#judaism and antisemitism in tolkien

[atheostic]

You can enjoy something that has flaws, but you need to acknowledge the flaws

Me: Tolkien's Middle Earth works, especially the Hobbit, are very antisemitic.

Tolkien Fans: No they're not! What basis do you even have to make such a claim?

Me: Dwarves are a displaced group of people whose language was based on Hebrew & are described as being greedy, secretive, & with big noses/ears.

Tolkien Fans: That doesn't mean he intentionally based them on Jewish people though!

Tolkien: The dwarves of course are quite obviously, wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic.

[witch-crip-is-this]

Magic with no K

I don’t write “magick” in my practice because I find the distinction between “real magic” and “fake/fictional/sleight-of-hand” magic demeaning and ignorant.

A quick hand and a clever distraction can be just as magical as a pool of salt water and an assortment of your favorite crystals.

Fictional magic is a reflection of our perception of reality, to ignore how fantasy is engrained in historical magical traditions is to deny the magic of our ancestors.

There is nothing that separates my magic from the magical folklore Tolkien and JK Rowling stole from, except that I do my best to acknowledge my sources and not commit violent acts of cultural appropriation.

Plus, very often the same people who write magic with a k also write terfy stuff like womyn and herstory. Yikes.

[mereinkling]

C.S. Lewis & Roald Dahl

C.S. Lewis & Roald Dahl

Do C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) and Roald Dahl (1916-1990) have anything in common, besides authoring books enjoyed by children? Looking back, I must have been deprived of opportunities to read common children’s books. I recall my mom having many of Dr. Seuss’ classics, but don’t remember more advanced works such as those of Beatrix Potter or E.B. White. I suppose that is why Roald Dahl’s name means…

[writingonjorvik]

Ok but why is Pi bad but Mrs Holdsworth isn’t? And why are goblins bad? I know they’re antisemitic but I don’t understand why it’s only the one witch that’s bad then. Are witches antisemitic? /genq

I can do my best to answer this but I want to preface it heavily. I’m a gentile/not Jewish, so if there are Jewish folks who have spoken on this, you should talk to them first over what I have to say. Any research I have in this is because my book series has a dwarf as the MC (another commonly antisemitic fantasy race) and I have actively been doing my best to learn about these tropes by listening to Jewish folks in the topic to make sure I avoid promoting harmful content in my books, but that shouldn't replace talking to Jewish folks about it.

First, I want to say that none of these are just exclusively antisemitic. The problem lies in the common tropes used for them. Witches and dwarves are easier to talk about this on this point since they do have real world counterparts. Goblins get a little iffy, but you can write goblins that aren’t antisemitic, as vocalized by several Jewish members in the ttrpg community. It’s the how that’s the issue.

Let’s talk about witches for a second. We can’t just say witches are antisemitic because witchcraft is a living separate faith. Saying that you practice modern paganism doesn’t make you antisemitic, but there is an overlapped history there. Paganism just means “not Christian,” which means that the “old pagan tradition” included Judaism, and both what most people call “pagans” now a days and Jewish people were tried as pagans in ye olden days. And it’s also why there is a complicated history here to unpack.

Take the classic witch hat for example. There is a history of female brewsters using black pointed hats to help market their wares. There is also a history of the pointed hats being used to mark Jewish people in crowds. The combined purge of both groups actively blended the stereotypes because they were both tried for the same thing: witchcraft and satanic practices.

That doesn’t make witches antisemitic. What makes witches like Pi antisemitic is how they’re depicted. The rest of the tropes: evil magic, secret orders of practice, physical traits like beady eyes, hooked/prominent noses, and, the big one, green skin. Green skin was a trope used to other Jewish people consistently. One or two of these can be done without being antisemitic. People can be in secret orders or use shadow magic, but it’s the tandem use that’s the issue, the physical traits AND the practices that make is antisemitic.

That’s why too Mrs. Holdsworth isn’t. Sure, she’s in a coven, but she isn’t depicted with stereotyped physical traits of a Jewish person. Or why our Dark Riders aren’t antisemitic. They may use shadow magic, but they aren’t actively depicting these other traits. It’s the tandem use that’s the issue.

