Nonetheless, there is one aspect of the Harry Potter universe we have seldom talked about. In perhaps the biggest cultural phenomenon of our generation, the actor who played the eponymous character is a Jew.

That’s right, if you didn’t know this by now, Daniel Radcliffe is part of the tribe, and Tuesday marked 20 years since the release of the first installment of the film series–“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”–in which he was cast to play the lead. The rest is history. 

Despite Rowling’s noble attempt to post-canonically signal representation of Jews at Hogwarts, and then having the Goldstein sisters in the “Fantastic Beasts” prequels, nothing will be as powerful as our Jewish Harry.

Daniel Radcliffe has said he is “very proud to be Jewish,” although he is an atheist. 

With the stardom that came with the Harry Potter movies, Radcliffe became one of the most famous people in the world. Out of everyone, it was someone from our teeny tiny ethno-religious nation. And a very proud one. How fucking cool!

Since Harry Potter, the Jewish star has played both the very famous Jew, poet Allen Ginsburg, and a neo-Nazi, while drawing on his Jewish identity for both parts, as he’s discussed in a few interviews.

Clearly, Daniel Radcliffe is more than just Harry Potter. But for many of us, he’ll always be the boy who lived… and the boy who gave young Jews much needed representation.

We’re excited to see Daniel, along with his co-stars, in the upcoming 20-year reunion of Harry Potter, ‘”Return to Hogwarts” coming to HBO Max on January 1.

The post We Had a Jewish Harry Potter. That Matters. appeared first on Jewcy.

Remember when we at Jewcy sorted Torah characters into their proper Hogwarts houses? Boy, wasn’t that fun!

Well, you know, since then, there’s been a new movie in the Harry Potter franchise (almost Jewish, not quite), and we’ve also been asked, “Where were the likes of Ruth and Esther in those articles?”

Well, that was about the Torah. Those ladies feature in the other parts of the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible . So, what the heck, let’s sort them, too. Biblical dudes today (mostly from Samuel I and II, because that’s where a lot of the men people are), women tomorrow.

Samson is a jerk who muscles his way through life without finesse. The worst kind of Gryffindor.

Samuel is a prophet, and as a spokesman for the Almighty, it can be hard parsing out what’s him and what’s the job. But he took to his job with vigor, and never showed signs of weakness or doubt. He was also full of sass, even in the face of kings, even when he was literally dead and summoned as a ghost to give advice. He stuck to his guns in the most Gryffindor of ways.

King Saul is a Gryffindor in an almost tragic way. Even when his demons (possibly mental illness, through some modern lenses), make his rage-filled or violent, perhaps paranoid, he’s still noble from start to finish. He seems angry or frustrated when those around him don’t seem sufficiently loyal, but even when he fears he is alone, he goes ahead with his duty. He’s a king of the battlefield, never really cut out for courtly intrigue. A fascinating, flawed Gryffindor.

King David is a Gryffindor in a very different way. Sure, he could be sly when he needed to, but he was generally pretty direct in getting what he wanted. Woe betide the man who stood in his way, but his good attributes, like his nobility and dedication to his cause (which was not purely selfish, but also Godly, according to the Biblical perspective), are also Gryff traits.

King Solomon is such a Ravenclaw that there is no point going into any more detail about it. Who else would propose the “cutting-a-baby-in-half” thing?

Mordechai is tricky! He refuses to bow to Haman. He reports an assassination attempt on the king. He walks a fine line between encouraging and manipulating his kinswoman to save his people. To what do these actions add up? It’s a bit of a hat-stall, but we’re going to go with Slytherin. He begins as an oppressed minority and somehow ends up with his enemies all dead and him as the right hand of the king. He had to have had some serious ambition.

Next up: Post-Torah Biblical ladies. Get ready for some feelings.

Image by Guercino via Wikimedia.

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Lord, I have been waiting for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This isn’t only because it’s the first installment in a new series set in the Harry Potter universe, a chance for me to empty my wallet on my childhood and adolescent passion because J.K. Rowling will not let me rest, but also because this movie teased the real possibility of Jewish characters, for the first time in the franchise, either through main characters or the fact that the film’s setting is 1926 Manhattan.

So, nu, anything? Well (minor spoilers)… looking for Jewishness in Fantastic Beasts becomes sort of a maddening game.

