There are 45 comments.

1. Member
   Front Seat Cat

   @FrontSeatCat

   3:24 PM EST ⋅ Jan 12, 2020

   I clicked on the link that @iwe included in his story and was sickened.  What is going on here??  Ukraine seems to be the center of hell lately.  The Ukraine is being carved up by Russia, it is also Orthodox, and both Christians and Jews were slaughtered 70 years ago together – clergy had to go underground to survive the onslaught of evil that overtook the world at that time in history.  I am half-Ukrainian.  I want to check into my family’s scattered history.   

   Why did the police not do anything to stop the abuse of Jews? 

2. Member
   Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…

   @ArizonaPatriot

   3:40 PM EST ⋅ Jan 12, 2020

   ctlaw (View Comment):

   Saint Augustine (View Comment):

   Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

   . . .

   Accepting these figures as correct, there were 318 anti-Christian killings in 2018 for every 1 anti-Semitic killing. Each of these 4,149 deaths was a terrible crime and a tragedy.

   The overwhelming majority of the Jewish deaths — about 85% — were the result of the single, horrible synagogue attack in Pittsburgh. The overwhelming majority of the Christian deaths — over 90% — were the result of systematic anti-Christian persecution being carried out by Nigerian Muslims.

   My concern is the unusual focus on the 0.3% of this deadly violence that is directed against Jews, while ignoring the 99.7% of this deadly violence that is directed against Christians.

   I haven’t been reporting these statistics — in this comment and previously — in order to pick on my Jewish friends here at Ricochet. To the contrary, one of my main purposes is to give reassurance. All of the figures indicate that the danger of anti-Semitic violence is extremely small.

   . . .

   Salient thoughts.

   There are more Christians than Jews available to kill. If we factor that in and consider the numbers as percentages of some sort, would there still be much imbalance?

   Also a question of geographic distribution when you use worldwide numbers. In many places, the Christians are being victimized only because the perpetrators can’t find any Jews (in some because the perps. already got rid of the Jews). Thus, even if the proportions of Christians killed worldwide exceeds that of Jews, anti-Semitism may be more virulent everywhere.

   Good question, SA.  There are reportedly about 15 million Jews and about 2.3 billion Christians worldwide.  That’s about 150 times as many Christians as Jews, so using the UK and Israeli figures for 2018 — 13 Jewish deaths, 4,136 Christian deaths, a ratio of 318:1 — the overall rate is somewhat higher among Christians.

   Remember that these figures for 2018 are based on two unusual and highly localized events — the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the anti-Christian violence in Nigeria.  The rest of the world had 2 reported Jewish and 405 reported Christian killings, a ratio of about 200:1, which is pretty close to the population ratio.

   CT: Do you have any evidence to support your claim?  You may be right, but it is speculation.  Other than Pittsburgh and Nigeria, the rates of both anti-Christian and anti-Jewish killing are extremely low, thankfully.  

3. Member
   Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…

   @ArizonaPatriot

   3:52 PM EST ⋅ Jan 12, 2020

   iWe:

   I am keenly aware that, as been very ably presented here on Ricochet, there is no statistical support for violent anti-semitism in the US rising above the levels of background noise.

   Is this argument a bit like Obama’s pitch that since terrorism kills far fewer people than do car accidents, we should ignore small terror numbers? I ask this because yesterday there was an old-style Pogrom in Ukraine. And while a few battered and bruised people may not amount to much numerically, from a qualitative perspective, thugs hunting down members of an ethnic group in the streets certainly seems troubling to me.

   I want to respond to the main point of the OP.  It is a good question.

   I completely agree that thugs hunting down members of an ethnic group is troubling, to say the least.  It is criminal.  They should be punished.  I am very troubled by the report that the police did nothing, though I note that this is a problem in Portland, too, and was a problem a few years ago in Ferguson and on the Evergreen State College campus (though at Evergreen, they were apparently only hunting down a single guy, Prof. Weinstein).

   I don’t see that there is a viable, practical response unless we can identify a specific group of perpetrators engaging in systematic violence.  Otherwise, it seems to me that ordinary law enforcement is the appropriate response.

