, a movement in general more tolerant towards Jews. Together with Europeans, small groups of Jews explored new lands in the Americas, India and China. As for the Sephardic Diaspora, most of it became more and more capsulated, fading together with the Islamic world into the background. The Modern epoch opened new prospects for the Jews. In response to the ideas of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the reforms of Napoleon, the movement of the Haskalah (from ŝkl “to have insight, be wise” used to render the idea of “enlightenment”) arose among the Ashkenazim. The centrifugal tendency of the Jewish model got stronger again. In the 20th century, this trend gained powerful acceleration. However, Western civilization itself, with its deep Biblical roots and growing Jewish component, now entered a dire crisis.

THE MEANING OF THE HOLOCAUST? World War One lacked, as it seems, any fundamental ideological underpinnings, yet it aggravated and laid bare the axiological rift in the civilization process. However one cares to verbalize this rift it is reducible to just two polarized positions with respect to anthropocentrism and humanistic universalism. Deduced from the ancient Biblical model and charting its path in a dotted-line fashion in the Jewish tradition, adopted by Christianity and further developed in the European humanistic tradition the hierarchic system of values was spawned: the good of united human race personified by Biblical Adam, in latter-day parlance — Homo Sapiens — is superior to the good of any of its parts taken separately. It is stemming from this principle, from the notion of a human being as the image and likeness of God, from the very best there was in the Torah and teaching of the prophets in the area of ethics and social norms, that the priority of rights of every human individual — each of the species making up the whole — has developed. The opposite to this general principle is the particularistic principle that asserts the priority of a nation (not differing much, on the surface, from the ethnocentric trend in the Tanakh), a class, a religion, or any other community 186

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communities that joined them continued, on the whole, to grow and thrive (though this process was never stable), preserving certain contacts with Christian cultures of European countries, especially those strongly influenced by the Reformation, a movement in general more tolerant towards Jews. Together with Europeans, small groups of Jews explored new lands in the Americas, India and China. As for the Sephardic Diaspora, most of it became more and more capsulated, fading together with the Islamic world into the background. The Modern epoch opened new prospects for the Jews. In response to the ideas of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the reforms of Napoleon, the movement of the Haskalah (from ŝkl “to have insight, be wise” used to render the idea of “enlightenment”) arose among the Ashkenazim. The centrifugal tendency of the Jewish model got stronger again. In the 20th century, this trend gained powerful acceleration. However, Western civilization itself, with its deep Biblical roots and growing Jewish component, now entered a dire crisis.

THE MEANING OF THE HOLOCAUST? World War One lacked, as it seems, any fundamental ideological underpinnings, yet it aggravated and laid bare the axiological rift in the civilization process. However one cares to verbalize this rift it is reducible to just two polarized positions with respect to anthropocentrism and humanistic universalism. Deduced from the ancient Biblical model and charting its path in a dotted-line fashion in the Jewish tradition, adopted by Christianity and further developed in the European humanistic tradition the hierarchic system of values was spawned: the good of united human race personified by Biblical Adam, in latter-day parlance — Homo Sapiens — is superior to the good of any of its parts taken separately. It is stemming from this principle, from the notion of a human being as the image and likeness of God, from the very best there was in the Torah and teaching of the prophets in the area of ethics and social norms, that the priority of rights of every human individual — each of the species making up the whole — has developed. The opposite to this general principle is the particularistic principle that asserts the priority of a nation (not differing much, on the surface, from the ethnocentric trend in the Tanakh), a class, a religion, or any other community 186

The Meaning of the Holocaust?

over mankind and the individual; this principle, if it is translated into reality in its utmost manifestation, will inevitably lead to irreparable conflicts, totalitarian rule and anthropocide. In the period between the two world wars the second principle found its full embodiment in Communism and Nazism; one of the ominous accompanying symptoms of these processes was their attractiveness to some groups of people, including some of the intellectual elites of the civilized world, and an ambiguous wait-and-see or indifferent attitude on the part of others. The civilized world was in a state of unstable equilibrium — it was beyond any prediction whether it would head towards anthropocentric, universalistic and anti-entropic tendencies taking over or, conversely, would continue to slump deeper and deeper into the bogs of universal hatred and animosity. According to the proposed logic of the historical (or evolutionary) process, tipping the scale in the direction of continued movement — achieved at the cost of great sacrifices and great blood — towards anthropocentric humanistic values, could only be achieved by a global event that, by shocking the world, would make the peoples and their leaders see in horror what retreating in the face of evil could lead to. The Holocaust was such an event. In the genocide of the Jews staged by the Nazi regime a principal difference — of sorts — is discernible from all other atrocious genocides and anthropocides of the 20th century, both those past and those that followed. Sacrilegious as it may sound, the Holocaust was the only catastrophe of this kind pronouncedly imbued with historical meaning. All the others — be it the slaughter of Armenians in Turkey, the Nazi extermination of the mentally ill or the Gypsies, genocide of one’s own people through artificially-induced famine, global-scale reprisals and deportations of the “national minorities” in the USSR, the mass murders perpetrated by the Communists in Cambodia or by Islamists in Sudan — all these are perceived as the ultimately senseless manifestations of human viciousness and madness evoking the Ivan Karamazov’s wish to “hand back the ticket” to God. All the characteristics of the other atrocities fully apply to the Holocaust. Yet, beyond this, something greater looms. About it one can say what on the present-day level of historical process comprehension is impossible to verbalize in connection with other mass catastrophes: it was only the Holocaust that changed the civilized world. Why was it the Holocaust? Why was not the world duly shocked by the first large-scale genocide in the illuminated 20th century — the 1915 187

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massacre of Armenians that was well known in the West? Why was the West’s cowardly indifference and sympathetic attitude towards Communism not affected by the sweeping war unleashed by the Bolshevist regime against its own people;236 news of this war found its way to the West from time to time only to be rejected or ignored.237 Even in the Soviet Union where the crimes of the regime had affected practically every family and caused millions of unwarranted deaths in the war against Nazism, even there the reaction of the populace was inadequately moderate, and even that was invariably — and unwittingly — triggered by some or other intriguing Kremlin boss struggling for power: the passive opposition to the Communist ideology on the part of the intelligentsia during the “Thaw” of the sixties, dissenting movement of an even smaller its part in the seventies and eighties, or, finally, a wave of exposés and denunciations in the media during the perestroika. It seems quite unclear how, against this background of universal indifference, the death of six million Jews had such a catalytic effect on the otherwise extremely slow and languidly “toned-down” historical process, which multiplies any positive experience by drop-size increments, if at all. The Holocaust helped along what had been only prepared but far from realized by the Christian civilization in its almost two millennia allowed for it by history. The ethical principles and ideals inherited from their ancient Hebrew and Greek prototypes have, in the intervening 2,000 years, become accepted as a behavioral norm rather than a declaration by a relatively small group of people, to say nothing of the norms of state policy, inter-group relations and public life. But it was the impact of the Holocaust on the hardnecked mankind (at least on its most prepared segment — Western cultures spawned by Christianity) that egged on a sufficiently expeditious infiltration of those principles and ideals in the consciousness of large numbers of people and, consequently, on their becoming a real norm of behavior for 236

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In that war casualties were counted by dozens of millions: according to some estimates, which I am not competent to evaluate, the total loss was of the order of 60 million — ten times more than the estimated number of the Jews exterminated in the Holocaust. Or become the butt of outrageous jokes: let us recall the most famous European wit, playwright and “free-thinker” Bernard Show who after returning from Moscow in 1933 publicly disclaimed reports of famine in Ukraine (deliberately forced by Stalin’s regime, it killed no less than six million people) — not when he had partaken there of one of the finest dinners of his life. For me, another case of moral deafness is the infatuation of even such brilliant figures as Hannah Arendt, Paul Celan, Levinas and Derrida — Jews at that — by Heidegger who combined refined philosophical revelations with involvement with Nazism and support for Hitler.

