Orthodox and Hasidic Jews

Stamford Hill and the Campaign against the “Jewification of Britain”

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Until a few years, or even one year, ago I wouldn’t have believed that an anti-Jewish —(not anti-Israel) mass protest by Whites (not by Muslims) could have taken place in Britain.

And yet, a march against the “Jewification of Great Britain” was planned by Joshua Bonehill, the 22-year-old leader of National Liberation. Scheduled for 22 March, it was called “Liberate Stamford Hill”, after an area of north-east London home to about 20,000 Jews. This is a poster of the proposed demo, which according to The Guardian was reading: “On 22nd of March as one white and unified mass movement we will be finally pointing the finger in the right direction … You owe it to your race white man.” Read more

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Ethics: Gaming the System

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At TOO we have had several articles on the culture of corruption that pervades many traditional Jewish communities. Edmund Connelly’s “The Culture of Deceit” presents examples going back to the 18th century, citing Wilhelm von Dohm, a Prussian official that Jewish communities were engaged in “the breaking of the laws of the state restricting trade, the import and export of prohibited wares, the forgery of money and precious metals.”

In short, von Dohm describes traditional Jewish communities as far more resembling a mafia-like group engaged in organized crime than what we think of as a religion. Alexander Solzhenitsyn describes how Jews invented elaborate ways to get around laws on selling liquor and to avoid the military draft; they also sold shoddy goods to the Russian military with all that that implies  (see “The Mesira Mentality: Laws are Made to be Broken“). Read more

Diversity in Outremont

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Here in Outremont, a borough of Montreal, things are heating up for yet another episode of “Purim” during which our thousands of Hassidic Jews have a bang-up party with adults getting totally smashed and very noisy, while the kids are supposed to go around to visit friends and relatives, all costumed in bizarre outfits, to have a great time. Except that walking seems to be out. Instead the little Hassids prefer buses that ferry everyone up and down all the streets where Hassids are concentrated. Is that a problem?

Well, there is a regulation in Outremont that prohibits big busses from going on residential streets, exceptions being school buses and mini buses. The Hassids want to use big buses on Purim. The borough says no, only mini buses.

But the back drop is a long history of acrimony between the Hassids and their mostly French Quebecois neighbors over complaints that the Hassids generally try to ignore municipal regulations they find inconvenient — building codes, parking regulations, etc. Their massive intercity buses stop illegally on residential streets, their diesel engines waking people at odd hours of the night. And they have a reputation for getting away with a lot thanks to municipal officials allegedly wanting to avoid confrontation. Read more

The Mesira Mentality: Laws are Made to Be Broken

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There’s another wrinkle in the Hasidic tax scam case (previously discussed here). The case involves wealthy Hasids giving millions of dollars in tax-deductible donations to a Jewish religious center and then getting almost all the money back after it was laundered through an international religious network. The LATimes reports that a rabbi, Moshe Zigelman, who went to jail for two years ago because he refused to testify against other Jews, is again threatened with jail if he does not testify (“U.S. threatens to send rabbi back to jail“).

This is another example of the Jewish law of  mesira which enjoins Jews not to testify against Jews: “‘No earthly sanction will ever make Rabbi Zigelman abandon his religious precepts,’ Michael Proctor, an attorney for Zigelman wrote in court papers.”

Mesira is thus alive and well in Orthodox communities—practiced, as in this case, by the leading figures of the community. The prosecution will argue that Jewish religious law is irrelevant to the laws of the United States—a blow for common sense. The article cites an expert in Jewish religious law who says that mesira does not apply in modern democratic societies, but “originates from a time of oppressive and brutal secular authorities.”

Whatever the disputes among religious authorities, the fact is that there are quite a few cases in the contemporary world among traditional Jews; as John Graham has noted, mesira is a likely reason why the Bernie Madoff fraud was not investigated properly given that the signs of fraud were so obvious.

It’s another indication of the effectiveness of ethnic networks with a strong ingroup/outgroup ethic. Prosecution will doubtless be difficult without Zigelman’s testimony. Read more