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Is this an Anti-Semitic Hate Crime?



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mimivan




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 3:05 am
If a person is physically harmed because he/she is called or Jew or is considered a Jew, but if he or she is not really a Jew (and the perpetrator might or might not realize that), can the victim be said to have suffered an anti-Semitic hate crime?

Should the perpetrator be punished the same amount as if he had committed an anti-Semitic hate crime rather than a regular violent crime?
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 3:07 am
Well, you could ask all the non-halachically-Jewish people who perished in Hitler's gas chambers.
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mimivan




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 3:08 am
And what would be the effect on, let's say, a boy who an adult family member (perhaps an uncle in a heavily intermarried family) hurled anti-Semitic abuse at while hitting him, but he wasn't sure whether or not he was Jewish and wasn't sure where the remarks were coming from..

wondering if he would be more like to grow up anti-semitic like his uncle, completely freaked out by the issue of Jewishness, or a ardently pro Jewish, or a frum Jew (maybe would have to convert depending on what family history was really going on)?

I just heard a story yesterday that got me thinking about these issues....wonder what you all think.
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mimivan




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 3:11 am
sequoia wrote:
Well, you could ask all the non-halachically-Jewish people who perished in Hitler's gas chambers.


but would that fall under the same heading of an Anti Semitic hate crime?

the communists who died in the gas chambers...could be said to have died in an "Anti Communist hate/war crime" etc..
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BeershevaBubby




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 3:21 am
IMO it's about intent. If the perp intended to kill/harm a Jew, whether s/he got the right victim isn't necessarily the point.
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mimivan




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 3:32 am
Okay, so taking this theoretical situation a bit farther, and seeing how far to push the envelope, should we make it easier for such victims to convert to Judaism if they wish (I.e. since, knowing something about anti-semtisim, it seems unlikely that they would be converting for ulterior motives, which is one reason the process takes a while, to test sincerity)

or should a non-Jewish victim of an anti Semitic hate crime be given some kind of temporary or permanent residence in Medinat Yisroel?

(just tossing this topic around)
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 3:36 am
mimivan wrote:
sequoia wrote:
Well, you could ask all the non-halachically-Jewish people who perished in Hitler's gas chambers.


but would that fall under the same heading of an Anti Semitic hate crime?


Yes, because they were killed as Jews. The Nuremberg laws applied to everyone who was one-quarter Jewish. We don't know how many of the six million were not halachically Jewish, but in all likelihood a fair number.

Once Yevtushenko was reading at the scene of Babi Yar. Someone yelled, "Not only Jews died here!" Yevtushenko replied, "True, but only Jews died because they were Jews."
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BeershevaBubby




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 3:42 am
mimivan wrote:
Okay, so taking this theoretical situation a bit farther, and seeing how far to push the envelope, should we make it easier for such victims to convert to Judaism if they wish (I.e. since, knowing something about anti-semtisim, it seems unlikely that they would be converting for ulterior motives, which is one reason the process takes a while, to test sincerity)

or should a non-Jewish victim of an anti Semitic hate crime be given some kind of temporary or permanent residence in Medinat Yisroel?

(just tossing this topic around)


No.
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ora_43




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 4:05 am
If the perpetrator thought the victim was Jewish, it's anti-Semitic. I would say that the victim knows what it's like to be the victim of anti-Semitism.

If the perpetrator knew that the victim wasn't Jewish but used anti-Semitic language anyway, it's not anti-Semitism (just plain bizarre), but the victim could still be said to have suffered anti-Semitism (assuming the victim didn't know that the perpetrator knew that he wasn't Jewish).

I don't think the non-Jewish victim of a hate crime against Jews belongs in Israel. Israel is more than just a response to anti-Semitism, or at least it should be. And the non-Jewish victim can find a place elsewhere, eg. a Christian mistaken for a Jew one time can still live as a Christian in most parts of the world without fearing anti-Semitism.

I also don't think conversion should be made easier. The non-Jewish victim of anti-Semitism would still need as much time as anyone to learn about the mitzvot, practice keeping them, and think over their decision. (Some say that the descendant of Jews could be converted more easily whether or not they've faced anti-Semitism, but that's a different matter).

