# Where does the antipathy between blacks and jews come from? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 26, 2008, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365 "2008-08-26T23:56:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/41 "2008-08-28T17:02:14Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] “Schvartzeh” hardly means or ever meant the same thing as “the n-word” - it was just Yiddish for Black - literally meaning “black”. An Eastern European Jew of that generation - now few left alive but clearly those to whom Jackie Mason was playing to in the old Borscht Belt days - would use that word without specific ill intent. And non-Jews were called “Goyim” in the same manner. The context gave it its meaning and sometimes the context was to say negative things - using the Yiddish so as to be less understood by others around them. [/quote] Roughly my understanding. Though it would probably be mildly off-putting (by today’s standards) if someone referred to Obama as “the black.” When the surrounding context is also condescending or inappropriate (Mason’s use of “fancy,” which is pretty much the same as “uppity,” or the case of some judge I remember long ago getting censured for referring to “that schvartze who got hit by a car because he was walking at night and wasn’t smiling”) it indicates at a minimum a certain amount of “othering” to use the jargon. > [@](#): > > But the word was also used when there were good or neutral things to say too. True, not many of that generation had much good to say about _anyone_. Kvetch is a Yiddish word for a reason. [borscht belt]So a Jewish grandmother is walking with her grandson on the beach when a huge wave crashes down and drags him out to sea. Wailing and moaning, she begs God to bring her beautfiful grandson back. Suddenly another huge wave crashes, delivering her grandson, soaked but otherwise perfectly okay. She looks at him, looks to heaven – “You know, when he left, he was _wearing a hat_ . . . .”[/bb] > [@](#): > > So a White middle class Jew (or upper middle class even) would be less contemptible if they only hired White cleaning ladies maybe? Contemptible is way too strong. Actually, my suggestion would have been that hiring help at all is a bit . . . I don’t know, elitist. YMMV. All I was trying to point out is that there is always social tension between upstairs/downstairs, capital/labor, and that if Jews (or other upper middle class/well off whites) and blacks found each other on opposite sides of this divide, it might have inculcated some feelings of resentment from blacks. And, AEBE, to the extent that class resentment does exist, I would guess that members of the lower class would indeed have slightly more resentment toward those of the upper who espoused progressivism but still participated in/benefited from the divided society. (I sound like some wackjob Marxist professor throughout this post, don’t I?). > [@](#): > > Was it only acceptable for Middle Class Whites (Jews or otherwise) to hold liberal beliefs if they found Blacks to be close personal friends with and avoided hiring any Black employees, lest they be too superior? We’ve had endless debates here (haven’t we? I think we have) over who is more “hypocritical” – self-described liberals, or self-described conservatives. The pejorative “limousine liberal” is part of that debate, and I guess there is no definitive answer (i.e., YMMV) over whether and when the charge of hypocrisy is merited or whether a particular behavior is hypocritical. But yes, I was suggesting that some blacks may have had a mild to moderate incremental resentment that Jews (or other liberal whites), who had made their fondness for propinquity or personal acquaintance with large numbers of blacks very plain by getting the Hell out of the inner City, would espouse progressivism but limit their contacts with the underclasses to busing them in to do housework. Not such a crazy suggestion, is it? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/42 "2008-08-28T17:20:43Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] But yes, I was suggesting that some blacks may have had a mild to moderate incremental resentment that Jews (or other liberal whites), who had made their fondness for propinquity or personal acquaintance with large numbers of blacks very plain by getting the Hell out of the inner City, would espouse progressivism but limit their contacts with the underclasses to busing them in to do housework. Not such a crazy suggestion, is it? [/QUOTE] This is not necessarily false, but it is inconsistent with perhaps the worst breakdown of black/Jewish relations in the past thirty years: [the Crown Heights Riot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Heights_Riot) . In this case, the blacks and Jews shared the same ghetto. And the shoe was somewhat on the other foot, as “the schvartze with the mustache” was our mayor, whose response to the disorder was completely inadequate. