This is what religion does: it institutionalizes and rationalizes stupidity, like these signs in New York neighborhoods.
The large signs started popping up in the neighborhood more than a week ago. They had a Yiddish message that translates as: “Precious Jewish daughter, please move to the side when a man approaches.”
Neighborhood residents were annoyed the plastic signs, which were bolted into the wood, were taken away.
“The signs don’t bother anybody,” said Abraham Klein, 18. “Men and ladies don’t go together. It’s just our religion.”
Yeah? Well, your religion sucks. And the signs bother me.
Orthodoxy and misogyny seem to go together like a bad sandwich: shit and slime, two awful flavors that taste worse together and don’t stand alone so well, either.
They don’t? Hmmm. This certainly isn’t what’s said when it comes to legalizing gay marriage.
*I know, I know, I had to do it.
No, no it’s not.
Oh uppity women. It’s always the uppity women. :sigh:
*Hebrew
Yet another example of how religion poisons everything.
So, first they illegally post signs on public property, then they claim that they’re private.
Ah, religion. Nothing is better for enbabling people to hold two contradictory thoughts at the same time.
A friend of mine, a Jewish woman who lives in New York City, explained to me one time that women are supposed to thank God each day for having made them according to his will while men are supposed to thank God each day for not having made them women. I was amazed. It makes me wonder how some women can taken this in stride instead of being angry all the time at the smug, self-satisfied patriarchy. [Shrill Feminist]
The signs were for the ladies own good: if they avoid the bastards they won’t get cooties
pretty much the signs intend to read “less than human individual, give way to your superior”. It’s sad that some women are too ignorant or too under control to leave such pathetic primitive superstition.
Oh, that’s not a contradiction, you know. everything belongs to God, therefore the chosen people of God get to do what they want with everything, because everything is theirs.
“Men and ladies don’t go together” However do they procreate? Some Borg-esque assimilation?
RSA: you sure?
Aliasalpha
Wasn’t there something about having sex through a hole in a sheet?
Thar seems to go with the cootie avoidance.
Don’t any of these assholes have mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, wives?
Never mind.
*walks away in disgust*
it is Yiddish — same character set as Hebrew, but Yiddish. And it’s horrible.
Ladies; cross the road and keep going to find yourself a strapping Agnostic or (better yet) Atheist lad (or should that be partner?)
That’ll learn them….
@11: csrster, I’m wrong. Sorry–I’ve only seen Yiddish in the Roman alphabet, and I made the wrong assumption (exposing my cultural ignorance).
What, woman is a dirty word now?
I feel the same way when I drive through the countryside and see Billboards extolling Jesus and his apparent directorship of our military and economy. I know billboards are private property, but roadsides shouldn’t be.
And keeping it real – if you were to put up atheist billboards they’d be down in 24 hours.
They damaged living trees, not “wood.”
The signs also raise the questions of how male Jewish residents of Brooklyn will treat non-Jewish women, and why anyone would want to create a Hasidic ghetto.
A few years ago, an orthodox jew delayed our flight from London to JFK by almost two hours because he would not sit in his assigned seat – next to a women! Oh my, the cooties! They seemed to have thrown him off the plane twice only to have him return like a bad penny. Someone would have switched seats with him if he hadn’t started the whole thing off like an a-hole. Someone finally did switch, I suspect with a free round trip ticket in their pocket.
If I’d had scissors available, I would have seriously considered cutting his stupid ringlets off.
I love to take casual walks in the evenings and on weekends. If I lived in that region, I would make it one of my usual routes, not provoking, but not stepping aside either. (Though I might walk with several friends until I knew I wouldn’t be physically harmed.)
So a woman struggling with a baby carriage and groceries is suppose to move aside for any man walking on the same sidewalk? I guess Jewish men are so weak and dumb they can’t walk around someone. Let’s put a maniquin of a woman in the middle of the sidewalk and see how many people run into it or demand that it move out of the way!
Tx Skeptic #20
What airline was this? Was it Southwest? They have a rep for kicking women off for being lesbian or looking Muslim. I wonder if they would do that to a disruptive man.
andrea #8
I wonder if someone printed this message on similar signs and stuck them all over that neighborhood, what the reaction would be.
Well, sure, because they didn’t expect anyone who might complain to be able to read and understand the signs.
a man that needs that sign is not a man.
“Men and ladies don’t go together. It’s just our religion.”
What is this?! I don’t even…
That’s sort of like “No, offence but…” or “I’m not racist but…”
It being your religion doesn’t make it right, doesn’t excuse your behaviour, and it doesn’t let you off the responsibility!
If it’s your religion, it bloody well shouldn’t be, now should it? If it comes down to you either giving up on religion or giving up on being a decent person, giving up on being a decent person was the wrong choice.
The Orthodox community also has an obsession with blood purity that frankly greatly disturbs me.
Obviously, if they were removed, they did bother someone. And, since its YOUR religion, and not everyone’s religion, keep it to yourself. Its not nice to try and infect others with your terminal stupidity.
“Men and ladies”? – No! That’s either “Men and women” or “Gentlemen and ladies”…
@22 Alverant – The sign is directed at single ladies; a Hasidic man would make way for a married woman – she belongs to a man, after all! The sexism and totalitarianism of that culture is so sublimates and glossed over with happy bullshit it is the rare adherent who figures it out. They will tell you it is out of respect for the woman’s virginity that she is encouraged to avoid men. They will tell you women are kept separate to honor them and avoid shaming them if they are unclean (menstruating). They’ll even tell you women don’t have the obligation to learn Torah because women are spiritually gifted by their role as babymakers. It’s a rotten, patriarchal dictatorship. It’s no more or less evil than this Sharia we’re supposed to be a-feared of. Obnoxious. And an embarrassment to rational Jews even if many won’t admit it.
