Essay: Portrayal of Jewish characters throughout literary history

Jewish folktales- Europe
Within Jewish humour, the stock of the characters of the Wise Men of Chelm are foolish. These characters are the subjects of jokes through their illogical reasoning. Their foolish logic places them in opposition to the Talmudic scholars who are highly regarded in the culture. These characters were seen in traditional Jewish folklore.
Traditional 13th century
The Wandering Jews were inspired by the biblical passage Matthew 16:27, 28 in which Jesus states “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom”. Stories circulated since the Middle Ages about a Jew who interacted with Jesus and was still alive, awaiting the second coming. There are multiple variations of who the Wandering Jew is, such as a shopkeepers who saw Jesus carrying his cross to be crucified and instead of showing compassion struck Jesus and told him to walk faster, and was thus cursed to wander the earth aging and finding no peace in death. Unlike the last set of unnamed characters, these particular set were from the Christian folklore.
Traditional and almost dated to as early as the 13th century
Over 20 versions of the ballad which recounts a tale of blood libelling which young boy, Sir Hugh had been collected. This boy, Sir Hugh, is lured by the Jew’s daughter into her house, or castle (this depends upon the version of the ballad being sung) so that he can retrieve his ball that he had kicked into her window (or garden). Once in the house, the ballad says she ritually murders him to collect his blood for a ritual before throwing his body in a well. This body of Sir Hugh is found by his mother after his ghost calls out to her. While the boy in the ballad has been linked to Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, both Child and Percy preface the ballad with a statement that as historical record, the tale is untrue. This ballad has been included in Volume 3 of Francis James Child’s English and Scottish Ballads from a version which was transcribed by Bishop Thomas Percy in 1765. And unlike the previous mentioned years and respective Jewish characters, this ballad was originated in England and not Europe as a whole.
1353
In a novella written in Italy, by Giovanni Boccaccio, of the tales related by the characters in The Decameron, the second tells the story of Abraham, the wise Jew, who travels to The Vatican and notes the corruption there, yet upon returning home, converts to Christianity. In the third story Melchisedech is a Jewish money lender who is set up by the Sultan to identify which of the three religions of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam is the true religion. Melchisedech answers by telling a parable about an inheritance of true ring and two fake rings which leaves the answer in doubt, but satisfies the Sultan.
1589 or 1590
For Elizabethans, the character of the Jew, as presented in Barabas, is “an embodiment of all they loathe and fear, all that appears stubbornly, irreducibly different.” The play became extremely popular, and Barabas has become a culturally iconic anti-Semitic representation of “avarice, egotism, duplicity and murderous cunning.” Abigail, Barabas’ beautiful daughter, converts to Christianity when she finds her father has duped her beloved into a fatal duel, and then becomes a nun to escape the sexual advances of a Friar. Barabas poisons her along with the rest of the nuns.
1596
Shylock from the play, “ The Merchant of Venice” written by William Shakespeare in England (set in Venice, Italy), is probably the most famous Jewish character in English. And he embodies a number of the negative stereotypes of Jews. And this doesn’t only extend to certain habits but also physical features. Shylock’s daughter Jessica, inspired by Marlowe’s Abigail in The Jew of Malta (mentioned above), converts to Christianity, although the conversion is questioned by other characters and represents the cultural ambivalence that the belief espoused by a “beautiful Jewess” may be simply superficial.
1609
In his faux historical narrative poem, or as it is known as an epic poem, “Jerusalén Conquiatade” (in Spanish) or “Jerusalem Conquered”, Lope de Vega presents the character of Rahel la Fermosa which basically means Rachel the beautiful, who has an affair with Alfonso VIII of Castile, before she is murdered by his courtiers as a threat to the emerging kingdom. The historicity of “The Jewess of Toledo”, has been debated while the character has been recreated in numerous works, including the play The Jewess of Toledo by Franz Grillparzer in 1851, the silent film The Jewess of Toledo in 1919 directed by Otto Kreisler, and the novel Die Jüdin von Toledo, in 1955, novel by Lion Feuchtwanger.
C.1668
The poem, the “Jewish Bride”, was written in the Ottoman Empire by Eremya Chelebi Kömürjian, tells the story of how Dimo, an Albanian Christian boy kidnaps the Jewish Mergata from the city of Constantinople to his home town where he converts her and they are married by the Prince. Versions of the poem have been found in Armenian, Turkish and Greek. Some scholars believe that Eremya’s depiction of the Jewish religion as being inferior to Christianity was a stand-in for a critique of the dominant Islamic religion.
1779
The character of Nathan the Wise, from the German play – “Nathen du Weise” is presented as an idealized mouthpiece for the Enlightenment principles of toleration and human fellowship.
1794
In apology for his previous negative portrayals of Jews, Cumberland presents Sheva as a “didactic good Jew”, who, while outwardly appearing as a miser, is a secret philanthropist in his play – “The Jew”. Judith Page identifies Sheva as part of the stereotypical Jewish characters that appeared on the British stage at the time who were created by people “who simply do not know much about the subject” of Jews or Judaism.