For example— meet Jacob Kowalski. A Jewish actor (Dan Fogler), and a character name that could easily be Jewish… or Christian Polish. A WWI veteran, factory worker, and aspiring baker, he does reference his grandmother’s (to whom he refers to non-ethnically as “Grandma”) ponchke recipe (the secret is orange zest, FYI), and while that is the Yiddish word for sufganiyah (a jelly doughnut these days associated with Chanukah), it’s also a pronunciation of its Polish cousin, pączki (made with lard, so a no-go). But was that a challah we see he’s baked? Unclear. Inconclusive at every turn.

Or, take the Goldstein sisters, confirmed by Rowling to be distantly related to Harry Potter’s Jewish classmate Anthony Goldstein (also only confirmed as Jewish on Twitter). That seems pretty straightforward. But alas, neither actor who plays a Goldstein sister is Jewish herself, and there’s no reference to their heritage onscreen. Queenie (my new favorite character in anything ever, by the way), does make a mean strudel. And we can see from Porpentina’s ID badge that her middle name is Esther— that’s good news (could Queenie really be a Malka?)! But no other bones are thrown, and a brief flashback to the Goldstein parents suggests no foreign accent, suggesting the family has been in America at least a couple of generations.

And how would Jewish wizarding families have immigrated to America? Did they live in the shtetl and face violence as Jews? As wizards and witches? Does it seem a bit obsessive weaving through tiny details of one work to try to discover a deeper canon of character backstories? Welcome to being a Harry Potter fan. And does it seem silly to kvetch about historical accuracy in a movie about witches and wizards? Maybe to you, but Rowling has always wanted to portray a society that lives secretly alongside our own, and of all the changes to make to historical accuracy, why whitewash it?

In any case, I am still open to J.K. Rowling’s take on all of this (how do Jewish magical people in the Old Country live in two different marginalized communities?). And it looks like I’m going to be waiting for the next movie, at least.

But at least as a Jew I had the chance to try to play heritage detective. People of color wouldn’t even be able to do that.

Well, that’s not strictly true. The wizarding community onscreen was diverse. While the main characters skewed white, in addition to the president of American Wizardry being an African American woman, American witches and wizards are extremely diverse, not only racially but of the cultures they seem to represent (the costumes for this film are amazing).  So how did filmmakers miss the memo that New York City was diverse in 1926 as well?

Between 1920 and 1930, Manhattan’s population was more than a third foreign-born. The African population, while a minority, was sharply growing (it passed ten percent in that decade). There were nearly two million Jews living in New York City around this time,  nearly half of which were in Manhattan, especially in Harlem and the Lower East Side (this film has scenes in both locations, to no avail).

Despite Manhattan then being a city of immigrants, especially Jews, and diverse overall, we just see a lot of white men in fedoras and white women in cloche hats. We don’t hear anyone non-magical speak anything but English (though the various New York accents are a-mazing). Despite the vividness of the scenery and costumes, the people are surprisingly… bland.

The first scene in the film featuring non-wizards takes place on a boat. Only white people, and Newt Scamander has been travelling to non-European countries lately, but hey, maybe he took the ship from England. The second missed chance is when he goes into a bank— well, it seems fancy, and those places were certainly discriminatory. But then one scene after another, and nada. I managed to spot one non-white Muggle (excuse me, no-maj), in the entire film. I spotted one woman with a head covering who might have been Orthodox, and this includes a scene that takes place on Orchard Street. Yes, all the storefronts we briefly see are in English. Weird.

J.K. Rowling, if you’re reading this, if I have one request, it’s that Queenie and Jacob get together in the next movie or two, and that at their wedding (at the latest!) we see that they’re a Jewish couple. Also, more non-white characters. Please and thank you.

Image of Queenie being fabulous via YouTube.

The post Fantastic Jews and Where to Find Them? appeared first on Jewcy.

After our wildly successful attempt to sort men from the Torah into Hogwarts Houses, it’s time to move on to the ladies.

Women in the Bible can be tricky; they tend to be underdeveloped or have their agency downplayed. But without leaning on Midrash, let’s see what we can do:

Eve is the first woman in the world (unless you count Lilith), and also the first Ravenclaw. The very first thing we see her do is eat from the tree of knowledge despite being forbidden. Her temptation to do so? Curiosity, pure and simple— the snake tells her she can learn good form evil. And the fact that she went on to immediately share the fruit with her husband doesn’t show corruption or slyness, but that she was a huge nerd who likes sharing what she knows.

Sarah is a complicated woman of her day— devoted to her patriarch, in desperate need of producing a male heir to secure her own legacy. It’s hard to extricate her own decisions from being her husband’s sidekick. But here are a couple of interesting incidents:

• She insists that her husband take her servant as a concubine so he can have children.
• She regrets her decision and demands that Hagar be cast out.

