i saw a weird/creepy thing on the F last night--did you?

brooklynpotter · May 2008

ev965, yours is the first rational explanation.

and where is my original post???????

mpmav1 · May 2008

brooklynpotter wrote: ev965, yours is the first rational explanation.

and where is my original post???????

Where is your original post? Did a Mod delete it? If so, why?

brooklynpotter · May 2008

if not, i blame poltergeists

raw · May 2008

Subject: http://www.stophumantraffickingny.org/

brooklynpotter wrote: ev965, yours is the first rational explanation.

and where is my original post???????

In your original post, you suggested that the woman might be getting "trafficked," which is why I advised contacting authorities who can help. If the woman was getting "trafficked," maybe the The New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition could help:
http://www.stophumantraffickingny.org/

Here is your original post:

brooklynpotter
ceramme ceramma danna

Joined: 11 May 2006
Posts: 2020
Location: near the square that's a circle

Post Fri May 16, 08 11:23 am EST Reply with quote
around 11, was coming back from dinner. at some point during the trip two people came on together: an older (late 70s) unshaven orthodox man wearing a hat and carrying a rolly suitcase, and an early 20s blond girl, with a giant red rolly suitcase bound in shrink-wrap. girl looked very nordic, long hair up in a scrunchie, miniscule diamond earrings and nose ring, jeans, pink nylon carry-on looking bag.

at first they were in seat across from the other, so i couldn't tell that they were together. but when a seat opened up next to the man he motioned for her to come sit next to him. then, he kept leaning in to talk with her and it appeared he was explaining something. i could have just been reading into that. she didn't seem to have any emotion whatsoever

when the train went up the viaduct he used his razor phone twice, telling someone he was on his way but late, he might have said he was coming from san francisco. then the train went express and when i got off at 7th ave they stayed on the train.

i really regret not going up to her and pulling her aside and asking if she was okay, but i didn't. (why she wouldn't have been okay, for those who might not know: orthodox men aren't supposed to be talking to women who aren't relatives, esp. women in pants, or traveling with women in pants--she was clearly a foreigner. he shouldn't have been leaning in talking with her, totally inappropriate for him to be that close to her, etc. ) the whole thing was so out of the realm of normalcy. i really hope she wasn't being trafficked. no, i'm not kidding.
_________________
what would you tell me, if i could hear you speaking?---todd

brooklynpotter · May 2008

raw, i'm not going to argue this point with you any longer. i couldn't think of a logical explanation, ev's was the only one.

i know this community far better than most, and if something nefarious were happening the police are the last people who can help you. they have their own internal judge and jury and everyday crimes aren't even reported to the police. they are totally insular. i wish i could explain it to you in a way that you would understand, though i have tried.

misterjenzam · May 2008

I think raw has a learning disability.
:thumright:

raw · May 2008

misterjenzam wrote: I think raw has a learning disability.
:thumright:

I sincerely thought that brooklynpotter was concerned about human trafficing.I was not trying to argue.

redmenace · May 2008

brooklynpotter wrote: raw, i'm not going to argue this point with you any longer. i couldn't think of a logical explanation, ev's was the only one.

i know this community far better than most, and if something nefarious were happening the police are the last people who can help you. they have their own internal judge and jury and everyday crimes aren't even reported to the police. they are totally insular. i wish i could explain it to you in a way that you would understand, though i have tried.

I was raised Conservadox, and I still don't understand. :?

veets · May 2008

I have so stayed out of this one. At this point I think this thread should end because it has wandered off the point and people are in to personal attacks. I have seen that path on other threads and it is just too ugly to read or respond to... the more people try and respond the uglier these kinds of meandering topic get.

So... before anyone does follow my advice and bring an end to this thread by stopping posting any more here.. gotta say what I gotta say.

Since Brooklynpotter has an understanding of the mores of this Hassidic community what she presents and comments on made a lot of sense to me right from the beginning. The one "alternative" interpretation I can buy but frankly most of the comments people presented were complete nonesense.

steve · May 2008

I'm seeing the words Orthodox and Hassidic thrown around a lot here by BP and others, and someone even mentioned Conservadox. These are all different types of Judaism and all are comprised of different communities.

That alone makes a lot of these assumptions about the "Community" difficult to make.

Additionally, there are Nordic Jews, though not many.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1396042

brooklynpotter · May 2008

steve wrote: I'm seeing the words Orthodox and Hassidic thrown around a lot here by BP and others, and someone even mentioned Conservadox. These are all different types of Judaism and all are comprised of different communities.

