Where are the jews in medieval fantasy?

[sqbr]

Disclaimer: fantasy is not my favourite genre, so I may simply be missing a whole swathe of books which disprove my argument. Also, I'm pretty ignorant about history, so may be spouting crap. My apologies if so :)

A lot of fantasy novels are set in Europe, or region which is obviously meant to represent Europe, set roughly during the medieval/renaissance eras. As well as analogs of european countries like England or France there are also analogs (or straight depictions) of the countries/ethnic groups which interacted with europe in this time ie Asia (Carthak in "The Emporer Mage"), the middle east (the Roknari in the Chalion books), Roma (gypsies) (the Tsingani in Kushiel's Legacy) etc. These depictions are often very stereotypical and exoticised, relying largely on the rather racist and essentialist attitudes of the time rather than modern understandings of what those cultures were/are actually like.

But it suddenly struck me recently: where are the jews? Jews played an important part in european history, and (as far as I can tell) were present in fairly large numbers in most european countries. Yet I can't think of any fantasy which has a non-nomadic discriminated against group which lives within multiple "european" countries and identifies as a separate subculture/religion(*). The closest I can come up with are non-human races (like the ghemphs from "The Isles of Glory"), which gives a biological reason for them to keep to themselves and be treated with suspicion by the locals. I think that's a bit creepy when you think about it as a direct metaphor.

So, have I just been reading the wrong books? Or is this a real blindspot in fantasy? Some googling found me Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon, about "a fabled kingdom of wild, red-haired Jews on the western shore of the Caspian Sea", a list of sff by jews, and a bunch of anti-Semitism.

If I'm not imagining it, would people say it's because people aren't comfortable using the racist stereotypes of the time (good!) and don't want to accurately depict how nasty the antisemitism was? (The same way a lot of authors shy away from accurate depictions of the classism and sexism etc) Or is it just because a lot of these stories are based on England, which expelled it's jews from 1290-1656, pretty much exactly the era these stories are set in? In any case I think it's a pity, but I guess my desire for imagination and originality is one of the reasons I tend to avoid fantasy :/

(*) these seem like the most signifiant qualities, at least the ones which lend themselves to telling a different sort of story to the usual fantasy fare.

Comments

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

In all the medieval sources I've read (I'm studying medieval history at the moment) the Jews are presented only as the people that everyone beats up constantly when they're not fighting real wars. Crusaders, in particular, would generally make a point of raiding every Jewish community in their path to Jerusalem in order to 'recover' the wealth that the Jews had 'stolen' from good Christians. 'Jewish' seems to have been used to describe a set of attributes such as greed, cowardice, low cunning and a propensity for lying, such that, for example, the Greeks were accused of becoming 'too Jewish' in their manner as a justification for the Fourth Crusade sacking Constantinople.

My impression is that anti-Semitism was a pretty fundamental part of medieval Christianity (and the Muslims didn't like them either). It's genuinely puzzling how they managed to survive, actually - when every account is of Jewish villages getting massacred or having all their material wealth stolen, it's a wonder that there's always more (seemingly prosperous) Jewish villages for the next lot of itinerant thugs to smash to bits.

As far as fantasy literature, I would say that most authors probably just don't think of it. Given that the majority of medieval fantasy is based much more heavily on the established genre tropes than an understanding of the wider context of medieval history (and since fantasy publishers seem to be incredibly conservative), there's a lot of regurgitation, and the inclusion of Jews simply hasn't been established. That, and it would be quite hard to reconcile modern sensibilities about race with the actions of authentic medieval characters (without making the Jewish analogue one of those inherently evil non-human races that it's okay to oppress and still be heroic). The lack of Jews in England during the later medieval period is also definitely something to consider.

[alias_sqbr]

As far as fantasy literature, I would say that most authors probably just don't think of it. Given that the majority of medieval fantasy is based much more heavily on the established genre tropes than an understanding of the wider context of medieval history (and since fantasy publishers seem to be incredibly conservative), there's a lot of regurgitation, and the inclusion of Jews simply hasn't been established.

Mmm, absolutely.

That, and it would be quite hard to reconcile modern sensibilities about race with the actions of authentic medieval characters (without making the Jewish analogue one of those inherently evil non-human races that it's okay to oppress and still be heroic).

I don't know that it would be any harder than reconciling the horrible classism and sexism, which people seem to manage. Or the equally nasty racism towards the Roma. You just make your hero above that sort of thing :)