As one of a few Jews in this classroom, I found it comical how many Jewish stereotypes were mentioned in the beginning of Caro’s piece. First of all, there is a Jew at Yale in 1909 – when Ivy League schools were extremely discriminatory and usually did not allow Jews or Black people into their institutions. Also, he was from New York, the classic place someone who is uninformed might assume all American Jews live. Then, Caro discusses how everyone acknowledges the Jew is the smartest kid in the class. He’s also always talking about being fair – two examples include his passionate speech to motivate his classmates to choose officers based on merit, not based on connections, and his commitment to dedicate his life to community service. In Hebrew we would say Moses embodies the Jewish value of tikkun olam which literally translates to “fixing the world,” leaving it a better place to live in than when you first got there.

However, this idealism doesn’t stop him from presenting a plan to the swim team captain to initiate a shady fundraising plot to funnel funds away from all minor sports toward the swim team. Some might anti-semitically refer to this as a classic Jew move. But, if you would ask me, it seems totally out of character based on the picture that Caro paints of Moses’ do-gooder side. It seems that when people heavily rely on stereotypes to shape their opinions of various groups, they inevitably draw contradictory conclusions. In this case, the Jew is at the same time expected to be a saint and a crook.