Similarly, let’s talk about dwarves. Dwarves often fall into antisemitic tropes. They’re greedy, they horde wealth, they’re isolationist. But they aren’t explicitly antisemitic as a race. The core problem here begins with Tolkien. Tolkien actually had a huge amount of respect for the Jewish people and researched Jewish diaspora that influenced how he wrote his dwarves. The dwarvish diaspora in Middle Earth reflects this. The problem is most fantasy writers saw Tolkien’s work, took the spark notes version of it, and didn’t explain these traits in setting, which fell into caricature as a result. They checked off the whole list without unpacking the why. Context matters here, and plays another part in what makes a depiction of a fantasy race antisemitic. Were these people hunted and now isolating to rebuild their culture? Is mining directly related to their primary trade as a nation? Is it one hat or are they multifaceted with a notable cultural practice?

This is where we get back to goblins. Goblins as a creature do predate their antisemitic tropes, but much like witches and dwarves, were blended in to centuries of antisemitism. Green skin, beady eyes, hooked noses, and greedy. Those are the issues with goblins. You don’t have to do all of them, the HP goblins don’t have green skin, but they do hit the rest of the list. The snow goblins hit all four of the big points here.

There was a Jewish creator I saw who had redrawn goblins to avoid the antisemitic tropes in D&D, which is where I’d first learned more about this. It’s been a while and I didn’t write down their name, so instead I’ll point out the goblins in the Hobbit. Largely, they’re little orcs, and pale from living under the mountains, but I’ve seen no claims they they’re antisemitic. Because the goblins in the Hobbit aren’t greedy, they don’t universally have hooked noses and green skin. They might have hordes but it’s more of a bandit horde than a wealth horde. They aren’t lingering near societies to hunt bad kids (notable Jewish people often couldn’t live in the cities and had camps near them), they lived in the mountains and are depicted like mountain bandits. Like Mrs. Holdsworth, they hit one or two tropes, but it’s not to that tandem use.

It can be done. But SSE didn’t. The caprans were in a similar boat as the Hobbit goblins, they hit a few tropes but their implementation fell closer to fae tropes. Beady eyes and hooked nosed. The conversion to the snow goblins though ticks all the boxes for them. It took a creature that could pass as goblin-like but not antisemitic and gave them all the traits that make goblins harmful in common depictions. Calling them goblins is arguably irrelevant to the problem. The term goblin can be used, and calling the snow goblins something else wouldn’t change the problems with them physically and the tropes they embody. The snow goblins need to be changed entirely because their characteristics represent a list of antisemitic tropes used in tandem, that the name goblin just amplifies. A different name wouldn’t change the greedy, green skinned creatures that they’re depicted as, and that’s the problem. And that’s why Pi needs to be changed too.

[olderthannetfic]

Goyim goysplaining shit to me is why I don't write Jewish characters anymore. "Well actually that name is this AGAB so the character isn't NB they're *insert AGAB here*" "well actually according to Google you shouldn't have used the word candle you should have said this" "well actually goy is a slur and it's not bad of commenters to use 'Hebrews' to refer to all Jewish people even though I *will* get mad if you call Catholics 'Latins' in response" "well actually it's a kippah not a yarmulke you can't use the word yarmulke it's a kippah" "well actually Jewish people are white so why is this Beta Israeli character not white Jewish = white" "uh excuse me but your Jewish characters didn't exchange Hebrew names that's really unrealistic" "uh excuse me why is your character breaking kosher to stay alive? everything I see on TV says Jews would rather die than break kosher and live - no I don't know or care that pikuach nefesh is a thing I just wanted to correct you on the proper way to write a Jewish character" etc. Whether it's goyim commenting on Undertale fanfics to say all Jewish people would be Red souls (because we don't have individual souls, personalities and colors like the non-Jewish characters, that'd be silly) because we survived the Holocaust or goyim saying Jewish Bruce Wayne makes sense because Jews have all the money, or being confused on how you can headcanon anyone as Jewish who isn't white because Jewish people are white (which is a surprise to my Iranian Jewish self but go off I guess) there is always someone there to tell you that you're not human like other people. These people would never go "oh Latinos all have Red souls and the same personality, definitely" or "Muslim Bruce Wayne makes sense, those people all have oil money" but they'll say antisemitic shit right to your face and then have the gall to be annoyed when you don't like it.

