Jewish characters
Dan Same
Victoria, AustraliaPosts: 6,054MI6 Agent
Is it true that many of Fleming's novels featured Jewish characters and that in fact Le Chiffre was part-Jewish? (I'm asking simply as a matter of curiosity since I myself am Jewish. 
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) "He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
Comments
Le Chiffre's background is unknown, but the dossier M reads in the second chapter speculates that his ancestry is "a mixture of Mediterranean with Prussian or Polish strains" and that he may have "some Jewish blood".
There's a lot of old fashioned imperialism or racism etc in Fleming which reads somewhat disconcertingly today- eg, LALD's view of black characters is downright patronising- which is something he has in common with his contemporaries, eg Agatha Christie (some of whose words and phrases were rewritten for other countries).
At this moment, no. However as the saying goes, never say never.
The literary Le Chiffre bears no outward resemblance whatsoever to actor Mads Mikkelsen as he looks in the Eon Casino Royale motion picture.
"We always cut for partners after each rubber," said M. "Unless there's a challenge. And on guest nights, Mondays and Thursdays, you stick to your guest. Drax nearly always bring a man called Meyer, his metal broker. Nice chap. Jew. Very fine player."
'Cause Drax was a Nazi and all...
Strange for a Nazi to be hanging out with a Jew after the war...
More strange for a Jew to be hanging around with a Nazi, I would think, but Meyer (who is the Jewish one, not Drax) thought, as did everyone else, that Drax was from the Liverpool area of England.
Those sort of "casual" references always make me uneasy. It's kind of tossed in there as a descriptive, but why and what exactly is it supposed to describe? I'm sure that there are Jews among my circle of friends and acquaintances, but I'd be hard-pressed to say who. Anymore than I could say who was a Catholic or a Protestant or an atheist.
Ms a bit "old school"
I gather from Bonds reactions to the things M says that M was "old school" even in the 50s
remember the bit in OHMSS where he appreciates the way the Swiss deal with thier "Beatnik problem"
"Capital, he said, had no conscience and no fatherland. Besides, the Jew was behind it, and the Jew hated Russia worse than hell. 'Do you wonder?' he cried. 'For three hundred years they have been persecuted, and this is the return match for the pogroms. The Jew is everywhere, but you have to go far down the backstairs to find him ... But if you're on the biggest kind of job and are bound to get to the real boss, ten to one you are brought up against a little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattlesnake. Yes, Sir, he is the man who is ruling the world just now, and he has his knife in the Empire of the Tzar, because his aunt was outraged and his father flogged in some one-horse location on the Volga.' I could not help saying that his Jew-anarchists seemed to have got left behind a little."
While Buchan remains a readable writer for many reasons, this sort of thing is repellent, and in comparison Fleming seems positively progressive. Fleming's remark in Moonraker is more reminiscent of Eric Ambler, who in Uncommon Danger (1937) wrote:
"He had no money whatever in Vienna. He was going there with the faint hope that a Jewish instrument maker he knew would lend him some. Kenton had been able to help him get his family out of Munich in the bad days of 1934 and the instrument maker had been grateful. But, for all Kenton knew, his old friend might have left Vienna. Or he might have no money to lend. That, Kenton told himself, would be far worse. He would have to explain that it didn't matter really, and the little man would feel miserable. Jews were sensitive about such things."
Again, this is a casual reference and a generalisation, however it is not at all negative. Ambler was one of the most sophisticated of thriller writers and even though the stereotype was utilised, as it was by most writers of that time, Fleming did not display any prejudice like Buchan et al did.
They inherited their parents' attitudes
BTW I've read elsewhere that Fleming may have based his villains on real-life figures like Onassis and Howard Hughes
Correct; Mr Du Pont rules out Goldfinger being Jewish because "we're restricted at the Floridiana. Wouldn't have got in if he had been". A few pages later, Bond himself decides that Goldfinger is "not a Jew- though there may be Jewish blood in him" before further speculation leads him to conclude that Auric is a Balt.
Their relationship is uncomfortably dysfunctional. Unaware of Drax's past, Meyer oddly addresses him with old-boys familiarity, as "Hugger", but Drax bullies him horridly.
Another implausible relationship is Drax's conspiracy with Communist Russia over his Moonraker plot. His WW2 experiences were apparently on the Western Front, where his hatred of the English was exacerbated; but, even so, as a Nazi who's never stopped being a Nazi, he would also have detested the Russians. (In LLD, Mr Big's ties with SMERSH are equally unconvincing: the Soviet link seems like an ideological connection too far for a black New York gangster who's developed a voodoo cult).
Very interesting observations, there, Shady Tree. Thanks for sharing - and I also think you have a point there! I never really bought Drax's conversion to the side of the Soviets either - neo-Nazis might have been a better example (though where they'd get an atomic warhead God alone knows), but Moonraker still remains my favourite Bond novel nevertheless!
It's not true. Aside from LeChiffre's possible part-Jewishness, there are no major Jewish characters in the books. Fleming doesn't seem to have been an anti-semite, and the books have little interest--either negative or positive--in the issue.
Goldfinger is often erroneously identified as Jewish, usually by writers who wish to accuse Fleming of prejudice, but Fleming goes out of his way on three occasions to say Goldfinger is not Jewish, but rather a Balt.
The most Fleming ever wrote about a Jewish character are these lines from Thunderball:
Yes, well researched, Revelator. Nothing anti-semitic there, quite the opposite in fact.