#Assimilation and its DISCONTENTS💜

[chicago-geniza]

Apparently the answer to my question of "when will Downton Abbey address Cora's background and the entrenched antisemitism of the British landed gentry" is "for the entirety of season 5" and I will be honest. I am having a great time with the Atticus Aldridge storyline

[chicago-geniza]

"And your mother never considered converting?"

"I don't think so."

"Was it difficult, having a different religion from your father's?"

"Mm, not that I recall."

"But you're not ashamed of him."

"Lord Sinderby, I would point out that WE never changed our name!"

[chicago-geniza]

Yesterday I was reading what the Jewish culture industry press published about Downton Abbey season 5. Several Zionist papers used the same rhetorical tactic as, e.g., Kraków's Nowy Dziennik in the 1930s: referring to assimilated Jews by a Jewish name they don't use in professional or public life, in order to foreground their Jewishness and make their attempted assimilation appear illusory. Atticus Aldridge, full name Ephraim Atticus, is referred to as "Ephraim" in the Times of Israel and iirc a South African (!) Zionist magazine. The convergence of antisemitic rhetorical strategies aimed at "revealing" the origins of assimilated Jews, that I observed between the interwar Endek press and Polish-language Zionist press, is applied to fictional characters from a British period piece in the 2010s

Assimilation and its DISCONTENTS💜