This is a little it of a recurring theme over the past week that I've been seeing these sorts of things in the media. I saw coverage that we may be dealing with this in Michigan. Then I later saw coverage that muslims have certain legal loop-holes from British law.
I was curious about this. I dug further and googled to find out about the situation. It turned out a bunch of fundamentalist x-tians were being overly dramatic. A bunch of xtians went to an Arab festival and tried to hand out xtian pamplets. They were arrested for disturbing the peace. I'm sorry, but to say that "sharia law is being enforced" is only readying the public to say "the boy is crying wolf" if something really did happen. Sharia law being enforced in the US would mean that women who both are and are not Muslim would be forced to wear the hijab. I have a friend who is Muslim who is not a hijabi, as they call it. She meets all the other requirements they have for their own code of tznius: covered elbows (with a shirt underneath much like us Jewish girls-however they do full length not 3/4 length sleeves, the split of the legs covered (usually accomplished with a "butt covering shirt" and legs covered all the way down. ) She is Muslim, but it wouldn't matter. They would want her arrested for not wearing a hijab. The police would come into people's homes and make sure no one has any liquor. Thankfully, these were xtians running at the mouth. Hopefully, such a thing never happens, though. I like my vodka, thank you very much.
The second thing that I saw online, involved a muslim police officer in Britain. He was assigned to guard the Israeli embassy. He requested to change duties because he was uncomfortable with the task he was given to do. Now, how many people can just ask to not do the job their boss asked for because they don't want to? AND NOT get fired? Lucky him! Well, truthfully, I don't think the Israelis want a Muslim guarding their embassy. It could have been worse. He could have taken the assignment and snuck his friends in so they could bomb the place or something. Perhaps, the mistake was in assigning him that duty at all on the part of his superiors.
Whew! Everything has worked out just fine so far. However, perhaps these incidents are still a little uncomfortable for us as Jews. Let's hope it doesn't get worse.
Can you imagine the outcry if all muslims were denied from guarding the israeli embassy? Charges of discrimination would be flung in the media and, probably, in court.
ReplyDeleteThe loopholes are the same for Sharia and Batey Din.
ReplyDeleteIf you are against a "parallel judiciary system", you also have to oppose the jewish one.
About asking special favours in order to accomodate us within our jobs: we jews do it constantly when we want to respect shabbat and yomim tovim. I would prefer not to be fired for it.
Gioret,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, your comment is kinda confusing. The point of this article was kind of the bait and switch. I don't know what you mean about loopholes for Sharia and Batey Din. It just doesn't make any sense until the last paragraph. Then we see your comment applies to the second situation.
Furthermore, special favors to accomodate us within our jobs? Jews are not the only ones with a Sabbath. Xtians aren't supposed to work on Sunday. Observant Jews make sure they get jobs/careers that don't require Saturdays. The issue usually becomes needing to leave early on Fridays in the winter. Sometimes this is accomplished by eating lunch at your desk and then whomever might have covered your lunch is instead covering your early leave. Other people accomplish it by working late a night or two during the week. Some people get a job where the boss is Jewish so leaving early is not a problem. When I worked as a receptionist, they had no problem letting me leave early on Friday because that was the slow day. There was a Purim that fell on a Friday when I worked there and since there was only about 4 hours of work that I HAD to do on Fridays, I only worked 4 hours that day and spent Shabbos 10 blocks from work by staying with someone. People use their personal days for Yontiff. They don't get that back.
However, this what this guy did had nothing to do with keeping actual Muslim rules. It was about, "Muslims hate Jews so, I don't want to guard their embassy."
That's no different from when I'm told to work with someone I don't like at a job. I piss and whine to the boss, but at the end of the day it comes down to: do it or get fired. Could you imagine that you work somewhere and the girl in the cubie next to you quits. They hire a Muslim girl to replace her and you pitch a fit because you don't like Muslims and you don't want to work next to her. Well, most bosses would say, "too f-ing bad, I have no where else to put either of you and who are you to say who I can and can't hire?"
The point of the first scenario was that the Xtians are saying they were "arrested for being Xtian" instead of admitting they were arrested for harassing people. Free speech doesn't include harrassing others.
What Gioret is talking about is slightly different from what you are talking about. In most of the West, for many forms of disputes people can choose to have them arbitrated. Thus, frum Jews choose to have the dispute arbitrated by a beit din while some religious Muslims choose sharia courts. This isn't quite the same thing in that this where all parties are agreeing to the system in question. Note that there have been some argument that allowing such religious courts to have authority causes people to be pressured into using them (the standard examples are actually how batei din and sharia courts both often treat females in divorce disputes quite poorly.)
ReplyDeleteRegarding the police officer, in general, in many locations, officers can request reassignment if they don't like an assignment. As long as there are enough people to cover the job that should be fine. Having the people who actually want most to do a job will likely get it done better than having people who don't want to do it.