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Jewish problems

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Re: Jewish problems

#131

Post by mea36 »

microarchitect wrote: post #42
wtracy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More so than almost any other culture, Jews have been consistently able to maintain their own cultural identity even when they are in the demographic minority or displaced abroad. A lot of this is due to their willingness to close themselves off from the surrounding population and maintain their own, separate, religious and social structures. So, from the outside, the local population sees a group of foreigners broug…

Very interesting. Muslim and Hindu communities in the West are also trying to be insular and maintain their own cultural identities, but I guess they're not so effective because they don't have the financial success backing them up that the Jews have. It's a lot harder to deride someone when you know they're making way more money than you, I suppose. those people are up to something I don't mean this in any negative…

The reasons Jews stereotypically have a lot of money is because for the majority of history it was illegal for them to own land. Instead they turned to business and banking. Since it's forbidden to lend in the Christian religion, Jews excelled in this area.

Not the best source but check out the first paragraph of this http://www.jewishhistory.org/the-rothschilds/

"In the Middle Ages, the Church, in a misapplication of the Biblical prohibition against charging interest, forbade interest in all instances. The Talmud, in contrast, created an economic system in which loans could be converted into investments, so interest could accrue from them, but under the Christian interpretation, no credit market was possible. The way the Church got around that was by forcing the Jews to become the bankers. "

Re: Jewish problems

#132

Post by praptak »

adrianwaj wrote: post #78
tomjen3 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he had lived then, he wouldn't have requested a visa. People smart enough to be on hacker news would also be smart enough to build a simple hot air ballon, or use any of the other was to escape detailed innthe museum at check point charlie.

Thanks, maybe packing bags is too indulgent. Perhaps hiding under a train carriage, just above the tracks.

Dude, this is as obvious as hiding your key under your doormat. They checked for that with dogs, flashlights and the like. Also, USSR track width was different than anyone elses, so carriages had to be moved between platforms with a crane.

Re: Jewish problems

#133

Post by Duff »

skeptical wrote: post #101
hasenj wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Muslim immigrants in the west have very similar problems: they don't assimilate, their loyalties are brought into question, they only eat "halal" food, etc.

How is that a similar? If anything, muslim populations in western countries are underrepresented in universities. Heck, some european countries are tipping 10% muslim population, yet if you go to a university campus good look finding a single muslim student. Problems are quite the opposite. There are special open doors on universities for immigrants to try to mitigate this problem, still it's not quite working so wel…

How exactly do you identify muslim students?

You probably aren't running into many devout/conservative type muslims who pray during the day or wear appropriate regalia. By that logic, you could argue that Catholics are underrepresented, because nobody is carrying rosary beads or confessing sins daily.

Re: Jewish problems

#134

Post by anghyflawn »

skeptical wrote: post #101
hasenj wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Muslim immigrants in the west have very similar problems: they don't assimilate, their loyalties are brought into question, they only eat "halal" food, etc.

How is that a similar? If anything, muslim populations in western countries are underrepresented in universities. Heck, some european countries are tipping 10% muslim population, yet if you go to a university campus good look finding a single muslim student. Problems are quite the opposite. There are special open doors on universities for immigrants to try to mitigate this problem, still it's not quite working so wel…

FWIW, here in Norway, the share of young people from a Pakistani background who are currently pursuing a degree is higher than among their Norwegian peers.

Re: Jewish problems

#135

Post by anghyflawn »

mazuhl wrote: post #102
iskander wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as the Soviet Union tried to keep down Jews, they were also trying to promote people who fit a nationalist narrative. So it wasn't just antisemitism, it was also affirmative action for Russians (especially those of peasant descent).

And at the same time the Russians did much to preserve Yiddish (a Jewish language).

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted, but this is at best only partially correct. Yiddish was supported along with pretty much all minority languages in the 1920s and early 1930s, but this support also ceased when the minority support policy was reversed (with token remnants such as the Yiddish being an official language in the Jewish "homeland" in the Far East). Following WWII and postwar persecutions of Jews Yiddish all but stopped being transferred from parents to children in the USSR. I remember how happy my grandfather (born 1928) was when it became possible to embrace one's Yiddish heritage again in the late 1980s); but he did not teach the language to his children.

