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Thursday, March 20, 2003
# Posted 12:55 PM by Ariel David Adesnik
Read your posting on anti-semitism in the South with great interest. I can't really speak for other parts of 'Dixie' but as a South Carolinian I can tell you that I have seen very little of that in my lifetime in the Palmetto state. For many years (from the 50's through the early 80's one of the most powerful politicians in South Carolina was Salomon Blatt...Speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives). In the 90's we had a Jewish Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court -- Julius 'Bubba' Ness -- and as a boy I remember meeting, during a class trip, one of the powers of the state Senate, Senator Hyman Rubin.It goes without my saying it that the prominence of Jews within the SC elite is absolutley remarkable. Still, I hesitate to consider such prominence as evidence for the sincere acceptance of Jews as equal citizens. Throughout the 19th century, Jews achieved remarkable prominence throughout Western Europe, only to have those same Western Europeans turn against them later on. Regardless, this sort of strange co-existence raises sophisticated questions about what tolerance is and how it is experessed. Moving on: Complementing DM's Palmetto report, WG writes in on behalf of the Deep South. He writes that I may be a bit late to this thread but here is a little evidence for your files. My wife's father is a devout Episcopalian in his mid 60s. He grew up in Greenville, Miss. His best friend in the world is a gentleman named Ed Kostman who is Jewish. They grew up together in Geenville. If there is a deeper part of the deep south I don't know where it is. Sonny moved to Chicago and eventually Danville, VA where my wife grew up. Ed stayed in Greenville. Presumably antisemitism was not rife enough to prevent him from eventually own 4 car dealerships. I've never had a discussion with either of these guys about antisemitisim but they treat each other and their families treat each other the same way we would treat Baptists, Presbyterians or any of the other weird sects we Episcopalians find in the South. In Danville, VA my wife grew up with a number of Jewish kids, so did my first wife in Petersburg, VA,. Neither places are pillars of enlightened thought. In fact, they are both as full of red necks as any small southern town but those people are in a very distinct minority in my opinion. In the big city of Richmond, I also grew up with numerous Jewish kids and never considered their religion as anything other than their religion. Of course we made fun of each other and called each other names and befriended each other the way kids do, or at least used to do before PC made everyone so damn hyper sensitive. It is also true that the civil rights struggle was going on while I was growing up and I never had anything like the kind of interaction with African Americans that I had with Jews.Finally we come to the thoughts of AT, an Oxonian from Arkanas. She comments that I've been following your posts about Southern anti-Semitism with interest. I found it very amusing that you would not be surprised at Moran's and Lott's offensive remarks based on the fact that they areAll I can say is that if the spokesmen of the South were as civilized as AT herself, then all of America would look forward to the South rising again. For the moment, it may be worth considering the relationship between thought and action. How is it that certain individuals openly accept stereotypes but still act in a fair and color-blind manner? What role do such stereotypes then play in the behavior of those who are racists? In light of WG's concern about political correctness, one recognizes that such questions have to be answered before one can object to speech codes on ethical grounds rather than libertarian ones. Before signing off, a couple of quick notes: DH writes back with a link to this article about that brief moment in Georgian history when Jews were the majority in said colony. AS recalls hearing a British version of the Lt. Goldstein joke. Appropriately, the British version was more subtle. On a related point, I have to confess that I went astray in telling the Lt. Goldstein joke. The dowager in question actually requests that no Jews be sent to her home for dinner, not no blacks. This correction actually adds a level of sophistication that places the Southern version of the joke on par with the British one. TTFN! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
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