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Germany's Jews urged not to wear kippahs after attacks
- Thread starter Reverse Giraffe
- Start date
good lord, right at the beginning of the video you see a large issue with that whole conflict in the middle east
they refer to israel as "the jews". so it's not israel oppressing the palestinians it's "the jews".
and then with the fucking holocaust denial and claims of exaggerated death total
had to exit out, that shit makes my blood boil
It will, but I think this is a monkey paw kind of wish, because the only way I see humanity to stop harassing any group is something that forces us to, and nothing I could think of is desirable.
But maybe I'm just overly pessimistic.
I don't even know how to respond to this. It's just so reductive and offensive. And wrong.
There has been an insane amount of progress. While it would be wrong to every consider it "done" or "good enough", hand waving it away like this... man.
And it still has led the largest European nation to simply tell Jews to disguise themselves and to hide out of fear for their lives. A society choosing to stand by and let this happen also has blood on their hands.
First of all, let me point out that it was not "Germany" telling Jews to disguise themselves, but Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
This is not some "the government it telling the victims to protect themselves while looking away" kind of situation.
But anyway, let's say you're in charge. What exactly do you think should be done? What should "Germany" do that they're not doing already?
EDIT: And just to repeat: "Germany has not learned anything from WW2" is an insane statement.
and then the lady that says "Jews our evil"
the way the left tries to paint this as merely an Anti-Israel issue is dishonest
man i live in the US and I won't even wear my star of david t shirt out of the house because I don't want to deal with any potential shit from people on the streets.
i feel for my people in europe, seems like they are dealing with worse shit than we are in this regard right now...hope everyone can stay safe
i feel for my people in europe, seems like they are dealing with worse shit than we are in this regard right now...hope everyone can stay safe
I am not from Germany, so I can't really speak to the Jewish experience there. I am a Jewish American. But what I can say from my experience, is that if I based my views on how a minority group was treated solely on how the people around me and my friends spoke and acted I would not have an accurate view on how they feel or what they experience in their day to day.
For one, given they are such a minority, your interactions are limited. In order to notice something negative happening to them because they were Jewish, you would have to be around them constantly. Two, there are likely things you, as a non-Jew, don't notice right in front of you that would stand out as an offense. Where I grew up, and from what it sounds like, also in germany, it is not uncommon for a synagogue to be defaced with swastikas and slurs. And I grew up in an extremely Jewish area (but have noticed this everywhere I've lived).
But really to your main point about looks. I don't want to get too dark here, but Germany is a country that came up with a system to identify Jews by facial characteristics and then used that to help them murder over 60% of the world's Jewish population. It's possible the Jews who remained stand out less as a result of that since those who fit those common characteristics either fled or died.
And having only visited Germany for a few days, I just want to add that it was very obvious they have no desire to sugar coat or deny what happened there - unlike say America and slavery.
You're of course right that I can't be certain in my assumptions. I also want to point out that I never made an attempt to claim that anti-semitism isn't real here, or that synagogues are not defaced. It all happens. I lived 2 streets away from the district where you still have the largest Jewish population, and I don't doubt the armed guards in front of the Jewish school I used to pass aren't there for fun.
But visually identifying Jewish people would lead to more false positives than actual "hits", seeing how there are loads of non-Jews here who would absolutely fit any description I can find online. It also seems a bit foolish to assume that facial characteristics were an efficient factor, when there was so much more to those horrible things my country did. ID papers proving non-Jewish grandparents and all that.
All I can say is that having seen a bunch of Jewish people in my day (recognizable by their outfits, of course, or simple conversation), I personally think it would be absolutely impossible to identify a Jewish person in plain clothes. The same goes for everyone I asked so far. Obviously anecdotal, but nobody I can find believes it would be possible to tell the difference between a Jewish person and well... anyone else.
Do you really believe there actually are visual features that make it possible to identify a Jewish person?
Forgive my ignorance, but have any Muslim leaders/prominent figures in Islam recommended this? Because in this case, a Jewish leader is cautioning people.
I also don't think anyone is against hijabs because they endanger the women, though some argue that hijabs are oppressive.
All in all, I don't see the similarities.
