 |
|
Nov. 24, 2009
JWisdom.com: You are a Philanthropist
with Aliza Bulow (5 minutes)
Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
Nov. 20, 2009
Nov. 19, 2009
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game
with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf
with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith
with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Nov. 12, 2009
JWisdom.com Does God get tired?
with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven
with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole
in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to
have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Jan. 9, 2007
/ 19 Teves, 5767
More than fear itself
By
Rabbi Avi Shafran
In wake of high profile incidents involving Muslims, a "visibly Jewish man" considers those who make snap judgments — when they are right and wrong
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
You suddenly begin noticing signs bearing Arabic script in buses. What
do you do?
Well, what bus riders in Richmond, Virginia did was call the local
Transit Authority to find out what it might know about the signs, which
had been turning up on buses and the walls of local universities.
The Associated Press and other media outlets subtly scoffed at the
concerned citizens, explaining that the Arabic phrases were in fact
innocuous — translating as things like "paper or plastic?" or
"paper,
scissors, rock" or "I'm a little teapot." Those translations in fact
appeared at the bottom of the signs, along with admonishments like
"Misunderstanding can make anything scary" or "What did you think it
said?"
The provocative ads were the work of the Virginia Interfaith Center,
which placed them in public venues as part of an effort to change the
fact that, as the center's executive director put it, "as soon as people
see Arabic, they immediately make an association with terrorism."
Orthodox Jews like me have considerable experience with bias, and
sympathy for good-willed, law abiding Muslims who are victims of
religious prejudice. We know well what it is like to be targeted by
bigots for harsh stares, ugly comments and worse. I always carry the
realization that some subset of society will, when seeing my beard and
headgear, associate me with Shakespeare's Shylock, Dickens' Fagin, the
fictional poisoners of wells or the fantasized Elders of Zion.
And those are all, in the end, imagined characters. In this age of
all-too-real and widespread Islamist terrorism — where the Muslim faith
is regularly invoked by people around the world as directing murder and
mayhem — innocent Muslims surely feel even more marginalized as a result
of the hasty generalizations people tend to make, and bear the bitter
fruit of the suspicions and fears born of their coreligionists'
all-too-real words and actions.
But there are times, still, when suspicion and fears cannot be dismissed
as the products of bias, and can even rightfully lead to the
curtailment, at least temporarily, of the freedoms we Americans enjoy as
our birthright.
Like the recent case of a group of imams who were removed from a flight
about to leave Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for Phoenix.
That the Muslim religious leaders had reportedly prayed loudly in the
airport before the flight was certainly no reason to consider anything
amiss. But when passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement
officials that the imams had switched from their assigned seats — to a
pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist passengers: two in
the front row first-class seats, two in the middle of the plane in aisle
seats and two in the rear of the cabin — security officials' concern was
not outlandish, as later was charged by a number of American Muslim
groups.
And when three of the men then asked for seat-belt extenders, despite
being of average build, and proceeded to place them, unused, on the
floor before them, it was hardly religious bias — or, in the words of
Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D., Texas), "racial profiling,
harassment and discrimination" — that motivated police to detain the
group for questioning.
No weapons in the end were found among the imams, but that happy fact
does not mitigate the less-happy one that the authorities' actions were
more than justified.
As a visibly Jewish man, whenever I am on a plane or train, I always
consciously try to alleviate any discomfort others might have with my
own appearance or actions. Even well before September, 2001 — even
before a young lady at a bus stop asked me to please tell her cowering
5-year-old that, despite my in-need-of-a-trim beard, I wasn't Osama bin
Ladin — I would always make sure to apprise seatmates, with a friendly
smile and a pleasant demeanor, of the fact that I was about to say my
prayers, and that my swaying and whispering were only parts of the
ritual. And Orthodox Jews, to the best of my knowledge, haven't ever
hijacked airplanes.
It is unfortunate, but Muslims who disavow the hatred and violence
preached by some of their coreligionists have to accept, with sadness
but pragmatism, the burden of society's suspicion-by-association. It's
a regrettable reality that actions they take in all innocence might be
misconstrued at times as sinister — or that Arabic script suddenly
appearing in public places might cause some alarm. But our world is, as they say, what it is.
Yes, sometimes things that seem frightening in fact turn out to be
harmless. But fright can also save lives and limbs. "Fear itself,"
unfortunately, is no longer the only thing we have to fear.
The Virginia Interfaith Center would probably consider me in need of
re-education. But, with all due respect to the group and its
well-meaning efforts, for my part, I still think that when I see
something, I'll say something.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America.
Let him know what you think by clicking here.
© 2007, Am Echad Resources
|
