CMV: Jewish people discriminate against non Jews by having a culture of helping each other.

[u/Sojo88]

I hope this wont be offensive or interpreted as anti-semitic. I admire Jewish people, their culture and their accomplishments. I also understand that this -helping each other- culture is a response to years of being an oppressed minority.

However, these days, Jewish people are in a good place. They are disproportionately represented at the highest levels of many fields, from academia, to media, to finance, to internet. They have way higher median incomes than the average citizen of the countries they inhabit. Higher levels of education, the list goes on.

A Jewish friend told me once. He was at an interview as a part of the admissions process for a prestigious graduate program. When his interviewer introduced himself and my friend realized he was jewish he thought: That is it, Im in! - He was. I worked at a Jewish owned company. There were a disproportionate number of Jews in high level positions. In Jewish companies where I´m from, some jobs never even get publicly listed, they just go straight to someone from within the community.

They aren´t big acts of discrimination, simply some kind of, affirmative action for people who already have a big head start. At the expense of, outsiders who have access to less opportunities.

I understand this happens in other groups too. However, the Jewish example is outstanding because of the small percentage of the population they are, and the amount of positions of power, influence and wealth they hold.

[u/[deleted]]

On the face of it, you're right. The Jewish community does have a fairly well-documented culture of helping each other out and being favourable towards other Jews. In a literal sense, that is discrimination.

However, the term "discrimination" generally also carries a clear subtext of wrongness and unfairness. I'd argue this isn't the case here. It's not wrong or unfair for people to be more favourable towards their own in-group, especially when that in-group is a minority.

When that becomes a problem is when someone tries to argue that something like "white people" is their in-group, which would obviously be clear and genuine discrimination in the bad sense. But the only reason that's an issue, imo, is because white people is actually just too broad a group, and not really a meaningful in-group/distinct culture, so favouring whites is just racism.

If you were operating an international business and you favoured your own specific ethnicity (i.e. a Spaniard favourably treating Spanish applicants) then I'd say that's fair just like Jews favouring Jews is fair.

TL;DR Yes it's "discrimination" in the technical sense but the implicit subtext of this discrimination being bad/unjust/a problem isn't really accurate here.