To be fair, I think “Feingold” is a relatively normal-sounding name in America now. And that’s interesting.
Franklin Roosevelt got his name Germanized to “Rosenfeld” by enemies who thought making him sound Yiddish hurt him. But that sort of thing was a provincialism even then. Politicians got in trouble for assuming WASP majorities even 120 years ago. Much of the urban East Coast, & lot of Middle America, is not WASP. My hometown, for example, is heavily German & Scots-Irish, there are Irish Catholics almost everywhere, & there are all those Scandinavians in Minnesota.
“Feingold” cracks me up because I recognize it as an almost absurdly self-flattering ornamental name. Like “Goldberg” or something. It is stereotypically Jewish, & it’s part of a goofy legacy of over-the-top family names. But the funny thing is, in an America full of people whose ancestors spoke German &/or Yiddish, where guys with similarly Germanic names like Eddie Rickenbacker, Dwight Eisenhower, & Bruce Springsteen are great Americans, many people, like our friend Ludovic, won’t even think it sounds “ethnic” nor get that it’s Jewish.
As for anti-Semitism, I wonder how far that goes.
I confess that I worried about Lieberman becoming President after Gore were elected & assassinated (20-year curse, you know [& what’s up with that? Bush yet lives?])–for two reasons: One, I didn’t like Lieberman himself that much (Big Pharma ties, etc.) (I guess he was still better than Cheney, which is faint praise). Two, I thought a blatantly Jewish President might cause troubles for the US in countries with strong anti-Israel sentiment. In hindsight, I think a blatantly Jewish President might be just the person to draw a line between American interests & Israeli interests. And the serious Jew-haters will draw Stars of David on their caricatures of us anyway.
Because, in politics & pop culture, the USA is already pretty Jewish compared to other countries.
At least Fine-gold’s a Reform Jew. I found it hard to respect a guy who ropes his Gentile friends into flipping light switches for him on the Sabbath (yeah, like that’s less work).
