format_quote Originally Posted by
fschmidt
So I assume you come from a jewish background, like me. I attended Orthodox synagogue for about a year and studied Judaism. We can debate all kinds of things, but let me stick to the practical points. Judaism requires me to put my allegiance to an immoral jew who follows nothing over a non-jew who follows the Old Testament but can't convert to Judaism because they differ on some stupid Talmudic point. I find this entirely unacceptable and I find this racist. I absolutely despise racism because my family was mostly wiped out in the Holocaust, and I see little difference in the level of racism found in Nazism and Judaism, much to my disgust.
Yes, I come from a Jewish background however, my family was forcefully converted into Catholicism and so we are no longer technically "Jewish" since it is just "blood" that defines us, though out of continual curiosity and I guess a desire to learn more about Spain ended up also looking into anti-semitic sentiment across Europe. I have only actually talked to mekubbals and so my understanding of Judaism differs a little slightly.
Listen, faith in these kind of aspects is internal. A lot of people become Muslims and you cannot generally see that they are Muslims, unless you ask them or unless they wear the hijab like me, but which I can be confused depending on the neighborhood I am in, as an orthodox Jew. :p What makes someone a Muslim? or a Jew? Or a Christian? Is it a legal paper declaring that they are Jewish, Muslim or Christian? Or is it their own internal recognition of their beliefs and affiliations? According to my mother, I am not Muslim because I was not born a Muslim, she always screams at me asking me why I defend Muslims when I wasn't born a Muslim... I don't need a paper, I don't need blood, I don't need external recognition by ANYONE other than Allah to tell me what I am, what my beliefs are and who I am. The same thing when my ancestors were forcefully removed from Spain after being converted when people didn't want to get their blood "tainted" or "poisoned". They became "Catholics/Christians", but that external belief to please someone else didn't do anything, because they were still considered a Jewish problem to the Spaniards. Changing your name by paper, your religion by paper, what does it do? The paper can be burned, and then if it's burned, do you stop your beliefs? Your internal disposition towards having conviction?
You know in Islam, religion is not by compulsion. I never jotted down or had anyone sign my conversion into Islam, nor did I have it registered and nor did I change my name to show my "Muslim" character, because Allah will not judge these things. He won't ask me, why I didn't change my name, why others didn't "register" me as a Muslim, he will judge me on my intentions and actions to do things that are pleasing to him, to be kind, to be good, to obey his command and to do things with good intention. No one besides Allah (or in Hebrew, Adonai), can know what is in your heart, inside your mind and within your body.