(JEWISH GROUP) The antisemitism of Kevin Myers is a timely reminder of how prejudice hibernates

[Behind the Aegis]

THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP!! RESPECT, PLEASE!

Overt antisemitism is now unacceptable, but that doesn't mean prejudice against Jewish people is extinct.

How could anyone look at the words “Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price” and think, “yeah, this is fine to publish in a national newspaper”?

That was my first response to the article by Kevin Myers in the Irish edition of the Sunday Times this weekend, and a question I’ve asked myself repeatedly since.

-snip-

I have good friends who have used exactly the same offensive stereotype to my (half-Jewish) face. I remember one, when a handful of us were eating at a restaurant, asking whether we should order another bowl of dumplings. I said no, I wasn’t hungry, to which he responded: “Stop being such a Jew.”

That kind of comment will be wearingly familiar to many with a Jewish background, but there is something instructive in why my lefty, liberal friends thought it OK to say something they knew was antisemitic. It was because, as far as they were concerned, antisemitism is no longer a problem.

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