The Meaning of the Holocaust?

a significant and growing number of people and the proclaimed norm of operation for the growing number of state and public institutions. Suffice it to recall the Nuremberg trials and the ensuing denazification of Germany, the Marshall Plan and its motto “Never Again!” and, of course, the event unprecedented in history: the sanction of the world community to allow the people who had survived the genocide to create a national home. Whatever the motives (from the most idealistic to the most mercenaryminded and cynical) underlay the decisions of each of the states who lent their support to the establishment of Israel, it was the pressure of public opinion and the fear to lose face that compelled them to do so. Such a motive was present even in the ambiguous position of the Soviet Union.238 One may, certainly, see in the institution of the state of Israel the secret mainsprings of history239 or remonstrate that the determinant role was played by the dramatically intensified ethnic self-realization of the Jews (wherein ethnic is of paramount importance: let us not overlook the fact that Nazis exterminated the Jews by their ethnic — not religious characteristics), the process that actuated both the Jewish financial elite and the Jewish lobby in the mass communications media and ruling circles — in the United States first and foremost. Added to this may also be the consideration that throughout the entire history of Israel’s struggle for survival, public opinion in various countries and in the course of different periods has treated it differently and still does so — ranging from compassion to indifference to malevolence. All the aforementioned issues notwithstanding, the significance of the reaction to the Holocaust in the West should not be underestimated. Moreover, it did affect the rising anti-racist sentiments in the United States, where racism had been legally acceptable until the 1950s–60s. Does the obvious fact that the reaction to the Holocaust brought about changes in the Western system of values and, consequently, that of mankind as a whole — does it fit the pattern that the present book proposes? Let 238

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I will venture a wary suggestion, that the loss by the British Empire of its reputation of one of champions of “Western values” was due, among other things, to its opposition, sometimes in a most cruel and inhuman form, to the coming of Jews — especially the post-war Holocaust survivors — to Palestine and to the recognition of the Jewish state. Let’s recall a tale vaguely featured in literature about certain Jews from the Yeshuv who prior to the decisive vote at the General Assembly of the United Nations came with their compromising material to Rockefeller to blackmail him into rendering pressure on some Latin American governments, somehow dependent on him, in order to talk them over to vote for the creation of the Jewish state. 189

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us consider once again the reaction of the Jews to the adversities of their historical destiny over the past three thousand years. Events in Biblical, post-Biblical and later Jewish history witness the gradual slackening of the people’s “fighting spirit” — the semi-legendary conquest of Canaan, wars against the Philistines, the Maccabean revolt, the two anti-Roman “Judean wars” of the years 66–73 and 132–135 C.E., the uprising in Alexandria joined by Jews of many other regions of the Roman Empire, several pro-Persian anti-Byzantine uprisings in Eretz Israel in early 7th c. After that, however, there seem to be no hints evidencing armed resistance — until the last century Jews’ clashes and wars with the Arabs – to either the forcible Christianization or Islamization or medieval oppression and expulsions, or inquisition, or — with few exceptions — to the pogroms, and Nazi genocide. Why? Can this be traced not only to the attitude towards persecution as “divine punishment” (the notorious “victimity”) and an understandable fear of complete annihilation of the people, but also to the taboo on anthropomachia, killing of humans? Not only a conscious adherence to the “thou shall not kill” commandment, but also as a ban — inculcated in the “ethnic subconscious” — to kill one of one’s own species? (Welcome to compare the adherence to this commandment by Christendom and Islam — obligatory for both — throughout their history...) Strange as it may seem, it is perhaps the same “ethnic subconscious” that is at work in the policy of the State of Israel. I fail to recall a precedent in history involving several generations of statesmen (with vastly dissimilar ideologies — ranging from the reconciliatory left to the militant right) waging negotiations … on the return of territories captured as a result of defensive wars — and giving them back in the end! Let us also recall the unheard-of situation when one Israeli soldier taken prisoner is exchanged for a thousand Arab prisoners or hundreds of convicted terrorists. From the point of view of common sense it can be but perceived as an irrational and even insane practice on the part of a government and a society otherwise seemingly of sound mind: the released terrorists are a threat to hundreds of new Israeli victims. People who lived their lives in the totalitarian and, later, post-totalitarian quasi democratic state,240 find 240

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To say nothing of the Soviet powers-that-be’s treatment as traitors of millions of Soviet military men taken prisoners by the Germans during the Second World War due to lack of weapon and ammunition (I wonder what else they were expected to do. Kill themselves with bare hands?), the attitude of today Russia’s — and many other states’ — military and civil authorities to the country’s citizens taken prisoners by the enemy in any kinds of military actions is very cold, to say the least of it.

Anti-Semitism

it difficult to imagine that there exists a society (far from being an ideal society in many respects, including the ethical241) in which the life of a citizen is officially valued so highly — higher in a way than the interests of the state. The state, it must be added, actually waging a permanent war.

ANTI-SEMITISM Let’s try to examine the problem of anti-Semitism in the light of all that has been said. It is obvious that, on the one hand, the negative attitude toward Jews is a widely occurring kind of generic xenophobia. On the other hand, it is equally obvious that anti-Semitism differs from other forms of xenophobia, religious intolerance and cultural incompatibility in being more tenacious, enduring, intense and diverse in its manifestations and motivation. The seemingly paradoxical quality of what the Jews are charged with is quite amazing. They are blamed at once for isolationism and aspirations to world dominance; both for nationalism and for cosmopolitism; for having invented Christianity (as a “Judaism for the goyim”) and for siding with the Antichrist; for the creation of the exploitative capitalism and for the revolutionary struggle against it; for the victory of Bolshevism in Russia and for its collapse; for religious fanaticism and for atheism. On closer examination, however, we see that all these accusations reflect, as in a distorting mirror, the “paradoxical” Jewish model of behavior, the extremely unusual nature of the Jewish way in history, its special “markedness.” Having created the revolutionary anthropocentric values system, initiated the new, universalistic way for the development of mankind, assumed the leadership (or at least becoming one of the leading groups) in that process, the Jews — or their spiritual leaders — have also taken the whole weight of responsibility for these steps. Very likely, they did so consciously in a way (certain texts in the Prophets seem to point that way), and they pay for it in full. If there is any veracity in the allegation that any initiative is punishable, what punishment should be inflicted on the insolent small group for choosing the survival strategy for the entire species? The strategy risky enough at that, warranting no guaranties — like any strategy for that matter! 241

Ideal societies non-existent on this globe, it’s a regrettable common knowledge that corruption in Israel is exuberant for a democratic country — at all levels including the government one at that. 191

Anti-Semitism

it difficult to imagine that there exists a society (far from being an ideal society in many respects, including the ethical241) in which the life of a citizen is officially valued so highly — higher in a way than the interests of the state. The state, it must be added, actually waging a permanent war.

ANTI-SEMITISM Let’s try to examine the problem of anti-Semitism in the light of all that has been said. It is obvious that, on the one hand, the negative attitude toward Jews is a widely occurring kind of generic xenophobia. On the other hand, it is equally obvious that anti-Semitism differs from other forms of xenophobia, religious intolerance and cultural incompatibility in being more tenacious, enduring, intense and diverse in its manifestations and motivation. The seemingly paradoxical quality of what the Jews are charged with is quite amazing. They are blamed at once for isolationism and aspirations to world dominance; both for nationalism and for cosmopolitism; for having invented Christianity (as a “Judaism for the goyim”) and for siding with the Antichrist; for the creation of the exploitative capitalism and for the revolutionary struggle against it; for the victory of Bolshevism in Russia and for its collapse; for religious fanaticism and for atheism. On closer examination, however, we see that all these accusations reflect, as in a distorting mirror, the “paradoxical” Jewish model of behavior, the extremely unusual nature of the Jewish way in history, its special “markedness.” Having created the revolutionary anthropocentric values system, initiated the new, universalistic way for the development of mankind, assumed the leadership (or at least becoming one of the leading groups) in that process, the Jews — or their spiritual leaders — have also taken the whole weight of responsibility for these steps. Very likely, they did so consciously in a way (certain texts in the Prophets seem to point that way), and they pay for it in full. If there is any veracity in the allegation that any initiative is punishable, what punishment should be inflicted on the insolent small group for choosing the survival strategy for the entire species? The strategy risky enough at that, warranting no guaranties — like any strategy for that matter! 241

Ideal societies non-existent on this globe, it’s a regrettable common knowledge that corruption in Israel is exuberant for a democratic country — at all levels including the government one at that. 191

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From a certain point in time, the Jews share their responsibility for the way they chose with those whom they made or who made themselves their “traveling companions” — the peoples that adopted Christianity. (Islam, as I pointed out more than once, occupies a special place in this order of things, which is not quite clear to me.) The Christian world, it seems, has been paying a much smaller price for its historical choice — its casualties for it are much lower (much higher are those in the inter-Christian wars), given the number of Christians in the world. As for the Jews, one might, three centuries ago, get the impression that they had long abandoned the way of universalism and innovation, receding into obscurity to survive, to live out their days. However, as becomes obvious by the end of the first decade of the 3rd millennium, this is not the case. The Jews are again in the center of goings-on and active as never before. The strategy of survival chosen by them proved in many ways successful: the genus Homo sapiens doubtless dominates the planet, a part of mankind attained a much better quality of life, the average life expectancy of all humanity increased, it became more united, grew gentler in some ways, etc., etc. This road is nonetheless painful and burdened with inconceivable losses for all concerned — for those who pave it, for those who travel along it willingly or who are driven (let’s remember the peoples forcedly converted to Christianity), for those who just “get in the way.” Of course, the alternative ways of survival used by individual peoples and entire civilizations (Chinese, Indian, Moslem) are also painful in their own way; they keep their own score of successes and losses. The tragedy of the whole situation is that even now — when the anthropocentric civilization, after sacrificing innumerable lives, apparently dominates the Earth — one can’t be sure that the right strategy has been chosen and whether it leads to survival, and whether that survival will be dignified. What would contribute to finding answers, tentative at least, to these questions is an international, inter-confessional and inter-cultural discussion of these matters and an attempt now, at the dawn of the new millennium, to develop consensual criteria and to find optimum solutions based on scientific, professional approaches. However, a number of factors prevents this: the methodology of systemic research in the humanities and social science is not yet adequately developed; the sociological and statistical data are incomplete (which attests to the dangerously flippant attitude of governments and society toward the survival strategy of mankind); there exists a high ideological and political tension in the world, one of whose most vivid manifestations is the “Jewish issue.” 192

