Federal authorities have arrested seven men in Ohio on federal hate crime charges in hair-cutting attacks against the Amish.
Authorities arrested the men Wednesday morning at their compound in eastern Ohio. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Cleveland says the men are expected to be arraigned later Wednesday.
Authorities say members of a breakaway Amish group forcefully cut the beards and hair of several Amish men and women in recent months. Among those arrested Friday are the breakaway group’s leader and three of his sons.
Cutting the hair is a highly offensive act to the Amish, who believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards and stop shaving once they marry.
(Source: ABC News)
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7 Responses
“Cutting the hair is a highly offensive act to the Amish, who believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards and stop shaving once they marry.”
How then do they have a clean look under their noses?
I guess the sikrikim won’t be coming to the US anytime soon!
12786 I guess they learn “lo sakifu pas rasheichem” or “lo sashchis pas zaken” excludes the mustache.
Guess they haven’t heard of Torah sh’bal peh…
12786——-under the nose is a moustache, not a beard
12786: I would say the article should rephrase line. They shave their mustaches because they are (or their founders were) very anti-German/modern. Mustaches were considered a new-fangled concept so they shave them off and just leave a beard.
Another distinction to make here – believe it or not their religion is more “dictatorial” than Judaism and it is indeed looked upon as a breach of religion to shave the beard. A clean-shaven frum Jew is not a contradiction, a clean-shaven devout married Amish man is.
More like a family feud than a hate crime.
The perpetrators can’t be Amish. One of the most important doctrines that distinguish Mennonites (including Amish) from most other Xians is their pacifism. They believe that it’s wrong to use violence even in self defense. You can kill them and they won’t lift a hand to defend themselves. So if they were Amish then no matter what they thought the other people did wrong they would never physically attack them. They would just put them in cherem and never have anything to do with them again. That’s the Amish way. If they’re resorting to physical attacks then they’re not Amish no matter how they dress; it’s like “chassidim” eating pork.