This is why I pulled all my fic without leaving copies up for archives. "B-but I love your fic it's the only multichaptered one for this rarepair!" Well you didn't respect me enough not to say Jews have all the money, so fuck you. "Nooo I loved that fic it had such a good magic system!" Yeah well I didn't love being told my "race" shares a single personality type/soul color so tough shit.

And then afterwards of course they write "Jewish Batfam" fic where there's 1 line in the entire thing where one character mentions Hanukkah once and they pat themselves on the back for being such good, diverse, inclusive writers. They're so woke and accepting and galaxy brained, devoid of prejudice, aren't you going to pat them on the back for clogging up Jewish related tags with fic where skipping one line could erase all presence of Judaism from it? No? Well then why don't you go write your own fic then?!

It's a rhetorical question, but here's the non-rhetorical answer: I don't go write my own fic because I'm tired of having to hear Jewish people talked about the way y'all talk about Tolkien's elves or Undertale's monsters and having to advocate for the idea of treating Jewish people like people is exhausting work.

Literally the only fandom I've ever been in that didn't go "oh well that's just fandom! if you don't like it don't write fics lol" was Star Trek. And even then, you venture outside of AO3 at your own risk.

--

[verecunda]

Hi, it's been a long time since we "talked" and I would have liked it to have been done under different circumstances but life has taken a different path: I saw that you reblogged certain posts that I considered as zionist propaganda and genocide/war crimes apology, notably the anti Hamas article.

I assume that you agree with the posts you have reblogged at least partially and that you are well informed, in which case, there is no way for us to remain mutuals because the condemnation of armed resistance carried out by oppressed peoples who will most likely never get justice for the genocide of which they are victims, and which have killed and mutilated 25,000 defenseless civilians mostly children, women and disabled people is for me a red line, without exception.

Let's just stay polite in memory of the good discussion we had about Tolkien, which I encourage you to reread again especially the moral he tried to convey about wars and the desire for domination and what they do to people. Try to rethink the lives of Palestinians from their point of view using their testimonies and some history books, there is a lot to learn from this massacre (how and why it started).

If I'm wrong, please let me know: I'm sorry.

If this is not the case, we must not regret it, it is better to be clear about our commitment and our limits. Let's just unfollow and block each other to keep peace between us.

Hi. I appreciate your remaining civil.

I assume you're referring principally to this post, which is an article written by a Gazan and pro-Palestine activist. I just can't see that as zionist propaganda in any way, shape or form. One person can't represent their whole people, but if they have criticisms of Hamas, I believe that's a point of view worth listening to.

I don't believe I've been repeating any zionist propaganda here on my blog. I've certainly reblogged things pointing out that Jews and Judaism as a whole shouldn't be conflated with the atrocities perpetrated by the Israeli state, nor should we let Israel and the western powers that support it perpetuate a narrative that to condemn these same atrocities is inherently antisemitic.

I'll be the first to admit that though I am wholeheartedly pro-Palestine and anti-Israel, I'm not as fully informed as I'd like to be. I try to keep up, but the internet is such a mire of misinformation, I try to tread carefully. But this I will say: as a student of history, I'm well aware that violent colonialism leads to violent resistance. But while that's perhaps inevitable, I don't think groups like Hamas warrant hero-worship, any more than the IOF do. I don't think I'm entirely ignorant and naïve in this case, either: I come from a Catholic family with links to Northern Ireland, and I can see very clear and obvious parallels with the Troubles. You can understand how something came to be, without applauding it.

I'd be sorry to lose contact, because I have enjoyed our fandom talks in the past, but fandom should never come at the expense of real life, and if you would prefer to part company, that's fair enough. I won't block you, simply because that's not something I do very often, but if you prefer to block me, I understand. Do what's best for you.

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

So, genuinely, is Veggie Tales objectively the best contemporary Christian media? I can’t think of anything that tops it (unless we start counting things like the Sistine Chapel)

With all the caveats that “best” is subjective and that I’m an ex-catholic who does a podcast specifically about bad Christian media, so my perspective is very skewed, I think it is??

