Jewish features | #TranslateHate
Jewish features
theme \ 'joōiSH 'fēCHərs \
: antisemitic stereotypes that focus on physical features or characteristics
WHY IT’S ANTISEMITIC:
Large curved noses. Curly or red hair. Horns. Dark eyes with drooping lids. Even though Jesus and all twelve of his disciples were Jewish, it is red-haired Judas who is purported to espouse Jewish values of greed and betrayal (see Judas, greed). From religious woodcuts to inflammatory publications in the medieval ages, Jewish features like curly or red hair and hooked noses were grotesquely drawn, fueling conspiracies that Jews are easily identifiable and subhuman.
The degradation of Jews through fictional facial stereotypes has been a staple theme in antisemitic propaganda used to portray Jews as subhuman or disfigured. Stereotypical Jewish features are still used today—from Internet memes to cartoons in top-tier news outlets—and they perpetuate the antisemitic notion that base motives are revealed in ugly features. In the 2020 Aalst Carnival theme, “UNESCO: Controlled by the Jews?” Jews are drawn as distorted, red-nosed, and with gold teeth, furthering the stereotype that Jews are malformed and associated with money.
Anti-Zionists also use the common feature of Jews as “white” to attack Israel as a “white, colonial, settler” power, which ignores and disavows the identity of millions of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews of color living in America, Israel, and around the world.
