Gumby
Veteran
I was thinking the same thing... but maybe it is the egg that is the problem? But an egg doesn't become a cow, or ham.
You are very lucky indeed if your mayo is made with olive oil. Home-made mayo is something many of us rarely experience. Over here most of the pre-prepared mayo is made with a tasteless, unspecified type of vegi oil... or so they say. Canola is most frequent; corn sometimes; Often I think it might even be some sort of highly-refined, reprocessed motor oil though. There are premium prepared mayos made with olive oil... but the price is too high for every day consumption.
Solinar
Analog Preferred
It's nice to read that someone will be shooting 4x5 today. I just had a gander at this thread on another forum: http://photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00V40p
As for the NY Times article on B&H, I'm not Jewish and I don't have any Jewish friends, but the article seems to be a bit of hack job and badly written, too.
I do know this, B&H has one of the most comprehensive online catalogs and this controversy will be settled by the lawyers, not me.
As for the NY Times article on B&H, I'm not Jewish and I don't have any Jewish friends, but the article seems to be a bit of hack job and badly written, too.
I do know this, B&H has one of the most comprehensive online catalogs and this controversy will be settled by the lawyers, not me.
Gumby
Veteran
Or in this case... gender affiliation. The religious affiliation talk is a tangental discussion, I think.
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gb hill
Veteran
Did I say anything about YOU? I said "somebody from NC... are you the only one there? I've called several people from NC 'Goobers'.
BTW, most people have the good sense to not repeat something said in the past that they know people take sensitively.
Yes, it is difficult to tell when some people are joink when what they say is written. Speaking for myself... I understood your point. It was a warning of a specific thing that should not be said because it upsets some people. But had it not been said (again), maybe the thread would have had a different focus.
I'll be shooting 4x5 today, but probably not using a rangefinder. Somewhere in the Talmudic law I'm sure there is a rule forbidding the use of rangefinders on the Sabbath!
I think at the time I was the only one from NC posting & yes you have called me that before so I assumed YOU were talking to me or about me.
So maybe I shouldn't of brought it up but I did &...well you see what happened! Lessons learned!:bang:But hey! I remember the words of a well known Jewish rabbi which once said...'He who is without sin pick up the first stone!' What memphis said was no better or worse than what I said but of course memphis didn't have to state he was only kidding, I knew that! Gumby go out & enjoy the 4x5 today & don't feel any guilt I may load a roll of Ektar 100 in my slr which is down right evil around here!
Solinar
Analog Preferred
I'm a lab manager at a state university. The specific Federal code is an amendment to the the 1964 Civil Rights Act called Title VII.
http://archive.eeoc.gov/types/sex.html
http://archive.eeoc.gov/types/sex.html
Gumby
Veteran
Gumby
Veteran
robklurfield
eclipse
Kosher law says you can't mix meat & dairy. Those who are very fundamental in their beliefs eliminate the possibility of breaking the rules by keeping things separate. During the days before Passover, a holiday on which they eat only unleavened bread, the ultra-observant go through a mad dash to clean ever square inch of their homes to eliminate even the possibility of a stray crumb of leavened bread invading the holiday. If only my desk and photo work area could be so clean.
robklurfield
eclipse
mayo is parve. parve is the nether world between meat and dairy. the rules are funny. tuna fish salad is parve, too. go figure. cheeseburgers, very, very not kosher. a colleague asked me for a detailed, very detailed description of what he was missing. this young guy had recently been divorced from an arranged marriage and I think he was itching to see how life was on the other side. he was always asking questions about sex, the media etc. while he said he wasn't supposed watch the trash the passes for television or read magazines like PEOPLE, he was surprisingly good at quoting from sit coms and celebrity news. I think he wanted to fall off the wagon and was hoping I would help. I can only imagine how hard it must be for a young person in cosmopolitan NYC to avoid the temptation that is all around them to abandon a lifestyle of such utterly devoted dedication.
robklurfield
eclipse
eggs aren't dairy under kosher law. the laws are about milk. the eggs in mayo are okay.
outfitter
Well-known
B&H is owned by Hasidic Orthodox Jews and many of the salesmen are also ultra-orthodox. Ultra-orthodox practice involves maintaining a high level of privacy and modesty between men and women who are not married to each other (eg they wont shake hands or even look in each others eyes). I'm certain the sexual integration of the workplace would be considered by them as contrary to their view of decency.
