Why would anyone pretend to be Jewish? Because Jews dominate certain parts of American cultural life, such as publishing. Jews occupy the high ground. Someone who wants to make it has an incentive to pass as Jewish or even to convert formally to Judaism.<\/p>\n
JTA<\/a>: <\/p>\n In 2000, the New York Magazine revealed that Carter for years had pretended to be Jewish during the 1970s.<\/p>\n A friend of Carter\u2019s, Craig Walls, recalled one time when Carter told other journalists and writers at a party that his mother \u201cwould kill\u201d him for eating pork. Asked why, he said: \u201cBecause I\u2019m Jewish,\u201d Walls recalled. Carter confirmed to the New York Magazine that he had pretended to be Jewish.<\/p>\n \u201cI was reading a lot of Kerouac and a lot of Ginsberg,\u201d Carter told New York Magazine. \u201dAnd I thought, If you\u2019re going to be an intellectual in New York, you\u2019ve got to be Jewish. It wasn\u2019t some experiment, like Gentleman\u2019s Agreement, or anything like that. It was just \u2026 I thought \u2026 I just found it\u2026 I don\u2019t know. It was so much more exotic than what I really was.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why would anyone pretend to be Jewish? Because Jews dominate certain parts of American cultural life, such as publishing. Jews occupy the high ground. Someone who wants to make it has an incentive to pass as Jewish or even to … Continue reading