feature story
JEWS in
GAMELAND Avicebron -
Fate/Grand Order
fategrandorder.fandom.com HERE’S WHERE TO SPOT THE JEWISH
CHARACTERS IN VIDEO GAMES
JILLIAN DIAMOND | STAFF WRITER
O ver the past few years, diversity in video
games has become a hot-button topic in the
gaming industry and in fan communities.

Developers have made a more concerted eff ort
to include minority characters in the casts of their
games and to account for a variety of experiences:
those of people of color, LGBTQ individuals and
people with disabilities. Th ough increased diversity
in games has been criticized as “pushing an agenda”
by some, more people than ever are now able to have
a gaming experience that refl ects their own real-life
experience. One area that is still lacking, though, is diversity
of religion. As such, Jewish characters are a rarity in
games, but there are still some out there. Here are seven:
B.J. Blazkowicz - Wolfenstein (1981-present)
Th e “Wolfenstein” series is all about fi ghting Nazis.

Th e ongoing series was foundational to the fi rst-per-
son shooter genre, being one of the fi rst of its kind
to achieve widespread popularity alongside “Doom”
and “Quake.” “Wolfenstein”’s innovations in the genre
would lead to some of the most well-known games
ever, such as the “Call of Duty” and “Halo” series.

But the series is not without its controversy, as one
might expect from a game about killing as many
Nazis as you can. Th e fi rst game was banned in
Germany due to its usage of Nazi iconography and,
in recent years, some on the far right have taken issue
with the series’ violent answer to fascism and its
#NoMoreNazis advertising campaign in 2017.

Th e main character of most of the games, William
Joseph Blazkowicz, or “B.J.” for short, is a Polish-
American Jew who acts as a spy and specializes in
one-man missions. He’s an ardent antifascist who
joins the American resistance against the Axis pow-
ers to investigate Nazi activity. Th e games pull no
punches in displaying how B.J. and the developers
feel about Nazis — in “Wolfenstein 3D,” B.J. can even
assassinate Adolf Hitler himself.

Otacon - Metal Gear Solid (1998-present)
Due to the ubiquity of the “Metal Gear Solid” series,
Dr. Hal “Otacon” Emmerich is one of the more pop-
ular Jewish characters in video games and arguably
Rabbi Russell Stone (and various other
characters) - The Shivah (2006, 2013)
B.J. Blazkowicz -
Wolfenstein MachineGames / Bethesda
Soft works
Rabbi Russell
Stone TVTropes.com
Otacon - Metal
Gear Solid
metalgear.wikia.com/ wiki/Hal_Emmerich
20 one of the better known cases on this list. Being the
closest partner of series protagonist Solid Snake,
he plays a major role in the franchise, whether he
is assisting Snake in missions or raising a child,
Sunny, with him. He is certainly not the toughest
or coolest video game character — he’s a nerd and
a self-proclaimed “otaku” (fan of anime and other
Japanese media), and his introduction is, in a word,
embarrassing — but he’s also an incredibly intelligent
scientist with a complicated history. Above all else, he
is dedicated to doing the right thing.

Th e nature of his Jewish identity is more apocry-
phal than other Jewish characters in video games, as
it has mainly been alluded to in “Metal Gear Solid”
supplementary material, such as him being listed
as being American and Jewish in the “Metal Gear
Solid Offi cial Mission Handbook.” His father being
introduced in a later game in the series complicates
things, as his and Otacon’s mother’s Jewish identities
are never expanded upon.

AUGUST 4, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
As far as indie games go, “Th e Shivah” could be con-
sidered one of the fi rst to feature Jewish characters
and themes. Published in 2006 by developer Wadjet
Eye Games, “Th e Shivah” is perhaps the most Jewish
game ever. It follows the tale of a rabbi struggling
with his faith who becomes the suspect in the murder
of a former member of his synagogue.

“Th e Shivah” is a point-and-click adventure game
in the style of the “Monkey Island” series and “Myst.”
Like many of its genre contemporaries, it presents the
player with multiple dialogue options that determine
the ending they get. Where “Th e Shivah” diff ers is
that the player cannot directly decide what Rabbi
Stone will say next: Th ey can decide his tone, as well
as whether they want to give a “Rabbinical response”
and answer a question with another question, but
exactly what he says is up to him.

Th e game’s confl ict stems from an interfaith mar-
riage between two characters. Stone refusing to marry
them and casting them out from his synagogue is



what eventually leads to one’s murder. As the story
progresses, he is forced to come to grips with his own
ideals and whether the way he espouses his faith is
really the right way to do it.

Th e sanctity of marriage between Jews is something
“Th e Shivah” creator Dave Gilbert says his mother felt
very strongly about, and viewing it as a “very Jewish
problem to face” led him to include it in the game.

In the 16 years since the game’s fi rst release, Gilbert
admits that he has found inaccuracies in the original
game, and it is not an exhaustive look at Judaism and
the issues that Jews may face in their communities.

But these inaccuracies do not change the fact that
“Th e Shivah” comes from a very personal place of
reexamining one’s faith and coming to terms with it.

“It exists as this thing I made when I was going
through a transition of deciding what I wanted to
do with my life,” Gilbert said. “But it just ended up
taking off because of its subject matter.”
Brigid Tenenbaum — Bioshock
(2007-present) “Bioshock” is a surprising well of Jewish represen-
tation. Ken Levine, creator of the series and direc-
tor of the fi rst game, stated in an interview with
GameInformer that “pretty much half the cast” of the
fi rst game is Jewish. He listed Andrew Ryan, Sander
Cohen, J.S. Steinman and Mariska Lutz as examples.