I think that in a situation like you describe, where a child is beaten and there's an anti-semitic overtone, some victims will go on to identify with the perpetrator (ie be anti-Semitic), some will identify as the victim (ie be pro-Jewish or identify as Jewish), and some will do neither, just like victims of physical abuse in general can either go on to abuse, go on to subconsciously seek out abuse, or do neither.
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mimivan




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 4:44 am
great, thorough, thought out answer Ora
(and Yesha and sequoia..)
I think you touched on all the points, and agree with you...except that I have a hard time feeling the boy in that scenario would be completely unaffected by having anti-semitic abuse hurled at him...I think he is likely either to be a little bit anti semitic himself, or feel a solidarity and concern for Jews, it would be titled in either direction..but I have trouble such a person would stay completely neutral, if he were traumatized by the incident or if it were frequent.
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BeershevaBubby




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 4:45 am
http://www.thejewishweek.com/b.....nough

Quote:
No, Not Everyone Is Jewish Enough

By Jonathan Mark
Created 01/20/2011 - 21:39
Submitted by Jonathan Mark on Thu, 01/20/2011 - 21:39
It is fitting that Gabby Giffords is the congresswomen from a border district with Mexico, because a lot of the same people who think any illegal alien from Mexico who wants to become an American is therefore an American, also think that anyone who wants to be a Jew is instantly a Jew. The horror of the Giffords shooting has led some to discuss how Jewish is Giffords, and is she Jewish enough?

We know one thing: She is Reform Jewish enough. Her father was Jewish but her mother was not, Giffords husband is not, and Giffords joined a Reform temple several years ago, considering herself a full member of the Jewish people. Not having a Jewish mother, and not properly converting (if she didn't) means Giffords isn't Jewish, according to classical Judaism, or don't Conservative and Orthodox Jews have the right to their own beliefs anymore?

Getting shot makes you a martyr. It doesn't make you Jewish. A non-Jew dying in Auschwitz or in the Israeli army because of your love for the Jewish people makes you holy. It doesn't make you Jewish,

Visiting Israel and thinking that you're raising Jewish children and sharing the Jewish fate, if you're not Jewish, makes you socially heroic, it may even mean that you're holy and deserving of every Jew's love and admiration. But it doesn't make you Jewish.


And, while we're at it. just having a Jewish mother and nothing else in your life be Jewish makes you a dope, but yes, you're Jewish. Just like being born in Paris and being a Nazi collaborator still makes you French, while American soldiers who liberated France are still American, not French.

Moving to Haiti and healing that country would make me a good person, it won't make me Haitian. I may be a better person than Baby Doc Dualier, but he's still Haitian because he was born there. I was not.

If I got a doctorate in Mexican history, a second doctorate in Mexican political science, a third doctorate in Mexican poetry, and if I moved to Mexico City and raised a Mexican child it wouldn't make me Mexican. I'd be an American guy who loves Mexico. Try it. See if Mexico, with all your love, would let you vote in Mexican elections and have a Mexican passport without going through a highly complicated process of becoming a legal citizen.

Here's something "undocumented" Jews who grew up Christian might learn if they decided to study and convert and do it right. Judaism isn't Christianity where you just have to accept Yoshke to be saved.

Accepting the Jewish God and the Jewish people doesn't make you Jewish. It means you took the first step, a holy first step but the first step alone. All religions are not the same and this isn't Christianity.

Why are these the rules? I don't know. I trust my Founding Fathers. I trust the mystics and the centuries. I trust that something holy, matters of the soul, shouldn't be easy. To be Jewish is to be humble enough to admit that sometimes you just don't know but you do what you're supposed to do and, if you pay attention, you'll figure out most of it as you go along.

A non-Jew may be the sweetest, most loving, most spiritual person, but you're not Jewish if you aren't Jewish the right way.

Mexico won't give me a vote or a passport even though I'm as sweet as iced tea.

Trying to impose a Christian-like definition of who is a Jew on the rest of us means you refuse to take the second step. The second step is getting serious. Being chutzpadik doesn't make you Jewish, either.

It's inappropriate to have this discussion while Giffords is in this hospital but I'm not the one who brought it up, either in The Jewish Week or elsewhere.

