Those who are part of the non-Indigenous world of humans look upon the Jewish people’s ANE inherited writings, our scrolls of TaNaKh, as a historical document of factual events about the BCE period (by which certain of their universal religions are based upon). Knowing this, any Jew knowledgeable in these documents will either agree, in order to dismiss the non-Jews’ view of our literatures, or will simply say that the historicity of our stories is simply *not* relevant to the Jewish mindset.
When a non-Jew looks upon a Jewish story, such as the tale of the twelve brothers, they see events that actually happened in the past, and that these brothers were the historical origination point for the twelve tribes of Israel. But, when Jews read this tale, we see names – names with specific intentional meanings. The Jewish people treat these stories as *if* these events historically happened, but we know that each character of these stories represents a tribe within our ethno-religious people. And it is the names themselves for each of these tribes that dictate the story’s unfolding.
By their names and interactions between the twelve brothers, we Jews learn about ourselves and our own human natures. Even in these modern times, the Jewish people *still* behave like the Israeli family that is within this tale – divided amongst ourselves into various ideological tribes who do very specific things that affect our common history as the Jewish people.
When we Jews pay attention to the “biblical” stories, it is as Hasid Ysoscher Katz puts it: “[The] goal is not to argue or prove the scientific veracity of the Bible’s claims. [We] absolutely “believe” those stories, but [our] belief is internal: it is true because it happened in the Torah. That is where these events transpire and that is where these stories matter. Asking about their historicity is, as far as [we] are concerned, foolish and missing the point.”
As other indigenous peoples will tell you, our stories matter to us because they inform us of our own identity as a “People.” These stories within the TaNaKh are *not* for non-Jews. Non-Jews (near *all* of the time) simply have no clue which parts of our inherited ancestral literatures are sharing actual historical facts, and which parts are sharing a story about our people. This is understandable, for the Jewish TaNaKh was not written and redacted for proselytizing other people to a “religious theology.” The stories contained within are *our* people’s stories. And, if you ask other Indigenous Peoples still remaining on this planet, all have their own versions of our TaNaKh.
“Our story sees the nation of Israel as being made up of twelve tribes, represented here by twelve “brothers” who are all descended from a common “father,” called both Jacob and Israel. Although the story is told about a family, the characters in the story are meant to be the eponymous ancestors of tribes; they are not just “people” but representative figures. In the final form of the story, Reuben, the first-born and natural (and perhaps legal) leader, has been marginalized. An explanation of sorts is given in Jacob’s “blessing” in Gen 49:3-4:…” (1) Go study!
https://www.thetorah.com/article/a-tale-of-twelve-brothers
A Tale of Twelve Brothers
The historical symbolism of the twelve tribes and the geographical significance of the tribe of Benjamin.
(1) Side note: In verse 4 of Genesis 49, you will come across the Hebrew word for “conjugal-bed” (literally, “bed-for-two”), מִשְׁכְּבֵי mishkvei. There are only two other places that this noun is found in the entire TaNaKh, in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13: “A male and a man will not lay-sexually on conjugal-bed of wife.” The man is the married person here. Marital adultery is clearly abhorrent in Torah law, which is exactly what is expressed as having happened in Genesis 49:4, only it was Jacob’s concubine, Bilhah, and Jacob’s son, Reuben, engaged in adultery here. Leviticus 18:6 and 18:8 forbids this: “No man shall come near to any of his close relatives, to have sex with them…. You shall not have sex with your father’s wife.”
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“We must learn to control our own narrative” as an Indigenous People. Yes, Jon Ghahate (Pueblo member, scientist, and educator)! Yes, yes!!!
This is something that I try daily to teach the Jewish people to do. We’ve been colonized in the Western Diaspora for so long that we’ve near bought into the post-Shoah emancipated idea that somehow Jews are now merely just a religion. Ah, except for that halacha thang!
Now, personally, living for a decade in the Continental USA as a Jew of both Sephardi and Ashkenazi descent, who grew up among the Kānaka of Hawai’i and understand the *living* of the Indigenous way of life – regardless of Colonizer *expectations* of us – I have become greatly alarmed with “American” Jews (except for Chasidim) and their loss of connected identity with other Jews around this world!
Like with Pueblos, so it is with Jews. We have numerous language tribes/communities around this world. Some Jews speak Yiddish (Judeo-German) and Ivrit (Hebrew), some speak Djudyo (Ladino, Judeo-Spanish) and Ivrit (Hebrew), some speak Yahudic (Judeo-Arabic) and Ivrit (Hebrew), some speak Barzani (Judaeo-Aramaic) and Ivrit (Hebrew), some speak Juhuri (Judeo-Tat, Mountain Jews) and Ivrit (Hebrew), some speak Karaite and Ivrit (Hebrew), etc. – and *all* are members of the Jewish people, the indigenous people of Judea-Samaria.
