Nadav Har'El
Sun, 20 Aug 2000 08:52:41 -0700
On Sun, Aug 20, 2000, joshua kamenetz wrote about "Re: Organizing a Linux Dinner": > > > Why Kosher? How many people will not come if it's not Kosher? > It should be Kosher because several people,including me,are religious > and are limited to Kosher restaurants. Israel is a democracy and > freedom of faith is instituted in this democratic state. A religious > Jew _can't_ eat in a non-Kosher place. A non-religious Jew can > eat in Kosher restaurant. If the dinner wasn't Kosher, then a fraction > of Linux people would be blacked balled from this event which > I understand is an official IGLU event. I don't think high words like "democracy" and "freedom of faith" are relevant in this case. You're free to come to a non-kosher dinner, and watch other people eat, or bring your own sandwiches (and plate) from home. Obviously, it wouldn't be *nice* of us to let you do that, which is why we're not going to do it (i.e., the dinner will probably be kosher after all, whether MosheZ likes it or not). We're going to have a Kosher dinner because we care about the religious people in our group and respect them - not because we care about their religion (or the religion varient they choose to practice). But don't act like it's some sort of democratic or freedom-of-faith issue that we have to have Kosher food: try going to any conference in the U.S. (for example). You'll be given food, and they may even try to make it pseudo-kosher (e.g., serve beef, not pork, don't put cream on the beef, make vegetables and other stuff that don't have such strict kashrut code, etc.), but you won't get a glat-kosher meal. They will outright laugh if you request to eat only in a place which is closed on Saturday. But they will give you the option to eat somewhere else, bring your own food, or eat nothing at all. Some orthodox Jews do not drink wine if it was served by a gentile (goy). But it doesn't mean they have the right to force the restaurant to employ a Jewish wine-server. At the most, they can decide not to drink wine if served by a gentile. Freedom of faith is the freedom to practice your own faith without being disturbed or persecuted. It is not the freedom to force your own faith on others, or the freedom to say that "my faith requires me to make others behave like me". -- Nadav Har'El | Sunday, Aug 20 2000, 20 Av 5760 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |A professor is one who talks in someone http://nadav.harel.org.il |else's sleep. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]