WTP: “Mw13, I do not know if your question was asked specifically to me, or thrown out to everyone. I actually do not want to explain why this is a distortion of yiddishkeit- I really don’t want to go anywhere where I might end up disparaging others. If you want to be exact, I was not expressing my own opinion on the practice, just trying to help Yekke2 analyze what he was feeling, which obviously does not apply to you since you do not have the same sentiments when encountering them that Yekke2 was describing. I hope that if anyone else decides to explain it, that the discussion will stick to the halachic aspects and that it won’t turn into a let’s-bash-a-whole-bunch-of-other-Jews-fest, that would take this thread over the slippery slope. I trust our wonderful mods are keeping a close eye here that this does not happen.”
Shkoyach WTP for pointing that out. I’ve been nervous about that as well.