(By Neil Malhotra and Yotam Margalit for the Boston Review) The media coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal made extensive reference to Madoff’s ethnic and religious background and his prominent role in the Jewish community. Because the scandal broke at a time of great public outcry against financial institutions, some, including Brad Greenberg in The Christian Science Monitor and Mark Seal in Vanity Fair, have reported on its potential to generate a wave of anti-Semitism.
This concern makes good sense. In complex situations such as the current financial crisis, where the vast majority of us lack the relevant expertise and information, biases and prejudices may play a significant role in shaping public attitudes. To evaluate just how large a role, we conducted a study (part of a larger survey of 2,768 American adults) in which we explored people’s responses to the economic collapse and tried to determine how anti-Semitic sentiments might relate to the ongoing financial crisis.
In order to assess explicit prejudice toward Jews, we directly asked respondents “How much to blame were the Jews for the financial crisis?” with responses falling under five categories: a great deal, a lot, a moderate amount, a little, not at all. Among non-Jewish respondents, a strikingly high 24.6 percent of Americans blamed “the Jews” a moderate amount or more, and 38.4 percent attributed at least some level of blame to the group.
Interestingly, Democrats were especially prone to blaming Jews: while 32 percent of Democrats accorded at least moderate blame, only 18.4 percent of Republicans did so (a statistically significant difference). This difference is somewhat surprising given the presumed higher degree of racial tolerance among liberals and the fact that Jews are a central part of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition. Are Democrats simply more likely to “blame everything” thus casting doubt on whether the anti-Jewish attitudes are real? Not at all. We also asked how much “individuals who took out loans and mortgages they could not afford” were to blame on the same five-point scale. In this case, Democrats were less likely than Republicans to assign moderate or greater blame.
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4 Responses
Ever notice that the Mogen Dovid is two intertwined arrows one pointing up (to heaven) and one down to us symbolizing Hashem’s intense connection to the Yidden. On the other hand the Nazi Yemach Shemum’s symbol is a breakdown of those very lines and a break in that linking of arrows.
Shivisi: The Nazi Yemach Shemum’s symbol is far worse then the breakdown of the man-made Mogen Dovid symbol. It is the breakdown of the the letter Alef – which means ONE and represents the infinite unification and presence of Hashem in the world.
#1 and #2, brilliant indeed, but what shaychus? The swastika symbol pre-dates the Nazis ym”sh by over 3,000 years.
The fact that the person conducting the poll asked “do you blame the Jews” would suggest to the respondent that the pollster was an anti-semite, and therefore the respondent tried to avoid a confrontation by agreeing with the pollster’s bias. This is the same reason liberals do better in election polls than elections (those answer the poll assume they are talking to liberal pollsters and give them the right answer). This sort of poll is of no value except in showing the incompetence of the pollster, and perhaps the pollsters bias.
Given that several of the most prominent people involved are obviously non-white (Citibank has an Asian president, serveral people seen in the news are clearly African Americans, and the names involved reflect many ethnic groups), I’ld be skeptical that there is a “Jewish” angle to the whole issue. Indeed, the typical reaction to Madoff and his victims (whom the media portrayed as being mainly Jews) was pity.
One should remember that there has been very heavy intermarriage among non-Orthodox Jews in America, with the result the a considerable percentage of Americans have Jewish ancestry, something that wasn’t the case in Europe or even in America of 80 years ago (while they asked if a respondent was Jewish, they should have also asked if the respondent has any Jewish ancestors). The reality is that most Americans are the product of melting pot that has been working away for centuries, and are a lot less focused on ethnicity than we are.