PSA: watch what you say and when.

watergirl

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 6:33 am

This has happened to me many times in different forms. Best story - you know those Israelis who sell hand cream at the mall? I was living in the middle of nowhere and was at the mall, I walked by their booth and in Hebrew, the Israelis said quite loudly “that charedi lady, I bet she doesn't even understand Hebrew”. So I walked up to them, said hi, and as it was right before RH, invited them to stay for the holiday. The next day I came back with round challahs, honey, and a bulletin from the shul with davening times. They declined but we were friendly until they left!

singleagain

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 7:12 am

amother wrote:

ONE person's doing, doesn't represent a whole entire huge community. So stop talking on chasidim. talk about this one insensitive, uneducated adult!!

Signed by a chassidish woman.

Agree. Absolutely 100% one person doesn't represent a community. Is a very important lesson to learn.

However, it's human nature to be wary after one negative experience. Maybe that's a distinctive person who wronged you. Or an animal that bit you. But everyone is understanding when you say you're afraid of dogs bc you got bit as a child... But the moment you say you don't like x ppl bc of y incident... "Oh but we're all not like that" ... And you're not. But that is human nature.

amother

Pearl

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 7:37 am

fmt4 wrote:

.... and now we know how boys are brought up to think that behavior like this is ok. They have mothers who think like this poster.

I never said their behavior is ok. It is not ok. It is not ok to cut lines, and it is not ok to call people names.

I said not to scold strangers because you don't know how they could react. They could be mentally unbalanced, full of rage. This was a girl traveling internationally by herself scolding two men. The smart thing is too ignore boorish behavior from strangers, even frum people.

singleagain

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 7:40 am

amother wrote:

Actually, I think OP's plea is that we raise our children better than this, especially our some who wear the "uniform" and are therefore not easily identifiable as religious Jews.

amother

Cerise

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 7:52 am

I had this with Mexican workers at the supermarket. I was with my mother who is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese and some Spanish. The guys were commenting on how I looked and my mother said something sharp in Spanish about keeping their eyes on their own girls. I have never seen someone look so shocked, my mother looks like a typical Charedi middle aged mother and they obviously never expected that she understood them.

amother

Pearl

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 7:53 am

singleagain wrote:

Actually, I think OP's plea is that we raise our children better than this, especially our some who wear the "uniform" and are therefore not easily identifiable as religious Jews.

I have no objection to raising classy kids who respect everyone. It amazes me advice not to scold strangers is considered wrong on this site. IRL, it is smart behavior for a girl not to take on two grown men. Where is everyone's common sense?

ora_43

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 7:55 am

Some chassidim are jerks, just like some people from any community are jerks.

WADR to the importance of awareness, I doubt anyone is thinking "I want to raise my kid to be the kind of person who's mean to strangers in airports." The guy didn't insult her thinking she wouldn't understand, he insulted her deliberately, after he knew full well she'd understand.

singleagain

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 7:58 am

amother wrote:

The issue here is not that the girl scolded them. The issue here is how the boys acted in the first place.

also she may have felt comfortable saying something because they were fellow Jews I know when I took the subway in New York City I always felt a little bit more comfortable when I saw a kippah.

ora_43

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:01 am

I halfway agree with amother-pearl.

I don't agree that there's anything wrong with calling people out for bad behavior, even if it's two grown men. It was an airport, not a dark alley.

But it's true that very very few people who behave badly in public are going to react well to being criticized for their behavior. Like, odds of that not ending with them insulting you or even screaming curses are maybe 1 in 100. The kind of person who does things like cutting in line (or being openly racist, or parking on the sidewalk, or whatever else of a million bad behaviors) is not the kind of person who takes criticism from strangers graciously.

That doesn't mean it's wrong to criticize, it's just good to be aware of what to expect.

(eta - I'm saying this as someone who probably would have said what OP's daughter did if not worse)

Last edited by ora_43 on Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:10 am; edited 1 time in total

Ema of 5

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:04 am

singleagain wrote:

And it seems to be that this is not the first negative experience, so she’s not formulating an opinion based on this, but rather this episode reinforced a PREexisting opinion.

OOTforlife

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:07 am

amother wrote:

In a deserted parking garage perhaps. An airport passenger terminal is a very secure location, and a violent reaction would have been extremely unlikely under the circumstances. I wouldn't have been worried about it myself.

ora_43

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:07 am

singleagain wrote:

However, it's human nature to be wary after one negative experience. Maybe that's a distinctive person who wronged you. Or an animal that bit you. But everyone is understanding when you say you're afraid of dogs bc you got bit as a child... But the moment you say you don't like x ppl bc of y incident... "Oh but we're all not like that" ... And you're not. But that is human nature.

A lot of things are human nature. It's human nature to want to hurt someone's feelings if you're mad at them, but the guy who called OP's daughter "shiksa" is still a jerk.

