[Phys-L] Re: Another attack on Evolution

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

Tim, your quote is unfortunately taken out of context.  The context was
stated by the author as follows (from what appears to be a Naval Academy
Thesis):

"This study specifically studies the experience of Judaism at the Naval
Academy,
not the experience of individual Jews, hence the focus on the Judaic vice
the Jewish
experience. While the experiences of individual Jewish midshipmen make up
an
important part of the Judaic experience, the focus of this project was on
how Jewish
midshipmen were able to worship, how they viewed their worship, how they
were treated
in general by their peers, superiors, and the Naval Academy society; and
how their
religious experience at the Naval Academy affected their future careers."
______________________________________________________________________
Here's another excerpt, this time from:
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1983
/jul-aug/schratz.html

> From his entry into the U.S. Naval Academy in June 1918, Rickover was in
conflict with the aristocratic WASP aura of Annapolis. (His family, living
in a poor American Jewish neighborhood in Chicago, had come to America
from Maków, Poland. Young Rickover, at age six, traveling steerage, lived
off a barrel of salted herring except when passengers threw oranges to him
and other children looking up from the bowels of the ship.) Unfriendly and
friendless, he soon learned to hate the Naval Academy and the Navy.
Authors Norman Polmar and Thomas Allen raise the specter of anti-Semitism.
An extremely unpopular midshipman, a 1922 class-mate of Rickover, also
Jewish, found his picture in the yearbook at graduation inside the back
cover, on a perforated page. The authors do not raise the point, but the
same thing was to happen a decade later, in 1932, involving a similarly
unpopular midshipman. A point of clarification is important, however.

Class standing is extremely important at the Naval Academy. It determines
relative seniority in the Navy at graduation and the order in which one
"makes his number" for future promotions as vacancies occur; both pay and
seniority are involved. Class standings are also important to selection
boards for war colleges and other competitive assignments throughout a
career. If a midshipman reaches the top of his class through sheer
brilliance—or perhaps favored by several years of university experience
before entering—he is not ordinarily resented, but the grind who
sacrifices athletics, girls, and other normal leisure pursuits to devote
all his energy to academics is resented as a cutthroat who gains numbers
in class standing—and future seniority in the Navy—by unfair
competition, hence by cutting the throats of his classmates. Both
"perforated page" incidents related to cutthroats; both were number 1 or 2
men in their class; both were selfish, abrasive personalities; and both
happened to be Jewish.*

    *In the 1932 incident, a younger brother entered the Academy as a
plebe when his bother was a senior. An athlete and popular student, he
experienced no hostility, confessing to the writer that even the family
could not get along with the older brother.

Rickover stood far from the top of his class, but he was resented as a
loner, a cutthroat with an abrasive personality, and he happened to be
Jewish. Midshipmen represent a cross section of the nation; any
anti-Semitism at the Academy reflects the nation at large. After all,
three of the seven Jews in Rickover’s class rose to flag rank, a
percentage many, many times higher than normal. Nor was Hyman Rickover a
practicing Jew; he married his first wife in an Episcopalian ceremony and
was a devout follower of that faith; after her death he married his second
wife in a Catholic ceremony. The authors conclude that Rickover "did not
suffer" because he was Jewish and that neither the Academy nor the Navy
was anti-Semitic—but the number of pages devoted to the topic
overbalances the argument to the contrary.
_______________________________________________________________________
        In my 30 years of active and reserve service I was never, to my
knowledge, subjected to discrimination.  On the other hand, I was
frequently invited to "share" anti-semitic and anti-black sentiments with
fellow officers.
                                        Regards,
                                                Jack


On Thu, 19 Jan 2006, Folkerts, Timothy J wrote:

> > Midshipmen and Cadets who published yearbooks with perforated pages -
> > namely the pages with pictures of black and/or Jewish graduates....
>
> This sounded surprising to me, so I did a quick web search and found the
> following.
>
> http://www.usna.edu/JMC/JudaicExperienceThesis.pdf
> http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1983/jul-aug/s
> chratz.html
>
> Apparently there were two incidents at the Naval Academy (none that I
> found at West Point).  Both sources refute the two incidents as being
> motivated by anti-Semitism.
>
>
> For instance...
> "In the 1932 incident, a younger brother entered the Academy as a plebe
> when his bother was a senior. An athlete and popular student, he
> experienced no hostility, confessing to the writer that even the family
> could not get along with the older brother."
>
> and
>
> "The evidence against Olmsted's motives being anti-Semitic is strong.
> After all, he did not place any of the other sixteen Jewish midshipmen,
> including Hyman Rickover, on a perforated page ..."
>
>
> Tim Folkerts

--
"Trust me.  I have a lot of experience at this."
                General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
                just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley
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