# Did any American in the past 50 years ever really think that Jews have horns? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 4, 2011, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143 "2011-09-04T05:28:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/21 "2011-09-04T16:03:05Z")
I had a great grandfather who was Jewish. I grew up in Tennessee and I’m over 50 and I never heard of this horn thing until I saw this thread. BTW, on the topic of body odor. Back then most people smelled. Bathing everyday isn’t that common unless you had access to a shower. Because of differences of diet and stuff, there are differences in body odor and naturally you don’t notice the familiar smells. It is the unfamiliar odors that smell bad. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/22 "2011-09-04T16:24:51Z")
A woman I knew reasonably well told us (at Passover, in fact) that when her family moved to rural West Virginia in the early '80’s, she and her sister were searched for horns on their first day of school. It was ostensibly a lice inspection, but it was completely concentrated on the upper forehead. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/23 "2011-09-04T16:29:23Z")
When I was in the UK in the 1960’s, I met several people who firmly believed that Mormons had horns, and was quite surprised that I didn’t. I also met more than one person who was absolutely convinced that the Mormons in the 1850’s had built a huge tunnel underneath the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Salt Lake City, so that they could carry away the young girls and marry them. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/24 "2011-09-04T16:33:48Z")
Adding to what **ZenBeam** and others have said, here’s the complete straight dope (as it were) on the subject of Moses’ horns in medieval art: > [@](#): > > Very widespread in medieval and early Renaissance portraiture; indeed, it becomes an iconographic point, enabling us to identify Moses as easily as, say, Lawrence with his gridiron, Catherine with her wheel, and so on. The representation was beginning to die out by Browne’s day. The most widely known examples today are Michelangelo’s statue in Rome and Sluter’s (earlier) figure of Moses on the Well of Moses in Dijon, but there are examples in the glass of French cathedrals, including Chartres, Paris, and Bourges. (The Chartres window shows a horned (and haloed) Moses with the brazen serpent. The sculpture on the door shows Moses, again with the brazen serpent, but without horns (still haloed, however). Moses is also depicted in two other windows in the church, again with horns.) The earliest examples are found in an eleventh-century manuscript of Ælfric’s Paraphrase (also known as the Old English Heptateuch), where Moses is shown in a sort of hat with horns (which, by the way, eliminates the oft-asserted origin in the Rouen mystery plays of the 14th century). See Ruth Mellinkoff’s The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought for a treatment of the subject; see also Margit Süring’s dissertation, published as “The Horn Motif” (1980, Andrews University Press) for a general discussion of the religious connotations of horns, and a bibliography. [Here’s the source](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pseudodoxia/pseudo59.html) – my quote’s from the first footnote. ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/25 "2011-09-04T16:54:34Z")
I wish that I didn’t believe that people are stupid enough to believe in these kinds of things, but unfortunately bitter experience with the human race has taught me that many complete idiots walk among us. I totally do believe that there are people that stupid still out there. For those who have had to deal with this kind of stupidity, how do you manage not to become hateful yourself after being confronted with this kind of thing??? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/26 "2011-09-04T18:24:52Z")
> [@mcgato](#): > > I’m from small town Minnesota and started college in 1979 at a college with a fairly large Jewish population. A Jewish girl from down the hall asked me if I thought that all Jews had horns. I stared at her like she was crazy. Unfortunately, she probably thought you were staring at her horns. ☹ As **astro** ’s link shows, Bess Truman was a bigot who would have been spectacularly unprepared to have Jesus over as a dinner guest, but I didn’t see anything there about her believing in the horns. Few people know this, but David Susskind had both horns and a tail. As proof, he was always seen on camera fully clothed and sitting down. ---
**Author:** ![Chicagojeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@Chicagojeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicagojeff)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/27 "2011-09-04T21:45:24Z")
In an oral history of black soldiers in WWI they recalled that white soldiers told french kids that the black soldiers had tails. So the french kids were following around the black soldiers to get a glimpse of them… I’ve heard the jews have horns theory years ago… not shortage to the ignorance that occurs due to lack of diversity… ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/28 "2011-09-04T21:56:34Z")
I can remember my rural, southern great grandmother saying that “yankees have tails,” but I think she was kidding. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/29 "2011-09-04T22:26:30Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The answer to the last question is definitely yes. (This in response no the “No Jews/Blacks/Irish or Dogs Allowed” claim. Got a photo? This claim is frequently made, and very, very rarely supported with evidence. At one time and place perhaps there was such a sign, but the claim that they were common is bullshit, or else there’d be pictures of lots of them. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/30 "2011-09-04T22:54:31Z")
