Can I be Jewish for Halloween?

[rosends]

The context of your post was clear. If you wish to amend it or perhaps clarify it then so be it. Lets reitify then.
Is it wrong or offensive for someone to dress in a costume that was designed to look like a commonly held if not false stereotype?

The context of my post WAS clear -- Wiccan might find someone dressing up as a witch to be offensive. Do I think it is wrong to dress up in one of those stereotypes? Yes. Do I know it to be offensive? Not as a member of the potentially offended group but I can certainly understand if someone in that group is offended.

 

[Curious George]

Because those things deserve respect, because it isn't okay to stereotype other cultures for fun, and because it's not okay to turn someone else's culture and religious identity into a stereotyped party gag. It's demeaning. It treats someone else's culture as something that you have a right to use, and worse, to use for cheap laughs. And that is disrespectful.

There is certainly a difference of not showing items respect and not treating them with the same reverence you might.

 

[Aquitaine]

I didn't say I was born religious. I was born Jewish. There was no choice about it.

So you were born into the Jewish faith, and there was no choice about it?

Also, earlier you posted:

I didn't choose my religion

Perhaps I am misinterpreting you here, but to me it sounds like you were saying you were born in to the Jewish faith.

And FTR, were you offended when Eddie Murphy performed in white face?

No.

 

[Flankerl]

Fun fact: Blackface is only racist in the Anglosphere.

 

[Midnight Rain]

That's not the question -- the question to me is what it means to dress as a Jew and I a saddened that people thing that dressing like a Chasid from Lubov is what it means.

Perhaps the context of "Halloween costume" confused it. Do you understand the true spirit of Halloween?

The context of my post WAS clear -- Wiccan might find someone dressing up as a witch to be offensive. Do I think it is wrong to dress up in one of those stereotypes? Yes. Do I know it to be offensive? Not as a member of the potentially offended group but I can certainly understand if someone in that group is offended.

Whatever you say.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

It's worth noting that the OP is producing precisely what it hoped to produce. Feeding it is enabling.

 

[Aquitaine]

It's worth noting that the OP is producing precisely what it hoped to produce. Feeding it is enabling.

Yeah: discussion and debate on a topic deemed potentially controversial.

 

[rosends]

So you were born into the Jewish faith, and there was no choice about it?

Also, earlier you posted:



Perhaps I am misinterpreting you here, but to me it sounds like you were saying you were born in to the Jewish faith.



No.

I was born a Jew. There is no choice. I would refrain from saying "the Jewish faith" because (to my ear) that intimates that the religion is defined by adhering to its beliefs. This, of course, introduces a separate circular argument which i will ignore for this discussion. And as for the Eddie Murphy, if you are white, and you were not offended, then why do you think that someone who is black would be offended if I walked around in blackface? (serious question, probably deserving of a different thread). I asked my wife that question and she had an answer but I'm not convinced by it.

 

[Midnight Rain]

It's worth noting that the OP is producing precisely what it hoped to produce. Feeding it is enabling.

Incite a discussion based on the commonplace practice of dressing up as stereotypes for Halloween and how it may be received by those being portrayed? Thus talking more in depth about what it means to be offended by such things and if such offense should be tolerated within our society? Is it simply good old fashion harmless fun or is it actually hurtful and destructive?

 

[rosends]

Perhaps the context of "Halloween costume" confused it. Do you understand the true spirit of Halloween?

The true spirit of Halloween? You mean the pagan holiday? Or the American fascination with junk food and sexy nurses?

 

[gsa]

Hello. I'm wondering if it would be acceptable to wear a tztizit and yalmulke to some of the parties I'm going to this year for Halloween. I'm mostly asking Jews here, but I don't mind if other people wanna say something.

I think that going as a member of an ethnic group (or ethnoreligious group in this case) is kind of odd. This Gawker article addresses the dos and don'ts of racial, ethnic and national costuming for Halloween, but gives no guidance on Jewish costumes.

These costumes can only work if you are engaged in stereotyping on some level. You really couldn't really dress up as a Jew for Halloween, because what in the hell looks like a Jew? So you use some other indicator, like a kippah.

On the other hand, I suppose that there are rabbi costumes available. While probably more offensive to observant Jews, I would consider it less offensive by secular standards. Equivalent to a priest or nun costume.

 

[Midnight Rain]

The true spirit of Halloween? You mean the pagan holiday? Or the American fascination with junk food and sexy nurses?

