From all accounts, the British author Roald Dahl had a sweet tooth. As a youngster in the 1920s he spent much of his time in a sweet shop near his home in Cardiff, Wales.
The lad had a great love for chocolates and sweets of all flavors and this passion dominated the books he wrote for children, although bizarre but full of sweetness.
But later, as events transpired his sweetness turned very sour as he lashed out with vitriol against the Jews and Israel.
Submission to Fate
He commented there was a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity.
“There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere.”
“Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”
Then he remarked about the weakness of Jews and their submission to fate. If he was in a line with other Jews waiting to be gassed to death in a concentration camp, he would have tried to grab a Nazi guard and take him with them into the gas chamber.
Dahl admitted he was openly antisemitic. He accused the Government of America of being totally dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions.
“Those powerful American Jewish bankers.”
As for Israel and the 1982 war in Lebanon he claimed the Israeli military action was hushed up in the newspapers because they were privately Jewish-owned.
“It makes you wonder what sort of people these Israelis really are?”
They Should be Handcuffed
Dahl wrote an article which shocked Jewish communities around the world.
‘In June 1941… we hated the Germans. Exactly 41 years later in June 1982.. . we all started hating the Israelis. Never before has a race of people (ie the Jews) switched so rapidly from victims ‘to barbarous murderers’, The Jews had turned world sympathy ‘into hatred and revulsion’.
—
Mr Begin and Mr Sharon are almost the exact carbon copies in miniature of Mr Hitler and Mr Goering.’ The Nurermberg Trials should be resurrected.
Begin and Sharon and a number of other Israeli leaders should themselves be qualifying for the same treat- meat, Try them all, I say. Shove them all in the clock with handcuffs on and let us hear what they have to say in their defence.”
It brought outrage. Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League at the time wrote to the New York Times expressing disgust.
“..talent is no guarantee of wisdom. Praise for Mr. Dahl as a writer must not obscure the fact that he was also a bigot.”
The controversy over Dahl reached a peak in 2018 when the British Royal Mint rejected a proposal to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth with a commemorative coin as he was associated with antisemitism and not regarded as an author of the highest reputation.
Amanda Bowman, Vice-President of the board of Deputies of British Jews wrote:
“The Royal Mint was absolutely correct to reject the idea. Many of his utterances were unambiguously antisemitic.
He may have been a great children’s writer but he was also a racist and this should be remembered.”
Poetic License
How far can authors stretch their literary works to embrace their personal feelings around the story or the characters they create?
Certainly, if they express their personal views as antisemites, that is quite clear. But should they use what is known as poetic license to express their opinions in disguise?
For instance, should we accuse Shakespeare of being an antisemite through the eyes of Shylock the greedy Jewish Moneylender in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ or Dickens for introducing Fagin, the Jewish villain in ‘Oliver Twist’?
We do know that both Shakespeare and Dickens championed the poor people, but was this the fault of the Jews?
True or False?
Dickens claimed he always felt himself a friend of the Jews. In fact, in other novels where Jewish characters were introduced they were portrayed as good, caring people.
But in Victorian England Jews were not favorably accepted. More than likely for religious reasons.
Charles Dickens was a man with a very complex character. Given the contradictory portrayal of Jews in his novels we cannot be certain of his true feelings for the Jewish people.
Was his claim true or false?
The jury is out!
But with Shakespeare it’s a different story. In England Shylock probably resembled the most famous description of a Jew.
Monstrous, bloodthirsty usurer of medieval legend.
“The devil comes in the likeness of a Jew.”
Yet, there are doubts about the authenticity of Shakespeare’s knowledge of Jews. How and where did he meet any of them?
After all, in his day Jews were legally barred from living in England.
Did he ever visit Venice?
And how did he choose the name of Shylock for a Jewish rogue?
It certainly doesn’t sound very Jewish at all.