Not sure about the first, though kids are liable to believe all kinds of things. As for the second; yes, but I think it may be more likely it said “Hebrew” (like with job ads) or Jews were just considered ‘Colored’. One of the country clubs here opened for Jews in the 1920s because they were excluded from the others. (The club was sold this year- I suppose the new membership can join any club now?) There was also an ideological “No Jews Allowed” sign when the [_St. Louis_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis) arrived with nearly 1,000 refugees in 1939, but I suppose that’s a bit different. Perhaps the explicit ‘No Jews Allowed’ signs were more prominent in [Canada](http://www.vosizneias.com/31428/2009/05/08/quebec-canada-in-winnipeg-in-the-1930s-and-1940s-jews-were-considered-personae-non-gratae/)? Considering the blatant racism and psuedoscience that prevailed until recent memory about non-whites, I can see adults thinking Jews had little bumps on the tops of their head or something. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/31 "2011-09-04T23:01:09Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > (This in response no the “No Jews/Blacks/Irish or Dogs Allowed” claim. > > Got a photo? This claim is frequently made, and very, very rarely supported with evidence. > > At one time and place perhaps there was such a sign, but the claim that they were common is bullshit, or else there’d be pictures of lots of them. Irish I know for sure from family lore (and not joking). My mom’s side of my family is all Irish. The oldtimers told me they personally saw signs reading “Help wanted. No Irish need apply.” "“White only” signs goes without saying. I don’t know about “no Jews.” ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/32 "2011-09-04T23:04:46Z")
Also, Harvard had a policy of restricting Jews on the basis that ‘they cheat’, and other universities had quotas. It was harder for Jews to get housing in certain areas or be hired for certain jobs. So I think some of things things just weren’t as overt…but [here’s your sign](http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/images/c42-4.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/33 "2011-09-04T23:06:33Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Irish I know for sure from family lore (and not joking). My mom’s side of my family is all Irish. The oldtimers told me they personally saw signs reading “Help wanted. No Irish need apply.” > > "“White only” signs goes without saying. > > I don’t know about “no Jews.” Not only that, stories of antisemitism (everywhere, not just the South) in America are in many Jewish history books and documentaries. So to deny that is to imply we’ve made it up. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/34 "2011-09-04T23:07:17Z")
[19th Century Ad from NY Times containing “no Irish need apply.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NINA-nyt.JPG) ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/35 "2011-09-04T23:55:57Z")
Someone upthread mentioned some people believing, a long time ago, that Mormons had horns. In the book Papa Married a Mormon [http://www.amazon.com/Papa-Married-Mormon-John-Fitzgerald/dp/0914740210](http://www.amazon.com/Papa-Married-Mormon-John-Fitzgerald/dp/0914740210) the author, J. D. Fitzgerald tells about his upbringing in territorial Utah. His Catholic father married his Mormon mother. At one point the father’s sister decides to come West to her brother’s family, She’s a very strict Catholic, and her brother is laughing because he tells everyone that his sister Cathy “firmly believes that all Mormons have horns.” So the author’s brother find his siblings cow horns and they tie them to their foreheads to greet their aunt, who promptly faints at the sign of them. Of course the happy ending of this story is that the bigoted Aunt Cathy finally loses her bigotry, falls in love with a Mormon man, and converts to his faith. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/36 "2011-09-05T00:02:14Z")
According to the book I just read, during the Great Depression there were signs in California that said “No Niggers, no Okies, no Arkies.” The last being migrants from Arkansas. I find it believable. People are crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/37 "2011-09-05T00:28:24Z")
I have never heard of this ‘Jews having horns’ belief until reading this thread. People can be sick, twisted, and perverse. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/38 "2011-09-05T00:57:32Z")
> [@FatBaldGuy](#): > > When I was in the UK in the 1960’s, I met several people who firmly believed that Mormons had horns, and was quite surprised that I didn’t. I also met more than one person who was absolutely convinced that the Mormons in the 1850’s had built a huge tunnel underneath the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Salt Lake City, so that they could carry away the young girls and marry them. I used to know a French girl who was convinced that Mormons and Amish people were the same thing and practiced polygyny while living in rural farming villages with no modern technology or colorful clothes. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/39 "2011-09-05T01:04:25Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > I used to know a French girl who was convinced that Mormons and Amish people were the same thing and practiced polygyny while living in rural farming villages with no modern technology or colorful clothes. Well, to be fair, a lot of the Abrahamic religions look very similar to outsiders. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143/40 "2011-09-05T01:07:41Z")
Maybe those people were just jealous [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-american-in-the-past-50-years-ever-really-think-that-jews-have-horns/595143.md?page=3)