While a lot of original Veggie Tales programming focused on stories from the Old Testament, a text notorious for archaic restrictions and verses that prop up Christian homophobes today, the actual messages those episodes told were almost always able to be boiled down to a simple message for kids: Don’t tell lies, be kind to everyone, your parents are generally trying to help you etc. The characters fall into easy to understand archetypes, but pretty often even the bad guys are able to be redeemed, which seems very important to stress if you’re trying to teach kids about Christianity?

You can make an argument for Tolkien or CS Lewis being classics of Christian storytelling, but they fall into the same trap that early Christians did when they invented the concept of Satan (Satan’s not real btw, but that’s a different blog): They created antagonists who were utterly unrepentant, totally evil, and motivated only by their own greed. And while there are terrible folks out there in the world, I feel, as a whole Christian media should always allow for the possibility of redemption. It’s kind of their whole thing!

Big Idea Entertainment declared bankruptcy and was eventually absorbed into Dreamworks, and I think some questionable management decisions led to their downfall, but like... Have you seen Phil Vischer on Twitter? Successful Christian media personalities who aren’t virulent racists, homo/transphobes, or just general pieces of shit are rare.

 Like most things in America, Evangelical Christianity got weaponized by the Republican Party (Reagan, yes, but also scum like James Dobson, Jim Bakker, and largest public restroom in Virginia Jerry Falwell Sr). It is genuinely difficult to find works of Christian media that don’t contain some sort of weird, anti-government, anti-gay, pro-Dominionist message. Even the Passion of the Christ, the most profitable Christian movie ever, is shot through with Gibson’s antisemitism. That Veggie Tales never even got close to that awful ideology puts it miles above any other contemporary Christian work. (You can make an argument for Prince of Egypt, but I’d say that story belongs more to Judaism as Christianity, and doesn’t really qualify).

[breekonandhoe]

I have such a complicated relationship with Tolkien's dwarves especially Kili I love projecting my relationship with Judaism like we're both returning to home we've never seen or been too but would die for but then there's the Antisemitism

[violetsystems]

Not going to write anything long form this week. But short form had a flashback to when I had to read Chaim Potok’s “the chosen” in junior high. A book undoubtedly about Brooklyn too. The center of my everything as far as hip hop is concerned. Even in the bass ackwards south suburbs where all these famous meatheads from Chicago are from did we get exposed to Jewish culture through literature. You know the books nobody reads. Nobody reads my long form posts either. I did have trouble with it and relied on cliff notes. That’s my personal guilt I’m forgiven for I think. But it did expose me to Judaism in a very open and honest way as a gentile. I wasn’t even in a Christian high school yet at that point. It probably would have been a little more impactful if I read it there. I did make fun of the text in my own way. I used to run around shouting in a serious tone. “Abba! Abba! (Abba means father.) Abba!” But if I can remember it and act accordingly? Nobody from Chicago claiming to be royalty has any business being antisemitic unless they are a disappointment to their family. That’s just poor parenting. And I can’t believe anybody’s momma wouldn’t at least instill the importance of respect. My momma taught me to respect books at an early age. The first books I was exposed to was Tolkien. Maybe that’s the difference. All I know is we were raised better. And people took the free will to disrespect that upbringing. If my upbringing makes me sit in the corner every weekend while the bullies smile for a camera. So be it. I was taught to keep my nose in a book. Not my job to teach people ho.w to respect the difference. It’s a free country… just because you are free to be ignorant doesn’t mean you are worth comparing to the culture that raised you better. 📚

[sin-n-tonics]

I don’t know who needs to hear this today but including goblins in your fantasy piece of work does not make you antisemitic in any way

[goingrampant]

Jewish ally here. As an aspiring writer, I want to know if witches, wizards, vampires and Goblins are anti-Semitic? If so then why? I just want to be mindful by avoiding unfortunate implications.

