The Tough Jews Of Chanukah
Lessons in Self-Defense
The oft-repeated media images of Jews being nerdy. Or accountants with pencils and calculators in their pockets. Or people who can be pushed around. Or people who aren’t tough enough to fight back. These repeated stereotypes affect how non-Jews perceive Jews and, frankly, how many of us Jews see ourselves.
In fact, in the book Greedy, Cowardly, and Weak: Hollywood’s Jewish Stereotypes, author Henry Keller analyzes over 75 years of films that perpetuate these images. You know what I’m talking about.
I recall as a kid feeling proud of the endless list of Jewish scientists, Nobel Prize winners, lawyers, and intellectuals but at the same time wondered about the lack of Jewish boxers, basketball players or military generals. Why I was given the uncontradicted impression that we could be smart and even nerdy, but not tough. We could count beans but not bullets.
Even worse, I was left with the unsettling impression that the Jews of Europe walked to the gas chambers like sheep to be slaughtered without putting up the slightest of fights.
There was even a joke in the 1980s: “Ever seen the book of Jews in sports? It’s this thick!” (Motion with your hands like you’re holding a small magazine.)