   My initial impression is that the bulk of anti-Jewish and anti-Christian violence is perpetrated by Muslims.  I should add that such violence is perpetrated by a tiny minority of Muslims, and it is not clear whether significant numbers of Muslims support or abhor these actions.

   I submit that the appropriate response is infiltration and surveillance of extremist Muslim groups, which I think is already being done.

4. Coolidge
   TBA

   @RobtGilsdorf

   5:06 PM EST ⋅ Jan 12, 2020

   Kay of MT (View Comment):

   And to me! I have noted subtle changes even here. My own great grandson, nearly had a meltdown having to spend the night with his Jewish great grandmother. He was visiting from Sacramento, CA, and refused to speak to me the afternoon he was picked up to return home, didn’t even say goodby. He is 17 years old and has a most distressing attitude. He treated his step-grandfather the same way who is very sympathetic with Judaism, and has a Mezuzah attached to every door of his house.

   It didn’t make any points when I told him his great-great grandfather was a Rabbi in NJ about the 1900s, and my, thus his ancestry backed up to the Jews of the Islands of Rhodes in Greece.

   His behavior was very sad, his uncle was about to whop his tail feathers, so his grandparents sent him back to CA after about 2 or 3 weeks.

   I think he’s probably past the point where a whoopin’ would help – both in age and in ethos. This sounds more like a deprogramming is in order. 

5. Member
   aardo vozz

   @aardovozz

   6:07 PM EST ⋅ Jan 12, 2020

   ctlaw (View Comment):

   My Spider-Sense is tingling all over the map on this one.

   I am worried about the limited sourcing.

   One hit is the term “Ukrainian Thugs” as opposed to just “Thugs” or some more descriptive term regarding the particular movement. In the past few years there has been a very odd dynamic of both sides in the Russian-Ukraine war trying to frame the other for anti-Semitism in international media, while domestically accusing the other of being a puppet of the Jews.

   Why weren’t the thirty overwhelmed by the crowd?

   This is, of course, assuming that the crowd disapproved of the actions of the thirty.

6. Inactive
   Kay of MT

   @KayofMT

   7:27 PM EST ⋅ Jan 12, 2020

   For Front Seat Cat, and TBA and others, I was going to give an explanation about my great grandson, but it would take a book. But will say, his paternal grandmother gained custody by fraud, when he was 5 years old, and he was under the impression his mom, and her family didn’t want him. I still don’t have a street address for him. We thought if we could keep him for a time, we could make life better for him, but I think he is too badly damaged by his abusive father, and a deceitful paternal grandmother. He is a very angry young man. My daughter, refused to let me keep him so he got sent back to his paternal family.

7. Coolidge
   iWe

   @iWe

   

   Post author

   5:20 AM EST ⋅ Jan 13, 2020

   By the way, I found this story to be ironic beyond words:

   Anti-Semitism election row was stoked by Israel, Labour report says

   Charles James, author of a report which has been seen by The Telegraph entitled “General Election Part Two: Why didn’t we win?”, wrote: “Many of us believe that the row about anti-Semitism has been stoked by the government of Israel and its helpers in the UK.”

8. Coolidge
   TBA

   @RobtGilsdorf

   12:34 PM EST ⋅ Jan 13, 2020

   TBA (View Comment):

   iWe (View Comment):

   By the way, I found this story to be ironic beyond words:

   Anti-Semitism election row was stoked by Israel, Labour report says

   Charles James, author of a report which has been seen by The Telegraph entitled “General Election Part Two: Why didn’t we win?”, wrote: “Many of us believe that the row about anti-Semitism has been stoked by the government of Israel and its helpers in the UK.”

   Tripling down.

   “I’m not a paranoid anti-Semite conspiracy theorist nut-job no matter what the Zionist cabal’s mind-control devices have been telling you.”