It's more just some of my family who's Jewish, but I try to call out antisemitism. I don't believe any of those things are inherently antisemitic but can end up that way when attached to antisemitic tropes. Christians have historically told stories attaching Jewish culture to an imagined evil inversion of Christianity with rituals that are a pale facsimile of Christianity instead of a different, legitimate religion, and then they used these stories to justify massacring Jewish people and destroying places of worship. Some of these stories involve rabbis using evil magic (derivative of Satan as a pale facsimile of God) and many involve the idea that Jewish people abduct Christian children to kill (as a means of possessing something similar to what Christians have as people saved by Jesus dying on the cross) and eat and/or drink their blood (in imitation of transubstantiation of the host). This lie that Jews drink the blood of Christian children is called blood libel. I called out Gretel and Hansel for depicting blood libel with its evil witch plotline that overtly referenced Judaism with the witch having the Star of David tattoo and a menorah-inspired candelabra. These kind of witch stories generally tend to drift in antisemitic directions anyway, with the idea of a secret society of evil magic-users conspiring against the good default (Christian) people that must be rooted out before they eat children. Hunters speculates that the original Hansel and Gretel folktale is antisemitic. (I don't know. Maybe.) Roald Dahl was known as an antisemitic person, and his book The Witches is often connected to antisemitism in this way. At the same time, it can just be general bigotry, as the Salem witch trials were based in prejudice against Native Americans, who the Christians transposed these basic concepts onto. It gets complicated when you have Jewish storytellers riffing on witch stories to tell allegories for Nazism, as with the film adaptation of The Witches. I'd say it's more of a danger of recreating antisemitic tropes than anything inherent to the witch figure. Just be cautious.

Basically, same for wizards. Just don't have them use evil magic that's a pale facsimile of Christianity derivative of Satan and want to drink the blood of children or similar. Harry Potter has problems, but I think its depiction of the Wizarding World is fine in itself.

Vampires can stray into these blood libel depictions when they're depicted as an evil society hidden within our own world that threatens good default people with their blood-drinking ways. True Blood depicted something similar to antisemitic stories with its secret society worshiping Lilith (a pale facsimile of God) and reading from a secret Hebrew Bible about good default people being nothing more than food for vampire-kind. Add in a vampire saying, "We will eat you. We will eat your children," and it comes off as a bit of a dog whistle. And, of course, Nosferatu has Orlok look like a Jewish caricature. Vampires can be utilized as antisemitic vehicles, but they have a lot of diversity in portrayal and needn't fulfill antisemitic tropes. The Strain riffs on Nosferatu to have Jewish heroes and Nazi vampires quite progressively.

As for goblins... I understand that a lot of the legends were created around how Christians saw Jewish people, so mining from legends is probably more perilous. Harry Potter leans hard into antisemitic tropes with the hooked noses and predatory money-lending, while Goblin Market has a complete diversity in its goblins' appearances and more of a fae subtext with their fruits acting as bonds to death but has the antisemitic evil marketing aspect. Meanwhile, Tolkien was misguided but at least tried to be progressive by attaching Jewishness to his dwarfs and depicting his goblins as representing anti-Asian caricatures. My understanding is that Dungeons and Dragons ripped off Tolkien's goblins and depicted them as anti-black caricatures until recently, where they're now just aggressive elemental beings of the earth. I'd avoid any kind of stereotypical appearance of them with long noses and fingers, ditch anything related to love of gold, and just go with standard subterranean monsters like modern Dungeons and Dragons.

I hope that helps.

[nonasuch]

Okay, genuine question here. I am... deeply annoyed about how Bad the HP goblins are on account of the antisemitism. If one were to write a story that did have a people inspired by the Jewish people and faith, and wanted it to be a good portrayal (I hear the LotR dwarves were pretty okay), what do you think that might look like / include? How would you want it to be done? I have a lot of respect for y'all, and I want to honour that but not sure how. Thoughts?

Hm. That’s an interesting question, with -- because this is Judaism we’re talking about -- a complicated answer that will probably be different for every Jewish person you ask. 

I personally am less interested in the idea of fantasy beings or creatures inspired by Judaism than I am with how Jewish characters would function in a fantasy setting, or a fantasy setting where the non-human beings and creatures are drawn from Jewish folklore. And I think that’s actually more in line with how most fantasy settings function, and how most fantasy worlds are developed. 

Like, the reason HP goblins are bad, for me, is that they roll up a bunch of gross antisemitic stereotypes into a species of fantasy being, and call them inherent traits of those beings. Picking nicer traits won’t make me like the result that much more. And it’s not how other kinds of fantasy beings are usually built. 

