Marx was baptized, raised Protestant, and knew nothing of Judaism his entire life. His father had gone to great pains to escape his Jewishness and provide a better life for himself and his son, even changing his name. As a result, Marx was inevitably brought up with a considerable amount of internalized antisemitism.
Tag: Secularism
Totally-Not-Antisemitic Pseudolinguistics, Part 1: Modern Hebrew
It is a view commonly held among amateur linguists, among whom I count myself, that Modern Hebrew is a constructed language “invented” by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. The official Tumblr of the Language Creation Society recently alluded to this, sparking a discussion on the LCS list which introduced a number of equally ridiculous claims, such as that Modern Hebrew was a “reconstructed language” in the same sense as Proto-Indo-European. I have edited my own remarks and am presenting them here, along with other things I subsequently learned.
The Marginalization of Jewish Secularism
Secular Jews like me live on the margins of Jewishness, without organized community, without institutions, without even recognition of our existence and legitimacy by most Jews and non-Jews outside of the reactionary bastion of the State of Israel.