I am so sick of this!

[Jester]

Seshat, I'm not sure that the Jewish haggler stereotype originated with that Shakespeare character, or if he was simply continuing an existing stereotype. I'm not saying you're wrong, mind you....I just think the stereotype may be a bit older than the Bard. Or maybe it's just the anti-Semitic view that predates him. (We have been run out of a few countries for no reason beyond being, well, Jews...)

[Nekojin]

Oh, I have no doubt that Shakespeare was merely reflecting a common attitude. I can't imagine him being the source of such a pervasive, pernicious attitude. It's very possible, however, that he helped spread a local prejudice into something more widespread.

[Gravekeeper]

Seshat, I'm not sure that the Jewish haggler stereotype originated with that Shakespeare character, or if he was simply continuing an existing stereotype. I'm not saying you're wrong, mind you....I just think the stereotype may be a bit older than the Bard. Or maybe it's just the anti-Semitic view that predates him. (We have been run out of a few countries for no reason beyond being, well, Jews...)

History time!

Jewish stereotypes / antisemetism have existed for a good 2000 years. But the idea of the haggler/moneylender is because of the Catholics and various Kings of England around the 11th century. The Catholic church declared money lending for profit a Bad Thing(tm), so the Jewish became the main people practicing money lending. As Jewish law permits money lending. Meanwhile, King William declared the Jews direct subjects and granted them special status as merchants. Then every King after him renewed a royal charter allowing the Jews to stay in England and renewing their special status.

The reason for this was because the King could levy taxes on the Jews assets at a whim, whenever he wanted, without the approval of parliment. So the shitty economic conditions in the country drove people to take out loans, and then the Kings used the profit the Jews made as their own personal piggy bank. Effectively, several Kings of England used the Jews as a method of sort of indirectly taxing the people they had already made poor.

So, people started to blame the Jews and the Church, being, well, the Church, vilified them as the problem ( The King and the economy gets a pass of course ). So they started taxing the Jews more and more and more, then they declared that all Jews had to wear a badge identifying them as Jews and then finally they just threw all the Jews out of England in the 13th century.

The concept of money lending for profit was not finally legal in England until the 1500s.

Jews have basically been the universal scapegoat for every problem in society for about 2000 years in Europe. Economy is shit? Not the King's fault, must be the Jews. Plague? Jews. Timmy fell down the well? Jews.

It stems from Christianity, who portrayed the Jews as historic enemies. So Europe worked itself up ( England especially ) into portraying Jewish people as agents of Satan that killed Christian children to drain their blood to bake bread. No, seriously. Amongst other lunacy.

Hitler didn't invent any of the shit he said about Jews, he just carried on the same scapegoating and stereotypes.

[Nekojin]

Reading that Wikipedia article... I'm frankly astonished at the lengths people will go to in order to justify their racist and irrational prejudices. Particularly the case where they attempted to use an earlier case where the accused Jew was acquitted as somehow being evidence that they actually do it.

I'm no stranger to stupidity (after all, I read CS and Fratching! ), but some of this is frankly insane.

[Seshat]

Seshat, I'm not sure that the Jewish haggler stereotype originated with that Shakespeare character, or if he was simply continuing an existing stereotype.

Oh, I apparently wasn't being clear. Shakespeare's Shylock is evidence of a stereotype, and evidence accessible to everyone who reads this board.
(I am, of course, assuming that everyone here is capable of muddling through Elizabethan English; and knows that Shakespeare loved using stereotypes as a comedic trope.)

(I nearly typed that as comedic tripe. Now I have an image of tripe doing stand-up comedy in my head.)

[HYHYBT]

Elizabethan English is fine; Elizabethan spelling and punctuation, however, drives me up the wall.

[wolfie]

Protip: If you're using the name of a group of people as a verb, you're probably an asshole.

Or they're just "Yank"ing your chain.

So Europe worked itself up ( England especially ) into portraying Jewish people as agents of Satan that killed Christian children to drain their blood to bake bread. No, seriously.

