The SY’s and the Ostjuden
Comparing Two Very Different Jewish Groups

By Dr. Kevin MacDonald

Zev Chafets’s description of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn fits almost perfectly with the theory and data in A People That Shall Dwell Alone. The SY’s (pronounced ess-why), as they call themselves, are a hermetically sealed community that is deeply concerned with preserving its ethnic purity. They immigrated from Syria early in the 20th century and found themselves in a society that tended to break down the walls of separation.

Socializing with outgroup members or marrying them was not really an option in the Middle East where the norm is to form self-segregating groups that marry only among themselves. Disturbed at an increasing tendency to socialize with other Jews and even non-Jews, in 1935 the rabbis created “an iron wall of self-separation around the community.” At the heart of the wall was an edict against intermarriage: “No male or female member of our community has the right to intermarry with non-Jews; this law covers conversion, which we consider to be fictitious and valueless.”

This effectively cut out the conversion loophole. It reminds us that even though conversion was always a theoretical option in Judaism, it was not really a practical possibility in the Middle Eastern societies where Judaism originated. Social segregation into endogamous groups has always been the norm in the Middle East. As noted in a previous blog, conversion for the Orthodox who control Israeli practices is a grueling process.

The SY’s are quite candid on the function of the edict. Jakie Kassin, a community leader, summarized it as follows: “Never accept a convert or a child born of a convert. … Push them away with strong hands from our community. Why? Because we don’t want gentile characteristics.” (more…)

A Lively Day at the “Gates of Hell”
Vigil at John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church, October 28th, 2007

By Charles E. Carlson

The Project Strait Gate early team of six men and women lined up on an elevated boulevard dividing traffic on Stone Oak Parkway San Antonio, TX, in front of Cornerstone Church at 8:00 AM Sunday, thirty minutes before the start of services. The parking lot was already filling with the thousands that would come. In 15 minutes the street was busy both ways and a uniformed off-duty policeman was directing traffic past us into the church.

Four hours later nine of us departed for our own lunch and devotional. We left with the inescapable feeling that those who own this giant propaganda and entertainment business called Cornerstone Church, with its huge broadcasting network, would stop at very little to prevent the slightest glimmer of what we had to say from filtering through to its patrons. And we all felt that many inside would indelibly remember our message.

We experienced this Hagee attitude of turf protection at Night To Honor Israel in Washington DC in July. One paid attendee contacted me after the event to tell of a Hagee official who tried persistently, but unsuccessfully, to extract a certain Pharisee Watch bulletin she received from one of our volunteers outside the hotel. She was amazed to witness others being pressured to surrender our literature to agents, presumably to be destroyed. The lady did not give in, correctly wondering what this professing Christian organization had to hide?

The Strait Gate team erected 16 square-foot, professionally made signs on the median. A 32 square-foot sign was erected next to the sidewalk closest to the church entrance reading APOSTATE CHURCH, Christ Followers Must Not Kill. (more…)