Stereotypes of Jews
Stereotypes of Jews are generalized representations of Jews, often caricatured and of a prejudiced and antisemitic nature.
Reproduced common objects, phrases, and traditions are used to emphasize or ridicule Jewishness. This includes the complaining and guilt-inflicting Jewish mother, often along with a meek nice Jewish boy, and the spoiled and materialistic Jewish-American princess.
Stereotype by type
Physical features
In caricatures and cartoons, Ashkenazi Jews are usually depicted as having large hook-noses and dark beady eyes with drooping eyelids. Exaggerated or grotesque Jewish facial features were a staple theme in Nazi propaganda. The Star Wars character Watto, introduced in The Phantom Menace, has been likened to traditional antisemitic caricatures.Nose
The idea of the large or aquiline "Jewish nose" remains one of the most prevalent and defining features to characterize someone as a Jew. This widespread stereotype can be traced back to the 13th century, according to art historian Sara Lipton. While the depiction of the hooked-nose originated in the 13th century, it had an uprooting in European imagery many centuries later. The earliest record of anti-Jewish caricature is a detailed doodle depicted in the upper margin of the Exchequer Receipt Roll in 1233. It shows three demented-looking Jews inside a castle as well as a Jew in the middle of the castle with a large nose. The satirical antisemitic 1893 book The Operated Jew revolves around a plot of cosmetic surgery as a "cure" for Jewishness.Hair
In European culture, prior to the 20th century, red hair was commonly identified as a distinguishing negative Jewish trait. This arose primarily from Christian prejudices inherent within European folklore, where red hair symbolised the fires of hell, as well as being commonly associated with archetypal caricatures of demons. Red hair was especially closely linked with Judas Iscariot, who was commonly depicted with red hair. During the Spanish Inquisition, all those with red hair were identified as Jewish. In Italy, red hair was associated with Italian Jews. In Medieval European lore, "Red Jews" were a semi-fictional group of red-haired Jews, although this tale has obscure origins.In part due to their Middle Eastern ethnic origins, Jews tend to be portrayed as swarthy and hairy, sometimes associated with a curly hair texture known as a "Jewfro".
Hands
During the Nazi-era propaganda campaign against Jews, there were repeated mentions of Jews being able to be identified by their use of hands while speaking, "the Jew moves his hands when he talks". This has evolved into modern stereotypes of Jews, much like others in Europe, namely Italians speaking with their hands.
Behavioral
Communication
A well-known stereotype about Jewish communication is the tendency to answer a question with a question. In large part, this stereotype arises from the emphasis on questioning in Jewish education; chavrusa partnerships are designed around questioning Talmudic texts, which are structured around questioning different Talmudic texts, which are structured around questioning the Torah. This tradition, among others structured to encourage the value of l'dor v'dor such as the four questions of Passover, have helped create a culture of structured debate.Jews, specifically Ashkenazi Jews, are also stereotyped as being melodramatic and over-zealously complaining. The Yiddish word for this behavior is to kvetch. Michael Wex, in his book Born to Kvetch, notes that this can be a real cultural phenomenon of Yiddishkeit; "While answering one complaint with another is usually considered a little excessive in English, Yiddish tends to take a homeopathic approach to kvetching: like cures like and kvetch cures kvetch. The best response to a complaint is another complaint, an antiseptic counter-kvetch that makes further whining impossible for anybody but you."
Greed
Jews have often been stereotyped as greedy and miserly. This originates in the Middle Ages when the Church forbade Christians to lend money while charging interest. Jews were legally restricted to occupations usually barred to Christians and thus many went into money-lending. This led to, through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the association of Jews with greedy practices.File:Gilbert-Shylock.jpg|thumb|Gilbert's Shylock After the Trial, an illustration to The Merchant of Venice, Stereotypes of Jews
Publications like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and literature such as William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist reinforced the stereotype of the crooked Jew. Dickens later expressed regret for his portrayal of Fagin in the novel, and toned down references to his Jewishness. Furthermore, the character of Mr. Riah in his later novel Our Mutual Friend is a kindly Jewish creditor, and may have been created as an apology for Fagin. Lesser references in Arabian Nights, The Three Musketeers, and even Hans Brinker are examples of the prevalence of this negative perception.