CONCLUSION Let’s sum it all up now. Jews, just like any other human community gestating and eventually taking shape in a particular epoch, initially gropingly, through trial-anderror, selected and developed the behavioral strategy that would be best suited for the goal of survival under “suggested circumstances.” As time went on they implemented it ever more consciously and persistently. The result is in evidence: Jews as a community have survived. More than that: they have made an impressive contribution to the universal human civilization — and what is of particular significance — keep on making it. Their efficiency is stunning. Their “bit,” as is well known, is far out of proportion to their tiny 0,2–0,25 percent of the currently estimated world’s population (“for you were the fewest of all peoples” Dt 7:7). The Jewish way is, in my opinion (as well as in the opinion of many others), unique and defying classification: it is quite difficult to find the right box for it in the taxonomy table. To be sure, any historical fact and phenomenon is unique in its own way, as one-of-a-kind and inimitable — one may, perhaps, only allow for the “extent of uniqueness.” The significance of Jewry for human history and for the dominant civilization of the Earth is hard to overestimate. At the same time, this significance is hard to evaluate. We must entertain no illusions here. Jewish history is not all spiritual achievement and innocent suffering. It has its shameful pages as well: there were Jews among the prominent figures of the Inquisition, the Jews played no small a part in the Russian Revolution and Bolshevist terror of the two following decades; let’s not forget such facts as a massacre in the Palestinian village Deir Yassin by the “Irgun,” headed by the future Israeli prime-minister Menachem Begin, 193

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likened by Albert Einstein to the Nazi’s atrocities, or the massacre by the Lebanese phalangists in 1982 in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps allowed — or not prevented from — by the then Defense Minister and another future Israeli prime-minister, Ariel Sharon. But the question is not whether Jews behaved better or worse than any other peoples in the course of their long history: in many respects, they behaved like many other peoples did — their behavior was determined by concrete historical conditions. In many, though not in all respects — that is what really matters. I can’t shake off the impression that they managed to preserve something through the ages — something that is impossible to explain as a mere reaction to said historical conditions. Having created at the dawn of their history a unique complex of myths — or a single complex myth — the Jews, as it seems, have done everything in their power to make that myth true. Apparently they succeeded. However, such an impression (opinion, conviction, prejudice, belief — whatever) shared by too many people in no matter how many different phrasings242 presents a serious challenge to the science of history. It ought to be either refuted by grave counter-arguments or transformed into a serious scholarly hypothesis demanding a thorough and comprehensive research better not to be put off for long. The only reaction on the part of those who are really qualified to do that is, in my opinion, irrational and counterproductive. They seem to ignore the problem for reasons of political correctness or because it is incompatible with the temporary paradigm of modern science. But the blunder of brushing the “Jewish issue” aside may painfully recoil — to the grave effect for both the Jews, Western civilization, and even the entire humankind. As for the reproof — or compliment — addressed to me by some of my friends and colleagues of being a eulogist for Jewry, I am inclined to say the following in conclusion of this text. I have attempted to find approaches to the rational explanation of some of the uncommon particularities of the Jewish historical phenomenon in it (what I claim as true or plausible in respect to each of them is open to both criticism and refutation), while avoiding the estimating categories; due to infatuation with the subject I may have done a poor job of it. If one is to admit if only some of the above particularities, such a position as mine on the “Jewish issue” appears to me less apologetic than some of the others, at first sight more well-considered 242

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Ranging from the special historical path of God’s chosen people to a Jewish malevolent worldwide conspiracy.

Conclusion

and objective. Let me explain this resorting to many people’s — including Jewish intellectuals — sharply critical attitude towards the policy of Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians as an example. I want to stress it: the talk here is not at all about deliberate anti-Semites243 or, say, fascistic skinhead scum, who do not care a rap about the Palestinian people, for that matter: dare it or any other people get in their way — they would wipe them out if they could without hesitations and doubts. I am talking without a shade of irony about the well-intentioned, humanistically “tuned” contemporary American, Israeli, European and scant Russian moderate “left” (in the Western sense of the term) who can hardly be suspected of anti-Semitism and who sincerely feel for the Palestinian people in their woes — cornered by the intrinsically egotistical in some aspects and, as the case happens to be, not exactly far-sighted national policy of several generations of Jewish leaders (“the national hearth” was set not upon an empty territory after all), but to an even much greater extent — by the cynical and mercenary-minded political wrangling and intrigue of their own and neighbors’ leaders. These intellectuals’ criticism of the Israeli policy — just in some respects (yet, much more castigating and impassioned than in a number of other similar instances) is based to a great degree it seems to me on the subconscious idealistic attitude to the Jewish state: it is expected to demonstrate the extent of justice and humaneness not at all expected not only of its adversaries, but also of other civilized modern states for that matter. From this point of view, usually not pronounced nor admitted nor often even realized on a rational level of consciousness by its adherents, Israel and/or Jews in general are not expected — and ought not! — to behave in the same way as other peoples would or do behave in a similar situation: implacably entrenching their interests, professing the moral principle “might is right,” and finding plenty of beautifully looking excuses for that. Needless to say, I mention this position not so much as to express my disagreement with it, but rather to focus once and again not only on the uniqueness of the Jewish phenomenon per se, but on the exclusive attitude it enjoys on the considerable part of the “civilized world’s” intellectual elite. 243

Incidentally, the grounds for anti-Semitism is the same idealizing apologetics with respect to Jews, albeit turned inside out: they happen to be attributed the role in the world blown out of proportion along with exorbitant qualities eliciting concealed envy. 195

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(The position in question remotely reminds me of the present-day hyper-critical attitude of many liberal ex-Soviet intellectuals towards the West — and especially towards America. Having every ground to disbelieve the mendacious communist propaganda — we, occasionally not being entirely aware of it, tended to grossly overestimate the virtues of Western democracy, and when the “iron curtain” was blown away, experienced a severe disappointment because the democracy in question turned out to be much more egoistical, cynical and not quite rising to the level of our secret ideals. However, we tend to overlook the obvious fact that a human individual is much better off living by far an easier and freer life in it than under a totalitarian regime.) To say nothing of the military incursions of the USA in Grenada, Iraq and Yugoslavia, let us try and imagine the likely reaction of the American administration and society to the intifada of black fundamentalists in Alabama, an outbreak of white racists’ terror in the state of Georgia or an armed foray of Texas separatists. I suggest the reaction to any of the above would be much more resolute and tougher than the response of the Israeli governments and society to Palestinian terrorism as we know it, even though it would be unwise to deny the existence of malignant problems in the American past and present: shameful racist persecutions of the black population of America — along with grave problems of, to put it mildly, the social and cultural compatibility of various ethnic communities or the fact that annexation of Texas by the United States seized from Mexico in 1845 was nothing but a foreign territory usurpation. Let us also recall at this juncture the uncompromising position of Great Britain that settled the 1982 military conflict with Argentina by strong-arm force alone — the conflict that sparked off over the status of the Falkland Islands six hundred kilometers away from Argentina and thirteen thousand kilometers away from the British shores. And the response of self-same Great Britain to Irish separatism, Spain’s — to Basque, France’s — to Corsican, Russia’s — to Chechen, Georgia’s — to Abkhasian? What is there to say about Turkey’s, Iran’s or Iraq’s reaction to the strife of Kurds — at least no less just than Palestinians’ — to acquire their “national hearth”? Do we know of many situations — even in the newest “civilized” history — in which a territorial or inter-ethnic conflict244 would be settled by way of concessions on the part of the stronger of the adversaries, the 244

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That normally involves no party that is right — or conversely — each party is right and wrong in its own way.

