Jewish Characters Research Articles

Re-Examining Richard Bauckham’s Argument from Name Popularity in Light of Apocryphal and Talmudic Evidence

This article re-examines the argument from name popularity appearing in the ‘Palestinian Jewish Names’ chapter of Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses in light of patterns of the name popularity found in extra-biblical texts. Bauckham postulates that if Gospels-Acts contained named characters invented in the process of anonymous community transmission, the statistical distribution of name popularity in Gospels-Acts would not align well with the distribution in the ancient Palestinian Jewish population, particularly if the invention took place in the Diaspora. We test this by analyzing the name popularity in two corpora of texts that contain many recognizably fictitious first-century Palestinian Jewish characters, namely a corpus of Christian extra-biblical works consisting of the Clementine Homilies, the Acts of Pilate, and Solomon of Bosra’s Book of the Bee, and the corpus of the Babylonian Talmud. Contra Bauckham, name popularity distributions in these two corpora do not correspond to the distribution among first-century Palestinian Jews statistically significantly worse than the distribution in Gospels-Acts. Moreover, the two corpora paradoxically align better in some respects because they do not exhibit a disproportional representation of specific names observed in Gospels-Acts.

Who are the immigrants that Israeli Jews prefer? The interplay between reasons for migration, religion, and religiosity

This study focuses on the impact of three attributes of migrants – their reasons for migration, religion, and level of religiosity – on public support for allowing migrants to come and live in Israel. We rely on a factorial survey that was conducted in a representative sample of the Israeli Jewish population analyzing the assessments of 600 respondents of various vignettes (N = 3,595) of hypothetical migrants about admitting them to the country. The findings reveal that Israeli Jews do not evaluate all immigrant groups equally. Preferences for specific groups of migrants are primarily structured along two main attributes: religion and reasons for migration. The result is a hierarchical distinction between immigrants of Jewish ancestry and those who are non-Jewish. Jewish repatriates are perceived as “deserving migrants” who can make legitimate claims about belonging to the host society. As such, they enjoy an ethno-religious premium based on ancestral rights. By contrast, there is less support for the entry of non-Jewish migrants, whether asylum seekers or labor migrants, as their presence is viewed as a threat to the Jewish character of the state and the hegemony of the Jewish majority. The impact of the immigrants’ attributes on attitudes varies based on the level of religiosity of the Jewish population, especially in the case of non-Jewish migrants. Support is stronger in the case of secular respondents and much weaker among their more religious counterparts. The findings are discussed in light of existing theories.

The Stories We Tell Our Young Children: Using Picture Books to Explore Race and Black–Jewish Relations

ABSTRACT Early childhood Jewish education provides an opportune moment to teach about race and Black–Jewish relations as young children grapple with concepts like justice. This article argues that picture books containing interactions between Black and Jewish characters or a Black Jewish character are a powerful pedagogical tool for this purpose. We created the first inventory of picture books that contain these characters, finding 188 of them which we believe can be invaluable in introducing the vital topic of race and racism to young children in early childhood Jewish classrooms through the historically important lenses of Black–Jewish relations and Black Jewish individuals.

Gender, State and Religion: Palestinian Feminist Politics

Religion-based personal status laws and religious courts are an intrinsic component of the Jewish character of the State of Israel. The association between one’s religious affiliation and the law governing one’s personal status issues is longstanding. However, the significance and dynamics of this association cannot be analyzed in isolation from the context of the identity of the state, or the identity of the local subjects in terms of their nationality, religious affiliation, and gender. In the case of Palestinian citizens of Israel, the personal state laws that govern them bear the imprint of the state’s hierarchical and discriminatory citizenship regime. This article examines the struggles of Palestinian feminist activists, citizens of Israel, in their attempts to improve their personal status issues, which began in the 1990s and were led by secular as well as religious Palestinian feminists. In doing so, it reveals the complexity of feminist politics at the juncture of religion, gender and colonialism. It identifies similarities and differences in feminist discourses and activities, while delineating the boundaries of these politics. It argues that, in many instances, activists had to choose between ‘collaboration’ with a colonial regime and ‘complicity’ with a patriarchal establishment. The paper is based on a variety of sources, including media articles, archival documents, protocols of parliamentary committees, and personal interviews conducted with leading feminist activists.