You may have picked up on my less than candid tone. I hope so. Also there is no "halloween" pagan holiday. I would also hope that you would not think that I, as a pagan, would not know the origins of Samhain. Though the differences between Halloween and Samhain are so great I no longer view them as even the same thing but two totally different things that happen to fall on the same night. Halloween is a bastardization of a bastardization of a bastardization of the original holiday and really nothing of meaning is left. I practice samhain religiously but if I were invited to halloween costume party then the context of that would be the latter of the two examples you gave. There is no spiritual meaning in "halloween". Not anymore if there ever was.

 

[rosends]

You may have picked up on my less than candid tone. I hope so. Also there is no "halloween" pagan holiday. I would also hope that you would not think that I, as a pagan, would not know the origins of Samhain. Though the differences between Halloween and Samhain are so great I no longer view them as even the same thing but two totally different things that happen to fall on the same night. Halloween is a bastardization of a bastardization of a bastardization of the original holiday and really nothing of meaning is left. I practice samhain religiously but if I were invited to halloween costume party then the context of that would be the latter of the two examples you gave. There is no spiritual meaning in "halloween". Not anymore if there ever was.

sounds like the thing I might write about someone equating a long black coat and a furry hat with "being a Jew."

 

[rosends]

I think that going as a member of an ethnic group (or ethnoreligious group in this case) is kind of odd. This Gawker article addresses the dos and don'ts of racial, ethnic and national costuming for Halloween, but gives no guidance on Jewish costumes.

These costumes can only work if you are engaged in stereotyping on some level. You really couldn't really dress up as a Jew for Halloween, because what in the hell looks like a Jew? So you use some other indicator, like a kippah.

On the other hand, I suppose that there are rabbi costumes available. While probably more offensive to observant Jews, I would consider it less offensive by secular standards. Equivalent to a priest or nun costume.

I still want to know -- what's a rabbi costume?

 

[Aquitaine]

I was born a Jew. There is no choice. I would refrain from saying "the Jewish faith" because (to my ear) that intimates that the religion is defined by adhering to its beliefs. This, of course, introduces a separate circular argument which i will ignore for this discussion.

Fair do's, that indeed is best left for another thread.

And as for the Eddie Murphy, if you are white, and you were not offended, then why do you think that someone who is black would be offended if I walked around in blackface? (serious question, probably deserving of a different thread). I asked my wife that question and she had an answer but I'm not convinced by it.

To my knowledge, Blackface and all of it's racist exxagerations/mockeries actually happened until recently, whereas Whiteface wasn't a "thing".

 

[Midnight Rain]

sounds like the thing I might write about someone equating a long black coat and a furry hat with "being a Jew."

Can you re-word this?

 

[rosends]

Fair do's, that indeed is best left for another thread.



To my knowledge, Blackface and all of it's racist exxagerations/mockeries actually happened until recently, whereas Whiteface wasn't a "thing".

But clearly, it could be a thing. Would it be offensive if Eddie Murphy made good on what he says in the video? (this also ignores the tradition of passing which takes no, or minimal make up)

 

[gsa]

I still want to know -- what's a rabbi costume?

Here is a toddler version. Here is an adult version. Of course, there's nothing necessarily distinctive about it. But if you are going as a rabbi, it seems functionally equivalent, to me, as going as a priest or other religious leader.

 

[rosends]

Can you re-word this?

Sure:
there is no dressing up like “a Jew”. I would also hope that you would not think that I, as a Jew, would not know the origins of Chassidic clothing. Though the differences between a long coat and a furry hat and actual Jewish clothing are so great I no longer view them as even the same thing but two totally different things that happen to be stereotypically associated with the same concept. The coat/hat costume is a bastardization of a bastardization of a bastardization of the original clothing and really nothing of meaning is left. There is no meaning in "dressing like a Jew". Not anymore if there ever was.

 

[rosends]

Here is a toddler version. Here is an adult version. Of course, there's nothing necessarily distinctive about it. But if you are going as a rabbi, it seems functionally equivalent, to me, as going as a priest or other religious leader.

Well, speaking as a rabbi who works with lots of other rabbis, I don't know why they think that that is a particularly rabbinic costume. The fact that they label it as such does nothing but fan the flames of ignorance and stereotypes. And I wouldn't dress as another religious functionary because the fact is, I see dressing up as a form of fantasy -- I dress up as that to which I aspire. If my kid is a princess it is because she fancies herself a princess (or was it a ballerina, or Superman?) Dressing up as something you don't aspire to, or at least hold in high regard seems strange, unless that thing has no value in the real world (a mummy for example, which also is connected to the supposed supernatural angle of the season).