Posted on 10/23/2009 1:07:07 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The Anti-Defamation League is up in arms over two South Carolina Republicans’ revival of an old stereotype. Peter Beinart asks: Is calling Jews thrifty really so offensive?
This week, in an act of vicious anti-Semitism, Edwin O. Merwin Jr. and James S. Ulmer, chairmen of the Bamberg County and Orangeburg County, South Carolina, Republican parties, respectively, co-authored an op-ed in which they accused Jews of taking good care of their money. “Jews who are wealthy,” they wrote, “got that way not by watching dollars but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves.” Then they compounded the offense by suggesting that South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint shares those Hebraic virtues. Local Democrats quickly called their statement “disgusting” and “unconscionable,” and demanded that they resign. Now Merwin and Ulmer are apologizing like their political lives depend on it, which, of course, they do.
Suggesting that Jews have prospered by cheating gentiles would indeed be anti-Semitic. But suggesting that Jews have disproportionately prospered because they’re honest and frugal, which is what Merwin and Ulmer suggested, is the exact opposite.
I share the outrage at this hate crime. In fact, in an act of solidarity, I too hereby apologize. For my entire life, at bar mitzvahs, around Shabbat tables, even while I was supposed to be davening in shul, I too have accused Jews of possessing good economic habits and prospering as a result. (Though, in my defense, I have never gone so far as to suggest that those good habits were shared by the GOP.) Speaking to Jewish audiences, I have repeatedly defamed my people by recounting Milton Himmelfarb’s famous line that “Jews earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans.” The fact that my fellow Jews invariably reacted to this comment with laughter rather than calls to the Anti-Defamation League is a sign, I suppose, of how widely this cancer extends. Some listeners, I am duty-bound to report, even reprimanded me for suggesting that Jews only earn as much as Episcopalians when, in fact, they insisted, we surely earn more.
Given how widespread this form of anti-Semitism has become, even within the Jewish community itself, it is worth asking: What, exactly, did Merwin and Ulmer do wrong? They spread ancient and vicious stereotypes about Jews, of course. But where is the ancient and vicious stereotype? If it’s anti-Semitic to say that Jews have disproportionately prospered in the United States, then let’s condemn Nathan Glazer, Himmelfarb, and all the other sociologists who have studied the question. That Jews have disproportionately prospered in the United States happens to be manifestly true, which raises the question of why. Suggesting that they have done so by cheating gentiles—by prioritizing money over integrity, beauty, or patriotism—would indeed be anti-Semitic. That charge has gotten a lot of Jews killed over the millennia. But suggesting that Jews have disproportionately prospered because they’re honest and frugal, which is what Merwin and Ulmer suggested, is the exact opposite. It is, in fact, the most benign explanation for Jewish economic success. Which is why Jews generally favor it themselves.
I know the objection: It’s one thing for Jews to praise Jews, another for those outside the club to talk about this. But why, exactly? The reason it’s OK for Jews to say that Jews are financially savvy, presumably, is because Jews harbor no ill-intent. But there’s no reason to suspect that Merwin and Ulmer harbor any ill-intent either. As far as I know, neither has any history of hostility to Jews. Indeed, they hail from a Republican Party which, although not always kindly disposed to gays, Muslims, illegal immigrants, and atheists, is practically overflowing with philo-Semitism (affection toward Jews). And Merwin and Ulmer’s own statement was self-evidently philo-Semitic. If they weren’t praising Jews for their financial acumen, then why were they comparing Jews to their beloved Republican senator, Jim DeMint? Lurking behind controversies like this is the belief that we should assume ill-intent on the part of people who aren’t members of our club, and thus intimidate them into refraining from any generalizations whatsoever, even when those generalizations are meant as praise. For African-Americans, Native Americans, gays, or even women, perhaps—whose entire history in this country has been marked by structural bigotry—this cynicism, while regrettable, is understandable. To praise African Americans for being good at sports or music is indeed toxic given the harm that such stereotypes have done throughout American history. Thus, perhaps if Merwin and Ulmer were party bureaucrats in Latvia, I would be inclined to support muzzling their generalizations about Jews on the theory that we should always assume the worst. But to apply that logic in the United States is to deny the essence of the American Jewish experience, which is that state-sponsored anti-Semitism has been extremely rare. That history has earned American gentiles the assumption of goodwill. In a country that has treated Jews as well as this one, Jews should take pleasure in giving their fellow citizens the benefit of the doubt.
Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is a professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.
