Monday, October 18, 2010

Whatever became of the Thracians?

The other day, for some reason I found my self wondering how Jews became so thoroughly dispersed throughout the Roman Empire, and how, moreover, we remained Jews.  Take the Thracians for instance.  Why weren't they sent to Iberia, or Caledonia?  If they were, why aren't they still Thracians?  Curiously enough, since I almost never consider religion a rational reason for anything, I think it was the peculiar mono-theism of the Jews that is responsible.  Consider:

The Roman Empire is expanding over Europe, Mesopotamia, North Africa.  Everywhere they go, there are, of course, people living there already.  While these people obviously don't consider themselves Roman, they don't really have all that much attachment to their own rulers either.  They are living under more or less totalitarian despots who, while they probably speak the same language as the population, are not governing by the consent of the governed in any real way.  So, why not the Romans?  Now they come to Judea.  The population believes, universally I think, that the land, from Golan to Goshen, is theirs because God gave it to Isaac.  Their rulers are anointed by God.  While the Roman emperor is actually divine, the Romans have so many gods that one more or less has got to be pretty insignificant.  Furthermore, the Jews, because they have only this one god, and because Moses told them that this god said so, are pretty intolerant of gentiles, especially gentile overlords (1st commandment).  As long as there are Jews in Judea, they're going to want to run things, especially the temple.  As long as there are Jews in Judea, there will be rebellion.  We're just that ornery!  Not so the Thracians.  For them, it's just a change of uniform, a change of currency, no change at all, really.  What to do about the Jews?  Well, send them to Iberia of course.  Send them to Germania.  Send them to Scythia.  Let them practice their peculiar religion.  Let them long for Jerusalem.  Let them, in the mean time, establish commerce with the far-flung reaches of the empire.

The Romans come and go.  Likewise the Visigoths and the Saxons.  The peculiar residents who were never actually "from there" even though they've always "been there" remain.  And all because we couldn't be made to play well with the other children.

We still don't play well, apparently.  How else to explain why the settlement question is so intractable?  When the United States annexed parts of what had been Mexico,  the people living in those places, who had been Mexican, who had considered themselves Mexican, who spoke the language of Mexico, did not feel like they had to leave.  They did not, nor did the Mexican government, nor did the US government, think that it was impossible for them to remain in their settlements while the political boundaries changed around them.  So there are Jewish settlements in Palestine?  Let them become part of the Palestinian state.  Why not?  Because, I suppose, we're just not Thracians.

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