Sarah is a survivalist, and she does what she has to, be it acquiesce to pretending her husband is her brother, to denying that she laughed at the prospect of her bearing a son in her old age. For better or worse, she’s a Slytherin.

Rebecca can seem a mess of contradictions; her two most famous stories are of her showing care for man and beast alike at a well, and helping her favorite son trick her husband. But all along the way, she’s also surprisingly outspoken. There’s the moment that she volunteers to leave her home to an arranged marriage early, and her insistence to her husband to send Jacob away to marry into her family.

But every thing she utters has an agenda, so is she a Slytherin or a Gryffindor?

It’s a hatstall, but her declaration that any curse placed on Jacob would fall on her instead nudges her into Gryffindor territory. There’s a cunning to her actions, but a boldness, too.

Rachel is more like her Slytherin husband than she gets credit for. From outwitting her father to steal his idols to cutting deals with her sister using their husband as a bargaining chip, she’s nobody’s fool. She’s a Slytherin, too.

Leah is the Gryffindor to her sister Rachel’s Slytherin. While they have a lot in common (including father and spouse), Leah tends to be direct. When Rachel promises Leah the night with Jacob, Leah straight up goes to her husband and lays it on the line.

Almost every time she names a baby, it’s references to the fact that will her husband actually like her now, please?! She’s in some ways an underdog, but doesn’t act like it, and isn’t afraid of making it clear what she wants.

Miriam appears fewer times in the Torah than perhaps you remember. Nonetheless, here’s what we have to work with:

• As a child she watched her baby brother in Nile and arranged for their mother to become his nursemaid.
• She was a prophetess who led the women in song and celebration during the Exodus.
• She spoke ill of her brother’s choice of wife, and lamented his superior position of power and Aaron, and was punished with leprosy.

A common link here is speaking out at risk of her own safety (in the first example, imagine a slave girl approaching a princess unprompted). She’s ambitious, sure, but more than that, a straight-shooter, looks danger in its face, and a vocal leader of her people. Like her youngest brother, she’s a Gryffindor.

Once again, if you want to kvetch about our decisions, you can do so in the comments or on Twitter. And let us know if you think we should go on with characters from the other parts of the Bible! Because we probably will anyway.

(Update: We did. Ladies. Dudes.)

Images via Wikimedia, Pottermore, and Warner Bros. Studio.

The post Sorting Biblical Characters in Hogwarts Houses (Part 2: The Ladies) appeared first on Jewcy.

Myers-Briggs is too broad. Astrology is bunk. The only valid way of discretely sorting all people is into the houses of Harry Potter’s alma mater: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin. And who hasn’t tried to sort not only all of their real-life acquaintances, but also fictional and/or literary characters outside of the Harry Potter franchise? So, why not folks from Jewish religious lore?

Here are some Biblical male characters, and you can read Part 2 about the women here. To keep us from going totally overboard, we’ll limit it to the Torah for now, and get to the rest of the Bible another time. (Update: Another time has occurred. Men. Women.)

Here we go:

Noah had to organize his family to spend ages working on a structure to God’s exact specifications, and to gather two of each animal. He had to stay laser-focused as the world around raced towards destruction. He had to employ lots of Ravenclaw skills there.

Abraham is a bit more complicated, even if you ignore Midrash and go strictly with stories that appear in the Torah. Here you have a man who can at times be cautious, or not protect those he loves (like when he pretends Sarah’s not his wife, or almost sacrifices his son). But, ultimately, Abraham is a man of clear vision and purpose, who sticks it through tough times because of a balance of a strong sense of self and, ultimately, a strong moral compass.

It’s a tough call, and maybe you can make an argument for Slytherin, but 1) Abraham’s argument with God on behalf of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and 2) His bold actions led purely by blind faith make him a Gryffindor.

Isaac is the patriarch who seems the least proactive, but that’s not why he’s a Hufflepuff. He’s a simple man whose main concern is his family (playing favorites notwithstanding). He’s kind, trusting, dedicated to his father’s legacy and, well, nice. Which is more than you can say about a lot of men in the Bible.

Jacob is such a Slytherin. We could sit here coming up with examples all day: Getting Esau’s birthright, his personal and professional dealings with Laban, how even his bold move of wrestling with an angel ends with him using his upper-hand as negotiating leverage. For good or for bad, there’s only one house for him.