I’m vaguely reminded of an incident some years ago. My partner and I were walking through Brooklyn one day. A man dressed in the clothes typical for orthodox Jewish men approached my partner and asked him 1. why he was holding hands with a non-Jewish woman 2. why he wasn’t dressed “properly” 3. why I wasn’t dressed “properly” (even though he’d already established that he thought I was a non-person, apparently I still shouldn’t be showing my hair). Partner told him to get a porcupine. I was disturbed that someone would think it any of his business to try to dress us. We went back to Manhattan.
Note that most Orthodox Jews don’t believe this. This is extreme even by their standards.
That’s not to say that Orthodoxy doesn’t have a fair bit of sexism even in the less extreme versions. This is a religion where any layperson who is a male can lead any service any day of the year if they know how to but women can’t do anything in synagogues pretty much at all.
From the comments:
Does anyone know to what this refers?
Wow, is this the moment where we should be thankful for our own starnd of patriarchy that bred at least chivalry?
Alexis
I’d be sure to take several friends, and walk all in arm, all the six of you ;)
@Zvyozdochka #15
Suddenly that *Gasp! Horror!* foreskin might not seem so bad.
@Serindipitydawg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Square,_New_York
it’s not “By law” it’s a bunch of rabbis enforcing their own laws under the nose of the state because they have enough sway and no one cares.
Of course.
Those kind of things (and worse) are common in some neighborhoods in Israel. Which raise the question: if this kind of separation is taking place in a completely ultra-orthodox neighborhood, and only orthodox people are subjected to it, do we as non-religious people have the right (or the duty?) to protest against it?
My answer would be yes. I’m not a moral relativist – I think there *is* a right way to act, and that way is based on equality. Still, it’s a complicated question.
@lilith
Even if morals were relative, my relative morals say it’s ok to try to convince people of my POV.
My wife and I live in a very orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Queens, NYC. She makes it a point to sit next to orthodox Jews on buses and take up as much space as possible.
Apparently she started doing this when she was living in Jerusalem, and she sat next to one not realizing that their religion forbade it. When a Jewish woman asked her why she wouldn’t move, her response was “it’s HIS religion, if he doesn’t want me next to him then he can fucking move.”
As for my part, it’s apparently offensive when I walk my dog when there are orthodox Jews around. So I make it a point to do it on Shabbat.
D
It seems New Square is a community establish by Hasidic Jews some 50 years ago on the site of a former dairy farm. The ban on women driving in just a rule imposed within the community, and is a law.
and is a NOT law.
That settles my next vacation destination. I’m going to go to New Square, New York and drive back and forth all day long. But in a Prius since I want to be as environmentally friendly as possible.
Thought I’d mention this story that happened in israel colonies not long ago:
Orthodox Idiocy
Extreme-orthodox making life hell for “simple” orthodox girls going to school….
These extreme-orthodox “adults” were throwing eggs and rotten tomatoes at 8-12 year old girls going to school…..
I try to tell myself that these acts of extreme idiocy and retardness will help bring the downfall of religion.
People getting really really tired of all this crap…. but then I can’t quite convince myself :(.
“Precious Jewish daughter, please save yourself now! Get an education, learn some marketable skills, become employed, and escape this horrible patriarchy before it enslaves your mind.” Now that’s a sign I’d like to see someone put up.
Sour tomato,
The dog walking thing isn’t offensive so much as they are simply scared. Among some of the ultra-orthodox Jews, especially certain chassidic sects, people are taught from a young age to be afraid of dogs. I’m not sure what the exact history of this is. I’ve seen speculation that it dates back to when dogs were used by those who oppressed the Jews in the ghettos. But I suspect that at some point someone realized that old Jews were afraid of dogs and got into their heads that since nothing should ever change that it would be a good thing to deliberately give that fear on to their kids. I suspect that for those who are not getting actively taught to fear dogs still pick up some of it from that.
As to walking the dog on the sabbath, there’s actually a fascinating issue the modern orthodox have and non-extreme shabbath observant groups with this. They have pets just like other people do, but there are serious issues with walking pets on the shabbath and with picking up after them. There’s been a lot written on the details of how they can do this.
(Incidentally, the article that PZ linked to has a quote from Deborah Feldman. She’s an interesting person who had a horrific time both in the ultra-orthdox world and then trying leave it. Quite an interesting person. She has a book coming out which is more or less autobiographical. She’s a fairly good writer so it will probably be worth reading.)
Johan,
The Beit Shemesh issue is actually ultra-orthdox (charedi) against orthodox (well, actually against the moderate end of the religious nationalists- dati leumi). Calling that Orthodox idiocy misses the point.
But, more seriously, this occurred in Beit Shemesh which isn’t a settlement by any standards. Labeling it a “colony” simply shows you don’t know what you are talking about.
Joshuaz, #47:
I have a Jack Russell Terrier. Not exactly nightmare material. But I have noticed most of the children in my apartment complex (almost all of which have orthodox Jewish parents) are terrified of him. So yeah, you’re probably right.