As Jews, we *love* our stories! Though we may have learned to write them down for posterity sake, even the written versions are meant to be *orally read* and *listened* to – in the shared common language of our people. Then, we can never stop reinventing our stories. Each generation’s Chachamim tell the stories, and embellishes these stories with new recent *lived* meanings. And, we’re always adding and telling new stories *orally* from lived experiences and from direct ancestors’ lived experiences, especially to our children!
Judaism (Judāh-ism) has always been about the continuity and future of our indigenous ancestral language, literatures, ethno-religion, rituals, and halachot that tie us לדור ודור ledor vador – for all generations – to the land of our ancestors. Anyone can be Arab Muslim or European-ish Christian by a simple declaration of faith/allegiance. But very few get to be members of an *indigenous people*. As Jews, we need to cherish “resistance” anew, emphasizing our own narrative over the narratives that Colonizers have taught us to express and argue within!
There are 1.9 billion converts to colonizing Arab ethnicity and Islam religion (created by an Arab in the 6th century CE in Arabia), and there are 2.4 billion converts to colonizing European-ish Christianity (created by Byzantines in the 4th century CE in the Aegean north). The sovereign-less indigenous 36 million Kurdish people and the newly re-sovereigned 15.2 million indigenous Jewish people are not colonizers anywhere upon this planet. We’re just like all other Indigenous Nations seeking to survive modernity still intact, and seeking for the Colonized world to respect our Indigenous Rights as a People!
It’s not *our* fault that the Colonizing religions have propped us up, the Jewish People, as a “world religion” – who’s always in the news, and always the subject of rebuke – just to justify their assumed right to conquest, colonize, and convert the entire world to their *religion*. So to bring honor to our Jewish people this חנוכה Chanukah of year 5782, we would be wise, as a people, to unite with the other 370 million Indigenous Peoples trying to survive intact within this world!
Colonizers of this world – honestly – not enough are near listening! And, probably, never will. So, to achieve eventual *peace* for our people – radical Judean and Judaic honesty before the supremacist world around us is a must, like our Jewish history continuously teaches!
https://fb.watch/9JpaegWZEM/
Indigenous Resistance – Similarities Between Jews and Pueblos
Attention! This photo below shows what Colonizers *don’t* want you to know – just how long Indigenous Peoples have been on their lands before the Arab and European Colonizers arrived, and how much we intend to keep surviving assimilation.
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And, lastly, for my children, because I love them so! A story about our particular family lineage.
Here’s the key to understanding your genetic test as it becomes updated numerous times over time. If you pay attention to the details, you’ll notice certain results as being solidly unchanging in your profile. Regardless the percentage amount, this indicates a very high accuracy in the data.
For example, the paternal and maternal haplogroups will never change. Males have both, females have only the mother. These two genetic markers indicate where all your father’s fathers and your mother’s mothers settled long enough to create their unique haplogroup lines.
By *all* my fathers and mothers before me, I am a Levantine and a Sardinian. By haplogroup, I am a result of two Indigenous Peoples coming into contact. By the subclaves of both haplogroups, I am able to learn how and when this happened. I know, this begs the question! *How* did this happen? The answers are always in the details!
My Levantine ancestors found themselves next settled in Portugal, long enough to create a subclave of the haplogroup. Because of who they were, they next found themselves living amongst the Greeks and Balkans, so the admixturing strength demonstrates. So, it is *not* surprising for me, that these ancestors next settled in two very specific places in Hungary, specifically Budapest and Békés County.
Still yet, though, this Sephardic Jewish family line has yet to make contact with the Sardinia originating side of the house. Sardinians are the very first people to settle the Europe portion of the continent, specifically the islands of Sardinia and what would become later known as Ireland. So, how exactly did this happen?
It would take a change of continents for this contact between the Levant and Sardinia to occur within my family. My Sardinian ancestors found themselves surrounded by numerous migrations of peoples into northern Europe. In time a lot of intermixing and admixturing occurred between populations, especially after the rise of colonizing Byzantine Christianity. So, it’s not surprising that the Sardinian side of the family is more “all over the place” in genetic discernable locations.
It is only within a generation after the Shoah (Holocaust) that my Levantine ancestors and Sardinian ancestors finally met, married, and admixed. A common occurrence for USA socially emancipated Jewish families. And, this explains easily why all of my brothers and I look like different peoples from around this world. But, even this is not the end of the genetic family story. For our family found ourselves next settled in Polynesia, the island of indigenous Kānaka. Many of my neices and nephews are Melanesian, too!
Like all Jews, I love telling stories. This here is one of my family stories. Personally, in formative ways, I am the grown result of two Indigenous People exposures, that of my Jewish people and that of Kānaka of Hawai’i. Hence, my present focus in life, restoring Indigenous narratives to the social narratives of the majority around us. I hope you’ve enjoyed my talk.
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