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</p>
<p>Zealots may be peaceful or violent, regardless of religion (or lack thereof).</p>
<p>But what does Kiras Joel or other zealots have to do with the Pine Bush school problems? Is there any indication that the Jewish students being harassed have anything to do with Kiras Joel or other zealots?</p>
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<p>And when there isn’t diversity to discriminate against, people have a way of finding something to discriminate against:</p>
<ul>
<li>Castes within the same ethnic or national group.</li>
<li>Different denominations or traditions within the same religion.</li>
<li>“Outsiders” in general (e.g. immigrants).</li>
</ul>
<p>“But what does Kiras Joel or other zealots have to do with the Pine Bush school problems? Is there any indication that the Jewish students being harassed have anything to do with Kiras Joel or other zealots?”</p>
<p>That’s two different questions. The answer to the second seems to be none at all, which is why this is so nasty and horrible. The answer to the first is that Kiryas Joel and the Pine Bush school population and catchment area are very much intertwined. </p>
<p>[Pine</a> Bush, NY ? Assemblywoman: AG Investigating Satmar Housing Project in Bloomingburg | KiryasJoel.com](<a href=“http://www.kiryasjoel.com/pine-bush-ny-assemblywoman-ag-investigating-satmar-housing-project-in-bloomingburg/]Pine”>http://www.kiryasjoel.com/pine-bush-ny-assemblywoman-ag-investigating-satmar-housing-project-in-bloomingburg/)
<a href=“http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20131008/NEWS/131009694[/url]”>http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20131008/NEWS/131009694</a></p>
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<p>Mini,</p>
<p>Two wrongs don’t make a right. More importantly, we don’t know whether there was any provocation.</p>
<p>Even if there was, it doesn’t justify in any way the reprehensible anti-Semitic actions by the students and the gross neglect/inaction of the school and Pine Bush.</p>
<p>That was unnecessary and uncalled for. Did you even bother to read what you blocked? Two wrongs make…two wrongs.</p>
<p>Frankly, I find it insulting. Very.</p>
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<p>Why did you feel the need to link the racial remarks of your orthodox relatives to the need to educate all sides in Pine Bush when:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It hasn’t been established that the victims of the antisemitic attacks did anything untoward/wrong towards anyone.</p></li>
<li><p>That there hasn’t been an established link between racial prejudices of some Orthodox members and the actual victims of the antisemitic attacks in Pine Bush. For all we know, the two may not have anything to do with each other. </p></li>
<li><p>If it turns out the victims were attacked without any provocation other than the “crime” of being Jewish, then applying the “a little education and tolerance on all sides” statement upon them could reasonably be taken by them as “attacking/blaming the victim” in this case.</p></li>
<li><p>Those antisemitic attacks are so reprehensible and unjustifiable that there’s no justification for them whatsoever.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>You didn’t bother to read what I wrote. Nor did you read the links about what is happening in Pine Bush. You’re just digging deeper.</p>
<p>I would have thought your reading skills better than this. But I’ve been wrong before.</p>
<p>Mini,</p>
<p>I did read the link. However, I am puzzled as to how this has anything to do with the antisemitic attacks on Jewish schoolchildren in Pine Bush public schools which typically aren’t attended by children from the Satmar community as they usually keep their kids from the secular public schools.</p>
<p>I do not think the behavior in Pine Bush has much if anything to do with Orthodox Judaism, let alone the ultra Orthodox communities in the lower Hudson Valley. I also do not think the hateful behavior described by Jewish students in the Pine Bush public schools has much if any relation to the less than enlightened ethnic statements that many people’s relatives may utter in unguarded private moments.</p>
<p>Yes, many of us have relatives and even friends who say things in private we wish they would not say, and we have done our best to keep our children from hearing let alone learning from those negative examples.</p>
<p>But in my opinion the Pine Bush incident stems from considerably deeper and more serious issues than someone’s uncle forgetting to be politically correct and considerate of diversity within his own family. The KKK is not your run of the mill mainstream conservative group and the group display of bias suggests a disturbing link.</p>
<p>Many people posting on this thread, I notice, are longtime posters and I thnk we can kind of figure out each other’s perspectives and how different posters are going to respond to a given set of circumstances and attitudes. The are perfectly legitimate differences of opinion within the larger pattern of pretty. Uch everyone thinking this set of incidents is awful.</p>
<p>And incidentally, Kiryas Joel is in Monroe, and the KJ community has made ample use of public funding, causing considerable and in my opinion justified resentment among the population at large. Interstingly, the Monroe Woodbury school district which of course thr KJ and other ultra Orthodox children do not attend, is considered a strong one and has a sizable Jewish population. But the ultra Orthodox children attend their own schools in what I would consider a totally closed environment where in my view they learn to scorn and disrespect those whose religious beliefs do not match those of their own very insular and rather narrowly educated community. And that scorn might even spread to the modern Orthodox, who also do not use public schools for the most part but at least interact with the outside world to some extent. Truly, to keep talking about the very observant among the Jewish community in terms of the Pine Bush incident is to compare apples and oranges. Not to mention lulavs and etrogs.</p>
<p>mini’s links show that there is definite tension in Pine Bush over a proposed development that would be similar to Kiryas Joel.</p>
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<p>Not that that justifies anything at all that happened to the Jewish students in Pine Bush but I wonder if a fire is already burning and this is adding fuel to it. What a job it will be to untangle all those knots and have some civility return.</p>
<p>Great posts, mattmom (#29 and #49).</p>
<p>mini, I know what it’s like to have relatives with abhorrent views. I joined facebook recently in order to keep in touch with family. I was shocked to my core one day when one of the relatives, the son of a cousin, changed his profile picture to that awful photo of Obama as a witch doctor. If you haven’t seen it, you can google it. I knew this man was a right winger, because he’d posted quite a few political comments. I don’t mind people having different views than I do, but racism is beyond the pale. I “unfriended” him. </p>
<p>It makes me so sad to think that this level of bigotry is being tolerated. Because it is being tolerated. The school personnel are passive. There was a swastika incident at our local MS some years ago that involved S1 in that the swastika was drawn and shown to him. The school district’s response was swift - the responsible individuals’ parents were called in immediately for a meeting and the children were suspended. I received a very apologetic call from the principal who assured me that decisive action was being taken. (It turned out that the offending children thought we were Jewish, which we are not, and the principal assumed that we were, too, because S1 was the object of anti-Semitism. Not that it makes any difference. I don’t find the actions any less offensive because we don’t happen to be part of the targeted group.)</p>