<p>Swastikas, Slurs and Torment in Towns Schools
Pine Bush, N.Y., School District Faces Accusations of Anti-Semitism</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/nyregion/swastikas-slurs-and-torment-in-towns-schools.html?pagewanted=all[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/nyregion/swastikas-slurs-and-torment-in-towns-schools.html?pagewanted=all</a></p>
<p>Shouldn’t the 30 or so bullying students also have been named in the lawsuit?</p>
<p>Criminal! People hate for no other reason than ignorance. If the haters had an IQ over 80, they’d realize the only people that they truly hate is themselves.</p>
<p>Seems like the “appropriate measures” the school district has taken weren’t adequate considering the scope and continuation of these issues.</p>
<p>I am also perturbed by the misapplication of zero tolerance against someone for defending themselves against anti-Semitic and for the district manager to effectively tell families who have issues with the school’s lacking response to move away. :(</p>
<p>I am sorry for the children and parents who are going through this BS.</p>
<p>My goodness, the people who run these schools are stupid. They could easily have dealt with this situation appropriately and avoided being the subject of an embarrassing article in the New York Times. But they didn’t.</p>
<p>What was that one truck driver thinking with that comment? “We don’t want them here?”</p>
<p>Marian, you assume that people care if they come off as racist jerks. Not everyone does- some even take pride in it.</p>
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<p>Good point. I did make that assumption.</p>
<p>Wow while I was following another thread about racial incidents this one is happening too? I can’t fathom people doing these kinds of things to anybody…</p>
<p>In defense of the truck driver, I believe he was referring to the ultra-Orthodox. Even being Jewish, I’m not sure I’d characterize not wanting them in numbers around your smallish town as hatred. They exist in a very uncomfortable relationship with the state. </p>
<p>And I didn’t connect that one guy’s comments to the rest of the article.</p>
<p>That said, we used to draw swastikas all the time in grade school, but only in our own notebooks. By the time we reached middle school, that kind of thing would never fly and certainly never fly at any grade level in public. Every kid knew about Nazi Germany so ignorance was never an excuse. </p>
<p>The thing that always bothered me - and my mostly Christian friends - about this kind of thing is we as Americans fought a vicious war against Nazi Germany and then tried and executed many of their leaders for being truly evil. To glorify our enemies, the ones who killed so many thousands of Americans, is deeply stupid and anti-American.</p>
<p>BTW, I see Cuomo is setting an investigation.</p>
<p>Horrific…where are these kids learning this stuff.</p>
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<p>Obviously at home.</p>
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<p>What would be that bothersome about some Orthodox Jewish people living in town?</p>
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<p>Perhaps the passing of time makes it less “real” to many people now. I.e. how kids today know anyone still alive who fought in World War II or even was an adult working in the war economy producing supplies for the soldiers, sailors, and airmen fighting the war?</p>
<p>The nastiness of the US Civil War and the [url=<a href=“http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html]reasons[/url”>http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html]reasons[/url</a>] behind the conflict were not exactly nice things, but now people do glorious re-enactments and such (and, in the re-enactments, the CSA is the more popular side to be on).</p>
<p>Orthodox are not ultra-Orthodox. The man was probably referring to Kiryas Joel, which is now a Satmar Hassidic community - where Yiddish is the main language. Not many average Jews - American, Israeli, whatever - would want to live in a Hassidic community. I think the fear of that given the proximity to Kiryas Joel is rational. That fear, however, doesn’t excuse actual acts of discrimination.</p>
<p>Why would they fear a Hasidic community near them ? They may look and sound different but they aren’t harmful to anyone.</p>
<p>It’s pretty complicated. Hassidic Jews don’t send their kids to public school except for kids with special needs, but they use their increasing numbers to control the school district and budget and thereby keep taxes low. This has led to deterioration of the local public schools.</p>
<p>But I don’t think that’s the whole story, not by a long shot. The article cites Ku Klux Klan activity as recently as 1970. The Hassids nearby just give the bigotry more ammunition.</p>
<p>They? The article quoted one guy and didn’t say anything more. </p>
<p>What “they” might be afraid of is that Kiryas Joel has become a separate world which interacts in uncomfortable ways with the regular world. Putting aside the bloc voting power, there have a number of lawsuits about education, from the setting up a school district essentially for Hassids only to one about who pays for special education. There is a lawsuit about whether women can ride on buses with men - an issue in Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox community as well and a main reason the GOP candidate for mayor did so well with NYC Jews. One lawsuit seeks to dissolve the town because it’s a theocracy run in an exclusionary and oppressive manner (meaning oppression of Orthodox Jews who don’t toe the line). And so on. </p>
<p>But the article isn’t about ultra-Orthodox. It’s about anti-Jewish statements and actions, many using Nazi imagery.</p>
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<p>That sounds like the same theme that some observe on a much larger scale, where demographic factors like age, race, ethnicity, etc. are associated with voting patterns relating to political priorities like taxes, schools, Social Security, Medicare, etc…</p>
<p>But if a presumably numerous (locally) demographic group is not sending its kids to the public schools, that means the public schools do not need as much money, right? Or are you saying that they want cut the budget by more than the cost reduction due to not sending their kids to the public schools? If they are not numerous, then their votes would not be numerous enough, so all they would be doing is saving the public schools some money by not sending their kids there.</p>
<p>Would Kiryas Joel be that much on the radar in Pine Bush? It’s around 30 miles away according to Google maps. I haven’t spent much time in either area but even just driving through they strike me as very different–the Monroe/Central Valley/Kiryas Joel area seems much more built up and the Pine Bush area is much more rural.</p>
<p>*Quote:</p>
<h2>where are these kids learning this stuff.</h2>
<p>Obviously at home.*</p>
<p>well, unless all these kids are living in homes like the MIL of one of favorite posters, I think this stuff is coming from elsewhere…maybe sick internet sites that these kids visit. I just don’t know people who talk this way in their homes. Many of us who aren’t Jewish have beloved friends and relatives that are Jewish. </p>
<p>The stuff that’s being reported sounds like “old slurs” that were said generations ago… like when Italians were called “dirty Italians”. That’s why I’m wondering if these kids are visiting racist websites.</p>