Re: Jewish problems

#136

Post by darklajid »

StrawberryFrog wrote: post #107
mdasen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Answering as someone Jewish. . . Jews don't assimilate (fully). In the Passover story, one of the things we note is that even living in Egypt for a long time, they didn't assimilate and they were disliked for it. Heck, how often do you hear people talking about other immigrants "not assimilating these days". For centuries, Jews even spoke a language other than the vernacular. We're a much more tolerant world today an…

Great comment. > Before cars, towns were organized for churches or shuls to be within walking distance which means segregation. It's not gone. Some areas of North London are full of kosher delis, men with black hats and side-curls, etc, some don't have any.

It's not even gone in Israel:

Bnei Brak is, for all I know, a way to live a segregated (as in, among equals and without foreigners) and religious life. Heck, most Israelis I've spoken with (and 95% of my contacts here are ~secular~, more or less) avoid it, claim that I shouldn't go there on jewish holidays and certainly keep my wife out of it.

It's considered off limits for most of the non-observing population that I know. A (large!) ~ghetto~ next to the (secular, touristy, ~gay~) Tel Aviv.

1: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bnei_Brak

Re: Jewish problems

#137

Post by hasenj »

skeptical wrote: post #101
hasenj wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Muslim immigrants in the west have very similar problems: they don't assimilate, their loyalties are brought into question, they only eat "halal" food, etc.

How is that a similar? If anything, muslim populations in western countries are underrepresented in universities. Heck, some european countries are tipping 10% muslim population, yet if you go to a university campus good look finding a single muslim student. Problems are quite the opposite. There are special open doors on universities for immigrants to try to mitigate this problem, still it's not quite working so wel…

I didn't make any point about universities (not even implicitly). I just noted that Muslims in the west don't assimilate or even mix well with the larger society.

For instance, they don't drink, so you're not going to find them in bars (where a lot of socialization occurs). They don't marry much into other religions (even if some types of marriage are not prohibited, they're still frowned upon socially). You're not likely to see them date at all (though it depends on how devout they are).

Re: Jewish problems

#138

Post by netcan »

kamaal wrote: post #121
netcan wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely didn't mean to make this personal. But the reality is that you can sell stories like this in Egypt. “What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark (in the sea) to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm,” South Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha was quoted as saying by state news site egynews.net…. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2010/12/06/uk-e…

There is no reason for me to take it personal. I am Indian, not an arab . By ethnic origins I might have Hindu ancestors. My point was people are every where the same. Jews or other wise. The problem exists because of massive trust deficit due to a long chain of history of events. We need tolerance from both the parties if they want to leave in peace. And lets hope they are sensible enough to realize that. I am great…

I guess personal is the wrong word. It's just that what I said amounts to a criticism of elements in certain cultures, that's something people take personally.

We are, of course, the same. Nationality, ethnicity and the rest are made up. But.. so is money. Imaginary things still have an effect as long as people believe in them.

Re: Jewish problems

#139

Post by losvedir »

btmorex wrote: post #47
pixcavator wrote: post #23

Here’s a “Russian” problem: find the largest projection on the plane of a box with sides a, b, c.

Well, I don't care about my math rep so... I don't get it. You've listed 3 sides of a box. Does that mean that the "fourth" side is part of one of those 3 sides so a = b = c? Or are you asking for the orientation and relative length of the 3 sides such that the fourth side would maximize the area of the box?

I think the question is asking something akin to "You have a box with width a, height b, and length c. What's the biggest shadow you can make?"

For example, if you think of the sun straight overhead, then the shadow will have area a*b. But if the sun moves over, then the shadow will grow by inclusion of some of the height of the box.

Re: Jewish problems

#140

Post by jfruh »

This reminds me of an interesting story from Not In My Neighborhood, a history of residential and institutional segregation in Baltimore. Baltimore in many ways had three-way segregation -- black, white, and Jewish -- with Realtors for all three communities refusing to show houses in the "wrong" neighborhood to anyone. However, the public school system only had two-way segregation -- black and white, with Jews attending white schools.

Johns Hopkins, then as now an elite institution located in Baltimore, encouraged local kids to apply, and was integrated long before the public schools were. Hopkins never had any kind of restriction on the number of black students, but they did have quotas on the number of Jews. That's because the black school system was bad enough (and blacks generally financially disadvantaged enough) that they knew they'd never have more than about 5 percent or so of their student body being black -- enough to show that they were liberal and enlightened, but not enough to change the character of the student body. But if they let in all the Jews who qualified, the school would be half Jewish, which would be unacceptable, as they'd get a reputation as a "Jewish" school.

This is also one of the reasons for the long-ago heyday of City College in New York: as a public college, they didn't discriminate, and so a lot of Jewish kids who would have otherwise qualified to go to the Ivy League ended up there.

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