“But Now I Consydre Thy Necesse”: Augustine’s Doctrine of Jewish Witness and the Restoration of Racial Hierarchies in the Croxton Play of the Sacrament

This paper examines the depiction of Jewish and Christian merchants in the medieval English Host miracle play, the Croxton Play of the Sacrament. This play is a critical illustration of religious racialization, effectively demonstrating the perpetuation of anti-Jewish stereotypes and legitimizing violence. Positioned within a broader scholarly debate, particularly in relation to Augustine’s doctrine of Jewish witness, the play portrays Jews as allegorical figures that validate Christian theological constructs. This paper delves into the representation and linguistic depiction of Jewish characters in the play, emphasizing their systematic dehumanization and instrumentalization in Christian narratives. A significant focus is placed on the coerced conversion of Jewish characters, which forces them into the archetype of the “Wandering Jew”, thereby highlighting motifs of symbolic aggression and unending diaspora. This paper also confronts contemporary scholarly perspectives that view the play as challenging religious boundaries, positing that such interpretations overlook the ingrained racialization and marginalization of Jewish identity during the European Middle Ages. It argues that the play’s transient disruption of power dynamics ultimately reinforces prevailing social hierarchies, thereby solidifying deep-seated anti-Jewish sentiments.

A Performance for Everyone? Othering and the Politics of Language in J.M.R. Lenz’s Die Soldaten (1776)

While J.M.R. Lenz has historically been considered something of an outsider in the eighteenth-century German canon, his play Die Soldaten has attracted interest from contemporary scholars due to its open-ended dramatic structure and sharp-witted social satire. However, the use of language in Lenz’s representation of a Jewish character, Aaron, in Act 3 of Die Soldaten is a stumbling block for many modern readers. The exclusion of the Jewish character from the Gentile community is underscored by the use of linguistic markers of Yiddish in the play, which resonates with Lenz’s thinking about “Jewish” physiognomy and language in a note he wrote to Lavater in the summer of 1777. Die Soldaten is a prime example of a canonical text that marks a voice of difference as noisy, “foreign” and other, as well as being excessive and abject. By taking an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach to Lenz’s Die Soldaten, we can bring the more uncomfortable facets of this text into focus, and interrogate our own problematic investments in the German canon since the Enlightenment.

التطور التاريخي للصراع اليهودي المسيحي في مسرحيات مختارة من العهد الإليزابيثي

The study seeks to examine the historical and the socio-political representation of Jews in the Elizabethan drama through a close examination of the three major Jewish characters in the selected plays: Barabbas in Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, Shylock in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, and Gerontus in Robert Wilson’s The Three Ladies of London. The study investigates the root causes of the historical tension between Jews and Christians as represented in the plays; these motives are ascribed to religious differences, usury and social crimes linked to Jews, mutual hate crimes and economic rivalry between the two groups. These factors have heightened the ongoing hatred and deepened the conflict between the two communities. As a result, several stereotypes of Jews have been developed, the idea that enhanced the establishment of various forms and practices of the so-called anti-Semitism in the Western culture. To critically examine the stereotyping of the Jew character in the selected plays, the Critical Race Theory (CRT) is adopted throughout the paper as a framework. Remarks that have been labeled as anti-Semitic identified in the texts describe Jews as blasphemous, cruel, murderers, unscrupulous usurers, miserly and cowards. Shakespeare’s Shylock and Marlowe’s Barabbas are labelled negatively as foul-mouthed individuals, unfriendly, deceitful, shrewd, scheming, racists, and manipulative. The Jew character in these plays is the antagonist of the rising New Elizabethan Man. On the other hand, Wilson’s portrayal of Gerontus is less rigid and different; he is shown as honest, kind, forgiving, and virtuous. Wilson is rather sympathetic to his Jewish characters and he does not openly present Jewish stereotypes and anti-Semitic representations. This study shows how Elizabethan drama developed different conflicting discourses about Jewishness and the other races. The Jewish image in the Elizabethan drama reflects the complication of history, religion and culture in establishing discourses of representation. The establishment of the Protestant faith in England may have enforced some revised versions of anti-Semitism in the Elizabethan age.

