Yale Daily News

"Lawrence said the Jewish student community has met the symbol with a model of “love meeting hate” he says is mandated by what he sees as the Torah’s message of love and belonging, not hate."

Ridiculous. The Torah does not mandate turning the other cheek. Thats that part of the Bible we Jews DON'T read, and in the context of dealing with those who hate us is a completely foreign concept to actual Judaism.

Like most American Jews, Lawrence and the Yale Jewish community are clearly unaware that Leftism is not a workable stand-in for Judaism.

A better translation of Lawrence's statement is "We were attacked, but as White Liberals we are so crippled by guilt as to be completely incapable of standing up for ourselves as a group, and are uncomfortable judging villainous folk anyway because their actions re the fault of society, meaning we are as guilty as they!"

C'mon Jews, get angry. Stand up. Take action like you do on behalf of other minorities. We have every right that they do to respond to bigotry.

#1: THAT'S the SPIRIT!

I wonder what "Samuel" means by "take action" and "respond to bigotry". Has anyone suggested that the Jewish community is "as guilty as" the perpetrators of the snow graffiti?

Lawrence certainly is not suggesting that we "turn the other cheek" -- he is rather saying that we should reaffirm our commitment to community and mutual respect in the face of an act that seeks to divide us.

silly me; i didn't realize e-mails could "fly."

Noah is clearly talking about chesed, Samuel, a concept that is very obviously central to the whole Torah--Torah SheBichtav and Torah SheBe'al Peh. Don't be unnecessarily narrow in your conception of Judaism, and at least don't put that overly narrow conception on other Jews. The umbrella's big.

I don't think Noah's not angry or upset about this, and I don't know where you're getting the impression that he's not taking action. But what action, exactly, do you think should be taken here, when the perpetrators of some highly offensive graffiti remain unknown?

I think I can speak for Noah Lawrence because, well, I *am* Noah Lawrence. (Anyone who loves the Marshall McLuhan scene in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" may appreciate my stepping in here ... )

Right now I do not have time to craft a response and to engage in dialogue -- but I would very much like to. So, if you would like and would be interested in checking back later in the week, then you will have something to read when you do ...

can we just let this issue die already? I mean, it's a "snow" swastika for god sakes--it even sounds stupid saying it. It was probably just a bunch of idiot, drunken freshmen who did it on a dare, or who just really wanted to piss people off for the hell of it. Nothing more. If it had been graffiti on Slifka, that would have been one thing, but this just reeks of drunken stupidity.

Before anybody starts accusing me of anti-Semitism, I'm Jewish, and think that the Jewish population here is far from marginalized or negatively stereotyped (having been here for four years, I should know what I'm talking about).

Some drunken freshmen are secretly laughing their ass of because their exploits made it on the front page of the YDN and articles like these and op-eds like those written by Schwartz and Mois only further aggravate the issue, rather than letting it die like it should have sunday morning when the snow melted.

Thats how Hitler was able to rise to power.

Sooooo afraid since Jews were blamed for Jesus ( the Jew)death that the Jews are paralyzed by fear.

If the Jews in Israel had that lack of backbone there would be no Israel.

Its ok to stand up for yourselves

COME ON!!!!!!!!

Come on #7 commentator

This is one case where Al Shaprton and jesse Jackson HAVE IT RIGHT.

Zero tolerance allowed when it comes to racism towards blacks.

In any large group of people there are going to be a diversity of viewpoints. Racism is one viewpoint. Marxism is a viewpoint. Anti-Semitism is a viewpoint. Radical Islamism is a viewpoint. And there is a whole boatload of other viewpoints. Now even when there a small minority that holds an extreme viewpoint, it may be motivated enough to act on that viewpoint. It may do things secretly when the majority disapproves of it, but those things may be very serious.

What happened with Nazi symbols at Yale is really not serious, but lets not forget real Nazis (as well as haters of other races and ideologies) are in New Haven.

can we also note that the swastika had a square orientation and not the nazi 45 degree orientation?

the swastika is an important symbol in multiple religions such as buddhism and hindu. it's too easy to suddenly decry this traditional symbol as hate crime when it can very easily mean something else.

I promised a further response online, so here it is. First, though, for those who wanted a fuller explanation of what exactly I meant by "overcoming hate with love," I wrote a column about it in last Friday's News. Here is the link:

http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/23811

Samuel/#1, my column may explain why, though I appreciate your ideas, you did not assess my perspective correctly when you wrote:

"Like most American Jews, Lawrence and the Yale Jewish community are clearly unaware that Leftism is not a workable stand-in for Judaism."

The idea of "overcoming hate with love" is not an import from Leftism. On the contrary, liberalism inherited it (and crafted a secular, rationalist, civic version of it) from Christianity -- which in turn had inherited it from its birthplace: Judaism.

It comes from Torah, from the idea of loving the stranger because we were once strangers in Egypt (Exodus 23:9 and Deuteronomy 10:19). The idea is that when you have suffered, you have a choice to make: 1) You can let that suffering turn you caustic, and inflict it on others, such that even if you are not the one suffering anymore, the world remains one in which people suffer as you did -- an understandable reaction to pain, but not solving anything, not making the world better, and not the best that the human spirit can do; or alternatively, 2) you can ensure not only that you will never suffer that pain again, but that *no one* will ever suffer it again -- taking the fact that you know how it feels as a calling to make this world better. This is Deuteronomy 10:19. This is "tikkun olam": repairing the world. This is how each day we can do a small, small piece of God's work.

Jews should not consider this radically generous spirit of love to be a "stand-in for Judaism." It is the heart of Judaism.

Of course, there is more to Judaism than love alone: there is also culture, and peoplehood, and ritual, and the Hebrew language, and the Land of Israel, which are all crucial. But all of that, as Rabbi Hillel said, is "commentary" on the central spirit: love. The idea of loving the stranger because you were once a stranger is, alongside monotheism, one of Judaism's great contributions to world culture.