tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post3012582903609524553..comments2024-03-18T22:21:33.261-07:00Comments on The Debate Link: I Wish I Was SpecialDavid Schraubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04946653376744012423noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-74594083654658040352011-03-25T17:05:20.515-07:002011-03-25T17:05:20.515-07:00The best line definitely was, "You must be do...The best line definitely was, "You must be doing something horrible. You made a 73-year-old Jewish man complain."<br /><br />This isn't a perfect analogy, but I was thinking about public accommodation recently because my son's preschool is serving fish every Friday during Lent and Passover is coming up, which requires that I explain all these things he can't eat, and while it's easy to explain bread, it's hard to explain pasta and crackers. (And of course, the Easter party - with lots of cookies - will be right in the middle of Passover.) And as long as I can remember, the public schools I attended always served fish on Fridays. Public accommodation of Christian religious practice is so ubiquitous that it's invisible. <br /><br />Of course, it wouldn't be reasonable to expect a public school to clear out its hametz during Passover, but the eruv doesn't really affect anyone.chingonanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-13758987010866659852011-03-25T16:20:33.811-07:002011-03-25T16:20:33.811-07:00The Daily Show bit is fantab, thanks!
It doesn...The Daily Show bit is fantab, thanks!<br /><br />It doesn't really surprise me that more secular Jews are playing a role in the opposition -- from my vantage point, it just shows (a) the community isn't monolithic (obviously -- and I know you don't think it is, but many seem to) and (b) being Jewish is hardly a bar to treating other Jews poor on the ground of their Jewishness.<br /><br />I mean, I have my tensions with the Orthodox too, but this isn't the way you fight that battle. It's not just the airing-dirty-laundry thing. It just seems spiteful -- it's not above resolving differences, it appears motivated by the belief that the presence of Orthodox Jews is inherently detrimental to the community, and that's discomforting. And while I think you're right that there's a degree of embarrassment over the "weird Jews" -- and this is hardly the only context where this has (historically or contemporaneously) been an issue -- I think that mentality is not exactly salutary. It's very "good Jew"-y.David Schraubhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04946653376744012423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-84075593980663092642011-03-25T16:05:04.667-07:002011-03-25T16:05:04.667-07:00Did you see the Daily Show bit on this?
http://ww...Did you see the Daily Show bit on this?<br /><br />http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-march-23-2011/the-thin-jew-line<br /><br />It seems that A LOT of the opposition is coming from other Jews. Based on, ahem, personal experience, I think a lot of liberal/more secular Jews think that Orthodox Jews look down on them (and, you know, they very well might), and the eruv in some ways symbolizes what secular Jews see as hypocrisy - they string up some fishing line, carry on Shabbos, and think they're better than the rest of us who just carry on Shabbos. There's also the "We're not weird, and those other Jews are making us look bad" thing. <br /><br />So the objections might feed into anti-Semitic tropes, but I think it's more complicated than that. At the same time, having these intra-group identity things hashed out in public is always awkward.chingonanoreply@blogger.com