Some, such as Paul Volcker, suggest that the stereotype has decreased in prevalence in the United States. A telephone poll of 1,747 American adults conducted by the Anti-Defamation League in 2009 found that 18% believed that "Jews have too much power in the business world", 13% that "Jews are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want", and 12% that "Jews are not just as honest as other businesspeople".
Jewish frugality, thriftiness, and greed are among the typical themes in jokes about Jews, even by Jews themselves.
Intelligence
A stereotype exists suggesting that Jews are more intelligent than other people. This idea, also called "Jewish Genius", emerged during the 19th century within the context of scientific racism. Some 20th and 21st century publications, notably the highly controversial book The Bell Curve, have suggested it is supported by the results of IQ research, though the idea has been thoroughly criticised by Sander L. Gilman, who has described it as a "racial myth".Stereotypical characters
Belle juive
La belle juive was a 19th-century literary stereotype. A figure meeting the description is often associated with having and causing sexual lust, temptation and sin. Her personality traits could be portrayed either positively or negatively. The typical appearance of the belle juive included long, thick, dark hair, large dark eyes, an olive skin tone, and a languid expression. An example of this stereotype is Rebecca in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. Another example is Miriam in Nathaniel Hawthorne's romance The Marble Faun.Jewish mother
The Jewish mother stereotype is both a common stereotype and a stock character that is used by Jewish as well as non-Jewish comedians, television and film writers, actors, and authors in the United States and elsewhere. The stereotype generally involves a nagging, loud, manipulative, highly-talkative, overprotective, smothering, and overbearing mother, who persists in interfering in her children's lives long after they have become adults and is excellent at making her children feel guilty for actions that may have caused her to suffer. The stereotype is described in detail in Dan Greenburg's best-selling 1964 humor book, How to Be a Jewish Mother: A Very Lovely Training Manual.The Jewish mother stereotype can also involve a loving and overly proud mother who is highly defensive about her children in front of others. Like Italian mother stereotypes, Jewish mother characters are often shown cooking for the family, urging loved ones to eat more, and taking great pride in their food. Feeding a loved one is characterized as an extension of the desire to mother those around her. Lisa Aronson Fontes describes the stereotype as one of "endless caretaking and boundless self-sacrifice" by a mother who demonstrates her love by "constant overfeeding and unremitting solicitude about every aspect of her children's and husband's welfare".
A possible origin of this stereotype is anthropologist Margaret Mead's research into the European shtetl, financed by the American Jewish Committee. Although her interviews at Columbia University, with 128 European-born Jews, disclosed a wide variety of family structures and experiences, the publications resulting from this study and the many citations in the popular media resulted in the Jewish mother stereotype: a woman intensely loving but controlling to the point of smothering and attempting to engender enormous guilt in her children via the endless suffering which she professes to have experienced on their behalf. The Jewish mother stereotype, then, has origins in the American Jewish community, with predecessors that originated in Eastern European ghettos. In Israel, with its diversity of diasporic backgrounds and where most mothers are Jewish, the same stereotypical mother is known as the Polish mother.
Comedian Jackie Mason describes stereotypical Jewish mothers as parents who have become experts in the art of needling their children that they have honorary degrees in "Jewish Acupuncture". Rappoport observes that jokes about the stereotype have less basis in antisemitism than they have in gender stereotyping. William Helmreich agrees, observing that the attributes of a Jewish mother—overprotection, pushiness, aggression, and guilt-inducement—could equally well be ascribed to mothers of other ethnicities, from Italians through Black people to Puerto Rican people. In the book How to Be a Jewish Mother, the author says in the preface that it is not necessary to be either Jewish or a mother to be a Jewish mother.'
The association of this otherwise gender stereotype with Jewish mothers in particular, is, according to Helmreich, because of the importance that Judaism traditionally places on the home and the family, and the mother's important role within that family. Judaism, as exemplified by the Bible and elsewhere, ennobles motherhood, and it associates mothers with virtue. This ennoblement was further increased by the poverty and hardship of Eastern European Jews who immigrated into the United States, where the requirements of hard work by the parents were passed on to their children via guilt: "We work so hard so that you can be happy." Other aspects of the stereotype are rooted in those immigrant Jewish parents' drive for their children to succeed, resulting in a push for perfection and a continual dissatisfaction with anything less: "So you got a B? That could have been an A there." Hartman observes that the root of the stereotype is in the self-sacrifice of first-generation immigrants, unable to take full advantage of American education themselves, and the consequent transference of their aspirations, to success and social status, from themselves to their children. A Jewish mother obtains vicarious social status from the achievements of her children, where she is unable to achieve such status herself.
