The Jews

Okay in spite of what "Fiddler on the roof" would have you believe, not all Jews dance around in their barns all day singing to themselves about desired riches (although I may have been guilty of doing this once or twice myself).  I feel like whenever most Americans think of Jews, they picture men dressed in trench coats and top hats over in Jerusalem in run down houses and small communities.  They picture a people that are completely different and unrelatable to "normal Americans."  This is an example of a single story to the Jews.  The majority of the Jewish population throughout the world are very similar to you and I.  In fact, I just spent last Winter semester in Jerusalem and made friends with lots of Jewish kids our age who knew more about American pop culture than I did.  These people were great at sports (well soccer mostly), drove nice cars, went to the movie theater and to the mall just like you and I.  Most of them even had a better fashion sense then I did and would fit in perfectly even here at BYU.  Moral of the story, there is a conflicting message sent through the media such as movies and tv shows that Jews are different than us in more aspects in life than is really accurate.  These single stories may be damaging because they can cause people to look at Jews with the stereotype of them being different.  This can cause people to miss out on great friendships with some great people, just because they have been given the preconceived notion of what a typical Jew is.