ICON BY JENZELART
Put your fist!
Through the drywall!
Hope it doesn't get stuck!
Or it might get eaten!
By RATS!
That live in the drywall!
✿✿✿✿✿
Genevieve who lives in Alaska
Im a grown ass person and this blog is 18+
“Tolkien was now influenced by his own selective reading of medieval texts regarding the Jewish people and their history.[5] The dwarves’ characteristics of being dispossessed of their homeland (the Lonely Mountain, their ancestral home, is the goal the exiled Dwarves seek to reclaim), and living among other groups whilst retaining their own culture are all derived from the medieval image of Jews,[5][6] whilst their warlike nature stems from accounts in the Hebrew Bible.[5] Medieval views of Jews also saw them as having a propensity for making well-crafted and beautiful things,[5] a trait shared with Norse dwarves.”
and
“The Dwarven calendar invented for The Hobbit reflects the Jewish calendar in beginning in late autumn.[5] The dwarves taking Bilbo out of his complacent existence has been seen as an eloquent metaphor for the “impoverishment of Western society without Jews.”[6]
and
“In the last interview before his death, Tolkien, after discussing the nature of Elves, briefly says of his Dwarves: “The dwarves of course are quite obviously, wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic.”[13]
Okay but this is an actual quote from The Hobbit (p. 213 of my crummy mass market edition) that makes this not such a totally awesome thing:
“There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don’t expect too much.”
That quote gave me enough pause when I reread it recently to dog-ear it (in-canon dwarf racism!? FROM THE NARRATOR!?!??), but in light of the other stuff? SRS PROBLEM.
Western popular concepts of Jews that people here take as the extent of our tribe:
The reality:
Boys from the Jewish population of Yemen, which has been around for 2500 hundred years but has been slowly massacred over the past few generations.
The Lemba of South Africa and Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe in particular has a large and VERY long history with their Jewish Community)
The Abayudaya of Uganda, some of the great Jewish musicians
The Beta Israeli of Ethiopia
Igbo Jews of Nigeria
Cochin Jews of India
Baghdadi Jews
Kaifeng Jews of China, who go back to the 7th or 8th century. Unfortunately, during the 20th century much of their culture was almost wiped out and the Kaifeng are currently working to rediscover their Jewish heritage and culture.
Jewish Children in Puerto Rico (Jews have been in Puerto Rico since the 15th century, many fleeing from the Inquisition)
The Beit Shalom Choir in Japan
Kosher comes in all colors, from all over the world, and in a variety cultural groups. We’re a small portion of the human population, but we have EVERYONE. We are all members of this tribe.
Because stereotypes are bullshit.
Boosting because you sure as fuck won’t see this in any Western textbook.