100% I believe that. Of course you can get false positives or some people don't fit any common criteria, but there absolutely are some common looks. they're just more noticeable to other Jews. I can guarantee that a large portion of Eras Jewish population would be able to tell I was Jewish. In fact, in America at least, there are ultra orthodox who stand on the street and try to get Jews to participate in daily prayers (don't ask me why). They ALWAYS ask me, "are you jewish?" And if you watch them long enough, you will notice they don't ask every guy who walks by. They are looking for people who are "obviously" Jewish. To be clear, I don't ever wear religious garbs.
My wife on the other hand doesn't look Jewish - which has led to awkward situations of people making anti-Semitic comments in front of her...like her old boss.
Well, that sounds... weird tbh. It sounds wrong. Unbelievable. Guess I'll have to ask next time I get talking with any Jewish person. Though I'll have to figure out a way to do so without coming off... really fucked up.
Would you mind explaining what, for example, you might look for? Because every descriptor I can find fits so many people I see every day, that statistically, only a fraction could be Jewish. I just don't understand how this is supposed to work.
i am jewish, and my immediate family doesn't look typically jewish, but my extended family absolutely does. there are facial features, vocal indicators, and hair types that all can point to someone looking/being jewish. as you say, sometimes you will be wrong, but there are definitely visual features that make identifying a possibility. i guess an example (anecdotal of course) is that I had never seen or heard of Bernie Sanders before the 2016 election. I didnt know what he looked like at all, but I heard his voice from audio clips and I could tell he was Jewish just from that alone.
of course this all could be because I am Jewish so I am closer to Jews than Non Jews, and am able to pick up on this stuff a bit better? dunno really.
How would this even work? I don't know how to ask this without being potentially super offensive, but are Jewish people that "isolated" from the rest of the world?
I couldn't imagine picking out the child of an Austrian immigrant in the US. If there's no accent, I would think it's impossible to tell him from a British or Swedish immigrant. Jews are not even limited to a small area of the world. I don't understand how visual indicators strong enough to identify them could exist.
EDIT: I know that people of the Jewish faith, having a common faith and culture, often form families together. Probably more often than not. But still, it seems impossible to me that it could be closed off enough for what you are describing to exist.
well, it's a cultural thing for jews to be pushed into pursuing relationships and children with other jews, so that's definitely a factor.
i'm not really sure the best way to describe it in a way that would make sense without an example lol...i think that if you spent time with the jewish people in your community you would be able to pick up some of the shared characteristics. Of course, all Jews don't look alike, so as you say you can only be right a certain amount of times.
e: also there are not as many Jews as there used to be (obviously), so there are less diverse genes to be passed down, I think julian was sort of getting at this point as well with the selections back in nazi germany
I grew up in a district with like 53% people with "non-Austrian" background, and the only reason I could pick out some of the Jewish people was because of the yarmulke. Little Edit: There are of course, many Jews with a fully Austrian background as far as anyone can tell. What I mean is, we have so many people from so many regions of the world. So many different people.
It all boils down to that with 0,1% of Austrians being Jewish, I think being an anti-semite on the lookout would leave you with a multitude of false positives.
That's how this all got started, and I still can't believe someone simply "looking Jewish" needs to worry about being recognized on the streets of Vienna. But I'll inquire, because now I'm really curious.
Yes, they were. They were generally not intermarrying for long periods of time and were isolated culturally from the majority in different parts of the world, and as such you have a unique genetic profile for many subgroups, depending on what part of the world they were settled in.
Enough to have a singular unique and distinct phenotype that can be identified the same way in Austria and the US? That sounds kind of amazing to me. I actually never considered that possible.
i mean it's probably better not to be able to tell tbh. if you are accepting it's not really relevant so it's not really necessary to be able to pick up on it. i imagine if you spent more time with the jewish community in austria though you would start noticing some common things among a portion of the jews there.
Yup. When I got my DNA results back it nailed one my exact subgroup, which matched where my sole Jewish grandparent was originally from.
I'm talking about phenotype though. I'm not saying that Jewish people are not genetically and even visually distinct, but it blows my mind to consider that they might be visually distinguishable in a reliable, not pseudoscientific way... Goes against every expectation.
You might be overthinking it. It's not like there is only one set of characteristics that all Jews might share. There are multiple looks. This is true of any ethnic group. As Kirblar mentioned, Jews tended to live in small isolated communities - many still do. There are even diseases that almost exclusively affect Jewish people.
Then we can get into Cohens and Levis. A clear line of ancient priests and high priests
How many attacks have there been on Muslims by German Jews?
Then perhaps describing the two groups as cultures who hate each other isn't very accurate.