Conclusion

victor, even if only temporary? The only precedent that I was able to recall — apart from the quiet and dignified divorce between the Czechs and Slovaks — was the division of the USSR. Whatever imbroglio of objective and subjective factors, gainful self-interest and ambitions may have precipitated this historical fact, post-Soviet Russia, endowed with a pretty good touch of savagery, both inherited and newly acquired, then set an extraordinary paragon of state altruism. Whether the subject of the altruism in question — and the objects even more so — stood to gain from it is a different story, but the argument that Moscow had no power to keep the Union together as a whole fails to convince me: given the aggressive underpinnings of the government structures, a leverage of brutal force would not have been long in suggesting itself (as shortly after this event in the case of Chechnya). Why then is the account one advances of the Jews different? Why are such disproportionately high moral demands made of them? Is it then not camouflaged exaltation and idealization of Jewry? I have but laid down a supposition that it somehow fell to the Jews’ lot to end up as the authors — or co-authors — of one of the strategies of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens survival. That strategy has eventually proved instrumental in spawning a civilization — far from perfect, questionable and risky — yet the only one of the known civilizations and local cultures, that partly verbally and partly in actual fact follows the humanistic principles devised by it in the course of its onward progress — principles that I personally share totally and entirely. The eventual correctness rather than fatality of the path this civilization is treading down defies any certainty by all counts. Consequently, I request that any exaltation with respect to Jews (or prehistoric Afrasians or ancient Greeks or Russian intelligentsia for that matter) — suppose it treacherously sneaks into this opus — be excused as inappropriate or, at least, premature. Likewise, one can aver that, say, monotheism was introduced into human culture by Hebrews; I fail to discern any apologetics here. One can, however, re-formulate the same apologetically: the Jews invented monotheism, which happens to be a great achievement and a stride ahead in the human culture. Yet, any apologetics go out the window, if one allows for one of the opinions present in today’s anthropology, not entirely groundless, though debatable — to the effect of polytheism being much more tolerant, democratic and pluralistic and that it was precisely monotheism — not polytheism at all! — and monotheistic civilizations that provided the breeding grounds not only for humanism, human rights and the like, but also spawned the global 197

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totalitarian ideologies like religious fundamentalism (both Christian and Islamic), Communism or Nazism. Nothing is new under the sun. This includes the issues we discussed here, and, possibly, their proposed interpretations. In the late 19th century and especially in the first third of the 20th century, the subjects of Jewish identity, the Jews’ purpose and role in human history were heatedly discussed by Jewish intellectuals in Austria, Germany, Russia, Poland, Palestine … The Jews of the Talmudic times, likewise, argued about this as did their ancestors in the Biblical epoch. The “Gentiles” also argued about the Jews since as early as the Hellenistic antiquity. There must be something special about this small, yet restless and irrepressible people. Sometimes there’s nothing to talk about, were it not for the Jews, eh? Now, does the “Jewish idea” in civilization or the “Jewish conundrum” in world history exist for real after all or is it but a brainchild of anti-historical imagination? To me it would seem that at least there is a problem all right ergo there is something to work at. How about a Russian, American, Chinese, Chukchee245 idea and conundrums? Why not also look around and think?

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Prof. Sergei Arutyunov, a major Moscow ethnologist, a great connoisseur of the Caucasus, Far North and Far East, is known to have said once upon hearing yet another joke of a “dumb Chukchee” series very popular in the Soviet Union in the seventies — early eighties: “If you want to know the truth, Chukchees and Eskimos are the most intelligent people I have met.” He was asked what it is manifested by. He answered: “They are the best at coping with their life. — The only one that fell to their lot to live.”

APPENDIX 1 ETYMOLOGY OF SELECTED HEBREW TERMS RELATED TO INTELLECTUAL/SPIRITUAL CULTURE (Reconstructed Semitic and Afrasian proto-forms are adduced contradicting the widespread opinion that in the pre-historic era human thinking was primitive and incapable of shaping up abstract notions, generalization and fragmentation of the surrounding world)

1. Cognition and perception 1.1. Hebrew ydʕ ‘to notice, hear of, learn, know (incl. sexually), have understanding’ < Proto-Semitic *ydʕ ‘to know’: Akkadian idu^ ‘to know (incl. a woman sexually)’; Ugaritic ydʕ; Phoenician ydʕ; Aramaic: Old, Syrian, Judaic, Mandaic, etc. ydʕ ‘to know’; Epigraphic South Arabian: Sabaic dʕw ‘to know’ (metathesis), ydʕ ‘to find out’, h-ydʕ (causative) ‘to inform’; Arabic ʔaydaʕa (verbal stem IV, causative) ‘to inform’; Ethiopian: Geez ʔaydəʕa (causative) ‘to make know, inform, declare, report, etc.’, Harari da ‘to know’; Modern South Arabian: Mehri wda, Jibbali ʔedaʕ, Soqotri edaʕ id. < Afrasian *yVdaʕ- ‘to know’:1 Chadic (Central): Mandara, Zaghawa diya id.; Cushitic (South): Iraqw daʕ-ati ‘withchcraft, sorcery, magic’.2 1 2

Further related to Indo-European *wEdwV id. To ‘know’ often derives from or evolves into the meanings ‘to have secret or sacred knowledge’, ‘to master sorcery, be a magician’, etc. Cf. Old Indian veda- `knowledge, sacred knowledge or lore’, Russian ведать ’to know’ and ведун ’wizard’ (both < Indo-European *wEdwV ‘to know’. Cf. also Arabic ʕalima ‘to know’); be able to distinguish; learn smt.’ and ʕalama ‘to mark, distinguish by a mark’ < Semitic *ʕlm ‘to discern hidden signs’: Ugaritic 199

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1.2. Hebrew hb ‘to respect, hold in high regard; assume; reckon, etc.’, (pi.) ‘compute; think of’3 < Proto-Semitic (except Akkadian) *hb ‘to think, count’: Phonician hb; Aramaic: Biblical, Nabatean, Palmyrian, Syrian, Mandaic hb ‘to think’; Arabic hasiba id., hasaba ‘to calculate, count’; Ethiopian: Geez hasaba ‘to think, believe, impute, consider, estimate, appreciate’, hassaba ‘to compute, count, reckon, calculate’, Tigre hasba, Tigrai hasb, Amharic assb, Gurage asb ‘to think’; Modern South Arabian: Mehri hesb, Jibbali hsɔb ‘to count, reckon’, Soqotri hoseb ‘to count’ < Afrasian *hsb ‘reckon, think, count’: Egyptian (Pyramid texts) hsb ‘to reckon, count, calculate’. 1.3. Hebrew ʕr ‘to know of, about’ < Proto-West Semitic *VʕVr- ‘to know, investigate’: Aramaic: Judaic sʕr ‘to look after, investigate’, Syrian sʕr ‘to concern so. about so., visit so.’, Mandaic sar, sur ‘to inspect, care for, travel about, visit’; Epigraphic South Arabian: Sabaic 2ʕr ‘to be aware’, ‘knowledge, awareness’; Ethiopian: Geez əʕra ‘to heal, be cured, cure’, Amharic ra ‘to heal’ < Afrasian *VʕVr- ‘to know, investigate, be clever’: Chadic (West): Kirfi ba ira ‘clever’ (ba — nomen agentis), (Central): Gude aʹrəˋwaʹ ‘one accomplished in a skill’, (East): Bidiya ‰ir, pl. ‰iraw ‘to excel’, ‰rloʹoloˋ ‘knowledge’, Ubi ‰iri ’brains’. 1.4. Post-Biblical Hebrew hishs ‘the cartilages forming the ear, helix, etc.’ < Proto-Semitic *has–s- ‘helix, cartilages of ear’: Aramaic: Judaic has–s, hashst ‘the system of cartilages of the ear, helix and antihelix’, hishs ‘the cartilages forming the ear’, Syrian hashs (pl.) ‘cartilages’; Arabic ʔal-has–s-ni (dual) ‘the two blood-vessels behind the ears’; Akkadian ḫas–su ‘aperture of the ear, ear; (faculty of) hearing’ related to Proto-Semitic *h/ḫss ‘to hear, to perceive’: Ugaritic ḫss ‘to remember’; Arabic hss ‘to listen; feel, perceive’; Akkadian ḫassu ‘to think of; to be mindful of, to listen to’; Modern South Arabian: Mehri həs ‘to have feeling, be conscious of’, Harsusi hes ‘to feel, perceive, notice’, Jibbali hess ‘to feel, notice’, s~-hsɛseʹs ‘to sense, hear’ [SED I No. 127]

3

200

ʕlm ‘to be hidden, unknown, pass unnoticed’, Hebrew ʕlm (nif.) ‘to be concealed’, Geez taʕalma ‘to be hidden, disappear from sight’, Mehri ʕlm ‘to brand (with a rag), to make a mark’ (JM 22), etc. Also ‘to weave’: according to HALOT, the original meaning, which is untenable.

Appendix 1

< Afrasian *hVc(ic)- ‘hearing, perception’: Cushitic (Central) *was- ‘to hear’: Bilin, Qemant was-, Khamir w-, Khamta, Kailin~a wa-; Omotic *siʔ- ⁓ *sis- ⁓ *wes- ‘to hear; know’: (North): Wolaitta siy-, Kullo sis-, Basketo sisi, Koyra sii-, Yamma wees-, Bworo sisa, Dizi sis ‘to hear’, (South): Ari ɛs(s)-, Ongota cii-, siiʔ ‘to know’.

