A Jewish woman is claiming to be the victim of ‘anti-semitism’ after she says that a man yelled remarks at her and then spit into her car.
Police are searching for a man accused of spitting at a woman outside a Queens yeshiva.
According to police, the male suspect attempted to enter a yeshiva on Central Avenue in Far Rockaway on Dec. 24.
When he was denied entry, he allegedly walked over to a nearby vehicle and made anti-Semitic remarks before spitting into the car through an open window and running away.
The 44-year-old female driver in the vehicle was not injured.
Ayyash Saleh owns the store across the street from where the incident happened.
“Who would do that? Some things don’t make sense. Who would do that?” he said. (source)
I would like to recall a memory from years ago, having grown up around many Jews and well has having had this communicated to me from other Jews I knew.
I used to watch the Hasidic Jews walk to temple on Friday and Saturday. They were immediately recognizable by their dress and that they lived in certain neighborhoods.
I never experienced any personal problems with them, because I tended to stay away from them, as I had no reason to bother them or be around them, and many of them intentionally segregated themselves.
However, I can say that I have been told many stories about how people were told to say away from them because at times, the local Hasids were known to spit at non-Jews for apparently no reason other than that they were standing near to them and were not one of them. The problem became so bad that it was said to have been reported to the local police, who are said to have spoken to the congregation and since then the incidents lessened, but rumors of them persisted.
I remember this from when I was a young teenager.
Likewise, from the same period and for many years after, I maintained friendship with various people of Jewish backgrounds, and they would tell me stories about family who became involved in the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, and said that some of them refused to talk to their “less Jewish” or in some cases, ethnically Jewish but non-religious family members because they were less than human. One Jew even told me that his cousin (if I remember correctly) refused to touch him because he said that he was “unclean” since he was not a ‘real Jew’.
But I am not the only one with stories such as these. I have people, friends and acquaintances of Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds, who have spoken of “orthodox” or Hasidic Jews spitting at them because they were not Jewish in communities throughout New Jersey and New York. This is not an isolated incident, and in all cases from what I have been told, the persons in question were never prosecuted for what was, under the current laws, a “hate crime” against people for not being Jewish.
I am not saying that ‘all Jews are bad’, or that one should justify prejudice against them. To the contrary, I am raising a serious question which is known by many people, Jews and non-Jews alike of good will, and that is the long history of Jewish persons being involved in the same racism and discrimination that they are so quickly to cry “anti-semitism” over but refuse to address themselves and demand that it be hidden or they be absolved from all responsibility for their actions.
When people talk about “hate” of Jews, it comes from real reasons. A man rarely gets up in the morning and says to himself, “It is a beautiful day, I think I am going to hate [group here] today”. Dislike for people and groups as well as real prejudices that lead to injustice often times start because of behavior, not from an undefined or poorly defined idea of “hatred”. Actions bring about causes which lead to effects, good or bad, and the output of a given action can be changed if the action is changed.
The Old Testament clearly notes that Jews have a long history of serious injustices, and these injustices lead to suffering. However, such is not limited to only Jews, but to all people since all men are accountable for their actions.
It is not good for people to spit at Jews or to abuse them. One should not encourage this behavior. However, one also needs to be aware of the fact that many times people act in such ways towards Jews because of Jewish behaviors that they have seen or experienced. This is not to justify behavior, but to place it into proper context because one’s actions are many times a reaction to past experiences.
It is good to address mistreatment of Jewish people in itself, but in order to do that successfully- something that we should desire for all people -one must also address the Jewish mistreatment of non-Jews that is systematic and continues to this day. “Anti-Semitism” in the true sense of racial hatred is real, but so is “Anti-Japhethism” or “Anti-Hamitism”, and is something that many in the American Jewish community are guilty of but refuse to discuss and instead choose to foment for financial and political benefit.
A consistent theme of political manipulators, and something that one can witness consistently among many Jews involved in positions of power, is to promote the most extreme views possible of any given position to the point of becoming unbalanced and dangerous, as it is out of this imbalance that power is often gained quickly, money generated fast, and one takes control of a given series of ideas. However, many people are often hurt in the process.
The Church has always opposed this, for if the object of a man’s life is the pursuit of truth, one must seek balance in his views. Certainly there is a time for “taking a side”, but even there, it must be done in a balanced context because without balance, one does not help people, but only himself and does it at the direct expense of people.
Comments are closed.