Yes, I treat them as any other man Yes, but less so than a non-Jew No, I dislike them see voting resultssaving...
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User voted Yes, I treat them as any other man.
3 votes
Jul 22, 2016

Yes.

My first published short story, "Silent Saint", is about a Jewish superhero, inspired by the tzaddikim, the silent saints who support the world. The idea of the tzaddikim echoes many of the ideas of the bodhisattva: "The judge is urged, “Tzedek, tzedek you shall pursue!” Meaning: that which was wronged should be righted, that which was stolen should be returned to its owner, the innocent should not suffer, and those who have caused harm shall be corrected so that they will return to doing good. Tzedek is making everything the way it should be".

The Jewish people and Jewish culture produced Spinoza, Maimonides, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Buber, Derrida, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Born and Feynman. The worlds of philosophy, science and art would be palpably less rich without Jewish culture.

Moreover, Jews have enriched my life in ways that are immeasurable. Siegel and Shuster created Superman; Lee and Kirby created Marvel's universe (and, thanks to Kirby's later work at DC, much of their universe as well). We've had stories of men and gods, gamma-irradiated monsters and masters of technology, devils and healers, thanks to Lee and Kirby. Without them, we wouldn't have Days of Future Past, one of my favorite films; or Watchmen; or Power Rangers and the entire sentai genre derived from Spiderman; or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Tens of millions of adults today would have fewer role models and fewer stories to tell without the way that these men pioneered an entire genre. And while it's easy to dismiss comics as pulp nonsense, they're in fact modern mythology, and they're a way for us to tell stories of heroism that get everyone on the globe working together.

Now, are there things to be critical about, in either Judaism or among all people who are Jewish? Absolutely.

Israel's politics are unpleasant. The fact that they are explicitly an ethnic state is quite ugly and ironically evokes some of the worst of European history. Their treatment of Palestinians has been deplorable. But no group, no culture or nation, is free from having ugly parts of their past. We're a species that creates as well as destroys, wages war as well as peace. That doesn't make Jews in general bad: it makes some leaders bad and it saddles the people of Israel with a great culpability. Similarly, Jews abroad can do a lot of good if they speak out, and those (like those at AIPAC) who do not contribute to a world where violence, torture and brutal treatment is accepted. Some Jewish organizations make my efforts to raise consciousness, give people hope and spread peace and tolerance harder: the ADL, and other organizations like it, has so often used anti-Semitism as a brush to tar those critical of the state of Israel, that it gives credence to those who claim that all claims of racism or sexism or homophobia are just cynical realpolitik.

Similarly, there's a lot of ugly stuff in the Torah and the Talmud. The treatment of women is pretty deplorable; homophobic passages in the Old Testament continue to be evoked today to hurt people; and there's a lot of defense of tyranny, monarchy, genocide and conquest.

But, again, that's like all religions, all ideologies and all peoples: a mix of good and bad. There's incredibly beautiful ideas in the Jewish tradition. The kabbalah is a beautiful celebration of the fundamentally pure, divine nature of humanity, a welcome corrective to the excesses of the original sin narrative.

Ultimately, though, I find myself defending Jews a lot, because they are used as an all-purpose boogeyman by awful, awful people. Neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, white supremacists and others like to pretend that all the bad behavior of white-majority societies is just the Jewish conspiracy. It lets them think that there's nothing really that wrong with imperialism, or statism, or capitalism: It'd be okay if it was just true Europeans in charge!

As I point out to those people: If they're right that Jews are secretly in charge, then Jews are the best people ever. They endured a Holocaust. They endured Kristallnacht. They endured blood libel, pogroms, ghettos, and anti-Semitic myths of all types. And yet Germany isn't a crater. If Nazis were honest, they'd have to admit that Jews are cool dudes who want to trade, make money and enrich everyone.

My debate coach was of Jewish descent. He was a civil rights attorney, making very little money working for an NGO, and then spent a lot of time volunteering to enrich multiple schools by helping their speech and forensics programs work. He helped me direct my energy, learn about politics, and get into college by doing so. I've met dozens of Jewish people in my life. They were very different people, but they were as good as anyone else I've met, as basically decent. Sure, I've met Jews who were horrible racists; but I've met black racists, white racists, French racists, American racists... Bigotry, fear and prejudice regrettably knows no nation or creed.

So, yes, I respect Jews as much as I respect any other human being. I respect the tenacity of a small group that has survived so much and has enriched so much as a result. I respect a group that loved learning so much that they produced Nobel laureates. Most importantly, I respect any human being who does not give me cause to disrespect them.

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100
User voted Yes, I treat them as any other man.
2 votes
Aug 2, 2016

I don't understand why antisemitism exists, or hate on groups of people in general. As a Jew, the main arguments I hear from antisemites on the internet is the Israel-Palestine conflict and some sort of conspiracy theory that Jews rule the world.

What I don't understand is why that should have any effect on me. I'm a regular Dutch guy with a Hebrew background, I don't see why I should receive any judgment or hate for what other people allegedly do. My classmates dislike me simply because I'm Jewish, even though I live my life the same way as they do. I don't deserve any such prejudice, and neither do Muslims because they share their religion with ISIS or black people because they have a higher crime rate.

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0 votes,
Aug 3, 2016

For the sake of argument I shall take your lack of understanding literally - not to justify such practices, but to make it more mundane and less intimidating.

As I was taught, I can only explain the practice of hating on a certain group of people by the notion of a so-called 'mental shortcut'. Apparently, people prefer to see the world through a certain framework which helps them to "understand" (or make sense of) it better. In a way, we all make use of mental shortcuts; the difference lies in what we decide is relevant to us (or to be precise: our survival).

For some people, to see the nuance between individuals in posession of a certain trait that they have in common (for example, the religion that they practice or the ethnic background that they have) is too much work - this is where the factor of intellect plays a big part - so they fall back on the clustering of the information that they either acquire or are bombarded with (by the media, for example). I suppose the best way to counter such rigid and simplistic ways of thinking is through challenging their prejudice.

Case in point: you may want to check whether Muslims truly "share" their religion with IS, for instance. Rather it is IS that under the guise of religion kidnaps and tortures Muslims and enforces their own rules on them. I think it has little to do with faith, and everything to do with power (and possibly money).

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100
1 vote
Jul 25, 2016

who can tell me reasons why we should not respect Jews or other nations?

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0 votes,
Jul 26, 2016

With "other nations" do you actually mean "other religions"? Or do you mean that you don't know the reason why people should be disrespected for either their religion (n)or their nationality?

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0 votes,
Jul 26, 2016

saying "other nations" i meant nations, religions, traditions and surely we came to the theme of racism and fascism!

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