Penny-Pinching Jews: A Stereotype to Emulate?

Goldblog reader James Wynn writes in about the South Carolina penny-pinching controversy:

Perhaps I'm seeing something that isn't there, but I inferred from the title of this post a suggestion of anti-Semitic bigotry on the part of the two county Republican chairmen.

First, I think there is a difference between stereotypes to be disparaged and stereotypes to be emulated. The chairmen were guilty of the latter. Second, I've lived 2/3 of my life in the South/Southwest and the rest in the Northeast. I've the noticed that the attitudes about Jews in either place to be remarkably different. In New York, a Jew is some jerk who is dating his sister or a weirdly dressed guy who's probably hoarding diamonds. In the S/SW and probably in most of the Midwest, a Jew is David or Solomon or Daniel or Jesus or James or Paul.

I've simply never encountered bigotry against Jews out here -- as I have toward Blacks and (once) toward Vietnamese. I'm not saying there isn't some Klansman in Vidor, TX nursing conspiracies. I'm just saying such a thing is a major aberration.

But you know the old saying: Philo-Semites are anti-Semites who like Jews.