<p>I grew up hearing the expression “Jew him down” and never wondered one way or another whether it was a slur or not when I was a kid. I tried to explain to my Dad only a few years ago that it was a slur and he refused to believe it. He considered it a talent. I also grew up thinking that all Jewish people owned retail stores because the only two Jewish families in my area did own retail stores so that made perfect sense to me. Thinking about what it meant to be Jewish was completely irrelevant where I grew up. I dated the only Jewish boy in my high school and no one in my family cared so I suppose that was enough for me to think they meant no harm when certain things were said. There is bigotry and there is ignorance and, while there is no lack of either in the area in which I grew up, there is a difference.</p>
<p>I kinda like opera- in fact I downloaded Tristan & Isolde to play at 9 am to combat my neighbors playing really bad hip hop @ 1am.</p>
<p>;)
But *Philadelphia * was a scootch over the top.</p>
<p>I had similar experience growing up in a town with very few Jews. Oddly, the stereotypes about Jews were essentially that they were superior in certain respects, not inferior…i.e., that they were smart, hard bargainers, good doctors, etc. There were a separate set of negative stereotypes about “New York Jews,” though.</p>
<p>I heard “jew you down” in a jewelry shop just a few months ago, when I went to take something in for an appraisal. The guy tried to backpedal and say it was a compliment. Uh-huh. I took the jewelry back out of his hands and left. I couldn’t believe it. It’s not like I was in some backwater town, I was in a Chicago suburb.</p>
<p>^My father’s Jewish and I was raised spiritual (mom’s Catholic and I didn’t know him that well) so I have to confess to the occasional joke about my “Jewyness” and when I was in 9th grade I recall having a fairly innocent joke about being half-Catholic and half-Jewish but I can’t remember what it was now. In College I think I made a few DEFINITELY unintentional anti-semitic remarks in an essay when I mentioned “Zionist Christians”… I was thinking of people like Ted Haggart (or is it Haggard) who wanted to bomb Iran to bring on the rapture… but what I think I was really doing is confusing “Zionist” for “Xenophobia” and “Zealot.” But anti-semitism really annoys me, especially Holocaust deniers, real piece of work there…</p>