<p>There are negative stereotypes about many groups, including Jews.</p>
<p>I agree with Rodney that Madoff has something to do with recent problematic attitudes and vocalness - the ADL (an organization which monitors anti-Semitism) has a section of its website on this:</p>
<p>[Anti-Semitism</a> and the Madoff Scandal: Overview](<a href=“You are being redirected...”>You are being redirected...)</p>
<p>There have been a number of thoughtful responses – however, I’m guessing that most of the kids the OP is talking about are not aware of all the historical reasons that people have not liked Jews. I just find it odd that in today’s PC climate, people feel free to make comments against any group in a school setting.</p>
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<p>I’ve read some articles about this also…reinforcement of a negative stereotype on a huge scale.</p>
<p>^^yup…</p>
<p>Anti-Semitism goes way back, well before the New Testament (anyone remember the slaves in Egypt in the Book of Exodus?). Anti-Semitism is actually the oldest of all prejudices, at least among those that still exist.</p>
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There is one factor as well, particularly in Midieval Europe - the social caste system and the Church’s celibacy requirement. The poor but intelligent Catholic boy had limited opportunities open to him. The most promising was the Church, which required celibacy. His line ended with him (at least openly). The poor but intelligent Jewish boy also had limited (probably more limited) opportunities open to him. He was often encouraged, however, to become a rabbi. And one of the most important requirement of a rabbi was to wed and have many children. His line not only fostered whatever genetic traits contributed to his intelligence (and the matchmakers would have looked for an intelligent wife for him), but grew in an environment in which learning was paramount.</p>
<p>Dennis Prager (an observant Jew) has written a book about this topic. He was talking about it on his radio show the other day.</p>
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<p>Mr. Payne, if I read the thread correctly, you wrote this in response to someone posting about one of Google’s founders giving $1 million to the foundation that helped his family escape when he was a child. If that’s “clannish”, then, yes, it’s an admirable quality. Who do you think is going to support Jewish organizations, if Jewish people don’t? Helping an organization that helped you is admirable. As for sticking together – the other part of the post you responded to – that can also be an admirable trait. The poster who wrote that simply stated that he/she admires that we stick together. You interpreted that as being clannish. You can stick together with your own people – whether it’s by nationality, ethnicity or faith – and still have lots of friends and connections with others. It’s not a bad thing. </p>
<p>Remember all the bumper stickers and shirts after 9/11 that said “United We Stand”? When people feel attacked, they get kind of clannish. It is probably something that helps people survive in difficult times. The Jews have had thousands of years of persecution and live with the knowledge that there are many who would just as soon they be wiped off the face of the earth. Sticking together has helped them survive. I do think that’s admirable.</p>
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<p>Considering that a huge proportion of the investors he bilked were Jewish institutions and people, including friends, who knew him personally and trusted him, it is ironic. The Jewish community despises the qualities that man represented.</p>
<p>Frankly, Mr Payne, you’re about as clannish as they come, with your comments about “they” (they meaning Hispanics, blacks, etc.).</p>
<p>I am ashamed of the ones who were Lenin’s comrades during Russian revolution and the ones that are Obama’s now. I admire and very proud of the rest. Even Madoff is not as evil compared to all the evil resulted from above. What Madoff was doing is evil and illegal but USA government is doing the same legally. The biggest ponzi scheme is still Social Security, which we are all obligated to participate by law, no escape. At least Madoff did not obligate anybody to participate, not in his defense though, strictly for comparison.</p>
<p>My daughter, as an Eurasian, has encountered more unkind words or action in college than any where else. I don’t know whether it’s because students feel more freely to say what they want when they are in college (away from home) or it’s because a college has kids from different regions. A boy said it in front of her that he thought Asians were very different, and there was no way he would ever date an Asian girl. Growing up in the NE, D1 never thought she was different. It was natural to be half white(French, Irish) and half Chinese, no different than if someone was half French and half Italian. It wasn’t until she went to college, she felt people looked at her differently. As Marian pointed out, most blacks and Asians are segregated on many college campus, they tend to stick by themselves. D1 was not welcomed by Asians (her next door neighbor actually outright refused to acknowledge her), and she felt some caucasians didn’t think she belonged with them either.</p>
