Category: Jews behaving badly

Racism, sexism, and bigotry at historically Jewish fraternity at University of Chicago

February 6, 2016 • 1:30 pm

Well, much as I’d like it to have been otherwise, students at my own school have engaged in some racist and bigoted behavior, and the culprits, according to BuzzFeed, The Daily News, and many other sources, was a historically Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi. At the University of Chicago, fraternities aren’t formally a part of the school’s social system, as they’re organized and maintained privately, but this still reflect poorly on the school—especially on the fraternity.

It’s not clear how pervasive the toxic culture was in AEPi, but one of the “brothers,” fed up with it, leaked several emails, sent between 2011 and 2015, to BuzzFeed. They show, among other things:

  • A general denigration of Palestine and Palestinians, including calling the vacant lot next to the fraternity house “Palestine.”
  • General bigotry against Muslims, calling one Muslim student a “terrorist” and saying that explosives were fixtures of Islamic culture.
  • Racism, including watching a blacksploitation film and eating fried chicken on Martin Luther King Day. (I also patronize that venue, Harold’s, for its great chicken, but this seems to be a deliberately racist gesture). The word “nigger” was used liberally, and blacks were discussed using the code word “community members.”
  • Widespread viewing of women solely as sexual objects, including a “constitution” about how to treat women (i.e., how to bed them).

You can see lots of the emails at BuzzFeed.

The University of Chicago can’t do much about this, as AEPi is not affiliated with them (even if they were, our speech code probably wouldn’t allow the students to be penalized), but Dean of Students Michele Rasmussen condemned the emails as offensive and inconsistent with the university’s values. And the Executive Board of the national AEPi organization promises an investigation, issuing a statement that “The current Executive Board is doing everything in its power to investigate and confront the individuals of the fraternity who sent these emails.We whole-heartedly condemn this behavior and reaffirm that there is no place for these hateful and bigoted sentiments in our fraternity.”

As a historically denigrated and marginalized group, Jews should know better than this. Long-time recipients of bigotry and hatred must do their best to avoid dishing that out to other groups, for living well (i.e., in a spirit of tolerance) is the best revenge.

Unregulated Jewish faith schools constricting the lives of thousands of London boys

January 19, 2016 • 2:00 pm

Muslims have their madrassas and Jews have their yeshivas. The problems come when these religious schools—schools that teach only religion—are used as substitutes for the broader education required by most Western countries. Sadly, that is happening with both Jews and Muslims in Britain, according to new articles in East London Lines (ELL), in The Guardian, and in The Independent. These pieces concentrate on the problem with Jewish schools, and mention that the religious-education issue certainly extends to some Muslim schools.

But the evidence we have is for Jewish schools. Apparently these include both secret “unregistered” schools as well as schools that have applied for legal status, but which have been rejected on the ground of their hyper-religious education. One of the latter includes the Charedi Talmud Torah Tashbar School in Stamford Hill (an area of London), which has just been ordered to close in February. Why? Because its 200 pupils, who attend only that school (students are between ages 3 and 13), are taught exclusively in Hebrew and have no subjects other than religion and a bit of mathematics. Some of the graduates, even in their late teens, can barely speak English!

Between 2012 and 2014, the school was inspected three times, failing every time. And yet it was permitted to operate—because of excessive respect for religion combined with some bigotry. From the ELL:

Campaigns manager Stephen Evans [from the National Secular Society] claimed that a desire not to upset religious sensitivities had led to a ‘softly-softly’ approach. He told Eastlondonlines: ”The lack of political will to make progress has been down to what I’ve previously called a ‘bigotry of low expectations’ – the mindset that says children from certain backgrounds are less entitled to a proper education than others. I hope we’re starting to see this change, nurturing integration rather than promoting segregation and social isolation.”

This kind of religious instruction, of course, not on propagandizes the children and basically forces them into a lifelong religious path, but constricts them and balkanizes them with respect to other children.

The Independent quotes the government inspectors’ conclusions:

Inspectors who investigated the school, which has more than 200 pupils, said that its curriculum, taught in Hebrew, encouraged “cultural and ethnic insularity because it is so narrow and almost exclusively rooted in the study of the Torah”.

The school was found to “severely restrict the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils” and prevent them from “developing a wider, deeper understanding of different faiths, communities, cultures and lifestyles, including those of England”.

But it gets worse. After 13, the age of bar mitzvah, these children are then shunted into completely secret yeshivas to continue their education—again, a wholly religious one. The Guardian gives data from one London borough:

According to the DfE’s 2012 briefing note, there are 800-1,000 Orthodox Jewish boys between the ages of 13 and 16 missing from the school system in the London borough of Hackney. And while this is the UK’s biggest Hassidic community, it is likely that similar situations exist in other areas where smaller groups live, including Salford and Gateshead.