Kaddish for Steve: On the Jewishness of Sondheim1

‘Kaddish for Steve’ explores Steven Sondheim’s legacy as a Jewish artist after his death, seeking traces of his Judaism in stories of his Jewish collaborators, exploration of his Jewish (and Jew-ish) characters and analysis of his Jewish themes. Using theories of Jewish narrative and Jewishness as articulated by (among others) Dara Horn and Daniel Boyarin, and musical theatre theory as conceived by David Savran, the article closely reads musicals including Merrily We Roll Along, Company, Sunday in the Park with George and Gypsy alongside Sondheim’s own memoir, Finishing the Hat. In examining Sondheim’s understanding of his own work, ‘Kaddish for Steve’ discovers a Jewish way of reading and writing within both the musicals and the memoir that closely aligns with Boyarin’s concept of ‘Jewissance’. The article concludes with a remembrance of Sondheim as spiritual and artistic teacher, honouring his continued influence on contemporary musical theatre and comparing his role in the lives of his many students to that of a rabbi.

Reconstructing Freud's Moses-Texts (1934–8): From Character Study to Contribution to Trauma Theory

Since the publication in 2021 of the first version of Freud’s Moses and Monotheism written in 1934, it is possible to reconstruct the genesis of the book as it was published in 1939, and to compare the two versions. The present article aims to contribute to this effort. It first presents a critical discussion of the reconstructions provided by Grubrich-Simitis and Gindele & Fagard. Then the hypothesis is elaborated that in the Moses project one can detect a shift from a study of the positive traits of the Jewish character (self-esteem, intellectuality) towards a study dominated by the problem of the significance of trauma for the formation of a people and their religion, the theoretical reflections on the interaction between constitutional and accidental factors in the aetiology of pathological formations, and the development of a theory of the murder of Moses as traumatic experience within the framework of a psychoanalytic theory of sexual trauma.

»Romancier von so epochaler Bedeutung«. Hermann Grab über Marcel Proust im Prag des Jahres 1933

Abstract This article deals with a manuscript of a lecture on Marcel Proust given by the author and musician Hermann Grab (1903–1949) in the year 1933 in Prague. In a biographical and interpretative study of Marcel Proust’s life and work, Grab’s lecture tried to offer orientation in a time of growing anti-Semitism. Focusing on Proust’s Jewish family, his illness and isolation, but especially on his main Jewish characters Charles Swann and Albert Bloch, Grab explains two ways of reacting to anti-Semitic threats. But moreover, and towards the end, a third option is revealed through this biographical-interpretive work. According to this, literary narrative seemed to be the key for Grab’s approach, thus the lecture simultaneously reveals Grab’s self-image as author.

Jewish Speech in Early 19th-Century Greek Comedy

Abstract The article introduces the historical context of multilingual comedy by Greek writers of the early 19th century in Asia Minor, then an Ottoman realm. The author analyzes two passages from Erotomaniac Chatziaslanis and Monsieur Kozis containing Modern Greek dialects, Karamanlidika, Judeo-Spanish, Judeo-Turkish, and Judeo-Greek. The analysis shows that Jewish characters prefer to communicate in Judeo-Turkish. Both plays actively utilize (Jewish and non-Jewish) linguistic varieties for stereotyping and comedic purposes.