1797
Adonah Ben Benjamin, a character from the novel “The Algerian Captive” by Royall Tyler, is a wealthy Jewish banker in Algiers, who, for a price, promises to help the narrator, who has been captured into slavery in Algiers, return to freedom in the United States, but dies before being able to complete the process. Ben Benjamin is the first contemporaneous Jew to be depicted in an American novel.
1820
The Jewish characters in the Novel written by Sir Walter Scott – “Ivanhoe” are Isaac of York and Rebecca. Isaac is a money lender, and while presented with many negative characteristics stereotypical of Jewish villains, has been presented by Scott with “historical basis” for his greed. His daughter, Rebecca is at the centre of a love triangle with the titular Ivanhoe, and Rowena, a gentile woman. Rebecca maintains both her religious faith and her virtue, and Ivanhoe marries Rowena.
1833
Eugénie Foa’ novel – “Rachel” or “The Inheritance” has the character of Rachel. Rachel’s character is in a semi-autobiographical representation of Foa’s life which includes a failed marriage and becoming a writer. Foa is one of the first Jewish women novelists in the world, and her sister was married to Fromental Halévy, who wrote La Juive. Foa’s later works include a number of historical romances in which the characters convert from Judaism, which Foa also did.
1838
Fagin from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist is another popularly known Jewish character. Dickens’ anti-Semitic introduction the character of Fagin notes his ugliness, wild red hair, and holding a toasting fork over a fire, all characteristics of the Christian Devil. Later editions of the novel have frequently been altered to use Fagin’s name in place of Dickens’ frequently-used descriptor “the Jew”.
1843
Alick is a Jewish character from Judah’s Lion, a novel written by Charlotte Elizabeth. Alick is a Jew who converts to Christianity, and as the novel ends, begins making plans for making a converted Jewish colony in Palestine a part of the British Empire.
1848
The character Deborah is a character from the play of the same name by Saloman Hermann Mosenthal from Austria. In his stage play about a group of Jewish people seeking to establish a community in eastern Europe, Mosenthal, who was Jewish himself, presents the Jewish Deborah as a seductress in contrast to the “saint-like” Christian Hannah.
1863
Leah, the Forsaken by Augustin Daly, is a part of a series of plays on the English stage featuring Jewish women characters that were inspired by Mosenthal’s Deborah, Leah, the Forsaken was a star vehicle for the Jewish actress Sarah Bernhardt. The play is also believed to have influenced the production of George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda.
1865
Soloman Riah is another one of Charles Dickens’ characters from his novel – “Our Mutual Friend”. This character was created by Dickens partly in response to the accusations of anti-Semitism he received for his character Fagin in Oliver Twist, Mr Riah is a Jewish moneylender who is shown as virtuous and admirable.
1876
As mentioned above, Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, was influenced heavily by Mosenthal’s Deborah and Daly’s Leah, the Forsaken. Within the novel, Daniel discovers (on her deathbed) that his long-lost mother was Jewish and begins constructing his identity as a Jew.
1894
The story written by I.L. Peretz, of meek Bonshte “who never learned his worth” became an admonition to Jewish workers and one of many inspirations by Peretz for their social activism in Poland.
Another novel with a Jewish character is Georde du Maurier’s Trilby. Svengali is a Jewish musician depicted distastefully as a hypnotist and exploiter of the young and impressionable Trilby.
1909
Yuld Rosenberg published a work in which he presented the folklore that had grown up around (Rabbi) Judah Loew ben Bezalel (also known as Maharal) in which he created a golem that protected the Jewish residents of the ghetto in Prague from violence and anti-Semitic attacks.
1913
Within the seven volumes of the novel, Bloch is initially presented as a “vulgar” Jew who is attempting to gain admittance to the upper circles of French society, while Swann is a Jewish man who has been assimilated to the point that he is a member of clubs that don’t normally admit Jews. By the end of the novel, Bloch has assumed a new name and appearance, while Swann has claimed his cultural Jewish heritage as a result of the impact of the Dreyfus affair.
1918
Leopold Bloom, from James Joyce’s Ulysses, is presented as an everyman. While Bloom’s father had converted from Judaism, Jewish cultural markers play an important touchstones in his inner life as presented in the novel.
1925
Meyer Wolfshiem, is portrayed as the friend and mentor of the titular character of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby – Jay Gatsby. He is described as a gambler responsible for fixing the World series, who had made his money by bootlegging alcohol during Prohibition. Wolfsheim, described with unflattering stereotypical physical characteristics as well, is portrayed as an “alien” counter-pole to Anglo Tom Buchanan in Fitzgerald’s presentation of America.
1926
Claude Levy (titular character of Edmond Fleg’s l’enfant prophète), is a young Jewish boy growing up in Paris who seeks a spiritual life and is drawn towards Catholicism before embracing his Jewish roots at the advice of Jesus.
Cohn, a former collegiate boxer who attended Princeton when few Jews were admitted, does not fit in with his fellow expatriates in Paris who make anti-Semitic insults, falls in love with the same woman the narrator loves, and ends up getting into fights when he does not realize that she does not want to pursue a relationship with him. This novel has been written by Ernest Hemingway under the title of “The Sun also rises”.