I think many Asians are intelligent, frugal and hard-working, outperforming people of other races in many endeavors. Does this make me anti-Asian? I actually get a chuckle from listening to blacks complain about how Asians can come to the U.S. with literally nothing more than the clothes they are wearing and quickly network and prosper better than blacks who have been in the U.S. their entire lives.
I guess that makes me a bigot. Oh, well.
Never apologize to the permanently outraged.
If you’ve genuinely hurt someone’s feelings, and you’re genuinely sorry, then of course, by all means, take it back and do what you can to make it right.
If all you’ve done is put your foot ever-so-slightly in your mouth, and the only people who are offended are the ones who are always offended, then never ever take it back. Compound it with another joke and another even more outrageous comment. They’ll get tired of being mocked and you’ll enjoy it.
And if the press is beating the drum for your head? The press is always going to beat the drum for your head if you’re a genuine Repub, so get used to it, revel in it, celebrate it. And if you’re going to get burned at the stake, you want to go out big. Nobody respects a mealy mouthed milktoast. Not your friends and certainly not your enemies.
People are touchy. The Civil Rights Movement was supposed to “integrate” society. Instead it has made us all even more touchy.”
What about the Scots and Dutch?
What is the definition of a copper wire?
Two Dutchmen fighting over a penny.
As related to me by a Dutch citizen on vacation here.
Extraordinary how these leftists are suddenly so concerned about the Jews they’ve been betraying for the past several years!
LOL!!! Now that’s a businessman!
I don’t recall any national outrage levelled at the DNC or the MSM when Al Sharpton stood up among the DNC candidates in the 2004 presidential campaign at the debates.
My mom was not Jewish, but our relatives used to say that when it came to the family finances, she COULD “squeeze blood out of a turnip”; their way of saying she was good at “pinching pennies”. It was not an insult. It was a testament to how well she provided for us with so little. That’s nothing to complain about.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Silly "controversy", I saw it it terms of thrifty, not cheap like the Dutch. But they should have known better. Racial/religious commentary like this will be turned against politicians. As to the ADL's rather nebulous contension that they need to understand the background of antisemitism, and how a comment like this will be misused, their rather long apology indicates they do.
Worrying about Politically Correctness is just plain STUPID. It make people into fearful speakers.
There’s nothing wrong about noting some trait of another culture when it’s not said with malice. There’s nothing racist about anything EXCEPT when one person believes that another culture, race, ethnicity, religion is BETTER than another.
So we can safely say Muzlems are racists when it comes to non-Muzlems.
Ah Ha. We have an insight. We have a charge we can get a Muzlem to admit to.
Q: Do you believe what the Koran says about Non-Muzlems?
Q{ Do you believe that the only true religion is Islam?
Q: Do you believe that the practice of Islam is better than the practice of any other religion?
Q: Do you believe that Muzlems are better than any one who practices another religion?
Similar questions until you can get the result which will lead you to state: Then by definition, you, as a Muzlem, are racist.
“Old story. Been addresse, with the conclusion that these to jerks are idiots.”
Several jews are laughing at you, as am I.
And I should care..... WHY?
OMG!!! It’s a SLUR to say someone watched their pennies and took care of themselves???? OMG!! ARe we to say just the opposite??? That they don’t give a damn about themselves or their hard earned money???? STUPID....Jews are so damned senistive even when POSITIVE things are said!!! geesh, Louise.
LOL!
I was teasing. sorry. I know better - that it doesn’t come through the keyboard well.
No Problemo!!!
Needed my 1st cup of coffee. LOL
The ADL’s a joke and always has been. They have hypersensitive feelers out for conservative American politicians, but utterly ignore the likes of Sharpton, Wright, Farrakhan and Ahmadenijad. The latter, of course, is understandable, because he’d probably use anything they said to his advantage. But nobody really takes them seriously, except for those conservative American politicians for whom they have these hypersensitive feelers out.
There is a difference between subtly shaded anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred. I have no use for an organization that only pays attention to the first and has no adequate response for the second.
I can’t add anything to the posts, other than to agree that the ADL is a bunch of whiners, just looking to slam Republicans for something, anything.
I will note that the “greedy” Jew sterotype is an old, hateful, sterotype utilized by the likes of Hitler, and the “frugal” Jew stereotype is a flattering, close relative, that utilizes the same basis for the ideas.
It’s easy to cross between the two.
So, while this is a tempest in a teapot, I would encourage others to stay away from these sterotypes, except about the Dutch. Those damn cheap squareheaded pricks would cheat their mother out of her wooden shoes for a tulip bulb.
;-)
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