robklurfield
eclipse
on the topic of the law, the fundamentalists of many faiths run into serious dilemnas when faced with the intersection of religious law (in Judiasm, Islam, Christianity, etc.). which do I follow? some of the orthodox Jews I've known had some funny notions about whether they were committing sins when breaking civil laws. I heard some really ironic and contradictory arguments from my staff about rent control laws in NYC. Breaking these for some of my staff was not remotely a sin. "God didn't pass down rent control edicts to Moses and my rabbi hasn't said I can't cheat on this, so I'm going to take advantage of this." I hope these opinions were remote examples, but there certainly is a challenge living in two cultures at once. Of course, with real estate being what it is in NYC, I'm sure that Jews are no more or less likely to being tempted into to cheating than people of any other faith or no faith at all. A good apartment is like a parking space: you do everything you can to defend it.
jke
Well-known
From above:
Exactly my point. Specific religious affiliation has little to do with this. If the court decides the claimant has no grounds for complaint, then the court will decide in favor of B&H. If the court decides that the complaint is valid, then the court will decide in favor of the claimant.
Rob, your experience mirrors that had by many people in NYC, but you have described it well. Thanks.
Exactly my point. Specific religious affiliation has little to do with this. If the court decides the claimant has no grounds for complaint, then the court will decide in favor of B&H. If the court decides that the complaint is valid, then the court will decide in favor of the claimant.
Rob, your experience mirrors that had by many people in NYC, but you have described it well. Thanks.
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Al Kaplan
Veteran
It's a confusing mess, for sure. Just as there are many "Christmas and Easter" Christians there are a lot of "Hannuka and Passover" Jews. The traditions and festivities are nice, a connection with the past and a time for the family to gather together. According to an article that I read yesterday on Alternet a hefty majority of both camps are closet atheists. As a Congregationalist minister friend of mine put it "There's no way that an intelligent person can get all the way through seminary without becoming at least an agnostic, but don't tell anybody that I said that!"
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Al,
Exactly. The Judaeo-Christian-Islamic-Marxist tradition can be lumped together as People Of The Book. If The Book and reality are in conflict, the real hard-liners prefer The Book every time.
There are good and bad Jews, Christians, Moslems and Marxists. And Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, Humanists. You don't need religion to tell right from wrong (or if you do, there's probably something wrong with your understanding of religion, or of right and wrong). For that matter, when I open a bottle of wine, I normally pour a little on the ground as a libation for Apollo and all the gods. Rituals and historical connections help us to feel centred. But that doesn't necessarily mean they are true, for a given vaue of 'true'.
Tashi delek,
R.
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robklurfield
eclipse
My wife used to work as the administrator at a Presbyterian church. Once, while having a theological/historical discussion with her boss, the minister, on the topic of the story of Easter, the minister ended the conversation by saying with a wry smile, "of course, if you believe any of that."
In Judiasm, as I imagine in most religions, there can be a pull that has nothing to do with belief or non-belief and that relates to the whole thread of one's historical-ethno-social background. It's hard to step on all those generations of ancestors even if you don't buy into their belief systems. While I have no faith and celebrate holidays only as secular festivals (including ones from outside my own upbringing), I'd be lying if I didn't admit to fond memories of family gatherings past that, while ostensibly about a religious celebration, were, for me anyway, really about being among relatives, eating and conversing.
Back to the topic of the law: if it came naturally and easily for us humans to obey laws, there'd be little need for armies of enforcers and lawsuits. It's clearly very easy to cross the line, even for the pious. In the case of B&H, if, in fact, they did discriminate, I would doubt they saw themselves as doing so. I would guess their sense of tradition overcame their willingness to comply with or even understand and accept labor laws. If you grew up being taught that men and women have fundamentally different roles and obligations in the world, Title VII is probably easily ignored until someone complains. For many of B&H's employees from very traditional Orthodox Jewish households, whatever employment practices were being followed probably seemed perfectly normal and right. For people raised outside that tradition, or those from within it who are brave enough to question it, it might be pretty obvious that some practices, while okay to them (shall we say, without offending anyone, "kosher" with a small "k"?), they'd certainly strike a labor/employment lawyer or judge is being rather uncool and illegal.
The courts and the lawyers and the parties will figure this out. B&H makes mountains of money (I was told privately almost five or six years ago that they were doing $1 Billion annually! not sure if this is true), which would certainly put the owners/management in equally good positions to fight vigorously or settle generously. I'd bet they'll do the fighting for a while and then, later, settle. That's just good business. If the people running the place didn't have signficant business acumen, we would never have read about the suit in the Times; they made it into the newspaper because they are big and successful now. Someone earlier in the thread pointed out a Google search stat of some 16,000 employment discrimination suits. We only read about the juiciest ones. This one is juicy because it might, theoretically anyway, pit tradition against the law. Always newsworthy. In the end, no matter what the outcome might be, rest assured that lawyers from both parties will be satisfied with nice fees. Great country, isn't it?
