Comment by bkandel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bkandel | Hacker News Reader

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So in America in the 21st century, white Jews are treated pretty much like any other white person. I would say that there are some subtle cultural things that make me feel a bit "other", though. For example, sports teams called the "Crusaders": In the Jewish collective memory, the Crusades were an awful time. Crusaders rampaged through many Jewish communities, murdering many thousand of Jewish people and destroying the Jewish communities in several cities (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhineland_massacres, among others). There are historical records of Jews committing suicide in anticipation of the Crusaders reaching their cities. Hearing about basketball teams called "The Crusaders" really surprised me -- did these people not know what the Crusaders did?

The Crusades were also a response to Arab invasions into Europe, during a time when Vienna, practically the center of Europe, was besieged twice by the Ottomans, and the entire Iberian peninsula was conquered and held for more than half a millennium by Muslims (and Constantinople/Istanbul still is). Many border countries had children regularly kidnapped into slavery by Ottoman raids (or had to turn them over as part of the blood tax), then turned into child soldiers and made to participate in those same raids, so try to understand when not everyone shares your black and white view of crusaders.

Look at it this way - complaining about the Crusades makes as much sense as complaining about Purim, which celebrates 75 thousand Persians being pre-emptively killed for being "enemies of the Jews".

The Ottomans existed centuries _after_ the crusades, timing the raids and the Vienna sieges after the crusaded. Does time work different where you life?

> So in America in the 21st century, white Jews are treated pretty much like any other white person.

No, that's just not true. Yes, we have the privilege of being white. But hate crimes still happen to Jews. America still caters to Christians.

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