Harry Potter and the Jewish Goblins
Dana Goldstein’s TAP article on “Harry Potter and the Complicated Identity Politics” got me thinking about how JK Rowling depicts one of the most despised groups in the magical world, the goblins.
The goblins in the Harry Potterverse have one purpose – running the Gringotts bank, where all wizards, good and evil, store their treasures. The goblins, especially as depicted in the movies, are universally hooked nosed, short, unattractive and green. Furthermore, they are considered by the wizard world to be miserly, stingy, greedy and two-faced. Professor Binns soporific History of Magic lectures tell tales of centuries of goblin oppression, segregation, mistrust, bad relations, exclusion and revolts. Sound like any European ethnic minority you know? That’s right, Rowlings’ depiction of goblins reflects the type of stereotypes that are more fitting for Russia in the late 19th century or a second rate Gazan newspaper.
The connection between how goblins are represented in Harry Potter and certain anti semitic stereotypes seems undeniable – the question becomes one of intentionality. Do I think Rowling is an anti semite who used this imagery to whip up a pogrom against jews? No. We shouldn’t obsess over it, I certainly don’t want Abe Foxman onRowlings’ case, but it sure is interesting what parts of the our common culture she drew upon to depict her bankers.
In general I agree with your goblins as magic Ashkenazim, but you forgot that goblins not only bank, but also do high-quality smith work (so that’s two functions). Does this parallel shmattes?
Gabriel
July 25, 2007 at 7:41 am
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July 25, 2007 at 3:53 pm
dude, i was absolutely thinking about this while reading today. They also are jewelers and run the magical diamond business. Its a little less than subtle
Sam
July 26, 2007 at 7:08 am
you might consider that the european jews filled a roll of stingy middle-men minorities, but that doesn’t mean that all such depictions are necessarily due to an association with jews. in other words, in plenty of places and times all the traits attributed to jews can be found ascribed to other ethnic groups who play the same sociological niche. stereotypes about jews during the 1st and 2nd jewish rebellions were a bit different than those 1,000 years later in medieval europe, suggesting that this isn’t a matter of the ‘eternal jew.’ now, you can argue that rowling, being british, had to be thinking about jews. sure, but like some have said, fantasy deals in archetypes.
razib
July 27, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Two things – 1. I’m jewish, so when I see the “middle-man” stereotypes that have also been attributed to Chinese, Indians, Arab merchants, I usually just assume that they’re talking about jews 2.As far as European and British interaction with such middle-men minorities, it’s largely been with Jews, so I think it’s safe to assume that if europeans and British are drawing up that near-universal set of stereotypes, that the group they’re thinking of (consciously or not) are Jews.
Matt Zeitlin
July 27, 2007 at 1:33 pm
As far as European and British interaction with such middle-men minorities, it’s largely been with Jews
well, it has to be recent. jews were only allowed into england in large numbers after 1650 remember after their medieval expulsion. various protestant dissenters in fact seem to have filled many of the niches that jews did in eastern europe (there wasn’t a big polish middle class for a variety of reasons, but there was a british middle class).
I usually just assume that they’re talking about jews
but it’s a fine line. after, the likelihood is that the jew became the goblin, not that the goblin is derived from a caricature of jews. european mythology predates and exists apart from its relationship to the jews, and it seems that many of the negative traits of quasi-human peoples were dumped into jews (and gypsies too). does that mean that europeans can’t draw upon their mythologies and folk-tales because of this taint?
i guess the short of it is that contrary to what some jews seem to perceive, it’s not always about you.
razib
July 27, 2007 at 5:12 pm
and just to be clear, i think a lot of the anti-semitic depiction of jews isn’t really based on what jews really look or behavior like, rather, they are simply borrowings from the rich tradition of malevolent non-human creatures extant within european mythology. so the “coincidence” isn’t really coincidental.
razib
July 27, 2007 at 5:23 pm
POST CONTAINS SPOILERS (HP 7)
I’m not Jewish, but I’ve always been uncomfortable with the this particular parallel. I imagined that Rowling would eventually bring our sympathies around to the goblins, as she did with the house elves–but in the end the goblins turn out to be treacherous . It was mitigating, I guess, that the wizards were planning deceit of their own. But it was the wizards who ended up with the sword of Gryffindor–because they were braver and worthier than the goblins, one has to ask?
I would be surprised indeed to learn that Rowling was an anti-semite; that doesn’t seem consistent with the message of tolerance that pervades the HP series. But I would also be surprised if she didn’t recognize (or engineer) the parallels between goblins and Jews. Some brief moral analysis of the kind provided in previous books by Dumbledore with regard to the Centaurs and Giants, or by Hermione with regard to the house elves, is conspicuously absent in the latter chapters of the seventh book (post Gringott’s).