2. Belief and religion 2.1. Hebrew malʔk̲ ‘messenger; messenger of God, angel’ < Proto-West Semitic (?) *malʔk- ‘messenger’ > ‘angel’:4 Aramaic: Old, Official mlʔk ‘delegate, envoy; angel’, Syrian malaʔk ’messenger, angel’; Ugaritic mlak ‘messenger’; Arabic malʔk- ‘messenger, angel; message; mission’; Ethiopian: Geez malʔk ‘angel’, malʔəkt ‘message’, Tigre, Tigrai mlʔak, Amharic, Argobba mlak, Harari mlk ‘angel’, Gurage mlʔak id., mlak-tnn ‘messenger, envoy’; Modern South Arabian: Mehri məlk, Jibbali meʹlik, Soqotri mlak ‘angel’ < Proto-West Semitic *lʔk ‘to send a message or messenger’: Ugaritic lʔk ‘to send a message; to write to so.’; Arabic lʔk ‘to send so. as a messenger or with a mission’; Ethiopian: Geez laʔka, Tigre lʔaka, Tigrai lʔak̲, Amharic lak, etc. ’to send’. 2.2. Hebrew np ‘soul; life; living being’ < Proto-Semitic *nap(i)- ‘soul; vitality, life; person, personality; self’:5 Phoenician np ‘self, person’; Aramaic: Old np ‘life; person’, Syrian nap ’soul; person’, Judaic nəpa ‘soul; will’, Mandaic napa ‘soul, personality, self’; Epigraphic South Arabian: Sabaic nfs1 ‘soul, life, person, self’; Ugaritic np ‘soul; person’; Arabic nafs- ‘soul, spirit, vitality; person; blood’; Ethiopian: Geez nafs ‘soul, spirit, breath, life’, Amharic nfs ‘soul, spirit, 4

5

It is not clear when the meaning (and, accordingly, the notion of) ‘angel’ developed from ‘messenger’: it may have taken place on the Proto-West Semitic level (mid3rd mill. B.C.E.). However, the fact that the primary verb occurs neither in Aramaic nor in Hebrew implies borrowing into these languages (from Ugaritic where the meaning ‘heavenly messengers’ — mlak mm — is attested to?); then the meaning ‘angel’ might have been borrowed from Aramaic into Arabic (whence, with the spread of Islam, into Tigre, Harari and Modern South Arabian) and Geez (whence, with the spread of Christianity, into Tigrai and Amharic). Though eventually derived from ‘breathing’ [SED I Verb No. 46], *nap(i)undoubtedly had the above set of meanings (or, rather, one complex meaning) and a corresponding notion as early as in Proto-Semitic dated not later than the end of 5th millennium B.C.E.). 201

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

life’, Gurage nfs ‘soul’, etc.; Akkadian napitu ‘life, vigor, vitality’; Eblaitic napu-u-tu-um ‘soul (?)’; Modern South Arabian: Mehri nəfst ‘individual, soul’, Jibbali nəfsɛʹt ‘soul’, Soqotri nafh- ‘soul; myself’. 2.3. Hebrew khn ‘priest’ < Proto-Semitic *kahin- ‘priest, fortune-teller; adult, clever, cheat’, *khn ‘to have second sight, prophesy’:6 Phoenician khn; Aramaic: Egyptian khn, Syrian khən, Mandaic kahna; Ugaritic khn ‘priest’; Arabic khn ‘to have second sight, prophesy’, khin- ‘fortune-teller, deviner; priest’ (the former meaning must be from Aramaic); Ethiopian: Geez khən ‘priest, clergyman’ (considered an Aramaic loan-word), Tigrai, Amharic kahən ‘priest’; Modern South Arabian: Mehri khən ‘cunning; cheat’, kaʹthən ‘to pretend to st. in order to attain one’s object’, Harsusi, Jibbali khen ‘adult, clever’ < Afrasian *ki(ha)n- ‘to know, learn’: Egyptian (Middle Kingdom) t̲ny ( +Post-Biblical/Middle; Modern), +Phoenician, +Moab, etc. (30) Aramaic: +Old; +Official, +Biblical; +Jewish Palestinian, +Samaritanean, +Qumranic, +Christian Palestinian; +Nabatean, +Palmyrean; +Syrian (Syriac), Mandean (+Classic, New), +Jewish Babylonian; Ma’lula, Turoyo, Modern East Aramaic (“Assyrian”), etc. (31) +Sabaic, +Qatabanian, +Hadramaut, +Ma’in = Minean. (32) +Safaitic, +Lihyanic and +Thamudic. (33) +Classical (> Literary or Standard A.), +Andalusian A., +Sicilian A., Modern A.: Syrian, Palestinian, Lebanese, Meccan; Iraqi, Egyptian, Sudanic; Yemenite, Hadramaut, Libyan, Algerian, Moroccan; Maltese, etc. (34) +Geez, Tigrai (Tigrinya), Tigre. (35) Amharic, Gurage dialects, Harari, etc. (36) Same as Modern South Arabian. (37) Sahidic, Ahmimic, Bohairic, Fayyumic, etc. (38) Dialect or language cluster of the islands of Tenerife (“Guanche”), Gran Canaria, Palma, etc. (39) Some 100 languages. (40) Siwa, Ghadames, etc. (41) Ahaggar, Ghat, Taneslemt, etc. (42) Rif, Shawia, etc. (43) Two groups: Tamazight (Beraber) and Shilh (Tashelhit). (44) Up to 200 languages. (45) Hausa, Ron, Sura, etc. (46) Mubi, Somrai, Tumak, etc. (47) Tera, Margi, Kotoko, etc. (48) Some 40 languages: Ometo: -1,3, Bworo, Mao, etc. (49) Ari, Hamer, Dime; Ongota. (50) Bilin, Qwara, Kemant, Khamir; Aungi, 260

Appendix 3

etc. (51) Sidamo, Darasa, Harso, etc. (52) Somali, Oromo (Galla), Saho-Afar, etc. (53) Iraqw; Ma’a (Mbugu); Asa; Dahalo, etc. (54) Some 350 languages; unity problematic (relation of part of the languages with Afroasiatic cannot be ruled out). (55) Otherwise Niger-Kordofanian, or Congo-Kordofanian; some 1,000 languages: Kordofanian (25 languages); Atlantic (Wolof, FulaSerer, etc.; some 50 languages); Idjo-Defaka (9 languages); Mande (Malinke, Soninke, etc.; over 50 languages); Volta-Congo (about 800); Kwa (over 60), Adamawa-Ubangi (about 120); Gur (about 70); Benue-Congo (Yoruba; Bantu: Suahili, Ruanda, Zulu, etc. — about 100 languages), etc. (56) Same as BushmanHottentot (about 40 languages). (57) Considered Khoisan; however, many common words with Afroasiatic, incl. those belonging to the core lexicon, have been recently discovered. (58) Central: Nama-Hottentot, Kwe, etc.; Northern: Akhoe, Maligo, etc.

261

THE GENEALOGICAL TREE OF AFRASIAN (AFROASIATIC) LANGUAGES compiled by Alexander Militarev chiefly basing on Starostin’s method in lexicostatistics and glottochronology Note: there is certain discrepancy in the datings of the same protolanguages between this Tree and the Afrasian section of the Genealogical Tree of World Languages; the glottochronological work is in progress and some of the provisional datings are yet to be specified (this reservation especially concerns the position of Omotic re other branches of Afrasian: due to a number of yet unrevealed loanwords in the Omotic diagnostic list, it may turn out that Proto-Omotic branched off earlier)

APPENDIX 4

TRANSCRIPTION SIGNS AND CONVENTIONS c

— alveolar voiceless affricate [ts]

ʒ ‰  s   ŝ   ḳ (or q) ɣ ḫ h̲ h ʕ h ʔ a ə p¯

— alveolar voiced affricate [dz]

264

— palato-alveolar voiceless affricate [t] — palato-alveolar voiced affricate [dz] — hissing emphatic voiceless fricative — alveolar emphatic voiceless affricate — palato-alveolar emphatic affricate — lateral voiceless fricative — lateral voiceless affricate — lateral emphatic affricate — emphatic velar stop — uvular voiced fricative (Arabic “ghain”) — uvular voiceless fricative — uvular voiceless fricative (only in Egyptian) — pharyngeal voiceless fricative — pharyngeal voiced fricative — laryngeal voiceless fricative — glottal stop — short a-vowel — neutral vowel — bilabial voiceless fricative

Transcr iption Signs and Conventions

ḇ ṯ ḏ

— bilabial voiced fricative — dental voiceless fricative — dental voiced fricative

ṯ ḏ

— dental voiceless emphatic fricative

ḡ ṗ, b

— velar voiced fricative

ˉ

above a symbol for a vowel indicates a long vowel, e.g.  denotes the long a-vowel separates the stem from affixed elements indicates the reconstructed proto-form means “from” means “into”

* < >

— dental voiceless emphatic fricative — emphatic bilabial stops

in the reconstructed proto-forms: V indicates a non-specified (in other words, any) vowel, e.g. *bVr- should be read ‘either *a, or *i, or *u’ H indicates a non-specified laryngeal or pharyngeal consonant S indicates a non-specified sibilant / between two two symbols means ‘or’, e.g., *gaw/y- is to be read ‘*gaw- or *gay-’ ( ) a symbol in round brackets means ‘with or without this symbol’, e.g. *ba(w)r- should be read ‘*bawr- or *bar-’ ⁓ means ‘and’ pointing to two or more co-existing proto-forms, e.g. *ʕ–d-at- ⁓ *ʕidd- indicates two reconstructed variant proto-forms.

