We did not look Jewish enough?

amother

Powderblue

Thu, Oct 04 2018, 10:08 am

Kids say the silliest things.
My kid once told me there was a tzedaka collector at the door when it was actually a respectable person who came to help us. Was the man hurt? I hope not. I hope he realized that kids are kids.

My husband has a short beard and a kippah, wears black pants and colored shirts, and even he was called a [gentile] by a kid that answered the door.

Anyone who gets insulted by something a kid says is wasting their emotional energy.
Kids aren’t fully formed adults yet. They are still learning and growing and there is so much potential still there.

Save your outrage for the rude adults.

zaq

Thu, Oct 04 2018, 10:26 am

dankbar wrote:

Chareidim are any frum orthodox people no? Do they have too be to the most extreme to be called chareidi?

Charedi is translated as ultra orthodox. That means not MO, not centrist, not modern yeshivish, not MO machmir, not julst plain frum. Before the Flood when I wore a younger gal' s clothes, Charedi meant specifically those affiliated with the Eidah haCharedit in Israel. I never heard it applied to ultra-orthodox in chu"l.

The term has since been diluted to include all ultra orthodox, and many use it to include all " black hats" of any affiliation. I personally wouldn't equate black hat with charedi, but consider charedi to be the extreme right end of the black hat spectrum, if one can call it a,spectrum when it's all black. (Why not? You have pitch black, midnight black, coal black, jet black, carbon black, soot black, lamp black, black as the ace of spades...)

And why do we even call it black hat? Because back before the Vikings set out in their wooden ships to colonize North America, there were yeshivas that prescribed hats of blue, or brown, or grey. Like school ties, hats--and whether or not they were embellished with a,feather-- identified to the initiated which yeshiva a young man attended. The most right wing ones required black hats. Nowadays, alas, they ALL require black hats if they require hats at all. Pity, that.

simcha2

Thu, Oct 04 2018, 10:30 am

amother wrote:

It's not that the kid is offensive, it's that a kid only repeats what they hear. That's the offensive part. A kid who thinks shaygitz is an acceptable word is learning that at home.

zaq

Thu, Oct 04 2018, 10:38 am

amother wrote:

My kid once told me there was a tzedaka collector at the door when it was actually a respectable person who came to help us

And some adults also say silly, rude and insulting things. Since it was just YK I will be dlkz and assume that you never intended to impy that tzedaka collectors are not respectable people, but that IS the way your post sounded.

I really hope that wasn't what you were thinking. Because my ds used to devote at least two weeks a year of their precious bein hazmanim time --time they could have been spending with family and friends-- going door to door upwards of 12 hours a day collecting tzedaka for their yeshiva. I would cheerfully tear you to shreds with my bare hands if you suggested that they and their friends who were similarly occupied were the least bit not respectable.

amother

Powderblue

Thu, Oct 04 2018, 10:47 am

zaq wrote:

Woah. Talk about outrage.
I know there are many respectable tzedaka collectors.
I used respectable as in to be respected. As in a rav.

Your outrage just prompted a new thought.
People are only insulted to be mistaken for someone else if they think badly of that type of person. Nobody is insulted if someone mistakenly thinks they are a celebrity or millionare.
Does this mean the people who are insulted to be mistaken for a non jew think badly of them?
Food for thought.

amother

Lemon

Thu, Oct 04 2018, 11:04 am

amother wrote:

No, I don't think so. I do dress in skirts and cover my hair and I would be bothered if a frum adult assumed I wasn't Jewish just because I didn't conform to their style of dress. That's because being Jewish is central to my identity and I guess I expect other frum Jews to know that. Maybe I also value their opinions of me?

Once I was taking my kids to the doctor and had covered my hair with a black pretied that day. A man saw me and said, "Bless you, sister, for taking such good care of these children" I wasn't bothered that he assumed I was a nun because he was just a random passerby. In fact I was so amused that I have told the story to friends and relatives, which is why I'm posting this anonymously.

amother

Powderblue

Thu, Oct 04 2018, 11:13 am

simcha2 wrote:

It's not that the kid is offensive, it's that a kid only repeats what they hear. That's the offensive part. A kid who thinks shaygitz is an acceptable word is learning that at home.

Yes that’s true. And there are adults who think shaygetz is a normal way of talking.

However that wasn’t the topic of conversation. I thought we were talking about kids thinking a jew is a [gentile] because of their dress.
I highly doubt anyone teaches their kids that black hat plus beard equals jew and anything else equals [gentile].
Kids make assumptions. Just like calling an older man a zaidy makes sense to them even if he doesn’t actually have any grandkids.

Cheiny

Thu, Oct 04 2018, 2:59 pm

Sadie wrote:

Was this guy a kid or an adult? If you read the OP she says her husband asked the price of something and the employee didn’t answer his question, instead answering a question he wasn’t asked (and implied that the customer was ignorant about what he wanted)

Bad customer service and very rude.

