Michael Waldman

This resonates with me, although my experience was almost the reverse. I grew up in Dubai pre Abraham Accords, so I had zero interaction with Jewish people growing up. I did, however, hear plenty of antisemitic jokes & comments. What often confused me was that most racist jokes seemed to revolve around supposed racial inferiority. But with Jewish people, it was the opposite in that they were supposedly too good at making money, running businesses, and accumulating influence. Maybe it was my Asian striver cultural mindset, but even as a kid I remember questioning why being good at those things are somehow undesirable? Fast forward to Duke freshmen year. All 4 guys on my side of the dorm were Jewish and so I ended up rushing and joining AEPi (about 2/3 Jewish at Duke). I have genuinely never felt excluded for not being Jewish. I was regularly invited to Shabbat dinners at the Duke Chabad, where Rabbi Nossen was one of the kindest person who I’ve ever met. And eventually, the guys even elected a practicing Catholic (me) to be their fraternity president. Meanwhile, I’ve noticed something strange in my other social circles, particularly among my more socialist-leaning friends. People who would recoil at the slightest insinuation of racial stereotyping in any other context will note Jewish overrepresentation in media, finance, technology, and then suggest that these activities are somehow inherently parasitic. This has made me suspect that there is a correlation between certain forms of antisemitism and anti-capitalism. Whether a fundamentally zero-sum understanding of the economy makes certain antisemitic narratives particularly attractive. Consider that the Jewish people, leas than 0.2% of the world’s population, account for 1/4 of individual Nobel laureates and approximately 40% of economics laureates. Whether you see this as evidence of an “international Jewish conspiracy,” or what becomes possible within a culture that places enormous value on learning, curiosity, and debate; that regards the world as God’s creation, worthy of being studied, understood, and repaired; and that emphasizes family, community, just charity, and mutual responsibility, is probably correlated with whether you see success itself as evidence of value EXTRACTED, or as evidence of value CREATED for the wider world. Perhaps what appears to be the resentment of a particular group reveals a deeper resentment of the very virtues, norms, values, and propensities through which human prosperity and progress is created.