Apparently these unregistered yeshivas are known to the British Government, but the authorities are slow to take action.

We tend to think mostly of Islam as the faith whose children are kept isolated from the greater society of Western countries—and the problem with secret madrassas in England has yet to be addressed—but the isolation is at least as bad for these Orthodox Jews. If you know anything about that way of life, you’ll know how dreadfully oppressive it is. And the children shunted into these faith schools have no choice. They will wind up as bearded and black-garbed promoters of superstition, and will force their wives and daughters into an equally constricting but even more submissive way of life.

It’s time for Britain to stop osculating the rump of faith, crack down on these reprehensible substitutes for “education,” and get rid of faith schools entirely.

h/t: Grania

 

Bibi puts his foot in it, blames Holocaust on Palestinians

October 23, 2015 • 8:45 am

If we’re ever going to have peace between Israel and Palestine, I lay odds that it won’t be engineered by Benjamin Netanyahu. The man is rapidly proving himself the Donald Trump of Israel. First he unconscionably interferes with Congressional votes on the Iran nuclear deal, and now he’s done something equally stupid: blaming the Holocaust on Palestine. Well, not on present-day Palestine, but on the infamous old Grand Mufti of the British-created territory of “Mandatory Palestine”, Haj Amin al-Husseini  (1897-1974). And yes, it’s true that al-Husseini opposed the creation of Israel, was friendly with Hitler and Mussolini, and probably wished that the Jews would go away—and certainly not settle in the Middle East. But there is still no credible evidence that al-Husseini played any role in bringing on the Holocaust. That was already determined by the laws of physics well before he met Hitler (read Mein Kampf). As you see in the videos below, Netanyahu argues that Hitler simply wanted to expel the Jews and not kill them, but changed his mind after consulting with al-Husseini. That’s simply not true.

As the New York Times reports:

Israeli historians and opposition politicians on Wednesday joined Palestinians in denouncing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for saying it was a Palestinian, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who gave Hitler the idea of annihilating European Jews duringWorld War II.

Mr. Netanyahu said in a speech to the Zionist Congress on Tuesday night that “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews.” The prime minister said that the mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, had protested to Hitler that “they’ll all come here,” referring to Palestine.

“ ‘So what should I do with them?’ ” Mr. Netanyahu quoted Hitler as asking Mr. Husseini. “He said, ‘Burn them.’

”As noted above, Netanyahu’s claims have been roundly trounced and refuted by scholars from everywhere, including Israel. Even Netanyahu’s own defense minister dismised them. Here is a video of what Netanyahu said and a CNN report on the claim:

The CNN report:

It’s clear what Israel’s Prime Minister is doing here: trying to tar present-day Palestinians with the actions of an extinct mufti, one who didn’t even do what Netanyahu claims. This kind of misstatement—let’s call it a lie—isn’t helpful, and of course has inflamed Palestinians, not to mention Jewish scholars It’s hard to do that to both groups at once!

Even Mahmoud Abbas, the President of Palestine and head of the PLO, has backtracked from his previous position on the Holocaust in April of last year, now saying that the Holocaust was “the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era”, and, according to the Times, expressing sympathy for the victim’s families.

That statement is conciliatory. But Netanyahu dismissed it, saying that Abbas was now trying to create another Holocaust in Israel.

I still despair of peace between these two warring lands, but if it is ever to come, it won’t come under Netanyahu. Already the history of the area is under argument, but there are some claims that are so bogus as to be beyond debate. One is Bibi’s specious insistence that the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened without the Grand Mufti. Another is Hamas’s continuing reliance on the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion in its charter. History can be distorted only so far before it becomes just another flashpoint in a continuing war.

Yet another Jew refuses to sit next to a woman

August 2, 2015 • 2:13 pm

This is getting to be a regular feature of hyper-orthodox Jewish behavior, and it stinks. (I’ve reported on three similar incidents: here, here, and here).  As the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports, Christine Flynn of Halifax, a chef, was on a Porter Airlines flight when an Orthodox Jew was assigned a seat next to her.  Of course that would lead to cooties, since members of some Orthodox sects aren’t supposed to touch or,  apparently, talk to a member of the opposite sex.

“He came down the aisle, he didn’t actually look at me … or make eye contact. He turned to the gentleman across the aisle and said, ‘Change.'”

