Two Shuls Attacked 'over Gaza'

[oberliner]

Two Shuls Attacked 'over Gaza'
by Melissa Singer - Friday 21st of July 2006

Two synagogues in the Australian city of Melbourne have been vandalised in the past week in what some community leaders believe was in response to the deepening crisis in Gaza.

An exterior wall of Bentleigh Progressive Synagogue (BPS) were daubed with anti-semitic slogans, including “Die Jews”, as well as a swastika and Star of David joined with an equals sign.


http://www.totallyjewish.com/news/world/?content_id=3921


Why would someone vandalize a synagogue in Australia over the crisis in Gaza?

What does one thing have to do with the other?

[madeline_con]

1. This is terrible news!

I hope this doesn't turn into a repeat of the horrible events of last year! :(

[mcscajun]

2. One has nothing to do with the other, but some racists believe

in the "worldwide Jewish conspiracy", so naturally, vandalizing a synagogue would make Perfect sense.
Perfect sense to a racist moron, that is, and they *are* everywhere.

[NaturalHigh]

3. "What does one thing have to do with the other?"

Nothing. Some people just hate Jews and will use any excuse to harass them.

[LeftCoast]

5. Self delete

I'm not going to be this bitter.

[malaise]

11. Sadly when it's OK to bomb mosques

this is what happens.

[blonndee]

4. How horrible.

That reminds me of what happened to the synagogue here in Oklahoma City, Temple B'nai Israel a couple of years ago. This guy who used to be (or is) part of some white supremacist group, threw a Molotov cocktail into the synagogue. He got caught and was sentenced to something like 40 years in prison. I don't know how much damage it did, but when I was there it was a beautiful place. It was the first and only time I'd ever gotten up the nerve to go to services at a synagogue, being an outsider and all, but it was a lovely place and the people were very nice. I remember being taken aback walking up to the entrance and seeing a security camera there. That was before the incident, too. It made me sad to see it there.

Sorry for the tangent. This kind of stuff is so sad.

[Behind the Aegis]

6. I was living in OKC when that happened.

We were all told to watch where we went.

[NaturalHigh]

8. I dated a Jewish girl several years ago.

She told me about being harassed at her synagogue by some skinhead types in Tulsa. Until then, I don't think I realized that we had such virulent anti-Semitism here in Oklahoma.

[Behind the Aegis]

7. kick

[Mandate My Ass]

9. The haters are pathetic

It's cowardliness all dressed up in machismo. There's no excuse for this.

[Igel]

10. You're not in the proper mindset.

Think communally.

Individuals don't have rights, nations aren't merely political niceties but, in principle, reflect underlying ethnic communities. Justice/honor/whatever holds not merely between individuals, but also between communities. If you can't punish the guilty member of a community, you punish the community by punishing any available member. They kill one of yours, you kill one of theirs--which one isn't dreadfully important. It means personal injustices can be viewed as a community-level thing; it means wars aren't between political units, but between communities.

Tribal societies tend to practice communal justice; traditional shari'a encodes communal views of justice, demoting non-Muslims' worth. It's one problem in Iraq; it's how the Ottoman's structured civilization wherever they went, having several communities superimposed, with differing laws enforced in each community by the head of that community, but with the head guy in each community responsible to the Ottomans; it's how any number of tribes, in almost any part of the world, viewed things. Western views are recent, and a minority among many common folk.

[Lurking Dem]

12. We've had armed police at our Temple

ever since 9/11. The place gets threats every week either by phone or mail.