There is of course just one response to this. A bunch of women of any and all denominations should just begin walking around the neighbourhood. NOT GIVING WAY TO MEN.
Men and ladies don’t go together. It’s just our religion.
Oh, really? Let’s play the word replacement game, shall we?
Black people can be slaves. It’s just our religion.
Jews can be rounded up in ghettoes, and then sent to concentration camps. It’s just our religion.
Yeah, it still sounds shitty, no matter what.
A few years ago, an orthodox jew delayed our flight from London to JFK by almost two hours because he would not sit in his assigned seat – next to a women!
All they had to do was tell the guy that every single one of their seats had been occupied at some point by a menstruating woman–and they didn’t have a Rabbi come by to wish the period cooties away.
He would have run off of the plane and never come back.
The dog walking thing isn’t offensive so much as they are simply scared. Among some of the ultra-orthodox Jews, especially certain chassidic sects, people are taught from a young age to be afraid of dogs.
Dogs are unclean, according to their delusion. It’s easier to teach them simply to be afraid of dogs rather than explaining to a toddler about some stupid rules in a genocidal scumbag manual.
Say… does anyone happen to know the Yiddish for ‘Precious sexist zealots, go fuck yourselves’?
No reason.
Also good.
Another instance of we should respect discrimination because it’s part of a religion.
Aquaria,
I’m not aware of any belief that dogs are unclean. Some Muslims believe that. I don’t think there’s any Orthodox belief in that. Also, note that the whole afraid of dogs thing seems to date only to the last few centuries. The Talmud itself has a fairly positive view of dogs including a mandate to give any non-kosher meat one inadvertently has to one’s dogs. This shows that at least around 600 CE dogs both kept and considered to be somewhat good things.
I don’t think your explanation holds water.
It makes me want to put up some signs that read: “single atheist, respects women, good cook, searching for precious jewish daughter interested in holding my hand as we walk through life side-by-side as equals. PS – I have cookies.”
Stuff like this makes me so angry. Every time I hear about these ridiculous gender based rules I start to get the urge to do rebellious things like walk around topless and spread menstrual blood on Orthodox men.
One of my friends was telling me about her orthodox friend who used to have to go to a special “spa” every month after her monthlies to get “cleaned out” so she wouldn’t make her husband unclean. She was talking like it was some kind of special treat, and I should just accept that it is their culture or something.
But when some parts of a culture are built entirely on the oppression of one half of its citizens, I just have a hard time accepting that. It is one of the few things that makes me have violent thoughts.
Someone send this to the sophisticated theologians who affirm religion is just a personal, spiritual business which carries no consequences for society or for anyone else and it’s totally not a form of control.
Sour Tomato Sand
Tell her that I really, really like her ;)
Matt
But please don’t hurt any living trees that are making cities a bit more liveable
Ehm, sorry, Matt means Marcus, of course.
I think that this sentence is incomplete. What he meant to say was “the signs don’t bother anyone important“. You know, male orthodox jews. Because apparently nobody else counts.
You have to love the way that he is so utterly mired in his patriarchal belief system that he thinks that misogyny is somehow OK because it is ‘just their religion’. When are people going to learn that moral relativism holds no water? Misogyny, like racism and homophobia, is as close to objectively wrong as it is possible to get in a social context. It is both immoral and harmful to society at large, and religiously motivated misogyny is no more acceptable than any other flavour of bigotry.
Do these people even listen to themselves? How can a sign nailed to a tree in a public place be considered ‘a private thing’? Once you choose to place something in the public forum, it is by definition no longer private.
It occurs to me that, if they claim that this sign is ‘private’, then it follows that they should not care if people ignore it when walking down a public street. I somehow doubt that they would take it well if any woman simply ignored their sign, even if the woman in question was not part of their faith group.
Is that the rank stench of hypocrisy floating on the breeze…?
Since when did the use of illegal sinage to promote misogyny become a free speech issue? I somehow doubt she would be so quick to cite free speech if a group of atheists were illegally nailing up signs in public spaces saying ‘you can be good without god’ and the authorities started taking them down.
But of course, I forgot. The goddists are only interested in free speech when it is their speech that is being protected. Godless baby-eaters, not being really human, don’t qualify for actual rights.
Silly atheist, free speech is for kids…
@ManOutOfTime #31
Ahh but how do you know the woman pushing the carriage and carrying the groceries isn’t a single woman? She could be the nanny or baby sitter or an unmarried aunt or sister who’s helping out. Maybe her husband died or is (gasp) divorced making her single again.
Marcus:
Win. And the cookies are a nice touch.
I lived in South Williamsburg from 2002 to 2008 and I still go back there regularly. These asshats were always pulling shit like this. Not too long ago they removed the bike lanes which had been painted along the streets through “their” neighbourhood, because they thought the lanes “encouraged” “scantily clad” women to cycle there.
Several times they flat out refused to speak to my partner when she spoke to them – even to say “Good morning” or similar pleasantries. So when one of them had the gall to ask me if I’d come and switch on his AC unit during a sweltering Shabbat I just played ignorant. I said “Why don’t you switch it on yourself?” He replied “I can’t – it’s my religion”. I said “Well, then it’s your problem, isn’t it?”
I will not respect this sort of stupidity. Especially when they disrespect my partner and all other “shiksas” in the neighbourhood.
My naughty imagination is starting to run with this topic. If somebody put drops of red paint on the side walks at night when he or she wouldn’t be seen, and then put arrows and text “Menstrual blood” next to them, would the people fell compelled to stop walking on the sidewalks?