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/43 "2008-08-28T17:26:52Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] The pejorative “limousine liberal” is part of that debate, and I guess there is no definitive answer (i.e., YMMV) over whether and when the charge of hypocrisy is merited or whether a particular behavior is hypocritical. But yes, I was suggesting that some blacks may have had a mild to moderate incremental resentment that Jews (or other liberal whites), who had made their fondness for propinquity or personal acquaintance with large numbers of blacks very plain by getting the Hell out of the inner City, would espouse progressivism but limit their contacts with the underclasses to busing them in to do housework. Not such a crazy suggestion, is it? [/QUOTE] Considering that there are few people in the world who, if given a choice between living in the middle of a hot, noisy, crime-ridden city and a cooler, quiet, peaceful suburb or rural area _wouldn’t_ choose the latter, I’d say, yes, it’s pretty crazy to label it as racism. And there’s nothing inherently either racist or elitist about hiring someone to do your housework if you can afford it; again, there are few of us who wouldn’t if we could afford to. I certainly did when I could, and loved every minute of it. My friend who cleaned for me did too; it was money she needed and that I could spare. (She became my friend after she started cleaning for me - I hadn’t known her before) ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/44 "2008-08-28T17:27:51Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] This is not necessarily false, but it is inconsistent with perhaps the worst breakdown of black/Jewish relations in the past thirty years: [the Crown Heights Riot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Heights_Riot) . In this case, the blacks and Jews shared the same ghetto. And the shoe was somewhat on the other foot, as “the schvartze with the mustache” was our mayor, whose response to the disorder was completely inadequate. [/QUOTE] The dynamic with the Orthodox would naturally be very different though than with secularized suburbanites, wouldn’t it? Not only physical proximity, but also a somewhat different economic calculus (and an even broader cultural gap). I think I read that blacks and Orthodox continue to have run-ins in various parts of Brooklyn or the like, no? ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/45 "2008-08-28T17:33:48Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] it’s pretty crazy to label it as racism. [/QUOTE] And so I didn’t do that! Read my post instead of rewriting it for me, please. I believe in the free-market to an almost Social Darwinist degree, so I have no problem with there being economic winners and losers. I’m just mildly amused as a not-very-progressive person who’s never, in fact, hired help or gone to private school to avoid the proletariat when I jab at my would-be progressive friends who do distance themselves from the lower rungs of society in these and other ways. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/46 "2008-08-28T17:39:46Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] Considering that there are few people in the world who, if given a choice between living in the middle of a hot, noisy, crime-ridden city and a cooler, quiet, peaceful suburb or rural area _wouldn’t_ choose the latter [/QUOTE] This is a topic for another thread, but for the record this statement is absolutely wrong, or at best, only true if you posit great suburbs and a really crappy city with no livable neighborhoods. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/47 "2008-08-28T17:47:39Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] And so I didn’t do that! Read my post instead of rewriting it for me, please. [/QUOTE] THen why don’t you translate it for the less intelligent? Because it certainly came across to me as what I said, although you used more words and it wasn’t entirely clear to me what you meant. [QUOTE=Huerta88] I believe in the free-market to an almost Social Darwinist degree, so I have no problem with there being economic winners and losers. I’m just mildly amused as a not-very-progressive person who’s never, in fact, hired help or gone to private school to avoid the proletariat when I jab at my would-be progressive friends who do distance themselves from the lower rungs of society in these and other ways. [/QUOTE] Well, I live in the middle of an inner city, never went to a private school, and sure don’t have anyone cleaning my house now. But I do have a problem with people being _born_ economic losers, and people being locked into being economic losers because of a single mishap or poor decision once in their lives, and that’s what the good old US of A has right now. Yes, a special few manage to break out of poverty, but should you have to be that exceptional and that lucky just to rise to mediocrity, let alone wealth? ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/48 "2008-08-28T17:48:04Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] This is a topic for another thread, but for the record this statement is absolutely wrong, or at best, only true if you posit great suburbs and a really crappy city with no livable neighborhoods. [/QUOTE] The statement is also not totally race-neutral, because (at least the perception among Jews/any whites was) the “crime-ridden” part was associated with an influx of black residents to particular neighborhoods. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/49 "2008-08-28T17:55:37Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] Well, you have two groups with extremely different histories. Historically, European Jews were encouraged to make money, so that Christians wouldn’t have to violate usury laws, and this money went in to education, which produced a long standing culture of educated people. African Americans have the reverse culture of slavery and deliberate blocking from education. So they’re going to be extremely different cultures by now. [/QUOTE] Extremely different histories, yes, but some commonalities, mostly caused by generations of outsider status. Blacks and Jews have long been “thrown together” in this country. Take a minority with a tradition of education and money-wit, and another minority with little tradition of either, and confine both groups to the wrong side of the tracks. Who’s going to end up looking like the exploiter? Of course, that status — along with their education and religious tradition of justice — also made Jews much more sympathetic to Blacks’ plight than most White Americans. So the confused Black person might easily see them on both sides and not know which is for real. