Jesus On Mars

20

What had Orme learned about Mars? Very little of what he had expected to discover, which wasn't much anyway, and far more than he could possibly have anticipated in imagination.

Even when he'd learned that the Martians were Jewish, he'd had daily experiences that surprised and sometimes upset him.

One reason for this was his firm preconception of what a Jew was. But the more time he spent on Mars, the more he realised that though he'd prided himself on his lack of prejudice, he had had far more than he'd thought possible. Or perhaps it was not so much prejudice as ignorance. Though it was hard to draw the line between them.

Also, the Martian Jew was not, could not be, identical with the Terran Jew, though there was a basic similarity. Two thousand years ago, the two had been separated. Those left on Earth had had intimate involvement with many hundreds of different Gentile societies. Their Gentile neighbours had made a cultural impact upon the Jews among them no matter how the Jews had struggled to keep intact their identity, physical, mental, and spiritual.

'The Jews who settled in China in olden times,' Bronski said, 'eventually became indistinguishable, physically speaking, from the Mongolian goyim. They also lost most of their Jewish heritage. On the other hand, the Jews in the Rome ghetto, though they preserved their religion, were Italian in many respects. That is, they could not escape adopting many cultural attitudes. This was to be expected. The Jews have always done this wherever they settled, and indeed, they could not have survived without doing so. But the Roman-ghetto Jews ended up looking like Italians.

'I've had explanations from various Jews as to why so many Italian Jews look Italian and Dutch Jews look Dutch and Sephardic Jews look Spanish or Portuguese and the Yemenite Jews look Arabic. They ascribe this to a sort of protective mimetism. That's a ridiculous, nonscientific explanation. It's based on their unwillingness to admit that somehow, no matter how hard they've tried to keep the "racial" strain pure, Gentile genes have entered it. Rape can account for a certain amount of this, but adultery is the main cause. Of course, the genetic flow has gone the other way, too, and many an anti-Semite has a Jewish forefather.

'The Jews, especially the devout, don't or won't admit this explanation into consideration. I don't know why. Throughout their history, their prophets have raved about the whoring of their people with the goyim. Or, to use a less emotional and more accurate word, miscegenation. You've read the Bible. You have. You know what I'm talking about.'

Bronski said, however, that this was no real danger to the preservation of Jewish identity, which was not based on 'racial' purity but on religious purity. Anyway, any child born to a Jewish woman was regarded, by Jewish law, as a Jew and was raised as such. However, it usually had to endure shame and reproach and would not be admitted to the Temple to worship.

'This was no big deal,' Bronski said, 'since there has been no Temple after 70 AD nor was there one during the Babylonian captivity. But I digress, as usual. Why not? The digressions are as interesting as the aspects of the main argument.'

All ethnic groups underwent acculturation because of contact with other groups. But what was to most Gentile groups acculturation was to orthodox Jews backsliding -contamination, pollution, evil.

'From their viewpoint, they were absolutely correct. How could they be Jewish, continue to be God's Chosen People, if they ceased to cling to the religion, if they abandoned any of the laws of Moses? To give up or alter even an iota of the basic commandments was to let the snake get his foot into the door.'

He smiled, saying, 'That is, if a snake has feet. His nose, anyway. However, the Martian Jew has been isolated from both his brother Jew on Earth and the Gentile community. He has not suffered the horrible persecutions of his Terrestrial kin nor has he been tempted to adopt Gentile ways, since he knows no Gentile. He's completely unaware of the nuances, the emotional associations, of the word "Jew" as uttered by too many Gentiles and by too many Jews themselves.

'Here, after the Krsh and the Terrestrials had worked out their cultural differences, which was made much easier by the Krsh becoming Jewish, the society became a homogeneous unit unaffected by non-Jewish contacts. In the begi

For over two thousand years Mars had known no wars, no mass migrations impelled by fear, no riots. The only civil disturbances had been an occasional peaceful demonstration. There had been brawls among individuals or small groups and some murders. But these were so few that Bronski had said that he sometimes wondered if the Martians were truly human.

He would quickly add, however, that he, like Mark Twain, had some prejudice against the human race. What the Martian society demonstrated was the potentiality of the human for peaceful cooperation. It also demonstrated that Homo sapiens (and Homo Krsh) was not a born killer. Or, if he was, the Martian society had certainly repressed or diminished considerably any instinctual drive for murder and war.

'Yes,' Orme had said, 'but note that, now that there is going to be contact with the foreigner, the Martian is embarking on war.'

'No. He's not declaring war. He won't fight unless he's attacked. He'd be insane or very stupid if he wasn't prepared for war. He knows the history of Earth and its present situation. He has to expect attack.'

'Which the Martians know full well will happen. The point is that they could avoid war if they stayed on Mars. Or if they did not try to proselytise on Earth. They know that, yet they are going to try to convert the entire population of Earth. They know that this will result in war. Millions, maybe billions, will die, will suffer terribly.

'In a sense, the Martians are belligerents, the aggressors.'

Bronski smiled wryly.

'You keep saying they, not us. You forget that you and I are among the they. You're not really a full-fledged Martian yet - if you ever will be.'

'How about you? You were calling them they.’

Bronski shrugged. 'It takes time. I can no more forget Earth than the ancient Jews of the Babylonian captivity could forget Jerusalem.'

One of the things Bronski could not help speculating about was the fitness of the Martians for war.

'What do they know about the horrors of war? It's an alien concept to them, something they've read about but which they've never experienced. Two thousand years of peace have made a psychic atmosphere we of Earth can't possibly imagine.

'It's true that every generation has trained for war, but it's all play - so far. What will their reaction be when they have to kill and be killed? Will two mille

'The red-eyed ape that slumbers in all of us will be awakened and let loose from his cage.'

'If there is such a creature in us.'

'But he says that this must be done, that it is right,' Orme said.

'If it was anyone but he, I'd question that.'

Both knew that the other still had reservations about what was going to happen, still had doubts and questions. But they'd told themselves, and each other, that they had not yet overcome their Terrestrial conditioned reflexes. Surely, the time would come when they would be able to dissolve these, be as Martian as the natives. In the meantime, they were suffering. Orme was in a worse state than he would admit to Bronski, than, most of the time, he would admit to himself.

Another thing that made the Martians different from their Terran coreligionists was the initial influence of the Krsh. In the begi