An Uncomfortable Subject

It's this type of thinking that promotes racial/religious intolerance. Judaism is a religion, just like Christianity, Wicca, Islam, etc. And in my own opinion there's only one race - the human race. And as for being a heritage - you can pretty much say the same thing for any religion.



Personally I am an agnostic, which for those that dont know is actually different from being atheist. However, the message that should be stated is not that one should be tolerant of all religions, but rather to be tolerant of others' right to religious freedom - including the right to not practice any religion.

It's a darned shame your friend got harassed by some jerk who had a problem with their Jewish faith, but neither is it related to either the religious or secular holiday called Christmas. Nor do I really think that one 'reminds the public' about this fact unless they're trying to blame a group at large for the bad behaviour of one individual.

Even from a secular point of view, the christmas spirit is about kindness and joy to friends, family and neighbours, no matter what the faith. Admonishing the public and subtly attempting to start a Jews-versus-the-world flamewar isn't much in that spirit. Kindess and joy to friends, family and neighbours doesn't need to be related to a religion to be practiced and enjoyed by all.

I pretty much agree, Newfie. I don't really get the connection between people going about celebrating Xmas (like myself) and the actions of a particular anti-semitic jerk. Thanks for the reminder, but I wasn't very likely to be bashing Jews over the holidays anyway.

OTOH, tomorrow I am getting a cavity filled, so it's possible I will soon become a raging anti-Dentite.

Nicely said, Newfie.

I find myself detesting this time of year. Instead of being about family, friends, booze and kindness, this time of year often becomes about keeping up with the Joneses, spending beyond means, consumption, worship of the almighty dollar, and ramming religion down peoples' throats who might not want to hear about it.

Its a damn shame what its become.

-Flip

Why don't we all practice what this Holiday should mean worldwide. Peace on earth and good will to all mankind. Merry Christmas to All!

I agree Flipper - somehow the celebration has lost a lot of it's magic and I think it might be because we are trying to do too many things and we spend too much money and our expectations are way too high.

The best Christmas that I ever remember was one where I was not working and I got together with my Hindu neighbor and made all these jars of jelly from wild black berries that we picked and we gave them away as gifts.

We sat around Christmas day playing monolopy in front of the fireplace, watching the snow fall and drinking cheap wine.

Sounds dumb - but it was one of the most precious days in my life.

festivus for the rest of us!

Its funny, we had a Festivus party last year, which was a big hit among our friends. About 20 folks showed up... and the airing of grievances lasted three and a half hours!

My favorite Christmas ever was about a decade ago... spent the morning with the family, Philadelphia had a lot of snow on the ground. I didn't get anything too fancy. After hanging out with the family, I went back to the college campus to hang out with a bunch of my Jewish friends who couldn't make it home for Christmas. I brought two cases of beer. We just hung out all day, "celebrating" Christmas, not exchanging gifts, and only exchanging laughs. It was awesome. We went out and had a snow ball fight at one point.

Best. Christmas. Ever.

-Flip

Jews do get picked on more during the Christmas season. It's the time of year when I've most often heard the phrase "Christ-killer." I've seen little kids reduced to tears by their classmates, and even mistreated by a teacher, cause they didn't have the lyrics of Christmas carols memorized. Ever see a Jewish home decorated for Hannukah egged during the holiday season by jerks shouting a mix of anti-semitic comments and exhortations to decorate for Christmas like "normal" people? I've seen it.

That sort of crap sucks enough irl . . . somehow it's worse when encountered in a place like SL where your guard is down.

Susie: abuse report the twerp, give your friend a hug, and then don't waste any more energy on it.

Some of the blase and even contemptuous responses to this post about antisemitism are all too common these days, where we see a new kind of antisemitism whose chief hallmark seems to be a defiant smugness, and a turning against both the person who experienced the antisemitism and the person who tried to protect that person.

It's a defiant, "I'm not to blame" and smug attitude that completely discounts the real pain experienced by victims of racism.

Christmas is a season when Jews, Muslims and other religious believers feel left out. Even having other winter holidays besides Christmas taught in public schools now, the tolerance and awareness is not what it should be.

This hole post is kinda fucking stupid are u honestly going to say that ppl in rl cant talk about x-mas people will be assholes just avoid them. and for the record i dont celebrate any holidays because i have no religion.