In Judiasm, as I imagine in most religions, there can be a pull that has nothing to do with belief or non-belief and that relates to the whole thread of one's historical-ethno-social background. It's hard to step on all those generations of ancestors even if you don't buy into their belief systems. While I have no faith and celebrate holidays only as secular festivals (including ones from outside my own upbringing), I'd be lying if I didn't admit to fond memories of family gatherings past that, while ostensibly about a religious celebration, were, for me anyway, really about being among relatives, eating and conversing.
Back to the topic of the law: if it came naturally and easily for us humans to obey laws, there'd be little need for armies of enforcers and lawsuits. It's clearly very easy to cross the line, even for the pious. In the case of B&H, if, in fact, they did discriminate, I would doubt they saw themselves as doing so. I would guess their sense of tradition overcame their willingness to comply with or even understand and accept labor laws. If you grew up being taught that men and women have fundamentally different roles and obligations in the world, Title VII is probably easily ignored until someone complains. For many of B&H's employees from very traditional Orthodox Jewish households, whatever employment practices were being followed probably seemed perfectly normal and right. For people raised outside that tradition, or those from within it who are brave enough to question it, it might be pretty obvious that some practices, while okay to them (shall we say, without offending anyone, "kosher" with a small "k"?), they'd certainly strike a labor/employment lawyer or judge is being rather uncool and illegal.
The courts and the lawyers and the parties will figure this out. B&H makes mountains of money (I was told privately almost five or six years ago that they were doing $1 Billion annually! not sure if this is true), which would certainly put the owners/management in equally good positions to fight vigorously or settle generously. I'd bet they'll do the fighting for a while and then, later, settle. That's just good business. If the people running the place didn't have signficant business acumen, we would never have read about the suit in the Times; they made it into the newspaper because they are big and successful now. Someone earlier in the thread pointed out a Google search stat of some 16,000 employment discrimination suits. We only read about the juiciest ones. This one is juicy because it might, theoretically anyway, pit tradition against the law. Always newsworthy. In the end, no matter what the outcome might be, rest assured that lawyers from both parties will be satisfied with nice fees. Great country, isn't it?
back alley
IMAGES
i am moving this is the 'off topic' section, as it has long since past being related to anything photographic...
joe
joe
FS Vontz
Aspirer
I think Adorama is having a field day
wgerrard
Veteran
Other groups follow precepts that inevitably bring them into conflict with civil law. Some, like the Amish and the Mennonites, have chosen to remove themselves from mainstream society to a greater or lesser extent. (The migration of the Pilgrims from England to the Netherlands and then to New England, and the Puritan migration from England ten years later can be seen in the same light.)
B&H employees always have a similar option, that of ending their employment. Personally, I believe civil law in a civil society should take precedence over religious precepts.
However, we seem to be assuming that the alleged gender discrimination was based on the religious sensitivities of B&H staff. We, in fact, do not know that. Assuming that is the case is of a kind with the bias that attributes stereotyped behavior to members of any group. Before they are Orthodox Jews, B&H managers are men. The alleged discrimination could easily be rooted in the same bias that propels most discrimination by men against women.
cooltouch
Established
The people who run B&H, Adorama, and several other New York City-based deep-discount photo dealers are ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are, by definition, deeply religious and apply their religious views to their business practices. It is not unusual for religion and the law to come into conflict, so none of this surprises me.
Frankly, I don't care. I buy from Wal-Mart when I'm looking for a good deal on a product and when they have the best price. I will buy from B&H or Adorama -- or another of the NYC-based photo discounters -- when I'm looking for the best deal on photo equipment.
As long as B&H's hiring and employment practices have no impact on me when I want to order an item, then really I don't care what they do. That's between B&H, their prospective employees, and the law. It had better not affect the way they conduct business with their customers.
Frankly, I don't care. I buy from Wal-Mart when I'm looking for a good deal on a product and when they have the best price. I will buy from B&H or Adorama -- or another of the NYC-based photo discounters -- when I'm looking for the best deal on photo equipment.
As long as B&H's hiring and employment practices have no impact on me when I want to order an item, then really I don't care what they do. That's between B&H, their prospective employees, and the law. It had better not affect the way they conduct business with their customers.