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October 8, 2008 | 10:12 am

Anti-Semites piling on as global economy plummets

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Here we go. The holy trinity of Jewish journalism—JTA, Rob Eshman and The God Blog, naturally—have all drawn attention to the blame being launched at The Jews for the economic crisis, which, congruent with beliefs about Jewish domination of global finances, has now spread across the world..

Last week, the Anti-Defamation League noted a spike on anti-Semitic activity online since Lehman Brothers, which was started by three Jewish immigrants, went bankrupt. Over the weekend, “Saturday Night Live” ran a sketch that identified Herb and Marion Sandler as “People who should be shot,” and JTA sought a connection between “SNL’s” joke and comments on the oh-so-white supremacist Vanguard News Network. (You might remember VNN from my article about Cal State Long Beach’s Kevin MacDonald).

“It’s really more like vampires sucking a corpse dry,” wrote the commenter, identified on the site as Sgruber. “Jews are destroyers. They aren’t after their own long-range advantage. Long-range they want the earth plunged into a Dark Ages of endless poverty. This is why the jews must be killed. They are rats eating the grain and the brain of the world.”

And then Rob penned this column: “Wall Street, Main Street and Jew Street.” History is at play here, and it’s not a pretty one. Times of financial difficult have historically been times of persecution and scapegoating of Jews who, yes, have historically been bankers and money changers and, yes, were among some of the leaders of the U.S. financial market.

Rob writes:

It is open season on the big city. In their bid for those elusive independent, middle-class voters, McCain and Obama and their seconds, Sen. Joe Biden and Palin, are fanning the myth that the real America resides in some shining Mayberry on a hill. If only those nasty money changers and culture vultures in the seething cities below would just let them sow their wheat and do their books and raise their children up good.

These tropes are not new to America; they are older than Shylock. The Jews make up the city: corrupt, scheming, complicated; while the common folk, the good people, occupy the farms and villages. The Jews lord over the metropolises, making easy money off the hard labor of others.

There’s an overlooked and ultimately sympathetic 1934 movie, “The House of Rothschild,” which perfectly captures the previous centuries of anti-Semitic caricature.

The film opens in 1750 on Frankfort’s “Jew Street,” as Mayer Amschel, founder of the Rothschild line, scurries to hide his precious guilden from the cruel tax collector.

“They keep us in chains!” he tells his boys. “They won’t let us learn a trade! They won’t let us own land. So make money. Money is the only weapon the Jew has to defend himself with.”

This stereotype and its accompanying rhetoric only ramps up in times of economic crisis. During the Great Depression, anti-Semitism was most virulent not in the cities where Jews lived but in the Farm Belt and Far West, where the image of “the Jew” lived.

Now the Anti-Defamation League reports “a dramatic upsurge in the number of anti-Semitic statements being posted to Internet discussion boards devoted to finance and the economy.”

Scan those Web sites and you quickly see what the candidates themselves likely don’t even realize: For the bigots and haters, Wall Street is code, the city is code, Hollywood—a staple enemy in the culture wars—is code. They’re code for “Jew.”

We shouldn’t be surprised. After all, when Palin said, “We grow good people in small towns,” she was quoting the late Westbrook Pegler, a notorious anti-Semitic columnist who called Jews “geese,” because “they hiss when they talk, gulp down everything before them and foul everything in their wake.”

Our candidates and our talking heads should be ashamed or, at least, careful. Because not only are such black-and-white dichotomies dangerous, they’re dumb.

Read the rest of the column here.

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personally, i wish people would spend more time reading what some of the greatest economic minds have written regarding our current troubles.  nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman and reknowned economist Ludwig von Mises warned of our current troubles…and they happen to be Jewish…but who cares what religion they are.  the bottom line is that they were right and we should study up if we want to get out of the mess the right way.

