ABSTRACT
The worst version of a stereotype that anyone can believe is that all of the individuals inside of a group are the same, whether the stereotype is negative or positive. No group of people is monolithic along any dimension of traits you could name, whatever people outside that particular group think. People within one group are as diverse as people within any other group. In my experience, whatever the group, there are cliques, interest groups, groups with common backgrounds, and/or warring factions that demonstrate that its members differ in significant ways from one another and whose ideologies battle for ascendancy. The Jewish people are not an exception. They, like other peoples, hold their own stereotypes about themselves as well. Over the millennia, there are many different ways in which Jews have sorted themselves into groups.
