tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post6385606871128959020..comments2023-06-21T10:52:34.013-04:00Comments on Jeremy Rosen's Blog: RacismAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17043970242427877089noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-78642551251571561642014-09-17T09:53:15.312-04:002014-09-17T09:53:15.312-04:00It might be dangerous but if it was good enough fo...It might be dangerous but if it was good enough for Rambam it is good enough for me.<br />But how about the Mishna saying that the tribes the Torah commanded us to kill no longer can be identified?<br />Or Rebbi Yochanan saying men may not make use of the Sotah Law because they are no longer pure enough?<br />Or Hillels Prozbol?<br />Etc Etc Etc there are plenty of laws in the Torah that have been been either modified or put into cold storage!Rabbi Jeremy Rosenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12723608669485173271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-64504739419658423772014-09-17T08:04:38.808-04:002014-09-17T08:04:38.808-04:00Very dangerous approach to state that the Torah ha...Very dangerous approach to state that the Torah has a periodic appeal. Rishonim have tackled with this issue regarding sacrifices, but I have not found similar texts on slavery, primarily because slavery only went out of moral fashion a few hundred years ago. <br />The Torah must be as applicable today as it was 3,000 years ago for all 613 mitzvot even if they are unacceptable to the citizen of the 21st centre.<br />Take the ethnic cleansing of the land of Israel upon entering or arranged marriages for girls under 12.Ginger Tipplehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13537151651974700287noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-40498681634008811212014-09-16T20:07:50.437-04:002014-09-16T20:07:50.437-04:00The Torah was written three thousand years ago in ...The Torah was written three thousand years ago in a very different world. You could not expect it to leap too far beyond contemporary norms. It nevertheless deals with such issues exponentially more sympathetically and insisting on protections unheard of in other societies then let alone thousands of years later. By the time you get to Talmudic Judaism its altogether a different mind set. And modern thinking even more so.Rabbi Jeremy Rosenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12723608669485173271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-18951974005822482102014-09-16T05:44:40.122-04:002014-09-16T05:44:40.122-04:00So how do you address the fact that the Torah allo...So how do you address the fact that the Torah allows for slavery, ad even racism within slavery. Jewish slaves are treated better than non-Jewish slaves?<br />I know that the TOrah gave rights to slaves and when applied correctly a slave belonging to jew would be treated correctly. But if slavery was so fundamentally wrong then the Torah would have forbade it outright!Ginger Tipplehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13537151651974700287noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-86888639928066379112014-04-04T11:38:58.295-04:002014-04-04T11:38:58.295-04:00Miss S:
Thank you so much for your observations. ...Miss S:<br /><br />Thank you so much for your observations. Interesting your point about the British. In one way you are right. Wilberforce was British of course and there has always been a strong liberal strain. But Britain still has a very powerful Class system underlying societal attitudes and this actually overlays the racial bias too. So even if the color bias is slightly less overt it is in practice made worse by class bias too.<br />Having said that when I told the black nurse who took my blood last week that I thought New York was less racist than London she,very nicely, told me I had no idea and I was wrong!!!!<br /><br />I felt so bad that I was living in a cocoon of privilege. It's not that I don't have black friends etc. Any suggestions?Rabbi Jeremy Rosenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12723608669485173271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-20126181727518799512014-04-04T11:37:34.344-04:002014-04-04T11:37:34.344-04:00The Levantine Maghrebi:
I think the issue is that...The Levantine Maghrebi:<br /><br />I think the issue is that human cruelty, the inability to treat others as equals, as all children of one God, is the common denominator.Rabbi Jeremy Rosenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12723608669485173271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-1381098188316984602014-04-04T03:31:13.870-04:002014-04-04T03:31:13.870-04:00One difference between The Holocaust and US Slaver...One difference between The Holocaust and US Slavery is that even as the Nazis were perpetrating genocide they were simultaneously attempting to hide the fact with secrecy, propaganda and euphemisms. They believed in what they were doing yet still had some instinctive understanding that they were going so far beyond normal human moral norms that they had to hide the reality from outsiders and from their own people.<br /><br />American slaveholders and their supporters tried to justify what they were doing, but they never tried to hide it or showed any obvious signs of shame. <br /><br />However I've no idea what this distinction signifies! Does it mean that the Nazis were _less_ morally degraded because they were still capable of feeling shame over their own actions? Or does it make them worse, because they knew instinctively that they were wrong but carried on anyway? Conversely, was the utter unrepentance of the American slaveowners a further sign of _their_ moral degeneracy?<br /><br />Ultimately the question is which is worse - to treat humans as things to be used for one's own ends, or to refuse to accept one's fellow human beings as human at all, but rather as vermin to be destroyed? Phrased that way, I think it's obvious that at heart the crimes of the slaveowners and the Nazis were _the same crime_. Once you stop treating people as people, it doesn't really matter whether you start treating them as machines, animals, or inanimate objects. Garkbithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12234102759650383703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-30945950133674751632014-03-29T09:19:21.239-04:002014-03-29T09:19:21.239-04:00Thank you for writing this post Rabbi Rosen...it i...Thank you for writing this post Rabbi Rosen...it is excellent. As a Black American (who happens to be Jewish as well), I've become keenly aware, especially as I've gotten older, of the psychological damage that slavery is STILL leaving on our people. We have horrible self esteem...because of the messages sent about our people in the media; as well as our own internal degradation. It is interesting that you bring up Lupita Nyong’o. I felt the same way after Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won their Oscars. The roles did not seem to be of any special caliber to deserve the award. It was like a consolation prize. And it reeks of fake patronage.<br /><br />Your post also brings up other thoughts. I have yet to really test this theory, but it seems that the British deal with racism differently than Americans. Yes, there are racist British people...I won't deny that for a moment. But British people also seem to have a certain amount of self-criticism where they are more apt to step back and face the evils of their past history more readily than Americans. Again, I don't have hard proof of this theory. However coming from a Jamaican family, I've seen many books, documentaries and films from Britain about Black or Jamaican culture....from even the 60s and 70s, that were clearly more frank and progressive than anything Americans would have created (think about it...."Roots" was so groundbreaking when it was aired in 1977).<br />Miss S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10887805742474651903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6141014.post-64819856056010002622014-03-28T15:09:46.602-04:002014-03-28T15:09:46.602-04:00As far as the holocaust goes, I would have also ad...As far as the holocaust goes, I would have also added that there was slave labor as well. Weren't a lot of the concentration camps used for labor, with the death tolls being a result of malnourishment, fatigue, beatings? From what I recall reading, the extermination camps weren't used until later in the war.<br /><br />Although relativism is an approach is not lacking in its flaws, it's difficult to call slavery the same kind of crime within the context of the 19th Century as genocide was in the 20th. I've no idea how she could try to pose such an argument without it being emotionally driven. Slavery is certainly nothing to look back on fondly, and while the idea of freedom/emancipation was a major aspect of the enlightenment, slavery still didn't have that same abhorrent stigma attached to it back then. The same cannot be said of genocide. Especially in the case of WWII where genocide was multicontinental and targeted minorities of ethnic and sexual groups, in addition to political opponents (such as Catholics who assisted Jews).Masrimaghrebihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18412983274143957898noreply@blogger.com