Comment by ethan on 10/08/08 at 10:59 am

“It is open season on the big city. In their bid for those elusive independent, middle-class voters, McCain and Obama and their seconds, Sen. Joe Biden and Palin, are fanning the myth that the real America resides in some shining Mayberry on a hill. If only those nasty money changers and culture vultures in the seething cities below would just let them sow their wheat and do their books and raise their children up good.”

Yes, despite the fact that the small family farm has gone the way of the buggy whip, a large sector seems to idealize “Mayberry” as the real America. This idea is fed by hokey “human interest” stories on the evening news; but I am not so sure that “cities” are code for Jews. Really only Palin seems to push the small town fantasy, and she is grossly unpopular.

Comment by Mary on 10/08/08 at 9:04 pm

The Jewish Journal contributes to that mood in featuring weird, non-Jewish and anti-Jewish Jews and Views.

Main Street sees people like that American Apparel creep as a caricatures straight out of Mein Kampf. Original Judaism bans gay relations (let alone marriage) and freely available abortions. When so-called modern Judaism supports them to the point of labelling non-supporters as ‘bad Jews’, it brings out a rage and resentment and a sense of betrayal of Biblical values and reinforces the anti Pharisee sentiments in the New Testament. Main Street doesn’t think Sarah Bernhardt or Marilyn Manson or Courtney Love are cool, they think they are perverts. On the other hand someone like Matisyahu brings out curiosity and admiration because they see he is for real.

Nobody has a logical or rational or abstract solution to Jew haters. The only solution is to deny them any legitimacy, any concession, any compromise, or any benefit of any doubt. When they complain and accuse about Jewish criminals etc. like the rodent on another thread here, the correct answer is NOT “Yes, but”, it is that it is irrelevant, and there is nobody with a better and prouder record than the Jews as a whole of every time and every place including here and now. And the response to violence is immediate counter-violence, possibly even pre-emptive violence. And recognize that no matter what the law says, there will be be people who tell you that you are not at home. Read your own words - the Mayberry on the hill is a fantasy. There was always antisemitism in America, in the institutions, in the government, in the armed forces. We did and do our best not to let them get away with it so it is not overt today. In France and in Italy, when Jews are attacked the government says ‘no citizens were hurt, only Jews’. When the El Al counter at LAX was machine gunned, your governor refused to call it terrorism. All kinds of assaults on Jews are not labelled hate crimes.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 10/09/08 at 9:20 pm

i’m a victim of multiple hate crimes because of the jews…give up the tribalism and get some real values…became an atheist….

Comment by shawna murray md on 12/17/08 at 10:27 am

All the Jews? For my personal culpability, I apologize. Couldn’t just the ones who victimized you get some values and become atheists? Or might it be easier for you to associate just with atheistic Jews with values? Just to make it fair, what are you willing to give up? Could we still enjoy a bit of schmaltz herring on weekends?

Comment by Ben Plonie on 12/17/08 at 1:13 pm

yes all the jews…you are all complicit in being a blight on the community…money money money…it’s the only song the jews sing and the only thing they eat…what they won’t do for money…even for the most debilitated soul…i guess the holocaust was for naught…no lessons learned despite all those dead bodies and damaged lives…..

Comment by shawna murray md on 12/18/08 at 1:45 am

I’m an atheist though I personally admire Jews and Jewish culture. I am always amazed how many famous Jews are secular and yet still keep to and preserve their unique culture and heritage without the need for religious belief. My personal hero in my profession, for example, was Carl Sagan, a secular Jew. Many Jews, indeed, have contributed to science and engineering often selflessly and most unlike any of the stereotypes of Jews which so commonly fuel anti-semitism. Shawna is mistaken in this.

Not that I don’t admire Judaism itself though, I find it to be a religion that has proven to be more peaceful and logical than any others that followed it (Christianity and Islam, for example). Especially if you consider the countless wars which were started by Muslims and Christians.

Comment by dan on 12/21/08 at 2:29 pm

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