<p>I would have thought in the day and age, there would have been less segregation. Jews are not the only ones being discriminated against, at least they are not segregated. It bothered D2 a lot initially, it took D1 a year to get adjusted.</p>
<p>Interesting thread. I never understood anti-semitism either. But maybe there’s nothing to “understand” as abstract hatreds are never rational anyway.</p>
<p>I wonder whether it’s just part of human nature to despise, distrust or disrespect populations of “others” who are “not like us”. A funny – when I lived in Paris (in the year dot), fellow expat Americans would ask “why do the French dislike Americans so much?” Someone would point out – don’t take it personally, they don’t like French people who aren’t from Paris either (les provinciaux!). In fact they don’t like other Parisians, who live in certain arrondissements, and will talk to only those who live on certain streets in their own arrondissement.<br>
Not to pick on the French – just to say, it’s pretty much a tendency everywhere.</p>
<p>Chevda:
This is only somewhat true. Poor but clever boys might be taken into the Catholic priesthood on a local level; one of the functions of clergy was to study and transcribe the Bible and manuscripts and not every child was suited to it. The upper echelon of diocese management, however, was usually reserved for the ‘Secundus’, second son of noble families, and any other sons after that. There’s a reason why the papacy was locked up by the Borgia, deMedici, Sforza, Farnese, Pamphili, and other storied Italian families. And of course they were not all celibate. It is rumored that Pope Innocent III (sponsor of Saints Dominic and Francis, and instigator of the Albigensian Crusade) had 13 illegitimate children.</p>
<p>And how ironic, so glad you brought up the Catholics, because I’d submit that the only acceptable bigotry left is anti-Catholicism. Most civilized people decry racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, sexism, and any other bigotry, but will support desecration of Catholic symbols, endless jokes about priests and nuns, and whatever else as “free speech”. Which is really unnecessary, because any Catholic can top non-Catholics in telling jokes and horror stories about their religion.</p>
<p>True, about perpetual open season on Catholics! </p>
<p>What some protestants seem to forget is that before Henry VIII broke from the Roman Church for his selfish own ends and dragged all his people, very much against their will, into a new “church”, all of England was Roman Catholic. So, do your ancestors a favor any of you who fall into that category…</p>
<p>My observation is that in general, people are resentful of others who identify strongly and publicly with a particular group of which not everyone is a part. That is why college students might hate the Greek system, and others hate country clubs and private schools. Jews have their own holidays, their own greetings, their own schools, etc. I think it is that simple. (Otherwise, like those before me said, the “traits” generally associated with Jews are admirable, not negative).</p>
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<p>Explanation: You attend a school with some immature bigots; perhaps their parents didn’t raise them appropriately.</p>
<p>First, there’s no indication of anti-Jewishness in the Biblical account of slavery in Egypt. It’s not hatred of the Israelites but that they were outsiders. </p>
<p>Second, the idea that Jews stick together is strange and even somewhat demented. Society consistently labels you as a Jew. I’m relatively old and have had the experience of being questioned overseas by people trying to figure out if I am German or Jewish. You can read hundreds of accounts of people who converted to Christianity who were rounded up by the Germans - one of the best is by Victor Klemperer, who survived because his wife was Christian. Judaism is seen by the evil-minded as a racial characteristic, not as a religion, and thus conversion or assimilation is not a way to hide from evil.</p>
<p>Outside of that, there’s no evidence at all that Jews stick together more than any other group. Jews may have their own golf club but that’s because the Christians wouldn’t let them in theirs. There were once Jewish banks but only because the Christians wouldn’t let Jews work at theirs. Thus Goldman Sachs or Lehman used to be Jewish - but they haven’t been for decades because Wall Street allowed Jews to work in more places. Same for advertising; Christian companies wouldn’t hire Jews but now more of them do. Jews who keep kosher are limited in where and what they can eat, but that’s the only restriction. Jews marry people of other faiths in large numbers and that’s evidence of a lack of clannishness.</p>
<p>As for the word “clannish,” I find it kind of funny because Jews have been in the leadership of anti-Klan work in the US, in Civil Rights work, in charity work, and yet the evil-minded find in that evidence of a Jewish plot to take control by enabling the blacks and the poor. So, one of the main avenues of anti-Jewish sentiment has been the Jewish action for social justice, because that action threatens the evil-minded.</p>
