Jewish Goblins?

[zesca]

No: HPFGUIDX 81927

Madeyemood: 
Bla, bla, bla
 it's easy to confuse an allusion to a certain type
of prejudice as 
buying into 
that prejudice. but, imho, they simply are not the same thing.

Laura, really starting to feel rather annoyed:
Now wait a minute here. I *never* accused anyone of prejudice-not
JKR, not 
Nemi and not Matt. 

Madeye:
Laura, I haven't been following the argument superclosely; my
comment 
wasn't specifically oriented to you. It was a general statement. 

What I've learned here today
avoid making sweeping
generalizations when 
the topic is sensitive.

> madeyemood
> there are a couple of other examples that leap to mind. in star
trek: deep 
space nine there was that culture of short people with big ears who
were 
obsessed with money...you know: the Quark character, the > grand
Negus, 
etc. 

Laura:
I'm going to assume that you are not familiar with the history of
European 
anti-semitism. 

Madeye:
Just the garden variety education of Hebrew school, plus the Tuchman
book I 
read ages ago and lots of quick and dirty survey type books. Oh, and
I read 
Michener's fictionalized version
what was that
called?
about a Tel in 
Israel; he creates a story pertaining to the artifacts found at each
architectural 
layer. I think that's where I got some of my most recent
information about the 
Crusades. I like reading Jewish stuff, fiction and non-, in a casual
way.

Laura:
Suffice it to say that if someone had wanted 
to create a very ugly sterotype of a Jew according to the images
popular in 
Europe up to the middle of the last century, they couldn't have come
much 
closer than the money-handling, ugly but smart, not-exactly-human
goblin. 
Which is *exactly* why I don't think JKR intended any such thing.

madeyemood: 
I don't exactly understand your argument here. Since it fits it
can't apply? And 
yet I hear people discussing something far more subtle than JKR set
out to 
disparage the jews in her creation of the goblin character. Rather it
seems to 
me that there are similarities that come to mind.
 
I'm not thinking that JKR necessarily intended anything at all
nasty (perhaps I 
should have been more clear!). Sometimes I think it's interesting
to note how 
otherness is conveyed.

The intensity of some of the responses to this topic remind me of the
gay 
thread. Perhaps subject matter that has so much of a charge really
isn't meant 
for a list of this size, unless the poster takes on being much more
careful 
about what s/he states.




> South Park, one of whose writer's is jewish, perpetuates scandalous
ideas 
about both the jews and the people dumb enough to judge them 
for being jewish. the coen brothers also did parodies of the jewish
studio 
head in Barton Fink.
> 
Laura:
Surely you know that members of a group joking about that group is
quite a 
different thing than non-members doing the same thing. 

Madeye:
Agreed.

Laura:
If the people from South Park or the Coen brothers choose to take
their jokes 
public, that still doesn't make it okay for non-Jews to say or do the
same 
things. 

Madeye:
In general, I agree. One thinks of the Rat Pack and how they
unknowingly, 
thinking they were showing Sammy affection, built some insensitive 
denigrating "jokes" into their act. For me, there are no
rules, although there 
are guidelines. A lot of it boils down to how I feel about the intent
and 
meaning of the person: my sense of JKR is that she's a cool gal
who isn't into 
putting anyone down as far as I can see; she may have internalized
ideas of 
the Jewish culture subconsciously; and such speculation is
necessarily 
fraught with vagueness.

> madeyemood:
> anyway, it is a shame that discussing an aspect of the book so
easily 
devolves into baseless accusation. alas, that's the way with tribal
injury. a lot 
of those wounds are still sore.

Laura:
I made no accusation and I'm quite irate that you say I did. 

Madeye:
Laura, why do you think I was suggesting that this was about you in 
particular?

Laura:
I'd suggest you go back and re-read my replies to Nemi and Matt. 

madeyemood:
as I said before: mea maxima culpa. With such a subject as this I
should have 
been much more careful. I don't have the time to go back and
finetoothcomb 
the earlier emails; still not knowing why you took this as a personal
attack.

Laura:
Let me point out to you that Jews are not a tribe. That's a title
imposed from 
outside. We consider ourselves a people. 

madeyemood:
my jewish friends and family often refer to ourselves with the T
word. Are we 
being politically incorrect? Perhaps it's like gays calling
themselves queer? 
I've wondered whether it goes back to the tribes of Israel. I
never knew that 
this term was considered derogatory.

Laura:
And maybe you can understand now why "a lot of those wounds are still 
sore." 

Madeye:
I think I've always had a sense of that one. 

Junediamanti wrote:
Actually, in mediaeval France, florentine bankers were a major force
until 
expelled by Philip IV - who also attacked the order of the Knights
Templars. 

Madeye:
Does this mean that the stuff I read about usury is incorrect? Or
correct but not 
as prevalent as the above?

Junediamanti:
Historical parallel is the ancient classical system of Permutatio -
this meant 
that money could be transferred by letters of credit - all your
wealth 
represented on a piece of paper. This was why state confiscation of
assets 
very rarely worked in Rome because this system enabled money to be
the 
most portable of assets. A similar system is current among the
Islamic world 
today and is a reason why it has been virtually impossible to sieze
any of the 
assets of Al Quaeda. 

Madeye:
Oh, june, now you're making me want to read about this. Monetary
systems 
spook me out. I'm under the impression that the US is insanely
leveraged 
right now, as is a lot of the world. But as usual, I don't really
know what I'm 
talking about and I digress.

If you have any books to recommend on the subject I'd be honored
to receive 
suggestions offlist.

Best,
madeye