WE'RE DIFFERENT

Let’s face it, we’re different. People have accused us of that since time began. Even Archie Bunker on “All In the Family” knew it. When a legal problem arose on the show Archie made that difference clear by telling his family that they needed, “One of those good Heb lawyers.” Or when someone was really sick his advice would be to call “One of them good Jew doctors.” Of course Archie thought anyone who wasn’t just like him was different. But, he wasn’t alone in his opinion. For thousands of years people, right or wrong, have professed it and “known it for sure.”

We’ve always been different. Go back in time to ancient Alexandria, Egypt before the common era (BCE) and you will find the first hints of anti-Judaism in that Jews were disliked because they kept to themselves, lived in their own neighborhoods, traded amongst themselves and would not break bread with their Gentile neighbors because of the dietary laws commanded in the Hebrew Bible. While Jews were more than 25% of the population, Greeks were in the majority in Alexandria and tried their best to Hellenize all who lived there. Some Jews did assimilate and merge their monotheistic belief with Greek polytheism, but most clung to their ancient belief of a single God and by doing so kept themselves separate. This did not endear them to the Greeks and a dislike for both their separate living and religion appeared. Basically it has been that way ever since.

Of course that small, beginning seed of anti-Judaism spread with the birth of Christianity and the Roman Church, which invented Ghettos (the first one was in Italy, as ordered by an early pope,) blame for the death of Jesus, restrictions on owning land, restrictions on professions, forced conversions (or death as in the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions,) banishment from countries, burning of Torahs, Talmuds and Synagogues (with the Jews inside,) extra taxation for just about anything you can name and that so-called religious march through Europe known as the Crusades, which killed every Jew and burned every synagogue that could be found along the route of march. Anything to punish these “different” people.

History shows that this anti-Judaism spread with the Diaspora and continued into the modern world culminating in the Holocaust of the Second World War. Hitler and Nazi Germany didn’t invent hating those “different” Jews, they just excelled in mass persecution and genocide. The groundwork was laid long before.

Most people in the United States have not run into any extreme form of anti-Judaism and have lived most of their lives putting up with subtleties and exclusions. But, if studied and questioned there is no doubt that they are very much aware of being “different” to their neighbors and friends, just because they are Jews. Growing up I always knew that something was different, but couldn’t put my finger on it. Now in my sixties and having lived away from the “traditional neighborhood” for many years, I can’t help but be aware of how we are perceived as different. I am also aware that due to history, religious belief, tradition, training and reverse discrimination, we are different.

Don’t think we’re different? In the book The Jewish Phenomenon by Steven Silbiger the following statistics are brough to light (as of 1964):

