How about every Ashkenazi Jew (me included) who grew up in the culture telling that that it is indeed true. In practice no one would ever do it but if it were done it would be a huge insult.
An exception to this rule recently happened to a good friend of mine. His daughter was born when his mother was very ill. She only had a few weeks to live at most. He bent the tradition a little so he could name his daughter after her.
Haj
Thanks, hajario, that’s what I was looking for.
Of course, if you look at Scribble, initial comments, the idea of culture wasn’t even introduced. He/she said, in the post’s entirety:
The inference I drew was that Scribble was saying that this would be an insult to anyone, regardless of culture. My take is that such a notion is indeed ridiculous, because it’s not an insult to most people. It is, however, apparently an insult to a particular sect.
Yes, that’s what started the confusion for more than just you. She was referring back to the end of the the first post in the thread where htns said,
Haj
Yup, the last line quoted by hajario was indeed what I was referring to. I thought that that was obvious, but apparently it wasn’t. I guess I’ll have to be clearer in other posts I make when I’m referring to stuff stated in previous posts.
And why should it strike you as ridiculous that something thought of as an honor among one group of people could be considered an insult by a different group?
That’s fine, but I thought what some of the cites have shown is that not all Jewish people feel that way or follow that tradition. So to say, “If you really ARE Jewish” implies that there’s only one tradition to follow and that (apparently) those Jews who do not follow it are not truly Jewish.
This is the comment with which I take issue:
It doesn’t. Oddly enough, nowhere in your statement do you mention that a particular group of people feels this way; as I later mentioned, it seemed to me that you were criticizing all people who name their children after living people. Moreover, the implication is that if Person A names his child after a living relative, Person B (an Ashkenazi Jew) would be insulted - no matter what the religion of Person A. And that would bother me, if Person A was not an Ashkenazi Jew, because it implies a certain lack of tolerance of other cultures on the part of Person B.
EDITED POST!!!
You were duped, folks.
[ “Rabbi Rosencratz” is a member of stormfront. I had linked to the relevant post on their site, forgetting that we do not appreciate such links on this board. Sorry about that, my bad, just wanted you to see what was really going on here.]
Please do not return the favor and leave them alone.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Dantheman, I meant absolutely no insult to you at all. I’m sorry for being unclear in my earlier post, or, if I what I said was ambiguous in my other posts, I apologize for that, too. No, I don’t think that there is only one Jewish tradition for naming children. And, no, I don’t think that somehow the one I was raised with is somehow inherently better than anyone else’s.
Are we done now?
Sure. You don’t sound terribly sincere, given the end of your post, but we can let the entire matter drop.
I don’t see anyone duped.
Several people recognized and commented upon the fact that R R sounded more like a “spy” from S F than the character whom he portrayed himself to be.
No one rose to the bait of believing that he represented any actual group, dismissing him as an individual kook.
No one took his faux “Jewish” persona as actually representing what real Jews thought or believed.
Basically, he acted out the role of the twit that swaggers into a bar and brags about his wealth to women who will never go home with him, then goes home and jacks off to fantasies that there were going to go home with him–'though they never did.
In the meantime, his weird statements were met with (relatively) civil rebuttals, demonstrating to the fence-sitters and silent audience at home that his positions were worthless.
By “duped” I meant he came to the board with the sole intention of being a disrupting force.
When you interact with people like that – even with the very best of intentions – that’s what they want.
I know our members will show better judgment and more manners.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Lynn, you are a genius! 
I think you mean, Tuba. The “Rabbi” was outed via “Report this to the moderator” by more than one of us I am sure.
Haj
Dantheman–
I am genuinely sorry that I was unclear in my earlier posts. I genuinely did not realize that what I’d said could be construed in the way it was.
Look, as I said–I thought that was clear in the context of the OP. I’ve already admitted that obviously what I’d written was not as clear as I’d thought. Why are you so intent on rubbing my face in it?
That’s not at all the way I feel. Obviously, I should have been clearer. I wouldn’t be at all insulted if one of my non-Jewish (specifically, non-Ashkenazi Jewish) friends wanted to name a baby after me. I understand quite well that that would be a pretty major compliment. Since other posters had pointed out that the “name your kid after people who aren’t still living” thing is an Ashkenazi tradition that isn’t necessarily followed by all ethnic groups of Jews, I didn’t really feel it was necessary to do that myself.
I did indeed mean her. Sorry, Tuba. (Lynn’s pretty bright too, though!)
Eh, I’ll beat a dead horse. Let’s try this one:
IIRC, the !Kung (sp?) of Africa also do not name after living people. I’m sure that there are other cultures who also do not practice this, just as there are cultures who do not name infants after the dead.
I heard about the no-living-namesakes rule from a Jewish man, years ago, but only found out today that the rule didn’t apply to Sephardic Jews.
Better judgment? What’s this supposed to mean?
The internet’s a big place, and there are plenty of morons out there. There are even some on the SDMB. Are we supposed to do complex searches to try and ascertain the identity of every dribbling idiot that walks into our community?
Sure, if someone finds out that a troublesome poster is actually a troll, then ban the troll and cut the thread short. But your post assumes that we all have some sort of detector that can tell whether someone is being genuinely stupid, or is just here to incite trouble.
As tomndebb said, no-one assumed that the “Rabbi” represented Jews in any way, shape or form. Sure, some of us (including me) engaged him as if he were making a genuine argument, but this didn’t change very much.
It really, in the end, came down to one of two options: (a) he was a genuine moron who didn’t appreciate the idiocy of his own positions, or (b) he was a trolling moron who was saying things he didn’t believe in order to make some sort of point. I initially assumed the answer was (a), but it turned out that it was (b). What’s the big deal? Either way, he was an idiot, and got dismissed as such pretty quickly, even before his trolling was discovered and halted.
I would assume it means that we won’t go over there and start causing trouble the same way they feel compelled to come over here.
Well, if that’s all it means, then fine.
But TubaDiva’s comments seemed to imply (to me at least) that we had somehow fucked up by the simple fact of engaging the “Rabbi” at all.
Whew. So there wasn’t an observant Jew who was that much of an ass. Of course, if you search for his thread on their board (name: Salvador), you’ll see he’s just as as much of a jerk IRL.
Cardinal:
Winner!!!
[Takes out mouthpiece, hugs trainer, waves to crowd, steps through ropes, has gloves removed.]