One of the earliest Jewish mother figures in American popular culture was Molly Goldberg, portrayed by Gertrude Berg, in the situation comedy The Goldbergs on radio from 1929 to 1949 and on television from 1949 to 1955. But the stereotype as it came to be understood in the 20th century was exemplified by other literary figures. These include Rose Morgenstern from Herman Wouk's 1955 novel Marjorie Morningstar, Mrs Patimkin from Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth, and Sophie Ginsky Portnoy from Portnoy's Complaint also by Roth. Sylvia Barack Fishman's characterization of Marjorie Morningstar and Sophie Portnoy is that they are each "a forceful Jewish woman who tries to control her life and the events around her", who is "intelligent, articulate, and aggressive", who does not passively accept life but tries to shape events, friends, and families, to match their visions of an ideal world.
The Jewish mother became one of two stock female Jewish characters in literature in the 20th century, the other being the Jewish-American princess. The focus of the stereotype was different than its precursors, too. Jewish writers had previously employed a stereotype of an overbearing matron, but its focus had always been not on the woman, but the ineffectual man whom she dominated, out of necessity. The focus of the Jewish mother stereotype that arose was based on a shift in the economic circumstances of American Jews during the 20th century. American Jews were no longer struggling first-generation immigrants, living in impoverished neighborhoods. The "soldier woman" work ethos of Jewish women, and the levels of anxiety and dramatization of their lives, were seen as unduly excessive for lifestyles that had become far more secure and suburban by the middle of the century. Jewish literature came to focus upon the differences between Jewish women and what Jews saw as being the various idealized views of American women, the "blonde bombshell", the "sex kitten", or the sweet docile "apple-pie" blonde who always supported her man. In contrast, Jewish writers viewed the still articulate and intelligent Jewish woman as being, by comparison, pushy, unrefined, and unattractive.
Fishman describes the Jewish mother stereotype that was used by male Jewish writers as "a grotesque mirror image of the proverbial Woman of Valor". A Jewish mother was a woman who had her own ideas about life, who attempted to conquer her sons and her husband, and used food, hygiene, and guilt as her weapons. Like Helmreich, Fishman observes that while it began as a universal gender stereotype, exemplified by Erik Erikson's critique of "Momism" in 1950 and Philip Wylie's blast, in his 1942 Generation of Vipers, against "dear old Mom" tying all of male America to her apron strings, it quickly became highly associated with Jewish mothers in particular, in part because the idea became a staple of Jewish American fiction.
This stereotype enjoyed a mixed reception in the mid-20th century. In her 1967 essay "In Defense of the Jewish Mother", Zena Smith Blau defended the stereotype, asserting that the ends, inculcating virtues that resulted in success, justified the means, control through love and guilt. Being tied to mamma kept Jewish boys away from "entile friends, particularly those from poor, immigrant families with rural origins in which parents did not value education". One example of the stereotype, as it had developed by the 1970s, was the character of Ida Morgenstern, the mother of Rhoda Morgenstern, who first appeared in a recurring role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and later appeared as a regular on its spinoff Rhoda.
According to Alisa Lebow, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the stereotype of the Jewish mother has "gone missing" from movies. She observes that there appears to have been no conscious effort on the part of screenwriters or film-makers to rewrite or change the stereotype, in pursuance of some revisionist agenda, instead, it has simply fallen back a generation. Despite this, the concept of the Jewish mother can still be seen in popular culture even though it is declining in film. One use of the Jewish mother stereotype-trope can be seen in the popular television program The Big Bang Theory, which premiered in 2007, and it was played by the character of Howard Wolowitz's mother who is only heard as a voice character. Mrs. Wolowitz is loud, overbearing, and overprotective of her son. In the television show South Park, Sheila Broflovski, the mother of its main character Kyle Broflovski, is Jewish and represents a caricature of the stereotypes that are associated with her ethnicity and role, such as speaking loudly, having a New Jersey accent and being overprotective of her son. This character can also be seen from George Costanza’s mother in Seinfeld, and Daniela Paguro, mother of the main character of the movie Luca.