Sunday, July 30, 2006

Let the Records Show ....

.... that I am NOT this kind of "Christian":

Snippets from a New York Times article, Families Challenging Religious Influence in Delaware Schools
After her family moved to this small town 30 years ago, Mona Dobrich grew up as the only Jew in school. Mrs. Dobrich, 39, married a local man, bought the house behind her parents’ home and brought up her two children as Jews.

For years, she and her daughter, Samantha, listened to Christian prayers at public school potlucks, award dinners and parent-teacher group meetings, she said. But at Samantha’s high school graduation in June 2004, a minister’s prayer proclaiming Jesus as the only way to the truth nudged Mrs. Dobrich to act.

“It was as if no matter how much hard work, no matter how good a person you are, the only way you’ll ever be anything is through Jesus Christ,” Mrs. Dobrich said.
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After the graduation, Mrs. Dobrich asked the Indian River district school board to consider prayers that were more generic and, she said, less exclusionary. As news of her request spread, many local Christians saw it as an effort to limit their free exercise of religion, residents said.
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"We have a way of doing things here, and it’s not going to change to accommodate a very small minority,’’ said Kenneth R. Stevens, 41, a businessman sitting in the Georgetown Diner. “If they feel singled out, they should find another school or excuse themselves from those functions. It’s our way of life.”
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Mrs. Dobrich, who is Orthodox, said that when she was a girl, Christians here had treated her faith with respectful interest. Now, she said, her son was ridiculed in school for wearing his yarmulke. She described a classmate of his drawing a picture of a pathway to heaven for everyone except “Alex the Jew.”
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Later, another speaker turned to Mrs. Dobrich and said, according to several witnesses, “If you want people to stop calling him ‘Jew boy,’ you tell him to give his heart to Jesus.”

3 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

how sad, and how often does this happen. more and more.

7/31/2006 12:11 PM  
Blogger Ruth said...

I'm sitting here sighing because intolerance is sadly alive and kicking. I've started a blog about Catholics with disabilities and urge prayerful efforts toward social justice on there because, after all, we have to be the change we want to see in the world as a wise man once said. Enjoyed reading yr blog this evening.

7/31/2006 6:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

:-O Day-um!

7/31/2006 8:49 PM  

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