It seems like whenever we talk about Mormons as a people and a culture, the first discussion point is always “How are we like/unlike the Jews?” It’s very natural for Mormons to see the parallel with this fellow tribe.
It just hit me recently, though, that this connection might not be so obvious to the Jews themselves, and perhaps they’d find it interesting. So I offered to do a guest post for a Jewish-interest blog that I read and comment on regularly (Lubab No More), and they graciously accepted.
Here’s the post: My Tribe.
I don’t claim to be the world’s leading expert on this subject, though, so please stop by and share your own thoughts on the connections between Mormonism and Judaism.
This is hilarious, by the way, because the feeling of affinity, in my experience, does not go both ways. Even when you try to explain to Jews why it should.
I once went to lunch at a kosher steakhouse in NYC with some observant coworkers, and the discussion largely centered on how hilarious they thought it was that Mormons think they’re a persecuted religious minority.
Well, yes and no. Just because the Mormons are busy pouring out the dough to persecute another minority (eg. prop 8 ) doesn’t mean the Mormons aren’t themselves also a persecuted minority. It just means they need to catch a clue.
(hint: If you’re a minority who doesn’t want to be persecuted, then don’t hand over your savings to promote theocracy, which gives additional pesecution power to the religious majority, as I discussed in the above-linked article.)
Kullervo, if meeting the Jewish threshold of “persecuted minority” is what it takes to get the label, then nobody is going to qualify.
Face it, you just can’t top the Holocaust.
But that doesn’t mean nobody else deserves any sympathy.
I would like to suggest that many Mormons ARE Jews… literally. And the many if not most of those who claim to be Jews… are not.
Here is my logic
http://threewatches.blogspot.com/2008/09/42-i-know-blasphemy-of-them-which-say.html
And here is a related article I wrote that was posted on ldsanarchy
http://ldsanarchy.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/a-mystical-look-at-the-lds-restoration-movement/