Jews and Diamonds in the Popular Imagination

Abstract

AbstractChapter 5 considers the cultural ramification of Jewish involvement in the diamond business. It analyzes late nineteenth-century representations that associated Jews with diamonds, particularly in the English-language press, political cartoons, and popular fictions. Victorian fiction, for example, appropriated long-held stereotypes about the Jews’ alleged innate business acumen, untrustworthiness, and thirst for power. Jewish prominence strengthened already-existing stereotypes, feeding popular views of Jewish obsessions with profit and economic control. In an era when racial anti-Semitism was gaining ground and when East-European Jewish immigration to England, the United States, and South Africa peaked, Jewish success in the international diamond trade stirred up nativist anxieties that found expression in the literary press. While diamonds in the long run empowered many Jews, their prominence in the industry worked against them as well. The potency of the diamond exposed the limits to full Jewish integration and acceptance in the modern period.