Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: melinda abplanalp who wrote (44117)	7/6/1999 10:15:00 AM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I think you would be miserable in the clothing business if you didn't like working and dealing with Jews. Sort of like the science racket.

To: melinda abplanalp who wrote (44117)	7/6/1999 8:52:00 PM
From: Edwarda	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

I also think from that letter that maybe some Jews don't realize how well respected they are. In my circle of friends I have never heard a single negative comment. Ever. It is a non-issue. In the circle of my family, friends, and workplace, I have never heard anything pejorative about people who are Jewish either. I have heard some jokes--on the order of blonde jokes and Irish jokes, which I collect, since I am both--but real anti-Semitism I am aware of the way I am aware of racism: I know they are a reality as surely as typhoons, but they are outside my day-to-day experience, which is one that goes beyond tolerance to interest, curiosity, and support. Not many years ago one of my neighbors was another single woman living at a distance from her family. She helped me choose the "perfect" Christmas tree and we decorated it together; meanwhile, we celebrated Chanukah together and she counted on me to provide the melody, since she was returning to her faith after a long lapse, as we lighted the candles. One Jewish neighbor joined us for a couple of nights and was scandalized at my participation. One erstwhile Catholic friend joined us and was utterly bewildered. As I said to both, they are festivals of light rejoicing God's grace in the world. My mother's family is Roman Catholic. The marriages and relations include--as witnessed by my mother's funeral--Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, Dutch Reform, Jews of every stripe, and a Moslem as well as the usual smattering of atheists and agnostics. (Gee, it was humorous afterward to think of the Jewish people who cam from love of Mother and me and how they were nonplussed by a wake with the open casket! Bless them for coping!) I know that I am not alone in this sense that we are all in this together and that those of us with a faith in "some deity"--be it God, Allah, Gaia, the Earth Mother, or whatever--cannot waste our time and energy on sectarian and racist nonsense. The charismatic and evangelical Christians should refer to their roots, the Gospels and Epistles, and show by example rather than by merely shouting. Paul, one of the most eloquent of the early Christians, always got into trouble when he shouted rather than spoke softly and showed by deed. I'll climb off my soap box now. I think that the response should show people who are Jewish--by cultural heritage as well as by belief--that when they are the "hunted," it is by people who have no other identity in society. This is not--as so many Jewish scholars who escaped the Holocaust in the nick of time feared and maybe their children and grandchildren fear--the same time and the same society. So many of us note that someone is Jewish the way we note that you don't take a friend with milk-white skin and red hair on a picic without warning him/her to bring sunblock. As recognition with no value judgements attached to the recognition. Soap box abandoned.