Flynn said she was confused at first, wondering why the man was speaking to the other passenger and gesturing toward her. The man didn’t speak to her directly, but Flynn said it’s clear to her that he didn’t want to sit next to her because she’s a woman.

Flynn said she might have been willing to accommodate the man had he spoken to her directly and politely asked her to switch seats. She admits language may have been a factor — saying his English “wasn’t terrific” — but said his refusal to even make eye contact was offensive.

“He could have made a plan, he could have put in a request,” Flynn said in an interview Wednesday on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning. “When someone doesn’t look at you, and when someone doesn’t acknowledge you as person because of your gender, you’re a lot less willing to be accommodating.

The man asked to change seats refused, Then another man refused. A flight attendant came, and asked if the woman would switch seats with a man behind her. The woman rightfully refused. The problem was resolved when the Jewish man was finally seated next to another man. Explaining her refusal, Flynn made the point well:

Flynn says she’s frustrated she was asked to move and upset others on the flight were willing to help the man.

“I have a problem with that. He [the flight attendant] probably, maybe, didn’t realize that asking a woman to move because the fact she had a uterus made the man next to her uncomfortable … I don’t think he even would have put it together that that’s kind of insulting and maybe even discriminatory,” she said.

“If someone had refused to sit next to me because I was gay and maybe they were some kind of old-school religion that doesn’t like gay people no one would have switched with him. It would have been off the table,” she said.

As for the airline, they made a mistake by analogizing the Jew’s request with other requests:

Porter Airlines spokesman Brad Cicero confirmed that the situation occurred but said the flight attendant “did his best to manage the situation as efficiently and reasonably as possible in order to avoid an unnecessary delay.”

Porter does its best to accommodate seating preferences, he said in an email Tuesday.

“Most often, this involves families wanting to sit near each other, or something as simple as a passenger preferring a window seat. Religious preferences are very rarely a factor.”

Seriously, Porter “does its best to accommodate seating preferences? What if a white passenger asked to change seats because he didn’t want to sit next to a black person? Would Porter also try to accommodate that? I seriously doubt it. So why should sexism based on religion differ from other forms of prejudice? As I’ve said before, bigotry in the guise of religious belief is still bigotry.

Over at Canadian Atheist, Diana MacPherson is also incensed, reporting on the episode and adding this, “I’m tired of bad behaviour being accommodated in the name of religion and I’m disappointed when people feel women should acquiesce to make these sexists comfortable.”

We have some flight attendants as readers. Would you people try to accommodate such a request?

Rabbi doubts evolution, “but not because of religion”

July 29, 2015 • 11:30 am

The title of the article at issue is a masterpiece of dissimulation, because if you read the piece you’ll find that its author, a rabbi, is skeptical completely because of religion. In fact, I’ve known of only one evolution-denier who didn’t form that opinion on religious grounds (it’s David Berlinski, and I suspect he’s a secret believer), although I suppose there’s a smattering of others.

Anyway, the title of the piece, published at the Jewish website Tablet, is “Skeptical about evolution—and not because of religion“, and it’s by Avi Shafran, a New York rabbi with his own website.

Why the skepticism? Well, Shafran first cites a new study in Current Biology showing that the rate of “radiation” (formation of new species) in mammals, along with the pace of morphological change during that radiation, was much higher in the middle to late Jurassic than previously suspected. Here’s part of that paper’s abstract:

We assess rates of morphological evolution and temporal patterns of disparity using large datasets of discrete characters. Rates of morphological evolution were significantly elevated prior to the Late Jurassic, with a pronounced peak occurring during the Early to Middle Jurassic. This intense burst of phenotypic innovation coincided with a stepwise increase in apparent long-term standing diversity [ 4 ] and the attainment of maximum disparity, supporting a “short-fuse” model of early mammalian diversification [ 2, 3 ]. Rates then declined sharply, and remained significantly low until the end of the Mesozoic, even among therians. This supports the “long-fuse” model of diversification in Mesozoic therians.

This is no big deal: we have plenty of examples of the pace of evolutionary change varying greatly over time, for the strength of natural selection, which promotes much of that change, surely changes over time, as when the climate suddenly varies or new ecological niches become open. This is not news. It’s not as if a whole group of mammals suddenly appeared, as if God created them ex nihilo. It’s simply variation in rates!

Rabbi Shafran, however, seems to think that this casts serious doubt on evolution:

A relatively minor discovery but it wasn’t expected. In fact, larger surprises, leading to substantive revisions in the study of evolution are the rule rather than the exception. From Lamarckism to classical natural selection to Darwinism to the Modern Synthesis, evolution theory, well, evolves. But whatever mechanisms are believed to serve as the engine of evolution, the theory’s fundamental idea remains that life sprang from inanimate matter and came to yield all the organisms in the biosphere we occupy. As such, the news was, for me, another opportunity to come face-to-face with a personal reality.