The blood libel is illogical. According to the Wiki article, the blood was used in the matzos for passover. Other allegations I've heard had it being used in the Purim cakes (with both allegations saying that Christian blood was needed). Slight problem - Passover celebrates the non-death of sons (Jewish families were "passed over") prior to the Exodus from Egypt. Purim celebrates a victory over the Persians. Both events happened before the time of Julius Caesar. Since "Christian" means (literally) "follower of Christ", there were no Christians until at least 43 years after Julius Caesar died. For the blood libel to be true, it would have meant a vital ingredient for foods used as part of a religious ceremony DID NOT EXIST.

Also, it's ironic that the blood libel was spread by Christians, considering the fact that Communion involves (symbolically) consuming the flesh and blood of Jesus.

[Jester]

The blood libel is illogical.

Since when did logic or rational thought have anything to do with persecution of a particular group?

[hinakiba777]

I hear the term "jewed" a lot, and it bugs me greatly. People just toss it into conversation without any forethought. I wouldn't be surprised if a few people got a good sock in the jaw from using that derogatory in front of the wrong person. People need to be more aware of their language.

For example, "German chocolate cake" is a perfectly acceptable use of the term. "I got Jewed"...is not.

German Chocolate cake actually has nothing to do with the country of Germany. It is named for an American; Sam German. Mr. German invented a pre-sweetened dark baking chocolate in 1852.

[Jester]

True enough, but it is still an acceptable use of the word German as an adjective.

[Nekojin]

I thought of one earlier today, thanks to a coworker who hasn't yet paid up on a small wager. "Welshed" - as in, "she welshed on the bet," meaning that she decided to act like the bet wasn't valid and/or refused to pay on it (Note that I'm not saying that this coworker has done this).

[HYHYBT]

I hadn't known about that one until just now; I'd always heard it as "welch," like the grape juice, and didn't realize it had anything to do with people from Wales. Likewise, I'd heared "gypped" for a long while before learning its origin; perhaps those who use "jew" that way also just don't realize it has anything to do with a religious/ethnic category of people.

On the bright side, this is also why there's a common household item called Scotch tape, or so the story goes.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

ME, BOTH JEWISH AND LIVID, BUT RETAINING MY POLITE ALBEIT NO LONGER JOVIAL COMPOSURE: "Ma'am, the price is twenty five dollars."

Overheard at a yard sale was a similar exchange.

I'm selling these nightstands for 40$ for the pair.

You sure I can't Jew you down to $30?

No you can't and the price remains at $50 for the pair.

You said $40!

And you said something offensive to my Jewish ancestry. Your point?

At which point I laughed my ass off.

[Seshat]

I hadn't known about that one until just now; I'd always heard it as "welch," like the grape juice, and didn't realize it had anything to do with people from Wales. Likewise, I'd heared "gypped" for a long while before learning its origin; perhaps those who use "jew" that way also just don't realize it has anything to do with a religious/ethnic category of people.

I'd also always heard it as welch. And ditto with 'jypped'. 'jewing', however, was fairly obvious.

Along similar lines, I would be fine with being called a primate or an ape; and have been known to do just that - to myself and to friends. So when the whole 'someone called Obama a monkey' thing came into the news, my brain was 'what? What's wrong with that - other than that he's an ape, not a monkey'.

But then someone explained the racism-background of calling African-descended people monkeys, and I went 'ooooooh'.

For me, it's just an evolution thing. Humans (of whatever melanin level and skull structure) are primates->apes->chimpanzee branch->homo sapiens.

[Rapscallion]

I'd also always heard it as welch. And ditto with 'jypped'. 'jewing', however, was fairly obvious.

The etymology of 'welshing' on a deal is, as has been explained to me, that there were Welsh lords and nobles fond of gambling in England many centuries ago, and on occasions that they lost, some of them decided to hightail it back to their forts in Wales to escape from the law of the land at the time. My informant on this could feasibly be wrong.

I think it was something similar with the term 'scot free'.

Rapscallion