Although Alabama Gov. Guy Hunt said he jokes about it with his Jewish friends, leaders of Alabama’s Jewish community said they found little humor in the Governor’s remark at a local peach festival late last week that “I never tried to Jew” a peach farmer over the price of his fruit.
Immediately following the remark, a reporter asked Hunt if some Jews might be offended. Hunt replied, “I joke about that with my Jewish friends all the time.”
“He stuck his foot in his mouth and then he kept chewing on it,” said Rabbi David Nesson of Congregation Agudath Israel in Montgomery, Ala. Nesson was also referring to Hunt’s apology–which many found as offensive as his original remark.
In it, Hunt said, “I have studied history and have great respect and regard for the business success of the Jewish people.” He added that, “I was raised and taught and believe the people of Israel to be God’s chosen and special people.”
MET WITH GOVERNOR
Representatives of the Jewish community met with Hunt last week to express their concerns over his remarks. A spokesman for the governor said Hunt had apologized again, but the spokesman offered no further comment on the meeting. The Jewish leaders have been unavailable for comment.
Some members of the Alabama Jewish community told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last week they believed Hunt’s remarks were inadvertent and without malice. Ellen Loeb, spokesperson for the Jewish Federation of Montgomery, said the incident “has been blown out of proportion.” The governor’s statement was made unthinkingly and was certainly offensive, she said, “but it was not an intentional slur.”
But Rabbi David Baylinson of Congregation Beth. Or in Montgomery said, “He obviously has an ingrained stereotype about Jews … it shows how ‘backwoods’ he really is.”
In addition to protests from the Jewish community, the remarks have drawn scrutiny from the press on Hunt’s background.
Elected in November 1986, Hunt is the first Republican Governor in Alabama in 112 years. Although he was the dark horse candidate, his campaign got a much-needed boost from an illegal vote crossing-over scandal in the Democratic primary which discredited the Democratic candidate, former Alabama Lt. Gov. Bill Baxley.
Hunt comes from the tiny northern Alabama town of Holly Pond, where he was a farmer and a fundamentalist lay preacher in a Primitive Baptist church where he continues to preach.
NO JEWS IN CABINET
There are no Jews among Hunt’s cabinet or advisors, according to Baylinson. Alabama has an estimated Jewish population of about 9,400.
Although the Jewish leaders recognize that the expression ‘to Jew someone out of something’ — meaning derogatorily to cheat or haggle over — has been traditionally a part of the Southern vernacular that Hunt grew up with, they said this made his use of it no less offensive.
“We are hoping to sensitize the governor to the fact that this is very much an anti-Semitic expression,” Nesson said before the meeting. Baylinson said other racial slurs — once part of the everyday vocabulary in the South — were found reprehensible by ethnic groups and eliminated from the vernacular.
“The cliche came out of a prejudice towards Jews in the South,” Baylinson said.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