<p>Jewish involvement in social justice comes from the unique concept central to Judaism that the obligations of holiness are imposed on the individual and on the community. Those on the devout end of the Jewish scale see their community more as other Jews while those on the less devout end see their community as the larger community in which they live and as their country. (Again, it’s truly weird for Jews to see identification with their larger community used against them, but it happens all the time.) The concept is not merely one of group and individual but that the actual sanctity of the people imposes a group obligation and violation can tarnish the entire community.</p>
<p>As for anti-Catholicism, I grew up in a largely Catholic community and live in Boston. I see very little actual anti-Catholic speech or action, other than in three contexts. One is abortion and in that arena it’s very difficult to separate religion out. The second is in abuse by the priesthood and on that it’s Catholics who speak and speak loudly. The third is morality and, as an observer, I see a struggle in the Catholic community between the more and the less devout - a struggle that also occurs in Judaism & Islam. The more devout seem to define themselves as moral guardians in line with Church doctrine and I do hear a lot of discussion in which some Catholics say other, less devout people aren’t really Catholic. We have the same problem in Judaism. I, for example, may be called Jewish but to the very Orthodox I am a potential Jew - because I can prove a Jewish lineage - a person who might be brought into the observation of halacha.</p>
<p>Some more reasons for expanding antisemitism:</p>
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<li><p>There was fairly virulent antisemitism in this country prior to WWII. As the public and politicians confronted the horror of the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Europe, that was largely replaced by sympathy, and antisemitism became seriously unfashionable except on the far-right fringe (e.g., KKK, Posse Comitatus). But it has now been almost 65 years since the shock of the Holocaust, and unfortunately there have been other sensational (if less systematic) attempts at genocide that are fresher in people’s memories (Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia).</p></li>
<li><p>As the American Jewish community has gotten more successful in the mainstream and (somewhat) more politically conservative, the historical alliance between Jews and African-Americans has broken down to a considerable extent. Jews are likely to oppose affirmative action (which hurts them). African-Americans have been attracted to Islam, and to an anti-Jewish culture in Islam. Over the past 20 years, being anti-Jewish has become progressively more acceptable in the African-American community. Not to mention the growing Hispanic-American community, much of which comes from cultures sopped in antisemitism that was barely moderated by the effect of the Holocaust and Vatican II. At the same time, the general cultural liberalism of American Jews, especially on issues involving sex and abortion, increasingly puts them at odds with conservative Christians of every stripe.</p></li>
<li><p>A generation ago, Jews were largely seen and portrayed as an oppressed minority that had pulled itself up by its own bootstraps and produced brilliant scientists, artists, etc. Now, however, there are plenty of images of powerful, entitled, arrogant Jews. Not just Bernie Madoff, but Larry Summers, Rahm and Ari Emanuel, Michael Millken, Michael Ovitz, etc. </p></li>
<li><p>And that’s domestically. A generation ago, Israel was generally seen as a plucky band of Holocaust survivors fending off hostile, hateful neighbors and embodying the best in Western values. Now it sometimes comes across as a stubborn, dishonest nuclear power that throws its weight around and enforces an apartheid-like regime with brutal military force.</p></li>
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<p>"Now it sometimes comes across as a stubborn, dishonest nuclear power that throws its weight around and enforces an apartheid-like regime with brutal military force. " - By many Israel is viewed as defender of whole humanilty against Iranian nuclear thread. At the end, it will do it while others will continue “talking” with Russians, who have built and maintained all of that in Iran and the rest of the crooks who have financial interest of not bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.</p>
<p>The complaints or stereotypes I’ve heard about Jews are some of the same ones that I now hear about Asians. One is clannishness. I think it’s natural for a minority group to hang together and I’ve observed white non-Jews do it too in situations where they are in the minority.</p>
<p>The other is outspokenness. In general, Jewish women seem bolder in giving opinions or making personal comments to friends than Gentiles. I’ve always taken this as the “Jewish mother” thing, and feel flattered that they care enough to tell me they liked my old hairstyle better or that I should take my child to see a psychologist! Other people would get offended. This stereotype I’ve found to be validated in my experience, but personally I am not bothered.</p>
<p>Some of that is conflated with East Coast-ness, though, IMO.</p>