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October 7, 2008 Author: Ben Harris Taken from: Jewish Journal - Will Wall Street crisis spur anti-Semitism? NEW YORK (JTA)—In the world according to the comedy writers at “Saturday Night Live,” the pyramid of complicity in the current financial crisis runs like this: On the bottom are poor and minority homeowners victimized by predatory lending. Next come condo-flipping yuppies out for a quick buck. They’re followed by rapacious bankers who cashed out before the economy crumbled. And on top are billionaire financiers who pocketed the government bailout and quickly moved it offshore. In the SNL imagination, the top two categories seemingly are populated by Jews. In a skit broadcast Saturday night, barely a day after Congress authorized a massive bailout of the ailing financial industry, the jokesters at SNL conjured a post-vote news conference in Washington featuring these four categories of characters. Playing the part of the rapacious bankers were Herbert and Marion Sandler, the Jewish owners of a savings and loan sold to Wachovia Bank for $24 billion in 2006. “Actually, we’ve done quite well. We’re very happy,” Marion cackles in a thick New York accent, as the screen identifies her and her husband as “People who should be shot.” The financier is George Soros, the Jewish Holocaust survivor and financier, who in his thick Dr. Strangelove accent brags that he pocketed the government bailout money and converted it into Swiss francs because he has taken a short position on the U.S. dollar. Are these caricatures anti-Semitic? As of Tuesday morning, the clip had been pulled from the show’s Web site. NBC did not immediately respond to JTA’s inquiries as to why. Regardless of whether the writers intended to paint Jews as responsible for the crisis, the skit is almost sure to aggravate a growing concern: that Jews ultimately could find themselves blamed for the nation’s financial meltdown. “There is definitely a fear among certain Jews in this industry,” said a Jewish employee with a top New York investment bank who asked that his name be withheld. “And it’s because it’s spreading past Wall Street now. There’s a growing animosity towards the wealthy, and especially the wealthy that have made money on Wall Street and real estate and finance, as so many Jews have—some legitimately, some not so. It’s very easy to generalize that it must be the entire Jewish people.” Others in the industry are not so sure about a backlash against the Jews. |