People understand if someone fears dogs because fearing dogs doesn't cause any harm to dogs. Disliking an entire groups of people is a lot more likely to cause harm, so we have a lot more responsibility to actively try to overcome it.

I'm not saying any of this as criticism of OP's dd. This is all stuff to keep in mind a month or more later, not two minutes after someone was awful to you.

amother

Forestgreen

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:07 am

amother wrote:

She's was in an airport with a ton of security.

She didn't 'take on two grown men'.

amother

Olive

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:10 am

It's not just Chasidim, people think they can say stupid stuff in other languages and no one will know, especially Americans, because everyone knows Americans are stupid and only speak English. I'm an American who speaks five languages. Once I was on the subway and some tourists were yammering away in one of the four not-English languages that I know. They decided, hey, let's talk about graphic zex acts in public just because we can, these dumb Americans will never know (yes, they actually said that before proceeding to talk about graphic zex acts). When my stop came, I smiled at them just as I was getting up to leave and, in their language, gave them a friendly welcome to New York, the Great American Melting Pot, and I hoped they were enjoying their stay. They didn't have a chance to respond with more than very funny looks on their faces as I stepped off the train. But yeah, saying mean/stupid things in a language you think nobody around you understands is stupid thing to do. You don't get to complain about it when some rando understands and calls you out on it.

amother

Pearl

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:12 am

amother wrote:

She's was in an airport with a ton of security.

She didn't 'take on two grown men'.

The insult didn't happen in the airport. Did it?

If you don't realise that a lot of bad behaviour takes place even in places with a ton of security, then you live in a bubble. This week a women was killed in a police station.

OOTforlife

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:15 am

amother wrote:

Yes it did.

Quote:

My daughter hears this and tells the guy, in Yiddish, I have no problem but it is a huge chilul HaShem. Guy turns white. He didn’t expect my daughter to know Yiddish. Once they boarded, my daughter found her seat. As the guy passes her, he hisses under his breath. SHIKSA.

Please share your data on the frequency of physical assaults at airport boarding gates.

ora_43

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:15 am

amother wrote:

It happened on an airplane.

Letting awful behavior slide without comment because one in a million people might snap and do something serious is going too far. If anything, we reduce violence in society by refusing to let even milder bad behavior slide, not by refusing to say anything unless we have a small army to back it up.

southernbubby

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:21 am

amother wrote:

I’ve always wanted to ask this: are Chassidish people really as sheltered as they make it seem? I worked at a Chassidish business and the owner and some other workers were always talking about sports, what teams were playing, who was winning, etc. I know of Chassidish women who are very into secular fashion and go crazy for Louis Vuitton, Chanel, etc (even if they can’t afford it). Many are on Instagram now. Is the Chassidish world really so sheltered nowadays? I mean, sure, there are those who are but as a whole, I just don’t see this supposedly sheltered community of people.

Maybe I’m just hanging out with the out of the box types What

Interesting question. I can't get internet or Wi-Fi in this apartment except the slow connection on this phone because none of my neighbors subscribe to internet so the providers won't come here unless you want to put a satellite dish on the roof or pay $67 a month for slow dial up.
The basement tenants have never even said hello to us, even though we left shalach manos by their door. When we come outside, their kids run back in, yelling in Yiddish that the Lubavitchers are coming. The mother of one of the families dresses totally in black and the little girl has very long braids and wears a prairie pinafore style. The little boy wears a long black coat. The father has a class of small boys in his apartment during the day.
Nobody else in the neighborhood seems as sheltered as them. We daven down the street and get texts and emails from the Rabbi and Rebbitzin regarding shiurim and other shul matters.

Ema of 5

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:28 am

amother wrote:

Anyone who doesn’t agree with you doesn’t have common sense? Seems like you’re the odd man out, so maybe you are the one lacking this time. No one took anyone on. She was t fighting with them, she just said their behavior wasn’t acceptable. Maybe she should have said something, maybe she shouldn’t have, but that does NOT give someone the right to call her names. Stop excusing him and blaming her. She may have been wrong, but he was DEFINITELY wrong.

amother

Pearl

Tue, Apr 09 2019, 8:41 am

Ema of 4 wrote:

Anyone who thinks the possiblity that strangers will not react to scolding lacks common sense. I stand by that.

I have already said they are wrong. I haven't been defending them. I can't understand how many posters keep saying this happened in the airport even the poster that just quoted the OP. IThe insult happened on the plane.

But that doesn't matter. I never said they have the right to call her a shiksa. I said it is common sense not to scold strangers. She ended up hurt by their behavior ON THE PLANE which is entirely foreseeable.

My explanation for the behavior of the posters on this thead is typical imamother herd behavior. If you have a different POV than the posters on the thread, then they gang up and pile on even if it is not logical.

Think for yourself if it is smart to go around telling strangers what they are doing wrong.