Smart Jews, Again

The Core Belief

On October 18, 2009, two heads of the South Carolina’s Republican party defended federal Senator Jim DeMint’s opposition to earmarks in congressional legislation. This defense, published as a letter in the Orangeburg Times and Democrat, compared how certain Jews became wealthy to DeMint’s actions in the Senate.

There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves. By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation’s pennies and trying to preserve our country’s wealth and our economy’s viability to give all an opportunity to succeed.

There are those that may find the above analogy anti-Semitic. Maybe, maybe not, however it does hint at a certain stereotype of us Jews as a people: we are smart. Very smart, cunning etc. Sometimes this is a truism: Carl Ichan, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer et al. Sometimes it’s not: Diane Feinstein, Karl Marx, Bernie Sanders. The brilliance of the Jews as an ethnic group has gone from simple stereotype to legend in certain circles, including various White Supremicist groups and Mark Twain.

It’s something your average Jew wants to live down. Sure we’re brighter than our neighbors but that doesn’t mean we everyone to be in the know. We just want to go about our lives, root for the Tigers and raise our kids to love life, liberty and country.

Just when we thought it was safe to go sit on a barstool and be Joe Six pack, more reinforcement positive reinforcement for smartness comes through the newswires. Was it another Jew winning a Nobel Prize for Science?  No that happened on October 7^th. No. This was something else, so intelligent, Jewish Mothers and geek squads of the world are qvelling. From the 12/15/09 New York Times:

Boris Gelfand of Israel is the 2009 World Cup champion.

As long as we keep doing shit like this, we’re never going to live this stereotype down.