On Wednesday, two Kentucky Republican legislators apologized. What for? For being casually antisemitic. According to the Lexington Herald Leader, it all went down on Tuesday, Feb. 22, during a Kentucky Capital Projects and Bond Oversight Committee meeting. Scott Aubrey, director of the Division of Real Properties, was telling the committee that the Department of Corrections and the Cabinet of Health and Family Services would be extending $1 “emergency” leases needed as a result of the terrible storms that ravaged areas of Kentucky, like Mayfield, in December 2021.
After giving the committee this information, state Sen. Rick Girdler, who chairs the committee, asked if there were any questions. Off-camera (and off-mic), state Rep. Walker Thomas seemed to want to make a joke and asked if the state could “Jew them down” on the price a bit. The best part is for those who barely heard Rep. Walker, Sen. Girdler made sure to repeat the joke into the microphone before realizing what he actually was saying: “We’ve got a representative up here (asking) if you could Jew them down a little bit on the price.” Girdler took the briefest of moments before looking back at Thomas to say, “That ain’t the right word to use. ‘Drop them down,’ I guess.” It isn’t the right word, but that depends on your political party’s perspective on such things these days, I guess?
Rep. Thomas gave a very sincere apology, saying it honestly hadn’t occurred to him that the phrase was one based in antisemitism:
“I sincerely regret using that term and apologize to anyone harmed by my use of it. This is not who I am, nor is it what my faith leads me to be. It is a phrase I have heard throughout my life, but this experience has provided me with an opportunity to reflect on the impact that words have and the fact that we must be smarter today than we were yesterday. I am deeply sorry if I offended anyone.”
Sen. Girdler added in his apology that he has “no hate or malice in my heart for anyone in the Jewish community.” Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, executive director of Chabad of the Bluegrass and chairman of the Kentucky Jewish Council, told reporters that he was “extremely surprised” to hear Girdler say the phrase, saying he knows and respects Girdler.
From what is known of this event, it is absolutely believable that it never occurred to Thomas, and Girdler seems to have quickly realized that the phrase, while maybe commonplace in some circles, was not an “appropriate” thing to say in polite society, or more specifically into microphones that were being recorded for posterity.
Here’s the short clip:
The phrase is exactly what it sounds like it is—a play on the idea that Jews are cheap and always looking to try and negotiate a price that is to their advantage. In its most benign form it means someone is trying to negotiate the price down. In it’s most heinous use it is directed with the implication that Jews are conniving and cutthroat—see the GOP’s embrace of old-timey Nazi antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Many of us have been in spaces where people make what can be called “off-color” jokes. Mr. Aubrey seems, like state Rep. Thomas, to just assume this joke is not off-color at all. He smiles to show his amusement at what, in these circles, passes for almost a polite piece of joshing. I don’t blame them for having been conditioned to not hear the obvious antisemitism … I mean, what the fuck else do you think adding the word of a group and turning it into a verb or adjective does? But that’s how it works. When I was growing up, gay panic was the foundation of virtually every joking male interaction kids had—even in PG-rated movies!
And this is why it is a good thing that Thomas’ ignorance was called out. There does not seem to be someone trying to do anything other than make a joke, who lives in the kind of conservative bubble that allows for casual racism and casual homophobia and casual antisemitism. If he has learned something here and maybe can pass that on to to his immediate intimate circle of friends, that will be a good thing.
You can watch the full interaction starting around the 8:25 mark in this clip below.