Grammar is your friend

For the record, Judiaism is NOT a race. Its a religion, heritage, culture and sometimes categorized as a nationality. While I am not Jewish, my Holocaust Studies professor who was Jewish informed us of the historical misconception that Judaism is a race.

Here's an interesting story about a towns united response to some racist intimidation:
After some bastard threw a brick through a 5-year-old's bedroom window (in response to Hanakah decorations), the police told the boy's mom to take the decorations down to discourage more trouble. Christmas-celebrating neighbors got wind of this and responded with Hanakah decorations in their windows and kept them there, even though it put them at risk for harassment. There's hate in the world, but there's also people who stand up to it.
How one town said no to hate

Olympia,

Thanks for posting that. Its really nice when a bit of faith in humanity is restored. Its all too rare.

-Flip

Judaism is a religion, but antisemitism is recognized as a form of racism, because the Jewish people are a race in the sense of a "nationality" or an "ethnicity". This is recognized universally and internationally, starting with the country of Israel itself, which grants citizenship to those who can demonstrate Jewish heritage through the maternal line, regardless of the status of their religious faith. Antisemitism is an intersection of racial hatred and religious bigotry, directed at Jews regardless of the status of their belief or actual religious affiliation; in many countries of the world, all hated minorities and oppositions are called "Jews" in antisemitic attacks precisely because of their ethnic as well as religious affiliation.

Race is often misconstrued as a skin color category.

In the Soviet Union, the passport line no. 9 had a question: what is your nationality? And Jews were expected to write: "Jewish" because it was recognized as a "nationality" or ethnic group, in this atheistic country that did not track religious belief because it persecuted it.

We need not use the Soviet Union as our standard, however.

The annual State Department country reports on human rights practices worldwide recognizes antisemitism as a problem of both race and religion, and all US international delegations to relevant conferences recognize the intersection of these issues.

The UN General Assembly has passed resolutions defining the problem of antisemitism as both a religious and a racial one. Currently the issue is dealt with by the religious intolerance resolution at the UN, as well as the rapporteur on racism, whose mandate includes antisemitism as a racism problem, in an internationally-negotiated document.

We were talking about antisemitism in this post, which is both about religion and race. If the UN, Israel itself, and other countries are not convincing for you, keep in mind the policies of the U.S. Antisemitism is a form of racism, recognized by the FBI hate crimes unit which annually tabulates bias crimes based on religion, race, and ethnicity. Whatever your Holocaust Studies professor said, they should take a look at international treaties, the policy of Israel, and U.S. law to see the wider dimension of the problem of antisemitism, which is one of race as well as religion. Indeed, historically, in the US, the Jewish community has had at times tried to appeal to traditional American tolerance of diversity of religions as a way to avoid racism.

Wow! And here I was thinking this was gonna be a post about constipation.

For myself it is like seeing your neighbors having party. You thnk that's nice and go back to what you were doing. For the folks who send me a xmas card or feel I need a present. I accept it and say thank you. I consider it bad form to put someone on the spot when they are trying to be nice.

Rox

Wrong thread

Ah! Only in America, the land of the easily offended and quick to sue.

No matter what your color, race, ethnic group, shape, economic group, sex, nationality, religion, political view or social status may be, be sure that someone right now is calling you nasty names behind your back. What are they calling you? Whatever it may be that makes you different from them.

And one more thing, it will always totally surprise you who it is...


- T -

[/QUOTE] My best friend in SL, who happens to be Jewish, was recently subjected to some anti-semetic abuse that left her in tears. I am certainly not blaming all Christians for this kind of cruel abuse, as it was the words of one deranged lunatic, but I am asking all of you to please be sensitive to others during this time of happiness. There are Jewish and Moslem people, among others, here too. Thank you.[/QUOTE]

Its Christians like that who have the " I'm Holier Than Thou" idea that gives us others a bad name. I feel sorry for your friend though. first post in forums!!!!! WOOT!!!!!!!!!!!

So far I have not seen any postings in this thread that disputes that antisemitism is acceptable in any way shape or form. Very few people dispute that. However, what is disputed is the appropriateness of trying to pin the blame of it onto a specific group of people (christians) and/or a certain holiday (christmas). There's a time and place for everything, but trying to tie a holiday that's known for 'peace on earth, goodwill to all men' with antisemitism and 'racial' bigotry is just plain low.