Racial and Ethnic Groups

Religious and Ethnic Groups Paper

Deandria Sugars

ETH125

Due: September 29, 2013

Instructor: Steve Sinclair

What is Orthodox Judaism? Well according to (The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2013) Orthodox Judaism is different movements adhering to common principles. Orthodox movements are all similar to each other when it comes to observance and beliefs, but they do differ in the detailing, they also differ in their attitudes toward modern culture and the state of Israel. However, the one thing that all of the Orthodox movements have in common is that they are all dedicated to the Torah (first 5 books of the Bible) not only written but oral as well.

Just like any other religious group, Orthodox Jews have had their share of discrimination, including recently. In Berlin a rabbi is “furious” that the German government is funding a Liberal Jewish institute, but not it’s Orthodox equivalent. To me this is completely wrong, why would you fund for one specific institute but not fund another institute that is the exact equal of the other? The reason behind the decision to not fund the Rabbis’ seminary is because of a limited budget, because of the contributions they made to the Liberal institute and a Jewish Studies faculty at a local University. In the article (Avrahami, 2010) the Rabbi says that the “German government is prepared to finance Jewish educational institutions as long as the Jews are Liberal, look like them, define themselves as Germans first and Jews second.” I can agree with this, only for the simple fact of the Holocaust, I mean look at how the Germans treated the Jewish community and everyone who was different from them. Granted they don’t treat them the same now, because they can go to prison for it, so they what they can to discriminate against them. To me this is the perfect way for the Germans to do that, because say that the Rabbi’s opinion and thinking is correct, the Germans can’t get in trouble with the law if they say that the...