No Stereotypes, Please

Although I disagree with the conclusion that Christmas is non-religious, as Eric R. Columbus suggested in his commentary "My Santa's No Secret" in yesterday's Crimson, I welcome alternative viewpoints.

However, I was shocked, horrified and absolutely enraged at one particular sentence. He said, "No self-respecting Jew would romp around in that idiotic outfit and give away all that stuff for free," implying that Jews are miserly.

This common stereotype has been applied for generations, and comes from the fact that intellectual Jews could not own land in pre-modern Europe, so they were forced to take the only other intellectual jobs as bankers and merchants.

They were responsible for handling money, so others resented the "greedy Jews" for charging interest or foreclosing. The same stereotype Columbus used in his editorial was the excuse used by Hitler to blame the Jews for Germany's economic problems and to slaughter them by the millions.

I hope that in the future this writer looks more into his own heritage and thinks hard before perpetuating such damaging generalizations, especially in this time of the renewed rise of fascism, xenophobia and especially anti-Semitism in Europe. Dunster Christmas Tree Decorator