Joseph always managed to rise to the top based on his own wits and the relationships to powerful men around him, from his father to the Pharaoh. Sometimes this meant alienating those around him and getting into trouble, but he always got out again. The kid’s obviously a Slytherin.

Moses is the big one! It’s tempting to just stick him into Gryffindor because he radiates “protagonist,” and he does belong there, but it’s more complex than that. He goes through a lot (down to fear of public speaking) to gain the courage to become the leader he was destined to be. But he also shows early signs of boldness and, frankly, disregarding of consequences due to his passion for justice. Killing the Egyptian taskmaster, even though it eventually means exile? Such a Gryffindor thing to do.

Even once he was leader of the people, Moses often lost his temper, and was shockingly outspoken to both the masses and God despite his position also being highly political. Between his occasional lapses in judgment based on his temper coupled with a strong sense of right-and-wrong and his overcoming his fears Neville-Longbottom-style, yes. Moshe Rabbeinu is a Gryff.

Aaron was also a leader of the people, but not as brash as his brother. As the High Priest, he was focused on ritual, on organization, on logistics. Aaron had to be a stickler for detail (failure in this regard cost two of his sons their lives).

No doubt about it; the man’s a Ravenclaw.

Joshua is also pretty clear cut. Even before he was Moses’s successor, Joshua makes a name for himself in the Torah by being the vocal minority among the spies. He had some of the same qualities as Moses, most importantly, a strong sense of right and wrong.

Plus, it’s post-Torah, but tearing down walls? Quintessential Gryffindor.

Think that we’re wrong about any of these? WANT TO HAVE A FIGHT? Tweet us your own arguments.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the Biblical ladies!

Source Images for this SPECTACULAR Photoshop job via Vimeo, Pottermore, and EBay

The post Sorting Biblical Characters in Hogwarts Houses (Part 1) appeared first on Jewcy.

An exciting aspect to this film is the Jewish characters: The protagonist’s love interest is Porpentina Goldstein, and she and her sister Queenie (real name Malka?) feature prominently in the film. If the last name sounds familiar (other than several people you know in real life), it’s because J.K. Rowling has confirmed that the Goldsteins are distant relatives of Anthony Goldstein, Harry’s classmate, and also the only character in the books Rowling has confirmed as Jewish. Add in a factory worker played by a Jewish actor and Ron Perlman as a goblin gangster to Fantastic Beasts, and the film may have more Jewish or Jewish-coded characters in store (Will there be anti-Semitic stereotypes? We shall see).

While the trailer has several clips of the Goldstein sisters (Queenie is absolutely glamorous), as well as of Kowalski, there’s nothing overtly Jewish to be found.

To be fair, a trailer emphasizing the (gentile) main character and more about excitement than exposition isn’t likely to include a sound-bite of anyone discussing their religion or ethnicity. But once again, here we are in 1926 New York City, when Jews made up about a fifth of the population, with no obvious Jewish extras (and few African Americans, for that matter), in sight.  We’ll probably have to wait for the film itself to get our Jewish wizarding fix. November can’t come soon enough.

Watch the trailer for yourself, below.

Image Credit: YouTube

The post UGH, A ‘Fantastic Beasts’ Trailer Without Jewish Content appeared first on Jewcy.

Elizabeth Simins is a compulsive doodler living in New York. She splits her time between making paintings, being a production designer, and playing pretentious indie video games. She tweets here.

The post Kosher Salt: Jews with Tattoos appeared first on Jewcy.

• Israel has banned underweight models from runways and advertisements, but the specifics of the ban are already proving problematic.

• Allen Ginsberg, for the Harry Potter generation.

• The men of KISS have seen better days.

• Note to self: learn to drive Zamboni, look after children.

The post Daily Jewce: New York and Paris Celebrate Macaron Day as Israel Bans Underweight Models, and more appeared first on Jewcy.

The tombstone of a British soldier who was killed in action in 1939–when England controlled Palestine–has become a huge tourist attraction for the Israeli town of Ramle. The soldiers name was Harry Potter.

“There is no connection with the Harry Potter we know from literature, but the name sells, the name is marketable,” said Ron Peled, a tour guide who has brought dozens of groups to the grave.

According to the Associated Press, thousands of tourists visit the town which is described as a “drab, working-class town in central Israel” — many for the archaeological ruins and convenient location.  But thanks to a nerdy little fictional wizard, more people have made their way to the town to see the tombstone that reads “In Memory of Harry Potter.”

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