Judah Ben Schroeder NOT finishing law school (page 4)

peacefulpete

edited. So Al dies about 94 and his son is 40 , 5 years later?

Seeker4

Peaceful Pete: Check out Cruzanheart's comment just above yours. Late 40s, it seems.

Cruzanheart: Yes, you make some interesting points. How strange to be entering such a competitive field at an age when most people in that field are thinking about retiring! I wonder if he's doing it for himself or the WTS? Is he still at Bethel? Is he training to be a Bethel lawyer?? I know he married into serious money, so maybe he doesn't have to worry about working for a living and can just pursue his education.

I do have some inside info that, when the Bill Bowen/JW Pedophile/Dateline issue came down at Bethel a few years ago, JBS was in the public relations department at Bethel. I have it, from an excellent source, that a few weeks after the scandal exploded, JBS and one of the WTS's lawyers (can't think of the name right now) were removed from the department over the course of a weekend, and replaced by JR "Get Down" Brown, who became the WTS spokesman on this issue. Evidently, JBS and his co-worker were not anywhere near hardline enough for the WTS administration's taste in dealing with this issue.

Maybe JBS is a man with a real conscience. Hard to say. I met his dad and mom, but never the son. There were always these stories about his learning koine Greek as a teenager, this young, genius child, but you know about JW urban myths!

S4

uninformed

Cruzenheart,

Good Post on the educational angle.

Judah Ben was born in 1958. That makes this year is 48th year.

It does seem strange that an organization that has all but condemned higher education is probably involved deeply in the education of JB.

I agree totally with Nina. He is being groomed to become the new Jesus Christ of the Watchtower. He will personally lead the org into the ~~United Nations~~ New World Order.

U

Seeker4

Uninformed:

From what I understand, the yacht on your avatar is about the size of the one JBS had his wedding reception on as it cruised NY harbor!

But good to know that he's not a kid anymore!

S4

peacefulpete

He was about 50 then when he had a son

Inquisitor

looking_glass : I cannot imagine higher ed is really that frowned upon because she is doing it and so are some of her other friends and from what I understand it is not a big deal.

Did you mean it is not a big deal to your Mum? To you? Or to JW's all over the world?

Your Mum is fortunate that she is with a congregation which could care less what people do with higher education. However, that is most certainly the exception, not the rule. After all, those who stick to what the society says can easily tell that the tone of recent articles on this issue has been anything but positive. Can you deny that there are Witnesses who will pick up on this "silent directive" and take issue with any aspirations for higher education?

Besides, on principle alone, it should be a big deal. Consider this analogy: the WTS policy on 2 witnesses to prove sexual abuse. If your Mum's congregation is staunchly litigatory towards those knowingly guilty of sexual assault, would you then ask why the WTS "2-witness-rule" is such a big deal? Would you question people's interests in the issue simply because you don't have a problem?

The WTS should not be allowed to get away with giving the public and the R&F the impression that their's is a "balanced view of education" when it isn't. The WTS should be held responsible for the way it has played on their youth's loyalty to Jehovah, causing them to forsake their secular careers. This should be a big deal to everyone, including those not directly affected by it.

INQ

silentWatcher

this young, genius child

----------------------------------

not if he only went to Columbia. :-) Well, at least it wasn't Brown or Dartmouth. :-) sorry, Ivy League humor...

-silent (of the graduated from Cornell with Latin honors class)

Pistoff

My mother is in her later years (I am sure she would love to hear me say that) and she is in school now getting her graduate degree. Granted she is not, nor has she ever been, the typical JW, but she is getting more like a follower with every passing year. I cannot imagine higher ed is really that frowned upon because she is doing it and so are some of her other friends and from what I understand it is not a big deal.

If the witnesses were even neutral about education, why did it take your mother this long to go?

It is not that they forbid it; they don't. They demonize it, they make it seem greedy and pointless. What is written is one thing, what is practiced is another. Blondie said this from one perspective, I see it from another.

They many not forbid it, but the FEELING about someone who goes is that they are spiritually lacking since they are not planning on pioneering. Never mind that less than 5 bloody percent of witnesses actually pioneer (instead they realize they hate it, and end up in a job they learn to hate).

The other factor is what the elders hear in the ever changing visits from the CO; you can bet they are murdering 4 year college plans at the EMS meetings. That leads any role model a child may have to DISCOURAGE college; that is usually all it takes.

I ENCOURAGED my children to do 4 year college, even working with them on post secondary options to use the high school funds to go.

Result? Nothing. The culture they grew up in did not value education, no matter what the WT pukes out about it. It is viewed as harmful, unnecessary, irrelevant.

With most witnesses it is unnecessary to forbid college; it has been slighted and mocked for so much of their life they just don't consider it seriously.

Gamaliel

If this comes across as "name-dropping", I apologize. I consider it all loss at this point. But at the time I was "star-struck" with the Schroeders at Bethel. (BTW, Judah Ben is one year younger than me.

I hung out with the Schroeders literally from my first day at Bethel. Bert had the best after-Gilead graduation parties that included a lot of expensive food and musical talent. I went to the same congregation, which means the Brooklyn Heights congregation downstairs from my room. I also lived for a few years in the Towers Hotel in the NW corner room of the same size as the Schroeders on the SW corner. The only difference was that his had only two people and the room looked palatial somehow. Mine had 4 people and most of my eclectic furniture came off the local Brooklyn Heights streets. (Some of it fixed up through the Bethel Carpentry Shop.)

Judah Ben was a nice enough young guy. Neither of us knew any better than to try to impress our elders. There was much more pressure on him, of course. He couldn't join a great clique we had formed that centered around a few musical Bethelites and a couple of local sisters in the congregation, even though he wanted to. He asked me about it but it was too awkward for him to directly ask for an invite, and he seemed to think that his presence would put a damper on the fun for the rest of us. (It might have). Anyway, I thought he was intelligent and thoughtful to recognize this. He was 18 at the time, and was getting plenty of invites to gatherings, but not the same parties where he could really enjoy himself through singing or dance.

My brother and I were invited to join the three of them for part of our European trip in 1979. Dean Songer had set me up for a few days of Bethel work in the Athens Branch which extended my vacation that year to 5 weeks in Europe. We met up with them in Barcelona and at the Costa Brava/Costa del Sol. (They were traveling in "luxury", and my brother and I were backpacking with a EurailPass. I think we were having much more fun than Judah Ben, and he as good as said so. I know he would have loved to join up with us rather than be attached to his parents hips. (We were meeting up with different Bethelites for parts of our trip, and were getting plenty of invites to go here and there even though our backup plan was always the local branch office in England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, etc.

As far as being a "koine Greek genius", I think not. Not at least while I was at Bethel. Bert made a big deal about a couple people that were studying Greek, embarrassing at least one of those people publicly. He encouraged me to study and gave me full access to his office even when he wasn't there, because he wanted to loan me his books and commentaries without letting me take them out of his office. Bert had many of his own marks in his NT Greek books that showed he himself had taken the study seriously many years earlier. He flattered me by giving me some assignments to do research on NT Greek to try to find support (he called it "more support") for pet JW phrases like "house-to-house" and a few other items of dubious importance to me now. (My NT Greek is still very amateur.) I had an impression, though I don't know for sure, that Judah Ben was not involved in any NT Greek studies up until I was 22 and he was 21. If he began studying it after that point, it's quite possible he would have done well. He had plenty of resources.

That's about all I can say.

Gamaliel

cruzanheart

Well, I think it's very interesting, Gamaliel! And not name-dropping at all -- that's just who you knew back then.

Judah Ben Schroeder NOT finishing law school

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