News Flash: Tim Geithner Not a Jew

from Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic: Tim Geithner, Not a Jew

The Goldblog inbox is regularly visited by correspondents eager to make the case that the world economy is controlled by the Jews. Most of them make the case, at best, in semi-literate fashion (when anti-Semites write properly, or even use spell-check, I'm going to start worrying), and a surprising number of them make their arguments through the use of lists, which is to say, they provide me lists of prominent Jews as proof that.... there are a lot of prominent Jews. Where it gets highly amusing is when these lists contain the names of people who are quite obviously not Jewish. These days, the lists are dominated by one name: Tim Geithner. I've received dozens of e-mails claiming that Geithner is Jewish, and in the sway of nefarious Wall Street Talmudists. Here is an excerpt from one such letter:

"The jew Summers and the jew Geitner are giving our goverment to the Isrealis locks stocks and barrels. This is the plan from the beginning with the jew bernanke and obama who is suported by the jew emanel. obama gets all his money from jews and they are using the american tax money to push the arab out of palestine forever."

I always thought it was "lox, stock and barrel," but never mind that. Here's another: "Geithner is the zionist who is controlling the taxes and is under the complet control fo the mossad the zionist murder agency. this zionist is only one. the zionists are everywhere in the government of america."

It is true that Larry Summer and Ben Shalom Bernanke (anti-Semitic letter writers are always sure to mention his actual middle name, which is a beautiful middle name) and I suppose the Jewishness of Summer and Bernanke alone is enough to send anti-Semitic fevers spiking. But I'm sorry to report that Timothy Franz Geithner is extremely not Jewish. This is not to say that some of his best friends aren't Jewish, but the man quite obviously doesn't show up on my Jewdar for any number of reasons, including that crucial "Franz." In fact, Geithner is, as best as anyone can tell, a member of the United Church of Christ.

Personally, I'd be happy to claim Geithner for the tribe (I'm happy to claim nearly everyone, except Charles Taylor), but I think the secretary is quite permanently seated on the Christian side of the aisle. In other words, please stop writing, anti-Semites e-mailers. Or at least come up with someone new.

More from Tzvee's Talmudic Blog here, including a link to a wikipedia discussion page documenting the process by which wikipedia contributors arrived at their determination on the subject (read here). Anyone putting stock in wikipedia take note: when it comes to controversial subjects relating to Jews, the loonies come out of the woodwork. The discussion concerning the editing of the Geitner wikipedia article starts with the proposition that not calling him Jewish indicates a Zionist coverup at work, and eventually gets around to a discussion of whether he actually is Jewish.

The far-right, far-left and Islamist internet echo chambers are filled with talk of Jewish (or "Zionist") domination of U.S. government agencies dealing with the financial crisis. (For example, read here and here and here and here and here. The last link appears to be a deliberate bit of disinfo on the part of a blogger who cuts and pastes from sources contradicting his "facts".)

Sorry Nazis, not only isn't Geithner Jewish, neither are Hank Paulson (Christian Scientist with a Norwegian name), Paul Volcker (Lutheran with a German name) or Jon Corzine (Methodist with an Italian name). Here's an idea: try calling them "Zionist" instead. That will save you the trouble of fact-checking and let you deny to the gullible that you're a bigot.

Steve Sailor (whose views, it should surprise no one, I strongly oppose -- his blog touts a book he authored about Obama called "America's Half-Blood Prince") writes on his blog that he looked into the ethnicity and religion of 40 major players associated with the financial crisis on both the governent and business sides of the equation. He looked into his magic ethnocentric crystal ball and found that 11 of the 40 on his list were Jewish. (Read here.)

Conclusion: Jews are only 1/4 of the way on the road to world domination.