Collective Responsibility of Jews

Do Jews as a whole bear a collective responsibility to act in a certain way because of their history? That's what Gregg Easterbrook seems to think. Although he doesn't come right out and lambast Jews as a whole, he does come dangerously close.

In a scathing review of Quentin Tarantino's movie Kill Bill published in The New Republic Online, Easterbrook ends on a curious note:

Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice.

Easterbrook despises Tarantino's films, calling them all "junk." But what's the relevancy of the fact that many powerful movie studio figures have been Jews? Easterbrook seems to feel that because Jews have suffered in history, they have a special responsibility not to do anything that entails profiting from the depiction of violence and suffering. I guess it's OK for Christians to do this, or do they have a special, collective responsibility that stems from the Crusades and the Inquisition?

Atrios, who led me to this article, points out that "collective responsibility is just the flip side of collective blame," and I think he's right. If Jews have a special responsibility not to do something, and then they do it, why not blame all Jews for that failure and anything negative that is perceived to happen as a result? The problem doesn't lie in speaking about Jews collectively rather than as individuals - there is, after all, a group of people who can be labeled as "Jews" (however amorphous that group may be). Assigning them a special, collective moral responsibility is quite another.

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• Antisemitism