Or if someone put up signs (not bolted to the trees) that read “I’ve walked this sidewalk while on my period”.
Or, simply, a battle of the signs, in Yiddish “Gentlemen, please move to the side when one of our precious daughters approaches”.
That’s because being Niddah isn’t being a second class citizen. It’s a vacation… from your usual role of being a servant to your husband.
Jack,
The Williamsburg bike lane thing was actually even worse than that- they managed to get the city government to remove the lanes for them.
The school girls of Beit Shemesh should save their used “sanitary products” to throw back at the egg and tomato throwers. (Yes I know they are only 8 to 12 years old, but they have mothers and older sisters.)
Joshuaz: Aquaria is right, at least in some subcommunities.
In Islam, dogs are haram, as you said. However, my experiences support Aquaria’s comments.
I live in a “religious neighborhood” in Brooklyn. I have been told that the saliva of a dog is “unclean”. I have also been told that dogs are unclean. Basically the equivalent of haram.
I have also been told things along the lines of what you said.
The only dog-owners among the conservative population that I have seen live in a block composed mostly of non-Jewish people, and oddly their dog is a LOVELY sweet young mastiff bitch. She’s a loving pup, but they leave her outside on a wire lead during the day, and not only on the Sabbath. They have a Mexican woman who sometimes walks the dog. There was another house in which they got a pitbull puppy a couple of years ago–young males trying to look cool was my impression–the pup seems to have lasted only a few days with them. I never saw it again.
They are mostly terrified of dogs. I have seen people scream and run into the avenue with oncoming traffic rather than be on the same sidewalk as our old dog, a 15-lb fluffy long-haired mutt…on a short leash. Rarely do they pass when I’m walking my current dog, a 50-lb boxer-Dalmatian mix without some kind of expression of fear or loathing.
An elderly woman said to her companion once as my daughter and I passed with the dog: “You know what’s nice about this block? No dogs.”
In Manhattan, my pup doesn’t get a look or a flinch, unless someone is in a dog-petting mood, in which case new friends are instant.
Chris,
Huh. That’s interesting. I’ve interacted with Orthodox Jews and I’ve never seen people claim that dogs are unclean in any way that is different from other animals. Do you know which specific sects these people belonged to?
@ # 3 – Yiddish is written in Hebrew script …
Not that I can read either so I wouldn’t know which it is.
That can happen. IIRC, an ultra-orthodox village outside of New York got in trouble for throwing rocks at females on bicycles riding through. Something about how they weren’t bicycling in floor length dresses or something.
And in Israel, they occasionally throw rocks at people for reasons that make sense to them and no one else.
The Mormons say the exact same thing to their women.
Just like the Mormons and fundie xians. Hmmm, seeing a pattern here. Hitchens: Religion poisons everything.
““Men and ladies don’t go together. It’s just our religion.”
If only they carried this through to it’s logical conclusion, we’d be rid of orthodoxy within a generation…
Jack Rawlinson@65 My dad used to earn a dime when his Jewish neighbors would have him flip a light switch for them on the sabbath. Quite a treat for a young boy in the 1920s. In retrospect, I’m surprised that making payment on the sabbath is not more taboo than turning on a light.
Ing @37,
Thanks for that – the tone of the comment looked a bit rabid so I was wondering what it was going on about.
Joshuaz:
I’m sorry, I am an outsider, so I don’t know which group is which. And there seems to be several subgroups here. I see that there are lots of little local factions with their own gathering-places and they seem pretty insular, even to each other. I’ve not been interested enough to learn the details.
From Ing’s link:
Ah, paradise on Earth!
“The signs don’t bother anybody,” said Abraham Klein, 18. “Men and ladies don’t go together. It’s just our religion.”
I know that this is just a quote from a person who is supportive of the sign but for me, the most important part of the sentence is the first part. It is implied that anyone who objects is not really anyone. A reflection of a very insular world.
I could see the argument that these signs are protected by the first amendment, were they not illegally bolted to trees. I disagree with what was written on them, but the first amendment exists to protect unpopular speech, as it is usually the speech in need of protection.
I start to get the urge to do rebellious things like walk around topless and spread menstrual blood on Orthodox men.
Please don’t do the latter. Spreading potential biohazards is against my religion. May I suggest walking up to them and whispering “psst…I’m menstruating” as a substitute?
Alexis,
are you sure your dad got his payment on the Sabbath? Probably he got it the next day or was “on retainer”. AFAIK, handling money is also taboo on Sabbath…
Just like the rock with “Niggerhead Ranch” painted on it was protected speech.
Alexis (#76):
Was the payment made on Shabbat? They may have agreed to pay for work done on Shabbat, but making the actual payment before or after Shabbat. (Shabbat is from sundown on Friday until stars are out on Saturday.)
There are religious authorities trying to outdo each other on what they are going to forbid on Shabbat. I recall in the mid 1990s someone forbidding walking barefoot on grass on Shabbat (because one might pull out some grass blades with one’s toes accidentally, which would count as the work of weeding).
Back in the day I occasionally looked into the usenet newsgroup soc.culture.jewish I recall a lengthy and heated discussion about whether it is permissible to carry one’s pet out of a burning house on Shabbat. So I suppose some religious Jews do have pets. And some of them don’t have enough compassion for said pets to do the obvious, but then not surprising considering the level of compassion for many humans.
