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Books being shipped to people w/ Jewish last names!


ilovetchotchkes

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So my sister in law posts a picture on my FB of a book she got in the mail.

"They Thought for themselves, 10 extraordinary Jews" or something like that by SId Roth.

She assumed we sent it as a joke. No way dude! It turns out, its a book written about Jews who converted to Christianity.

newageofmarketingandpr.com/2010/04/mass-mailing-gone-wrong-sid-roths.html

What is hilarious about the situation, is we (as in me, and my inlaws) all have a very stereotypical "Jewish" last name even though there are no Jews in the family except for us (hubs and I converted). SIL? is lapsed Catholic and just run of the mill non practicing Christian (think, like Unitarian but believes in Jesus- she jokes that they attend "Our Mother of The Holy Mattress" on Sundays).

It seems obviously that these idiots are targeting Jews for their "evangelizing" efforts....

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I'm going to start shipping out "God Is Not Great" to obnoxious fundies.

I'm thinking I'll ship back a copy of "The G-D Delusion" by Dawkins.... Just to make a point.

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Believe it or not, this happens to me also (I took my husband's name at marriage and it sounds Jewish). Some of the mail is legit Jewish junk mail which is actually somewhat interesting (mainly ads for cheap seforim) but some of it is conversion-aimed (meaning, trying to convert my supposedly Jewish family over to Christianity of some sort).

Makes for good collage fodder anyway.

Aside from that though my husband wears a beard, fairly full one too. When we went to a friend's son's bar mitzvah, he wore a suit and then put on one of the obligatory satin kippas they have for visitors, and well... he fit in a heck of a lot more than I do :)

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Believe it or not, this happens to me also (I took my husband's name at marriage and it sounds Jewish). Some of the mail is legit Jewish junk mail which is actually somewhat interesting (mainly ads for cheap seforim) but some of it is conversion-aimed (meaning, trying to convert my supposedly Jewish family over to Christianity of some sort).

Makes for good collage fodder anyway.

Aside from that though my husband wears a beard, fairly full one too. When we went to a friend's son's bar mitzvah, he wore a suit and then put on one of the obligatory satin kippas they have for visitors, and well... he fit in a heck of a lot more than I do :)

My MIL and FIL used to get stuff from Chabad. Frequently.... LOL They're mainstream run of the mill Lutherans, and they were GOING to name my husband "David" but it sounded "Too Jewish". We had a good laugh about that at my husband's conversion.

Edited for riffles.

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So my sister in law posts a picture on my FB of a book she got in the mail.

"They Thought for themselves, 10 extraordinary Jews" or something like that by SId Roth.

She assumed we sent it as a joke. No way dude! It turns out, its a book written about Jews who converted to Christianity.

newageofmarketingandpr.com/2010/04/mass-mailing-gone-wrong-sid-roths.html

What is hilarious about the situation, is we (as in me, and my inlaws) all have a very stereotypical "Jewish" last name even though there are no Jews in the family except for us (hubs and I converted). SIL? is lapsed Catholic and just run of the mill non practicing Christian (think, like Unitarian but believes in Jesus- she jokes that they attend "Our Mother of The Holy Mattress" on Sundays).

It seems obviously that these idiots are targeting Jews for their "evangelizing" efforts....

My mother and I both got that book (oddly enough, my father didn't.) We just laughed

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I get handed written letters from some woman here in town who is a JW. She has beautiful handwriting but I can't see why she'd spend so much time and effort writing strangers, posting them etc.

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I have a Jewish sounding name, but am not Jewish. Each year I receive a Hanukah card from my federal politician for my riding. My neighbour receives a Christmas card from the same politician.

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I get handed written letters from some woman here in town who is a JW. She has beautiful handwriting but I can't see why she'd spend so much time and effort writing strangers, posting them etc.

...and I also get these! I feel bad for the people spending ages copying out letters to me (but surely they're just doing copywork, it reminds me of how I had to copy out the stories in my readers in school) but I'm not about to engage with any JWs again.

When I first started college and was completely out of my element with NO friends, someone was nice to me and asked me to go bowling. I happily agreed to it.

Only after I got there did I find out it was a hard core JW recruiting group. After bowling we had to sit and listen to some sermon about how we're all not worthy and only 140,000 (I think?) people were going to heaven. This just made me wonder why on earth, if THEY were truly believers in this (I certainly wasn't!) they would want new members.

But anyway, it took me forever to get them off my trail. I was raised to give subtle clues, if I don't call you back or am just really "obviously" non-committal that means I'm not interested, etc, but these were (1) American college students (just more forthright generally) AND more importantly (2) missionaries! so that was NOT gonna do it. I really had to be assertive and even THEN it took a while. Never. Again.

...I don't open the door if I can see it's Mormons, either...

( :animals-chicken: :animals-chicken: :animals-chicken: :animals-chicken: :animals-chicken: :animals-chicken: )

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This book came to my house!!!! It was addressed to the previous tenant, who happens to be a friend of mine. It is rather odd though, because her name is pretty anglo-saxon. She opened it at my house and we were both very confused as to why this was sent with her name on it. Especially since I told her to come pick up the package she ordered.

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Took my friend nearly 4 years to escape her severely strict Watch Tower JW husband and church. Her DD got to have 3 years of birthday parties several months from her birthday a week later. I cannot stand the JW around here. Even more so when they send this 9 year old girl to my door and I feel bad for her so I can't just tell her off. I worry the scary man with the HUGE bible at the end of my yard will be angry with her so I take the book and throw it out.

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I laugh at this because I come from a very Jewish family, and yet well all have what sounds like a nice Italian catholic name. On one hand, I avoid this type of shit. On the other hand, you wouldn't believe what I've heard people say because they didn't realize.

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I wonder if they really expect people to convert based on an unsolicited book they received in the mail based on their last names.

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I guess I should be glad that my last name, while very Jewish, is so obscure that no one other than a Hebrew speaker would know that it is Jewish.

Sending junk to people you believe to be Jewish (or Catholic, or anything else) based on their names is a colossal waste of time and materials, not just because you're not going to convert people that way, but because you can never be sure about people's religion based on names. When I was in high school, I was convinced that a boy in my grade was Jewish based on his name. Nope, he was Mormon.

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Wow, I haven't gotten anything like that! Most people don't figure out that I'm Jewish unless I say so or drop a really obvious hint. My first name sounds Irish, my middle name sounds French, and my last name is watered-down Russian (so watered-down, in fact, that when I put a page with my name in it into Google Translate, nearly every word on the page translates, except my last name. It's true that you can't go back . . . ).

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The closest we've come to something like that is getting postcards from Comcast advertising their Japanese language channels. It was in Japanese. While hubby and I do speak a little Japanese, we can't read it. Only got sent to us because we have a Japanese last name I suspect.

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I get mailings and newsletters from Jews for Jesus in my mailbox all the time. I am not sure why and I wish they would stop. It's a waste of trees.

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Believe it or not, this happens to me also (I took my husband's name at marriage and it sounds Jewish).

I took my husband's name when we married; he's Hispanic and I'm non-Hispanic. Shortly after updating my name at my university, I received an invitation to join the Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists. When the large clinic that houses my doctors' offices recently updated their computer systems, they changed my ethnicity to Hispanic. It's interesting to see what assumptions people make.

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I get handed written letters from some woman here in town who is a JW. She has beautiful handwriting but I can't see why she'd spend so much time and effort writing strangers, posting them etc.

I got one of those letters. I wrote back with quotes from Martin Luther, Protestant rhetoric and an invitation to worship at our parish.

Never got another letter.

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