Jews booze, too

The belief that Jews and liquor don’t mix goes back a long, long ways. Even 50 years ago, Time magazine recalled that old Yiddish song, “Shikker Iz a Goy.” From the song’s perspective, drunkenness is not a failing of the Jew but merely a trapping of the gentile.

It’s false, but the belief remains hard to shake. Like I’ve said before, its only in theory and cultural consciousness that Jews don’t drink heavily. They are less prone to alcoholism, but booze Jews do too.

The latest from Newsweek, via Luke Ford:

It was a Saturday afternoon in July, and according to the police report, the young man was driving drunk. So drunk, in fact, that he drove into the oncoming lane, rolled his car, crashed into a cottage and then tried to flee the scene on foot. It’s a sad but not surprising story—except for the details: the driver was an Orthodox Jew, vacationing in the Catskills. It was Sabbath, and he was wasted.