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/50 "2008-08-28T17:56:22Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] This is a topic for another thread, but for the record this statement is absolutely wrong, or at best, only true if you posit great suburbs and a really crappy city with no livable neighborhoods. [/QUOTE] There are some great neighborhoods in some great cities, but a high crime neighborhood, loud, hot, and run-down? I don’t think so. I live in an inner city, and I live there by choice, but even I find myself longing for the quiet of the more rural 'urbs in the hot summers, and I don’t have children going to the lousy schools or playing throwing rocks in the street. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/51 "2008-08-28T18:01:57Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] The dynamic with the Orthodox would naturally be very different though than with secularized suburbanites, wouldn’t it? Not only physical proximity, but also a somewhat different economic calculus (and an even broader cultural gap). I think I read that blacks and Orthodox continue to have run-ins in various parts of Brooklyn or the like, no? [/QUOTE] True, but I think the root causes are the same. Resentment of the bourgeois suburban Jews by inner-city blacks have much less impact on daily life than hatred of the Hasidim in Boro Hall and Crown Heights. Both the black and Jewish communities are very tightly knit and not exactly friendly to obvious intruders. I haven’t heard of any issues in Brooklyn lately, so I googled around. [This](http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/050114/black.shtml) article is kind of interesting. > [@](#): > > “We’ve passed through a period of hostility and animosity,” says Murray Friedman, director of Temple Univer-sity’s Myer and Rosaline Feinstein Center for American Jewish History and author of “What Went Wrong: The Creation and Collapse of the Black-Jewish Alliance.” > > “The black-Jewish alliance as it once was is dead,” he said. But “it has moved in the direction that has been normal in American life, where groups join together on certain issues and break apart on certain issues.” > > Rabbi Marc Scheier, president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, and Russell Simmons, the foundation’s chairman, said in a statement that the recent arrest in the Mississippi murder case calls to mind the historic black-Jewish alliance and challenges members of both groups “to continue the ongoing strug-gle for human justice.” > > “There isn’t a day that goes by that the black and Jewish caucuses on Capitol Hill don’t work together,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, who is also on the board of the NAACP. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/52 "2008-08-28T18:02:50Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] THen why don’t you translate it for the less intelligent? Because it certainly came across to me as what I said, although you used more words and it wasn’t entirely clear to me what you meant. [/quote] Hypocrisy is not racism. I used the word hypocrisy. Does Bill Clinton, for instance, hate black people because they are black? I really don’t think so, and under controlled circumstances (an office in gentrified Harlem, golfing with Vernon Jordan), I’m sure he could have a grand old time with them. But, he sent Chelsea to Sidwell Friends and not to MLK Memorial. Not necessarily racism, definitely hypocrisy (IMHO). Now, hypocrisy may in some instances mask or coexist with a belief in racial inferiority. I am convinced that at least some of the white supporters of AA support it because in their heart of hearts they don’t believe that blacks are as intelligent as whites. Is that racism (and does the answer depend on whether the thought is true)? Different thread. > [@](#): > > Well, I live in the middle of an inner city, never went to a private school, and sure don’t have anyone cleaning my house now. But I do have a problem with people being _born_ economic losers, and people being locked into being economic losers because of a single mishap or poor decision once in their lives, and that’s what the good old US of A has right now. Yes, a special few manage to break out of poverty, but should you have to be that exceptional and that lucky just to rise to mediocrity, let alone wealth? Different thread. But – while we’re at it – this may be what drives some Jewish black tension. Jewish ghettos on the Lower East Side of New York, or wherever, were pretty awful in terms of poverty. Just about all of those Jews rose beyond mediocrity to positive affluence in one or several generations. The Jews could look at that and say, geez, just put your mind to it – get the heck out of the ghetto, we did. The blacks could look at it and say – you cheated somehow; your poverty was less abject than ours; the social isolation you faced was less than ours – it’s just not fair! ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/53 "2008-08-28T18:07:32Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] I haven’t heard of any issues in Brooklyn lately [/QUOTE] This is what I had in mind: [http://wcbstv.com/local/crown.heights.violence.2.730761.html](http://wcbstv.com/local/crown.heights.violence.2.730761.html) Crown Heights once again, it seems. