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mschuster91yesterday at 10:22 PM1 replyview on HN

> No normal, reasonable person reads Harry Potter and thinks "Jew" instead of "wacky fantasy creatures".

It was a pretty obvious thing for us Germans when the movie came out. Caricatures of Jews that were used in the time leading up to 1933 are taught and analyzed at schools here. Crooked noses, deal with money, hoard money... it's not that far away. There's a pretty good blog post with actual imagery, if you want to read further [1] - although I admit that JKR just used existing folklore as a foundation, just as with other elements of worldbuilding.

That shofar however, now that's intentional. HL came out many, many years after I read about the issue the first time. And 4chan, inevitably, immediately identified the goblins as jews.

[1] https://jewitches.com/blogs/blog/goblins-jews-and-antisemiti...


Replies

ryandraketoday at 12:29 AM

Wow, that site was... something. I would have never made that connection in a million years. As a non-German, I might lack some critical context here, but the author seems to be desperately searching for antisemitism, and finding a tiny kernel of it. Of course, 4chan will be 4chan anyway.