Biden
called his use of the term “Shylock” a “poor choice of words” and said the
leader of the Anti-Defamation League was “right” to criticize him.
“Abe Foxman has been a friend and advisor of mine for a long
time,” Biden said in a statement. “He’s correct,
it was a poor choice of words, particularly as he said coming from ‘someone as
friendly to the Jewish community and open and tolerant an individual as is Vice
President Joe Biden.’ He’s right.”
Vice
President Joe Biden has drawn criticism from a prominent Jewish group after
using a well-known anti-Semitic slur during a speech Tuesday.
Speaking
to the Legal Services Corporation – an organization that offers legal services
to those who cannot afford them – Biden referred to unscrupulous bankers who
target military men and women as “Shylocks.”
Yahoo
News reported that
during his remarks, Biden described what his son, Delaware Attorney General
Beau Biden, experienced while serving in Iraq.
“People
would come to him and talk about what was happening to them at home in terms of
foreclosures, in terms of bad loans that were being — I mean, these
Shylocks who took advantage of these women and men while overseas,” Biden said.
Shylock,
a Jewish moneylender, was the villain in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”
who demanded a “pound of flesh” as payment on a loan.
“Shylock
represents the medieval stereotype about Jews and remains an offensive
characterization to this day,” Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham
Foxman said. “The vice president should have been more careful.”
“When someone as friendly to the Jewish community and open and
tolerant an individual as is Vice President Joe Biden, uses the term
‘Shylocked’ to describe unscrupulous moneylenders dealing with service men and
women, we see once again how deeply embedded this stereotype about Jews is in
society,” Foxman said.
