This began way back in the day when the Jews lost their homeland, and began to settle and disperse throughout medieval Europe. Those Europeans had great distrust for outsiders and strangers, and developed racial and religious biases almost immediately. These prejudices were further exacerbated by religious and civil leaders who needed a scapegoat for any number of problems plaguing their people at the time, and who found just such a whipping boy in the Jewish people. But there was a problem. Which ones were the Jews? How were furious peasants supposed to identify who to kill for their livestock getting sick? it was in this way that the physical qualities of the stereotypical Jew was born.
Gingers were identified as jews because supposedly Judas was also a ginger. this is sort of silly to think about, as I have never seen a man or woman from Lebanon with anything close to red hair. The Jewish nose is perhaps the oldest lasting stereotype, and it is just as foolish. the nose's iconic hook shape can be found all over the world, being sported by people of numerous races.
So, the question remains, what does a Jewish person look like? The answer is, it depends on where you are. Their spread throughout Europe led to a natural intermingling with its people, blurring their physical attributes together, and discrediting physical Jewish stereotypes.
What you said above is very true. I literally google searched "painting of a jew" and thousands of photos popped up of an old white man with a long grey beard and a large hooked nose. Almost every photo had the man wearing odd shaped glasses and a yarmulke. About half of the photos had the menorah being lit and the other half gold was being counted. It is incredible how racist and narrow minded the world actually is towards Jewish people. I never had really noticed all the biases before this course in the medieval or even modern culture.
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting is that some of these Jewish stereotypes regarding physical features are continuously brought up and made fun of in prominent TV shows by actual Jews themselves. Co-writer of the long running comedy cartoon South Park, Matt Stone is himself Jewish and that show literally pokes fun at Jews for everything including their “stereotypical Jewish looks”. The character of Schmidt on the show New Girl has had countless moments where he poked fun at his “Jewish looks” and joked about Jewish stereotypes. I think our culture realizes how underlying racism is apparent in all of us and it is nice to see how people are able to joke about it and not take it so seriously all the time.
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