With most kinds of Western European (and Tolkien-derived) fantasy beings -- elves, dwarves, non-HP goblins, orcs, etc -- any given author is presenting their own version of that being and it’s clear that they don’t represent any specific real-world culture on a one-to-one basis. It’s usually only the beings and creatures drawn from outside of Western Europe that get saddled with the job of Representing The Entire Real Culture They’re From. That can lead to worldbuilding where the POV characters, be they human or elf or hobbit, get to be Just Regular Folks while all the other non-human beings they encounter are “exotic” stand-ins for every other non-Western culture. Which is gross.

It’s a kind of othering that doesn’t usually get applied to the author’s own culture, or Western culture in general. I don’t often see fantasy beings that I would call Christian stereotypes or stand-ins. That’s usually not how they’re conceived of or used. The closest example I can think of is the Omnians in Discworld, maybe. 

Actually, Discworld is probably the best thing I can point you towards for how to create fantasy beings that map on to real-world social and political dynamics. Pratchett’s too good a writer to package up ugly real-world stereotypes into his non-human characters, but he still manages to draw parallels between them and real-world minority experiences. Plus, I think his golems are a respectful and compelling use of a creature from Jewish folklore.

I think I’ve probably wandered away from both your question and my point. Here are the questions I think you should ask yourself:

what kind of stories can be told about Jewish (human) characters in a fantasy setting?

what kind of fantasy setting could you build with Jewish folklore and mythology as an inspiration?

do you actually need to have a class of fantasy being in your story that stands in wholesale for Jewish people? Humans, as a group, have all kinds of different faiths. Why can’t there be Jewish (or fantasy-world-equivalent-of-Jewish) elves and hobbits alongside the non-Jewish ones?

there is plenty of existing SF and fantasy by Jewish authors that touches on all of my above points. have you read any of it? go read some!

[whocalledhimannux]

oyou know what, fuck it. I’m drunk on a Tuesday night and I’ve been talking about Jews in an old fandom for the last couple of days so I’m going to make my case for Jewish Relius, in full acknowledgement of the fact that it makes no sense in canon

so the maps of the QT world seem to sort of imply that this is a world where Turkey/possibly parts of Iran and Iraq share a land bridge with Africa, cutting out most of the Sinai peninsula including Eretz Yisrael. which would make the existence of Judaism (or Christianity or Islam for that matter).... difficult. but not totally impossible! because Avraham Avinu is said to be from Ur, which historically was on the Persian Gulf which is roughly analogous to the QT great southern ocean. so it’s totally possible to sub one of those Three Cities or Hemet in for a fictional QT Jerusalem.

and it’s then real easy to make a fictional diaspora in the Hephestian Peninsula because of all that imperialism in the Mede region (am I making Immakuk an antisemite in this au? hope not. he can be that fucking dude. what’s his face. Cyrus? the one who ended the babylonian exile), and the Greek Jewish diaspora is one of the oldest in the world, going back a solid 2100 years, well within the QT-equivalent era.

and yknow, by Gen’s time people are pretty lackadaisical towards the gods, which is Good for the Jews, because we tend to do Not Great in times of strong nationalistic  religion and cultural hegemony.

anyway that’s my argument for Jewish QT characters in general

now let’s move on to my boychik Relius

I am aware that this could play into stereotypes given that Relius is a very Suspicious Slippery character who ~Betrays his Country~ and has a voracious sexual appetite but consider this

I Can Do Anything I Want

setting aside the sex stuff because sex is Good actually and all my favorite people are LGBTQ Jews

gross stereotypes very often have their roots in something Real but misconstrued

we see this in QT itself. very, very, very frequently, characters resort to trickery and lies and underhandedness because they are members of an underclass and therefore do not have the luxury of above-board measures--Pheris weaponizes ableism, Irene weaponizes sexism (moreso than Helen, who tends to defy it outright). Relius and Kamet are a bastard and an enslaved person, respectively (and okloi as a matter of course) and that shapes their personalities to a POWERFUL degree