That alone makes a lot of these assumptions about the "Community" difficult to make.

Additionally, there are Nordic Jews, though not many.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1396042

steve, i was referring specifically to the hasidim and ultra-orthodox, and their communities. i'm sorry if that wasn't clear.

misterjenzam · May 2008

raw wrote: [quote=misterjenzam]I think raw has a learning disability.
:thumright:

I sincerely thought that brooklynpotter was concerned about human trafficing.I was not trying to argue.

Sorry - I attribute such comments to beer.

garfunky · May 2008

If ev's is the only plausible explanation you find fitting,
let me toss out a few more,

maybe shes a DISTANT relative,
maybe a family friend from the old country,
maybe a shes on the subway for the first time
maybe shes wondering why youre staring,

i used to know a rabbi who smoked weed on friday night .
so MAYBE hes simply not the perfect hasid /orthodox that you require him to be.

maybe all sorts of horrible things have happened to her in the time youve spent typing about about it instead of dialing 911 or getting up of your tuchus to ask her are you ok ?

im sure if you saw me with my mother in law youd surely reach a similiar conclusion.

after all why would a non english speaking conservative old lady
be hanging out with a tattood long haired freaky musician type of clearly different racial ethnic and religious backgrounds ?
if i touched her knee to try to get her attention or empahasize a point thru non verbal communication because we cant TALK to one another, should i fear others on the train will call the cops to accuse me of being a sex slaver ?

now ask yourself again why people hate park slope :?

misterjenzam · May 2008

Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me.

Veets asked that we stop posting on this subject.

Move on.

brooklynpotter · May 2008

i didn't attack you, don't attack me.

i'll just say this: i know far more about this community than you do, yet i am being insulted and questioned. if someone started nastily questioning you about the freaky musician stuff you know about, would you find that insulting?

i'm done trying to explain by what has been agreed upon by many other hasidic friends/board members. i'm also done trying to explain why calling 911 would be useless.

i don't hate park slope, but i'm really starting to hate all the crap that goes comes with being a part of this brooklynian community. it's rude and unnecessary and i'm tired of it.

whatchuwant · May 2008

brooklynpotter wrote:

i don't hate park slope, but i'm really starting to hate all the crap that goes comes with being a part of this brooklynian community. it's rude and unnecessary and i'm tired of it.

I hear you there, sister. Snark is kinda funny until it turns on you.

garfunky · May 2008

so then DO SOMETHING.
IMMEDIATELY

not wring your hands over it on the internet for 5 days.

and youre correct that the police certainly wont help anyone who routinely cries wolf. please make sure they have all your info

veets · May 2008

misterjenzam wrote: Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me.

Veets asked that we stop posting on this subject.

Move on.

yeah and now that I see what has been written on this thread Today attacking brooklynpotter,,, it seems like a better idea than it was yesterday.

raw · May 2008

Garfunky wrote:
maybe all sorts of horrible things have happened to her in the time youve spent typing about about it instead of dialing 911 or getting up of your tuchus to ask her are you ok ?

This is what I'm wondering. For the sake of the argument, let's assume that brooklynpotter has good intuition and that the blonde woman was the Jewish man's (NON-Nordic) sex slave (of good German stock). Then why waste all this time typing about it online instead of taking action? If you suspect another human needs your help, it is unethical to simply exploit their situation.

However, brooklynpotter's original post seemed to invite others to share any similar observations they might have witnessed as if brooklynpotter was conducting an online reality check and wanted to bounce ideas off of people in case she ever saw a similar thing.

brooklynpotter · May 2008

thank you, raw, for your brilliant insight into my personality. perhaps, in your spare time, you can study to be a psychoanalyst. shouldn't take too long, since you know so much already.

as for the rest of the posters on this thread, i bid you goodnight and goodbye. this has gone on far enough. i find it ironic that the posters being the most difficult and insulting are men. unless i am incorrect and raw et alia are women. regardless, i'm done here.

redmenace · May 2008

brooklynpotter wrote: thank you, raw, for your brilliant insight into my personality. perhaps, in your spare time, you can study to be a psychoanalyst. shouldn't take too long, since you know so much already.

as for the rest of the posters on this thread, i bid you goodnight and goodbye. this has gone on far enough. i find it ironic that the posters being the most difficult and insulting are men. unless i am incorrect and raw et alia are women. regardless, i'm done here.

I am a woman, raised in an orthodox jewish family, now agnostic. I don't understand this whole thing. Why do you think YOU know more about this than anyone else here? Why do you care that someone might be straying from their faith? Even if it was your relative, it probably would be none of your business.