Seriously, a variation in evolutionary rates creates a “substantive revision in the study of evolution”? Not in my view, for even Darwin, in The Origin, points out the likelihood of rate variation. It would in fact be surprising if such variation didn’t occur; it’s precisely what’s expected under natural selection. When selection is very strong, as in artificial selection practiced by human to create dog breeds, we can get tremendous morphological variation in only 10,000 years: dog breeds would be recognized as different species, if not different genera, if they were found only as fossilized skeletons.

It turns out, though, that Shafran’s Big Beef isn’t this rate variation, it’s the fact that he doesn’t think that evolution has been sufficient to explain a.) the proliferation of species over the history of life, and b.) the origin of life itself.

. . . Instead, I refer to a real heresy: my reluctance to accept an orthodoxy so deeply entrenched in contemporary society that its rejection summons a heavy hail of derision and ridicule, and results in effective excommunication from polite society. What I can’t bring myself to maintain belief in is… evolution.

I don’t reject science, only speculations and assumptions made in its name. . .

. . . What I cannot bring myself to accept, though, is speciation, the notion that the approximately 10 million distinct species on earth (along with another estimated 20 million marine microbial organisms) all developed from a common ancestor.

So he doubts common ancestry, the result of the branching process of speciation.

Has life proliferated too fast to be explained by natural processes? No.  Let’s assume that we start with one species 3.5 billion years ago (the “universal common ancestor”, or UCA), and it simply bifurcates into two lineages. How long would it take to get to a billion species? (The rabbi estimates ten million today, but let’s assume, as is reasonable that 99% of the species formed since the UCA went extinct without leaving descendants. So we have to account for the evolution of a billion species) That’s an easy calculation (watch; I’ll screw it up!):

2^x = 1,000,000,000, where x is the number of splitting events required to produce a billion species.

x log 2 = log 1,000,000,000 = 9

x = 9/0.301 ≈ 30

In other words, only 30 splitting events would yield that billion species.  Over 3.5 billon years, that’s one speciation event every 116 million years. As Allen Orr and I calculated in our book Speciation, on average a new species forms by splitting of a given lineage at a rate between one every 100,000 years and one every million years. (This is a rough estimate, of course, and varies by taxa.)  The upshot: the data we have on species formation shows that there’s been plenty of time time for evolution to have created a billion or even 100 billon species.

But the data is stronger than that, for we have tons of evidence showing the common ancestry of those species. For some reason—and I hope it’s not willful ignorance—Rabbi Shafran neglects that evidence.

These data include the presence of predicted transitional forms between extant groups (e.g., fish and amphibians, like Tiktaalik, amphibians and reptiles, reptiles and mammals, reptiles and birds, early apes to our own species, and so on). The data include the hierarchical distribution of genes and traits, as predicted by a branching process. The data include the distribution of species on the surface of the planet— biogeography—showing species forming from other species. And the data include the location of specific junk DNA, like transposable elements, residing in the exact same position in the DNA of species descended from common ancestors, like humans and chimps.  We also have seen speciation in action in many organisms, especially in the formation of polyploid plants (see Speciation), which constitute a sizeable percentage of existing plant species that have formed naturally.

So Rabbi Shafran seems to be ignorant of the massive data supporting speciation. He prefers instead to rely on rabbis rather than scientists. Here’s where his claim that his motivation is not religious become a clear lie:

I claim no official scientific credentials, but have had an abiding interest in science since I was a boy (which, as noted, was a good while back). As a young man, I devoured the layman-friendly but well-informed works of Asimov, Gould, Dawkins, Thomas and others, never doubting the assumption that speciation was fact.  Until I decided to apply my own critical thinking to the theory’s assumptions. My faculties, I know, are puny compared to those scientists’.  But I can’t help but feel that while brilliant people may always be brilliant, they can also sometimes be wrong.

While I believe in the divine origin of the Torah and its account of creation [JAC: if he is going by evidence, as he claims, he’d completely reject the divine origin of the Torah], my refusal to accept speciation as fact is based on reason, not religion. In fact, contrary to popular perception of religious thought, not believing in evolution is hardly dogma: no less an Orthodox luminary than the illustrious 19th century thinker Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch allowed for the possibility that all life might come from a single simple organism.