so too the Jews. for a significant portion of European history, Jews were legally okloi as a class, pushed into trade because they were forbidden for owning land. being non-landowners deprived them of most of the legal rights afforded subjects/citizens, but in some ways also was beneficial, in that they were more mobile and had more avenues for success and stability if something like, say, a war or a flood or what-have-you bankrupted farmers and landowners. at various points, various European nations also employed Jews as the enforcers of the state financial apparatus. Christians and Jews alike are forbidden from charging interests to their in-group, but without interest, nobody is fckig giving loans to anyone, and if no one can get a loan, that’s a significant damper on the economy. so, the king puts Jews in charge of banks, because Jews can charge Christians interest. the king puts Jews in charge of collecting taxes. “court Jews” do the bidding of the monarchy because putting themselves under the king’s protection gives them access to wealth and power they would otherwise be barred from, AND ALSO protects them from outbursts of religiously or politically motivated antisemitic violence because fucking No One likes the tax collectors or the bank’s loan officers

which is to say - Shylock was the tragic hero of Merchant of Venice, actually

and Relius can fit a stereotype and still be Good Jewish Representation if he is written with all the love and sensitivity and historical nuance I hold in my heart

side note: all the Tolkien fans who were mad at me for writing Jewish Dwarves because I was ~stereotyping them~ when I was just trying to add nuance to Tolkien’s blatant “they were meant to be Semitic” bullshit can still fuck right off

where was I going with this

okay so

Judaism is matrilineal and Relius is raised by his mother and his father is a steward but doesn’t acknowledge him and he’s sort of three-times stereotyped as a bastard, an okloi, and an Outsider, barely Attolian tbh, doesn’t acknowledge the old gods or the new

and he learns how to manipulate people as a matter of survival and he thrives and there’s some kind of parallel to be made between Mordechai and Esther and Relius and Irene, I’m pretty sure--

Mordechai is the uncle of a young woman who becomes the queen of Babylon or Persia or something and he helps her get there and there’s this whole Thing where an evil advisor is going to kill the Jews and Mordechai is like “perhaps it is for this moment that you have become queen?” and Esther becomes a hero and we have a whole holiday about getting drunk and eating food in the shape of the evil guy’s hat/fingers/ears

the way he guilts Kamet in that Thick as Thieves scene. very Jewish.

the fact that he’s in love with Teleus, who is Extremely Goyish. reminds me of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, when Sammy falls in love with a blond named Bacon. the Intellectual loves the Jock. shocking.

my god, the fact that he’s always poking his nose into other people’s business. because of national security? no. because he NEEDS to be the most well-informed gossip at Kiddush after Shabbat services. prior to her marriage, all of his reports to Irene were made over a dixie cup of wine, while clutching a plate from the buffet, looking across the room at the people they were talking about

the short velvet cape he affects even in summer? actually a tallit. Costis, too, is the most hopelessly goyishe man who’s ever existed and just forgot to mention the fringes.

he’s into history (Jews fucking love history) and astronomy (because he has that sphere thing--and you know, astronomy is useful for a lunar calendar), and he plays the flute. you know why there are no Jewish piano players? because you can’t flee the country with a piano. but a flute fits the bill.

oh man, his lessons with Pheris could be ripped straight out of any Jewish-American Eastern-European immigrant story about a cheder. Jews Love education and don’t fully give a shit about not scaring children in the process.

that’s the proof, and may I add the headcanons:

Relius enjoying a very long, leisurely meal on Friday evenings for Shabbat, drinking wine, singing/enjoying music, discussing grammar/translation, poetry, and philosophy with his dinner guests (Kamet, Gen, Irene, Pheris. Teleus and Costis mostly there for eye candy.)

Relius in the beginning of his career being more cautious, and then becoming more comfortable in his position and being like actuallyyyyy, I will keep kosher and keep the Sabbath, thanks, and if I’m a workaholic who writes spy reports on Saturdays that’s None of Your Business. I will get mad at people who expect me to work on the sabbath anyway.

got a lil silver hamsa pendant with a sapphire evil eye he wears all the time.

favorite holiday is Pesach. what can I say, Greek Jewish boy loves a symposium.

in conclusion: if you understood this post, the most niche post I have ever created in my life, please dm me so we can be friends. Relius’s Hebrew name is Reuven in honor of the fact that that would be my Hebrew name if I were a man. good night.

[basingstokemercury]

Remind me to make a post about tolkien names that could pass as hebrew ones, it's quite interesting considering he claimed not to use hebraic elements.

