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Does Someone Have to Die?
I’ve been reaching a point where I dislike beating the drum about anti-Semitism. But the recent crimes in New York City and the denials that have accompanied them have convinced me that I can’t beat that drum enough. The media is reluctantly covering the story of the latest attacks on Jews in New York:
In Rockland County last night, during a Chanukah celebration at a synagogue a man stormed in with a machete and stabbed at least five victims, who were taken to the hospital. This is the latest in a string of antisemitic attacks in the New York City area, coming in the wake of the tragic killing of four people during an attack on a Jewish grocery store in Jersey City.
Several excuses have been given for the most recent attacks: Bill DeBlasio has blamed a white supremacist group; others have blamed the rhetoric of Donald Trump inciting people (which is absurd, given the fact that his daughter and son-in-law are Jewish). But it’s a good idea to look at some facts:
In 2018, almost half of all anti-Semitic assaults nationally occurred in New York. There, the New York Police Department’s hate-crime-unit data indicate a substantial increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes (a broader category than just assaults). The number jumped from 17 in 2017 to 33 in 2018, and is on pace to rise again in 2019, with 19 in the first half of the year.
These are also relevant facts:
Indeed, in 2017 and 2018, 37 blacks compared with 46 whites were arrested for anti-Jewish hate crimes, the majority of which were for property vandalism and harassment — statistics consistent with national data. The city, of course, has a history of such incidents, dating back to the riots in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights in the 1990s.
Now we’ve gotten to the crux of the matter: the Left doesn’t want to acknowledge that most of the crimes are being committed by blacks. In one podcast, the participants thought it was important to point out that the perpetrators were often black teenagers.
So what?
An additional problem might be the city’s approach to crime:
In an attempt to reduce arrests and incarceration, district attorneys in Brooklyn and the Bronx have been decriminalizing many crimes, and police have been more reluctant to make arrests. In light of the killing of Eric Garner, who was placed in a chokehold while being arrested for illegally selling loose cigarettes, a Manhattan source told a New York Post reporter in August that this ‘would never have happened today — because the city has told officers to back down on making such quality-of-life busts.’
Frankly, I’m sick of excuses. It’s time that Bill DeBlasio offers more than rhetoric and actually does something to address and mitigate these attacks.
Does a Jew need to die first?
Published in Culture
Several will die, and it won’t matter at all, Susan. And the NYC Jews will go right on voting Democrat regardless.
Antisemitism is alive and well in the Democrat party, and yet the Jewish people vote, en mass, for them. I cannot explain it beyond good marketing.
You may be right, Bryan. I’ve commented many times about the reasons Jews (usually non-observant) support the Left: they are the ones who supposedly help the downtrodden. I keep hoping that the reality will catch up with them eventually. Maybe a non-observant, modern Jew will need to die for being Jewish before they wake up. Even then . . .
BTW–like your new picture!
They need to elect another Republican mayor.
Me, too! Hi, @bryangstephens
And if they can’t find one, ask Rudy to come back.
Ummm…. not sure about that one. Sometimes he seems like he’s not all there . . .
Still more there than de Blasio and such.
Meanwhile in Texas:
https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1211364355096363010/photo/1
Just got off the phone with a leftist who blamed this on “Giuliani’s anti-Semitic attack on George Soros”.
God bless Texas.
I’m not going to like this comment, just shake my head.
I was thinking about that–that in New York, concealed carry is illegal, right? The question then becomes, would the Orthodox Jews carry if they could?
I remember that already happening years ago. The result was that Al Sharpton, instead of being drummed out of public life, became a respected pundit in the mainstream media.
This reminded me of an interview Thomas Sowell did with Peter Robinson. He recounted a story about speaking at a gathering at a synagogue, and being asked a question by a woman in the group. She asked:
“What can Jews do in order to reduce the animosity towards them? What haven’t we tried that might work?” In the interview, he paused briefly. Then responded flatly. “Fail.”
I believe the book he’d have been promoting to the congregation would have been Black Rednecks and White Liberals.
Also, this reminds that I need to start working on my anti-semitism post that I promised earlier.
Happy Hanukkah, Susan. Happy New Year too!
Whether or not someone dies is irrelevant to resolving more of the violent crime issue, whether against Jews or any other target. Social and political pressure prevent us from examining why young (teenager and early 20’s) black males are responsible for such a disproportionate amount of violent crime, and what we might (or might not) be able to do about it.
Yes. This seems to be behind the current Bret Stephens kerfuffle. His column The Secrets of Jewish Genius: It’s about thinking different (behind a paywall) is being skewered as some sort of Jewish superiority piece. But that wasn’t my takeaway. Stephens was citing a cultural phenomena that renders greater success regardless of one’s native ability. Nothing more remarkable than the success of any group that marries, defers children until after marriage, stays married, and handles money responsibly.
So you have a group that uses some culturally supported methods that achieve success and somehow this is supposed to be genetic? If this be “genius” it is in the reach of everyone. And the fact that an identifiable group employs these methods to live responsible lives only triggers disdain from the dissolute, irresponsible, and hedonistic.
See comment #15.
Idleness is the issue. Well, the specific issue that preludes these kinds of acts. I’d guess these numbers are cushioned, so to speak, by kids who have a vague, racial animosity that translates to violent acts on a dull day.
“Polar Bear hunting” has been an underreported issue for years. But if there were one fact I think most conservatives need to burn into their heads when trying to get this most-controversial conversation started is that the Irish used to do stuff like this to groups they didn’t like (which was most of them).
Ethnic groups that are perceived as dangerous usually don’t earn that reputation for no reason; the exceptions are groups like the Jews, Chinese immigrants in other Asian countries, and I’ve heard the Lebanese, who are loathed because of their success and deemed devious by their embittered neighbors who don’t want to recognize their own failures.
Yes!
Before, and probably after, the great exodus from Imperial Russia, illiteracy rates in the country were something like 90%. But in Jewish homes, you’d almost certainly find books.
And these were among the country’s poorest citizens.
I was going to mention this in response to @rodin, @samuelblock. There has always been a strong emphasis on Jewish education. From the time Jews organized into towns, teachers were demanded by the rabbis.
The initial reporting and even the arraignment story carefully avoided telling the truth in words. At least the arraignment story included a photo of the suspect, well down the page so it would not appear in summaries or highlights grabbing the first lines:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-stabbing-rabbi-hanukkah
The current version seems gutted. Stevens would not have cited the Cochran/Hardy/Harpending article:
https://web.mit.edu/fustflum/documents/papers/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocsci.pdf
if not asserting a genetic component.
Could be. I don’t know much about Stevens, but he’s always sounded like an [redacted] to me.
It’s evident that the rhetoric of blacks towards Jews is intensifying. That’s what. Teenagers need not be emphasized but the facts are that blacks were involved in the last 8 attacks. That’s not a coincidence.
There are two acceptable forms of prejudice in the United States. One is anti-Jewish bigotry, a prejudice that is practiced in both the academic world, as well as outside the faculty lounge. The other is anti-Catholic bigotry that is practiced more often in the faculty lounge, and is somewhat rarer outside the ivy halls of the intellectual elite.
One can hate in two ways, the color of a person’s skin, or their creed. There is no virtue in either of these choices.
Dang! Two strikes for me.
But a culture that emphasized education likely created an evolutionary pressure favoring educability (particularly in a world where a certain other culture told many of its most educable to be celibate).
Sorry, Yehoshua. She said that as if, hey, they’re just kids, not criminals. I’m with you! Criminal behavior is criminal behavior!
I hope you saw this in the OP:
I hope they are speaking out against this in black churches, for example. It would be the sensible thing to do.