9. Member
   Ed G.

   @EdG

   

   3:53 PM EST ⋅ Jan 13, 2020

   GrannyDude (View Comment):

   I don’t like it in the US either. “You’re more likely to die by falling in the bath tub” isn’t an adequate answer to these things: the same could certainly have been said on September 10th, 2001 in New York and for that matter, in Munich in 1929.

   What complicates the issue is, of course, the widespread tendency among American and European minority groups and their “woke” defenders to exaggerate the numbers and significance of bias-motivated crimes. There are activists who actively inculcate in vulnerable people an unjustified fear of being targeted for violence. Since fear is unpleasant and exhausting, creating fear where it serves no useful purpose is stupid and cruel.

   So the facts matter.

   But there is a big difference between expressing or promoting paranoia on the one hand, and, on the other, noticing and responding to possible or proven patterns of criminal behavior.

   We don’t have to see Hitler lurking in every dark alley, but surely the lessons of the world’s historical atrocities both relatively small and unimaginably huge, is that atrocities happen. And —being atrocious—these ought to be nipped in the bud, wherever possible, while still inchoate?

   Besides which, long before we get anywhere near an atrocity, wouldn’t we prefer that the Jews of Brooklyn or Ukraine can go about their ordinary days without having to worry overmuch about being set upon by anti-Semitic thugs? Or, God knows, without the worry that, should thugs appear, the enforcement arm of their government will fail to vigorously defend their lives and property?

   This is not too much to ask.

    

    

   Agreed. But what exactly does it mean to nip it in the bud? How? Hate crimes? RICO? Hate speech laws?  

   Also, same for gang violence yet it persists and grows. We should nip that it the bud too. How? More gun laws? SJW education? Root cause socialism?

   I suspect that regular longtime conservative policy prescriptions would go a long way to nipping these things in the bud, and I would support those fully. All Lives Matter. Truly. So I just ask: what action should result from this justified worry?

10. Member
    Ed G.

    @EdG

    

    3:57 PM EST ⋅ Jan 13, 2020

    ctlaw (View Comment):
    Why weren’t the thirty overwhelmed by the crowd?

    Because ordinary men are apathetic, weak, uncertain, selfish. Crowds of them probably only amplify that. 

11. Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast

    @Ontheleftcoast

    5:45 PM EST ⋅ Jan 14, 2020

    Not an “old style pogrom.” A brawl. Yeshiva World News can be pretty hysterical, and so it seems to have proven here. The Jerusalem Post reports: 

    A group of teens gave Israeli media a false report claiming that an antisemitic mob was taking place in Uman, Ukraine, causing nationwide outrage, Hassidic network Uman Shalom reported Saturday evening. (emphasis added.)
    […]

    On Saturday, Yeshiva World News reported that an armed mob stormed through the city over Shabbat, attacking Jews outside the grave. “I returned from the Kloiz [the Breslov synagogue] and I see that they’re beating every Jew who ‘dared’ to look at them or say a word to them,” one Jewish visitor to the town told Yeshiva World News. “It started with an insignificant dispute between one of the local Ukrainians and a Jew. The Ukrainian involved in the dispute called his antisemitic friends to come and beat up Jews,” the dramatic report added. “The police did show up at the scene but didn’t lift a finger to help the Jews. They just stood by and watched what was happening, while the Jews were being beaten up. What they did do was prevent the dozens of thugs from entering the [grave]. Four Jews were taken to the nearest hospital on Friday night as a result of being beaten by the Ukrainians. On Motzei Shabbat they returned and the fighting is now at its height.” Witnesses cited by Yeshiva World News even claimed that the Ukrainians were running throughout the city armed with knives and clubs and were looking for Jews.

    In reality, Uman Shalom explained that an argument ensued between Israeli teens and a local security guard over an elevator. The argument became violent and the guard was later joined by other locals. Ukrainian police denied that an antisemitic mob took place in Uman, saying that “it was established that the information circulating the internet that four Hassids arrived at the hospital with injuries was untrue.”

    The local hospital could not confirm the report, it added in a press release. “There were no allegations of misconduct in connection with the conflict between the locals and the Hassids,” police said.