My dogs used to gargle with week-old dead possums and then lick their butts afterward. So I tend to agree. But not in a metaphysical sense.
I don’t think it’s clear enough. Maybe they should have women wear a little pink venus symbol on their clothing.
I think the impurity of menstruation extends to everything a menstruating woman touches. Which gives me the urge to walk through the neighbor in a shirt that ways “Currently Menstruating” and touching everything I can while shouting “this *insert name of object* just got midras l’tumah’d!”
I don’t think “serious” is the word you want.
Come see this new play that explores the dangers of religious thinking and the ways in which we create our own mythology: http://www.arsnovanyc.com/lineup/132-the-beautiful-beautiful-sea-next-door
October 25th at Ars Nova in NYC!
Win!
I lost my desire to hang out with religious nutbags when I took five seconds to read Genesis 1 and 2. They have two different statements on the creation of men and women, but Christianity runs with the second one that simply declares female inferiority, and then explains away the first one by either ignoring it or claiming Genesis 2 is just a more in-depth explanation of the first chapter, and both are total rejections of the actual even-more misogynistic tradition.
The first woman, in the Jewish tradition, told the first man to go fuck himself when he demanded that she serve him. He ran whining to God and got her kicked out of Paradise for not bowing to his penis. “Lilith” supposedly became a demon and bred offspring that haunt Adam’s descendents to this day…although I don’t understand how she managed that with no supposed sperm donor. And she was never allowed to find peace.
And so the only way for women to please men (and therefore please God) is to serve men, or else women won’t get Paradise/Heaven. Fuck that noise. I’d walk through that neighbourhood with maxi-pads and tampons taped to my clothing if I could.
Side note: stop Hassidic men on the street and ask them when they’re putting their female divinity (deleted several thousand years ago) back into their holy books. It really pisses them off.
Thank Lilith I’m an atheist.
Johan,
The Beit Shemesh issue is actually ultra-orthdox (charedi) against orthodox (well, actually against the moderate end of the religious nationalists- dati leumi). Calling that Orthodox idiocy misses the point.
But, more seriously, this occurred in Beit Shemesh which isn’t a settlement by any standards. Labeling it a “colony” simply shows you don’t know what you are talking about.
Yes I don’t know the details about this story. I’m happy for you that you do. But you missed my point entirely.
I wasn’t trying to show that I know much about that region of the world, I don’t.
I was just shocked by the attitudes of the ultra-orthodox.
“They say their religious sense of modesty is offended by the sight of the girls and their families passing their homes on their way to school.”
I had the strange impression that those patriarchal views were linked to their ultra-orthodoxy.
And I also believe that adults who throw tomatoes and eggs at passing schoolgirls are morons, idiots etc….
Other then that, sorry to have said it was a colony if it wasn’t.
That still doesn’t change the fact that their ultra-orthodox ways make them idiots.
I wonder how a paintball gun would handle used tampons? O.o
Second side note: I have a Jewish friend who serves as the cantor at his temple, and they have a female rabbi. She ran services right up through the end of her pregnancy, and then took a leave of absence during her child’s first year.
I’d like to turn her loose on these idiots.
And I’d bring buttered popcorn with bacon bits on top.
Anat @86 and others. As he told the story, they would call to any passing boy and offer him a dime to flip the light switch. It wasn’t a contract (such as, be here on Friday at x o’clock, we’ll pay on Sunday) it was a momentary transaction.
No. Chivalry is, to my mind, one of the most insidious forms of sexism, a calculated extension of the “you can’t do x because you’re special and we’re protecting you!” lie. A gilded cage is still a cage.
The Ys,
they wouldn’t recognise her, as they wouldn’t any Reformist or even Conservative rabbi.
And Israel also only recognises Orthodox marriages and conversions, so this had led to problems involving children of converts (there was an article in the New York Times about this some years ago). Also call it paradox, but Israel with its majority secular citizenry, only allows valid marriages with religious certification (though I don’t know if atheists can get around those rules), so I have Israeli friends who had to go to Cyprus on marriage tourism. After that, back home, they then had a non-legally binding wedding ceremony with their favourite female rabbi…
Alexis @76: That reminds me of a story. I once shared a hotel room at a science fiction convention with someone I didn’t know who was apparently very observant – he wouldn’t use the electronic keycard to open the door on Friday night. Fortunately for him, the room connected to another room occupied by a Jewish couple who weren’t so fanatical and let him go through their room.
The kicker? He had a t-shirt showing ten guys, nine with black yarmulkes, one pink, captioned “There’s one in every minyan“. If that didn’t mean he was gay and proud, I can’t imagine what it meant.
So he won’t use electricity on the sabbath, but he’s ok with being gay. Talk about cognitive dissonance…
This “we have to go abroad to get married” occurs in other countries as well. Indonesia and Malaysia also make marriage up to the religious authorities of the religion you’re a member of. In Malaysia this is compounded by the fact that all Muslims are under shariah law, which means they cannot legally leave their faith (this issue is in the news from time to time). So a Malaysian muslimah, if she were to marry a Christian man, can only do abroad. At least it’s better than Saudi Arabia…
So, my mother-the-rabbi had a habit of sitting next to the Chabad (Hassidic) rabbit whenever there was the group of rabbis called together in our town.
You can be pretty sure the sign is Yiddish – Hebrew for the Chassids is a language of prayer not everyday usage.
