Talk:Judaism and politics

More content needed for Medieval Section
Currently, the medieval section only reflects politics in Ashkenazi Jewish communities. It should be expanded to reflect the history of Jews living outside of Eastern Europe as well. Rosguill (talk) 19:05, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

" The Hebrew Republic " of The 16c-18c European-American Political Debates ( Protestants began by citing The Bible, then they learnt Hebrew and began citing The Talmud )
Since this page seems to be about Jews and Politics rather than Judaism and Politics so I hesitate - oh no I don't ! - there should be some mention of " The Hebrew Republic " about which there are some academic arguments as to the use made in 16c - 18c political debates in Europe and later in America of models of government to be found in Jewish literature ... When Jews started to teach Hebrew to explain The Talmud to Protestants who were fighting Catholics and were already citing " The Old Testament " for justifications for God's authority for their disobedience this kicked off the arguments in Europe over The Divine Right of Kings versus the supremacy of The Rule of Law ... This played a part in the founding of The Republic of The Netherlands in justifying their fighting for freedom from The King of Spain, in the trial and execution of The King of England and in the founding of the United States of America - which even alluded to the idea of itself being modeled on " The Hebrew Republic " by using symbols such as " The Star of David / Magen Dawid " made up of thirteen stars for the thirteen states which succeeded - and possibly " The Unfinished Pyramid " symbol with " The Eye of Providence " placed over it.

Reading Jewish literature prior to The Reformation was not only difficult because of the separation between Jews and Christians but also very dangerous because learning Hebrew was tantamount to apostasy and owning and quoting Jewish texts other than The Old Testament was often a criminal offence. A similar state of affairs pertained to learning Arabic and owning and quoting from Islamic texts and when parts of The Koran were first translated they were furtively passed from hand to hand in samizdat fashion : the political model presented in reports of The 17c Ottoman Empire of Jews, Christians and Muslims co-existing together was cited by those advocating religious Toleration in Europe - and those Jews involved in international commerce and who were often refugees from Reconquista Spain were most probably the kinds of people who brought not only these Jewish but also those Islamic texts into Protestant Europe where scholars were eager to read them.

" The Hebrew Republic " is the title of several books - not all of which debate these 16c-17c European-American political debates - because since the term was coined in academic circles it has become a bit of a cliche : a major feature of what was argued was whether The Bible justified Monarchy or Democracy or both together under The Rule of Law - etc ... But I am not educated enough to tell you more ...DaiSaw (talk) 00:27, 25 September 2018 (UTC)