Thread: Fifth Annual Israeli Apartheid Week, March 1-7, 2009

Originally Posted by smokelaw1

When it comes to "jews are...." type of language, we are not talking about people, but you are lumping me and nearly all of my relatives into a group without knowing us. And the language following that "Jews are..." has not frequently been positive. May I ask that you refrain from making generalizations about whole religions, just as one wouldn't want someone talking about "Blacks are...." etc. It's just not proper. Need to discuss extremists withing a religion? That's narrowing things down a bit, making the whole thing a little less objectionable.

I am always happy to discuss things with you and respond to your questions, except when you use insulting language, which I hope we have gotten past once and for all.

As for "lumping" you and your relatives together, you called me on that once before and I admitted that it was a generalization and that generalizations are wrong, but sometimes useful. It should be obvious that when I say "Jews" what that really means is "certain Jews that I knew growing up in Chicago between 1954 and 1977" and not all Jews. It's just that the formulation is a little cumbersome. In any case, I accept your point and will try to be more careful in the future.

As for those certain Jews that I grew up with, I didn't know it at the time, but I was actually living in the middle of a hotbed of Zionism and had friends from highschool make aliyah (emigrate to Israel). There was one girl who was particularly hot who I'm sure has 10 kids by now and is living in the West Bank. When she left, she broke my heart. But anyway, this is to say that I have certain people in mind when I express my opinions.

for the sake of clarification, when people say "Jew" in this thread, do they mean people of Jewish ancestry, or people who follow Judaism?

I've heard to word used both ways and I'm starting to get confused.

While you guys were all yakking it up about politics, I had a really awesome shave this morning with my newly restored Le Grelot "Perle des Orients" half-hollow. Did I miss anything interesting here?

Originally Posted by jockeys

for the sake of clarification, when people say "Jew" in this thread, do they mean people of Jewish ancestry, or people who follow Judaism?

I've heard to word used both ways and I'm starting to get confused.

Wikipedia has an article on "Who is a Jew" that is much more comprehensive but I will give you my brief thumbnail answer. A Jew is someone whose mother was Jewish regardless of whether or not they follow the Jewish religion. So, from that point of view it is an ethnicity. However, like a religion, one can become Jewish by conversion. Here, one begins to run into problems because the Orthodox Jews only recognize conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis and not conversions performed by rabbis of other branches of Judiaism. These problems have more to do with "Who is a Rabbi?" than with who is Jewish. A person who was born Jewish and then converts to Christianity (for some reason it's OK to be a Buddhist) is no longer considered to be Jewish by Jews. Conversion to another religion would have meant nothing to Hitler and (real) antisemites talk a lot about "crypto-Jews," which are of Jewish descent but practice another in religion in public and are, supposedly, still secretly Jews. Jews who converted to Catholicism in Spain to avoid expulsion in 1492 were called Marranos.

In my experience and opinion, the "ethnicity" part overshadows the "religious" part and converts to Judaism are viewed with suspicion while ethnic Jews with little religious identification are considered fully Jewish. Persons of Jewish descent who practice no religion often identify closely with Jewish issues so one can easily understand why you would be confused.

Aren't we through with this subject already? There are one or more members who are critical of Israel, and there are one or more members who are supportive of Israel. We now know who is who; everone interested has expressed an opinion. Why don't we stop this thread now? After all, we should be members of this group because we are interested in straight razors and shaving. There are other forums (fora) that are better suited to Arab/Israeli discussions-- I believce that the subject matter should be taken there and we should get back to discussing straight razors. I expect that none of is will change his respective opinions by redundantly going over and over each other's beliefs. I for one, vote that we stop discussion of this subject now.

Bob

Seconded, and sealed with the handshake of the Jewish World-Domination Society. (That was purely a joke, please do not read anything more into it, or that I think anybody believes or doesn't believe in such a thing).

Originally Posted by pavelaw

Aren't we through with this subject already? There are one or more members who are critical of Israel, and there are one or more members who are supportive of Israel. We now know who is who; everone interested has expressed an opinion. Why don't we stop this thread now? After all, we should be members of this group because we are interested in straight razors and shaving. There are other forums (fora) that are better suited to Arab/Israeli discussions-- I believce that the subject matter should be taken there and we should get back to discussing straight razors. I expect that none of is will change his respective opinions by redundantly going over and over each other's beliefs. I for one, vote that we stop discussion of this subject now.

Bob

Originally Posted by smokelaw1

Seconded, and sealed with the handshake of the Jewish World-Domination Society. (That was purely a joke, please do not read anything more into it, or that I think anybody believes or doesn't believe in such a thing).

Or we can just rename the thread ... any suggestions?

Originally Posted by Chimensch

Or we can just rename the thread ... ?

Or the Website?

Originally Posted by smokelaw1

Seconded, and sealed with the handshake of the Jewish World-Domination Society. (That was purely a joke, please do not read anything more into it, or that I think anybody believes or doesn't believe in such a thing).

Thirded, As Pavelaw said I think that this has pretty much run it's course. We know who the supporters of Israel are, we know who is in opposition, this is a shaving forum NOT a political forum. Perhaps the thread starter could desist in future??

To be fair, this is the "conversation" and non-shaving realted area of the website.

Now, another forums I am a member of, even in the off-topic area, does nto allow "hot button" issues, just because the site owner doesn't want to deal with them. I like that way of doing it. There are places for that, and I would PREFER to have this place be about my enjoyable love of shaving, and some friendly banter. If the admins here want no "content rules" then I am free to either not open these threads (which I'm sure you noticed I am incapable of) or go to a forum where the rules meet my liking more (not that I'm threatening to leave, I love this place!)