Re: Shabbes goys – yeah – handling money is also forbidden on Shabbes, and more particularly, you can’t ask someone to do something forbidden, they have to do it for themselves – so, if you were to come over and turn on the AC, you’d have to officially do it because you were hot – you’d have to stay for a minute. The rules are weird.
I’m sure they’d have no problem at all, then, with signs stating that Jews should step aside for Gentiles – ’cause that’s just Gentile religion, you know.
I agree that modern chivalry is a cage – going back at least 200-300 years – but some types of “chivalry” had practical roots.
In the medieval era, doors were made very heavy/solid to stand up to an assault. It was considered polite for a man to open those because it was difficult (and sometimes impossible) for women to do so. They didn’t have the necessary physical strength, but the heavy doors were necessary for hall/castle defence…and so the necessary became something you just do for girls, no matter what.
Pulling out chairs? Sort of the same thing. Those were built to last and made out of heavy, dense wood…and women had heavy floor-length skirts and then hoop skirts to deal with. It was considered a kindness to assist women with the chair’s mass while they handled caring for their not-easily-replaceable clothing…and then the practical help became tradition.
Other traditions had practical roots as well – when traveling, men would go first in case of an attack or ambush, and that tribal custom is used to force women to walk behind men to this day. Spiral staircases were designed so that the defender (coming down from above) had free range of motion for his sword arm (the right arm) while the attacker (coming up the staircase) would be hampered by having his sword arm/shoulder against the wall…but modern spiral staircases still twist in the same direction, even though we don’t have the same need.
I love studying this stuff. Some of our customs are weird and/or totally useless, but they seemed to make perfect sense to ancient societies.
Sounds like a good location for a slut walk type of event. Or maybe not that specifically but just flood the streets with women who refuse to “give way.” Dress however, as scantily or covered as they like, but make their presence known and reject patriarchal bs. Also be hilarious to watch the hasids run in terror of signs saying things like “I’m menstruating.”
Johan,
No disagreement with that assessment.
It’d be worth the trip to NYC to participate in this!!!
I’m not sure I understand the purpose of the physical signs. If the message on them is a true part of their religion (as Mr. Klein would indicate), then wouldn’t the people the signs pertain to already know about the rule?
My non-observant Jewish friend from Israel would often find herself needing to use the facilities on flights back and forth to the States at exactly the same moment the ultra-Orthodox men on the flight had to stand and pray. As flights can be bumpy, she would inadvertently bump into as many of them as she could on her way down the aisle, rendering them unclean (of course) so they would have to start their little prayer ritual all over. Bonus if she could be done in the loo before they were and start the whole thing over on her trip back down the aisle.
These people (and their counterparts in other religions) must really not think much of god if they believe he could be so ridiculously petty.
truthspeaker
It’s not as if I were defending chivalry, but at least if they thought they didn’t want (or could) to share the road with you men would change the side. I’m also fully aware that a lot of the “nice” things chivalrous men do is basically telling me I’m not a human being capable of reson, like always walking on the road-side of the sidewalk like you do with children who can’t be trusted to run out onto the street
Me? I’m for politeness, holding doors for the person behind you, hurrying up to open them for people with heavy loads or disabilities and such. Able-bodied people should help elderly people who struggle with getting into cars. But I don’t think that this is actually a point of discussion on pharyngula. It would require an extraordinary troll to argue that.
Muse
No, the rules are stupid, but clear. But their trying every trick they can find to obey “the word” of the rules but not the meaning.
Really, if their god existed he would have to be really pissed at them for trying games that usually little children play with their adults: “You said I wasn’t allowed to climb onto the chair and get myself a cookie, you never said anything about not lifting little Jimmy onto the table and make him get me a cookie!”
Yeah, Jews and dogs – it’s an interesting phenomenon, and they at least are aware of it enough to make jokes about it:
During the Yom Kippur War, an Israeli scout was reporting to his captain.
“They have troops up on those hills,” said the scout.
“Our artillery can deal with them, no problem,” said the captain.
“But they have troops coming up the main road too!”
“Perfect, they’re advancing right into an ambush!”
“What about their reinforcements?”
“I’m sure an air strike will finish them off.”
“But Captain,” wailed the scout, “They also have a *really* big dog!”
Well, they could set up their own village where only Jews of their own sect can live and arrest people who “don’t belong there”.
Arrest video, part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3nJ_6xy0-U
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZjGBcgj0jA
Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_PynjCtnXg
Short version:
To Tualha (#98):
Many Orthodox Jews are OK with homosexual men as long as they are celibate. (And lesbian sex doesn’t even count, as there is no penis involved, so how can it even be sex?)
No penis = no sex?
This changes everything.
@ Cliff Hendroval
I don’t get it.
And people say you only go after Christianity! Damned whiny Christians…
“But Captain,” wailed the scout, “They also have a *really* big dog!”
Good thing it wasn’t a gay dog or they’d all have fled in terror and Israel would be called Palestine again.
108: That’s actually a holdover from medieval culture, and it was a class issue as well as a gender issue. Men walked on the street side to protect high-class women (and their expensive clothes) from getting mud/poop kicked up on them by passing horses. Lower-class women walked on the street side because obvs. they’re more deserving of the muck than a high-class man.
Re: penis = sex – a surprisingly high number of people believe that. I taught a college sex-ed course and was perturbed by how many educated, relatively liberal students thought that lesbian sex had to involve props to be “real sex.”
That neighborhood doesn’t need a slutwalk so much as a “precious daughter march”.
