Reasons for Indian's love of Israel are deeper than pure politics

Submitted by Sunil (United States), Apr 21, 2009 at 03:22

Dear Dr Pipes: Thanks for posting this article. There are many historical reasons why Indians might feel love and respect for Israel and Jews. I as a Hindu from India will speak for myself but these reasons may hold true for many others as well:

1) Hinduism like Judaism is what can be termed as world's original religion. While the dates of te origination of Islam and Christianity can be pin pointed in history, the religions of Jews and Hindus have no beginning dates. Some where some time in the tide of history we might each have picked Brahma and Abraham and worked from there but no one knows where and when. This fact binds us.

2) Hindus have tried hard to unify their millions of gods into one supreme entity which has no beginning, no end, not even any shape, names or properties. We have a natural admiration for the people who invented the concept of monotheism and propagated it without branding or monopolizing it..

3) Jews view that there are many paths to God/salvation and you do not have to convert to Judaism to be a good human is dear to Hindus as well.

4) Hindu religion places .a very high value on the quest for knowledge. In fact, we believe that it is possible to achieve nirvana solely by following the path of knowledge. Similarly, the hindus place high value on contemplation/meditation and argumentation to acquire (even religious) knowledge. Many concepts in the Jewish faith are common to these belief of Hindus.

5) Hindus place very high value on education. We admire the great achievements of Jews in the fields of medicine, physical sciences, and mathematics.

The Hindus will appreciate any societies in wich these values are found. Unfortunately, in the current world there are not too many of this kind.

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