>Jews make up less than 2% of the total U.S. population, But:
>45% of the top 40 of the Forbes 400 richest Americans are Jewish, 23% of the entire 400, 24%of the billionaires.
>One third of all American multi-millionaires are Jewish.
>The percentage of Jewish households with income greater than $50,000 is double that of non-Jews.
>The percentage of Jewish households with income less tha $20,000 is half that of non-Jews.
>20% of professors at leading universities are Jewish.
>40% of partners in leading New York and Washington, D.C. law firms are Jewish
>25% of all American Nobel Prize winners are Jewish.
>30% of American Nobel Prize winners for science are Jewish.
>Jewish success in the early movie business:
Louis B. Mayer and Samuel Golden founded MGM Studios
Adolph Zukor founded Paramount Pictures
Carl Laemmle founded Universal Studios
Sam & Jack Warner founded Warner Brothers Studios
William Fox founded 20th Century Fox
Harry Cohen founded Columbia Pictures
Marcus Loew started Loew’s Theaater Chain
>Continued success in the movie business:
Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg founded Dreamworks SKG
Sumner Redstone owned Paramount Pictures
Michael Eisner runs Disney Corporation
Edgar Bronfman owned Universal Studios
>Successful movie producers and directors and only one of their films:
Erich von Stroheim (Greed, 1924)
David O. Selznick (Gone With the Wind, 1939)
Otto Preminger (Laura, 1944)
Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, 1950)
Stanley Kramer (The Caine Mutiny, 1954)
Stanley Kubrick (2001, A Space Odyssey, 1968)
Mike Nichols (The Graduate, 1968)
Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa, 1985)
Oliver Stone (Platoon, 1986)
Rob Reiner (Stand By Me, 1986)
Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle, 1993)
Steven Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977)
(Note: Just a few Academy Awards in that group.)
>Successful Radio and Television pioneers:
William Paley founded CBS
David Sarnoff founded NBC
Leonard Goldenson founded ABC.
>Just a few successful performers:
Marv Albert, Mel Allen, Tim Allen, Woody Allen, June Allyson, Jason Alexander, Morey Amsterdam, Bea Arthur, Lauren Bacall, Rosanne Barr, Richard Belzer, Jack Benny, Irving Berlin, Sandra Bernhard, Milton Berle, Joey Bishop, Karen Black, Elayne Boosler, Victor Borge, David Brenner, Fanny Brice, Mel Brooks, Albert Brooks, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Lenny Bruce, George Burns, Sid Caesar, Eddie Cantor, Jeff Chandler, Andrew “Dice” Clay, Lee J. Cobb, Howard Cosell, Norm Crosby, Billy Crystal, Tony Curtis, Rodney Dangerfield, Phyllis Diller, Kirk Douglas, Melvyn Douglas, Fran Drescher, Bob Dylan, Eddie Fisher, Al Franken, Paulette Godard, Benny Goodman, Gilbert Gotfried, Lee Grant, Shecky Greene, Elliott Gould, Buddy Hackett, Pee-Wee Herman, Judd Hirsch, Judy Holiday, Al Jolson, Marvin Kalb, Bernard Kalb, Gabe Kaplan, Andy Kaufman, Danny Kaye, Alan King, Larry King, Robert Klein, Werner Klemperer, Harvey Korman, Jack Klugman, Ted Koppel, Michael Landon, Matt Lauer, Steve Lawrence, Gypsy Rose Lee, Irving R. Levine, Al Lewis, Richard Lewis, Jerry Lewis, Hal Linden, Peter Lorre, John Lovitz, Julia Lewis-Dryfus, The Marx Brothers (Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Gummo), Leonard Matlin, Howie Mandel, Jackie Mason, Elaine May, Ethel Merman, Bette Midler, Yves Montand, Rick Mornis, Edwin Newman, Jerry Orbach, Molly Picon, Maury Povich, Stephanie Powers, Gilda Radner, Tony Randall, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Paul Reiser, Don Rickles, The Ritz Brothers (Al, Harry, Jimmy), Geraldo Rivera, Joan Rivers, Edward G. Robinson, Morley Safer, Bob Saget, Mort Sahl, Soupy Sales, Peter Sellers, Jane Seymour, Artie Shaw, Phil Silvers, Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld, Gene Shalit, Gary Shandling, Lynn Sher, Dinah Shore, Pauly Shore, Daniel Shorr, Joel Siegel, Simone Signoret, Beverly Sills, Bob Simon, Leslie Stahl, Ben Stein, Howard Stern, The Three Stooges, (Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Mo Howard and Shemp Howard), Barbra Streisand, Sophie Tucker, Mike Wallace, Barbara Walters, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Gene Wilder, Natalie Wood, Henny Youngman.
>Major Stores owned or founded by Jews:
Macy’s, Sears, Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus, Filene’s, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, May Company, Kohl’s, Lazarus, Goldsmith’s, Rich’s, Stern’s, Loehman’s, I. Magnin, Gimble’s, Hecht’s, B. Altman, Abraham & Strauss, Garfinkle’s, Federated, The Limited, The Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Lane Bryant, Victoria Secret, Barney’s, Home Depot, Home Shopping Network, Zales, Herzberg Diamond.
Computer Industry Leaders:
Michael Dell-Dell Computers
Andrew Grove-Intel Corporation
Larry Ellison-Oracle Corporation

Gee, maybe we are a little different.