265

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ABBREVIATIONS Abr. Hs

— Abraham, R. Dictionary of the Hausa Language. London, 1965.

ADB

— Afrasian Data Base compiled by the author and Olga Stolbova in the frame of the Santa Fe Institute “Evolution of Human Languages” Project (to be viewed at http://starling.rinet.ru and http://ehl.santafe.edu).

AHw

— von Soden, W. Akkadisches Handwörterbuch. Wiesbaden, 1965– 1981.

BK 1, 2

— Biberstein-Kazimirski, A. de. Dictionnaire arabe-français. Paris, 1860.

Brock.

— Brockelmann, C. Lexicon Syriacum. Halle, 1928.

CAD

— Oppenheim, L., E. Reiner & M.T. Roth (ed.). The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute, the University of Chicago. Chicago, 1956–.

CDA

— A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, ed. by Black J., A. George and N. Postgate. Wiesbaden, 2000.

Diak. FA — Diakonoff, I. Father Adam. Archiv für Orientforschung, 19, 1982, 16–24. DK

— Diakonoff, I. and L. Kogan. Semitic Terms of Kinship and Social Sphere. Von Aegypten zum Tschadsee. Festschrift für Herrmann Jungraithmayr zum 65 Geburtstag. Ed. D. Ibriszimow et al. Würzburg, 2001, 147–58.

DM

— Drower, E. and R. Macuch. A Mandaic Dictionary. Oxford, 1963.

DRB

— Nait-Zerrad, K. Dictionnaire des racines berbères. Paris-Louvain. I — 1998, II — 1999, III — 2002.

266

Bibl iographic Abbrev iations

DRS

— Cohen, D. Dictionnaire des racines sémitiques ou attestées dans les langues sémitiques. La Haye, 1970–.

DUL

— Olmo Lete, G. & J. Sanmartin. A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition. Leiden–Boston, 2003.

EDE I

— Takács, G. Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, Volume One: A Phonological Introduction. Leiden–Boston–Köln, 1999.

EDE II

— Takács, G. Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, Volume Two: b-, p-, f-. Leiden, Boston (MA) & Cologne, 2001.

EDE III — Takács, G. Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, Volume Three. Leiden–Boston, 2008. EG

— Erman, A. and H. Grapow. Wörterbuch der aegyptischen Sprache. I–VII. Berlin, 1961–63.

Est.

— Estañol, M.-J. F. Vocabulario fenicio. Biblioteca fenicia. Vol. 1. Barcelona, 1980.

Faul.

— Faulkner, R. A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Oxford, 1962.

GD

— Landberg, С. Glossaire Dat̲i^nois. Leiden, 1920–42.

Gragg

— Gragg, G. Oromo Dictionary. East Lansing, 1982.

HALOT — Koehler, L. and W. Baumgartner. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. I–III Leiden–New York–Köln, 1994–1996; IV–V Leiden–Boston–Köln, 1999–2000 (Revised by W. Baumgartner and J.J. Stamm). HJ

— Hoftijzer, J. and K. Jongeling. Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions. Leiden–New York–Köln, 1995.

HSED

— Orel, V. and Stolbova, O. Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary. Materials for a Reconstruction. Leiden–New York–Köln, 1995.

Hudson — Hudson, R. Highland East Cushitic Dictionary. Hamburg, 1989. Huehn.

— Huehnergard, J. Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription. Atlanta, 1987.

Ja.

— Jastrow, M. A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. New York, 1996.

JJ

— Johnstone, T.M. Jibbāli Lexicon. New York (NY), 1981.

JM

— Johnstone, T.M. Mehri Lexicon. London, 1987.

KM

— Kiessling, R. and M. Mous. The Lexical Reconstruction of WestRift Southern Cushitic. Köln, 2003. 267

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

Lamb.

— Lamberti, M. Die Shinassha-Sprache. Materialen zum Boro. Heidelberg, 1993.

Land.

— Landberg, C., conte de. Etudes sur les dialectes de l’Arabie méridionale. Premier volume. Hadramoût. Leiden, 1901.

LGur

— Leslau, W.. Etymological Dictionary of Gurage (Ethiopic). Vol. III. Wiesbaden, 1979.

LGz

— Leslau, W.. Comparative Dictionary of Geez (Classical Ethiopic). Wiesbaden, 1987.

LH

— Littmann, E. and M. Höffner. Wörterbuch der Tigre Sprache. Tigre-deutsch-englisch. Wiesbaden, 1956.

LHar.

— Leslau, W. Etymological Dictionary of Harari. Berkeley–Los Angeles, 1963.

LM

— Arbach, M. Lexique maḏābien. Aix-de-Province, 1993.

LS

— Leslau, W. Lexique Soqotri (Sudarabique moderne) avec comparaisons et explications étymologiques. Paris, 1938.

Maiz.

— Maizel, S.S. The Ways of Semitic Languages Root Stock Development, Moscow, 1983 (С. С. Майзель. Пути развития корневого фонда семитских языков).

Marg.

— A Compendious Syriac Dictionary founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith, D.D. Edited by J. Payne Smith (Mrs. Margoliouth). Oxford, 1903.

Marg. Suppl. — Supplement to the Thesaurus Syriacum of R. Payne Smith, S.T.P. Collected and arranged by his daughter J.P. Margoliouth. Oxford, 1927. Mil Feast

— Militarev, A. Towards the Etymology of Feast (the Biblical term hag). Proceedings of the International Conference “Feast — Ordinance — Ritual in the Slavic and Jewish cultural traditions” Moscow, 2004, p. 9–20.

Mil. RE

— Militarev, A. Root extension and root formation in Semitic and Afrasian. Proceedings of the Barcelona Symposium on comparative Semitic, 19–20/11/2004, Aula Orientalis 23/1–2, 2005, 83–130.

Ricks

— Ricks, S.D. A Lexicon of Epigraphic Qatabanian. PhD dissertation. Berkeley, 1982.

SD

— Beeston, A., М. Ghul, W. Müller and J. Ryckmans. Sabaic Dictionary (English-French-Arabic). Louvain-la-Neuve, 1982.

268

Bibl iographic Abbrev iations

SED I

— Militarev, A. and L. Kogan. Semitic Etymological Dictionary. Vol. I. Anatomy of Man and Animals. Münster, 2000.

SED II

— Militarev, A. and L. Kogan. Semitic Etymological Dictionary. Vol. II. Animal Names. Münster, 2005.

Speiser — Speiser, E. Oriental and Biblical Studies. Philadelphia, 1967. Star

— Starostin, S. Comparative-historical linguistics and lexicostatistics. Time Depth in Historical Linguistics, Vol. 1, 223–265. The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Cambridge, 2000.

Stolb.

— Stolbova, O. Chadic Lexical Database. Issue II. Moscow–Kaluga, 2007.

TD

— Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Ed. G. Botterweck et al. Vol. I–. Grand Rapids, 1974–.

Tomb.

— Tomback, R. A Comparative Semitic Lexicon of the Phoenician and Punic Languages. Ann Arbor, 1978.

