I don't want to jump to conclusions, but beating up a guy leaving a bank and NOT robbing him sounds like a possible hate crime...
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/hasidic-man-beaten-outside-ou...
I know where that bank is located, and it is a VERY sedate, upscale area.
I don't want to jump to conclusions, but beating up a guy leaving a bank and NOT robbing him sounds like a possible hate crime...
I was once beaten up and robbed by a gang who took my briefcase, but never asked for my wallet, even when I was on the ground pleading for them to stop. The cops figured it was an initiation rite, since my briefcase was first snatched by one guy acting alone, with the rest of them not joining in until I started chasing the thief.
But I'm not from a group that normally gets subjected to hate-crime violence, and anyway I think most of the perps shared my skin colour.
To ask whether this was a hate attack, based on zero evidence, just because the victim is a Hasidic Jew, is very disturbing to me. It might be different if there were some history or wave of racist attacks of this nature. There is none. Except in the feverish imagination of certain media and the B'nai Brith (if that organization hasn't mercifully gone belly up yet, which would be a wonderful contribution to the Jewish community).
I just asked it - I certainly didn't affirm it. Just because the victim was an "identifiable" group; I'd have asked the question if he or she had been "conspicuously" Muslim, Sikh or whatever. I certainly have no interest in fabricating imaginary antisemitism. I have actually seen a bunch of (white, anglophone) young men insulting and threatening a Hassid - this was a drive-by incident, so it wasn't as if the Hassid was their landlord or something.
B'nai Brith are horrid, and the JDL is an outright hate group. These things can co-exist.
Lagatta, I know you have no interest in fabricating imaginary anti-semitism. I just think that speculation of this kind, based on one incident, of unknown circumstances, should be avoided. The MSM are currently engaging in such speculation on this very incident (as you likely have seen), and their motives aren't good. There are comments in some places saying things like, "I saw it happen - I think the perp was an Arab", and things to that effect. The police told Rabbi Poupko (not one of my heroes) that it didn't appear to be a hate crime, but that it was criminal in nature. I don't know what they based their conclusion on. I just want to repeat that speculation is always unhealthy.
