[ SECRET POST #2591 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2591 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 046 secrets from Secret Submission Post #370.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[dreemyweird]

But some Jews do have big noses?? It is a somewhat typical trait for some kinds of Jewish people?

But it does disturb me how nobody even bothers to differentiate between, say, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, and how nobody pays attention to the fact that there can be non-religious Jews who live outside of Jewish communities and look nothing like pure Sephardic folks.

[ketita]

But this trait was exaggerated and used for the purpose of demonizing, mocking, dehumanizing, and characterizing Jewish people as evil, nasty, disgusting, ugly, etc. Especially during times of persecution. It's like textbook stuff, seriously.

Also, there is no way to characterize Jewish looks. Jews look like almost every race, because Judaism is not a race.

[dreemyweird]

Yeah, but I don't see what it has to do with determining whether a particular person has Jewish blood. This is not dehumanizing or exaggerating. It's like observing that someone has the kind of thick lips typical of some African tribes and so might have African ancestors.

It depends on what you are talking about. There are ways to characterize certain groups of Jews. Judaism is neither a race nor nationality, but one does not need to be religious in order to be a Jew by blood. Many Ashkenazi folks do have distinctly Ashkenazi facial features, it's pretty easy to tell that they have Ashkenazi ancestors, regardless of their faith.

At the same time there definitely are a lot of people who are only Jewish by religion or are Jewish by blood but do not look anything like each other, and that needs to be taken into account, too (it's a thing that often gets overlooked). But it doesn't mean that Jewish ethnic groups are suddenly non-existent. That would be a pretty weird assumption to make.

[ketita]

hmm ok I'm not sure what you're getting at, tbh.

In Europe, for a long, long time the big nose thing was a blatantly anti-Semitic stereotype. It was used in caricatures of Jews throughout World War II. Whether or not it has basis in any kind of features Jews actually have, it's been used in a very nasty way for a reasonably long time. It's a slur, period.

Now, as for "how Jews look", my point is that in many cases, it's impossible to tell a Jew from a non-Jew by sight. Ashkenazi features are European features. While yes, there are certain subtleties that can sometimes hint visually that a person is or isn't Jewish, you basically have no way of knowing. Russian Jews look Russian. German Jews look German. Ethiopian Jews look Ethiopian. The Jews from Kuchin look Kuchini and the Jews from Kaifeng looked Chinese.
It has no connection to level of religiosity or anything.

[dreemyweird]

What I'm trying to say is that there is nothing wrong with taking a guess regarding a person's origins based on their facial features. How could this possibly be a slur when it's used for perfectly innocent purposes? It's as much of a slur as black people's dark skin or the narrow eyes of some Asian folks. Both were used by racists to humiliate and dehumanize other people. But it doesn't mean that mentioning these traits is bad in itself.

I agree, partially, but

there are certain subtleties that can sometimes hint visually that a person is or isn't Jewish

no. There aren't any subtleties that can hint that a person isn't Jewish. But there are some traits that can help to determine that they are Jewish. So, while it's perfectly impossible to say that this or that person is definitely not a Jew (because of the reasons you mentioned), it is possible to tell with some certainty that somebody does belong to one of Jewish ethnical groups. I.e. you can never say "they are not Ashkenazi", but sometimes you can say "they are Ashkenazi, even though not all Ashkenazi look like this".

And this is where you can use facial features, in particular the shape of people's eyes and the shape of their noses (tbh I think it has more to do with that than with the size as such). Of course it's a touchy topic, but I don't see how it could be universally wrong to do that.

[(Anonymous)]

Allow me to disagree.

I wouldn't say that guessing people are Jewish by the size of their noses is the same as guessing people are African by the color of their skin or Asian by the shape of their eyes. Mainly because Jews have just as many variants of nose shapes as any other people, and the idea that Jews have big noses has originated from European anti-Semitic stories.

It's a little like reading a book and it says that one character really likes watermelon. So people immediately say "they're black!". There isn't anything wrong with liking watermelon, but you can't deny it's been used as a black stereotype for a long time, and it does says something about people that got to that conclusion from that little tidbit that has nothing to do with races or ethnicities at all.

[dreemyweird]

Oh, I agree that nobody should assume anything of the sort. Saying that somebody is "definitely a Jew" because they are described as having a big nose is just stupid. But it can be an argument in favour of somebody's Jewish headcanon, a minor physical trait that can sometimes be encountered in some Jewish folks.

(but it's just as true of Asians, I must say. Not all Asians have narrow eyes.)

I'm not sure that the watermelon example is correct, tbh. AFAIU, it's a myth that has nothing to do with the real state of affairs (I mean, why the hell would any random black person like watermelons more than any random white person?). But the Jewish nose thing is not a myth, it's a real anatomical trait.

Similarly, if somebody is described as having narrow eyes or dark skin, it does not necessarily mean that they are Asian or black. But if somebody thinks that a character with narrow eyes is an Asian, they are obviously going to use this description to support their theory.

[(Anonymous)]

But unlike dark skin or narrow eyes, big noses aren't prevelant among Jews- no more than they are among any other group of people. It's also a myth that has very little to do with the real state of affairs.

[dreemyweird]

Not among all Jews, no, but there are groups of Jews that have pretty distinctive nose shape as a prevalent trait. I don't think it's a myth.

[(Anonymous)]

It pretty much is.

[dreemyweird]

Well, IDK what to say to this? I know a ton of European Ashkenazim who look ~Jewish~ due to the combination of their nose shape, their eye shape, and some other features (i.e. hair). In my experience, it works. People with these facial features do turn out to be Jewish.

It doesn't even need to be prevalent. It only needs to be a feature that allows one to identify somebody as an Ashkenazi, which it is.

(Not big nose as such, mind you. It should be a particular kind of nose combined with some other physical traits. But, since one often doesn't have detailed descriptions of the characters they think might be Jewish, they can just settle on thinking that what is described might be the Jewish kind of big nose. Continuing the Asian parallel, one might similarly think that the narrow eyes of a character are the Asian kind of narrow eyes - even though Asian folks are by no means the only ones to have this trait, nor do all of them have it. Hell, there are whole Asian nations with perfectly "European" eyes, and there are whole non-Asian nations with narrow eyes. Does it invalidate the point? No. A particular kind of narrow eyes is a feature typical for particular kinds of Asians, and hence a description of a character with narrow eyes may be taken as an argument in favour of their being Asian. It is a headcanon, not a mathematical hypothesis, nobody expects it to be proved with any kind of certainty.)