Stereotypes of Jews

[8][9] This stereotype probably originated because red hair is a recessive trait that tends to find higher expression in highly endogamous populations, such as in Jewish communities where Jews were forbidden to marry outsiders.

In part due to their Middle Eastern ethnic origins, Jews tend to be portrayed as swarthy and hairy, sometimes associated with a curly hair texture known as a "Jewfro".

Publications like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and literature such as William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist reinforced the stereotype of the crooked Jew.

Some 20th and 21st century publications, notably the highly controversial book The Bell Curve, have suggested it is supported by the results of IQ research, though the idea has been thoroughly criticised by Sander L. Gilman, who has described it as a "racial myth".

[23] The stereotype is described in detail in Dan Greenburg's best-selling 1964 humor book, How to Be a Jewish Mother: A Very Lovely Training Manual.

Lisa Aronson Fontes describes the stereotype as one of "endless caretaking and boundless self-sacrifice" by a mother who demonstrates her love by "constant overfeeding and unremitting solicitude about every aspect of her children's and husband's welfare[s]".

[26] Although her interviews at Columbia University, with 128 European-born Jews, disclosed a wide variety of family structures and experiences, the publications resulting from this study and the many citations in the popular media resulted in the Jewish mother stereotype: a woman intensely loving but controlling to the point of smothering and attempting to engender enormous guilt in her children via the endless suffering which she professes to have experienced on their behalf.

[30] William Helmreich agrees, observing that the attributes of a Jewish mother—overprotection, pushiness, aggression, and guilt-inducement—could equally well be ascribed to mothers of other ethnicities, from Italians through Blacks to Puerto Ricans.

Other aspects of the stereotype are rooted in those immigrant Jewish parents' drive for their children to succeed, resulting in a push for perfection and a continual dissatisfaction with anything less: "So you got a B?

Hartman observes that the root of the stereotype is in the self-sacrifice of first-generation immigrants, unable to take full advantage of American education themselves, and the consequent transference of their aspirations, to success and social status, from themselves to their children.

The "soldier woman" work ethos of Jewish women, and the levels of anxiety and dramatization of their lives, were seen as unduly excessive for lifestyles that had (for middle-class Jews) become far more secure and suburban by the middle of the century.

In her 1967 essay "In Defense of the Jewish Mother", Zena Smith Blau defended the stereotype, asserting that the ends, inculcating virtues that resulted in success, justified the means, control through love and guilt.

Being tied to mamma kept Jewish boys away from "[g]entile friends, particularly those from poor, immigrant families with rural origins in which parents did not value education".

She observes that there appears to have been no conscious effort on the part of screenwriters or film-makers to rewrite or change the stereotype, in pursuance of some revisionist agenda, instead, it has simply fallen back a generation.

Jewish-American princess (JAP) is a pejorative stereotype that portrays some upper-middle-class Jewish women as spoiled brats,[40][41] implying entitlement and selfishness, attributed to a pampered or wealthy background.

[48][49] According to Riv-Ellen Prell, the JAP stereotype's rise to prominence in the 1970s resulted from pressures that were placed on the Jewish middle class and forced it to maintain a visibly affluent lifestyle even as post-war affluence declined.

[47] The stereotype has been described as "a sexually repressive, self-centered, materialistic and lazy female,"[52] who is "spoiled, overly-concerned with appearance, and indifferent to sex", the last being her most notable trait.

[48][49] The stereotype also portrays relationships with weak men who are easily controlled and willing to spend large amounts of money and energy in order to recreate the dynamic which she had during her upbringing.

Zappa repeatedly denied antisemitic intention and refused to apologize on the basis that he did not invent the concept and further noted that women who fit the stereotype actually existed.

[57][58][59] The American television show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, created by Rachel Bloom, features a parody song that can be seen as both satirizing and embracing this trope.

[63][71][72] Jay Michaelson writes in The Jewish Daily Forward that the character of Maurice Levy, in the drama series The Wire, played by Michael Kostroff, is stereotypical, with a "New York accent and the quintessential pale skin, brown hair and Ashkenazic nose of the typical American Jew".

The idea that Jewish men were effeminate even made its way into Nazi racial theories that adopted Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger's claim that "the Jew is more saturated in femininity than the Aryan.

"[78] In Israel and the parts of the diaspora which have received heavy exposure to the American media that deploy the representation, the stereotype has gained popular recognition to a lesser extent.

According to Daniel Boyarin's Unheroic Conduct (University of California Press, 1997), eydlkayt embraces the studiousness, gentleness and sensitivity that is said to distinguish the Talmudic scholar and make him an attractive marriage partner.

[80]For Philip Roth's semi-autobiographical avatar Alex Portnoy, neither the nice Jewish boy nor his more aggressively masculine counterparts (the churlish Jewboy, the "all-American" ice hockey player) prove to be acceptable identities to attain.

Martin Marger writes "A set of distinct and consistent negative stereotypes, some of which can be traced as far back as the Middle Ages in Europe, has been applied to Jews.

According to Louis Harap, nearly all European writers prior to the twentieth century who included Jewish characters in their works projected stereotypical depictions.

He contrasts the opposing views presented in the two most comprehensive studies of Jewish characters in English literature, one by Montagu Frank Modder and the other by Edgar Rosenberg.

The name plays off the term "blackface", and the act featured performers enacting Jewish stereotypes, wearing large putty noses, long beards, and tattered clothing, and speaking with thick Yiddish accent.

[115] Research on voting in the United States has shown that stereotypes play a crucial role in voter decision making on both a conscious and subconscious level.