Controlling Anti-Jewish Stereotypes: The Case of the "Hook-Nosed Jew"

One of my interests in life is the bizarre phenomenon of anti-Jewish propaganda manufactured by elite and well-organized cadres of Jews.

Israel Shamir, in his controversial book Cabbala of Power, makes an interesting point about “hook-nosed Jews.” It seems that many Jews, far from shrinking from mention of their noses, never lose an opportunity to reinforce this particular stereotype by referring to their own noses negatively if there is no one else around to do so. When Jewish cemeteries are vandalized or swastikas are found defacing walls, the culprits on numerous occasions have turned out to be Jews. (See, e.g., here and here.) So it is with the legendary “Jewish nose”: a protected species of stereotype deliberately nurtured and kept alive by organized Jewry for propaganda purposes.

Shamir recounts several of these instances. David Mamet, Jewish American playwright, once noticed a bumper sticker on a car: “Israel, Out of the Settlements!” Mamet took umbrage. “This could well be translated,” he huffed, “as Hook-nosed Jews, Die!” Writing an article for The Age, a Jewish publication, Graham Barrett slyly invoked the same carefully cultivated stereotype. “The retired Malaysian Prime Minister,” he told his readers, “took a parting snipe at the ‘hook-nosed Jews’ who rule the world by proxy.”

But this is ridiculous. The Malaysian Prime Minister, as everyone knows, made no reference to “hooked-nosed Jews.” And Mamet is simply fantasizing about the attitudes of someone who was taking an entirely reasonable point of view on the Middle East. In his twisted world, any criticism of Israel, no matter how reasonable, is just another crazed statement of a Jew-hater whose images of Jews come right out of a Der Sturmer cartoon.

With the reader’s permission, I shall continue my disquisition on Jewish noses for a bit. The legendary ‘Jewish nose’, though fairly common among non-Jews, appears to cause our Jewish cousins extra special anguish. Rhinoplasty, invented by German-Jewish surgeon Jacques Joseph in the 1890s, largely caught on because its earliest and most enthusiastic customers were Jews. When Jewish comedienne Fanny Brice had her nose job, Dorothy Parker (herself half Jewish) quipped: “Fanny has cut off her nose to spite her race!” Since then, many famous Jews have gone under the knife, including Natalie Portman (Herschlag), Winona Ryder (Horowitz), Gwyneth Paltrow (Paltrowitz), and Sarah Jessica Parker (Bar-Kahn).

Though this would appear to be a relatively frivolous subject, the intelligent reader will understand that it is not the Jewish nose per se that is of interest to me. I am really interested in Jewish power — in this case, the power to suppress any public discussion of a Jewish stereotype based to a considerable extent on the reality of Jewish noses. It’s really the same as Jewish ability to suppress statements that Jews have inordinate influence on the media. Truth is irrelevant.

In fact, it is the whole cluster of alleged anti-Semitic stereotypes and fabricated “canards“ that hover over any discussion of organized Jewry, or of Israel, and which make it almost impossible for anyone to discuss Jewish issues without being branded “anti-Semitic.”

“Eagle County is on the lookout for a Big-nosed Jew!” screams the inflammatory headline in a recent edition of the Denver Post. Apparently a man who broke into someone’s house was spotted by a member of the public who then went on to give the police a description of the burglar: a man of medium height, medium weight, nondescript looking face, baseball cap pulled low. Helpful? The cops didn’t seem to think so — until the witness suddenly blurts, “Oh yeah, he had this big Jewish nose!” Light suddenly dawns. The cops grin. The pieces of the jigsaw are beginning to slip into place. Hey, with a description like that you can’t go wrong! You’ve more or less got your man.

Denver Post reporter Susan Greene, who describes herself as Jewish, tackles the story with considerable aplomb, making all the right politically correct noises. First of all, the witness who described the burglar as having a “big Jewish nose” was clearly an anti-Semite. He should have watched his language, the bigoted lout. The cops were equally insensitive for taking down the witness’s toxic words without so much as a murmur. As for the local newspapers, how could their editors have been so stupid as to legitimize anti-Semitism by giving traction to the stereotype that Jews had funny cartoon noses?

One Adam Sutner, quoted in the Denver Post, is beside himself with rage. The whole sordid affair reminds him of “one of Joseph Goebbels’ finer works of propaganda.” Reporter Greene notes caustically: If the “scary Semitic sneakthief” (burglar) had horns, the bigoted witness “failed to mention it.”

Needless to say, the ADL has been quick to complain. More