Jews attacked on subway
December 12, 2007
This article illustrates the overlap between stupidity and religion which is on display more at this time of year than any other time (well, maybe around Easter too).
Friday’s altercation on the Q train began when somebody yelled out “Merry Christmas,” to which rider Walter Adler responded, “Happy Hanukkah,” said Toba Hellerstein.
“Almost immediately, you see the look in this guy’s face like I’ve called his mother something,” Adler told CNN affiliate WABC.
Two women who were with a group of 10 rowdy people then began to verbally assault Adler’s companions with anti-Semitic language, Hellerstein said.
The synopsis of the article at cnn.com states “Members of a group of young people allegedly responded with anti-Semitic language”. Wrong, or at least not complete. The full article states that:
One member of the group allegedly yelled, “Oh, Hanukkah. That’s the day that the Jews killed Jesus,” she said.
The group didn’t respond with ‘anti-Semitic’ language. They responded with stupidity, pure and simple.
While this will be condemned by public-minded religious leaders, I’ve no doubt there are a large number of ‘Christians’ who truly believe this sort of thing deep down (”the jews killed jesus”). They almost *have* to - that’s the central tenet of Western Christianity. So hating people who ‘killed’ your Lord And Saviour(tm) is a logical conclusion for many to reach and these sorts of incidents are not at all surprising, really.
Posted in Personal
December 13th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Hey Mike,
I agree with you, of course, that this attack was rooted in stupidity, but I don’t necessarily agree that all religious people are stupid, or that all religions are “stupid”. Albert Einstein for example was deeply religious. I also think your statement that “the group didn’t respond with ‘anti-Semitic’ language” is inaccurate and a bit disrespectful to my “tribe”. It’s possible for language to be both anti-Semitic AND stupid. The fact that the former is a subset of the latter doesn’t mean we shouldn’t point it out when it occurs.
December 13th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Oh, and BTW, I don’t think it’s really accurate to say that the notion of Jews as Christ-killers is “*the* central tenet of Western Christianity”. I’m no expert on Western Christianity but I’d imagine most scholars would rank the idea of Jesus as the Messiah a lot higher.
The really scary thing is the high percentage of folks who believe the bible stories are *literally true*, as reflected in this ABC Poll. Really makes me wonder what they put in that Holy Water.
December 13th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Agreed, it’s probably not *the* central tenet. And true, it’s not that ’stupid’ is not also ‘anti-semetic’ and that there probably was some perhaps not-as-ignorant-of-the-facts-of-a-religion statements made beyond the ‘the jews killed jesus’. Having grown up Baptist, I will say though that there faction of our church that did believe all Jews would go to hell - they *had* to - because they did not believe that Jesus ‘died for their sins’ and accepted ‘Him’ as saviour and all that Christian stuff. And I know that we weren’t all that off-the-mainstream path. How the Jewish people are viewed in (at least Protestant) Christian churches is very strange at best. They were/are God’s “chosen people” but “rejected (and reject)” “Him”. I still stand by the notion that given the standard (again, Protestant) interpretation of Christianity, it’s hard for many to not have bad feelings about Jews, whether it’s anger or pity or whatever.
I was not implying that all religion is stupid (if that was read in to it, that’s reading too much!) but there’s a bigger overlap at this time of year. Go watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Aq00yJSxo
Many say this is ‘fake’ but I really doubt it’s faked - looks too authentic to me.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Hey who did the attacking anyway? I’ve yet to see pics and names of the attackers.
With what crimes were they charged? Were they charged? If not, why the heck not?
Does anyone know?