In this follow-up piece we're going to explore the idea that Jewish people are also a 'melting pot' people – a people forged at the centre of human civilisation. Not a tribe separate to all the other nations of the Earth, but a people manifest out of that larger humanity.
People think of Jewish people as a people apart. Think the image of the Orthodox Jew, marrying within the Orthodox community; a community maintaining its distinctness from the wider culture it finds itself amongst.
Historically, this wasn't entirely the case though.
A comparison would perhaps be Amish communities, which have remained separate for centuries, but that originally sprang from the broader German populations of Europe. So, though distinct now, once upon a time they were not. Their strict and separate brand of Christianity not being an unchanged continuation of an ancient Christianity, but an offshoot of the more general Protestant Christianity that existed in Europe in the 17th century. We think of the Amish as "old fashioned;" a people living how Christians would've lived in the very earliest of times. Yet, as the movement is relatively recent, that isn't quite true.
Likewise, we tend to think of Orthodox Jewish communities as being secluded and "old fashioned." A continuation of an ancient Judaism that has retained its separateness - both religiously and ethnically - throughout the centuries and millennia. However, similar to the Amish movement, the Orthodox movement too is relatively recent, being just a few centuries old. Sure, it emerged from a much deeper Jewish tradition and culture, just as Amishness emerged from a deeper and older Christianity, but, as with Christianity, the original Judaism it emerged from was no doubt much more organic and amorphous.
We tend to view strict and literal interpretations of religion as true religions, and lax or loose interpretations as deviations from the strict and literal originals. However, in truth, the opposite is generally the case. Religions begin naturally, and only later develop into their stricter forms. Natural behaviours - such as hunting or washing - become ritualised; and natural cycles - such as seasons and celestial events - become the focus of awe and celebration. The particular forms of practising the rituals only becoming habitualised over time.
Likewise it's the case for the various prophets and religious figures. They became celebrated not for living lives of dull routine, but because they went through interesting experiences, or espoused meaningful ideas. A revolutionary figure - a Moses, or a Jesus - comes along and changes the world. It's only later, after the era of such figures, that synods of men take these stories and turn them into regiment and ritual. The bubbling ferment of human culture and religious experience then whittled down and commodified by more political and dogmatic minds.
So, strict and formal religions tend to be a paler semblance of an original spark. A living God, expressed through living human beings, reduced to a storybook God, taken literally, and expressed through repetition.
The overall point being that strictly defined religions should not be viewed as early, but rather, as more recent. As late-comers. As followers (in the truest sense of the word), not originals.
People see modern Orthodox Jewish people keeping to themselves, and marrying amongst themselves, and assume that this has always been the case. And that therefore, Jews in general have always been ethnically separate and racially distinct - going back to the Old Testament. But this is unlikely to be the case.
In fact, if we look at the Old Testament stories we find many examples illustrating the opposite. With various biblical figures taking wives from outside tribes. Moses married a Cushite woman. Joseph took the Egyptian Asenath as wife, who bore him the sons Manasseh and Ephraim. King Solomon, of course, had many wives and concubines.
People may point to the prohibition in Deuteronomy 7:3, against marrying with the sons and daughters of foreign nations. The implication is no doubt more aimed against marriage with foreign religions than foreign races, but either way, the prohibition somewhat proves the case. In Ezra 9:1-2 we see that Ezra is informed that "the people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighbouring nations.. They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and the officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness".
And in the Book of Nehemiah 13:23, Nehemiah "saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other people, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah." The figure Samson also engaged in relationships with Philistine women.
Middle-Eastern Melting Pot
Generally, it makes sense to read the Bible as a history. Of a people wrestling with the idea of God. Rather than as the literal word of God Himself. Naturally, with history, there are ebbs and flows. Different moments, opinions and eras. Both conservative and expansive impulses.
Geographically, it also makes sense that the Middle East itself, the location of biblical history, would be a natural melting pot.
Imagine a world before the age of major oceanic travel - before Columbus has discovered the Americas, and before the Portuguese have navigated the southern tip of Africa. A world where long distance journeys across the world ocean are not an option. In such a world the Middle East and the inner seas, (the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean), would be the natural centre of the world economy.
Hence, this central area, where three continents meet, would be bustling with trade and travel and empire. Where riches are accumulated, and where people of different tribes and kingdoms meet, marry, and come into conflict. A furnace of ideas and competing interests.
Is it any wonder that such a place would give rise to the world's three great religions? Just as modern economic centres, such as New York and California, act as seeding ground for modern cultural trends and ideas today. In fact, Israel, both historically and in the modern era, could be viewed as a symbolic epicentre of civilisation. With the Jewish people likewise, at the centre of this unfolding human narrative. A people of, and born out of, this churning cultural cauldron.
Returning to the mixing of peoples and cultures, it should be noted that cities naturally lead to more genetic diversity than rural areas. If you live in a city - a populous crossroads where people come and go - it's much more likely you'll meet someone from a foreign tribe or race. Whereas, in a rural setting, the high likelihood is that you'll settle down and produce children with someone from the same tribe or nation as yourself. You only have to visit cities and rural areas today to see this difference.
