So I take it “peace” isn’t a good enough response? What else am I supposed to wish for? Or were you expecting me to say “oh bloodshed is ever so much fun! Let’s hope it never ends! Tee-hee.”
Seriously.
G.
Technical point: Jews from the Middle East and Europe are Caucasian according to those ethnologists of the nineteenth century who divided the world among the “three races” or the “five races.”
In regards to your larger point: xenophobia is not limited to people who can be identified by skin color. The Irish immigrants to the U.S. in the early and middle nineteenth century were despised and persecuted for their Catholicism and their accents, regardless of their complexion. The later Polish and Hungarian and Italian immigrants suffered similar discrimination even though many Italians are fair and no significant number of Poles or Hungarians are swarthy.
Jews (particularly Orthodox Jews) were “different.” They did not go to church on Sunday, worshipping on Saturday, instead; they wore distinctive headgear; they would not work on Saturday (back before weekends when Christians did work Saturdays and rested on Sundays); they did not celebrate the feasts of the Christian saints or Good Friday or Easter, but did celebrate Passover, Yom Kippur, and Rosh Hoshanah. Later, when the various Christian authorities used their existing differences as an excuse to physically set them aside, they were limited to specific “approved” occupations and compelled to live in specific locations (called, from the Italian word for their restricted zones, ghettoes). They avoided many forms of food that were commonly consumed in Europe and required specific preparations for the foods that they did eat.
It was simply not that difficult for the typical Christian Europeans, who went to church with all their neighbors on the same days and ate the same foods at each others’ houses, and saw each other going to and coming from work or relaxing on the same days to see the Jews as “different.”
Many Jews in Germany had assimilated to a certain extent by the end of the nineteenth century, but many had not and all the Gentiles would have grown up hearing the same lying folk tales that portrayed Jews as dirty, avaricious, anti-Christian “foreigners” who never “really” wanted to become good Germans.
Yes, yes, I know that. Under the three main races, Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid they are Caucasian. (Please forgive the spelling.) Technically though, by bloodline, they are Semites, which means they are more closely related to Arabs than to Europeans. Does this really matter? Not in the slightest. It was a very small, insignificant point in my post. The only reason I put it there is because I was talking about skin color, and I know most people assume that if a person has light skin they are Caucasian.
Back to the original subject, yes, I have read the Diary of Anne Frank more than once. I even saw the movie.
I logged in for the sole purpose of saying that this is the funniest quote I’ve read all week.
Seriously indeed. “Peace” is not a serious response for exactly the reason you describe–even malicious combatants can want peace, they just want it on their terms (terms which might involve the slaying of the other side). You posed a serious, albeit loaded, question (“Just out of curiosity, do you support Israel or Palestine?” As if it is an either/or…) and then refuse to answer it yourself.
Look at tom’s response–clearly he supports a two-state solution. Question answered. Your response, on the other hand, simply looks slippery and evasive.
While we’ll quibbling about what you admit is a minor point, allow me to fight ignorance while I can. Semitic is a linguistic classification, not a racial one.
While we’ll quibbling about what you call a minor point in your (admittedly discredited) argument about xenophobia as it applied to European Jews, allow me to fight ignorance while I can. Semitic is a linguistic classification, not a racial one.
Argh. Sorry for the double post and the “we’ll” instead of the “we’re.”
If it were me I’d tell the little girl her parent’s are messed up in the head. Let her pass that on to them. Hopefully they will confront you about it and you can then lay into them.
You’d (apparently) be surprised. People deny all sorts of things. I’ve known two people who deny that RMN was guilty of anything of a major criminal nature in Watergate. Perhaps their stubbornness is due to the fact that no official hearing of any kind happened. But clearly (to make only one point of many on the subject) Articles of Impeachment WERE drawn up, and only then did our innocent victim of politics 
step down and claim to be saving America from a long, wearying trauma. (Concurrant with that he arranged for his hand-picked successor* Ford to pardon him for any and all crimes that may have occurred during his time in office.) For me, the direct order to cover up Watergate - which somehow was missed in all the (“accidental”) deletions - is proof enough of “Obstruction of Justice”. That’s an impeachable offense.
True Blue Jack
- Albeit approved by Congress
You’d (apparently) be surprised. People deny all sorts of things. I’ve known two people who deny that RMN was guilty of anything of a major criminal nature in Watergate. Perhaps their stubbornness is due to the fact that no official hearing of any kind happened. But clearly (to make only one point of many on the subject) Articles of Impeachment WERE drawn up, and only then did our innocent victim of politics step down and claim to be saving America from a long, wearying trauma. (Concurrant with that he arranged for his hand-picked successor* Ford to pardon him for any and all crimes that may have occurred during his time in office.) For me, the direct order to cover up Watergate - which somehow was missed in all the (“accidental”) deletions - is proof enough of “Obstruction of Justice”. That’s an impeachable offense, ladies and gents.
True Blue Jack
- Albeit approved by Congress
to answer the original post: confronting people out of the blue about their beliefs probably wouldn’t be very useful unless/until they actually express them to you or your daughter. that would be the opening to tell them why they’re misinformed (maybe a better approach than calling them cretins). but it would probably be a good deed for you and your daughter to make clear to the other girl that she is always welcome in your home (if that’s how the two of you feel). if her parents are strange in this area they are probably strange in other ways, and the kid may need a place to escape from time to time. you can’t go punch out her father but you can show her by example that not all adults are like her parents.
but here’s an open question: what is the basis for the holocaust deniers’ beliefs? even at the nuremberg trials, the nazis themselves didn’t try to claim that the holocaust didn’t happen. their defense–at least as described in the typical account for the general reader–was that they were following somebody else’s orders, defending their country in wartime, etc. where did the idea that the holocaust never happened originate, and why?
(bolding mine) Slight hijack/request for clarification.
Ummm, [scooby]RRRRuuuuUUH?[/scooby]
Is it your position that unless one views a historical event through film media, that it’s “received knowledge with no basis”???
So, we can’t trust written accounts of the Gold Rush in the old west? Or the Civil War etc? Film has only been around for what? a hundred fifty, two hundred years?
Are you telling us that unless it’s on film it has no basis?