Yes, and John Gotti (bless him) kept Bensonhurst safe (kind of), and ran a great [illegal] 4th of July fireworks show!
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But there the religion is relevant, as the fraud was in the Church. What does Eddie’s religion have to do with what he did?
The writer was portraying the insularity of these particular family criminals in a “tight-knit Syrian Jewish community”, and foreshadowing his flight to Tel Aviv, among other destinations. Basically, that he used this cover to their advantage.
I don’t think the writer was saying they were criminals because they were Jewish.
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Being a member of a tight-knit American community is not dependent on religion. They didn’t say that his religion was behind the criminality, but there is a centuries-old and racist depiction of Jewish merchants which it is feeding, really one of the worst of the classic antisemitic tropes as it is directly connected to many incidents of slaughter of my people in Europe and elsewhere, going back to the Alexandrian Riots if not before.
But it was for Antar, because the Syrian Jewish community is tight-knit as a defense mechanism for their diaspora. He used that to his advantage, which is very unfortunate, and self-serving. The group hid their criminality behind the diaspora.
These are the guys who are the turds in the punch bowl, so to speak.
I’m aware, as I often note here at the BBS that my concentration at university was in Film & Media Studies, with most of my courses in film history, propaganda, and its sociological aspects.
Yes, it is a horrible trope, but I think you are misplacing the blame on the writer instead of Antar.
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No, that’s just not right. He used the fact that it was a family business to keep the activity within the family. The fact that his famil happened to be a particular ethnic group is not relevant to this, and should not be part of the story.
you are misplacing the blame on the writer instead of Antar
Again, no. Antar gets the blame for what he did, the writer gets the blame for introducing irrelevancies that perpetuate stereotypes. It almost sounds like you are blaming Antar for exploiting the fact that he was Jewish, which, if so, just please stop.
He spoke English and French fluently, but it’s unclear if he spoke Hebrew that well. He fled to Tel Aviv without his family that he ditched and bought a house in Yavne, out of all the places he could have gone to hide and not be found by Interpol. Or by his family, who had a definite axe to grind. My best guess is that he probably stuck out like a sore American thumb when he was publicly visible.
It just…defies logic. But then, so does crime.
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Meyer Lansky tries (and fails) to enter the picture.
Jewish criminals who cynically attempt to use Israel’s Law of Return to escape justice in their home countries are widely despised by other Jews.
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I don’t doubt that one bit.
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