 that isn't already stolen by some common thief. I hope you will retract your statements regarding the police.
As for racism, I agree. It is evil and must be eradicated. Saying that racism must be eradicated should not be confused with advocating censorship. We need freedom of speech.
BLM has since scrubbed all mention of this convicted cop-killer from their web site, and interestingly the founders of the movement have been pretty silent this entire period of protesting. But there has been no retraction.
Post-modernism has damaged your thinking. The rioting can be seen as "right"? Who are these strange friends of yours?
Good Lord, talk about WEAK. This is the best you can do? This bit of ephemeral nothing from 120 years ago?
Instead of defending a lost cause, a wise general steps back and re-evaluate. Like we have often heard preached here about mistakes in science, the ability to recognize a mistake is a feature, not a bug.
Nope. Violent crime and theft is where we draw the line as a moral society. That can never be acceptable no matter how badly we want to cater to feelings and "grievances" of rioters.
When you bend over backwards to allow for any and every possible spin on a situation, you end up twisted into a pretzel and standing for nothing, with no enforcement of conduct at all anymore - That is when innocent people get victimized and hurt in society. To "tolerate" that is extremely cruel. Wake up please.
"Violent crime and theft is where we draw the line as a moral society."
We stopped drawing that line a long time ago, at least regarding theft. The kosher meat boycott was precipitated by abusive monopolists who were basically stealing from the poor -- and the meat trust was nowhere the most abusive monopoly. It is considered to be good business practice to improperly steal business from other businesses. One billionaire I used to know before he was rich got to be a billionaire by selling products that did not exist yet. Entire large corporations today have business models that rely on massive lawbreaking. It should be no surprise that today the US has a President who for decades cheated customers, employees, suppliers, contractors, creditors, and business partners, in every way imaginable -- and yet is admired as a successful businessman.
Correct. It was stated a long time ago that kindness to criminals - allowing it, in other words - is cruelty to society. Look at Times Square today, which has turned overnight into a wasteland. Drunks and vagrants just lying in the middle of the square. Not a police presence in sight. That's what NY gets for having THE most corrupt, anti-Semitic, and incompetent mayor in its history.
Do you really think Joe Biden made his money kosher style? Didn't Hunter Biden make a million dollars per year in Ukraine, despite knowing nothing about oil?
@DF I agree. A few months ago the mayor and others denounced Orthodox Jews for praying because of coronavirus. However, when black lives matter protests take place they are allowed to congregate in the thousands. This is obviously anti-Semitic/anti-religious. As a result, religious communities are suing Bill de Blasio.
PS Not to mention that the mayor said that coronavirus will not harm the protest/rioters. Sound familiar?
"THE most corrupt, anti-Semitic, and incompetent mayor in its history"
If De Blasio is corrupt -- and there is no real evidence that he is -- it is nothing compared to the many Tammany Hall hacks who occupied to mayor's office for much of a century and a half.
Not only is De Blasio not anti-Semitic, but there has never been a mayor who has done more to pander to the organized frum community. When the charedi leadership says, "Jump!", his reaction is "How high?" That has been the case for his entire political career -- he used to represent Borough Park in the City Council. It was the charedi leadership whose support made him the mayor in the first place back in 2013. And he has paid them back appropriately, preventing the Health Department from doing anything about metzitzah be peh, and preventing the Education Department from doing anything about the lack of secular studies in yeshivot. And he channels universal pre-K funds to religious institutions, probably in violation of the State Constitution. Note that when a charedi group embarrassed him by having a funeral without social distancing, it was the charedi leadership who apologized after De Blasio got pissed off.
And regarding incompetence, Lindsay, Beame, and Koch -- not to mention the Tammany hacks -- make De Blasio seem like the most spectacular success by comparison. Objectively, prior to the pandemic and the protests, De Blasio had more successes than failures. He was the mayor who got universal pre-K. He was the mayor who finally got ferries running. He has run roughshod over NIMBYs to get more housing built. And no mayor since Seth Low has had lower homicide rates.
I am actually not a fan. I did not vote for him when he ran in 2013. But one must look at things objectively.
" religious communities are suing Bill de Blasio."
The Supreme Court had a similar case from California and ruled that courts have no business micromanaging public health. Chief Justice Roberts in his opinion gave a rare tonguelashing to the dissenters for not understanding the facts.
Besides, it isn't De Blasio's call. It is Cuomo's.
The fact is that nobody should be having large congregations, for protests or religious services. BTW did you object to the armed mob that took over the Michigan State house with their Confederate flags and swastikas?
@Charlie Hall Cuomo and De Blasio condemned an Orthodox Jewish funeral when they shouted for social distancing. However, when the protest took place in the thousands, they happily endorsed them, even saying that the protest won't get sick because of the cause. Sound familiar?
He may have helped Jews in the past but it is not fair to condone violent riots while at the same time condemn a peaceful minyan.
Oh, and btw, I do object to the takeover Michigan Statehouse. And in case it matters to you, conservatives are not neo-nazis/Confederate sympathizers.
PS Plz, stop calling everyone who disagrees with you a nazi. Because eventually the use of that term will fade out and when a real nazi comes along you won't be able to recognize one.
Oh, he's not anti-Semitic, is he? Pulhease. Jewish Uncle Tom's. He actively encourages thousands of people to riot, yet today he sent his thugs out to WELD SHUT parks in Jewish neighborhoods so kids cant play.  WELD SHUT, you hear? So kids - who have a greater chance than being struck by lightning than dying from Corona - can't play. Blacks rioting, fine. Jewish kids playing, bad. Sure, he's not ant-Semitic at all! My God, wake up.
I would add this: Rabbi Slifkin, you seem to have taken a VERY different approach to the riots by extreme haredim in your town. (What were they right about???) And those are child's play compared to what went on in major US cities.
Aside from the fact that chaos and the complete destruction of civilization and the widespread poverty and despair that comes with anarchy leads to a completely unfettered targeting of Jewish people by the mobs, you should also consider how inconsistent you are being when it comes to the suffering of other people who don't live in your town.
"What were they right about???"
I can't think of anything, and I haven't heard anyone give a remotely reasonable defense of them.
But in the case of both groups, in their own perception they see themselves as victimized, victims of your oppression, and therefore justified.
Doesn't the basic right of being able to breath constitute a reasonable ground for protest?
WAIT - I do not know ANYONE - whether they support Black Lives Matters or not - that claims that the RIOTING / VANDALISM / LOOTING / ARSON - were "understandable or even necessary". The Vandalism / Looting / Arson was condemned by the BLM movement and has been stopped (at least some of it was actually done by right wing groups.) The protests - stopping traffic and shutting down parts of cities, people may have different opinions about. Put that at the top of your article for clarity.
I'm not Rabbi Slifkin, but as an observant Jewish woman who absolutely understands the riots (though I do not support looting), perhaps this will give you some perspective. To begin with, you need to stop looking for "rationale" as though the rioting were organized and deliberate in the manner of a protest march. That is not what this is. This is the grief of a community writ public. It is a howling to the heavens. It is a public mourning for the deaths of their fathers, their children, their husbands, their daughters. It is terror for their own lives, and not knowing if any time they leave the house they might be killed. It is an outpouring of sheer, unrestricted emotion... and that looks like a 'riot' to you because you are expecting an entire community of grief-stricken people who have been terrorized and traumatized non-stop to "behave themselves" nonetheless. But terrified people do not grieve politely or quietly. And if it were the Jewish community being shot in our homes, in our backyards, if it were our children