@ Muse, #100:
A Hassidic rabbit??? I haven’t stopped laughing yet.
If they want to get all Hebrew Bible on the menstruating women issue, I think folks can fight back by asking every guy in this community, when passing on the street, if he’s experienced an “emission” since the prior sunset. If so, he’s unclean and should at all costs be avoided.
Heh.
My bet on the light switch/dime exchange is that the Jewish people had laid out some dimes somewhere handy before the Shabbat (say, in a little dish by the front door), and had the switch-thrower grab themselves one once the switch was thrown – thereby not handling money on the forbidden day.
And the issue with strict Orthodox Jews and electronic hotel locks is enough of an issue with some sci-fi conventions that they have a set-aside block of rooms on regular locks for exactly that problem.
(Can you tell I grew up in a majority Jewish school district with a heavy Orthodox population?)
Have you guys thought about how you will defend yourselves against charges of anti-semetism? There’s a reason why Talmudic law (Halakha) gets a free pass in 21st century America, while Sharia law in America is feared and denounced all over the mainstream media.
To mercurial (#120):
Some of us are technically Jewish by their rules.
“Have you thought how you will defend yourselves against charges from irrational idealogues!?”
Yes, MM, Yes I have. It’s a two pronged defense I like to call “Fuck” and “You”
I.E.: They’re not at all ok with gaymen.
Have you guys thought about how you will defend yourselves against charges of anti-semetism?
the very moment the Israeli government announces its plans to invade the US, I’ll consider thinking about that.
Well, if I still lived there, anyway.
The term for someone who does minor tasks for Orthodox Jews on the Sabbath is “shabbes goy.” I was one, back in my youth on the north side of Chicago.
Reminds me of an old Jewish joke. One Shabbos afternoon, Hershel stood at the window in the Rabbi’s study looking outside. “Rabbi,” he suddenly asked, “if one sees a cow drowning on the Sabbath can one save her or let her drown?”
“Of course you can’t save her! It’s not allowed! What are you looking at anyway?”
“Nothing! A cow fell into the lake.”
“What can one do?” sighed the Rabbi. “The Torah forbids it!”
“Look!” cried Hershel. “Ah, the water is going over her head! It’s a pity on the poor animal!”
The Rabbi said, “What can one do? Go against the Torah?”
“Now I can no longer see the poor cow. She’s drowned! What a pity!”
“What’s the matter with you, Hershel! Why are you lamenting?”
“You’ll be sorry, Rabbi!”
“Why?”
“Rabbi, it’s your cow!”
To Giliell (#108):
The tradition of telling god what his laws ‘really’ mean, interpreting within the word of the law regardless of its spirit goes back to the story of Akhnai’s oven, where Rabbi Eliezer disagreed with his peers on interpretation and performed assorted miracles to ‘prove’ he was right, including eventually having god himself declare Eliezer right on all accounts. But the rabbis refused to accept this form of proof, culminating with Rabbi Yehoshua who declared god had no business interpreting his own laws since he gave them on Sinai. Instead laws should be interpreted according tothe opinion of the majority of rabbis of the generation. It is later claimed god found this amusing (not that is opinion matters anymore).
Back in the day this story allegedly took place (probably late 1st century CE) the rabbis had to make sure the public did not follow Eliezer’s rulings so they excommunicated him. Eliezer’s wife was the sister of Gammaliel who headed the Sanhedrin and was the one with the authority to impose the excommunication. From that day she always distracted her husband while he prayed. Once she wasn’t vigilant enough and Gammaliel died while Eliezer was praying.
So these guys never changed significantly in 2000 years.
once I met a Jamaican Jew, I thought, then it turned out he was a Seventh Day Adventist (back then I was staying in an apartment in Boston I had rented from Orthodox Jews, complete with two sets of dishes etc, so that added to my confusion).
So, does anyone know if the SDAs differ in any way from Orthodox Jews in how they keep the mitzvot? Because he had the same thing about not going to lectures on Saturday etc…
Anat
As a teen I would devour tales and myths from around the world. The jewish ones were some of the best, they had often an element of humor to them.
If their daughters are so precious why do the signs not say ” Men – please step aside when a precious daughter approaches”?
As per normal in many societies – female (societal) obligations, male (societal) rights.
Yes. The word is but a sign.
I had an encounter with the SDAs as a child, and in my experience they don’t keep kosher because to them that’s a ridiculous rules lawyering wild extrapolation of what’s in the bible. You should be vegetarian, but if not then you must simply abstain from unclean animals – so no bacon or oysters. But “thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk” means exactly what it says. Meat and dairy together is fine as long as there’s no direct mother/child connection.
Jack Rawlinson
He doesn’t know his religion very well, he can’t ask others to do things he isn’t “allowed to do” himself.
(If, however, he complained loudly about how hot is was, and that it was such a shame that he forgot to leave his AC on yesterday, and out of the kindness of your heart (and your happenstance eavesdropping) you came in and turned it on for him, that would be ok!)
—
Alexis,
The tradition of the Shabbos goy, to be found at many synagogues. The head goy where I used to attend was an old black guy named Major (after reading Catch-22 I couldn’t help thinking of him as Major Major Major Major, but that’s another story). He knew every person in the congregation, and could be found shmoozing in the lobby between services.
Sorry about all that. This is very new to me.
SketchSepahi says:
12 October 2011 at 1:57 pm
I’d say it’s worse.
