Open Thread Wednesday

co-cosign. just say no to residential development. enough is enough.

disagree. while telling someone to be deeper in their faith is still too much for me, it is 1000000% better than telling people to change their faith entirely to a “better” one.

“compared to other religions, jews hardly proselytize”

This is true, unless like me you define proselytizing in such a way that it includes pushing religiousness on people they deem to already be members of their ethno-religious group. And let’s not forget that nobody is born a believer…

Half my family is Jewish. In my life I’ve had religion pushed on me by Jewish people “1000000%” (to borrow your number) more than by people from any other religion.

i am 100% jewish and have never had a jew ring my doorbell, yell at me on the subway and on the streets about condemnation, try to talk to me from a table in the train station, or shove a pamphlet in my hand without at least asking me if i’m jewish first. i am not aware of large, organized jewish missionary efforts in countries all over the world to teach non-jews judaism. you seem somewhat negatively pre-disposed to jews as you were quick to conclude that this pamphlet was from chabad. clearly, confusing people, including jews, for the purpose of conversion seems to be some christian group’s goal hence the pamphlets. http://crownheights.info/crown-heights-news/470170/missionary-pamphlets-disguised-as-jewish-material/

Your assessment of what is “worse” (proselytization from a “different” religion or not) is subjective. I’m saying it’s all forms of the same behavior and that from the standpoint of the person on the receiving end of the pitch, it crosses the same line.

Hah fair enough!

As I said earlier, half my family are self-identifying Jews. I’ll reveal that this half includes my mother. I don’t self-identify as a Jew, but have on countless occasions been approached in the streets by Chabad kids, and I find their initial inquiry “Excuse me, are you Jewish?” to be invasive, not because of the question itself but because of the intention I know is behind it: to get some lapsed Jew to rediscover his faith–something nobody has any business doing as much as nobody has any business trying to change someone else’s spiritual beliefs.

But the number of times this has happened is minuscule compared to the number of times regular, Yom Kippur and Pesach Jews in my family and outside my family have tried to tell me what my identity is and what I should believe as a result of that identity. I’m not bent out of shape about it or anything, I just think it’s obnoxious. So, sorry if you interpret that as me being “negatively pre-disposed”, I just think people deserve the basic respect of being allowed to reasonably form and retain their own senses of identity, and that infringements upon that respect aren’t to be dismissed just because they’re from within the same religious identity-group.

Agreed. I think they provide a service especially to Jews traveling abroad. I’ve just had certain experiences in the orthodox community where I felt marginalized because I wasn’t “Jewish enough.” This said, Chabad never made me feel unwelcome (maybe once, lol).

I’m not really sure what argument you’re making here…you stated that trying to convince someone to exchange religions is implicitly worse than trying to convince someone to increase the intensity of their ritual practice without explaining why you think this is the case, and then gave a vague anecdote about Chabad helping a friend of yours. These two points seem unconnected to me. Not trying to be argumentative, just wondering what the logical connection is here.

In order to be a doctor, you have to practice medicine. If you come from a family that have practiced medicine for 5,000 years and you decide to fly planes, you’re not a doctor, you’re a pilot.

In order to be a Jew, you have to practice Judaism…or so the logic should go. The reason I personally reject the “tribe” identity is that I see no good reason for it. The arguments for keeping an identity intact, with our without an attached belief system, are simply not arguments I accept as being valid in the time and place where I live. I’m content with being a human being.

We’ll have to agree to disagree about which one is worse; that’s clearly subjective.

I have neither doubt nor experience that they help people, but I see that as a separate thing, not a canceling out of whatever invasive things they do.

We all speak from experience. I’ve NEVER experienced this from the reform community (in which I was raised).

And in my original comment, I blamed the Orthodox community – much more so than Chabad. That’s one reason I mentioned Chabad and my friend – because Chabad seems entirely different from their orthodox counterparts for the most part.

My very first experience of being called “not Jewish enough,” was not until 23 years old. An orthodox rabbi refused to teach me the rules of Shabbat because my mother was not born Jewish – although I was raised Jewish myself. This felt wrong.

Chabad is by far the least guilty of them all. Didn’t mean to infer otherwise. I think we can agree on that ; ))

what goes on in your family is not apples to oranges in terms of the proselytizing that is implied when you talk about complete strangers leaving pamphlets at your door without knowing anything about you. the ratio of chabad efforts i have experienced as like 1:50 compared to what other religions subject me to daily. the JW’s with their station set-ups shoving pamphlets in my hand and bell ringing, the subway and street preachers hollering about jesus christ at all hours of day and night…i can go on. the like 2 times a year (around holidays) that i have been approached by chabad kids, i actually appreciate their question of whether i am jewish cause i interpret it as them not trying to force judaism on people who are not jewish. i have the option to tell the truth or lie but even when i have told the truth followed by “not interested,” nobody harassed me, followed me or told me i wasn’t going to the promised land. they just moved on.

I think the crux of it for me, and I suppose this is applicable as a response to Chase and AEB as well, is that if someone disagrees with my beliefs, or tries to tell me what to believe, that’s an intellectual conflict I can deal with and it doesn’t really penetrate my skin. I can walk away, ignore it, etc. I’m not bothered by what happens after I tell the Chabad kids I’m not Jewish: they walk away. However, I am somewhat bothered by the fact that they place me in a position where I have to answer the question; I find the question a bit invasive, like going up to a random stranger and asking them how sexually active they are. Deciding whether ‘Jew’ is part of one’s identity is an extremely personal thing, as we’ve established.

So when someone–especially someone in my family, let’s say, or someone I’m close to–tries to tell me how my identity is formed, that’s what I have a problem with. This isn’t something that even the most annoying subway preacher has ever done, even though I encounter their prattling on on a more routine basis.

What I’m bothered by is the following conversation, which I seem to only ever have with Jewish people, often the ones I’m related to:
“You come from a family of doctors. You may deny it but you, too, are a doctor.”
“Um, no, I’m pretty sure I’m a pilot. I fly planes.”
“Then you’re a self-hating doctor. See? Your last name is Emdee.”
“Right, Flight Captain Steve Emdee. I didn’t choose my last name. I did earn the ‘Flight Captain’ part though.”
“One day, Steve, you’re going to realize that this whole time you’ve been flying planes you’ve actually been operating on patients.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I’ve been flying planes.”
“It saddens me that you’re participating in this anti-doctor rhetoric that has threatened doctors for thousands of years!”
“But I didn’t say anything about how I feel about doctors, except that I don’t practice medicine.”
Et cetera.

Sorry, I misunderstood your last post. Mistakenly thought that you were saying this forum IS an accurate representation of the ‘hood at large. So…sorry and I agree!