O pinion
Distressed by Sally Rooney? Read How a Jewish Fan
Once Schooled Charles Dickens on Antisemitism
BY ERIKA DREIFUS
AS A WRITER, literature
professor and one of the 82%
of U.S. Jews who report that
“caring about Israel” is either
“essential” or “important”
to their Jewish identity, I am
pained when I see authors
whom I admire launch
exaggerated or misinformed
attacks on Israel.

But I also take solace in
a correspondence, celebrated
in a new children’s book, that
showed how one Jewish reader
engaged an author whom she
felt trafficked in anti-Jewish
tropes. That the correspon-
dence took place in the 19th
century, and the author in
question is Charles Dickens,
does not make its lessons any
less timely.

I was distressed when Irish
novelist Sally Rooney said
on Oct. 12 that she wouldn’t
allow her latest novel to be
published in Hebrew by an
Israeli publisher “that does not
publicly distance itself from
apartheid and support the
UN-stipulated rights of the
Palestinian people.”
Saddened but not surprised:
Earlier this year, Rooney signed
a “Letter Against Apartheid”
— a text issued in the wake
of the latest round of violence
between Israel and Hamas. It
called for governments to “cut
trade, economic, and cultural
relations” with the Jewish state,
which it said had committed
“ethnic cleansing,” “massacres”
and more in its response to the
thousands of rockets fired into
Israel by Hamas.

With their particular focus
on words, writers should do
better, especially when they
organize, join or promote such
endeavors. If their misrepresen-
tations are without malicious
intent, they’re in desperate
need of further education.

How such “education”
might best be carried out is the
subject of “Dear Mr. Dickens,”
a new picture book written
by Nancy Churnin and illus-
trated by Bethany Stancliffe.

This true story of correspon-
dence between the celebrated
author and a reader named
Eliza Davis — a Jewish woman
who launched the exchange to
protest antisemitic tropes in
“Oliver Twist” — imparts a
timeless lesson about speaking
out against injustice.

(Disclosure: Churnin
and I belong to the same
writers group; I hadn’t seen
this manuscript before being
granted pre-publication
electronic access to an advance
review copy.)
Davis (1817-1903) refused
to be daunted when writing
the famous author, whose
portrayal of “the Jew” Fagin
in “Oliver Twist” landed “like
a hammer on [her] heart,” as
Churnin describes it. Davis
lacked Dickens’ stature. But
“she had the same three things
that [he] had: a pen, paper, and
something to say.” Quoting
the correspondence, Churnin
conveys Davis’ message: Fagin
“encouraged ‘a vile prejudice’”
against her people. According
to Churnin, Davis had consid-
ered Dickens especially heroic
— and the Fagin character
especially discordant — because
Dickens “used the power of his
pen to help others.”
In response, Dickens
declared that Fagin was based
on real-life Jewish criminals.

In a mix of what we’d today call
gaslighting and mansplaining,
he went further: “Any Jewish
people who thought him unfair
or unkind — and that included
Eliza! — were not ‘sensible’
or ‘just’ or ‘good tempered,’”
Churnin relates. Davis tried
again; evidently, Dickens didn’t
write back.

But the Jewish character in
his next novel — the estimable
Mr. Riah in “My Mutual
Friend” — was no Fagin.

After that novel appeared,
Davis thanked Dickens for
“‘a great compliment paid to
myself and to my people.’” This
time, Dickens responded much
more warmly. He went further,
notably in a magazine essay in
which he referred to Jews as “an
earnest, methodical, aspiring
people” and in changes to a
subsequent printing of “Oliver
Twist,” when he instructed
the printer to remove many
instances in which he referred
to “the Jew” and to use Fagin’s
name instead.

There’s still another aspect
of Eliza Davis’ story that
resonates: Instead of calling
Dickens out publicly, Davis
approached him one-to-one.

True, they weren’t strangers.

According to an author’s note,
the Davises had purchased
Dickens’ former home a few
years before this correspon-
dence began. But Davis didn’t
know how Dickens would
receive her initial message. And
when he scathingly dismissed
it, she didn’t give up.

Rudine Sims-Bishop speaks
of books as “windows” and
“mirrors” for the children who
read them. With rising antisem-
itism in the United States and
elsewhere, “Dear Mr. Dickens”
is a sadly timely mirror for
Jewish children; importantly, it
provides a positive, action-ori-
ented message of tikkun
olam, or the Jewish value of
repairing the world. For others,
the book offers a window into
Jewish experience, alongside
that universal message about
confronting injustice with
written words.