“I’m not racist but…” acknowledges that racism is bad and something you wouldn’t want to be associated with (before going on to make some sort of special-pleading argument as to why your opinions are not really racist even though they appear to be).
“Men and ladies don’t go together. It’s just our religion.” would be more akin to “Yes I’m racist. My religion justifies it”.
Poor trees. Urban trees already have it pretty bad.
“Women are sacks of shit.”-Talmud
The rank misogyny is one of the reasons I stopped associating with Judaism.
As someone working in customer service in NYC, some of my worst experiences have been working with orthodox and hasidic jewish men. There’s something so…disheartening when you realize that someone won’t take money from four hand, not because they’re sick or a germaphobe, but because they think that you’re filth. I always wanted to gently whisper as I handed them their refunds, “It’s ok, I’m totally menstruating right now.”
Although, it was hilarious when the Lubavitchers came busting into my office one day demanding to speak with the man in charge, and I had to explain that my department was full of women and the manager of the business was also a woman.
This seems so baffling for an European. Sam Harris and Chris Hitchens seem to be so right – Religion surely poisons everything and God is not great.
What I have never been able understand is why do women tolerate this. I mean, if there really was a God then would he/she/it be OK for treating women as bad as these people for instance do? Having just read a few articles on New Square arson I am just sad – these ultra-orthodox people are not one iota better than the Taliban yet they are tolerated…
How about a craft class? http://www.tamponcrafts.com/gun.html
Or a neighborhood screening of The Blob?
Do you think they bought the sign boards and the paint using their sales tax exemption number? Only proper to be subsidized by the tax payers of NY, since they ARE a religious organization after all. Waves of nausea…
Like this:
“There’s nothing anti-semetic about calling bullshit bullshit.”
Next question?
@Anri
It’s a sad day when arguing for decent treatment of Jews becomes anti-Semitic just because the victimizes are themselves Jewish.
@113 – Sally Strange
There is a village (incorporated under New York state law) called Kiryas Joel about 45 miles NW of New York City. Only members of the Satmar sect of Hasidic Jews are allowed to live there. (Yes, a totally segregated, government-sanctioned community.) Recently a group of five non-Hasids went there and were taking pictures of public buildings. They were detained by the “constable” (someone with no actual law-enforcement power) and eventually two were arrested by the New York State Police.
Konsta (#139)
Every morning a Jewish male blesses God for not making him a gentile, a slave or a woman. A Jewish woman blesses God for not making her a gentile or a slave and for making her according to his will.
(The apologetics for this is that men are required to follow more commandments than women, who are required to follow more commandments than a Hebrew slave who is required to follow more commandments than a gentile.
Oh, and contrast this with the modern justification that women are exempt from most positive commandments because they are naturally more spiritual than men. Compare with the old justification – that women should never be conflicted between serving God vs serving their respective fathers/husbands.)
OOps, Jewish man, not male. Children under 3 usually don’t pray and under 13 aren’t required to pray.
Although I am an atheist, and have no love for the Ultra-Orthodox, and I think the whole concept of ritual impurity is very offensive to women, let’s not make the mikveh sound like genital surgery (“cleaned out”, and in quotes, no less), because it isn’t. The mikveh is a ritual cleansing pool. A woman who has finished menstruating takes a long bath and brushes her hair out, then immerses herself in the mikveh and says a blessing in the presence of a female attendant. Many mikvaot are simple and basic, but some, located in affluent neighborhoods, are indeed elaborate, spa-like affairs with finely furnished lounges, luxury toiletries and marble pools. According to the rules that guide the daily life of observant Jews, a woman returning from a mikveh enters her home like a new bride, and the husband is encouraged to show her attention and to make love to her.
Because the mikveh ritual is so important, the woman’s family may not rush her the afternoon she goes there. For many Orthodox women, especially those with a lot of children, this is the only time off they get, two or three hours away from their five, eight, twelve screaming children, when they can get pampered a little. Again — the very idea that a woman may have “her day” implies that she is very much downtrodden most of the time, and this is abhorrent. Nevertheless, the mikveh is probably the least unpleasant part of being an observant Jewish woman, a drop of sweet in a sea of bitter.
Perhaps this is more detail that most atheists would care about, but the words “cleaned out” and “spa” in quotes, which made it sound like a back-alley abortion, irked me a little. This is how, inadvertently I am sure, ugly and ridiculous myths about Jews originate. And when it comes to Jews, ugly and ridiculous myths have been known to get a lot of people killed.
Actually, getting cleaned out at a spa sounded like a professional douching, not an abortion, but a lovely bath sounds much nicer.
I’m rather glad, though, when I hear about this sort of thing, that my great-grandfather left his community.
My inclination would be to set up a nice scholarship fund for precious daughters who want to move away asap and get a college degree instead of a Mrs. and a brood of children. And to pressure city hall to tell the people that religious freedom has its own restrictions that involve not falling afoul of laws regarding other people’s rights.
Amused:
It’s always good to have the right information. I knew about the mikveh from reading about it some years earlier and it struck me as exactly what you said, a small amount of nice in huge nest of not so nice.
Oh please.
No, you please, Ing. The guy was deliberately trying to make it sound like a horrible and violating medical procedure, and lying about Jews doing horrible things has a LOT of bad history.
@Edmundog
And whining antisemitism towards criticism towards actual issues rather than any inherent malice has a lot of annoying recent history.
*not to say there isn’t actual antisemitism (there is…a lot), but the cries of it by some do seem to be a transparent silencing attempt.
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