. . . But, to my lights, that “vague hypothesis,” as Rabbi Hirsch characterized it, remains just that, more than a century later. When scientists in a lab manage to create a living organism (let alone a reproducing one) from inanimate matter, or to irradiate a simple organism and turn it into a clearly different one, I will happily concede the possibility, at least, that such happened in the past.  That it happened millions of times? Well, we’ll talk.

I fully appreciate the fossil record and the similarities among some different species. And I realize that organisms have been bred or mutated in ways that, using arbitrary definitions, are called “new” species. But a fruit fly has never been coaxed into becoming a housefly. [JAC: Ah, here we see the creationist canard that “if you can’t see a new species form, it didn’t happen.” The good Rabbi doesn’t appreciate the value of historical reconstruction as an accepted part of science.]

. . . In the meanwhile, lead me to the stocks, if you must. And as I’m pilloried, I will proclaim the words of a famous man who once wrote that “it is always advisable,” when dealing with things beyond our immediate experience, “to perceive clearly our ignorance.”

His name was Charles Darwin.

Yes, but the Rabbi neglects to add Darwin adduced evidence for his ideas, and much of that evidence was either indirect (as in biogeography), or historical, but in the end the inferences were TESTABLE.  Darwin had no fossil record to support his ideas, nor did he have any evidence of speciation or evolution occurring in real time—except under artificial selection. Despite that, the evidence that has mounted since 1859 shows that Darwin’s theory, including splitting of lineages, has become fact. It is accepted by all rational people and the huge majority of scientist (engineers and dentists don’t count.) Those who reject it are either ignorant of the evidence or, in the case of Shafran, blinded to the evidence by their adherence to Yahweh.

I don’t have to lead Rabbi Shafran to the stocks: he’s voluntarily put himself there! There’s no need to pelt him with rotten tomatoes and eggs, either, as he’s put the egg on his face all by himself.

h/t: Michael

Now it’s the Jews who ban women from driving

May 29, 2015 • 10:45 am

How are Jews like Muslims? Answer: in both cases some sects ban women from driving. We know about that ban in Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, but now one group of Jews—British Jews—have done the same thing. According to the Jewish Chronicle, a group of Orthodox Hasidic Jews has issued a Jewish fatwa against women driving. And the reasons are pretty much the same as those adduced in Saudi Arabia:

The British leaders of a major Chasidic sect have declared that women should not be allowed to drive.
In a letter sent out last week, Belz rabbis said that having female drivers goes against “the traditional rules of modesty in our camp” and against the norms of Chasidic institutions.

Not only that, but it’s now prohibited for mothers of this sect to drive their kids to school. If they do, the kids get kicked out!

. . . from August, children would be barred from their schools if their mothers drove them there.

According to the letter — which was signed by leaders from Belz educational institutions and endorsed by the group’s rabbis — there has been an increased incidence of “mothers of pupils who have started to drive” which has led to “great resentment among parents of pupils of our institutions”.

They said that the Belzer Rebbe in Israel, Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, has advised them to introduce a policy of not allowing pupils to come to their schools if their mothers drive.

As far as I can see, these are not government-supported “faith schools,” but are still monitored by the government:

Compared with some of the most conservative Chasidic sects, Belz are seen as relatively moderate and while some Charedi schools in London have struggled with inspections, both their main boys and girls schools, Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass and Beis Malka, are rated “good” by Ofsted.

Dina Brawer, a member of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (now there’s a group with a tough job!) has correctly analyzed this as “the instinct behind such a draconian ban is one of power and control, of men over women. In this sense it is no different from the driving ban on women in Saudi Arabia. That it masquerades as a halachic imperative is shameful and disturbing.” But of course the women themselves, indoctrinated in their faith, defend this as a good thing:

In response to coverage of the story, the local Belz’s women’s organisation Neshei Belz issued a statement to say that they felt “extremely privileged and valued to be part of a community where the highest standards of refinement, morality and dignity are respected. We believe that driving a vehicle is a high pressured activity where our values may be compromised by exposure to selfishness, road-rage, bad language and other inappropriate behaviour.”

They added,”We do, however, understand that there are many who conduct lifestyles that are different to ours, and we do not, in any way, disrespect them or the decisions they make.”

Seriously, “refinement, morality, and dignity”? What age are we living in? This reminds me of Muslim women defending their hijabs, niqabs, and burqas. The worst part is punishing children whose mothers want to drive them to school. What if the men are busy in shul, davening and praying? If you’re indoctrinated in the faith, you’ll internalize its values.

Just think of all the contributions that the men and women of this faith would make if they’d give up their silly superstitions, stop the incessant ritual and prayer, and let women follow their dreams instead of the lives dictated to them from the moment they’re born.