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/54 "2008-08-28T18:18:01Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] This is what I had in mind: [http://wcbstv.com/local/crown.heights.violence.2.730761.html](http://wcbstv.com/local/crown.heights.violence.2.730761.html) Crown Heights once again, it seems. [/QUOTE] Geez, I should read more local news. I need to give your previous point some thought. My father grew up in a lower east side Jewish ghetto. Incidentally, it is now dominated by middle and upper-middle class families and NYU. It is a huge housing project divided among Jews, Italians, and Polish Catholics. Play at the wrong basketball court and you would get ejected sans balls. I’m going to see what he thinks. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/55 "2008-08-28T19:02:01Z")
Just thinking out loud here - I wonder if one of the causes may not be the very fact that Jews and Blacks _did_ have something in common up through the '60s in America - a history of ethnic discrimination against them. For Jews in America, “ethnic persecution” is now generally a thing of the past, Jew-hatred _by the majority_ is pretty well extinct, at least in middle-class urban settings … whereas anti-Black racism isn’t. The perception that Jews have gone and become one of “them”, the oppressive majority, rather than being one of “us”, the oppressed minority, may be a factor. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/56 "2008-08-28T19:02:31Z")
[QUOTE=Jolly Roger] … A month or so later (I was a recruiter at the time, else I’d never have been in New jersey…I really hated it there) I was interviewing a jewish applicant at his house. When I was ready to leave I remember offering to shake hands with his family as I left and none of them accepted. I was a bit puzzled as I drove away thinking maybe I had insulted them unknowingly, until my partner told me 'You know, they didn’t shake your hand because you’re black." I don’t know if she was right or not, but it did bother me for awhile. … [/QUOTE] That doesn’t sound very nice. Might there be some branch of Jewish belief and practice that just doesn’t shake hands with anyone outside the family, or something like that? Genuine ignorance and wonderment here, so if I sound clumsy, please nobody shout at me. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/57 "2008-08-28T19:18:48Z")
[QUOTE=Celyn] That doesn’t sound very nice. Might there be some branch of Jewish belief and practice that just doesn’t shake hands with anyone outside the family, or something like that? Genuine ignorance and wonderment here, so if I sound clumsy, please nobody shout at me. [/QUOTE] I do not know what gender **jolly roger** is, but there are Jews who do not touch women. This makes things very difficult for them on a crowded subway, trust me. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/58 "2008-08-28T20:26:11Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] I do not know what gender **jolly roger** is, but there are Jews who do not touch women. This makes things very difficult for them on a crowded subway, trust me. [/QUOTE] Hahah, I’ll bet it does! Good luck trying to anyone trying to avoid _any_ contact on a crowded commuter subway or tube. I mean, we ALL try that, but it not worky. 😃 Seriously, though, thanks, **Maeglin** , I did not actually know that, so that could be a factor. Still, one might think a quick polite explanation to **Jolly Roger** at the time would have made things better. (Not that, as a woman, that idea would please me much in general, but it would, in that impersonal work-related setting, suffice for a kind of explanation.) Oh well. I live and learn. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/59 "2008-08-28T20:31:55Z")
[QUOTE=Celyn] Hahah, I’ll bet it does! Good luck trying to anyone trying to avoid _any_ contact on a crowded commuter subway or tube. I mean, we ALL try that, but it not worky. 😃 Seriously, though, thanks, **Maeglin** , I did not actually know that, so that could be a factor. Still, one might think a quick polite explanation to **Jolly Roger** at the time would have made things better. (Not that, as a woman, that idea would please me much in general, but it would, in that impersonal work-related setting, suffice for a kind of explanation.) Oh well. I live and learn. [/QUOTE] There’s no really easy way to bring it up, given that the underlying reason is, hey, sorry, can’t shake your hand, you might be on the rag. Most very-orthodox guys I’ve seen have handled it in the same sort of awkward hands at side, I-don’t-see-your-hand, way. The suaver ones will refrain from shaking hands with anyone in a group, less suave ones will single out only the men to shake hands with . . . . ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365/60 "2008-08-28T20:40:11Z")
[QUOTE=Celyn] Hahah, I’ll bet it does! Good luck trying to anyone trying to avoid _any_ contact on a crowded commuter subway or tube. I mean, we ALL try that, but it not worky. 😃 Seriously, though, thanks, **Maeglin** , I did not actually know that, so that could be a factor. [/quote] I hate to hijack the subject any further, but this story comes to mind. My wife was riding the subway when a somewhat heavyset Hassid (or Lubavitch, whatever) boarded the train. On the subway, the seats are staggered by twos and threes, catty-corner to each other. There was no one sitting next to my wife, but the rest of the train was full. So he told her to stand up so he could sit down. He could not sit next to her, because he was too heavy to do so without brushing up next to her. He was neither old nor obviously physically disabled. It was a miracle he did not end up physically disabled after this confrontation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-antipathy-between-blacks-and-jews-come-from/461365.md?page=4)