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

shavua tov!

[prezzey]

The Sparrow and its sequel are SF all right, definitely not fantasy. But there's plenty of Judaism in there and they are amazing reads otherwise.

[darkest_light]

I've done a lot of playing around in my head with fantasy worlds where the magic is based on Jewish mysticism, but unfortunately nowhere I can point out on the internet, as it's mostly been in RPG contexts. I WISH someone would write an actual novel based on the concept.

In general, though, I direct you to this Making Light post about genre conventions, minority cultures, and magic.

[darkest_light]

Also: Michael Chabon does good stuff with Jews and fantasy mythology (mostly super hero stuff related to Kavalier and Clay).

There are Jews in John M. Ford's The Dragon Waiting, but like most fantasy, it's largely paganism based. (Best. Alternate Europe. Ever.) I'm weirdly convinced that Ford ::has:: to have written a good jewish fantasy world somewhere, but can't come up with one over the course of a web search.

[rydra_wong]

Best. Alternate Europe. Ever.

*clings to you*

I love that book so much, and so many people have never even heard of it.

[half_elf_lost]

One presumes that sometime in the history of Hogwarts, a Jewish Muggleborn or halfblood has gotten a Hogwarts letter and had conflicted feelings about it.

The first think that jumped into my head after reading that was "I wonder if Hogwarts offers a kosher meal plan?" *laughs*

[vilakins]

There's Cohen the Barbarian in the Discworld books, but yeah, not really Jewish. :-P

[mari4212]

Although Pratchett has mentioned that many people see the Dwarves as being in some way coded as Jewish, and while he didn't intend it, he says he can see it as well, so there's that.

[vilakins]

I haven't picked that, though I'm only halfway through the books.

[mari4212]

It's something some people pick up on, and others don't. The one place I really got it, instead of just the standard fantasy dwarves with the Pratchettian twist, was The Fifth Elephant. That book deals a lot with dwarf culture and thought, good and bad.

I believe he mentions people reading his dwarves as coded for Jews in The Art of Discworld, but it's been a while since I last re-read it, so I can't say for certain.

[mari4212]

minisinoo has written both X-Men and Harry Potter stories which incorporate Jewish characters who actively practice/think about their heritage.

The main one which comes to mind for Harry Potter is a sub-plot in her Finding Himself AU novel that has Cedric interacting with a Hufflepuff first-year, Rose Zeller, who is trying to deal with being at Hogwarts while being religiously Jewish.