Just as the shooting led to a national night of the long knives by leftists hunting all enemies, real and imagined, the matter of Giffords Jewishness is being used for another anti-intellectual mugging of anyone who dares to think that Giffords isn't Jewish enough -- something I have never heard in Orthodox shuls where Giffords is being prayed for but something I've only heard among Jewish illegal aliens and their supporters who want to exploit the tragedy or who want real Jews to change Orthodox and Conservative law for no better reason than the emotion of the moment.

In Orthodox shuls I have only heard mercy and prayers for the dead and wounded. How Jewish anyone might be doesn't come up except if it needs to be known for a halachic situation.

But this is bigger than Giffords. This is about the lurch toward demographic, social and religious chaos.

Apparently. to too many "undocumented" Jews, and their backers, there should be no conversion process or standards whatsoever, just like there should be no American citizenship standards whatsoever.

At least, in the old days, if you wanted to become an American citizen you had to do more than cross the Rio Grande, you had to learn who George Washington was, you had to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and know some basic facts of citizenship. There was a cermony and standards, for the ceremony to be meaningful. With good reason. We're a better country if we have an educated populace, if newcomers understand that there is more to the American dream than just dreaming.

Now, that's out. Just as in Judaism (according to this logic), you don't have to be know anything aboit Judaism.

An astounding number of Jewish wannabes are remarkably ignorant of anything about Judaism, other than some half-baked nonsense about Tikkun Olam, the delusion that there is a Jewish commandment to agree with every leftist cause de jure. The full phrase is l'takayn olam b'malchus Shaddai, to fix the world under the kingship of God, not the kingship of you. God has laws.

If being a citizen of country is complicated, why shouldn't being a Jewish citizen? Being a citizen of a country does not involve a theology or a belief system. Being in a religion does.

Or, dear instant citizen, does Judaism believe whatever it is that you believe? What a coincidence. What arrogance.

So what's being asked demanded, at the risk of their ridicule and contempt, is that a person need not have any knowledge of Judaism, or not any more than a scattershot awareness, before that self-declared Jew can be a voting member of a synagogue, voting on the future of the Jewish community, voting and having a voice determining the future of Jewish organizations and Jewish continuty.

Why should any serious Jew agree to this unhinged world of no standards, a system in which the majority of new voters have the Jewish education of a first grader, if that?

With Jewish illegal aliens becoming a thriving demographic, even a majority, should we therefore turn over the synagogue keys to theological hobos -- those who believe that religious identification is nothing but a train to hop on or hop off, depending on your latest marriage, or whomever your kids will marry?

Can Judaism survive if it is based on nothing more than your mood?

There is nobility in non-Jews who are willing share the Jewish fate, who attempt to raise Jewish children, who attend synagogue and yearn to be a contributing part of the community.

But really, how many non-Jewish partners are so pure? Check out this interesting exchange in which the Times writer has more decency than the non-Jewish partner..

Here's a clue about how non-Jews or half-Jews can gain acceptance. Don't walk into the Jewish people like someone at their first ball game who announces that baseball history and the expereince of the ages be damned, there should be two strikes instead of three, and three innings instead of nine, and no strikeouts at all because a batter might feel bad.

Ask any sports fan what he or she would think of someone like that. And Judaism should matter a little more than a sport.

I believe in welcoming converts as if they were my blood, welcoming non-Jews who share our fate, who share our families, with all the love that such devotion deserves.

I don't even like discussing this sort of thing because it might hurt or discourage someone. Again, I'm not the one who brought this up.

But when influential non-Jews and their media lawyers start dictating the terms of Jewish surrender, when the would-be Jews show not humility and respect but contempt and mockery for Jewish concerns and traditions that are thousands of years old, when the illegal aliens decide that religious anarchy is preferable to serious Judaism, then no, not everyone is "Jewish enough,"
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mimivan




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Jan 24 2011, 4:59 am
Yesha, great article. I agree that a person in the OP would not "become" Jewish as the result of being a victim of an anti semitic hate crime, but would be just that the victim of an anti semitic Hate Crime (jewish or not)

about residence in Israel and conversion, I just wanted to see if posters tended to agree on the parameters...I also wouldn't agree about that.
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