Moreover, Davis’ reaction to
Dickens’ words — her sense of
betrayal by an admired author
whose compassion somehow
didn’t extend to Jews —
mirrors my own increasingly
frequent experience. Like so
many Jews, I am imbued with
a sense of klal Yisrael, “Jewish
peoplehood,” linking us with
Jews everywhere — including
in Israel, the world’s only
Jewish state, where nearly half
of the world’s Jews now live.

This doesn’t mean that I
support all Israeli policies. But
criticism of Israel needs to be
leavened by facts and context,
and a recognition that the
situation is far more complex
than declarations of an “apart-
heid” regime and “ethnic
cleansing” suggest.

Although I’ve gone the
public route from time to
time, private communica-
tions with writer-friends and
acquaintances — especially in
the wake of the May 2021 war
between Israel and Hamas —
have proven far more fruitful,
yielding corrections, deletions
and other changes.

For which I, like Davis, have
expressed thanks.

I don’t expect “great compli-
ments to me and to my people”
from authorial idols and
colleagues, particularly those
of Palestinian descent. All
I’m seeking is fairness — and
freedom from vile prejudice. l
Erika Dreifus is the author of
“Birthright: Poems” and “Quiet
Americans: Stories,” which was
named an ALA/Sophie Brody
Medal Honor Title for outstanding
achievement in Jewish Literature.

She is A fellow in the Sami Rohr
Jewish Literary Institute and
an adjunct associate professor
at Baruch College of The City
University of New York.

The ‘Jewface’ Debate About Casting Non-Jews
as Jews Betrays an Ashkenazi Bias
against the practice of casting
non-Jews as Jewish characters
ACTRESS AND COMEDIAN in TV and films. She referred
Sarah Silverman, in comments to the castings as “Jewface,”
on her Sept. 30 podcast, railed a play on the historically
BY MANISHTANA
12 OCTOBER 21, 2021
JEWISH EXPONENT
racist practice of donning
“blackface.” Silverman pointed to
a series of Jewish women
portrayed by non-Jewish
actresses, including Rachel
Brosnahan in “The Marvelous
Mrs. Maisel,” Felicity Jones as
the late Supreme Court justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg in “On
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



O pinion
the Basis of Sex” and Kathryn
Hahn’s upcoming turn as Joan
Rivers in “The Comeback Girl.”
“There’s this long tradi-
tion of non-Jews playing Jews,
and not just playing people
who happen to be Jewish, but
people whose Jewishness is
their whole being,” Silverman
opined. “One could argue, for
instance, that a gentile playing
Joan Rivers correctly would be
doing what is actually called
‘Jewface.’” Silverman goes on to say that
“if the Jewish female character
is courageous or deserves love,
she is never played by a Jew.

Ever!” Now, I’m not here to comment
on whether Hollywood’s
portrayal of Jewish women as
being controlling, nagging or
whiny is a problem (it is), nor to
question the dubious wisdom of
Silverman speaking out against
“Jewface” and anti-Semitic
misogynist tropes when she
herself has flippantly engaged
in racist portrayals of other
ethnic groups, including herself
donning “blackface,” without
holding herself accountable.

Silverman’s own short-
comings aside, she’s not the
originator of the problematic
term “Jewface” nor the first
Jewish woman to raise the
issue. This is a valid discussion
and problem to be discussed,
which speaks to represen-
tation, who gets to tell their
own stories and the very
same “identity politics” that
Silverman, ironically, finds to
be “f–king annoying.”
However, what I find inter-
esting is the centering of
Ashkenormativity in the term
itself, and the curious fact
that the specter of “Jewface”
has — without fail — only
reared its head when white
actors portray white Jews, and
otherwise largely ignores when
the characters or actors are
non-white. In a recent Twitter thread,
I pointed out various Jews of
color who have been portrayed
on screen. Dr. Christina Yang
of “Grey’s Anatomy” is Jewish.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM The actress who plays her,
Sandra Oh, isn’t. Ato Essandoh
isn’t Jewish, yet he’s played
both Dr. Isidore Latham on
“Chicago Med” and Kwesi
Weisberg-Annan on “Away.”
Luke Youngblood isn’t Jewish,
but Sid from “Galavant” is.

Where is the dialogue and
outrage about “Jewface” in
those cases?
(Interesting aside: While
Tracee Ellis Ross’ character
on “Black-ish” isn’t Jewish, the
actress is, and the actors who
play her siblings are also Black
and Jewish: Daveed Diggs and
Rashida Jones.).