My husband wears a wedding band. I don't. he is conservative in dress - a suit wearer. I am funky vintage. He is 12 years older than me. If you saw us on the subway, maybe showing some PDA, would you think we were having an affair? Why would you care?

this reeks of "mrs. kravitz" nosy. "Here's the situation, let's all gossip and make up our own explanations". I don't get it. I have lived in PS for 20 years, and am growing weary of the morality police.

garfunky · May 2008

Carmen is female and provided a reasonable explanation quite a few posts ago.

:arrow: Funny how someone inside the clique can make a determination based almost exclusively on ethnic and religious biases .

she IS nordic
he is hasid
they shouldnt be together
hasid generally dont do that
therefore trafficking / slavery

:arrow: Any other poster would get called out for making such statements.
(an offhand comment about a burqa for example)

is it just because its "hasid" instead of another ethnicity/religion that such stereotyping is acceptable ?

what is the overall public opinion on the police using racial profiling ?
what is op using to make a determination ?

if people dont like others pointing out that ops determination is based solely on predetermined stereoptypes , well that just too bad.

booklaw · May 2008

Garfunky, your comment is ludicrous.

It is not a religious "bias" to say that hasidic men don't usually travel with or huddle close to casually dressed nordic-looking women... it is a recognition of fact.

Given strict hasidic customs, to say that they shouldn't be together is neither stereotyping or a value judgment; any more than it would be to say that the earth should not be in orbit around Saturn.

For someone who is familiar with hasidic custom to point out that a given practice is inconsistent with such custom
is perfectly appropriate. The OP did not criticize the custom; nor did she say that it is morally wrong to other than in accordance with custom. She merely said that for a hasid to act in a manner at variance with hasidic custom is so unusual that it raises questions.

garfunky · May 2008

again i point out that i knew a rabbi who smoked weed on fridays.
he is no longer a rabbi.
just because the man is hasidic does not mean he is a perfect jew.

hasidic men don't usually travel with or huddle close to casually dressed nordic-looking women... it is a recognition of fact.

But that doesnt mean a crime IS occuring.

:arrow: i really hope she wasn't being trafficked.

Insert "young black male from the hood" instead of hasid and 90% of this board would be far more directly expressive , justifiably so.

booklaw · May 2008

What... we don't see interracial couples in NYC?

I don't know whether there is anywhere in the US where an interracial couple is still suggestive of "white slave" sex trafficking, but I don't think that Brooklyn is that place.

As to the other point, no, it does not mean a crime is necessarily occurring. It does however cause curiosity and possibly concern.

redmenace · May 2008

booklaw wrote: As to the other point, no, it does not mean a crime is necessarily occurring. It does however cause curiosity and possibly concern.

concern about what, exactly?

booklaw · May 2008

Sex trafficking or prostitution, who knows? It is such an uncommon sight, and so inconsistent with hasidic rules/customs, that something very unusual is happening. That something may be innocent; or it may be very wrong.

garfunky · May 2008

Sex trafficking or prostitution, who knows? It is such an uncommon sight, and so inconsistent with hasidic rules/customs, that something very unusual is happening. That something may be innocent; or it may be very wrong.

At least you are keeping an open mind to the possibility that it MAY be something innocent. OP does not.

In light of no other ACTUAL evidence or any crime actually occuriing ,

can someone explain why it is acceptable to post a description and general location and accuse the man of trafficking, especially considering he isnt even here to defend himself ?

if you or I were to make similiarly speculative statements about one another we would get "edited" and warned about how thats not nice.

For example i could speculate about OP's reasoning.
i only have a very small amount of info but based on the acceptability of accusing someone of a crime why shouldnt I or anyone else be allowed to treat op as she is treating the man ?

Moreover what are people to do with this info ?

Should everyone assume that every time they see a male hasid not being a perfect Jew that trafficking is occurring ?

Its actually just as plausible he was an undercover cop.
or
that OP is the trafficker and this is just a diversionary ruse cuz she knows the heat is on ... get what im sayin ?

garfunky · May 2008

booklaw wrote: What... we don't see interracial couples in NYC?

I don't know whether there is anywhere in the US where an interracial couple is still suggestive of "white slave" sex trafficking, but I don't think that Brooklyn is that place.

BINGO

booklaw · May 2008

Most interracial couples in Brooklyn (or anywhere else, for that matter) do not include persons fitting the hasid/nordic descriptions at issue here. Almost as strange as seeing a white Amish guy (dressed "plain") with a Rasta woman...

i saw a weird/creepy thing on the F last night--did you?

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