A Few Words More about Victorian Women Writers and Germany: George Eliot and Amy Levy

Abstract This article revisits the relation between George Eliot and Amy Levy (1861–89), a lesbian New Woman Jewish poet, novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. Levy’s most familiar response to Eliot is a scene in Reuben Sachs (1889), Levy’s last novel, which mocks Eliot’s portrayal of Jewish characters in Daniel Deronda (1876). But Levy was an avowed admirer of Eliot in her early life and alluded to Eliot positively in the short story “Between Two Stools” (1883). In considering Eliot’s potential legacy for Levy, this article examines their shared representation of psychic experience in “The Lifted Veil” (1859) and “The Recent Telepathic Incident at the British Museum” (1887), their shared consideration of conflicts between women’s intellectual aspirations and domesticity in Armgart (1870) and “Xantippe” (1880), and their shared representations of persecution of the Roma in The Spanish Gypsy (1868) and “Run to Death” (1879).

The Jewish Risk: Philip Roth in Sixties West Germany

Abstract When Philip Roth died in May 2018, he was the best-known American writer in Germany. By that point, his difficult early years on the German book market were long forgotten. If one investigates the archives of Rowohlt Verlag, where Roth’s first books were published in Germany, there is explicit talk of a “risk.” The publisher feared that Roth’s portrayal of Jewish characters in all their ambivalence and complexity could affirm anti-Semitic sentiment in Germany. Therefore, Rowohlt’s efforts to position Roth in the literary field of the Federal Republic were accompanied by deliberate risk management. This paper reconstructs the publishing house’s strategy and its contexts.

The Jewish Risk: Philip Roth in Sixties West Germany

Abstract When Philip Roth died in May 2018, he was the best-known American writer in Germany. By that point, his difficult early years on the German book market were long forgotten. If one investigates the archives of Rowohlt Verlag, where Roth’s first books were published in Germany, there is explicit talk of a “risk.” The publisher feared that Roth’s portrayal of Jewish characters in all their ambivalence and complexity could affirm anti-Semitic sentiment in Germany. Therefore, Rowohlt’s efforts to position Roth in the literary field of the Federal Republic were accompanied by deliberate risk management. This paper reconstructs the publishing house’s strategy and its contexts.

Belonging to The Body of The Nation: Gender, Race, and The Volksgemeinschaft in Hitler Youth Magazines, 1933–1938

Abstract: This article examines how Nazi children's magazines used emotional narrativization to create and sell fantasies about gender, race, and the Volksgemeinschaft [people's community]. These magazines are neglected sources on Nazi print culture; their content and context add to our understanding of child indoctrination. Children's magazines had no Jewish characters in their stories, while dark-skinned, non-Aryan peoples were culturally appropriated and caricatured to create power fantasies. This article argues that through compelling narratives, hegemonic masculine traits were fetishized and glamorized to appeal to young boys in order to prepare them to serve in both the Volksgemeinschaft and the army.

Judeo-Roman on Stage: The Scena all’ebraica in the Novantanove Disgrazie di Pulcinella (Rome 1769) by Gregorio Mancinelli

Abstract Sometimes, in the Commedia dell’arte, Jewish characters who speak Judeo-Italian appear on the stage, revealing a strong intention on the part of non-Jewish authors to mimic the language spoken by contemporary Jews. Therefore, the study of these external sources is very useful to enrich our knowledge of the Judeo-Italian of the early modern period. In this article I will present the scena all’ebraica of the comedy Novantanove Disgrazie di Pulcinella (Rome 1769) by Gregorio Mancinelli. The text, published here in its entirety for the first time, will be preceded by an introduction and accompanied by an English translation and an analysis of the language and contents.