Matt’s right: this doesn’t warrant an obsession (fatwas are for reactionary sissies) against Rowling or the series. But to satisfy my curiosity, if not my politics, I would appreciate an explanation–maybe in the rumored eighth book that will provide some exegesis of the HP universe?
Geoff
August 5, 2007 at 5:31 pm
You also forgot Hagrid’s damning words.
“they’re not very friendly, but devlishly clever with money!”
I think it certainly is what it appears to be. I also believe that Ms. Rowling did not even intend this. But rather this is the result of centuries of hurtful characterization and imagery that one group has heaped upon another. It is institutionalized racism.
eyeseeall
October 24, 2007 at 3:20 pm
I had the same feeling while reading the last sequence, and I’m not surpised other people have come to that idea too. I too believe this correspondence is not intentional. However I feel it striking that Rowling, who has been so contious in elaborating the figures and communities in Harry Potter, gave a very uneven decription of goblins. The scene after Harry buries the elf, in which he talks to teh goblin shows the goblin in an entirely positive light. Then, without further explanation, readers learn that the goblin (in the planning phase of getting into Gringotts) turned out to be blood-thirsty and all kinds of negative stuff. Very untytipical of Rowling both becasue it’s inconsistent, and much less subtly brought to readers’ attention than other players’ characteristics.
Anyhow, what I find a bit alarming is less the negative stereotypes in there, but rather (taking one step back) the fact that goblins are a distinct race (suggesting Jewish people are different to the point of being non-human, following the non-intentional, i.e. sub-contious path.
Peter
November 1, 2007 at 3:49 am
Just to clarify: Rowling is definitely not an antisemitic – that would be a resentfully stupid statement from anyone who’s grasped the whole pure-blood motive.
Precisely therefore is it striking to me, that (even) she feels somewhere, that Jews are so distinctively different.
Peter
November 1, 2007 at 3:53 am
Likely story. I’d believe the Goblins were the Jews if they were responsible for causing all of the wizardly world’s problems. Voldemort can hardly be considered a magical Hitler, he’s not enough of a racist. Poor connection, I’m not sold on this stupid idea.
The real conspiracy can be found on , it involves Hagrid and his old habits that have a way of getting him in trouble.
Squirtle
April 20, 2009 at 3:46 am
So, we have:
- hook nosed
- good with money
- jewellers
- persecuted historically
- refuse to eat the same food as non-goblins (see the table scene in Book 7)
- different set of customary laws regarding e.g property rights (again, Book 7)
- urban (in the books they are concentrated in London)
Yep, it’s occurred to me to, independently of anything I’d read.
Rowling portrays the goblins as complicated, not evil. But the parallels are slightly too close to be comfortable.
James
July 7, 2009 at 10:52 am
Jews financed Scottish and English nobles well before 1650…the Jewish stereotypes that are seen in Rowling have been in Britain for 1000 years.
KB
August 17, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Hmmm… possibly. She also may not have been referencing historical people so much as borrowing from the literature of something like Narnia or much more likely Tolkien’s universe for her sense of mythology. Tolkien has been quoted as very directly basing his “race” of dwarves on the history of the Jewish people and even their semitic based language and the decimation that they faced.
Personally as I was reading the series I didn’t think of Jews at all. All references to “the Goblin rebellion” brought ideas of “the Boxer rebellion” to me and Chinese culture. They were persecuted (just as almost anyone under the category of “minority”) They have extremely different cuisine and culture that’s undeniably clever and equal to western culture, but just so very different that understanding is very difficult. Just a matter of culture clash.
I was thinking of world wide race relations in the book like the fountain of four magical races representing the goblins as the “yellow” cultures of asia who have a very long history that often clashes with “wizard/white/european” culture but is undoubtedly seperate but equal. And then the Centaurs in the statue I felt represented the “red” cultures of the first nations in the Americas who live “wild” by choice and are notably proud and deeply invested in their own culture and generally feel that separation would be best. this leaves of course the wizards who need not be mentioned as they are the story tellers and then the elves who have been enslaved and utterly lost contact with their own sense of culture. I’ve felt that it very, very clearly mirrors the African cultures who were captured in the slave trade and brought to the “wizard” world.
regardless of the symbolism, the moral of the story was undoubtedly of understanding ,tolerance and equal cohabitation with all peoples and creatures.
but who knows… maybe it’s about the Jews.
eric
December 9, 2009 at 11:48 pm
f the jews they are souly responsible for their own actions within history and they fully well know that they are anti-christian and that they had Jesus the Christ killed. Furthermore, the Holocaust didn’t happen the way the jew$ want you to believe (holocaustdenialvideos.com). Look up Khazar. Look up the jews responsible for 20 million plus murdered Christian and others in Russia…Wake up! Jews are NOT victims..they are the criminals!
The Holy White Truth
May 16, 2010 at 1:28 am