    […]  According to the Uman City Council’s Executive Committee, the brawl was a dispute of social nature “between [local] security guards and Hassids,” rather than an antisemitic incident.  “Information regarding the scale of the brawl as well as that claiming the use of knives or bars does not correspond to reality,” the committee said, adding that those who took part in the brawl “do not have severe injuries.”

    Also: 

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):
    I’m familiar with Zion, but not with a tzion.

    It’s not the proper noun Tzion/Zion, but in 2 Kings 23:17, for example, a standing stone as a waypost or marker. Or, as here, a gravestone.

12. Coolidge
    iWe

    @iWe

    

    Post author

    10:50 AM EST ⋅ Jan 15, 2020

    That is good to hear, indeed! 

    I should really retract the OP…

13. Inactive
    Phil Turmel

    @PhilTurmel

    6:29 PM EST ⋅ Jan 15, 2020

    iWe (View Comment):
    I should really retract the OP…

    The edit is more than sufficient.  The conversation as a whole is a credit to Ricochet.

14. Member
    Saint Augustine

    @SaintAugustine

    6:31 PM EST ⋅ Jan 15, 2020

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):

    iWe (View Comment):
    I should really retract the OP…

    The edit is more than sufficient. The conversation as a whole is a credit to Ricochet.

    Right on, Phil.

    I say keep it, iWe.

15. Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast

    @Ontheleftcoast

    10:51 AM EST ⋅ Jan 16, 2020

    The situation in Uman is… interesting. When you read the following, remember that today, it’s a city with a population of about 85,000.

    A large Jewish community lived in Uman in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the Second World War, in 1941, the Battle of Uman took place in the vicinity of the town, where the German army encircled Soviet positions. The Germans deported the entire Jewish community, murdering some 17,000 Jews, and completely destroyed the Jewish cemetery, burial place of the victims of the 1768 uprising as well as Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. (After the war, a Breslov Hasid managed to locate the Rebbe’s grave and preserved it when the Soviets turned the entire area into a housing project.)

    Since the 1990s there has been a small, but growing, Jewish population in Uman, concentrated around Rebbe Nachman of Breslov tomb in Pushkina street. The local Jews are mostly involved in pilgrimage of Jewish tourists that arrive to the town…..

    The Rosh Hashana pilgrimage dates back to 1811, when the Rebbe’s foremost disciple, Nathan of Breslov, organized the first such pilgrimage on the Rosh Hashana after the Rebbe’s death. The annual pilgrimage attracted hundreds of Hasidim from Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, until the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 sealed the border between Russia and Poland. A handful of Soviet Hasidim continued to make the pilgrimage clandestinely; some were discovered by the KGB and exiled to Siberia, where they died. The pilgrimage ceased during World War II and resumed on a drastically smaller scale in 1948. From the 1960s until the fall of Communism in 1989, several hundred American and Israeli Hasidim made their way to Uman, both legally and illegally, to pray at the grave of Rebbe Nachman. In 1988, the Soviets allowed 250 men to visit the Rebbe’s grave for Rosh Hashana; the following year, over 1,000 Hasidim gathered in Uman for Rosh Hashana 1989. In 1990, 2,000 Hasidim attended.  In 2008, attendance reached 25,000 men and boys. In 2018, over 30,000 Jews made the Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to Uman.

    Today Israeli Hassidim, from many sectors of Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox community, including many Mizrahi Jewish rabbis, make the pilgrimage. The event brings together a wide variety of Orthodox society, from Yemenite yeshiva students, to former Israeli prison inmates, and American hippies.

    Pilgrimage tourism is a big part of the local economy. It’s year round with a huge influx (about 1/3 of the total city population) on Rosh Hashana. Most of Virtually all of the Rosh Hashanah pilgrims are men and boys. All that in and of itself needs careful and intelligent handling by local authorities.

    Postscript: The organizers of the “Rosh Hashanah kibbutz” packages fly catered meals in from Israel, bring in temporary housing, and Israeli EMTs. I think security, too.

    I think it’s practice for the pilgrimages to Jerusalem in the Messianic Era.