Hacker News Reader

Comment by neves | Hacker News Reader

It was also puzzling me. I think a link posted below [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/magazine/14syrians-t.html] explains it. They are a closed ethnic community. Reporting it would be like betraying not just your employer, but also your people.

The article is really excellent. It is really a closed community. There is an religious edict that bans everyone who marry a non Syrian Jew.

From the article: "Seventy years after the promulgation of the Edict, it seems fair to say that, taken on its own terms, it has been an almost uniquely successful tool of social engineering. The enclave grows and thrives beyond the dreams of its founders. It offers a secure economic future and a sweet family life to those who remain within its confines."

BTW, is it offensive to use the word Jew? If so, how should I have called them?

View on HN

More from the article about how they are a really closed community:

“Never accept a convert or a child born of a convert,” Kassin told me by phone, summarizing the message. “Push them away with strong hands from our community. Why? Because we don’t want gentile characteristics.”

non paywall protected link @NYT http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE3DE153DF...

great article, thx for link

More on how closed this community is in Nathanial Popper's Digital Gold. IIRC, Charlie Shrem's parents would not pay his substantial bail unless he broke up with his GF who was not an SY Jew.

https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Gold-Bitcoin-Millionaires-Rei...

> BTW, is it offensive to use the word Jew? If so, how should I have called them?

This is one of those things where the delivery matters more than the word. It's fine in this context but could be used in an offensive way.

The flip side of strong ethnic ties and ingroup preferences enabling fraud, is that they make it possible for, eg, Hasids to conduct an extemely high-value diamond trade on a handshake basis internally. https://www.algemeiner.com/2014/05/21/new-yorks-diamond-dist...

I don't think that's true; traders in the stock markets with no racial or familial ties regularly make such deals, especially in the days of open outcry markets.

Considering how unethical everything about the diamond business is, I don't see how this makes your point.

> BTW, is it offensive to use the word Jew? If so, how should I have called them?

If the people you are referring to are indeed believers in Judaism, I can't see why you can't use the word "Jew".

You didn't read the article linked by GP. The Syran Jewish community was using it as a slur against the Ashkenazi

There's a couple of reasons. One is that it's a term with a history of being used in a pejorative manner. In cases like this, adjectival forms e.g. Jewish person are preferred over noun forms e.g. Jew.

Another problem is neither "Jew" nor "Jewish" is particularly precise. For instance, in America, it typically refers to someone of Ashkenazi extraction, not a believer in Judaism.

Are you saying that the Syrian "community" mentioned in this article are not followers of Judaism? I did not know that...I had assumed that the different "sects" of "Jews" were similar to the different sects of Islam or Christianity: in that they differed in certain beliefs, but still considered themselves as Muslim or Christians.

What I'm saying is that "Jewish" may refer to someone who is an atheist but celebrates Hanukkah. There's probably someone in their family who is practicing.

The problem being, "Jew" refers both to both a belief system and a racial characteristic, and without qualification it can be thoroughly unclear. This is even true of more precise terms e.g. "Hasidic". There's a very tight-knit ethnic group that share a bunch of religious practices, but the adjective refers to both things.

Aside: if you're not easily offended, watch Chanuka Honey on YouTube. It's an extended joke about American Jewish culture, but religion barely features.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com