Rabbi: Jews Don't Care for Others? It's a Stereotype

Rabbi Zalman Marcus of the Chabad Jewish Center takes on this stereotype about Jews. He says many believe that because Jews "stick to themselves, they don't really care about other people or engage with other people."

"People tend to see Jewish people as, 'they have their own groups, they stick to themselves.' It's kind of like a closed society. Although there are a lot of Jewish outreach to non-Jewish groups, they tend to see the more religious elements to Judaism as being more insular and isolated. People interpret that as either a sense of arrogance or a sense of not caring. Or elitism.

"I didn't know this until I heard it from some non-Jewish people. This is not the Jewish position but rather a reaction to the way we were treated. in the past whenever we opened our mouths, if we truly shared what's on our mind, we'd get killed. Historically it's only been very, very recent, maybe 50 or 60 years, when Jewish people were truly free in this country.

"That's been a result of the anti-semitism that affected Jewish people for so many years. They weren't allowed to have their own opinion, in a sense. They certainly weren't allowed to share that with the host country they were in for fear of reprisals and being punished for disagreeing with their host country's religion. There was no separation of church and state.

"Don't judge things by their cover, by Wikipedia, by what you're going to read on the Internet. Keep an open mind and engage people. Don't say, 'I know everything about Other religions.' Until you sit down and really talk to people, you don't really know them. You know a little bit, but not very much.

"I thought I knew Christianity, I thought I knew Islam based on the knowledge that is out there. As I learned and talked to these people I thought, 'Whoa'—I had no idea how nuanced it is and how easy it is to generalize and stereotype.

"I remember going to a prayer breakfast in Mission Viejo. There was a Sikh who got up to speak and he quoted from one of their books. On first glance it sounded absolutely horrific and really, really terrible. He explained it, and after he explained it it was the most beautiful statement in the world. After he explained it it was like, 'This is so in line with Judaism, this is so in line with other world religions.

"That's one of the reasons why I started my Jewish Bible Study Experience class, to allow for people to learn and to connect and to realize that we really are one global community."

If your local religious leader would like to be featured on Mission Viejo Patch, contact Editor Pete Schelden:peter.schelden@patch.com.