For now, a couple to start off, and apologies that I can't get the accents on my computer's keyboard

I'll start with the biggest one, Elessar. The pronunciation is slightly off but it could translate as "God is my minister" or perhaps a variant of the existing name Elazar, "God has helped". Unfortunately I would not recommend it as a Good Jewish Baby Name despite sounding awesome, because it's unlikely to pass unrecognised.

The same might not hold true for my second example, a deep cut from old Numenor:

Adunakhor, the twentieth king and the first not to use Eldarin. In Hebrew, there isn't even a need to stretch; it literally translates as "I will judge backwards", which granted might not be the greatest of meanings. Actually, I probably wouldn't recommend naming your son this either if you're going for the reference as he seems to have been a terrible person. It's still cool though!

There are quite a few similarities between the fall of Numenor and the Biblical book of Kings, which also has interesting parallels to the division of Gondor and Arnor into a northern and southern kingdom.

This is mostly speculation of course, but Judaism and Tolkien only seem to be mentioned together in the context of dwarves (which, by the way, I don't see as antisemitic - but more on that another time), which is a bit sad considering how much I noticed in just a cursory glance through the appendices.

[simonalkenmayer]

I’m utterly astonished that that dimwit thinks vampires, of all things, are Jew coded. I’m a Jew, for reference. I saw that you already went into how absurd it is to link us to a worldwide but very varied phenomenon, that of premodern vampires, so I won’t get into that.

I’m very familiar with how easily monsters can be made off of the generic “outsider” mold, and how frequently a given culture will think of jews when it thinks “outsider.” That’s how we get things like goblin imagery (which is divided into the healthy goblincore and the unhealthy JKR goblins). Dwarves, too, hit that spot—Tolkien literally based them on Jews, although he later apologized and said the offensive bits were unintentional. One could argue that the idea of deals with the devil are Jew coded, since meeting a hook-nosed figure at a crossroad and making an exchange is connectable to ancient Jewish traveling merchants, but

But vampires? Seriously? Pale, sallow, reclusive, rich, blood drinking... it’s a stretch to say the least, considering that modern vampires are pretty directly coded after wealthy christian aristocrats, who are more predominantly given those traits than either poor Jewish ghettos or wealthy Jewish merchants were. Hell, you look over the traits ascribed over modern vamps and you find a direct inversion of Catholic ideals, from a more literal communion to immortality to the sanctity of holy symbols. The sun/silver/mirrors are associated with ideas of purity that Judaism barely gets into, but that have been a big thing in the Church ever since they started absorbing pagans. Don’t even get me started on holy water. The archetypal modern vampire is literally based on the son of a pseudo-Templar, that’s where the name Dracula (son of the dragon/devil, after the Order of the Dragon knights) comes from.

The difficulty I have is the lack of historical perspective. These myths predate the modern imagery of “the Jew”. Those tropes are only since about the Middle Ages. And the simple fact is that it has evolved many times since then. The large nose only dates from about the late 12th century. This person is looking at Ancient myths with more modern concepts of descriminatory tropes. Not to mention the fact that how monsters are PRESENTED visually is far different from the source material.

Let’s examine Dracula. (I prefer not to, but oh well). Stoker was very concise in his description and it was not a pleasant one. Hell, the bastard had hairy palms and halitosis. And yet, every single film adaptation presents it differently, though all largely based on Bella Lugosi’s classic portrayal of dark sex appeal. If Tod Browning and Karl Freund decided to take from Antisemitic tropes to develop the character, yes it would be bad, but it would not be the original tale. It would be a version of it.

They’re asserting the myths ORIGINATE in antisemitism. It’s not only not so, but only certain versions contain any sort of trace of antisemiticsm. Not to mention,

Jews are not the only group who have been defined by facial features, especially the nose. Africans and indigenous peoples have also been portrayed with exaggerated noses. Asian groups have been portrayed with allond shaped eyes and so on. Why do they instantly assume that I am leveraging antisemitic tropes? And what benefit is there in putting facial feature tropes into a pale white body? Jews have never been portrayed as pale. In fact paleness is a sign of virtue, innocence, and of course superiority in most visual paradigms to do with discrimination. I mean really. It’s a contradiction.

The series of logical fallacies and contradictions is absurd.

[y3tzirah]

tolkien dwarves are so antisemitic but the good influences he took from judaism make them very relatable to me and therefore they make me cry. and therefore i have been driven insane by thorin