Thou shall not steal... unless you're Orthodox?

There is an entire Orthodox thought process allowing theft from non-Jews. Don't ask me where they get it, but I've heard it various times... and it makes me sick every time I do.

If we are supposed to be "the light unto the nations," how do they justify stealing from anyone. Shame on them.

Jonathan,

But does any serious non hasidic orthodox group support stealing from non Jews? All agree we must follow the law of the state, absent exceptions that don't apply in the USA.

This kind of illegal conduct makes me sick too. It's a real chillul Hashem.

I think I've figured out that no one gets away with anything. Which is why I dig religion.

Yaakov:

Yes, I've heard plenty of non-chasidic, yet orthodox Jews say that it's OK to steal from non-Jews. The laws of the state shouldn't have to supercede the Torah in this case. Stealing from anybody is just wrong. Don't we have rules about not coveting our neighbor's property? The Torah never limits it to Jews. A neighbor is just a neighbor, Jewish or not. And they're all wrong if they think stealing from non-Jews is OK at any level. Shame on them, again.

Do you really need to try to persuade people that stealing from non-Jews is just as wrong as stealing from Jews? Are there really a significant number of people who think otherwise? I have many Jewish friends. I don't think a single one of them needs to be told this.

Some groups EXPLICITLY say it's OK.

>>>>

"There are a million ways that religious institutions defraud the government," said one Brooklyn accountant who asked that his name be withheld. However, it's not just the Jews, he claimed, "churches do the same thing." Churches and synagogues are exempt from filing tax returns -- although many do -- and the government usually does not audit unless it has probable cause. As a result, this can make fraud easier.

In the last decade or so, a number of Chasidic institutions on the East Coast have been charged with such crimes, including the 1997 case against the Skverer Hasidim in Rockland County, N.Y., where four men were found guilty of defrauding the government of millions of dollars in federal Pell Grants. But in the Orthodox community, many defended them, despite the crime, because the money was used to support needy yeshiva students.

"Nobody here owns a yacht," a resident reportedly said, and the feeling then -- as with many such institutional fraud cases -- that if the money is used to help the community and not line someone's pockets, it's not so bad.

That, in fact, is a pervasive attitude these days in Brooklyn, where the Spinka case raised fewer eyebrows than in Los Angeles, because the attitude is everyone does something. This kind of discussion has been a hot topic on many Internet blogs that discuss the ultra-Orthodox community.

"The government are thieves, what gives them the right to take 40 percent to 50 percent of someone's income? Anyone who can save yiddishe gelt from going down that toilet is doing a mitzvah," one contributor wrote on the Vosizneias (Yiddish for "What Is News?") blog.

The blog comments, though, seem to be about evenly divided between two camps: On one hand are those castigating the government or the bloggers posting the news for spreading gossip; on the other are those demanding that the community finally put a stop to criminal behavior.

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From http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=18767