(RNS) Two Republican officials in South Carolina have apologized for using Jewish stereotypes to defend a U.S. senator.
“There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves,” the two county chairmen wrote in Sunday’s Times and Democrat of Orangeburg.
The article was written in defense of Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and his opposition to congressional earmarks. DeMint said the analogy was thoughtless and hurtful.
Jim Ulmer, the Republican chairman of Orangeburg County, said the remark was written “in admiration for a method of bettering one’s lot in life.” He co-authored the letter with Edwin Merwin, Jr., the Bamberg County chairman. Both men apologized in statements.
But some American Jewish leaders have said that is not enough.
“Stereotypes about Jews’ facility with money have survived through generations and have been inculcated into our culture,” said Bill Nigut, southeast regional director for the Anti-Defamation League. “Mr. Merwin and Mr. Ulmer need to better understand the impact of their words, and how those words will resonate and reinforce anti-Semitism.”
Matthew Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said the statements showed ignorance and insensitivity.
“From the way the article is written, Merwin and Ulmer apparently believed that the image of the Jew as penny-pincher was a praise of Jewish frugality,” Brooks said in a statement. “In fact it dates back to the centuries of anti-Jewish persecution in Europe, when Jews were forbidden to own land or conduct any business other than money-lending, which was closed to Christians by church law. It is an image of a kind and of a time with forcing Jews to wear a badge on their clothing or enclosing them in ghettos, cutting them off from religious, social, and economic freedom.”