If we imagine this probabilistic process playing out over centuries, perhaps millennia, of history we can begin to envision a natural dichotomy emerging between town and country. The civilised city people - naturally more mixed and cosmopolitan, and the tribes beyond - more homogenous and insular.
If you look at modern Jewish populations, it's not difficult to see the influence of this process, with the different Jewish ethnic groups tending to look like the peoples they live adjacent to. Ashkenazi Jews look largely European, but with a touch of the Middle East. Sephardic Jews look Mediterranean. Mizrahi look more eastern.
Now, this isn't to say that, therefore, these various Jewish ethnic groups aren't linked and contiguous with each other. Or that, for the most part, Jewish people haven't predominantly intermarried with other Jews. It's more the relative frequency of mixing with outgroups that is the difference.
To some degree, all peoples and nations are mixed if you trace the tribal family tree back far enough. For example, in a general sense, you could consider English people to be a distinct ethnic group. However, if you trace backwards you quickly find Danes, Huguenots, Angles, Celts, Saxons and so forth in the mix. That's before you get to all the various odd and occasional incidences of intermarriage that will have inevitably taken place through the centuries. The odd sailor bringing back his foreign bride. Or the stray Frenchman somehow ending up in London and marrying an English girl.
Once again, it's the relative scale of the mixing that's interesting. In fact, Britain is quite a good example. In the previous piece we discussed the idea that red hair is common in Britain because of its geography. Being situated in the North Atlantic, it's a natural melting pot, where blond-haired Nordics from the north meld with darker-haired/skinned settlers from the Mediterranean. We likewise noted the relative commonness of red hair in Jewish populations. It could well be that this red hair has a similar cause. Namely, that Jewish populations too have a wider diversity of skin and hair tone in their collective gene pool.
As a further aside, it's also interesting to note that Jewishness has shared some of the negative stereotypes that are associated with red hair - such as distrust and devilish intent. Similarly, Jewishness has also been associated with leprosy. The historian Manentho wrote in his work Aegyptiaca (a lost work, quoted by the historian Josephus), about a renegade Egyptian pharaoh named Osarseph, who led an army of lepers against a pharaoh named Amenophis. Osarseph has been equated with the biblical Moses, and the lepers with the Jewish exodus from Egypt. Towards the end of Manetho's story Osarseph even changes his name to Moses.
With King David and Esau being described as "ruddy" in the Bible, and both Judas and Jesus often being portrayed in art as red-haired, we're also reminded of the concept of the sacrificial red heifer. An important Jewish ritual, and in Messianic Judaism an instrumental part of the preparations needed to reestablish the Third Temple in Jerusalem. It's interesting that one place we see variation in hair, or fur colour is in domesticated animals. Usually, in nature, the appearance of animal species tends to be quite uniform and fixed. However, as we see with dogs, cats, horses, cattle, etc, variation tends to be more common where we have domestication. Dappled greys, blacks and mottled browns, toffee-coloured coats, blondes, sandy whites and reds ..and so on. It seems the domestication process creates conditions where fixed appearance isn't as strictly selected for. Or, perhaps, where it is selected for - for example, if farmers are purposely breeding for such colours.
One can't help but wonder if it's similar with humans. Perhaps the range in human hair and eye colour is due to civilisation removing or limiting factors that select against this variation. A kind of self-domestication process you could say. It's notable that even today in parts of Africa albinos are often killed because of their appearance. An obvious selection pressure against it.
Maybe diverse, melting pot cultures are less likely to persecute such differences. Or, alternatively, it could be the case that, in melting pots, the incidences arising are simply too numerous to eradicate with persecution. The use of albino body parts in ritual and black magic in Africa is likewise reminiscent of some of the strange notions about red hair we see in history. Such as ideas that the urine from red-haired boys was needed to make swords and stained-glass windows. Or that the fat from redheads was needed to make potions and poisons - "three ounces of the red-haired wench." Or, more gorily, the claim that redheads were sacrificed in ancient Egypt, owing to the notion that the evil god Set/Typhon (the god of foreigners, no less) was red-haired.
Similarly, the red heifer is both rare and sacrificial - and needed to manifest some divine work or magic. In Christian thought the red heifer is sometimes equated with Jesus. (Curiously, according to Plutarch, the Egyptians also sacrificed red-coloured oxen as a stand-in for Set.) It seems fitting that both the Christian Jesus and the Jewish Mashiach stand as symbolic of man or humanity in general. Just as Israel and Jerusalem stand as a symbolic central locus of world affairs and history.
The Christian Jesus and the Jewish Mashiach are in essence the exact same concept. One, a vision of perfected man set in the past. The other, a vision of perfected man set in an awaited future. Both, in reality, just ideals to aspire to in the here and now. In the living moment. Perhaps when everyone starts to understand these things symbolically, as opposed to literally, humanity will finally begin to fulfil its bubbling potential.
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