Many people think Jews are good with money. They think that even if they don't actually think that Jews are greedy or evil, or even if they find this quality terribly impressive. Take Tommy Thompson who, while speaking to a group of Jewish activists last year, memorably said that "earning money is sort of part of the Jewish tradition." He made everyone very uncomfortable by invoking an anti-Semitic stereotype, even though he probably didn't mean anything by it.
So, if you ask me, the most relevant part of the Sarah Palin "witchhunter" story (and I'm not sure the obvious racial double standard that would make this a huge story if we were talking about Obama qualities since there are a million of those in this campaign) is the minister's invocation of those money-makin' "Israelites."
The second area whereby God wants us, wants to penetrate in our society is in the economic area. The Bible says that the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. It's high time that we have top Christian businessmen, businesswomen, bankers, you know, who are men and women of integrity running the economics of our nations. That's what we are waiting for. That's part and parcel of transformation. If you look at the -- you know -- if you look at the Israelites, that's how they work. And that's how they are, even today.
One of the things people forget about history is that Jews were traditionally forced into roles as merchants and moneylenders in Christian nations because they weren't allowed to own land. The anti-Semitism that forced Jews in these roles lives on as stereotypes about Jews and money. But since Jewish folks have famously long memories regarding our own persecution, this kind of remark is taken as anti-Semitic. We haven't forgotten the circumstances that forced our ancestors into those roles, (Hebrew School, baby) or the easy way in which "positive" stereotypes reinforce what are essentially negative ideas about Jews and money.
They don't originally come from a place of admiration, but instead from very focused and lengthy persecution. Bishop Thomas Muthee takes this a step beyond vaguely anti-Semitic admiration (Tommy Thompson) into straightforward anti-Semitism when he says "Israelites...run the economics of our nations." That's creepy, because the logical extension of that thought is that Jews have a disproportionate influence on global affairs, or that we exercise some shadow influence over major powers.
Does Sarah Palin believe some of these things? I have no idea. But it probably will matter to many of the folks down in Florida who are deciding which ticket to vote for, given the very real possibility of Palin succeeding McCain as president.
--A. Serwer
