The time SUSE, the German Linux company, banned mentioning Jewish holidays | Hacker News Reader

The time SUSE, the German Linux company, banned mentioning Jewish holidays

lunduke.substack.com

86 pointsttyname33 comments

This implies that the SUSE situation is far worse than a refusal to say Happy Hanukkah - it's actual directed malice. As a long time SUSE user/customer I feel I need to start considering migration unless this is quickly dispelled.

I feel like antisemitism is making a comeback (if it ever really went away, although it seemed better for a while in the 90s and 00s). I attended a Bar Mitzvah recently, and they hired an off-duty cop to keep an eye on the doors. When I was young that was completely unheard of, but is sadly necessary today.

I hope that SUSE manages to turn things around, but it sounds like there’s a skunk in the C-suite that will take significant effort to flush out.

It just baffles me to read this story, because it seems to require that Suse specifically hires antisemites. Why else would there not be any pushback? That cannot possibly be, can it?

People who question beyond a certain point seem to get fired. One would think this would've come out sooner at least.

It's not really baffling to me. Europe liberalism has this culture of "we don't see race here". In this case replace race with religion.

Theres very little involvement in deep conversations about the complex problems people face. I've said this before but in the US I'm scared of the state and not the people. In Europe I'm scared of the people and not the state.

For example did you know a lot of European countries don't have any laws banning nationality based discrimination?

Whoever is behind this they were seeing religion very clearly, so I fail to see how your characterization of "European" liberalism applies.

The second paragraph of your post makes me think you're trying to shoe-horn something else into this discussion.

The European country I live in certainly has such laws. Can you name names? (Naturally, I'm not blind to this not preventing such discrimination; I have lived and worked in 5 European countries so far.)

Switzerland is an example.

> I feel like antisemitism is making a comeback

I feel that particular political/economic/governmental groups want to bring the idea of antisemitism being alive and well for own gain like the ability to push certain agendas.

Israeli government invading Palestine and shushing everyone around as "antisemites" doesn't really work anymore - the main opinion I'm aware of is that Israeli government is "the new Nazis" by doing what the Nazis did to Jews.

So no - there isn't more antisemitism but there are political groups trying to make it appear so. It's easier to play a victim and to control victimized society.

> I attended a Bar Mitzvah recently, and they hired an off-duty cop to keep an eye on the doors.

There are also more off-duty cops guarding night clubs, more mall cops, stricter flight rules, anti-truck blocks in pedestarian zones and non-white racism. So many agendas and viewpoints you can assign world changes to...

I'm actually baffled, I did not expect that, from Suse of all German companies. And no pushback? Whatsoever? JFC

Having met my fair share of Germans, I find it hard to believe that SUSE is so overtly antisemitic as this one-sided account makes out. The Germans I've met all go into anaphylactic shock at the slightest whiff of antisemitism, or anything politically to the right of the American DNC (which they consider quite right-wing).

So I'm reserving judgement until I've heard what both side have to say.

I have the same experience with Germans but SUSE leadership (https://www.suse.com/leadership/) isn't very German either.

Just looking at those images makes the situation even more confusing.

to be fair, we should look the board from the time period mentioned in the text, not from now.

> The Germans I've met all go into anaphylactic shock at the slightest whiff of antisemitism

While I wish that were true, it’s sadly not (I’m not commenting on the non-quoted part of this sentence in this forum). It’s less of an issue than in several other countries that move further right faster, but sadly, antisemitism is still an issue in Germany and has been on the rise again.

It's true that Germany is overall very sensitive with such topics, but it's not like antisemitism or discrimination in general died out. SuSE especially comes from a region where people are more conservative. And IT is a business which has a high probability to encounter problematic people regarding social, politics or religious topics; at least in Germany.

That does not mean this story is true, or the interpretation of circumstances is correct, but it's not impossible that some casual discrimination was/is at work.

But frankly spoken, the story reads as if the writer has some serious problems too. This person seems to read far more intention in circumstance that are likely unrelated. Like that blocking from the new CEO, which reads more like the natural reaction to some nut head on social media coming with strange accusations.

Maybe some neutral third party should have written the story.

Although it does not absolve SUSE of any misconduct, it seems that Lunduke has an extensive record of spinning facts and statements: https://twitter.com/LundukeFacts

That's the conclusion they came to on the SUSE users' subreddit too, where they're all too familiar with Lunduke's shenanigans: https://old.reddit.com/r/suse/comments/umfyku/the_time_suse_...

I can just say, I worked around that time at SUSE, and I never heard about it. But one thing makes me think that the story isn't really like that:

- Two managers fired one after another, and nobody raised this issue internally? That would never happen at SUSE. People there are really vocative and everyone has the freedom to talk about everything there. This topic, would hit the engineering department like a bomb.

Lots of things seem "off" in this version of events. For example, the assertion that all Jews strictly observe Yom Kippur as a day of rest is clearly false.

And the implication that, if anyone (company or individual) schedules some random tech even to open or close (or otherwise overlap with) Yom Kippur as evidence of discriminatory tendencies -- and that this must somehow be more true if that company or individual is German -- is just innuendo. The basic fact of the matter is, if you're not Jewish, chances are you have very little of what Yom Kippur is at all (let alone what date it happens to fall on).

Other stuff the author is saying might have happened the way he said it, and might have significance. Or perhaps not. But either way -- the set of claims is mixed with innuendo and distortion. So I would have to way for an independent telling of the basic event history to come along in order to make any kind of judgement.

I mean if you're a company of this size and you've never heard of Yom Kippur, especially with the history Germany has had, that's definitely on you and part of this criticism.

"Heard of" is different from knowing the exact meaning of the precise date is falls on.

The implication that it scheduling a business event on YK is a sign that one is antisemitic is a smear, straight up.

Especially with the history Germany has had

Enough lecturing, please.

> "Heard of" is different from knowing the exact meaning of the precise date is falls on.

Not least because it falls on a different date every year for anybody using a secular calendar..

I mean, if you're a company of this size and you've never heard of the Qingming Festival is also called Tomb-Sweeping Day where Chinese people enjoy 3 days off then SUSE is clearly anti-Chinese

That's a national holiday in another country. This is different.

How is it different? The OP is complaining that Hannukah, a jewish holiday is not being observed by a German company .... in Germany.

He can't accept it.

Hannuka is not a German holiday. It is not a Christian holiday. It is a holiday from another country and culture.

Like the other commenter said, the problem here isn't a lack of observance, but the punishment for asking about reasons.

Since when does a company need to justify it's decisions to a nobody? He was a robot in the marketing team, not even a manager. The company doesn't have to explain anything.

Also, "The Jew that raised concerns about the German Linux company discriminating against Jews? Punished."

Anyone would be punished for questioning the companies decisions on multiple occasions. It has nothing with him being a Jew or with discrimination. It's what happens when employees don't know their place in the corporate hierarchy.

Either way -- we would need more context to evaluate. Which the post doesn't provide.

And in other places, parts of what it does provide are dodgy and misleading.

I work for an international company and see the full panoply of international holidays on our master calendar. The problem here isn't a lack of observance, but the punishment for asking about reasons.

No, it's not. The simple truth is, Jewish culture is very absent from Germany. You hear about cases of antisemitism, but you barely learn anything about what Jews are doing. There is more coverage on Islamic topics than Jewish routines in German media.

I think for most people the primary source of knowledge about jewish culture nowadays are hollywood-movies and TV-Series like "The Nanny", not the actual people themselves.

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