269

INDEX OF SUBJECTS Agnostic(s), agnosticism VII, XVIII, 6, 53, 57, 77, 97, 172 Altruism, altruistic 58, 165–168, 170, 172, 197 American Jew(s), U.S. Jews, Jewry 5, 7–8, 10–12, 25 Anthropocentric, anthropocentrism, anthropocentrist, anthropocentricity VII, 1–2, 25, 32–36, 39–40, 45, 75, 100, 164, 171, 175–176, 186–187, 191–192 “Anthropo-deity” 74–75 Anti-Israeli 103 Anti-Jewish 102–103, 182 Antinomy, antinomic VII, 75, 104, 183 Anti-Semite(s) XXI–XXII, 4, 14, 16, 195 Anti-Semitism VIII, XVI, 3, 5, 12, 18–19, 101–103, 191, 195 Assimilation, assimilate, assimilated 3, 6, 15–16, 23–24, 93–94, 100, 102, 107, 133, 138, 157, 161, 174–175, 183 Atheism, atheist(t) XIX, 6, 17, 53, 162, 172, 191 Axiology(-ies), axiological 164, 169–170, 174–175, 177–178, 180, 184, 186 Bible, Biblical VII-VIII, XI–XII, XVIII– XIX, XXII–XXII, 1–2, 5, 19, 23–27, 31–32, 34–41, 43, 45–51, 55–57, 62– 72, 74–87, 89, 91, 93–94, 96, 100–101, 104, 108, 115–116, 122, 126, 129, 134– 139, 141–145, 148–155, 157–161, 164, 169–170, 175–176, 179–186, 190, 198, 270

212, 216–218, 220, 222–223, 227–229, 234, 237, 240–242, 244–245, 247–249, 253, 255–256 Bolshevik(s), Bolshevist, Bolshevism XX, XXIII, 9, 11, 19, 188, 191, 193 “Burring” (uvular or guttural pronunciation of “r”) 92–95 Canon, Biblical canon VII, XIX, 39, 66, 72, 113, 116–117, 129, 174–175, 177, 182–183, 253, 257 Christian(s), Christianity, Christendom XI, XIX, XXIII–XXIV, 1–2, 9–11, 19–20, 31, 39, 41–43, 48, 57, 61, 64, 72, 77–79, 100, 112, 114–117, 119– 120, 122–125, 128–129, 131, 138, 143, 154–155, 161–163, 172, 175–176, 181–186, 188, 190–192, 198, 201, 253–254, 256 Cognition VII, 72, 75, 164, 169–170, 175 Communist(s), Communism XVIII, 17– 18, 21, 176, 187–188, 196, 198 Conversion, convert(s), converted, los conversos XXIII, 10, 13, 108, 117–118, 122–123, 133, 161, 163, 178–179, 181, 183, 185, 192 Crisis (of identity), identity crisis XXVIII, 3, 5, 6, 8, 15, 24, 103 Diaspora VIII, XXV, 2–3, 5–6, 10, 20, 24, 93–94, 99, 102, 104–105, 107–108, 111, 118, 120, 125–127, 129–134, 136,

Index of Subjects

138–140, 143–144, 148, 156–157, 162, 169–170, 175, 179, 182–6 Dominant population, nation(s) 20, 90, 132–133, 157 Ethics, ethical(ly) VII, XVII, XIX, XXI, 25, 30, 32–33, 36, 45–50, 55, 57–59, 61, 67, 78–80, 165–166, 169, 180, 186, 188, 191 Ethnic, ethnicity, ethnos, ethnical(ly), ethno- XVI–XVII, XX–XXI, XXVII– XXVIII, 7, 9–13, 15–16, 20, 23, 37, 48, 84, 88–89, 91, 96, 98–100, 106, 111– 121, 123–132, 134, 143, 147, 155–157, 160, 169–170, 183–184, 189–190, 196 Ethnic diseases” 12 Ethnocentric, ethnocentrism 6, 37, 156, 179–180, 186 Etymology(-ies), etymological(ly), etymologist(s), etymologized(-ing) VIII, XII– XIV, 26, 28, 55, 80, 82, 88, 97, 135, 141–2, 148–153, 158, 176, 199, 212– 214, 216–229, 231, 233–234, 236–237, 239, 241, 245–247, 249, 252, 256 Folk, popular, Volksetymologie, pseudo-etymologies, mythical, “mythetymology(-ies)” XIII, 55, 79, 82, 148, 213, 223, 232, 247, 251 “Etymopoetic(s),” “etymopoesis,” “etymopoet,” etymopoetically VII, 82, 147– 148, 220, 224, 245–249, 253–257 Evolution, evolutionary, “evolutionist” XII, XXVI–XXVII, 25, 28, 36–37, 39, 52–4, 77, 97, 125, 165–169, 171–172, 174–176, 187, 215 Evolution of Human Languages 28, 98, 215 Exodus (from Egypt) 70, 86–87, 89, 136 Fanatic(s), fanaticism XX, XXI, 19, 59, 162, 191 Freedom VII, XVIII–XIX, 8, 21, 35, 48, 60, 67–68, 70, 78, 171–172, 184, 215 Galut, golus 125, 127, 136, 138, 143–144 Genocide(s) XVII, XXII, 2–3, 33–34, 59, 106, 187, 189–190

Glottochronology, glottochronological IX, 28, 85, 118, 120, 222, 225, 249, 259, 263 God, God’s XVIII, XIX, 1, 6, 32, 39–46, 51–53, 55–56, 58, 61–67, 70, 72–81, 87, 136, 140, 143–144, 149–151, 153, 155, 158, 160, 163, 170–172, 184, 186– 187, 240, 243, 246 god(s), goddess 1, 37, 40–41, 43–44, 49, 51–53, 61, 66, 69, 72–73, 81, 162, 170 God’s (chosen) people 37, 134, 158, 194, 229 Halakhah, Halakhic 9–10, 12–15, 24, 100 Haskalah 186 Hebrew(s), Hebrew language VIII, 2, 11, 25, 27, 35, 37, 40–42, 54–55, 69–70, 72, 74, 76–95, 102, 123, 135, 138–140, 142, 144–145, 148, 150, 152–154, 159, 169–170, 173, 178–181, 183–185, 188, 197, 199, 207, 209, 213, 217, 219–220, 222–228, 233–235, 237, 239–241, 243, 245–249, 251, 253–257, 260 Hebrew loanword(s), Hebraism(s) in Egyptian 88, 90 Hellenism, Hellenistic, Hellene, Hellenic, hellenize(d), Hellenization XI, 31–32, 48, 56–57, 70–72, 79, 102, 114, 122, 161, 169–170, 177–179, 182–183, 198 Holocaust VIII, XXII, XXV, 2, 7, 18, 22, 38, 103, 186–189 Humanism, humane, humanistic, humanitarian, humanity XVI–XX, XXVII, 1–2, 5–6, 16, 19–20, 25, 31, 33–34, 43, 45–46, 48, 57–58, 78, 103, 164, 170– 171, 186–187, 195, 197, 215 Hyksos 91 Identity, identities, self-identity VII, XII, XVI, XX–XXI, XXVIII, 3, 5–9, 12–13, 15–16, 23–24, 73, 99, 101, 103, 121, 131, 155, 157, 159, 169, 198, 231 Immortality XVII, 51–52, 61, 63, 74 Imperative, Kantian, categorical 61–62, 67 Individualism, individualistic 3, 7–8, 20, 171 Inquisition, inquisitor(s) XXIII–XXIV, 2, 4, 185, 190, 193 271

Alexander Mil itarev. THE JEW ISH CONUNDRUM IN WORLD HISTORY

Intelligentsia, Intelligent Russian VII, XVI, XXI, 15–17, 18, 20, 23–24, 58, 197, 214 Russian Jewish XVI, 58 Soviet 20 Interdisciplinary 12, 97–98, 215 Islam, Islamic, islamization, Muslim(s) XIX, XXI, XXIII, 1, 11, 31, 34, 42–43, 61, 64, 72, 94, 99–100, 112, 115–120, 122–125, 128, 143, 154–155, 161–163, 175, 184–186, 190, 192, 198, 201 Israel, Israeli(s), Israelite(s) XI, XXI– XXII, XXV, 2, 3, 5–6, 8, 10, 12–13, 24, 38, 65, 70–71, 78, 85–88, 90, 92– 93, 102, 104, 126, 131, 135–136, 140, 143–145, 147, 151, 158–161, 189–191, 193–196, 217, 226, 229, 231 Israel Stele, Stele of Israel (Merneptah Stele) 85, 90 Jewishness XVI, 12 Jews’ genetics, Jewish genetic characteristics 103, 107–109 Joke(s), jokey 4, 17, 20, 22–23, 31, 47, 188, 198 “Judaicized”, “Judaicizing” 122, 170, 179, 182 Judaism, Judaic XIX, 1, 3, 7, 9–10, 13–14, 31, 42–43, 48, 57, 79, 100, 108, 111, 115, 122–123, 155, 161, 171, 178–184, 191 Judeophobia, Judeophobe 3, 92, 102, 103 Kabbalah, kabbalistic, kabbalism 135, 185 Liberal(ly) XI, XVI, XXIV, XXVII, 5–7, 10, 18, 21–22, 25, 58, 109, 167, 196, 213 Life after death, afterlife, eternal life VII, XVII, XVIII, 50–55, 57, 61–62 Linguistics, comparative, historical XIII, 27, 88, 97, 212, 214–215, 219, 221– 222, 258 Мashiah, Messiah 135, 144, 180–181, 256 Marriage(s) (mixed, intermarriages) 2–3, 6–9, 12, 15–16, 23, 95, 101, 108–109, 133, 146 Masoretic 93–94 272