You see it that way, I see it as he was trying to be helpful. Perhaps something about the way dh asked, made the shopkeeper think he wasn’t very knowledgeable. We can’t know what’s in someone elses’S mind and what caused his confusion, so let’s be dan l’kav zechut.

Cheiny

Thu, Oct 04 2018, 3:00 pm

Iymnok wrote:

No, good customer service would be telling him the price, I.e answering his question.
Good customer service does not mean inserting your opinion of their interest.
Besides, there are secular people who are fluent in Hebrew.

He offered no opinion, he offered information.

amother

Chocolate

Thu, Oct 04 2018, 6:34 pm

whats long wimpers?

maybe he had just read a book on kiruv and needed a new eyeglass prescription or had cognitive challenges

who knows

life is short

sorry you felt insulted

these are the things I tell myself in these types of situations
sometimes easier said than done we all have our triggers

once years ago an older couple thought I wasn't jewish based on looks (and asked me) I just laughed and showed them my magen dovid necklace, I mean I really didn't care because why on earth would I I didn't take it personally or feel insecure about it
and it wasn't an insulated community the opposite they were "unaffiliated" jews

Sadie

Thu, Oct 04 2018, 11:56 pm

Cheiny wrote:

He offered no opinion, he offered information.

Well he *didn’t* offer the information that the OPs husband asked for, which was the price. That’s bad service. I worked in retail for many years and this is exactly the type of thing that bothers people. Imagine you go into a hardware store and ask the price of a drill, and the guy behind the counter says, “that’s called a drill, we use it for making holes” and then when you say, uh okay but how much does it cost, he tells you and then says “we have some pink ones though, are you sure you don’t want one of those?”

I don’t know, maybe you would like that. A lot of people wouldn’t.

amother

Sienna

Fri, Oct 05 2018, 1:17 am

shabbatiscoming wrote:

Welcome to insular bubble communities, where people literally never see frum people who look different than them.
Was this by any chance in israel? It sure sounds that was, said sadly, to me. Ive experienced this too. Its pure ignorance.

I know someone who went to Yeshivat Merkaz Harav on Yom Haatzmaut. He wasn't wearing a white shirt. He was wearing a stripy shirt. He was frum, he just wasn't Israeli, so he didn't know that's the 'uniform' on Yom H.
The man standing next to him kept showing him the place in his siddur.
Also in Israel, but not in the communities I think you're referring to.

shabbatiscoming

Fri, Oct 05 2018, 1:33 am

amother wrote:

That can also be considered an insular community :/ I never said insularity had to be one community specifically. There is all kinds of insularity.
On the other hand, maybe the student heard this boy talking in english and wanted to help him in the siddur.

amother

Yellow

Fri, Oct 05 2018, 3:27 am

I live in Manchester and see women in trousers/ uncovered hair lots in the kosher stores.
I think you just got a bit of an odd ball serving you. There's another book shop that I refuse to go in if a certain man is serving. He's just so rude and unpleasant.
I heard a story about a frum GP (black hat, Augdah type) in London. A boy and his father went in for an appointment. The little boy looked at his father and said in Yiddish 'Is he a Yid?'
People can be ignorant.

ora_43

Fri, Oct 05 2018, 4:38 am

simcha2 wrote:

It's not that the kid is offensive, it's that a kid only repeats what they hear. That's the offensive part. A kid who thinks shaygitz is an acceptable word is learning that at home.

But the poster wasn't offended by the use of the word "shaygitz" so much as at the fact that the kid didn't realize her father was Jewish.

The kid should have been taught that that isn't a nice word.

OTOH, it's not reasonable to expect a young kid to understand who is and isn't Jewish. They haven't seen enough non-Jews and different kinds of frum Jews to understand the nuances of how each group dresses. They only know what looks "like us" (in this case black suits, black hat, etc) and "not like us" (everything else).

OP's story is something different. I'd be offended, too. Probably the worker thought he was being helpful, but there are less condescending ways to offer help.

amother

Orange

Sat, Nov 03 2018, 1:31 pm

Although it is obviously not the worst thing that could have happened, I'd have been offened too.

The seller might have been trying to be helpful but it is quite patronising to be spoken to as if you have little to no knowledge. OP's DH was asking the price of a book of tehillim, so there is a good chance he knows what it is!

I have encountered attitudes like this too. When I first moved to my current city, I was lucky enough to be invited by a couple of families at the shul I was attending. There are jews of all levels of observance around here. I happen to be towards the more right wing end of the spectrum. I met both of these families in shul, where I attended for the whole service every shabbat. I also dressed very conservatively. I suppose those two things don't necessarily mean much, but I did not expect to be asked if I know how to do netilat yadaim before Shabbat lunch!

At the other family, I was asked are there many Conservative Jews in your previous city? (the implication being that I was Conservative, not Orthodox.)