Silverman isn’t alone in
erasing Jewish women of color,
or implying that when we say
“Jewish” we mean white and
Ashkenazi. Too often, white Jewish
women are cast as Jews when
playing comic relief or Jewish
mother stereotypes (thanks
Philip Roth), and too often aren’t
seen as desirable or bankable
when it comes to playing Jewish
heroines, protagonists or histor-
ical figures. Yet on the flip side,
actresses like Tracee Ellis Ross,
Rashida Jones, Maya Rudolph,
Tiffany Haddish, Laura London,
Zoe Kravitz, Lisa Bonet, Sophie
Okenedo and Jurnee Smollett
are seen as attractive, strong
and lovable, but only as black
women, not as Jews.

Even fictional characters are
subjected to this bifurcation of
identity. Jewish-but-not-Black
actress Jenny Slate famously
stepped down from the role of
voicing the Black and Jewish
character of Missy Foreman-
Greenwald on “Big Mouth,” yet
her replacement, Ayo Edebiri,
is Black but not Jewish.

However, judging from the
replies to my Twitter thread,
instead of engaging holisti-
cally in the conversation about
which aspects of identity and
Jewish representation are
important, the mainstream
American Jewish community
would rather do anything but
acknowledge Ashkenormative
centering. In my original thread, I
apparently made the egregious
mistake of off-handedly
mentioning that a significant
contingent of Jewish “Star
Trek: The Next Generation”
fans (see this podcast and this
article) considers the possi-
bility that the Klingon officer
Worf is Jewish. Which do you
think generated more dialogue:
the general issue of “Jewface”
ignoring Jews of color, or
whether or not Worf’s parents
and “yellowface” frequently
raise their head — whether
in acclaimed and historic
pieces of Jewish representation
such as “The Jazz Singer,” or
in costumes seen every year
during the holiday of Purim.

The term and debate around
“Jewface” (as opposed to
simply referring to the practice
as “whitewashing”) comes off
as not only performative, but
also derails what is a larger and
more important conversation
about what it means to “look,”
represent and simply be Jewish.

None of us will be correctly
cast until all of us are correctly
cast. l
Manishtana is the pen name of
Shais Rishon, an African-American
Orthodox rabbi, activist, speaker
and writer. He has written for Tablet,
Kveller, The Forward, Jewcy and
Hevria. Too often, white Jewish women are cast as Jews when playing comic
relief or Jewish mother stereotypes (thanks Philip Roth), and too often
aren’t seen as desirable or bankable when it comes to playing Jewish
heroines, protagonists or historical figures.

were coded as Ashkenazi or
Russian? In other instances, debates
arose around whether the
actors I listed were “real” Jews
(despite me having made no
reference to halachic defini-
tions of Jewishness) or whether
the characters I listed were
“really” Jewish.

One commenter declared
that Dr. Christina Yang “barely
identified” as Jewish, despite
the character’s famous line of
“I’m Jewish. I know food and
death” and her frequent habit
of giving detailed explanations
of Jewish ritual and tradition
to her co-workers. (Meanwhile,
the white Jewish charac-
ters on “Friends,” Ross and
Monica Geller —with three
mentions of Chanukah and a
bat-mitzvah rap between them
— and Rachel Green — whose
Magen David necklace makes
one appearance — somehow
escape the branding of “barely
identifying” as Jewish. Also
curiously, Ross and Monica,
whose mother is not Jewish, are
considered “real” Jews by fans
who might otherwise question
the Jewish authenticity of
certain Jews of color. An inter-
esting double standard).

The additionally problem-
atic layer to this dialogue is how
in too many Jewish communi-
ties “blackface,” “brownface”
JEWISH EXPONENT
KVETCH ’N’ KVELL
How is Pork Different Than Bacon and Ham?
DAVID ZVI KALMAN’S DEFENSE of the Orthodox Union’s
refusal to certify Impossible Pork as kosher (“Judaism Often
Thrives on New Technologies. That Doesn’t Mean Impossible
Pork Should Be Kosher,” Oct. 14) would have been more
convincing for me if he had explained why they certify Empire
turkey bacon as kosher. Vegetarian ham slices also carry a kosher
certification. Why do kashrus-observant Jews need to be protected from
the word “pork” and not from “bacon” and “ham”? If we can
be trusted to shop appropriately for the latter two, why not the
former? I am not comfortable with the Orthodox Union as a language
gatekeeper and suspect there’s a political dimension to their
decision: fear of creating a new opening for derision of their
entire kashrus certification operation by the yeshiva and Chasidic
communities. Steve Goldman | Bala Cynwyd
Politics Cloud Rabbi’s Mind
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat has let her politics cloud her judgment
(“Rabbis Are Supposed to Offer Hope on the High Holidays.

What if I Can’t?”, Aug. 12).

Does she fear letting hundreds of thousands unvaccinated
illegals enter our country as much as she fears her fellow citizens
who do not want to wear a mask? l
Robert M. Rubin | Huntingdon Valley
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published. OCTOBER 21, 2021
13