Jews in fantasy

[polaris_starz]

I know people have been posting links to their own Jewish-themed fanfic, but I didn't seen a post for recommending other people's-- if there is, please point it out to me. But anyway, today I was looking through my bookmarks and stumbled over this: Kaddish, by copperbadge, which is a HP fic about Remus and Harry saying Kaddish for James, Lily, and Sirius

Comments

[mofic]

I'm not sure if you're just looking for fanfic, but a wonderful fantasy novel with a Jewish protagonist is Harry Turtledove's _The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump_. He creates a world where most of what we do through technology is done through magic. It is a little like the HP universe (and has a lot of the same kinds of humor in implicitly comparing our society to the magical one) except that it is a world unto itself, not a hidden parallel society. The hero, David Fisher, works for the EPA - the Environmental Perfection Agency - and he investigates illegal use of dangerous magic. He is very explicitly Jewish and is shown occasionally engaging in Jewish religious practices. There is a really moving scene where his girlfriend recites the Shma after a demonic possession - if she were not spiritually whole again she wouldn't be able to say it

[devohoneybee]

The Tsadik of the Seven Wonders, by Isadore Haiblum. spelling of "Tsadik" may vary. Wonderful, silly little fantay romp, read it over 20 years ago, not sure if it is print.

[vilakins]

Oh! I read that years ago too! Very funny.

[eumelia]

I recommend schemingreader's fic A Sweet Year, which touches on that issue beautifully, it's a great fic regardless and features a rare character seen in fic: Anthony Goldstein - if ever there was a Jewish name :)

[astaria51]

His Jewishness was also speculated in the essay Secrets of the Classlist, on the HP Lexicon.

Although it was written in 2006, it delves into the demographics of Harry Potter in a sensible manner (ie, statistically, it's likely that there'd be one Jewish student in any given year -- other statistics are proposed as well, as well as locations of where people might have lived, etc etc).

My thought is that probably orthodox practitioners of any religion wouldn't want their kids to go to Hogwarts; however at a less-strict level I think the main difficulty would be one they were quite familiar with - the Christo-normality of the British school system.

Really, though, I think the super-normalized Christian and heterosexuality of the books is not just a Britishism but a product of editors doing a lot of damage control for the moderate Christians who aren't burning Harry Potter in a bonfire but don't want to believe that it's promoting paganism outright.

[mamadeb]

Most fantasy novels (other than those specifically set in contemporary Earth) seem to take place on medieval/Renaissance/European worlds, where the people all practice some form of paganism, often with very active/present gods and goddesses. There's clearly no room for Judaism on such a world, and even worshiping just One God would be odd

[lomedet]

There was a short story in on of the Deryni collections about Arilan's relationship with a rabbi in Rhemuth. I can't remember now if the story was by Kurtz herself or a fan, but I remember her saying that the Deryni themselves function in a lot of ways as the Jews of the Twelve Kingdoms, but that (at least in her head) there were also Jews in that world.

The other book of hers that comes to mind is Lammas Night. It's a story about the magical protection of Britain during WWWII, and while the main character is a pagan, there are some interesting appearances by practicing kabbalists.

And The Lions of Al-Rassan is one of my favorite novels, not least because the analogues to real-world history are so clear. The Kindath are Jews in lots of ways, and the story rings emotionally true to me as a story of the Reconquista.

[technocracygirl]

Though the first of Misty Lackey's Talia books has the "People of the One" or somesuch, embodied in the cook, who only has a few lines. He seemed to be coded more Jewish than Christian to me.

[fox1013]

Not that this is an answer, but I'm interested in the way you suggest that a Jewish Muggleborn/halfblood would have had conflicted feelings about it. Given the celebration of Christmas as default in the 'verse, I'm wondering why we haven't seen any of the characters seeing the conflict between Christianity (or any other religion, Judeo-Christian or otherwise) and Hogwarts-style magic, or, relatedly, why a Jewish character would react markedly different from a character of any other religion in the universe JKR has set up. I don't disagree it would HAPPEN, I'm just contemplating whether or not HP is legitimately a universe where it would, or if religion and non-secularized religion are just kept separate.

Conversely, given the all-but-explicit parallels to Nazism, is magic supposed to be representative of Judaism, in much the same way that people have argued magic = nonheterosexuality?

[polaris_starz]

I have a hard time buying into magic = nonheterosexuality in the HP-verse, if only because the seventh book was like being hit over the head with the Anvil of Heteronormativity. (OTOH I totally buy this argument for the mutants from X-men.) I wouldn't argue that magic represents Judaism, either. JKR, like others mamadeb talked about above, definitely incorporated her own worldview into that of her characters-- hence heteronormativity and Christianity. The fact that wizards do seem to celebrate Christmas and other Christian holidays, as you said, makes me thing a wizard with a Jewish background might feel even more out of place than if it was only magic. Muggleborns with a Christian background might feel more comfortable with magic because the wizarding world has adopted these Christian traditions, but I can't help but think a Jewish character would feel even more alienated because of it. Of course it would depend on the degree of a character's religious/cultural attachment to Judaism. If they were primarily agnostic or simply culturally

[mamadeb]

One thing to keep in mind - from the discussions had on this subject on hp_britglish - Christmas is even MORE of a cultural thing there than it is in the US, hard as that is to believe. The basic assumption is that everyone celebrates it as a completely non-religious day for gifts

[polaris_starz]

I love you to tiny pieces for that link. I've been wanting something like that for ages.

I should have thought of that, about Christmas-- my family is pretty much the same, not religious but we use it as a reason for presents and family get-togethers, and I also know Jews who celebrate it for those reasons.

The Patil sisters must have been incredibly uncomfortable. This is a world with its mindset still stuck several centuries back in a lot of important aspects. Actually, based on the books, being a minority of any sort in the HP verse is just not good times ever.