It is worth noting that aside from Mariska, these
characters are all villainous in nature and as a result
their status as “good” Jewish representation is debat-
able. Still, the game’s Jewish cast stems from Levine
writing of his own religion (though he now identifi es
as an atheist) and experiences.

Th e most important non-villainous Jew in the game,
though, has to be Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum. She is intro-
duced as a geneticist and the creator of the Little Sisters,
young girls who have been genetically modifi ed to col-
lect ADAM, a gene-altering substance, from around the
underwater city of Rapture. She eventually comes to see
them as her children and is protective of them.

Her story is inextricably tied to her Judaism, as she
grew up in Minsk during the Holocaust and became
a prisoner in Auschwitz. She only survived because
her intelligence was useful to the Nazi doctors who
worked there, and they forced her to help them with
their experiments or risk death if she refused.

Tenenbaum’s character is complex — she is clearly
racked with grief because of what she was forced to
do in Auschwitz and what she did to create Little
Sisters, and has grown attached to them perhaps as
an outlet for that grief. Whether the player chooses
to kill Little Sisters they come across or not has a sig-
nifi cant eff ect on the story, with Tenenbaum assisting
protagonist Jack if he spares them. Jack even adopts
fi ve little girls at the end of the game if the player has
beaten it without killing a single Little Sister.

Avicebron - Fate/Grand Order (2015)
Th e plot of the “Fate” series of games is diffi cult to
explain, but the most succinct summary is that they
are visual novels about mages who summon the spirits
of historical and mythological fi gures — commonly
known as “servants” — to fi ght each other in hopes of
receiving a wish from the legendary Holy Grail. While
not the most accessible series to play, as many of its
games have never left Japan, it has managed to garner a
passionate online fanbase.

“Fate/Grand Order” is the franchise’s mobile entry,
and while it contains Jewish fi gures from the Hebrew
Bible, such as David and Solomon, the most curious
piece of Jewish representation in the game is a fi gure
players are less likely to be familiar with: Avicebron,
better known as Solomon ibn Gavirol.

Solomon ibn Gavirol, born around 1021, was one
of the most preeminent medieval Jewish poets and
philosophers. “Fate” is notorious for bending the truth of the
historical fi gures it features, though, and its depiction
of Avicebron focuses primarily on the Kabbalism his
teachings inspired. A matter-of-fact, reclusive person,
he fi ghts using golems: a reference to the fact that
Solomon ibn Gavirol is rumored to have created golems
to do his chores. Th ough a relatively minor character in
a game with over 300 characters, he has a fairly complex
characterization and is likely how many players found
out that ibn Gavirol even existed.

Dina — The Last of Us Part II (2020)
Dina may be the most overt case of Jewish represen-
tation in an AAA (made by a major publisher and
given a higher development and marketing budget,
akin to a blockbuster) game. Th e partner of Ellie, the
main character, Dina speaks openly about Judaism
and Jewish practices. She wears a bracelet marked
with a hamsa, has a chai symbol hanging in her
house and notes that her sister would take her to a
synagogue to pray.

While her Judaism was never outright stated in
game, it was a popular fan theory that was later
confi rmed by Naughty Dog creative director Neil
Druckmann. “So I was like, ‘Well, it’s rare to see a Jewish character
in a video game, and for her to own that,’” he said in a
Mashable article. He also noted during a panel at the E3
video game conference that getting the light to refl ect
properly on Dina’s frizzy hair, a physical trait shared by
many Jews, posed a particular challenge to the
development team.

In the zombie-infested, dire and oft en cruel world of
“Th e Last of Us,” Dina provides Ellie with much-needed
comfort and someone to talk with aft er the death of Joel,
her guardian from the fi rst game. Th e state of their sur-
roundings puts pressure on both her and Ellie, and it is
diffi cult to say if they will fi nd a happy ending together in
future games. But Dina still stands out as one of the most
visible cases of Jewish representation in gaming: As of
June 22, “Th e Last of Us Part II” has sold 10 million copies
on the PS4 alone.

pack — among these are a dreidel, a menorah and
mezuzahs to be hung on door frames, implying that
the main character is Jewish.

“Unpacking is all about learning about a person
from the items they own,” said Wren Brier, the game’s
creative director. “We wanted to make the characters
feel like real, three-dimensional people so that players
could relate to them. One aspect of that is a religious and
cultural identity. Our character happens to be an artist,
and she happens to be queer, and happens to be Jewish.

All of these are important parts of who she is.

“I just want to see more [Jewish representation],”
Brier said. “Games rarely feature Jewish characters
at all. And I’d like to see a greater variety of Jewish
representation in popular media in general. Th e
Jewish experience is diverse: We live all over the
world, we come in every skin color and every level
of religiosity, from ultra-Orthodox to atheist. It feels
like the only Jewish people I see in popular media
are white American Jews, usually in New York, or
white European Jews during World War II. Th ose
are, of course, valuable perspectives, but I think a lot
of other Jewish perspectives are just not represented
at all.” JE
jdiamond@midatlanticmedia.com Main character —
Unpacking youtube
Brigid Tenenbaum —
Bioshock bioshock.fandom.com
Main character — Unpacking (2021)
“Unpacking,” a puzzle game by Australian develop-
ment team Witch Beam, is a curious case in terms
of its Jewish representation. By all accounts, the
game has no characters who ever appear on screen
or even any dialogue. But through the combination
of block-fi tting and home decoration that make up
the gameplay, the player learns about the lives of the
nameless homeowners they assist in eight diff erent
moves over the course of 21 years.

Th e game’s primary narrative is communicated
through the items the player is assigned to place or
Dina hero.fandom.com/wiki/Dina
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 21