Metempsychosis, reincarnation(s) 40, 51–52, 64 Monotheism, monotheistic, monotheist VII, 1–2, 40, 43, 78–79, 102, 161–163, 175, 177, 179, 184, 197 Natufian(s), Post-Natufian(s) 124, 129, 145–147, 173, 226 Nazi(s), Nazism XXI–XXIV, 176, 182, 187–190, 194, 198 Nuremberg trial(s) 33, 189 Palestinian(s) XXI, 12, 184, 193, 195–196 Pan-ecumenism, pan-ecumenical 112, 125, 127 Paradox(es), paradoxical(ly) XXVI, 3, 41, 75, 103–104, 127, 134, 155, 157, 175, 183, 191 Particularism, particularistic 33–37, 156, 169, 173, 186 Peoplehood 8, 10 Platonists 62 Political correctness 106, 194, 219 Poly-ethnicity, poly-ethnic 112, 119–120, 127 Polytheism, polytheistic 2, 161–163, 179, 197 Posthumous 51–52, 55, 57, 61–62, 64 Post-modernism, post-modernist 76, 96 Progress VII, XVII, XX, XXIV, 25, 69, 71–72, 99, 124, 197 Proselytism, proselytes 112, 122–123, 127, 161, 182 Pun, play on words 76, 81, 245, 257 Rational, rationalistic, rationality XXVII, 20, 26, 58–62, 98, 101, 110, 155, 172, 176, 194–195, 255 Religion(s) VII, XVIII–XX, XXVII, 6, 8–10, 17, 51, 59, 61–62, 100–101, 103, 107, 111, 118, 125, 133, 154–155, 161, 182, 184, 186, 201 Revolution, revolutionary XXIII–XXIV, 1, 16–18, 32, 54, 84, 96, 100, 124, 135, 177, 186, 191, 193 Russia VII, XI, XVI, XVIII, XXIII–XXIV, 8, 11–24, 97, 101, 177, 190–191, 196, 198 Post-Soviet 22, 24, 197

Index of Subjects

“Russian idea” XXVII, 198 Russian Jew(s), Jews of/in Russia, Russian Jewish XVI, XXII, 6, 9–12, 15, 19, 22, 24–25, 47, 58, 101–102, 164 Russian religious philosophy 19, 74, 171 Secular 7–8, 20, 25, 37, 144, 163, 172 Septuagint 72, 102, 116, 122–123, 138, 140, 142, 178, 227, 256 Soviet Jew(s) 8, 11, 13, 19 Union XVIII, 8, 9, 13, 16, 18, 22–23, 164–165, 188–189, 198 Strategy(-ies) VIII, XVII, XXVIII, 42, 106–107, 122, 127, 155–157, 161, 163– 164, 167, 169–170, 172–175, 177–178, 191–193, 197 Supernatural 40, 51, 53–54, 81, 101, 170– 171

Universalistic, universalism XXVII, 33, 35–37, 39, 78, 100–101, 135, 154–156, 169–170, 173, 178, 180, 183–184, 186– 187, 191–192 U.S.S.R. 5, 7–8, 11, 13 Value(s) absolute 2, 25, 45 cosmopolitan 6 modern 3 national 3 religious 3, 171 spiritual 48 traditional Jewish 7, 9 universal VII, 5, 6, 19, 24–25, 180 Western 34, 103, 189 Western civilization XVII–XVIII, XXIV, 3, 25, 34, 124, 169, 186, 194 Xenophobia XVI, 3, 12, 103, 191

Talmud, Talmudic 2, 38, 75–76, 103–105, 183, 185, 198 Underworld, Hell, Hades 55–57, 62, 64, 223

Yiddish 2, 11, 24, 84, 92–94, 99, 125, 249, 260 Zionism, Zionist(s) XXV, 22, 37

INDEX OF NAMES Ahmose I 91 Akhenaton 79 Akhmatova, Anna 18 Alexander III 17 Alexander the Great 32, 114, 177 Antiochus IV Epiphanes 102 Arendt, Hannah 188 Areopagite, Maximum 77 Aristeas (Pseudo-Aristeas) 74, 78, 123 Aristotle 32, 185 Arutyunov, Sergei 198 Assman, Ian 49, 61 Augustine 163 Begin, Menachem 193 Bohr, Niels 100 Bokassa 33 Brodsky, Iosif 18 Brown, Erica 8 Carlos, Baader and Meinhof 33 Celan, Paul 188 Chakovsky, Alexander 18–19 Chetverikov, Serghei 164 Chomsky, Noam 214 Chlenov, Mikhail 110–121, 123–130 Chrysostom, John 47, 182, 184 Derrida, Jacques 100, 188 Diakonoff, Igor M. XIII, 26, 29, 31, 81, 86, 91, 213, 215, 225, 226, 246, 251, 266 Dolgopolsky, Aharon 215 Dostoyevsky, Feodor 17, 78 Dubnov, Shimon 156 Dybo, Anna 258 Dybo, Vladimir 215 274

Efroimson, Vladimir 164–167, 173 Einstein, Albert 194 Epicure 52 Esenin, Sergei 18 Esenin-Volpin, Alexander 18 Finkelstein, Israel 87 Flavius, Joseph 91, 102 Fleming, Daniel 160 Flusser, David 78 Freud, Sigmund 53, 79, 100 Gagarin, Juri 18 Gaidar, Yegor 21 Galich (Ginzburg), Alexander 18 Galperin, Misha 8 Gell-Mann, Murray 98, 215 Glazunov, Ilya 19 Glinski, Dmitri 11 Greenberg, Joseph 216 Hammurabi 49, 69 Hekataeus 102 Heidegger, Martin 188 Herodotus 32, 71, 117 Hitler, Adolf XXIV, 4, 33–35, 188 Hope, Marvin 38 Hussein, Saddam 33 Huxley, Aldous XIV Idi Amin 33 Illich-Svitych, Vladislav 215 Ivanov, Vyacheslav Vs. 215 Jacobson, Vladimir 49 Jesus 180–182, 254–7 Justin the Philosopher 182

Index of Names

Kant, Immanuel 61 Keith, Arthur 165 Kogan, Leonid 26, 219, 247 Koltsov, Nikolai 164 Korczak, Janusz XVII Koveman, Arkady 134 Kropotkin, Pyotr 17, 166 Lazar, Berl 8 Lenin, Vladimir 19, 33–35 Leslau, Wolf 213 Levinas, Emmanuel 188 Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien 53 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 54 Lhot, Henry 29 Limonov (Savenko), Eduard 19 Lysenko, Trofim 165 Maccabees 102 Maimonides, Moses 77, 185 Maizel, Solomon 81, 84, 246–249 Malraux, André 29 Mandelshtam, Osip 18 Manetho 102 Mao Zedong 33 Marx, Karl 100 Muhammad 184 Napoleon 177, 186 Nechayev, Sergey 17 Neusner, Jacob 38 Osama bin-Laden 33–35 Pasternak, Boris 18, 100 Pearl, Daniel XXI Paul XXVIII, 180, 182 Pfeiffer, R. 123 Philo 138 Philocrates 123 Pipes, Daniel XXI Plutarch 138 Pobedonostsev, Konstantin 17 Pol Pot 33 Psammetichus I 126 Ptolemy II Philadelphus 123 Pushkin, Alexander17 Putin, Vladimir 19, 21

Rabbi Eliezer 75 Rabin, Chaim 217 Ramses I 92 Ramses II 92 Reformatsky, Alexander 214 Renfrew, Colin 98, 215 Rockefeller, John 189 Rofe, Alexander 71 Rogerson, John William 237 Sakharov, Andrei 18 Satanovsky, Evgueny XII Sharon, Ariel 194 Sheikh Yassin 33 Sholokhov, Mikhail 18 Show, Bernard 188 Silberman, Neil Asher 87 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander 18 Saussure, Ferdinand de 214 Speiser, Ephraim 157–160, 217–232, 248 Stalin, Iosif (Joseph) 17–19, 33,188, 214– 215 Starostin, George 258 Starostin, Sergei 28, 85, 91, 98, 215, 222, 225, 258–259, 263 Swadesh, Maurice 28 Tadmor, Hayim 46 Talaat Pasha 33 Tcherikover, Victor 123 Theophrastus 102 Thiel, W. 237 Tiglatpalassar III 102 Tolstoy, Lev (Leo) 17 Toorn, Karel van der 159, 231, 237 Torquemada XXIII Toynbee, Arnold Joseph 101–102 Tramontano, R. 123 Tsvetaeva, Marina 18 Tylor, Edward Burnett 53 Ur-Nammu 48 Voltaire, François 79 Vysotsky, Vladimir 18 Zerahyah 185 Zhirinovsky (Eidelstein), Vladimir 21