Have not read this whole old thread but wonder how some would feel about a headline:
“Christians Molest Schoolchildren” which then went on to discuss two specific priests abhorrent activity?
Or “Blacks rape White child” to describe a specific case of two males who where Black who raped a 13 year old girl?
And of course the headline above is also accurate, but of more value. Better written though would be “Local non-Orthodox Jews fight for public school board oversight.”
Uh “were Black” … boy that is bad.
Surely there are park employees, right? Couldn’t you complain to them?
I suppose so. And I’ve been told that some people have complained.
I’d rather avoid conflict, though, when my daughter is involved. I don’t want her to be the object of hostility she can’t possibly understand.
So, for now, we go to the water park on Saturdays. And it will close for the year shortly anyway.
I’d fight a lot harder when it comes to her education (and I am fighting, but our local school issues are another story that has nothing to do with this one).
What exactly do you expect them to do about it?
If it’s a city park, there should be rules about its use. If the Hasidim are preventing other taxpayers from using it in a reasonable manner then the city can and should get involved.
The Hasidim in Brooklyn have been largely granted something akin to an Indian reservation in that they have their own nation within the US. They have their own security type police system, medical service, court system and schools (which are heavy on the religion instruction and largely devoid of any secular education). Politicians do not want to go against this voting bloc, and so this is permitted. I can’t imagine any other cult getting such treatment, but I suppose if Scientologists yielded such political power, they could do the same (and probably have to a lesser degree).
Sure it’s a scheming cabal, but it sure isn’t a scheming cabal of Jews anymore than Cliven Bundy leads a scheming cabal of whites.
The thread title is vastly misleading.
That said, the New York Hasidim that I’ve encountered and a few of my Jewish friends have encountered have not been especially friendly to say the least. I’m not surprised that they have experienced a fair amount of friction with their neighbors. Nor am I surprised that members of the reform and conservative Jewish community have pushed back. It wouldn’t surprise me if certain members of the Orthodox Jewish community pushed back as well: I expect they have.
How is it not, if the cabal doing the scheming is made up entirely of Jews?
Just from the way you described the situation, I would think there’d be some kind of safety hazard by all those strollers and people blocking access to the water park. What happens if there’s an emergency? Has anybody brought also brought that to anyone’s attention or is the safety situation not as potentially dangerous as I imagine?
For the same reason a gang made up of black people is not “Blacks taking over the city.”
Nobody would be objecting to the phrasing if it were a group of Mormons or Scientologists, and the title was “Scientologists take over school district yada yada”. It is what it is. Issues involving Jews don’t deserve to get handled with special kid gloves because they are Jews. If anything, the OP could have specified “Hasidic Jews”, but the title is still accurate as it stands.
Bullshit. How about “Whites take over East Ramapo School District and Defund It”. Just as accurate. Almost as misleading. Or howzabout characterizing a Westboro Baptist Church demonstration (you know, the bigots who show up at the funerals of soldiers in small towns) as, “Evangelical Christians Protest Military Funeral”. Or, hey, why not work the analogy I provided upthread? “Armed Whites Refuse to Pay Grazing Fees: Say the Government is Illegitimate”.
The Hassidim are a tiny sect of American Jews: they are a subset of a subset.
Change the title to “Hassidim take over…blah blah blah”. Makes more sense.
The title of the thread is so much more interesting than the issues that spawned it.
I’m also a Jew, and I read the title and found the article said almost exactly what I would expect it to say. Maybe I should have been offended, but I wasn’t.
And this is far from the worst thing some of these isolated Hasidic communities have done by taking over their local government. In this situation, it’s too bad they took over an existing community instead of incorporating their own town, I guess.
How about a headline/thread title that reads “Mormons practice polygamy and sexually abuse underage women”?
The last I heard, the Mormon Church renounced polygamy back in the 19th century, and only a small percentage of “fundamentalist” Mormons still embrace it despite sanctions from the main church.
(your Scientology example might be more applicable)
The headline demonstrates what part of the story is the most relevant or important part of the story, at least in the mind of the writer/op.
I guess some of us find it odd that the most relevant part of the story is that these people were Jewish … to some of us the relevant part is that religious fundamentalists won control of a school board and then apparently acted in their own perceived best interests rather than in the best interests of the community at-large (including the best interests of those who are Jewish and not extreme Orthodox, other religions, and otherwise other.) “Jews” as a stand-alone is no more the key aspect of the identity pertinent to the story than is “White” or presumptively “People who never listened to Lawrence Welk” or also presumptively “Pro-Lifers” … “Jews” as a modifier to “Fundamentalist” may be of note because it is unusual for Jewish fundamentalists to do that in comparison to the standard operating procedure of the majority religion’s fundamentalists.
When reporting or opening an op lots of things are true and accurate: what of those many things one decides to put as the spotlight is dependent upon the agenda of the writer/op.
Note that this article is not written as “Christians Pushing Public Schools to Teach That Garden of Eden Is Science” or even “Protestant Christians Pushing …” but “Texas Fundamentalists Pushing …”
Likewise in this story. To headline the story as “Alabama governor names public school-hating Christian to oversee public education” would be missing the relevant part of the story (and would make one suspicious that the writer was a hard atheist who has an agenda against Christianity in general) … alternatively had they merely headlined it “Alabama governor names public school-hating fundamentalist to oversee public education” it would have worked just as well.
Why did they not just use the accurate and true word of “Christian(s)” in those headlines? Or for that matter “Whites”? (Especially if it was being reported in a predominantly Black readership paper.) What would have been the response of many if they had? Would it have accurately communicated what was the most relevant part of the story?
Theists > Monotheism > Abrahamic religions > Judaism > Orthodox Judaism > Ultra-orthodox Judaism > Hasidim
(There are also nonbelieving Jews, but set that aside.)
Well, we are on page 6.
Not very neighborly
I think most people grok that blowing into an electoral unit, taking it over and playing political hardball is more than a little obnoxious. Maybe justified. To some extent constitutionally protected. But undiplomatic. Thankfully there’s absolutely no evidence that the group has gone full-blown Rajneeshee and I don’t expect them to.
I realize that provisos must be noted … “successfully, in the States” … in Israel they in fact do that very often and have inordinate power for their numbers. Fundamentalists in the states, Christian and Jewish alike, only wish they could impose their will upon everyone else here to the degree the Israeli Haredi do!
Good on the non-ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of the Ramapo School District for standing up and fighting back against the fundamentalist take-over.