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'Saddened, and embarrassed, as a rabbi in Newton, as a Jew, and as a human being'

Village 14 reports on a sermon by Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz of Temple Emanuel about the infamous Newton forum in which some Jews heckled a black woman describing her son's treatment at a local school and tried to boo the school superintendent off the stage.

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A small group of jerks who are Jewish. The hecklers do not in any way represent the Jewish community of Newton or of the greater Boston area.

The vast majority of us were very upset at this behavior which was nasty and disrespectful. Bigotry and discrimination are unacceptable, no matter which group is being attacked and which group doing the attacking.

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that reasoning to Israel when deciding whther or not to support them.

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This was mentioned in the original post about the forum, but it bears repeating.

I grew up in Newton, I graduated Newton South in the early 90s and I am Catholic. I would say, from Junior high on, the divide was very clear where you had the JAPs (Jewish American Prince(esses)) group and everyone else, and the majority of the school seemed to be Jewish. The majority of open racism, prejudice and bigotry were from those kids specifically, and other Jews to a lesser degree.

People are seriously kidding themselves to think that just went away. You have one group that is made up of mostly wealthy kids, who would openly jeer at blacks in the Metco program who were 'all in gangs or lived in slums', or non Jews who 'drove American cars and lived in two family houses' - I'm sure some of these kids grew up and stayed in Newton, or their parents did, and those may seem the minority, but they are sure vocal.

I know this is all tracing back to the Newton North game where they were accused of killing Jesus but back then, the part of the city was mostly gentile - I think the stats were Newton South was close to 70% Jewish.

Do I hate Jews? Nope. We were kids. Kids do and say stupid things. It isn't the internet, it isn't TV, it is most likely their parents who enable the behavior. The only difference, is that there was no social media for people to get upset about.

The adults at the forum should be ashamed, because they are the problem (and they may be a small group, but they are not the only ones who feel that way) - you want to stop intolerance, start with the parents, punish the parents and not the kids. They enable the behavior.

Newton has a long history of being bigoted - just because they have a black mayor now vs that living corpse Ted Mann doesn't mean it suddenly became progressive.

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John 8 :7

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This might be better-received if you didn't start right off the bat with an ethnic slur like "JAPs"?

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I grew up in Newton (Newton North H.S.) and I can honestly say that I never once heard any racist remarks directed at any black students, Metco or otherwise, or any comments about lower income residents. Believe it or not, there are low-income Jews living in Newton, too.

On the contrary, I remember many, many anti-Semitic slurs and actions. I remember having the crap knocked out of me by a bunch of thugs from Nonantum while being called a "dirty Jew" and a "kike." Nothing was ever done by the school - in fact it was swept under the carpet. Would have been considered a hate crime today.

Newton has a reputation fort being a wealthy, Jewish-majority city. That might be true in some neighborhoods, but there are many more neighborhoods in Newton with little to no Jewish presence. And there are parts of Newton that look like Revere or Quincy - it's not all mega-mansions. But due to a reputation of it being filled with rich Jews, there can be a lot of anti-Jewish sentiment.

I wonder if Sammy has perhaps bought into this false reputation about Newton and if it has colored his views. I'm guessing he left out the part about "some of my best friends are Jewish." Seems like he's harboring some unconscious Jew resentment.

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Homerun.

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