File under 'What was he thinking?' White House scrubs National Security Adviser’s ‘greedy Jew’ joke

[cali]

White House scrubs National Security Adviser’s ‘greedy Jew’ joke from transcript

By John Byrne
Monday, April 26th, 2010 -- 10:08 am
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President Obama's National Security Adviser James Jones told a joke stereotyping Jews as greedy merchants to a Washington policy forum Friday night.

The remark -- little-noticed except in the New York-based Jewish newspaper The Forward -- drew laughter and applause but raised more than a few eyebrows among those in attendance.

In fact, the White House left the joke out of Jones' official speech transcript, "which conveniently began a couple of minutes into the speech."

Jones was speaking to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel thinktank. According to the Forward, the Institute was founded by Jewish donors.

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http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0426/national-security-adviser-tells-greedy-jewish-joke-jewish-crowd/

[RandomThoughts]

1. The joke is not about greed.

It is about market manipulation, or interconnected links between establishments.

Although any stereotype in a joke is dumb.

[cali]

2. huh? it's a classical stereotype of the "greedy jew"

[RandomThoughts]

6. First off I do not think greed is part of Jewish teachings.

But the point I am making is that the guy selling the ties, was not greedy, he was just selling ties.

And the person down the road selling water was not greedy he was just selling water.

But the water seller made sure that you also had to give his friend a cut before he would sell you water. Something that can only be done without competition.


I think the joke is in bad taste, but it is not about greed, it is about monopoly, or price setting, or maybe market manipulation. Something I also do not think is part of Jewish teachings.

But it is not about greed but more about a market method, although it does make more money and can be said to be unfair, since it has presumption of monopoly, so it has a mild greed part to it.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[twiceshy]

4. First of all .........

are there any Jews in Afghanistan? I kinda doubt it. So this moron (Jones) is reaching way too far to make a disparaging joke about Jewish people.

What if Dick Cheney said this joke?

Many of Obama's past and present associates are anti-Semitic.

[cali]

5. baloney. Obama knows a lot of people, so undoubtedly he knows/has known some

anti-semites and other people with other prejudices, but I don't think there was any anti-semitic intent behind this dumb joke, and most of the Jewish atttendees evidently don't either. It was just inane, clumsy and stupid.

[ieoeja]

7. This is a variation of a "stupid Talib" joke that has been making the rounds of the Jewish community

The butt of the joke was the Talib, not the Jews.