I am not one to worry so much about anti-Semitism, not because it doesn’t exist, but because others do it far too much. But a recent study which indicates that 24.6% of Americans blame “the Jews” a moderate amount or more, for our nation’s financial problems, is pretty disturbing.
Based on the research of Neil Malhotra and Yotam Margalit of Stanford and Columbia Universities, respectively, these numbers point to a persistent and pernicious lie about Jews in America. Interestingly there even seems to be a political angle on this kid of Jew-hatred. Turns out that Democrats are almost twice as like as Republicans to blame “the Jews” anywhere from “a moderate” to a great” amount.
For some, like Bill Kristol, this suggests the foolishness of Jews ongoing commitment to the Democratic Party by a margin of roughly 3.5 to 1. For others, it speaks to the level of resentment created by the Madoff scandal.

For me, it suggests that we really don’t understand what drives many people’s attitudes to Jews, including Jews themselves, who often time derive deep collective pride from the success of individual Jews, but loathe the fact that others direct hostility at the group because of the actions of individuals.
Not to mention that there really is a difference between talking about Jews as a group with observable patterns of behavior, and “the Jews” as a cabal which acts in a coordinated way to manipulate the larger world to the group’s own ends. The first is simply sociology, while the second is classical anti-Semitism.
Bottom line, this is complicated. So, before offering any further analyses of these facts, I encourage you to look at the brief summary of results which you can find here, and weigh in with your own thoughts….