There are some list members who recently deplored the selective way of
quoting in some posts. I agree with that complaint. My case in point is the
repeated recent references to Reder (2000),  stressing that with regard to
anti-semitism ``Keynes's lifetime profile was the worst'' of the
economists  listed there. There is literature of considerable weight which
suggests otherwise.
The _Tablet - A new read on Jewish life_ recently  wrote:
Source:  http://www.tabletmag.com/tag/john-maynard-keynes

"A number of critics have speculated on Keynes’ dislike of Jews. In his
article “The Anti-Semitism of Some Eminent Economists,” Melvin Reder argues
that anti-Semitism is “a class-oriented attitude toward personal
relationships in general.” In “Was Keynes Anti-Semitic?” Anand Chandavarkar
posits that Keynes’ anti-Semitism was “a peripheral fringe of an inherently
compassionate personality.”
[link, GMA:   http://www.jstor.org/stable/4409262  ]
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/4409262>
In a response to Chandavarkar’s article, Isaiah Berlin called Keynes’
anti-Semitism, “a kind of club anti-Semitism, but it is not a deep, acute
hostility to Jews...''

I think that is a bit more balanced. When it comes to assessing Keynes's
_liftime profile_ concerning the Reder catch-word "personal relationships
in general",  I think a balanced assessment should mention in more
favorable tone than Reder's:

-Richard Kahn. Although Keynes had a number of tasteless comments on him in
private letters meant to amuse his wife Lydia, in fact and in  public
Keynes was full of praise, support, and acknowledgement for Kahn

-Piero Sraffa, who claimed persecution by Mussolini. Keynes secured
employment  for him at King's college (Kurz, H.; Pasinetti, L. & Salvadori,
N. : Piero Sraffa Man & Scholar : Exploring his unpublished papers Taylor &
Francis, 2013)

An evaluation of Keynes' _liftime profile_  of personal relations to
colleagues with Jewish background should also  consider Donald Moggridge's
passage (_Maynard Keynes_ , Routledge, 1992, p.636)

"Among those interned [1940, in the UK, GMA] were a number of economists,
notably

Piero Sraffa,
Erwin Rothbarth,
Hans Singer and
Edward Rosenbaum,

on whose behalf Keynes intervened with all possible authorities from the
Home Secretary downwards to obtain their release for normal teaching and
research duties. In the end he was successful, but he worried about the
‘thousands of more obscure people who cannot be dealt with in this way’ and
regarded the whole affair as ‘the most disgraceful and humiliating thing
which has happened for a long time’"

This passage merits juxtaposition with Reder's comment in connection with
Keynes (p.840):
"Despite rare exceptions, strong attachment of superior-status
persons to particular individuals of inferior status normally does not
imply desire to extend "most favored individual treatment" to others of that
status."
The question of status is a debatable one. But I think that Keynes was
indeed a "rare exception" in 1940 with his personal friendships and great
compassion for the suffering of   ‘thousands of more obscure people' of
Jewish origin.

Michael Ambrosi

RE
2014-05-29 10:42 GMT-04:00 mason gaffney <[log in to unmask]>:

> Rosser writes: " Reder (2000) has provided a useful exploration of such
> unpleasantries.  Central to his expositions were appraisals of the triad
> John Maynard Keynes, Joseph A. Schumpeter and Friedrich Hayek, on the
> subject of anti-semitism.
> Unexpectedly, I was forced to in the end to conclude that Keynes's
> lifetime profile was the worst of the three...."

Addendum, GMA: In a subsequent mail Rosser clarified that the "I" in this
passage referred not to himself but to Paul Samuelson.