Exploring Postmodern Approaches to Jewish Identity in Contemporary Europe through The Finkler Question

This research article explores the depiction of Jewish identity in contemporary Europe as presented in Howard Jacobson’s novel, The Finkler Question, using postmodern perspectives on Otherness, specificity, and alterity. By drawing on Jean-Francois Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition, the article examines the meta-narratives of Jewish identity and how identity is constructed in a fluid, postmodern era. The article critically evaluates Jacobson’s position and whether The Finkler Question posits a postmodern Jewish identity. The article offers insights into the complex and multifaceted nature of Jewish identity in contemporary Europe by analysing the novel's portrayal of Jewish characters and their relationships and examining the broader socio-political context. Ultimately, the article demonstrates how postmodern perspectives can enhance our understanding of this important issue. The analysis shows that The Finkler Question reflects postmodern approaches to identity, with characters navigating complex and often contradictory identities. The novel presents a diverse range of Jewish characters, each with their own unique experiences and relationships to their cultural and religious identity. The article argues that the novel’s focus on cultural rather than religious aspects of Jewish identity is evidence of a postmodern Jewish identity that embraces diversity and multiplicity. The article concludes that postmodern perspectives offer a valuable lens through which to examine Jewish identity in contemporary Europe and that works of literature such as The Finkler Question can provide important insights into this complex issue.

The Quest for Self-Expression: Anzia Yezierska’s Portrayal of America as a Fake Golden Country

The aim of this study is to show how the experience of Eastern European Jewish women in America challenged the discourse of the American Dream that they had previously fabricated in their homelands at the turn of the twentieth century. As portrayed by the Polish-born American writer Anzia Yezierska, whose family migrated to New York at the time, these women initially aim their efforts towards achieving happiness through their belief that America provides equal opportunities for upward mobility. However, they eventually question their prospects of improvement and progress by creating their own Jewish American experience. In two of her short stories, “How I Found America” and “The Miracle,” Yezierska reproduces the hopelessness of her Jewish characters after they have faced the burdens of social exclusion and the classist policies of philanthropic programs of integration. Rather than completely assimilating American standards, the protagonists seek to build their own American experience while maintaining their Jewish cultural background, which paradoxically finds expression through institutional courses designed for newcomers.

Conceded Reconciliation: The Impact of Habitus on Ethnic Identity Formation in Bread Givers and The Island Within

The anti-Semitism of the 1920s affected the status of Jewish Americans as equal citizens in the United States. This paper examines the Jewish immigrant’s journey from their ethnic habitus to Americanization in Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers (1925/1999) and Ludwig Lewisohn’s The Island Within (1928) that were published amidst the rising tensions of Anti-Semitism. Yezierska and Lewisohn demonstrate how the habitus of these two characters shape their identities as Jewish Americans. Bourdieu’s sociological concept of habitus indicates that the character and the tastes of an individual are shaped in relation to the set structures of his habitus, which is internalized unconsciously. Sara Smolinsky in Bread Givers and Arthur Levy in The Island Within try to preserve their internalized Jewishness in a society that thought the unassimilable Jew was a menace to American values. This paper uses Pierre Bourdieu’s discussion on the habitus as well as Jean Phinney’s model of ethnic identity formation as its initial discussion and develops Phinney’s model to elaborate on the final phase of the formation of Jewish characters in these works. According to Phinney’s argument, the ethnic subject achieves reconciliation between the ethnic identity and the identity of the majority group. However, this paper argues that the main characters of the two novels--Sara and Arthur, reach a conceded reconciliation in the final phase of their ethnic identity formation, which allows them to exercise subjectivity and reclaim their identity against the deterministic aspect of habitus.

Rediscovering Turkish Jewish heritage: The Club as a teaching moment in Turkey

ABSTRACT Turkish Jewish culture is largely unknown within Turkey due to various reasons, including demographic and historical factors. Negative stereotypes about Jews in Turkish film and television have further contributed to this lack of understanding. The ground-breaking television series, The Club, produced for Netflix, showcases Turkish Jews as its main characters and highlights their Sephardic heritage. We believe that media plays an important role in educating the public and shaping perceptions. To explore this, we conducted thirty in-depth, semi-structured interviews using the snowball method to investigate the impact of the series on the audience’s knowledge of Turkish Jews. Our findings suggest that The Club has helped raise awareness about Turkish Jews, Sephardic culture, and Judaism among the research sample, as it presents a non-stereotypical portrayal of its Jewish characters.