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Are Jews Responsible for Financial Meltdown?
The world of finance is not unique in the dominant role played by Jews. Other businesses including media and entertainment and professions such as medicine, law and accounting have powerful Jewish presence. American Jews are disproportionately over-represented in the US Congress, the Senate and the Supreme Court as well. US policies in all spheres are heavily influenced by the Jewish minority in the United States. Many significant levers of power are controlled by American Jews, a constant that does not change with election winners or losers in Washington. Both Obama and McCain teams boast of powerful Jews as key policy advisers on foreign affairs, finance and national security. Robert Rubin and Dennis Ross are advising Obama. Joe Lieberman is advising McCain.
When former President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan addressed a dinner meeting of the American Jewish Congress in September 2005, his Jewish audience were described as the American business, political and social elite.
When things go wrong in any of these significant US businesses and institutions, people looking for scapegoats often blame Jews because of the large Jewish presence in each of them. The current financial crisis is no exception.
Abraham Foxman, President of Anti-Defamation League, has written in Jerusalem Post about the recent “anti-semitic” response to the financial crisis. He writes, “It never fails. Whenever there is a financial crisis or trading scandal in the stock markets, the anti-Semites come out of the woodwork. The classic stereotype of the Jewish Shylock out to have his Christian pound of flesh dies very hard, if at all. The Jew as economic opportunist sucking the financial life-blood out of a nation or of the whole world is continually reborn”.
Mr. Foxman does have a point. Stereotypes, whether Jewish or Muslim, are hard to change. The reality is that there are only three Jews on the CNN’s latest top ten list of the culprits of collapse. But these three are probably the most important of the top ten. They are: Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, Current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and the Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld.
(Oct. 2008)
April 10, 2010
www.zimbio.com/Ben+Bernanke/articles/324/Jews+Responsible+Financial+Meltdown